"Oh, my baby, my poor little man!" cried Mrs. Orde between laughter and tears. They rocked some more. "Now, Bobby, tell mamma," insisted Mrs. Orde gently. "Why did you break Mrs. Owen's cake? Were you as hungry as all that?" "No ma'am," replied Bobby. "Why did you do it, then?" "I don't know." Mr. Orde laughed uproariously when told of Bobby's attempt to be brave under affliction. "The little snoozer!" he cried. "Guess I'll go up and see him." Bobby loved to have his father lie beside him on the bed. They never said much; but the little boy lay, looking up through the dimness, bathed in a deep comfortable content at the man's physical presence. To-night they lay thus in silence for at least five minutes. Then Bobby spoke. "Papa," said he "don't you think Celia Carleton is pretty?" "Very pretty, Bobby." Another long silence. "Papa," complained Bobby at last, "why does Celia be nice to me; and then not be nice to me; and change all the while?" Mr. Orde chuckled softly to himself. "That's the way of 'em, Bobby," said he. "There's no explaining it. All little girls are that way--and big girls, too," he added. So long a pause ensued that Mr. Orde thought his son must be asleep, and was preparing softly to escape. "Papa," came the little boy's voice from the darkness, "I like her just the same." "Carroll," said Mr. Orde to his wife as blinking he entered the lighted sitting room, "you can recover your soul's equanimity. I've found out why he broke into the cake." "Why?" asked Mrs. Orde eagerly. "He was showing off before that little Carleton girl," replied Mr. Orde. III HIDE AND COOP Early Monday morning Bobby was afoot and on his way to the Ottawa Hotel. He ran fast until within a block of it; then unexpectedly his gait slackened to a walk, finally to a loiter. He became strangely reluctant, strangely bashful about approaching the place. This was not to be understood. Usually when he wanted to go play with any one, he simply went and did so. Now all sorts of barriers seemed to intervene, and the worst of it was that these barriers he seemed to have spun from out his own soul. Then too a queer feeling suddenly invaded his chest, exactly like that he remembered to have experienced during the downward rush of a swing. Bobby could not comprehend these things; they just were. He was fairly to the point of deciding to go back and look at the Flobert Rifle, in the shop window, when a group of children ran out from the wide office doors to the croquet court at the side.