"Where’s that child?" "In the butler’s pantry, sor——" "I’m up here!" came a clear voice from the landing above. Cleland, Janet and Meacham raised their heads. The child, in her pyjamas, elbows on the landing rail, smiled down upon them through her thick shock of burnished hair. Her lips were applied to an orifice in an orange; her slim fingers slowly squeezed the fruit; her eyes were intently fixed on the three people below. When Cleland arrived at the third floor landing, he found Stephanie Quest in the nursery, cross-legged on her bed. As he entered, she wriggled off, and, in rose-leaf pyjamas and bare feet, dropped him the curtsey which she had been taught by Mrs. Westlake. But long since she had taken Cleland’s real measure; in her lovely grey eyes a thousand tiny devils danced. He held out his arms and she flung herself into them. When he seated himself in a big chintz arm-chair, she curled up on his knees, one arm around his neck, the other still clutching her orange. "Steve, isn’t it rather nice to wake up in bed in your own room under your own roof? Or, of course if you prefer Mrs. Westlake’s——" "I don’t. I don’t——" She kissed him impulsively on his freshly-shaven cheek, tightened her arm around his neck. "You know I love you," she remarked, applying her lips to the orange and squeezing it vigorously. "I don’t believe you really care much about me, Steve." Her grey eyes regarded him sideways while she sucked the orange; contented laughter interrupted the process; then, suddenly both arms were around his neck, and her bewitching eyes looked into his, deep, very deeply. "You know I love you, Dad." "No, I don’t." "Don’t you _really_ know it?" "Do you, really, Steve?" There was a passionate second of assurance, a slight sigh; the little head warm on his shoulder, vague-eyed, serious, gazing out at the early April sunshine. "Tell me about your little boy, Dad," she murmured presently. "You know he isn’t very little, Steve. He’s fourteen, nearly fifteen." "I forgot. Goodness!" she said softly and respectfully. "He seems little to me," continued Cleland, "but he wouldn’t like to be thought so. Little girls don’t mind being considered youthful, do they?" "Yes, they _do_! You are teasing me, Dad." "Am I to understand that I have a ready-made, grown-up family, and no little child to comfort me?" With a charming little sound in her throat like a young bird, she snuggled closer, pressing her cheek against his. "_Tell_ me," she murmured. "About what, darling?" "About your lit—about your boy." She never tired hearing about this wonderful son, and Cleland never tired of telling about Jim, so they were always in accord on that subject.