“Oh, murder!” his father lamented. “Boy nine years old got to go and wake up his _mamma_ in the middle of the night, because he’s scared to sleep in his own bed with a hall-light shining through the transom! What on earth were you afraid of?” Ludlum’s eyes clung to the consoling face of his mother. “I never said I _was_ afraid. I woke up, an’ I thought I saw somep’m in there.” “What kind of a ‘something’?” Ludlum looked resentful. “Well, I guess I know what I’m talkin’ about,” he said importantly. “I bet there _was_ somep’m, too!” “I declare I’m ashamed,” Mr. Thomas groaned. “Here’s the boy’s godfather coming to visit us, and how’s he going to help find out we’re raising a coward?” “John!” his wife exclaimed. “The idea of speaking like that just because Luddie can’t help being a little imaginative!” “Well, it’s true,” he said. “I’m ashamed for Lucius to find it out.” Mrs. Thomas laughed, and then, finding the large eyes of Ludlum fixed upon her hopefully, she shook her head. “Don’t you worry, darling,” she reassured him. “You needn’t be afraid of what Uncle Lucius will think of his dear little Luddie.” “I’m not,” Ludlum returned complacently. “He gave me a dollar las’ time he was here.” “Well, he won’t this time,” his father declared crossly. “Not after the way you’ve been behaving lately. I’ll see to that!” Ludlum’s lower lip moved pathetically and his eyes became softly brilliant—manifestations that increased the remarkable beauty he inherited from his mother. “John!” cried Mrs. Thomas indignantly. Ludlum wept at once, and between his gulpings implored his mother to prevent his father from influencing Uncle Lucius against the giving of dollars. “Don’t _let_ him, mamma!” he quavered. “An’ ’fif Uncle Lucius wuw-wants to give me a dollar, he’s got a right to, hasn’t he, mamma? _Hasn’t_ he got a right to, mamma?” “There, dearie! Of course!” she comforted him. “Papa won’t tell Uncle Lucius. Papa is sorry, and only wants you to be happy and not cry any more.” Papa’s manner indicated somewhat less sympathy than she implied; nevertheless, he presently left the house in a condition vaguely remorseful, which still prevailed, to the extent of a slight preoccupation, when he met Uncle Lucius at the train at noon. Uncle Lucius—Lucius Brutus Allen, attorney-at-law of Marlow, Illinois, population more than three thousand, if you believed him—this Uncle Lucius was a reassuring sight, even to the eyes of a remorseful father who had been persecuting the beautiful child of a lovely mother. Mr. Allen was no legal uncle to Ludlum: he was really Mrs. Thomas’s second cousin, and, ever since she was eighteen and he twenty-four, had been her favoured squire. In fact, during her young womanhood, Mrs. Thomas and others had taken it as a matter of course that Lucius was in love with her; certainly that appeared to be his condition.