"I'm going to let you go down-stairs all by yourself, Neddo, and see him. And then be sure to bring him up here, to have a look at sister. And then be sure to take him to the balcony at the end of the hallway and tell him to draw the lattices and wait there. It's to be a surprise, Neddo, tell him; but not a single word more than that." I waited two minutes or so, and then followed Neddo. I was in time to see Neddo throw himself at Larry, and wrap his arms around his neck and smother him with kisses. "Uncle Larry! O Uncle Larry! Come and see who's up-stairs! No telling, you know!" From where I was, on the screened balcony overlooking the lounging-room, I needed no ship's spy-glass to read the suspicion in Carmen Whiffle's eyes when she looked at little Neddo. I do believe she could even suspect that innocent, affectionate child with playing a game. The tears were in Larry's eyes. "My godson, my brother's boy," he explained. "If you don't mind my running away for a few minutes, Miss Whiffle, I'll hurry back. I'll explain to Neddo's mother that you are waiting and hurry right back." "Don't explain anything," said Miss Whiffle, just a bit tartly. "Never mind any explaining, but come back as soon as you can. I shall be waiting here." Are you at all given to the habit of fancying in human beings the resemblance to different kinds of birds and beasts? Looking down on Carmen Whiffle just then, I could see where, if her well-cushioned features were chiselled away, she would look startlingly like a hawk. I may be unjust, I know, but I was thinking of more than one thing just then. I was thinking of what I read in Carmen Whiffle's glance and smile at me when I passed under the portales of that hotel that evening. A devoted, slavish wife and mother was what she was thinking I was; and possibly I am. But women of her kind are altogether too quick to think that the devoted wife and mother hasn't any brains. And more than all the brains in the world is the wisdom that comes of knowing men. Carmen Whiffle may have known several men in her day; but if she did it was to know them incompletely; and to know any number of men incompletely is never truly to know any one, while to know one man well is to know many. And when that one in my case was Larry's own brother, why, I wasn't worrying over a battle with Carmen Whiffle, superbly equipped though she doubtless thought herself. Ned and his brother Larry were natively pretty much alike; but my Ned was trained early in a rigid profession and early assumed the responsibilities of marriage and a home; and--he told me so more than once--so saved himself more than one drift to leeward. It is no gain for us women to dodge facts in this life. To a man with a conscience, a wife and two children are better than many windward anchors, as Ned would say. Larry was Ned, minus the wife and two children, and plus a little more of youth and the not yet, perhaps, disciplined Trench temperament.