"That's too differcult," said Chuckles, and then he turned to Randolph. "She's going to make me have a New Friend," he said with a little nod of his head at Sidney. "But I haven't said 'Yes' yet." Randolph's eyes met Sidney's. "Ah!" he said. "You have made me wish myself a boy again, Miss Urquhart. I used to have Sunday lessons in a garden once upon a time." Then, without another word, he marched Chuckles off, and Sidney went to her father wondering again if she had done any good or not by her first effort towards Chuckles' spiritual education. Up the road the man and boy walked together. "I love Miss Sid," Chuckles asserted. "I ate twenty chocolates, and she never said 'Stop.'" "Mind you remember what she tells you," said Randolph, somewhat severely. "Did you listen to her behind the wall?" Randolph scorned embarrassment. "If I did, it was for my own profit." "Tell me honest now," said Chuckles gravely, "do you know this Friend? You don't think she's taking me in. I don't like church and catechism, you know, but she made it out quite different, and she says Jesus will like me to have fun. Do you know Him like she does?" "That I don't." "Not at all?" "Well, perhaps a little." "Is it proper for men and boys to know Him?" "Quite proper," said Randolph, with a smile, and as he spoke the words from some distant cell in his memory came almost to his lips: "'Neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches, but let him that glorieth, glory within, that he understandeth and knoweth Me.'" "I'll think about it," said Chuckles in a loft manner, "and tell her next Sunday whether I'm going to do what she wants or not. But I shall cut the rope when she isn't looking, and then we shall drift out to sea and be shipwrecked." As Chuckles' intentions that were told never came off, Randolph made no remark. His thoughts persistently followed Sidney, and at times he was perplexed and annoyed by the vagaries of his brain. When Monica met them coming in at the garden gate, she looked a trifle anxiously at Chuckles. "I hope you have been good," she said. "Me and Miss Sid don't want to be good," said Chuckles with his chin in the air. "We don't talk about such stupid things as that." Monica wisely forebore to question him further. It was enough for her that he had been and was willing to go again. CHAPTER IV ON A SANDBANK MRS. DE CRESSIERS' political dinners were a great success. When Sidney was returning home again, that lady said to her: "I wish you were my daughter. You are such a help to me when I am entertaining." "Or daughter-in-law, mother," put in Austin. He was driving Sidney back in his high dogcart, and could not resist adding to his mother's words. Sidney laughed. "I will come whenever you want me, Cousin Clarice." Then, as they drove away, she reproved Austin for his levity: "Your mother looked quite shocked."