"You didn't kiss me. You darsn't. You ain't my mother," panted the Boy, between the kisses. He could not keep up with them with the back of his brown little hand. "But _I_ am, dear. I'm your mother," cooed the Mother, proud of herself. After a while she let him go because she pitied him. Then she stood up, stern and straight, and demanded things of these other two. "How came you here, Mary? I thought you were going on a visit. Is this the way you see your publishers, William?" "I--I couldn't wait," murmured the Impatient Aunt. "I wanted to hear him shout. You know how that is, Bess." But there was no apology in the Father's tone. He put out his hand and caught the Boy as he darted past, and squared him about, with his sturdy little front to his mother. The Father was smiling in a tender way. "He is my publisher," he said. "I would rather he published my best works than any one else. He will pay the highest royalty." And the Mother, when she slipped across to them, kissed not the Boy alone, but them both. The next day they took the Boy back in triumph, the three of them and the little dog, and after that there was litter and noise and joy as of old. Chapter III The Adopted The Enemy's chin just reached comfortably to the top fence-rail, and there it rested, while above it peered a pair of round blue eyes. It is not usual for an enemy's eyes to be so round and blue, nor an enemy's chin to reach so short a distance from the ground. "She's watching me," Margaret thought; "she wants to see if I've got far as she has. 'Fore I'd lean my chin on folks's gates and watch 'em!" "She knows I'm here," reflected the Enemy, "just as well as anything. 'Fore I'd peek at people out o' the ends o' my eyes!" [Illustration: 'Fore I'd lean my chin on folks's gates and watch 'em!] Between the two, a little higher than their heads, tilted a motherly bird on a syringa twig. "Ter-wit, ter-wee,--pit-ee, pit-ee!" she twittered under her breath. And it did seem a pity to be quarrellers on a day in May, with the apple buds turning as pink as pink! "I sha'n't ever tell her any more secrets," Margaret mused, rather sadly, for there was that beautiful new one aching to be told. "I sha'n't ever skip with her again," the Enemy's musings ran drearily, and the arm she had always put round Margaret when they skipped felt lonesome and--and empty. And there was that lovely new level place to skip in! "Pit-ee! Pit-ee!" sang softly the motherly bird. It had only been going on a week of seven days. It was exactly a week ago to-day it began, while they were making the birthday presents together, Margaret sitting in this very chair and Nell--the Enemy sitting on the toppest door-step. Who would have thought it was coming? There was nothing to warn--no thunder in the sky, no little mother-bird on the syringa bush. It just _came_--oh, hum!