"But suppose he doesn’t come?" "That’ll be a worse give-away than ever." She turned from the drawer, asking of the Follett family and learning whatever he had to tell. "And you say he’s a fine boy of about twenty-one." "That’d about be his age. Yes, a fine, upstanding lad—and very pop’lar with Jackman he’s always been." She waited a minute before saying, "Oh, Peter, I wish you’d let him off." "Ah, now, Tessie," he expostulated, "there you go again! If you had your way, there’d be no law at all." "Well, I wish there wasn’t." He laughed with a jolly guffaw. "If there was no law, and no one to break it, where’d your trip to the beach be this summer, and the new Ford car I’m goin’ to get for the boys? Anyhow, even if we do get him with the goods on him, which we’re pretty sure o’ doin’ now, he’ll be recommended to mercy on account of his youth, and p’raps be let off with two years." "Yes—and what’ll he be when he comes out?" Getting up, he pulled her to him, with his arm across her shoulder. "Ah, now, Tessie, don’t be lookin’ so far ahead. That’s you all over." And he kissed her. ———— Gladys, that evening, kissed her mother, in the hope of kissing away her foreboding. Lizzie had not been satisfied with Teddy’s story on the telephone. "I don’t understand why he didn’t ask to speak to me," she kept repeating. "Oh, momma," Gussie explained to her, "don’t you see? It was a long-distance call. Three minutes is all he was allowed, and of course he didn’t want to pay double. Here’s his chance to make money that we’ve all been praying for since the year one; and you pull a long face over it. Cheer up, momma, _do_! Smile! Smile more! There! That’s better. Ted said himself that you were not to miss him." So Lizzie did her best to smile, only saying in her heart, "I don’t understand his not speaking to _me_." CHAPTER XVII Teddy woke to a brilliant August sunshine, and that calling of marsh birds which is not song. He woke with a start and with terror. He was still on the bench, though turned over on his side, and with the pistol in view. He needed a minute to get his wits together, to piece out the meaning of the blackened walls, the sagging floor, and the sunlight streaming through the rent in the roof. A hole that had once been a door and another that had once been a window let the summer wind play over his hot face, bringing a soft refreshment.