"Time to go home, boy. You are going to the Porters' party, I suppose? I understand the little pot and big pot will be put on to-night. They'll live on herrings for breakfast and cheese for supper the rest of the winter, doubtless, but Josephine Porter is bound to blow out once a year. Those decorations of her grandfather, by royalty bestowed, must be kept in remembrance. With whom are you going?" "I asked Mary, and am going with Lily." John smiled grimly. "I got an invitation for Billy and will hand her over as soon as her mother is out of the way. I can't understand why Billy doesn't assert himself." "You can't? Queer!" Miss Gibbie looked in the fire. "Mary is going to the party with that Fielding person, I believe. To-morrow night she spends here. At supper I have some things to talk over with her; so you can't come to supper. You might come in about eight-thirty. I'm reading a French novel that Mary objects to. She read it, and told me I mustn't. Unless some one talks to her she'll talk to me. Would you mind dropping in so I can get at the book?" She held out her hand. "Our bargain," he said, gravely. "I can no longer hold to it. Do you release me?" "Release you?" She strangled the sudden sob in her throat. "Love has released you. Don't you see--Mary is awake?" Chapter XXII THE NEWS The basket in Mrs. McDougal's hands was dropped as if its every egg were a coal of living fire. "Kingdom come and glory be! Kingdom come--and--glory be!" She clapped first her right hand on her left and then her left on her right and stared into Mr. Blick's beaming black eyes as if through them rather than his mouth the information just received was to be confirmed. Then she sat down on a soap-box and rocked in unqualified delight. "Kingdom come and glory be! What 'd you tell me a thing like that for when I was a-standin' up? I might have sat down in that bucket of lard 'stead of on a keg of herrings--or is it soap?" She looked down with sudden anxiety on the seat she had taken without thought. "I been long a-hopin' somethin' like this would happen, but I wasn't expectin' of it to come this way. Kingdom come and glory be!" Again Mrs. McDougal rocked backward and forward, her arms this time tightly clasped as if hugging a cherished possession. Presently she threw back her head and laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks. "Can't help it, Mr. Blick--can't help it! To think of Pa Pugh and Ma Deford in the course of nature being grandparents of the same unsuspectin' infant! One and the same! I've never heard tell that the devil was much on laughin', but he's a good grinner, and he'll be just enjoyin' of himself to-day. That he will. And so will I. Bein' human, I chuckle when I gets a chance. Kingdom come and glory be!"