Nancy finding it impossible to spend an hour of her time idly and with no appointments before noon that day, was engaged in darning a basket full of slum socks that she had brought home from the tenements to occupy Hitty's leisure moments. She was not very expert at this particular task, and the holes were so huge, and their method of behaving under scientific management so peculiar--it is hardly necessary to say that Nancy knew the theory of darning perfectly--that she was becoming more and more dissatisfied with her progress. Hitty's unprecedented and taciturn donning of her best bonnet in the early morning hours, followed by her abrupt departure without explanation or apology, was also a little disconcerting to any one acquainted with her habits. Nancy was relieved to hear her key in the lock again, and put down her work to greet her. The door opened and Sheila stood on the threshold. Hitty was close behind her, but Nancy had eyes only for the child. "Don't cry, Miss Dear," Sheila said, in her arms. "I cried hard every night when I was gone from you, but now I have come back. My father does not want me, and he says that you can have me." "He signed a paper," Hitty said. "I've got it in my bag with my specs. If ever he shows his face around here we can have the law on him." "Can I really have Sheila?" Nancy cried. "I can't believe that--her father would let her go. I can't understand it." "He's a kind of a poor soul," Hitty said. "He ain't got no real contrivance. He's glad enough to get rid of her." "Did he say so?" "Well, nearabout. He has a high-falutin way of talking but that was the amount of it. He knows which side his bread is buttered. He ain't nobody's fool. I'll say that for him." "I can't say that you make him out a very pleasant character," Nancy said. "But he's an artist, Hitty. Artists don't react to the same set of laws that we do. They're different somehow." "They ain't so different, when it comes to that," Hitty said dryly. "They won't take a hint, but the harder you kick 'em the better for all concerned. Don't you go sticking up for that low-down loon. He ain't worth it." "I suppose he isn't," Nancy said; "he's a pretty poor apology for a man as we understand men, Hitty, but there's something about him,--a power and a charm that you can't altogether discount, even though you have lost every particle of your respect for him." "He has a kind of way," Hitty conceded, "but I ain't one o' them kind o' women that hankers much for the society of a man that's once shown himself to be more of a sneak than the average." "I don't think that I am, either," Nancy said gravely. "I want to be your little girl always," Sheila announced, "if I may talk now, may I? And Monsieur Dick's, too, and sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam, and feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream. I want to see Monsieur Dick. Where is he?"