"You will not, I hope, interrupt any normal procedure," that lady was saying in a sprightly tone, calculated to restore the depressed spirits of the younger matron to their usual level. "I should like--if I may--to observe the children at their luncheon, since the sense stimuli connected with the taking of food is exceedingly instructive as related to the cosmic consciousness." "I shall be very happy to have you lunch with us," faltered Elizabeth, her thoughts busying themselves with a futile review of the contents of her larder. Then the door flew open and Carroll and Doris dashed in, breathless and eager, to precipitate their small persons upon their mother's lap. "I was a _nawful_ good girl in kindergarten, mother!" announced Doris, dancing with impatience, "an' I didn't get run over, or anythin'. When can I go to the store an' spend all my money, mother? _When?_ Can I go _now_?" "Doris, dear; don't you see Mrs. Van Duser? and Carroll----" But the boy had already advanced politely, and was standing before the magisterial presence with a funny little air of resignation to the inevitable which forced a smile to his mother's serious lips. "Can you tell me, my boy, why you experience pleasure at the sight of your mother?" demanded Mrs. Van Duser, gazing searchingly at the child through her gold-mounted lorgnettes. "I--like my mother, better'n any body else," replied the boy, with a worried pucker of his smooth forehead. "_Like?_" echoed his inquisitor, looking up from a hurriedly pencilled note. "And what, pray, do you mean by 'like'?" "I mean I--love her, because she's the bestest person I know." "Is it because she gives you food when you are hungry that you love your parent? Or can you give me another reason?" continued Mrs. Van Duser, ignoring the comprehensive statement advanced by the boy. Carroll glanced doubtfully after his mother, as she hastily withdrew to look after the luncheon table. "I--don't know," he stammered. "I guess I like her when I'm hungry just the same." "C., aged eight years, unable to enumerate reasons for fondness of parent," wrote Mrs. Van Duser, with every appearance of satisfaction. "The reasoning faculties apparently dormant at this age." "What are you most afraid of?" was her next question, accompanied by an ingratiating smile, calculated to disarm youthful timidity. At this moment Richard, who had been peacefully asleep on the sofa, awoke, and becoming slowly aware of the majestic presence at his side, set up a doleful cry. Whereupon Mrs. Van Duser noted neatly that "an unexpected visual impression evidently caused anxiety, without any assignable reason, in the normal infant R." And when the normal infant scrambled down from the couch and retreated kitchenward under the careful supervision of his older brother, she observed further that "the dawning of the paternal instinct of protection was observable in the child C." VI