"After supper you might roast an apple for Mrs. Richie," the old minister suggested. And David's eyes shone with silent joy. With anxious deliberation he picked out an apple from the silver wire basket on the sideboard; and when they went into the study, he presented a thread to Mrs. Richie. "Tie it to the stem," he commanded. "You're pretty slow," he added gently, and indeed her white fingers blundered with the unaccustomed task. When she had accomplished it, David wound the other end of the thread round a pin stuck in the high black mantel-shelf. The apple dropped slowly into place before the bars of the grate, and began--as everybody who has been a child knows--to spin slowly round, and then, slowly back again. David, squatting on the rug, watched it in silence. But Mrs. Richie would not let him be silent. She leaned forward, eager to touch him--his shoulders, his hair, his cheek, hot with the fire. "Won't you come and sit in my lap?" David glanced at Dr. Lavendar as though for advice; then got up and climbed on to Mrs. Richie's knee, keeping an eye on the apple that bobbed against the grate and sizzled. "Will you make me a little visit, dear?" David sighed. "I seem to visit a good deal; I'd like to belong somewhere." "Oh, you will, one of these days," Dr. Lavendar assured him. "I'd like to belong to you," David said thoughtfully. Dr. Lavendar beamed, and looked proudly at Mrs. Richie. "Because," David explained, "I love Goliath." "Oh," said Dr. Lavendar blankly. "It's blackening on one side," David announced, and slid down from Mrs. Richie's knee to set the apple spinning again. "The red cheek is beginning to crack," said Dr. Lavendar, deeply interested; "smells good, doesn't it, Mrs. Richie?" "Have you any little boys and girls?" David asked, watching the apple. "Come and climb on my knee and I'll tell you," she bribed him. He came reluctantly; the apple was spinning briskly now under the impulse of a woolly burst of pulp through the red skin. "Have you?" he demanded. "No, David." Here his interest in Mrs. Richie's affairs flagged, for the apple began to steam deliciously. Dr. Lavendar, watching her with his shrewd old eyes, asked her one or two questions; but, absorbed in the child, she answered quite at random. She put her cheek against his hair, and whispered, softly: "Turn round, and I'll give you forty kisses." Instantly David moved his head away. The snub was so complete that she looked over at Dr. Lavendar, hoping he had not seen it. "I once knew a little baby," she said, trying to hide her embarrassment, "that had curly hair the color of yours." "It has begun to drip," said David briefly. "Does Alice live at your house?" "_Alice!_" "The gentleman--your brother--said Alice was nineteen. I thought maybe she lived at your house." "No, dear. Look at the apple!" David looked. "Why not?" "Why, she lives at her own house, dear little boy." "Does she pay you a visit?"