"Well, and do you think he will?" Alicia snatched at my words. "A man who ran away from them, loafing round for years? Oh, it will be easy, Uncle Ranny!" she chuckled. "He couldn’t fool us!" "And why, my little Portia, couldn’t he?" "Because," said Alicia thoughtfully, "he will always be thinking of himself and we—won’t." "You mean," I pressed, delightedly, "he’ll be self-conscious and give himself away, the while we are clothed in our rectitude?" "Yes!" she cried, with a laugh. "We’ll be thinking of Jimmie and Laura and Randolph—and it’s always easier to think what to do when you’re thinking of somebody else—not of yourself." "And did you discover that also in the matron’s office at the Home?" I leaned toward her in amazement. "No," she bent her gaze downward, "I learned that right here." I kissed Alicia upon the cheek. It lies heavy at my door that I have shown her too little affection in the past merely because she is not related to me. It startled me to realize that dear to me as Laura’s children are, Alicia is the dearest of them all. As with a gentle good night she slipped away, a profound sigh of relief escaped me. That child succeeded in almost wholly blotting out my feeling of bitter perplexity after talking with Gertrude. Do Alicias upon growing older turn into Gertrudes, I wonder? No, I think not. Surely not. I now look to the return of Pendleton almost with equanimity. *CHAPTER XIII* I am agitated like a hen with a newly hatched brood. It has suddenly been revealed to me that the complacency with which I have been regarding my care and rearing of the children is abysmally false and wholly unjustified. They are not properly clothed for New York and even here in Crestlands they seem on a sudden pitifully shabby. The competition in that sort of thing in a suburb is keen. Everybody’s children seem better dressed than my own and yet, do what I will, I cannot afford to spend more. Randolph’s high-school dignity is positively impaired by clothes which he is constantly outgrowing. And the rate at which Jimmie wears out trousers and soils white suits is simply unbelievable. Laura alone seems to have the gift of always keeping her things fresh and wearing them as though they were new. As for Alicia, that girl ought to be clothed in purple, at least figuratively, if only I could afford it. It seems to me I cannot live another day unless I procure for Alicia a large collection of frocks and blouses and shoes and whatever else would set off that faunlike creature, compact of energy and grace. For almost daily that child grows more beautiful in a way that pulls at my heartstrings.