And Rob departed, soothed and heartened as she always was by blind Cousin Peace, who saw so clearly. She went up the pretty back road as the shadows were beginning to lengthen, and reached home to find Aunt Azraella gone, and the kitchen of the little grey house filled with the song of the kettle, and the homely, but comforting odor of toast, as her mother and Wythie stepped briskly about getting tea, and Prue in the dining-room sang as cheerily as the kettle while she was setting the table. CHAPTER FIVE ITS BLITHE DAYS Mr. Grey fulfilled his promise to Roberta. He wrote the article which had been requested of him by the magazine, and read it to its prime instigator before sending it off. She found it one of the most remarkable productions of the human pen, nor was shaken, but rather strengthened in her opinion by the fact that she understood very little of what it was all about. Then followed a ten days of waiting for the result, which seemed--to one of the conspirators, at least--the longest ten days she had ever passed. It was so hard not to drop a hint of the great expectations to Wythie and Prue, still harder not to suggest to Mardy that the anxious line between her eyes had no especial reason for being there, since deliverance and the equivalent of the winter supply of coal was at hand. At last Prue brought up the longed-for letter from her early morning expedition to the post-office, and gave it, quite unsuspectingly, to her father. "Rob, Roberta, come here," called Mr. Grey, in a few moments, and, feeling quite sure of the reason for her summons, Rob flew to him, nearly upsetting little white Kiku-san on the way. Her father looked boyishly delighted as she entered his quarters--Mr. Grey would not allow the word "den" to be applied to his room. "See, Rob, my son," he cried, triumphantly brandishing aloft the magic slip of paper. "Your worthless father is not quite useless, is he? They shall find out some day that Sylvester Grey is not the drone they think him." Rob had seized the check, and was gloating over it ecstatically. "Take that to your mother, child, and tell her to cease worrying; that there is the money she needed, and that when the machine is finished she shall never again know what anxiety is," continued the dreamer, magnificently. "And it will be done soon--in a few months, Rob--and while it is getting placed I will turn my attention to this sort of thing, and we shall be very comfortable while waiting to be rich. Why, when my mind is free, Roberta, it is a low estimate to reckon that I can make a hundred dollars a month by my pen." "Of course you can, Patergrey," echoed inexperienced Rob, confidently. "Will it take long to place the bricquette machine when it is done?"