That was in September. It was the first of December when Howard Maitland came leaping up-stairs, two steps at a time, and burst into the nursery, so chock-full of news that he could hardly wait to see the way Betty's toes would grip your finger if you put it on the sole of her pink foot.

"Who do you suppose is engaged?"

"Jack McKnight," Laura said; "Howard, kiss her little neck, right under her ear."

He kissed it, and said, "No! Not McKnight. You wouldn't guess in a hundred years!"

"Well, then, you'd better tell me. See, Father, she's smiling! Howard, I think she's really a very distinguished-looking baby; don't you?"

"She looks like her ma, so of course she is!"

"Nonsense! She's the image of you. What do you think? When I went down to luncheon, Sarah says she turned her head right around to watch me go out of the room."

"Gosh! She'll be reading Browning next! Laura—why don't you rise about the engagement? You'll scream when I tell you."

"Well, tell me."

[Pg 288]

"Fred Payton and—"

"What!"

"Hold on. I've not begun to holler yet. And—old Weston."

"What!"

"I thought you'd sit up."

"Howard! I don't believe it."

"It's true. I met Mrs. Payton, and she told me. She kept me standing on the corner for a quarter of an hour while she explained that she was going to do up her Christmas presents now, so she could get the house in order for the wedding. It's to be in January. The engagement comes out to-morrow. It's been cooking since September, but they didn't really tie up until last week. I'm pledged to secrecy, but your Aunt Nelly said I could tell you."

"I never was so astonished in my life!" Laura gasped.

"I was—surprised, myself," Howard said.

"Well," said Laura, "I'm glad poor old Fred is going to be married—but how can she! Of course I know he's been gone on her for ages; but I don't see how he dared to propose to her—he's old enough to be her father! Maybe she took pity on him and proposed to him," Laura declared, giggling.

"The baby has a double chin," her husband said, hurriedly.

"Fred converted him to suffrage last summer," Laura said; "that showed which way the wind was blowing."

Howard stopped tickling his daughter's neck, and frowned, as if trying to remember something. "Weston[Pg 289] a suffragist? That's interesting! Leighton—you remember?—the man who went to the Philippines with me?"

Laura nodded abstractedly.

"Well, he said that if a man was a suffragist it was because he was either in the cradle or the grave. He said the man of affairs was bored to extinction by the whole hullabaloo business. He considered me in the cradle; so I suppose he'd say that Weston—"

"Mr. Weston may be in the grave, but you're not in the cradle," Laura interrupted, affronted; "you are the father of a family!"

"Well, to be candid, I'm not crazy about suffrage," Howard confessed, and was pummeled by his baby's fists, carefully directed by the maternal hand.

"I'm ashamed of you! Betty and I are going to walk in the parade, and you shall carry a banner."

"Thanks so much; I fear business will call me to Philadelphia that day. Too bad!"

"Freddy and Mr. Weston!" Laura repeated; "well, I don't understand it!"

"Neither do I," said her husband. He walked over to the window and stood with his hands in his pockets, looking out into the rain; behind him he heard the nursery door open, and Laura's contented voice:

"No, Sarah, I don't need you. I'm going to put her to bed myself. You go down and have your supper. Just put her little nightie on the fender before you go, so it will be nice and warm." Then the door closed again, and he could hear Laura mumbling in the baby's neck:

"Sweety! Mother loves! Put little hanny into the[Pg 290] sleeve.... Oh, Howard, look at her! Did you ever see anything so killing? Howard, just think! Fred told me once that she was going to have a trained nurse for her children. Well, she'll know better when she has 'em! Ooo-oo—sweety!—don't pull mother's hair!" The firelit warmth, the little night-gown scorching on the fender, Laura in the low chair, his child's head on her breast—the young man, staring out into the rain and darkness, felt something tighten in his throat. Life was so perfect! There, behind him, by the hearth, in warm security, were his two Treasures—to be cared for, and guarded, and made happy. He lived only to stand between them and Fate. His very flesh and blood were theirs! "I wouldn't let the wind blow on them!" he thought, fiercely. But Fred Payton wouldn't let anybody stand between her and the gales of life. He couldn't imagine Arthur West............