"But, Miss Dorothy, I know that Keith would want—-"

"Susan!" With an imperiousness quite foreign to her usual manner, Miss Dorothy cut in sharply. "If you don't promise to speak only to Mr. Daniel Burton about this matter I shall not come at all."

"Oh, lan' sakes! Well, well, have it your own way," snapped Susan.

"You promise?"

"Yes, I promise." Susan's lips obeyed, but her eyes were still mutinous.

"Good! Thank you, Susan. Then I'll come to-morrow at ten," nodded Miss Dorothy, once again her smiling, gracious self, as she turned to leave the room.



CHAPTER XXX

DANIEL BURTON'S "JOB"

Dorothy came at ten, or, to be strictly accurate, at five minutes past ten. The additional five minutes had been consumed by her going out of her way around the block so that she might see if Keith were visible in one of the McGuires' windows. He was visible—and when she went up the Burton walk at five minutes past ten, her step was confident and her face eager; and there was about her manner none of the furtive, nervous questioning that had marked her coming the day before.

"Good-morning, Susan," she began cheerily, as Susan answered her ring. "Did Mr. Burton say he would see me?"

"He did. And Mr. Keith is over to the McGuires' all safe, so you don't have to worry about him." Susan's eyes were still mutinous, her voice still coldly disapproving.

"Yes, I know he is," nodded Miss Dorothy with a bright smile.

"Oh, you do!"

"Yes. Well, that is—er—I—" Under Susan's uncompromising frigidity Miss Dorothy's stammering tongue came to a painful pause.

"Humph!" vouchsafed Susan. "Well, come in, an' I'll tell Mr. DANIEL Burton you're here."

That the emphasis on "Daniel" was not lost was shown by the sudden broad smile that chased away the confusion on Miss Dorothy's face, as Susan led the way to the living-room. Two minutes later Daniel Burton, thinner, paler, and more worn-looking than Dorothy had ever seen him before, entered the room and held out a cordial hand.

"Good-morning, Miss Dorothy. I'm glad to see you," he said. "What is it,—Red Cross, Y.M.C.A., Smileage Books?" The whimsical smile on his lips only served to emphasize the somber pain in his eyes.

"Not any of them. Then Susan didn't tell you?"

"Not a word. Sit down, please."

"Thank you. Then I shall have to begin at the beginning," sighed the girl a little constrainedly as she took the chair he offered her. "I— I have a certain project that I want to carry out, Mr. Burton, and I— I want your help."

"Why, of course—certainly. I shall be glad to, I know." Daniel Burton's hand had already reached for his check-book. "Any project of yours, Miss Dorothy—! How much do you want?"

But Miss Dorothy lifted her hand, palm outward.

"Thank you, Mr. Burton; but not any—in money, just yet. Oh, it'll take money, probably, to get it started, before it's on a self- supporting basis, I suppose. But it isn't money I want to-day, Mr. Burton. It—it's yourself."

The man gave a short, dry laugh, not untinged with bitterness.

"I'm afraid I can't endorse either your taste or your judgment there, Miss Dorothy. You've come for a poor stick. I can't imagine myself as being much benefit to any sort of project. However, I shall be glad to hear about it, of course. What is it?"

And Miss Dorothy told him. With her eyes shining, and her voice quivering with eagerness, she told the story as she had told it to Susan the afternoon before, but with even greater elaboration of detail.

"And so now, Mr. Burton, you—you will help, won't you?" she begged, in closing.

"Help! But my dear girl, how?"

"Take charge. Be the head and shoulders, the backbone of the whole thing. Oh, yes, I know it's a whole lot to ask," she hurried on, as she saw the dawning dismay and refusal in his face. "But I thought, for the sake of the cause—"

"The cause!" The man's voice was bitter as he interrupted her. "I'd crawl to France on my hands and knees if that would do any good! But, my dear young lady, I'm an ignoramus, and worse than an ignoramus, when it comes to machinery. I'll venture to wager that I wouldn't know the tape from the coils—or whatever they are."

"Oh, we'd have an engineer for that part, of course," interposed the girl eagerly. "And we want your son, too."

"You want Keith! Pray, do you expect him to teach how to wind coils?"

"No—no—not exactly;—though I think he will be teaching before he realizes it. I want him to learn to wind them himself, and thus get others to learn. You don't understand, Mr. Burton. I want you and Mr. Keith to—to do just what you did for John McGuire—arouse interest and enthusiasm and get them to do it. Don't you see?"

"But that was Keith, not I, in the case of John McGuire."

"It was you at the last," corrected the girl gently. "Mr. Burton, John McGuire wouldn't have any book out this spring if it weren't for you and—your eyes."

"Hm-m, perhaps not. Still there'd have been a way, probably. But even if I grant that—all you say in the case of John McGuire—that isn't winding armatures, or whatever they are."

"Mr. Burton, you aren't going to refuse," pleaded the girl.

"What else can I do? Miss Dorothy, you don't want to stamp this project of yours a FAILURE from the start, do you?" Words, voice, manner, and gesture were unmistakable. All the longing and heartache and bitterness of years of fruitless effort and final disappointment pulsated through that one word FAILURE.

For a moment nobody spoke. Daniel Burton had got to his feet and crossed the room to the window. The girl, watching him with compassionate eyes as he stood looking out, had caught her breath with a little choking sigh. Suddenly she lifted her head resolutely.

"Mr. Burton, you've got one gift that—that I don't believe you realize at all that you possess. Like John McGuire you can make folks SEE what you are talking about. Perhaps it's because you can paint pictures with a brush. Or—or perhaps it's because you've got such a wonderful command of words."(Miss Dorothy stumbled a little precipitately into this sentence—she had not failed to see the disdainful movement of the man's head and shoulders at the mention of his pictures.) "Whatever it is," she hurried on, "you've got it. I saw it first years ago, with—with your son, when I used to see him at father's. He would sit and talk to me by the hour about the woods and fields and mountains, the sunsets and the flowers back home; and little by little I found out that they were the pictures you drew for him—on the canvas of his soul. You've done it again now for John McGuire. Do you suppose you could have caught those wonderful stories of his with your pencil, if you hadn't been able to help him visualize them for himself—you and Keith together with your wonderful enthusiasm and interest?

"I know you couldn't. And that's what I want you now for—you and your son. Because he is blind, and knows, and understands, as no seeing person can know and understand, they will trust him; they will follow where he leads. But behind him has got to be YOU. You've got to be the eyes for—for them all; not to teach the work—we'll have others for that. Any good mechanic will do for that part. But it's the other part of it—the soul of the thing. These men, lots of them, are but little more than boys—big, strong, strapping fellows with the whole of life before them. And they are—blind. Whichever way they turn a big black curtain shuts them in. And it's those four black curtains that I want you to paint. I want you to give them something to look at, something to think of, something to live for. And you can do it. And when you have done it, you'll find they're the best and—and the biggest pictures you ever painted." Her voice broke with the last word and choked into silence.

Over at the window the man stood motionless. One minute, two minutes passed. Then a bit abruptly he turned, crossed the room to the girl's side, and held out his hand.

"Miss Dorothy, I—I'll take the job," he said.

He spoke lightly, and he smiled as he said the words; but neither the smile nor the lightness of his manner quite hid the shake in his voice nor the moisture in his eyes.

"Thank you, Mr. Burton. I was sure you would," cried the girl.

"And now for Keith! He's over to the McGuires'. I'll get him!" exclaimed the man boyishly.

But Miss Dorothy was instantly on her feet.

"No, no, please," she begged a little breathlessly. "I'd rather you didn't—now. I—I think we'd better get it a little farther along before we tell him. There's a whole lot to do, you know—getting the room and the materials and the superintendent, and all that; and there isn't a thing he can do—yet."

"All right. Very good. Perhaps that would be better," nodded the man. "But, let me tell you, I already have some workers for your project."

"You mean Jack Green, here in town?"

"No. Oh, we'd want him, of course; but it's some others—a couple of boys from Hillsboro. I had a letter yesterday from the father of one of the boys, asking what to do with his son. He thought because of—of Keith, that I could help him. It was a pitiful letter. The man was heart-broken and utterly at sea. His boy—only nineteen—had come home blind, and well-nigh crazed with the tragedy of it. And the father didn't know which way to turn. That's why he had appealed to me. You see, on account of Keith—"

"Yes, I understand," said the girl gently, as the man left his sentence unfinished.

"I've had others, too—several of them—in the last few weeks. If you'll wait I'll get the letters." He was already halfway to the door. "It may take a minute or two to look them up; but—they'll be worth it, I think."

"Of course they will," she cried eagerly. "They'll be just exactly what we want, and I'm not in a bit of a hurry," she finished, dropping back in her chair as the door closed behind him.

Alone, she looked about the room, her eyes wistful, brimming with unshed tears. Over by the window was Keith's chair, before it the table, with a half-completed picture puzzle spread upon it. Near the table was a set of shelves containing other picture puzzles, games, and books—all, as the girl well knew, especially designed and constructed for eyes that could not see.

She had risen to her feet and half started to cross the room toward the table when the door to the side hall opened and Keith Burton entered the room.

With a half-stifled gasp the girl stepped back to her chair. The blind boy stopped instantly, his face turned toward her.

"Is that—you, Susan?"

The girl wet her lips, but no words came.

"Who's there, please?" He spoke sharply this time. As everybody knew— who knew Keith—the one thing that angered him more than anything else was the attempted deception as to one's presence in the room.

Miss Dorothy gave a confused little laugh, and put her hand to her throat.

"Why, Keith, it's only I! Don't look so—"

"You?" For one brief moment his face lighted up as with a hidden flame; then instantly it changed. It became like the gray of ashes after the flame is spent. "Why didn't you speak, then?" he questioned. "It did no good to keep quiet. You mustn't forget that I have ears—if I haven't eyes."

"Nonsense, Keith!" She laughed again confusedly, though her own face had paled a little. "I did speak as soon as I caught my breath;— popping in on a body like that!"

"But I didn't know—you were here," stammered the young fellow uncertainly. "Nobody called me. I beg your pardon if—" He came to a helpless pause.

"Not a bit of it! You needn't. It wasn't necessary at all." The girl tossed off the words with a lightness so forced that it was almost flippancy. "You see, I didn't come to see you at all. It was your father."

"My father!"

"Certainly."

"But—but does he know?"

The girl laughed merrily—too merrily for sincerity.

"Know? Indeed he does. We've just been having a lovely talk. He's gone upstairs for some letters. He's coming right back—right back."

"Oh-h!" Was it an indefinable something in her voice, or was it the repetition of the last two words? Whatever it was that caused it, Keith turned away with a jerk, walked with the swift sureness of long familiarity straight to the set of shelves and took down a book. "Then I'll not disturb you any further—as long as you're not needing me," he said tersely. "I only came for this." And with barely a touch of his cane to the floor and door-casing, he strode from the room.

The pity of it—that he could not have seen Dorothy Parkman's eyes looking after him!



CHAPTER XXXI

WHAT SUSAN DID NOT SEE

There was apparently no limit to Daniel Burton's enthusiastic cooperation with Dorothy Parkman on the matter of establishing a workroom for the blind. He set to work with her at once. The very next morning after her initial visit, he went with her to Mazie Sanborn's father, and together they formulated the first necessary plans.

Thomas Sanborn was generous, and cordially enthusiastic, though his words and manner carried the crisp terseness of the busy man whose time is money. At the end of five minutes he summoned one David Patch to the office, and introduced him to Miss Dorothy and Daniel Burton as one of his most expert engineers.

"And now I'll turn the whole thing over to you," he declared briskly, with his finger already on the button that would summon his stenographer for dictation. "Just step into that room there and stay as long as you like. Whatever Patch says I'll back up. You'll find him thoroughly capable and trustworthy. And now good luck to you," he finished, throwing wide the door of the adjoining room.

The next moment Miss Dorothy and Daniel Burton found themselves alone with the keen-eyed, alert little man who had been introduced as David Patch. And David Patch did, indeed, appear to be very capable. He evidently understood his business, and he gave interested attention to Miss Dorothy's story of what she had seen, and of what she wished now to try to do. He took them then for a tour of the great shop, especially to the department where the busy fingers were winding with tape the thousands of wire coils.

Miss Dorothy's eyes sparkled with excitement, and she fairly clapped her hands in her delight, while Daniel Burton said that even he could see the possibilities of that kind of work for their purpose.

At the end of a long hour of talking and planning, Miss Dorothy and Daniel Burton started for home. But even then Daniel Burton had yet more to say, for at his gate, which was on Miss Dorothy's way home, he begged her to come in for a moment.

"I had another letter to-day about a blind soldier—this time from Baltimore. I want to show it to you. You see, so many write to me, on account of my own boy. You will come in, just a minute?"

"Why, yes, of course I—will." The pause, and the half-stifled word that finished the sentence came as the tall figure of Keith Burton turned the corner of the piazza and walked toward the steps.

"Hullo! Dad?" Keith's voice was questioning.

"Yes; and—"

"And Dorothy Parkman," broke in the girl with a haste so precipitate as to make her almost choke.

"Miss Parkman?" Once again, for a moment, Keith's face lighted as with a flame. "Come up. Come around on the south side," he cried eagerly. "I've been sunning myself there. You'd think it was May instead of March."

"No, she can't go and sun herself with you," interposed Daniel Burton with mock severity. "She's coming with me into the house. I want to show her something."

"Well, I—I like that," retorted the youth. He spoke jauntily, and gave a short little laugh. But the light had died from his face and a slow red had crept to his forehead.

"Well, she can't. She's coming with me," reiterated the man. "Now run back to your sun bath. If you're good maybe we'll be out pretty soon," he laughed back at his son, as he opened the house door for his guest. "That's right—you didn't want him to know, yet, did you?" he added, looking a bit anxiously into the girl's somewhat flushed face as he closed the hall door.

"Quite right. No, I don't want him to know yet. There's so much to be done to get started, and he'd want to help. And he couldn't help about that part; and't would only fret him and make him unhappy."

"My idea exactly," nodded the man. "When we get the room, and the goods there, we'll want to tell him then."

"Of course, you'll tell him then," cried the girl.

"Yes, indeed, of course we will!" exclaimed the man, very evidently not noticing the change in the pronoun. "Now, if you'll wait a minute I'll get that letter, then we'll go out to Keith on the piazza."

It was a short letter, and one quickly read; and very soon they were out on the piazza again. But Miss Dorothy said "No, no!" very hastily when he urged her to go around on the other side; and she added, "I really must go home now," as she hurried down the steps. Daniel Burton went then around the corner of the piazza to explain her absence to his son Keith. But he need not have hurried. His son Keith was not there.

For all the good progress that was made on that first day, things seemed to move a bit slowly after that. To begin with, the matter of selecting a suitable room gave no little difficulty. The right room in the right location seemed not to be had; and Daniel Burton even suggested that they use some room in his own house. But after a little thought he gave up this idea as being neither practical nor desirable.

Meanwhile he was in daily communication with Dorothy Parkman, and the two spent hours together, thrashing out the different problems one by one as they arose, sometimes at her home, more frequently at his; for "home" to Dorothy in Hinsdale meant the Sanborn house, where Mazie was always in evidence—and Daniel Burton did not care for Mazie. Especially he did not care for her advice and assistance on the problems that were puzzling him now.

To be sure, at his own home there was Keith; but he contrived to avoid Keith on most occasions. Besides, Keith himself seemed quite inclined to keep out of the way (particularly if he heard the voice of Dorothy Parkman), which did not disturb Daniel Burton in the least, under the circumstances. Until they got ready to tell Keith, he was rather glad that he did keep so conveniently out of the way. And as Dorothy seemed always glad to avoid seeing Keith or talking to him, there was really very little trouble on that score; and they could have their consultations in peace and quietness.

And there were so many of them—those consultations! When at last the room was found, there were the furnishings to select, and the final plans to be made for the real work to be done. David Patch proved himself to be invaluable then. As if by magic a long table appeared, and the coils and the tape, and all the various paraphernalia of a properly equipped winding-room marched smoothly into place. Meanwhile three soldiers and one civilian stood ready and eager to be taught, needing only the word of command to begin.

"And now we'll tell Keith," said Daniel Burton.

"Yes; now you must tell Keith," said Miss Dorothy.

"To-morrow at nine."

"To-morrow at nine," bowed Miss Dorothy.

"I'll bring him down and we'll show him."

"And I do so hope he'll like it."

"Of course, he'll like it!" cried Daniel Burton. "You wait and see."

But she did not see. She was not there to see.

Promptly at nine o'clock Daniel Burton appeared at the winding-room with Keith. But Dorothy Parkman was nowhere in sight. He waited ten, fifteen minutes; then he told Keith the story of the room, and of what they hoped to do there, fuming meanwhile within himself because he had to tell it alone.

But it was not lack of interest that kept Miss Dorothy away. It could not have been; for that very afternoon she sought Daniel Burton out and asked eagerly what his son had said, and how he had taken it. And her eyes shone and her breath quickened at the story Daniel Burton told; and so eager was she to know every little word that had fallen from Keith's lips that she kept Daniel Burton repeating over and over each minute detail.

Yet the next day when Keith and four other blind youths began work in earnest, she never once went near Keith's chair, though she went often to the others, dropping here and there a word of encouragement or a touch of aiding fingers. When night came, however, and she found an opportunity for a few words alone with Daniel Burton, she told him that, in her opinion, Keith had done the best work of the five, and that it was perfectly marvelous the way he was taking hold. And again her eyes sparkled and her breath quickened; and she spent the entire ten minutes talking about Keith to his father. Yet the next day, when the work began again, she still went to the back of every chair but Keith's.

Things happened very rapidly after that. It was not a week before the first long table in the big room was filled with eager workers, and the second one had to be added to take care of the newcomers.

The project was already the talk of the town, and not the least excited and interested of the observers was John McGuire's mother. When the news came of the second table's being added to the equipment of the place, she hurried over to Susan's kitchen without delay— though with the latest poem of her son's as the ostensible excuse.

"It's 'The Stumbling-Block,'" she announced. "He just got it done yesterday, an' I copied it for you. I think it's the best yet," she beamed, handing over a folded paper. "It's kind of long, so don't stop to read it now. Say, is it true? Have they had to put in another table at that blind windin'-room?"

"They have."

"Well, if that ain't the greatest! I think it's just grand. They took my John down there to see the place yesterday. Do you know? That boy is a different bein' since his book an' his writin'. An' he's learnin' to do such a lot of things for himself, an' he's so happy in it! An' he doesn't mind seein' anybody now. An' it's all owin' to your wonderful Keith an' his father. I wouldn't ever have believed it of them."

Susan's chin came up a bit.

"I would. I KNEW. An' I always told you that Daniel Burton was a superlative man in every way, an' his son's jest like him. Only you wouldn't believe me."

"Nobody'd believe you," maintained Mrs. McGuire spiritedly. "Nobody'd believe such a thing could be as my John bein' changed like that—an' all those others down to the windin'-room, too. They say it's perfectly marvelous what Keith an' his father are doin' with those men an' boys. Aren't they awful happy over it—Keith an' his father, I mean?"

"Daniel Burton is. Why, he's like a different man, Mis' McGuire. You'd know that, jest to see him walk, an' hear him speak. An' I don't hear nothin' more about his longin' to get over there. I guess he thinks he's got work enough to do right here. An' he hardly ever touches his war maps these days."

"But ain't Keith happy, too?"

"Y-yes, an' no," hesitated Susan, her face clouding a little. "Oh, he's gone into it heart an' soul; an' while he's workin' on somethin' he's all right. But when it's all quiet, an' he's settin' alone, I don't like the look on his face. But I know he's glad to be helpin' down there; an' I know it's helpin' him, too."

"It's helpin' everybody—not forgettin' Miss Dorothy Parkman," added Mrs. McGuire, with a smile and a shrug, as she rose to go. "But, then, of course, we all know what she's after."

"After! What do you mean?"

"Susan Betts!" With a jerk Mrs. McGuire faced about. "It ain't possible, with eyes in your head, that you hain't seen!"

"Seen what?"

"Well, my lan'! With that girl throwin' herself at Daniel Burton's head for the last six weeks, an' you calmly set there an' ask 'seen what?'!"

"Daniel Burton—Dorothy Parkman!" There was no mistaking Susan's dumfounded amazement.

"Yes, Daniel Burton an' Dorothy Parkman. Oh, I used to think it was Keith; but when the money came to old Daniel I guess she thought he wasn't so old, after all. Besides, Keith, with his handicap—you couldn't blame the girl, after all, I s'pose."

"Daniel Burton an' Dorothy Parkman!" repeated Susan, this time with the faintness of stupefaction.

"Why, Susan, you must've seen it—her runnin' in here every day, walkin' home with him, an' talk, talk, talkin' to him every chance she gets!"

"But, they—they've been makin' plans for—for the work," murmured Susan.

"Work! Well, I guess it no need to've taken quite so many consultations for just the work. Besides, she never thought of such a scheme as this before the money came, did she? Not much she did! Oh, come, Susan, wake up! She'll be walkin' off with him right under your nose if you don't look out," finished Mrs. McGuire with a sly laugh, as she took her departure.

Left alone, Susan sat for some time absorbed in thought, a deep frown on her face; then with a sigh and a shrug, as if throwing off an incomprehensible burden, she opened the paper Mrs. McGuire had left with her.

Once, twice, three times she read the verses; then with a low chuckle she folded up the paper, tucked it into her apron pocket, and rose to her feet. A minute later she had attacked the pile of dishes in the sink, and was singing lustily:

"I've taken my worries, an' taken my woes, I have, I have, An' shut 'em up where nobody knows, I have, I have. I chucked 'em down, that's what I did, An' now I'm sittin' upon the lid, An' we'll all feel gay when Johnny comes marchin' home. I'm sittin' upon the lid, I am, Hurrah! Hurrah! I'm tryin' to be a little lamb, Hurrah! Hurrah! But I'm feelin' more like a great big slam Than a nice little peaceful woolly lamb, But we'll all feel gay when Johnny comes marchin' home."



CHAPTER XXXII

THE KEY

There was no work at the winding-room Saturday afternoons, and it was on Saturday afternoon that Susan found Keith sitting idle-handed in his chair by the window in the living-room.

As was her custom she spoke the moment she entered the room—but not before she had noted the listless attitude and wistful face of the youth over by the window.

"Keith, I've been thinkin'."

"Bad practice, Susan—sometimes," he laughed whimsically.

"Not this time."

"Poetry?"

She shook her head.

"No. I ain't poetizin' so much these days, though I did write one yesterday—about the ways of the world. I'm goin' to read it to you, too, by an' by. But that's jest a common poem about common, every-day folks. An' this thing I was thinkin' about was—was diff'rent."

"And so you couldn't put this into a poem—eh?"

Susan shook her head again and sighed.

"No. An' it's been that way lots o' times lately, 'specially since I seen John McGuire's poems—so fine an' bumtious! Oh, I have the perspiration to write, lots o' times, an' I yield up to it an' write. But somehow, when it's done, I hain't said a mite what I want to, an' I hain't said it the way I want to, either. I think maybe havin' so many of 'em disinclined by them editors has made me kinder fearsome."

"I'm afraid it has, Susan," he smiled.

"Now, this afternoon, what I was thinkin' about—once I'd've made a poem of that easy; but to-day I didn't even try. I KNEW I couldn't do it. An', say, Keith, it was you I was thinkin' about."

"Heavens, Susan! A poem out of me? No wonder your muse balked! I'm afraid you'd find even—er—perspiration wouldn't make a poem out of me."

"Keith, do you remember?" Susan was still earnest and preoccupied. "I told you once that it didn't make no diff'rence if God had closed the door of your eyes. He'd open up another room to you sometime, an' give you the key to unlock the door. An' he has. An' now you've got it— that key."

"I've got it—the key!"

"Yes. It's that work down there—helpin' them blind men an' boys to get hold of their souls again. Oh, Keith, don't you see? An' it's such a big, wide room that God has given you, an' it's all yours. There ain't no one that can help them poor blind soldiers like you can. An' you couldn't 'a' done it if the door of your eyes hadn't been shut first. That was what give you the key to this big, beautiful room of helpin' our boys what's come back to us, blinded, an' half-crazed with despair an' discouragement. Oh, if I only could make you see it the way I do! But I can't say it—the right way. There's such a big, beautiful idea there, if only I could make you see it. That's why I wanted to write the poem."

"I can see it, Susan—without the poem." Keith was not smiling now. His face was turned away and his voice had grown a bit unsteady. "And I'm glad you showed it to me. It's going to help me a whole lot if—if I'll just keep remembering that key, I think."

Susan threw a quick look into Keith's averted face, then promptly she reached for the folded paper in her apron pocket.

There were times when Susan was wise beyond her station as to when the subject should be changed.

"An' now I'm goin' to read you the poem I did write," she announced briskly—"about every-day folks—diff'rent kinds of folks. Six of 'em. It shows that there ain't any one anywhere that's really satisfied with their lot, when you come right down to it, whether they've got eyes or not."

And she began to read:

THE WAY OF THE WORLD

A beggar girl on the curbstone sat, All ragged an' hungry-eyed. Across the street came Peggy McGee; The beggar girl saw an' sighed.

"I wish'd I was rich—as rich as she, For she has got things to eat; An' clo's an' shoes, an' a place to live, An' she don't beg in the street."

When Peggy McGee the corner turned, SHE climbed to her garret high From there she gazed through curtainless panes At hangin's of lace near by.

"Ah, me!" sighed Peggy. "If I had those An' rugs like hers on the floor, It seems to me that I'd never ask For nothin' at all no more."

. . . . .

From out those curtains that selfsame day, Looked a face all sour an' thin. "I hate to live on this horrid street, In the children's yellin' din!

"An' where's the good of my nice new things, When nobody'll see or know? I really think that I ought to be A-livin' in Rich Man's Row."

A carriage came from "Rich Man's Row," An' rumbled by to the park. A lady sat on the carriage seat; "Oh, dear," said she, "what an ark!

"If only this coach could show some style, My clothes, so shabby, would pass. Now there's an auto quite my kind— But 'tisn't my own—alas!"

The "auto" carried a millionaire, Whose brow was knotted an' stern. "A million is nowhere, now," thought he, "That's somethin' we all must learn.

"It's millions MANY one has to have, To be in the swim at all. This tryin' to live when one is so poor Is really all folderol!"

. . . . .

A man of millions was just behind; The beggar was passin' by. Business at beggin' was good that day, An' the girl was eatin' pie.

The rich man looked, an' he groaned aloud, An' swore with his gouty pain. "I'd give my millions, an' more beside, Could I eat like that again!"

"Now, ain't that jest like folks?" Susan demanded, as she finished the last verse.

Keith laughed.

"I suspect it is, Susan. And—and, by the way, I shouldn't wonder if this were quite the right time to show that I'm no different from other folks. You see, I, too,—er—am going to make a change—in living."

"A change in living! What do you mean?"

"Oh, not now—not quite yet. But you see I'VE been doing some thinking, too. I've been thinking that if father—that is, WHEN father and Miss Parkman are married—that—"

But Susan interrupted with a groan.

"My sakes, Keith, have you seen it, too?"

Keith laughed embarrassedly.

"To be sure I have! You don't have to have eyes to see that, do you, Susan?"

"Oh, good lan', I don't know," frowned Susan irritably. "I didn't s'pose—-"

She did not finish her sentence, and after a moment's silence Keith began again to speak.

"I've been talking a little to David Patch—the superintendent, you know. We're going to take the whole house where we are, for our work, pretty quick, and when we do, Patch and his wife will come there to live upstairs; and they'll take me to board. I asked them. Then I'll be right there handy all the time, you see, which will be a fine arrangement all around."

"A fine arrangement, indeed—with you 'way off down there, an' livin' with David Patch!"

"But, Susan," argued Keith, a bit wearily, "I couldn't be living here, you know."

"I should like to know why not."

"Because I—couldn't." He had grown very white now. "Besides, I—I think they would be happier without me here; and I know—I should be." His voice was low and almost indistinct, but Susan heard—and understood. "The very fact that once I—I thought—that I was foolish enough to think—But, of course, as soon as I remembered my blindness —And to tie a beautiful young girl down to—" He stopped short and pulled himself up. "Susan, are you still there?"

"I'm right here, Keith." Susan spoke constrainedly.

He gave an embarrassed laugh. A painful red had suffused his face.

"I'm afraid I got to talking—and forgetting that I wasn't—alone," he stumbled on hurriedly. "I—I meant to go on to say that I hoped they'd be very happy. Dad deserves it; and—and if they'd only hurry up and get it over with, it—it would be easier—for me. Not that it matters, of course. Dad has had an awful lot to put up with me already, as it is, you know—the trouble, the care, and the disappointment. You see, I—I was going to make up to him for all he had lost. I was going to be Jerry and Ned and myself, all in a bunch. And now to turn out to be nothing—and worse than nothing—-"

"Keith Burton, you stop!" It was the old imperious Susan back again. "You stop right where you be. An' don't you never let me hear you say another word about your bein' a disappointment. Jerry an' Ned, indeed! I wonder if you think a dozen Jerrys an' Neds could do what you've done! An' no matter what they done, they couldn't have done a bigger, splendider thing than you've done in triumphating over your blindness the way you've done, nor one that would make your father prouder of you! An' let me tell you another thing, Keith Burton. No matter what you done—no matter how many big pictures you painted, or big books you wrote, or how much money you made for your dad; there ain't anything you could've done that would do him so much solid good as what you have done."

"Why, Susan, are you wild? I haven't done a thing, not a thing for dad."

"Yes, you have. You've done the biggest thing of all by NEEDIN' him."

"Needing him!"

"Yes. Keith Burton, look at your father now. Look at the splendid work he's doin'. You know as well as I do that he used to be a thoroughly insufficient, uncapacious man (though I wouldn't let anybody else say it!), putterin' over a mess of pictures that wouldn't sell for a nickel. An' that he used to run from anything an' everything that was unpropitious an' disagreeable, like he was bein' chased. Well, then you was took blind. An' what happened?

"You know what happened. He came right up an' toed the mark like a man an' a gentleman. An' he's toed it ever since. An' I can tell you that the pictures he's paintin' now with his tongue for them poor blind boys to see is bigger an' better than any pictures he could have painted with—with his pigmy paints if he worked on 'em for a thousand years. An' it's YOU that's done it for him, jest by needin' him. So there!"

And before Keith could so much as open his lips, Susan was gone, slamming the door behind her.



CHAPTER XXXIII

AND ALL ON ACCOUNT OF SUSAN

Not one wink did Susan Betts sleep that night. To Susan her world was tumbling about her ears in one dizzy whirl of destruction.

Daniel Burton and Dorothy Parkman married and living there, and her beloved blind boy banished to a home with one David Patch? Unthinkable! And yet—-

Well, if it had got to be, it had got to be, she supposed—the marriage. But they might at least be decent about it. As for keeping that poor blind boy harrowed up all the time and prolonging the agony —well, at least she could do something about THAT, thank goodness! And she would, too.

When there was anything that Susan could do—particularly in the line of righting a wrong—she lost no time in doing it. Within two days, therefore, she made her opportunity, and grasped it. A little peremptorily she informed Miss Dorothy Parkman that she would like to speak to her, please, in the kitchen. Then, tall, and cold, and very stern, she faced her.

"Of course, I understand, Miss Dorothy, I'm bustlin' in where I hain't no business to. An' I hain't no excuse to offer except my boy, Keith. It's for him I'm askin' you to do it."

"To do—what, Susan?" She had changed color slightly, as she asked the question.

"Not let it be seen so plain—the love-makin'."

"Seen! Love-making!" gasped the girl.

"Well, the talkin' to him, then, an' whisperin', an' consultin's, an' runnin' here every day, an'—-"

"I beg your pardon, Susan," interrupted the girl incisively. She had grown very white. "I am tempted to make no sort of reply to such an absurd accusation; but I'm going to say, however, that you must be laboring under some mistake. I do not come here to see Mr. Keith Burton, and I've scarcely exchanged a dozen words with him for months."

"I'm talkin' about Mr. Daniel, not Keith, an'—-"

"Mr. DANIEL Burton!"

"Of course! Who else?" Susan was nettled now, and showed it. "I don't s'pose you'll deny runnin' here to see him, an' talkin' to him, an'—- "

"No, no, wait!—wait! Don't say any more, PLEASE!" The girl was half laughing, half crying, and her face was going from white to red and back to white again. "Am I to understand that I am actually being accused of—of running after Mr. Daniel Burton?—of—of love-making toward HIM?" she choked incoherently.

"Why, y-yes; that is—er—-"

"Oh, this is too much, too much! First Keith, and now—" She broke off hysterically. "To think that—Oh, Susan, how could you, how could you!" And this time she dropped into a chair and covered her face with her hands. But she was laughing. Very plainly she was laughing.

Susan frowned, stared, and frowned again.

"Then you ain't in love with—" Suddenly her face cleared, and broke into a broad smile. "Well, my lan', if that ain't the best joke ever! Of course, you ain't in love with him! I don't believe I ever more 'n half believed it, anyway. Now it'll be dead easy, an' all right, too."

"But—but what does it all mean?" stammered the girl.

"Why, it's jest that—that everybody thought you was after him, an't would be a match—you bein' together so much. But even then I wouldn't have said a thing if it hadn't been for Keith."

"Keith!"

"Yes—poor boy, he—an' it WAS hard for him, seein' you two together like this, an' thinkin' you cared for each other. An' he'd got his plans all made how when you was married he'd go an' live with David Patch."

"David Patch! But—why?"

"Why, don't you see? 'T wouldn't be very easy to see you married to another man, would it?—an' lovin' you all the time hisself, an'—"

"LOVING ME!"

"That's what I said." Susan's lips came sharply together and her keen eyes swept the girl's face.

"But, I—I think you must be mistaken—again," faltered the girl, growing rosy.

"I ain't. I've always suspicioned it, an' now I know it."

"But, he—he's acted as if he didn't care for me at all—as if he hated me."

"That's because he cared so much."

"Nonsense, Susan!"

"'T ain't nonsense. It's sense. As I told you, I've always suspicioned it, an' last Saturday, when I heard him talk, I knew. He as good as owned it up, anyhow."

"But why didn't he—he tell me?" stammered the girl, growing still more rosy.

"Because he was blind."

"As if I'd minded—-" She stopped abruptly and turned away her face.

Susan drew a resolute breath and squared her shoulders.

"Then why don't you do somethin'?" she demanded.

"Do something?"

"Yes, to—to show him that you don't mind."

"Oh, Susan, I—I couldn't do—that."

"All right. Settle back, then, an' do nothin'; an' he'll settle back an' do nothin', an' there'll be a pretty pair of you, eatin' your hearts out with love for each other, an' passin' each other by with converted faces an' highbrow chins; an' all because you're afraid of offendin' Mis' Grundy, who don't care no more about you than two sticks. But I s'pose you'd both rather be miserable than brace up an' defy the properties an' live long an' be happy ever after."

"But if I could be sure he—cared," spoke the girl, in a faint little voice.

"You would have been, if you'd seen him Saturday, as I did."

"And if—-"

"If—if—if!" interrupted Susan impatiently. "An' there that poor blind boy sets an' thinks an' thinks an' thinks, an' longs for some one that loves him to smooth his pillow an' rumple his hair, an'—-"

"Susan, I'm going to do it. I'M GOING TO DO IT!" vowed the girl, springing to her feet, her eyes like stars, her cheeks like twin roses.

"Do what?" demanded Susan.

"I don't know. But, I'm going to do SOMETHING. Anyhow, whatever I do I know I'm going to—to defy the 'properties,'" she babbled deliriously, as she hurried from the room, looking very much as if she were trying to hide from herself.

Four days later, Keith, in his favorite chair, sat on the south piazza. It was an April day, but it was like June, and the window behind him was wide open into the living-room. He did not hear Dorothy Parkman's light step up the walk. He did not know that she had paused at sight of him sitting there, and had put her hand to her throat, and then that she had almost run, light-footed, into the house, again very much as if she were trying to run away from herself. But he did hear her voice two minutes later, speaking just inside the window.

At the first sentence he tried to rise, then with a despairing gesture as if realizing that flight would be worse than to remain where he was, he sat back in his chair. And this is what he heard Dorothy Parkman say:

"No, no, Mr. Burton, please—I—I can't marry you. You'll have to understand. No—don't speak, don't say anything, please. There's nothing you could say that—that would make a bit of difference. It's just that I—I don't love you and I do—love somebody else—Keith, your son—yes, you have guessed it. Oh, yes, I know we don't seem to be much to each other, now. But—but whether we ever are, or not, there can't ever be—any one else. And I think—he cares. It's just that—that his pride won't let him speak. As if his dear eyes didn't make me love him—

"But I mustn't say all this—to you. It's just that—that I wanted you to surely—understand. And—and I must go, now. I—must—go!"

And she went. She went hurriedly, a little noisily. She shut one door, and another; then, out on the piazza, she came face to face with Keith Burton.

"Dorothy, oh, Dorothy—I heard!"

And then it was well, indeed, that the Japanese screen on the front piazza was down, for Keith stood with his arms outstretched, and Dorothy, with an ineffably contented little indrawn breath, walked straight into them. And with that light on his face, she would have walked into them had he been standing in the middle of the sidewalk outside.



To Dorothy at that moment nobody in all the world counted for a feather's weight except the man who was holding her close, with his lips to hers.

Later, a little later, when they sat side by side on the piazza settee, and when coherence and logic had become attributes to their conversation, Keith sighed, with a little catch in his voice:

"The only thing I regret about this—all this—the only thing that makes me feel cheap and mean, is that I've won where dad lost out. Poor old dad!"

There was the briefest of pauses, then a small, subdued voice said:

"I—I suspect, Keith, confession is good for the soul."

"Well?" he demanded in evident mystification.

"Anyhow, I—I'll have to do it. Your father wasn't there at all."

"But I heard you speaking to him, my dear."

She shook her head, and stole a look into his face, then caught her breath with a little choking sob of heartache because he could not see the love she knew was in her eyes. But the heartache only nerved her to say the words that almost refused to come. "He—he wasn't there," she repeated, fencing for time.

"But who was there? I heard you call him by name, 'Mr. Burton,' clearly, distinctly. I know I did."

"But—but he wasn't there. Nobody was there. I—I was just talking to myself."

"You mean—practicing what you were going to say?" questioned Keith doubtfully. "And that—that he doesn't know yet that you are going to refuse him?"

"N-no—er—well, yes. That is, I mean, it's true. He—he doesn't know I am going to refuse him." There was a hint of smothered laughter in the girl's voice.

"Dorothy!" The arm about her waist perceptibly loosened and almost fell away. "Why, I don't feel now that—that you half belong to me, yet. And—and think of poor dad!"

The girl caught her breath and stole another look into his face.

"But, Keith, you—you don't understand. He—he hasn't proposed to me yet. That is, I mean," she amended hastily, "he—he isn't going to propose to me—ever."

"But he was. He—cares. And now he'll have to know about—us."

"But he wasn't—he doesn't. You don't understand, Keith. He—he never thought of—of proposing to me. I know he didn't."

"Then why—what—Dorothy, what do you mean by all this?"

"Why, it's just that—that is—I—oh, Keith, Keith, why will you make me tell you?" she cried between hysterical little laughs and sobs. "And yet—I'd have to tell you, of course. I—I knew you were there on the porch, and—and I knew you'd hear—what I said. And so, to make you understand—oh, Keith, it was awful, but I—I pretended that—-"

"You—darling!" breathed an impassioned voice in her ear. "Oh, how I love you, love you—for that!"

"Oh, but, Keith, it really was awful of me," she cried, blushing and laughing, as she emerged from his embrace. "Susan told me to defy the 'properties' and—and I did it."

"Susan!"

She nodded.

"That's how I knew—for sure—that you cared."

"And so I owe it all—even my—er—proposal of marriage, to Susan," he bantered mischievously.

"Keith, I did NOT—er—it was not a proposal of marriage."

"No? But you're going to marry me, aren't you?"

Her chin came up.

"I—I shall wait till I'm asked," she retorted with dignity.

"Hm-m; well, I reckon it's safe to say you'll be asked. And so I owe it all to Susan. Well, it isn't the first good thing I've owed to her —bless her heart! And she's equal to 'most anything. But I'll wager, in this case, that even Susan had some stunt to perform. How did she do it?"

"She told me that you—you thought your father and I cared for each other, and that—that you cared for me; but that you were very brave and were going to go away, and—leave us to our happiness. Then, when she found there was nothing to the other part of it, and that I—I cared for you, she—well, I don't know how she did it, but she said— well, I did it. That's all."

Keith chuckled.

"Exactly! You couldn't have described it better. We've always done what Susan wanted us to, and we never could tell why. We—we just did it. That's all. And, oh, I'm so glad you did this, little girl, so glad!"

"Yes, but—-" She drew away from him a little, and her voice became severely accusing. "Keith Burton, you—you should have done it yourself, and you know it."

He shook his head.

"I couldn't." A swift shadow fell like a cloud over his countenance. "Darling, even now—Dorothy, do you fully realize what you are doing? All your life to be tied—-"

"Hush!" Her finger was on his lips only to be kissed till she took it away. "I won't let you talk like that a minute—not a single minute! But, Keith, there is something I want you to say." Her voice was half pleading, half whimsical. Her eyes, through her tears, were studying his face, turned partly away from her. "Confession is good for the soul."

"Well? Anything more?" He smiled faintly.

"Yes; only this time it's you. YOU'VE got to do it."

"I?"

"Yes." Her voice rang with firm decision. "Keith, I want to know why— why all this time you've acted so—so that I had to find out through Susan that you—cared. And I want to know—when you stopped hating me. And—-"

"Dorothy—I never, never hated you!" cut in the man passionately.

"But you acted as if you did. Why, you—you wouldn't let me come near you, and you were so—angry with me."

"Yes, I—know." The man fell back in his chair and was silent.

There was a long minute of waiting.

"Keith."

"Yes, dear."

"I confessed mine, and yours can't be any harder than—mine was."

Still he hesitated; then, with a long breath he began to speak.

"Dorothy, it—it's just that I've had so much to fight. And—it hasn't been easy. But, listen, dear. I think I've loved you from away back in the days when you wore your hair in two thick pigtails down your back. You know I was only fourteen when—when the shadows began to come. One day, away back then, I saw you shudder once at—blindness. We were talking about old Joe Harrington. And I never forgot it."

"But it was only because I pitied him."

"Yes; but I thought then that it was more aversion. You said you couldn't bear to look at them. And you see I feared, even then, that I was going to be like old Joe some time."

"Oh, Keith!"

"Well, it came. I was like old Joe—blind. And I knew that I was the object of curiosity and pity, and, I believed, aversion, wherever I went. And, oh, I so hated it! I didn't want to be stared at, and pointed out, and pitied. I didn't want to be different. And above all I didn't want to know that you were turning away from me in aversion and disgust."

"Oh, Keith, Keith, as if I ever could!" faltered the girl.

"I thought you could—and would. I used to picture you all in the dark, as I used to see you with your bright eyes and pretty hair, and I could see the look on your face as you turned away shuddering. That's when I determined at all costs to keep out of your sight—until I should be well again. I was going to be well, of course, then, you know. Well, in time I went West, and on the way I met—Miss Stewart."

"Yes." Dorothy's voice was not quite steady.

"I liked Miss Stewart. She was wonderfully good to me. At first—at the very first—she gave me quite a start. Her voice sounded so much like—Dorothy Parkman's. But very soon I forgot that, and just gave myself up to the enjoyment of her companionship. I wasn't afraid with her—that her eyes were turned away in aversion and disgust. Some way, I just knew that she wasn't like—Dorothy Parkman. You see, I hadn't forgotten Dorothy. Some day I was going back to her—seeing.

"Well, you know what happened—the operations, the specialists, the years of waiting, the trip to London, then home, hopelessly blind. It was not easy then, Dorothy, but—I tried to be a man. Most of all I felt for—dad. He'd had so many hopes—But, never mind; and, anyhow, what Susan said the other day helped—But this has nothing to do with you, dear. To go on: I gave you up then definitely. I know that all the while I'd been having you back in my mind, young as I was—that some day I was going to be big and strong and rich and have my eyes; and that then I was going to ask you to marry me. But when I got home, hopelessly blind, that ended it. I didn't believe you would have me, anyway; but even if you would, I wasn't going to give you the chance of always having to turn away in aversion and disgust from the sight of your husband."

"Oh, Keith, how could you!"

"I couldn't. But you see how I felt. Then, one day I heard Miss Stewart's voice in the hall, and, oh, how good it sounded to me! I think I must have caught her hand very much as the drowning man grasps at the straw. SHE would never turn away from me! With her I felt safe, happy, and at peace. I don't think I exactly understood my state of mind myself. I didn't think I was in love with her, yet with her I was happy, and I was never afraid.

"But I didn't have a chance long to question. Almost at once came the day when Mazie Sanborn ran up the steps and spoke—to you. And I knew. My whole world seemed tumbling to destruction in one blinding crash. You can never know, dear, how utterly dismayed and angry and helpless I felt. All that I knew was that for months and months I had let Dorothy Parkman read to me, play with me, and talk to me—that I had been eager to take all the time she would give me; when all the while she had been doing it out of pity, of course, and I could see just how she must have been shuddering and turning away her eyes all the long, long weeks she had been with me, at different times. But even more than that, if possible, was the chagrin and dismay with which I realized that all the while I had been cheated and deceived and made a fool of, because I was blind, and could not see. I had been tricked into putting myself in such a position."

"No, no! You didn't understand," protested the girl.

"Of course, I didn't understand, dear. Nobody who is blinded with rage and hurt pride can understand—anything, rightly."

"But you wouldn't let me explain afterwards."

"No, I didn't want you to explain. I was too sore, too deeply hurt, too—well, I couldn't. That's all. Besides, I didn't want you to know —how much I was caring about it all. So, a little later, when I did see you, I tried to toss it all off lightly, as of no consequence whatever."

"Well, you—succeeded," commented Dorothy dryly.

"I had to, you see. I had found out then how much I really did care. I knew then that somehow you and Miss Stewart were hopelessly mixed up in my heart, and that I loved you, and that the world without you was going to be one big desert of loneliness and longing. You see, it had not been so hard to give you up in imagination; but when it came to the real thing—-"

"But, Keith, why—why did you insist that you must?"

"Do you think I'd ask you or anybody to tie yourself to a helpless creature who would probably finally end up on a street corner with a tin cup for pennies? Besides, in your case, I had not forgotten the shudders and the averted eyes. I still was so sure—-

"Then John McGuire came home blind; and after a while I found I could help him. And, Dorothy, then is when I learned that—that perhaps YOU were as happy in doing things for me as I had been in doing them for John McGuire. I sort of forgot the shudders and the averted eyes then. Besides, along about that time we had got back to almost our old friendliness—the friendliness and companionship of Miss Stewart and me. Then the money came and I knew that at least I never should have to ask you to subsist on what the tin cup of pennies could bring! And I had almost begun to—to actually plan, when all of a sudden you stopped coming, right off short."

"But I—I went away," defended the girl, a little faintly.

"Not at once. You were here in town a long time after that. I knew because I used to hear about you. I was sure then that—that you had seen I was caring for you, and so you stayed away. Besides, it came back to me again—my old fear of your pity and aversion, of your eyes turned away. You see, always, dear, that's been a sort of obsession with me, I guess. I hate to feel that any one is looking at me— watching me. To me it seems like spying on me because I—I can't look back. Yes, I know it's all very foolish and very silly; but we are all foolish and silly over something. It's because of that feeling that I —I so hate to enter a room and know that some one is there who won't speak—who tries to cheat me into thinking I am alone. I—I can't bear it, Dorothy. Just because I can't see them—"

"I know, I know," nodded the girl. "Well, in December you went away. Oh, I knew when you went. I knew a lot of things that YOU didn't know I knew. But I was trying all those days to put you quite out of my mind, and I busied myself with John McGuire and told myself that I was satisfied with my work; that I had put you entirely out of my life.

"Then you came back in February, and I knew I hadn't. I knew I loved you more than ever. Just at first, the very first, I thought you had come back to me. Then I saw—that it was dad. After that I tried—oh, you don't know how hard I tried—to kill that wicked love in my heart. Why, darling, nothing would have hired me to let you see it then. Let dad know that his loving you hurt me? Fail dad there, as I had failed him everywhere else? I guess not! This was something I COULD do. I could let him have you, and never, never let him know. So I buried myself in work and tried to—forget.

"Then to-day you came. At the first sound of your voice in there, when I realized what you were saying (to dad, I supposed), I started up and would have gone. Then I was afraid you would see me pass the window, and that it would be worse if I went than if I stayed. Besides, right away I heard words that made me so weak with joy and amazement that my knees bent under me and I had to sit down. And then—but you know the rest, dear."

"Yes, I know the rest; and I'll tell you, some time, why I—I stopped coming last fall."

"All right; but even that doesn't matter to me now; for now, in spite of my blind eyes, the way looks all rosy ahead. Why, dear, it's like the dawn—-the dawn of a new day. And I used to so love the dawn! You don't know, but years ago, with dad, I'd go camping in the woods, and sometimes we'd stay all night on the mountain. I loved that, for in the morning we'd watch the sun come up and flood the world with light. And it seemed so wonderful, after the dark! And it's like that with me to-day, dear. It's my dawn—the dawn of a new day. And it's so wonderful—after the dark!"

"Oh, Keith, I'm so glad! And, listen, dear. It's not only dawn for you, but for all those blind boys down there that you are helping. You have opened their eyes to the dawn of THEIR new day. Don't you see?"

Keith drew in his breath with a little catch.

"Have I? Do you think I have? Oh, I should like to think—that. I don't know, of course, about them. But I do know about myself. And I know it's the most wonderful dawn ever was for me. And I know that with your little hand in mine I'll walk fearlessly straight on, with my chin up. And now that I know dad doesn't care, and that he isn't going to be unhappy about my loving you and your loving me, I haven't even that to fear."

"And, oh, Keith, think, think what it would have been if—if I hadn't defied the 'properties,'" she faltered mistily.

"Dear old Susan—bless her heart! And that isn't all I owe her. Something she said the other day made me hope that maybe I hadn't even quite failed—dad. And I so wanted to make good—for dad!"

"And you've done it, Keith."

"But maybe he—he doesn't think so."

"But he does. He told me."

"He TOLD you!"

"Yes—last night. He said that once he had great plans for you, great ambitions, but that he never dreamed he could be as proud of you as he is right now—what you had done for yourself, and what you were doing for those boys down there."

"Did dad say that?"

"Yes."

"And to think of my having that, and you, too!" breathed the man, his arm tightening about her.

THE END