"Well, upon my word!" said Mrs. Newbolt, looking after the small, climbing figure in the new suit. "I wouldn't have believed such a thing of Maurice Curtis--oh, my poor Eleanor!" she said, and burst out crying. "I suppose she knows? Did she want to see the child? I always said she was a puffect angel! But I don't wonder she--she got wet ..." Eleanor was very close to the River now, yet she smiled when Jacky's shrinking lips touched her cheek. "Take her hand," Maurice told him, softly, and the little boy, silent and frightened, obeyed; but he kept his eyes on his father. Eleanor, with long pauses, said: "Dear ... Jacky. Maurice, did you give her ... five cents? He must have ... music lessons." "Yes, Star," he said, brokenly. "Jacky," he said, in a whisper, "say 'I love you.'" But Jacky whispered back, anxiously, "But I said it to the other one?" "_Say it!_" his father said. "I love you," said Jacky, trembling. Eleanor smiled, slept for a moment, then opened her eyes. "He doesn't look ... like _her_?" "Not in the least," Maurice said. Jacky, quailing, tried to draw his hand away from those cool fingers; but a look from his father stopped him. "No," Eleanor murmured; "I see ... it won't do for"--Maurice bent close to her lips, but he could not catch the next words--"for you to marry her." After that she was silent for so long that Maurice led the little boy out of the room. As he brought him into the parlor, Henry Houghton, who had just come in, looked at the father and son, and felt astonishment tingle in his veins like an electric shock. He gripped Maurice's hand, silently, and gave Jacky's ear a friendly pull. "Edith," Maurice Said, "I would take him home, but I mustn't leave Eleanor. Will you get one of the maids to put him on a Medfield car--" "I'll take him," Edith said. Maurice began to say, sharply, "_No!_" then he stopped; after all, why not? "She must know the whole business by this time. Jacky's face gives it all away." She might as well, he thought, know Jacky's mother, as she knew his father. Jacky, in a little growling voice, said, "Don't want _nobody_ to put me on no car. I can--" "Be quiet, my boy," Maurice said, gently. He gave Edith Lily's address and went back upstairs. Henry Houghton, watching and listening, felt his face twitch; then he blew his nose loudly. "I'll look after him," he told Edith. "I--I'll take him to--the person he lives with. It isn't suitable for a girl--" In spite of the gravity of the moment his girl laughed. "Father, you _are_ a lamb! No; I'll take him." Then she gave Jacky a cooky, which he ate thoughtfully.