"Won't you take pity on me, dear?" he entreated. "I'm old and ugly to look at, I know; but I _want you_, Evelyn." She would have answered him then; the words trembled upon her lips. "Aunty Evelyn! Aunty Evelyn!" The two shrill little voices upraised in urgent unison pierced the confused maze of her thoughts. She looked around, not without a wilful sense of relief to see the two older Brewster children running toward her brandishing a muff, which she presently recognised as one of her own cherished possessions, un-missed as yet since her brief visit with Elizabeth. "Mother found it on the floor after you'd gone, an' she said for us to run after you an' give it to you," Carroll began, with a large sense of his own importance. "Doris wanted to carry it; but I was 'fraid she'd drop it in the wet. I didn't drop it, Aunty Evelyn; but Doris threw some snow at me, an' it got on the muff, an' I stopped to brush it off. I thought we'd never catch up." Doris had snuggled her small person between Mr. Hickey and Miss Tripp, where she appropriated a hand of each in a friendly and impartial way. "I guess girls know how to carry muffs better'n boys," she observed calmly. "Carroll was too fresh; that is why I threw snow at him." "Why, Doris dear, where did you ever learn such an expression?" murmured Miss Tripp, vaguely reproving. Doris gazed up at her mentor with an expression of preternatural intelligence. "Why, don't you know," she explained; "folks is too fresh when they make you mad, an' make you cry. Who made you cry, Aunty Evelyn? Did Mr. Hickey?" "I wish you'd find out for me, Doris," said that gentleman gloomily. "I'd give anything to know." Miss Tripp gazed about her with gentle distraction, as if in search of an entirely suitable remark with which to continue the difficult conversation. Finding no inspiration in the expanse of slushy street, or in the dull houses which bordered it on either side, she turned bravely to Mr. Hickey. "I think," she said in a low voice, "that the children really ought to go home to--to--their luncheon." Her eyes (quite unknown to herself) held an appeal which filled him with unreasoning satisfaction. "You are entirely right," he agreed joyfully; "the children should go home immediately. They must be in need of food. Go home, children, at once. You are hungry--very hungry." "Oh, no, we're not," warbled Doris. "An' we like to walk with you an' Aunty Evelyn. Mother said our lunch wouldn't be ready for fifteen minutes. We won't have to go home for quite a while yet." At this Mr. Hickey laughed, more loudly than the humour of the situation appeared to demand. "Very good," he said firmly; "that being the case, I'll say at once what I had in mind without further delay; for I'm anxious to let the whole world know that I love you, Evelyn, and I hope you'll allow me to go on loving you as long as I live."