"Look out here, young man," said Lord Kelwin, as Wathemah approached him with a threatening fist. Kenneth caught the child, and held him close in his arms, whispering to him, "We're only fooling, Wathemah." But he said aloud: "Did you know, John, that Miss Bright has become an adopted mother?" "No. Whom has she adopted? You?" "Me? No. That's a good one. She's adopted Duncan's little boy, Bobbie. And when I suggested that I'd like to change places with Bobbie, she almost annihilated me." All seemed to be enjoying the nonsense. "Really, Miss Bright," continued Lord Kelwin, "I think you should be at the head of an orphanage." "I suppose you'd like to be chief orphan," suggested John Clayton. Then the talk drifted to serious themes, until dinner was announced. A birthday cake with sixteen lighted candles, in the center of the table, was the signal for another fusillade of fun. "Sixteen! sixteen!" said Kenneth Hastings. "I accused Miss Bright, to-day, of being fifty, and she assured me she was not so young as that." "Sixteen! sweet sixteen!" said Lord Kelwin, bowing low. She, in turn, bowed _her_ head. "You see," she said, "our good prophet, Mrs. Clayton, cried out, and the shadow has turned backward on the dial of Ahaz." "It is not so much the number of years we count on the dial, after all," spoke Mrs. Clayton, who had thus far listened smilingly to the others; "it is what we live into those years. And you have lived already a long life in your few years, dear friend." "You are right," Kenneth rejoined. "Miss Bright has lived more years of service to her fellow men in the few months she has been in Gila, than I have lived in my thirty years." Then, half in jest, half in earnest, he continued, "I wish Miss Bright could have been my grandmother, then my mother, then my--" He halted in embarrassment, as he saw a deep blush sweep over Esther's face. "And then--" suggested Lord Kelwin, in a provoking tone--"and then?" "I should like her for my _friend_." "So say we all of us," rejoined John Clayton. Then observing Esther's face, he changed the drift of the conversation. "How would you good people like to make up a party to go to Box Canyon sometime in the near future?" "Delightful!" spoke several, simultaneously. And thereupon they began to describe for Esther the canyon and what she would see. Before leaving the table, every wineglass save one was filled with sherry. That glass was turned down. John Clayton rose and lifted his glass. "Here's to our dear friend, Miss Bright. May she always be sixteen at heart, with her ideals of life as true and as sweet as they are now; may the cares of life sit lightly upon her; may she be given strength to do all that she will always seek out and find to do; may the love of the true of heart enfold her; may the Heavenly Father keep her in all her ways; may the shadow ever turn backward on the dial." And lifting their glasses, they drank to this toast.