"Well, I'll tell you"--Mrs. Wentworth leaned forward in sudden animation--"to-morrow you pick out the one you want and ask him--or her--to go into the parlor for a few minutes at nine o'clock in the morning, and I will do the same." "Well, maybe," he began a little doubtfully, "but--" "And if there are two, and you are n't real sure which you want, just ask both of them to go, and we 'll settle it together, later," she finished. To this, with some measure of content, her husband agreed. The next morning at ten minutes before nine Mrs. Wentworth began her search. With no hesitation she accosted the little cripple. "Tommy, dear, I want you to go into the parlor for a few minutes. Take your book in there and read, and I 'll come very soon and tell you what I want." Tommy obeyed at once and Mrs. Wentworth sighed in relief. At that moment Tilly came into the garden. What a dear little woman those two weeks of happiness had caused Tilly to become! How much she loved Tommy, and what care she took of him! Really, it was a shame to separate them--they ought to be brought up together--perhaps Mr. Wentworth would n't find any child that he wanted; anyway, she believed she should send Tilly in, at a venture. A moment later Tilly was following in Tommy's footsteps. On the piazza steps sat Bobby--homely, unattractive Bobby, crying. "Why, my dear!" remonstrated Mrs. Wentworth. "Tommy's gone! I can't find him," sobbed the boy. Mrs. Wentworth's back straightened. Of course Bobby cried--no one was so good to him as Tommy was--no one seemed to care for him but Tommy. Poor, homely Bobby! He had a hard row to hoe. He-- But she could n't take Bobby! Of course not--she had Tommy and Tilly already. Still-- Mrs. Wentworth stooped and whispered a magic word in Bobby's ear, and the boy sprang to his feet and trotted through the hall to the parlor door. "I don't care," muttered Mrs. Wentworth recklessly. "I could n't bear to leave him alone out here. I can settle it later." Twice she had evaded her husband during the last fifteen minutes; now, at nine o'clock, the appointed time, they both reached the parlor door. Neither one could meet the other's eyes, and with averted faces they entered the room together; then both gave a cry of amazement. In the corner, stiff, uncomfortable, and with faces that expressed puzzled anxiety, sat five silent children. Mrs. Wentworth was the first to recover presence of mind. "There, there, dears, it's all right," she began a little hysterically. "You can call it a little game we were playing. You may all run outdoors now." As the last white apron fluttered through the door she dropped limply into a chair. "James, what in the world are we going to do?" she demanded. "Give it up!" said the man, his hands in his pockets--James Wentworth's vocabulary had grown twenty years younger in the last two weeks. "But really, it's serious!" "It certainly is." "But what _shall_ we do?"