Her aunt turned quickly. “Kind!” she repeated. “Of course it was kind, or he meant it to be. But I like to know about kindnesses when they’re done, not have ’em sprung on me as a good joke nine years afterwards. He has been chucklin’ to himself over that joke ever since. In a lot of ways,” she went on earnestly, “Foster Townsend is a kind man and a good man. The trouble is that he has got so used to bein’ told that he is the greatest man in the world that he has come to believe it.” Esther was amazed. “Why, how can you call him good!” she exclaimed. “Mother always said he--” Reliance interrupted. “I know,” she put in hastily. “Well, your mother may have been a little prejudiced, perhaps. She had reason to be.” The girl’s lips tightened. “At any rate,” she declared, “his adopting me is ridiculous. I don’t want to be adopted and I shan’t be. That is settled.” Miss Clark shook her head. “No,” she said, firmly. “That part isn’t settled--yet. He isn’t goin’ to adopt me, or Millard either. Millard, do hush!... But for you, Esther, it isn’t settled at all. There is a whole lot to be said and thought over before that is settled. I’m goin’ to bed. Millard, put out the lamp.” Mr. Clarke made one more desperate appeal. “If I didn’t know,” he declared, with angry sarcasm, “I’d swear all hands in this house had been drinkin’--all hands but me, I mean. You give out that it’s settled and Esther gives out that it’s settled, but _I_ haven’t settled nothin’ yet as I know of. Cap’n Foster Townsend asked me to come and live with him. Right here in this room he asked it and you two heard him. All right. Then I guess I’m the one to say yes or no--to my part of it, anyhow.” Reliance looked at him. “Then if I was you I’d say it,” she agreed, sweetly. “You go right up to his house to-morrow and tell him that no matter what Esther and I do, you’ll move in before sunset. You tell him that and see what he says about it.... Come, Esther. Don’t you leave that lamp burnin’ all night, Millard.” She and Esther left the room, and a few moments later, their footsteps were heard upon the stairs. Millard Fillmore Clark, left alone, threw himself into the rocker and relapsed into the pessimistic meditations of a hurt and insulted spirit. For an hour he sat there, scowling and biting his nails. Then he rose and went out into the dining room, where he opened the door of a dark closet and reached down into a corner behind a tall crockery cooky jar. Hidden in that corner was a black bottle. It contained home-made wild-cherry rum and his half-sister had cached it there, fondly believing that he could never find it. He removed the cork, took a long drink, and then another. Soon afterward he, too, went upstairs and to bed. CHAPTER III