"Why," laughed Peter uncomfortably, "please don't even think of thanking me. I——"

"And," nervously pursued the rector, sparring for time, "I want to let you know how much we are still enjoying the delicious vegetables you so generously provided. I did relish that squash. If I were obliged to say offhand what my favourite vegetable is, I——"

"Pardon me," interposed Peter, his glance straying past the rector and resting with swift concern upon Mrs. Batholommey's quivering expanse of face, "but is anything distressing you, Mrs. Ba——?"

"No, no!" interjected the rector with break-neck haste.

"No, no!" responded Mrs. Batholommey in the same breath.

A half inaudible growl from Dr. McPherson completed the triple chord of negation. A chord so explosive, so crassly out of keeping with the simple question that evoked it that Grimm stared amazed from one of the trio to another.

Willem, strolling from his retreat, crossed to the table, picked up a picture book, and in leisurely fashion mounted with it to the gallery landing that overlooked the room. There he threw himself on a settee between the bedroom doors and opened the book at random.

His lower lip quivered ever so little and his blue eyes were big with a troubled wonder. From time to time his glance would stray from the gaudy pages of the picture book down to Grimm in the room below. And each time the wonder in his eyes became tinged with a new sorrow.

Meantime, Peter Grimm's look of questioning, perplexed sympathy toward her tumult ridden self was becoming far too much for Mrs. Batholommey's jellylike self-control. The jelly began to quake—quite visibly.

"I was afraid," Peter went on kindly, "that something unpleasant might have happened. And I hoped perhaps I might be able——"

"Oh, no! No, no, no!" denied the utterly flustered woman. "I—I hope you are feeling well, Mr. Grimm. No—no—I don't mean that. I—I don't mean that I hope you are well. Of course not. I—that is——"

"Of course she hopes it," boomed her husband, coming to the rescue with heavy and uncertain cheeriness that rang as false as the ring of a leaden dollar. "And of course all of us hope it, dear Mr. Grimm. With all our hearts. And we wish you many, many years of life and——"

"Oh, indeed we do," chimed in Mrs. Batholommey. "And, as Dr. McPherson just said, there may perhaps be no reason,—with proper care—why you shouldn't——"

"A blundering rector must be put up with because of his cloth. But when it comes to a blundering rectorette, there ought to be a line drawn!"

It was McPherson who said it. He addressed no one, but seemed to be confining his heretical sentiments to the window seat. Also he spoke in a gruff undertone—that filled the room like far off thunder.

Peter Grimm flung himself into the breach, even before the wave of outraged red could gush to Mrs. Batholommey's shaking visage.

"Will you—will you have a glass of plum brandy?" he asked her, and then caught himself with the scared grin of a very guilty schoolboy.

"I thank you," she retorted, safe for the moment in the full majesty of Temperance. "I do not take such things. Perhaps you forget I am the President of our local W. C. T. U. and the——"

"The Little Brothers of the Artesian Well," added Grimm, "or whatever they call it. I remember. And I'm sorry. I wouldn't tempt you from your principles for the world. Forgive me. How about you, Pastor? A little drop of plum brandy, for—for—let's see, what is it St. Paul says about——?"

"Thank you, no," declined the rector, with an apprehensive gesture towards his wife.

"Oh, come, come!" urged Peter hospitably. "Why, the other evening when you dropped over here after the vespers, sir, you——"

"I only use it when absolutely needful for medicinal purposes," insisted the rector hurriedly. "Not to-day, I thank you."

"I believe," said Peter irrelevantly, "that St. Paul was a single man, was he not, Pastor?"



"I—I believe so. It is not definitely known. But why?"

"I was only wondering," mused Peter, "how he would have accounted to St. Pauline, or whatever his wife's name would have been, for what he wrote in favour of 'a little wine for—'"

"Oh," explained Mrs. Batholommey, still safe, and ever feeling safer, now that temperance was again the theme, "St. Paul referred to unfermented wine, you know. Every one ought to understand that. It is so hard to make people see the difference."

"One bottle would convince them," said Peter very gravely.

"No," Mrs. Batholommey corrected him with serene loftiness. "You do not quite get my point, dear Mr. Grimm. For instance, when the poets,—even good men like the late Mr. Longfellow and Mr. Whittier—speak of 'wine,' they use the word of course in its poetical sense. They use it merely to typify——"

"Booze," growled McPherson.

"Good cheer," amended Mrs. Batholommey, withering him with a single frown. "And yet it is terribly misleading. I remember when we had the Walter Scott Tableaux and Recitations at the church last fall, and old Mr. Bertholf from Pompton was going to recite 'Lochinvar,' I had to suggest a change in the poem, lest the ignorant people in the village might get a wrong impression of dear Sir Walter Scott's principles. You remember the couplet occurs:

"'And now I have come with this lost love of mine To tread one last measure, drink one cup of wine.'

"So I asked Mr. Bertholf to alter the words into something like this:

"'And now I have come with this beautiful maid To tread one last measure,—drink one lemonade.'

"It left the poetry just as beautiful and it took away the dangerous reference to wine. Mr. Bertholf didn't like it very much, I'm afraid. But I insisted, and at last——"

"And at last," snarled McPherson, to whom the thought of any mutilation of his fellow Scotchman's verse was as sacrilege, "and at last, poor Bertholf got so mixed up that he clean forgot the silly rot you'd taught him. And when he came to that part of the poem, he stammered for a second and then blurted out:

"'And now I have come with my lovely lost mate To tread one last measure, drink one whiskey straight.'"

"Yes," blazed Mrs. Batholommey, "and I have always believed you put him up to it."

"Well," shrugged the noncommittal McPherson, "if I had, it would at least be more in keeping with what Sir Walter intended than your straining an immortal poem through a lemon-squeezer."

"Andrew and I," announced Peter, hastening to pour oil on the troubled waters of conversation, by filling two glasses and handing one of them to McPherson, "are going to drink a toast to spooks."

"What?" squealed Mrs. Batholommey, in the accents of a rabbit that has been stepped on.

"To spooks—we——"

"Oh, how can you?" she gasped. "How can you? To spooks! You of all men! The very idea!"

"Mrs. Batholommey!" exclaimed Peter in real alarm, setting down his glass and moving toward her. "Something has happened! You are quite——"

"No, no!" she wailed helplessly.

"It is nothing, Mr. Grimm," soothed the rector. "Nothing at all, I assure you. My wife is a trifle overwrought this morning. Nothing of any consequence. I mean—that is, of course—we must all keep our spirits up, Mr. Grimm."

"Good Lord, deliver us!" intoned McPherson in mingled fervour and disgust.

"I know what it is," declared Peter with sudden enlightenment. "You've just come from a wedding! That's it! I know. Women love weddings better than anything on earth. They'll talk about it for months beforehand. They'll walk miles to attend one.—And they'll weep all the rest of the day. I don't know why. But they do it. I should be grateful, I suppose, that no women were ever called upon to shed tears at my wedding. But I hope, before so very long——"

Mrs. Batholommey had not in the very least caught the drift of the laughing speech whereby he had sought to put the poor woman at her ease. And now all at once, the last sagging vestige of self-control went from her.

"Oh, Mr. Grimm!" she moaned, breaking in upon his words. "You were always so kind to us. There never was a better, kinder, gentler man in all this world than you were."

"Than I was?" asked Peter bewildered. "Is my character changing or——?"

"No, no!" she corrected herself flounderingly. "I don't mean that. I mean—I meant——"

Her gaze fluttered helplessly about the big room and chanced at last to fall upon the reading boy, asprawl on the gallery bench above them.

"I meant," she plunged along, "what would become of poor little Willem if you——?"

This time her glance was caught and transfixed by McPherson's furious glare, much as a great flopping beetle might be pierced by the sting of a wasp. Mrs. Batholommey prided herself upon her tact. That glare nerved her to another effort.

"You see," she shrilled, wildly and awkwardly clambering out of the slough, "it's fearful he had such a 'M.'"

"Such a 'M'?" queried Peter. "What does that mean?"

With a warning glance toward the absorbed boy she shaped her lips noiselessly into the word "Mother."

"Oh!" said Peter. "I understand. But——"

"She ought to have told Mr. Batholommey or me," went on Mrs. Batholommey, climbing still higher on to solid ground, "who the 'F' was."

"'F'? What does that mean?"

And again the rabbit-like lips shaped themselves into a soundless word, this time 'Father.'

"Oh," grunted Peter, "the word you want isn't 'Father,' but 'Scoundrel!' Whoever he is——"

Willem flung aside his book and leaped to his feet as though his little body were galvanised. The others looked at him in guilty dread, fearing he had heard and had somehow understood their awkwardly veiled allusions to his parentage. But they were mistaken. A sound, far more potent to every normal child's ear than the fiercest thunders of morality, had reached his keen senses as he lounged up there. And a moment later they all heard it.

It was the braying of a distant but steadily approaching brass band. With it came a confused but ever louder medley of shouts, handclapping, raucous voices, and the higher tones of delighted children. As Kathrien came running in at one door, followed by Marta, and Frederik sauntered in from the office, Willem rushed down the stairway and into the window seat, where he sprang upon a chair and craned his neck to see the stretch of village street beyond. Nearer and louder came the music and the attendant vocal Babel.

"It's the circus parade!" shouted Willem. "The one they tell about in the advertisements and pictures on the fences. I didn't know the parade would start so early. There come some of them now. Oh, look! Oom Peter! Look! It's a clown! See! He's coming right toward us!"

The band in full brazen force was discoursing a "Dutch Ditties" waltz as it turned the corner above. And now, the voices of the barkers were heard in the land.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," came the leathern tones of one unseen announcer, "one hour before the big show begins in the main tent we will give a grand free balloon ascension!"

"Remember," adjured a second Unseen, "one price admits you to all parts of the big show!"

"Lemo—lemo—ice cold lemonade—five cents a glass!" shouted a youthful vender.

"You ought to quaff one beaker of it to Sir Walter Scott's memory, Mrs. Batholommey," observed McPherson.

But the din of the oncoming parade drowned his voice. The whole roomful, from Marta down to Willem, were thronging into the bay window. They were all children again. A touch of circus had renewed their youth as by the wave of a magic wand. Willem broke into a cry of utter joy and pointed ecstatically at the open window.

The next moment a clown, white and vermilion of face, clad in the traditional white, black, and scarlet motley of his tribe, had leaped cat-like upon the window sill and swept the room with his painted grin. In his hands he held a great bunch of variegated circus bills. Tossing a half-dozen of these at the feet of the all-absorbed spectators, he cried in high cracked falsetto:

"Well, well, WELL! Here we are again, good people! Billy Miller's Big Show! Larger—greater—grander than ever. Everything new! Come and see the wild animals! Hear the lions roar!"

Wheeling suddenly towards Mrs. Batholommey he pointed a whitened forefinger at her and broke into a truly frightful roar. The good lady jumped at least six inches from the ground.

"Steady, ma'am!" exhorted the clown. "I won't let him bite you! Come one, come all! Come see the diving deer! The human fly, Mademoiselle Zarella!" he added, addressing the rector. "She walks suspended from the ceiling! One ring and no confusion!" he confided to the delightedly smiling Peter. "And all for the price of admission! Remember the grand free exhibition one hour before the big show!"

He paused, catching sight of Willem for the first time. Now, it is a well-grounded tradition in one-ring circus life that no clown stays long in the business or scores a hit in it unless he is genuinely fond of children. Noting the all-absorbing bliss and adoration in Willem's wide eyes, the clown grinned at the boy in right brotherly fashion.

"Howdy!" said he cordially. "Shake!"

Marvelling, overcome with rapture, feeling as though the proffered honour was one far too wonderful to be real, Willem shyly extended his hand and met the friendly grasp of the flour-dusted fingers. The clown, striking an attitude, began in shrill, exaggerated diction, to chant the antiquated "Frog Opera" song:

"Uncle Rat has gone to town,—Ha-H'M! Uncle Rat has gone to town,"

he sang on, addressing Willem,

"To buy his niece a wedding gown."

"Ha-H'M!" intoned Willem, delightedly; laughing aloud as he realised he was actually singing with a real live clown.

"What shall the wedding breakfast be?"

continued the clown, interrogating the equally youthful and delighted Peter Grimm. And this time more voices than Peter's and Willem's caught up the refrain:

"Ha-H'M! Hard-boiled eggs and a cup of tea,"

sang the clown. And again from Willem and the rest came the answering:

"Ha-H'M!"

"Billy Miller's Big Show!" yelled the clown. "Come one, come all! So long, Sonny!"

He was gone. The others came back to earth. But Willem was still in the wonder clouds. It had been to him an experience to rehearse a thousand times, to dream over, to remember forever. Peter Grimm, reading the boy's thoughts as could only a heart that must ever be boyish, beckoned Willem to him, as Kathrien and Marta departed to their interrupted work in the dining-room and the rest looked half ashamed at their momentary excitement over so garish and trivial a thing.

"Willem!" called Grimm.

"Ja, Mynheer," answered the boy, coming slowly, his face still alight with his tremendous adventure of a moment ago.

"Willem," repeated Grimm, "you wouldn't care to go to that circus, would you? Wouldn't it be pretty stupid?"

"Stupid!" gasped the boy. "Oh!"

"Well," said Peter, "suppose you go, then?"

"Go? Really, Mynheer Grimm?"

"Go get the seats," ordered Grimm. "Here's the money. Get two front seats. Two. We'll both go. We'll make a night of it, you and I. We'll stay out till—till ten o'clock!"

The vision of this bliss was too much for Willem's English.

"Ekar, ekar na hat circus!" he babbled dazedly.

Then he rushed up impulsively to Peter and seized the big, kindly hand in both his own.

"Oh, Mynheer Grimm!" he squealed in ecstasy. "There ain't any one else like you in the world. And—and—when the other fellows laugh at your funny hat, I don't."

"What?" asked Grimm, perplexed. "Is my hat funny?"

The boy was vibrant with laughter, drunk with anticipation. But, momentarily straightening his glowing face with a cast of semi-gravity, he said:

"And—and—Mynheer Grimm—it's too bad you've got to die!"



CHAPTER VI

BREAKING THE NEWS

There was an instant of stark, palsied silence. The rector, his wife, and McPherson looked at the all-unconscious boy with dumb horror. A horror that for the time crowded out indignation. Frederik, ignorant as he was of any cause for emotion, was struck by the tense bearing of the trio and looked from one to the other with the air of the only man in the room who does not catch a joke's point.

Peter Grimm alone was not affected by Willem's words. He was used to the child's oddities, his alternating high spirits, and dashes of sadness; his old-fashioned phrases and his queer lapses. Grimm broke the ominous silence with an amused chuckle.

"Most people die, sooner or later, Willem," he answered, stroking the boy's shock of soft yellow hair. "I'll live to see you in the business though. And we'll go to dozens of circuses together, too. Don't worry your little head over your Oom Peter's dying. I——"

He paused. The electrified atmosphere generated by the three conspirators began to reach his non-sensitive brain. A quick glance at Mr. Batholommey and a second at the rector's wife confirmed his vague feeling that something was wrong. He turned back to Willem, in time to intercept a blighting scowl of warning the doctor was trying to flash to the boy.

"Willem," asked Grimm gently, "how did you happen to say such a queer thing just now? What made you think I'm going to die?"

A concerted and unintelligible interruption from the trio was voiced too late to prevent Willem's reply.

"He said so," replied the boy, pointing at McPherson.

Then he caught the doctor's annihilating frown. And, simultaneously the rector cried in stern admonition:

"Willem!"

Mrs. Batholommey, too, was making quite awful and wholly incomprehensible faces at him. Under the triple menace the boy wilted. Like every child, since Cain, he had a thousand times been reproved for things he had said or done in perfect innocence. In fact, the more unconscious the offence, the more dire was the reproof. Children do not reason in such matters. It is enough for them to know they have said or done the wrong thing; without stopping to discover why or how that thing chanced to be wrong.

The non-linguist traveller in a foreign land cannot read the "Keep off the Grass" or "No Thoroughfare" signs. But the policeman's threatening club has a universal language that he understands and intuitively obeys. So Willem (ignorant of death save as an empty name that vaguely carried a note of sorrow, and wholly unaware why he should not have imparted the news of Grimm's coming demise), saw he had said something very terrible. And a look of abject panic came into his face.

But Grimm's hand was still on his head,—gentle, caressing, infinitely tender in its touch.

"No, don't stop the boy," commanded Peter, meeting the variously anguished glances of the others with a half smile that began and ended in the suddenly widened eyes. "Don't stop him. Only children speak the truth nowadays. It used to be 'children and fools.' But fools have learned to tell fool-lies, and they have left children the monopoly of truth telling. Go on, Willem. You heard the doctor say that I am going to——?"

Willem's fragile little body was trembling from head to foot. Under Mrs. Batholommey's distorted glare and threatening noiseless mouthings his puny courage had gone to pieces. Big tears began to roll down his cheeks. And noting the child's terror, Grimm fell to soothing him.

"There, there, jounker," comforted Peter. "Don't let them frighten you. Oom Peter will stand by you. You haven't done anything wrong and nobody's going to scold you. Don't be scared."

Under the strangely gentle voice and the consoling touch of the rough, kindly hand, Willem's fears subsided. With Oom Peter on his side, he could brave the frowns of all Grimm Manor if need be. For who was so strong, so wise as Oom Peter?

Did not every one bend to his orders and come running to him for advice and aid, as troubled children seek out a loving father? The boy ceased to tremble. He looked up into Grimm's face for something that should confirm the words and the touch.

And he found it. The rugged old visage had never before been so kindly, so unruffled. And in the little eyes that could flash so obstinately and irritably, there was nothing but friendliness.

Yes—something more that the boy had never before seen. Something he could not read, but that seemed to draw him strangely close to the old man, and freed him of his last vestige of fear.

"Don't be scared, dear lad," repeated Grimm. "So you heard Dr. McPherson say I am going to die?"

"Yes, sir."

Grimm turned slowly to the doctor, who still stood glowering, red, speechless, furiously miserable.

"Andrew," asked Grimm quietly, "what did you mean?"

Before McPherson could speak, Grimm checked him with a move of the head and glanced down at the boy.

"Never mind just now," said he. "Willem didn't mean any harm in telling me. It just popped out, didn't it, Willem? The only person who never says the wrong thing at the wrong time is a deaf mute whose fingers are paralysed. We'll forget all about it. Now run along, lad, and get those circus tickets before all the best ones are gone. Front row seats, remember. We're going to have the finest sort of a spree, you and I. Hurry now."

"Ja, Oom Peter!" cried the boy, all laughter once more.

He snatched his cap from the rack, in his haste almost upsetting Grimm's antiquated tile that hung beside it; and, with a farewell shout, was gone. His feet padded joyously on the gravel outside; then silence fell again in the big room. It was Mr. Batholommey who broke the spell. Walking solemnly up to Peter, who stood looking with a sort of stunned wistfulness straight in front of him, the rector held out his hand.

"Good-bye, dear brave friend," he said, with an air gruesomely if unconsciously reminiscent of his burial service manner. "Any time you telephone for me, day or night, I'll run over immediately. God bless you, sir!" his rounded voice shaking uncontrollably. "I have never come to you in behalf of any worthy charity and been refused. You have set an example in upright living, in generosity, in true manliness, and in constant church attendance that should be an example to all my vestrymen and to the town at large. I have never seen a nobler man. Never. Good—good-morning."

He moved toward the door, winking very fast and clearing his throat. At the threshold he beckoned to his wife. But she had already borne down upon Peter.

"Mr. Grimm!" she sobbed. "The best—the kindest—the—the—Oh, I don't see how we are going to bear it."

"Dear Mrs. Batholommey," answered Grimm. "Please don't be so overcome. I may outlive you all. Nevertheless, I am grateful to your husband for letting me hear my funeral eulogy in advance, and to you for——"

"Oh, how can you make light of it?" she sobbed. "Yes, dear, I'm coming. Good-bye, Mr. Grimm."

Like a confused and somewhat elderly hen she scuttled off in her husband's wake, while Peter Grimm stared after the two with a half-amused, half-perplexed smile.

"Of all the wall-eyed, semi-anthropoid congenital idiots," roared McPherson as the door closed behind them, "those two are——"

"You're mistaken, Andrew," contradicted Grimm. "They're kind-hearted, good people, who spend their lives and their substance in helping others. If you and they can't get on together it's no one's fault. Any more than because fuchsias and sunflowers won't thrive in the same bed. Now calm down a bit, old friend, and tell me——"

"Nothing! It was nothing. Just nonsense. Don't give it another thought, Peter. You said, yourself, a while ago, that many a man who was given up by the doctors at twenty-five lives to be a hundred. And there is no reason on earth why you——"

"Don't!" urged Grimm. "I don't need that. I——"

"Don't fret yourself, Peter," insisted McPherson. "You mustn't get the idea that you are worse off than you really are. Don't get cold feet or let this thing worry you to death. You must live for——"

"Andrew!" chided Grimm, with tolerant reproof. "Are you so tangled up that you think you're talking to Willem instead of to a full-grown man? If it's got to be, it's got to be. And you were wrong not to tell me at once. That is the way with you doctors. You are so in the habit of dealing with hysterical women and hypochondriacs that you forget that a man is shaped by nature to bear the naked truth without having it rigged up beforehand in a lot of fluff to disguise its shape. I think I understand. I may live a while longer. And I may not. The same thing could be said of every one."

McPherson tried to speak, then turned and made blindly for the door.

"Wait a minute!" called Grimm.

McPherson halted. Peter crossed to where his friend stood. With an effort at his old-time whimsical banter he held out his hand.

"I just want to promise again, Andrew," he said, "that if there's anything in this spook business of yours, I'll come back. And I'll apologise. Good-bye and good luck."

McPherson wrung his hand, without speaking, and strode noisily out.



CHAPTER VII

THE HAND RELAXES

Peter Grimm walked slowly back into the room. He paused at his desk and laid his hand on a sheaf of papers piled there. He looked about the big sunlit apartment almost as if he were trying to stamp the image of each of its familiar, pleasant features upon his memory.

Frederik, in the window seat, had been a silent onlooker to the strange scene. His pallid, thin face was set in an aspect of grieved wonder. And Peter Grimm, meeting his glance, sought to soften the young man's sorrow.

"Brace up, Fritzy," he said gaily. "It's nothing to look so down-in-the-mouth about. Doctors are apt to be wrong. They guess too much. When the guess is right they win a reputation for wisdom. When it's wrong—as it is nine times out of eight,—they say they knew it all along but thought it wasn't wise to tell the patient and his friends. Doctoring is a grand game,—for the man who has no sense of humour and can play it with a straight face. Now let's forget old Andrew's croakings. Go and get me some change for the circus, Fritzy. Enough for Willem and me to buy all the red-ink lemonade and popcorn and peanuts and candy we can eat. Get me a whole dollar, anyhow. And then, if there's any left over after the show, I can——"

"Oh, sir!" cried Frederik protestingly. "Are you going after all, Uncle? And with that child? Do you think it's wise to——?"

"Wise?" echoed Peter gleefully. "Of course it isn't wise. That's the glory of a circus. It's almost the one place where people can go and forget they were ever meant to be wise. And that's why I am going. That and because I wouldn't disappoint Willem. Miss a circus? Miss Billy Miller's Big Show? Not I. You may be too old for such follies, Fritz. But I'll never be."

"But, sir," said Frederik, "in case you should be taken ill——"

"I won't be."

"With no companion but that half-witted——"

"Willem is not half-witted. He has as much sense as any boy of his age. And more, in many ways. Why do you dislike him so, Fritz?"

"Dislike him?" echoed Frederik uneasily. "I don't. Why should I?"

"When you came back from Europe and found him living with us," pursued Grimm, "you seemed annoyed. He tried to make friends with you at first. But you seemed always to rebuff him. Why? He's a lovable, interesting little chap. One would think you had some strong prejudice against him—or some reason——"

"Why, of course not. How could I have? The boy is nothing to me, one way or another, Uncle. As you're so fond of him, I'd be glad to do anything I could for him. As there's nothing I can do, and as he seems actually afraid of me, for some silly childish reason or other, I let him alone."

Grimm's attention had already wandered and that same new look which Willem had first detected crept back into his lined face. But the sight of Kathrien coming in from her preparations for the one o'clock dinner brought him back to himself.

"Katje!" he hailed her. "Do you want to go to the circus with Willem and me?"

"Ja!" she laughed joyously. "Natuerlich."

"Good! One more member of the family who is no more grown up than I am! I want to see Mademoiselle Zarella, the human fly, and——"

He stopped to light the big meerschaum he had just filled. Then, going over to his favourite big armchair—a Dutch importation of a hundred years earlier, with pulpit back and high solid arms—he settled himself comfortably in it.

Peter Grimm was tired. And he wanted to think over the news he had so recently heard;—to dissect and analyse it and, if need be, to adjust himself to its awesome import. He sat back with half-closed eyes, puffing now and then mechanically at his pipe, his veiled glance resting here, there, and everywhere among the surroundings he loved.

The stable clock chimed the noon hour. The big, slow-swinging arms of the windmill slackened motion and stood still. A hush was in the air. The warm, lazy, wonderful hush of summer noon.

The midday sunlight gushed in unchecked through the wide windows, flooding the room with a glory of hazy golden light; bathing the dark old furniture with tints of rich warmth; glowing upon the roses that were arranged on desk and piano.

The Dutch clock on the wall struck twelve. A moment later, the little clock on the mantel jinglingly endorsed the sentiment. Then, save for the drowsy droning of the bees among the blossoms outside the open windows, there was no sound in all Grimm's world.

Even Kathrien and Frederik seemed silenced by the spell of summer noon magic. The girl was looking out across the sun-kissed gardens. Frederik was eyeing her in complacent satisfaction, his nimble brain busy with the tidings that might mean so much for him.

Kathrien turned from the window at last and seated herself idly at the piano. Her slender fingers drifted half-aimlessly over the keys. Frederik lounged over to the piano and stood looking down at her.

Presently she began to sing. Frederik joined in the song and their young voices blended sweetly in the old Dutch and English words:

"Van een twee, een twee, nu Ste-ken wij van wal: The bird so free in the heavens Is but the slave of the nest. For all must toil as God wills it, Must laugh and toil and rest.

"The rose must blow in the gardens, The bee must gather its store. The cat must watch the mousehole, And the dog must guard the door!"

As the voices died away, Peter Grimm came out of his tortuous reverie. He had reached a decision. And, having once made up his mind, he was not a man to delay the execution of any plan.

"Katje!" he called, with sharp eagerness.

Startled at his unwonted tone, the girl hurried across to him.

"Yes, Oom Peter?" she asked.

"Get me—the Staaten Bible, please. Quickly."

Wondering at the peremptory tone of the familiar request, Kathrien obeyed, bringing the heavy old book to the table at his side; and opening it, from long habit, at the closely written pages of the Grimm family genealogy.

"There!" said Peter, running his finger down the last record page until it stopped at the blank space just below his own name.

"Frederik!" he called. "Come here."

The young people stood, one at each side of his chair, awaiting the next move, more than a little astonished at the unwonted haste and eagerness in his tone.

"Katje," went on Grimm, almost feverishly, as he pointed again at the blank line beneath his birth announcement, "I want to see you married and happy."

"I am happy, Uncle," she protested, "and——"

"And I want to see you happily married," he said.

"I—I don't know," she faltered. "I——"

"But I know for you, little girl," he insisted, tapping the open page. "And under my name here, I want to see written: 'Married:—Kathrien and Frederik.' You will do as I wish, dear? It would make me so happy!"

"Why, Oom Peter," she faltered in distress, "of course there isn't anything I wouldn't do—gladly—to make you happy. But——"

"Kitty," urged Frederik, "you know I love you! You know——"

"Yes, yes, yes. Certainly she does," snapped Grimm, fretted at the interruption. "Everybody knows that."

Grimm caught the girl's look of dumb entreaty, misread it, manlike, and hurried on:

"Come, girl, we've no time to be coy. Promise me you'll consent, Katje. We'll make it a June wedding. We have ten days yet. And——"

"Oh, I couldn't!" protested the poor girl. "Really, I couldn't."

"Nonsense, little girl. It's the easiest thing in the world to get ready to be happy. Ten days is plenty. And you——"

"We can get your trousseau later," put in Frederik eagerly.

"Fritz!" cried the old man, exasperated. "Will you keep out of this? Who is managing it? You or I? In ten days, then, Katje? Please!"

"Why," she stammered, wretchedly at a loss, "if it will make you so happy, Oom Peter—if it means so much to you——"

"It does. It does!"

"I owe everything to you——"

"Then give me the privilege of seeing you a happy, contented wife, and we will write 'Paid' across the bill."

"But why need I marry so terribly soon?"

"To gratify a cranky old man's whim, Katje. It means more to me than I can tell you. Frederik understands."

She looked from one to the other. On each face she read a fatuous eagerness. She knew the futility of pleading with Frederik. She knew still more surely the uselessness of trying to make Peter Grimm change his stubborn wishes. With a little catch in her breath, she gave up the hopeless, unequal fight.

"Very well," she assented.

"You will do it?" cried Peter Grimm joyfully.

"Yes, I—promise," she answered; and her voice was dead.

"Good!" sighed Grimm, as he picked up his pipe and leaned back again in the big chair's recesses, a smile of utter peace and contentment irradiating his square old face. "You've made me very, very happy, Katje," he murmured, his eyes half-shut, his words trailing away almost into incoherence. "Very, very happy. I'm happier than ever I was in all my life—happier than ever I dreamed a man could be. I——"

He ceased to speak. The light on his face grew brighter, then slowly faded as a peaceful summer day fades. He settled a little lower in his chair and lay back there, very still. The gnarled hand that held the meerschaum relaxed.

The pipe fell clattering to the floor. Frederik stooped to pick it up. Kathrien, her eyes chancing to fall on Grimm's face, cried aloud in horror.

Frederik followed the direction of her gaze. He sprang toward his uncle, laid a hand over the old man's heart, and bent down toward the still, grey face that was upturned to his.

"Good God, Kitty!" he gasped. "He's dead!"

The girl had already flown toward the front door. Jerking it open she ran out on the steps. As she did so, she caught sight of McPherson coming away from a professional call at a house across the street.

"Doctor!" screamed Kathrien frantically. "Doctor!"

McPherson, next moment, had pushed past her into the living-room. Kneeling beside Grimm's body he made a swift examination.

As he rose to face the others, Willem burst into the house.

"Oom Peter! Oom Peter!" shrilled the child happily. "I got them!"

"Hush!" exclaimed McPherson.

The boy halted in the doorway, looking in puzzled dismay at the huddled form in the chair.

"What—what is——?" he began.

"He is dead," replied Frederik shortly.

Willem stood aghast for a second, while the curt announcement sank into his senses. Then in a burst of angry, rebellious wonder, the child cried:

"Dead? He can't be. He can't! Why, I've got our circus tickets!"



CHAPTER VIII

AFTERWARD

Grimm Manor was in mourning. And, far more to the dead man's honour, Grimm Manor was mourning.

The last of the ancient line was dead. The Grimms had been the ruling spirits in the drowsy little up-State town for more than two centuries. From father to son, the hierarchy had been handed down.

In days when the district was a wilderness and when the Grimms fought wild animal and Indian, and in the days when it was a prosperous suburb and the Grimms fought "scale" and locust, it had been the same:—ever a Grimm had swayed the little community.

Quiet in spite of his eccentric ways and dress, Peter Grimm had been known chiefly as a kindly neighbour and a shrewd business man. But now, after his death, all sorts and conditions of people came forward with queer stories of his private dealings.

There was a crotchety old Civil War veteran, for instance, who lived "on the Mountain" and who was a reputed miser. He now told how Peter Grimm had eked out his $8 a month pension for the past forty years and had made it possible for him to live in comfort. A crippled woman who, with her four children, had at one time seemed likely to become a public charge and who had been relieved in the nick of time by a legacy, now told the real source of that providential "legacy."

A farm boy who had yearned to study engineering and who had been helped unexpectedly by a secret fund, revealed the name of the fund's donor.

A market gardener whose house, barns, and horses had been destroyed by fire, proclaimed that insurance had not enabled him to make good his loss. For he had not been insured. Peter Grimm had set him on his feet again. And as in every other case, Grimm had imposed but one condition upon the gift:—absolute secrecy.

These were but a few cases out of dozens that were made known within the week after Grimm's death.

The little stone church of Grimm Manor was packed to the doors on the day that six big awkward men with tear blotched faces bore a silent burden up its aisle. A burden so covered with masses of fragrant blossoms as to blot out its gruesome oblong shape. The flowers were from Peter Grimm's own gardens, then in the riot of their June-tide glory.

And so, covered and drifted over with the glowing blooms he loved so well, the dead man went to his burial.

In the Grimm pew, with its silver plate and high, box-like sides, sat Frederik, Kathrien, and old Marta. The heir was as woe begone of face and as crassly sombre of raiment as even the most captious could have desired. The unostentatious pressure of his black bordered handkerchief to his eyes once or twice during the service attested to a sorrow that could not be kept wholly within stoic bounds.

Yet, oddly enough, it was Kathrien,—rather than Frederik or the frankly blubbering old housekeeper,—on whom people's eyes most often rested—rested and then dimmed with a haze of sympathy. The girl did not weep. Her face was very pale. But it was set and expressionless. Save for its big eyes it seemed a lifeless mask. The eyes alone were alive. And never for one instant did they move from the flower banked casket in front of the altar rail. They were tearless. But in their soft depths lurked the awed, unbelieving horror of a little child's that is for the first time brought face to face with the Black Half of life.

Kathrien was not in mourning. Her simple white dress caused no comment. For, by this time, it was known she was acting on what she believed to be Grimm's wishes. The dead man had ever had a loathing of all the hideous visible trappings of grief. He had been wont to hold forth on his aversion after every funeral he had been forced to attend.

"When it comes my time to fall asleep," he had said, during one of these Philippics, "I don't want anybody that cares for me to make death horrible by going around dressed like an undertaker. I'd as soon expect a mother to put on black after she had kissed her child good-night. There'd be just as much sense in it. If it's done because we're grieved to think where our friends have gone,—well and good. But if we're willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, why dress as if we were sorry for them?"

Wherefore, Kathrien was wearing one of the white summer dresses he had loved. She had timidly suggested that Frederik also honour the dead man's prejudices. But the sad, reproachful look he had bent upon her at her first hint of the subject had silenced the girl and had left her half-convicted of heartlessness because of her own avoidance of black.

Willem was not at the funeral. After that first strange outburst on learning that Grimm was dead, the child had said no word all day. At night when Kathrien came to take him to bed, she found him in a high fever.

Dr. McPherson had been sent for, and had examined the child closely, but could find no palpable cause for the malady.

"He's an odd little fellow," he told Kathrien. "Like no other boy I've ever known. The Scotch call such children 'fey' and prophesy short lives for them. And the prophecy usually comes true. There's always been something psychic about Willem. A hypnotist or a medium would look on him as a treasure.

"All the diagnosis I can make is that Peter's death caused a shock to the boy's never strong nerves and that the shock has caused the fever. Keep him in bed for a few days. He'll probably come around all right. There doesn't seem to be anything really serious—except that in a constitution like his everything is apt to be more or less serious."

After the funeral, life went on outwardly much as before at the Grimm home. The only change was the impalpable one which occurs in a room when a clock stops.

And, in fulfilment of Peter Grimm's last request, preparations for the "June wedding" were begun. It was Frederik who tactfully broached the theme. Kathrien, after a look of helpless fear, nodded acquiescence.

"I promised him," she said faintly. "And he died while the promise was still scarcely spoken. The smile of happiness it brought to his dear old face was on it when they laid him to sleep. I couldn't break that promise."

"And you wouldn't, if you could. I know that," said Frederik tenderly. "Dear one, I would not urge the wedding at a time like this if it had not been his last wish that we should be married this very month."

"Yes," she agreed lifelessly. "It was his wish. And we must do it."

And with this unenthusiastic assent Frederik was forced to be satisfied. So the preparations were pushed on with a furtive, almost apologetic, haste.

Mrs. Batholommey entered into the spirit of the affair with a lugubrious zest that would have sickened Kathrien had it not taken so much of the burden of arrangement-making off her own tired young shoulders.

It was to Frederik and Mrs. Batholommey that every one at length turned for directions in details for the wedding, not to the still-faced girl who seemed to know or to care nothing about the way matters were to be conducted.

And this gave Kathrien surcease,—a breathing space wherein to try to think with a brain from which sorrow had driven the power of clear thought; a time to plan, to realise, to remember,—with faculties too numb to carry out the will power's intent. The days crept past her like shadows. And the wedding day drew near. But still she could not wholly rouse herself from the dumb inertia that gripped her.



CHAPTER IX

THE EVE OF A WEDDING

Ten days later the household, which had been Peter Grimm's and was his no longer, had sufficiently adjusted itself to new conditions to endeavour to carry out his dearest wish—the marriage of Kathrien to Frederik.

It was near the close of a rainy afternoon, and Mrs. Batholommey (installed in the house as temporary chaperone and adviser to Kathrien) was busily engaged in drilling four little girls from her own Sunday-school class to sing the Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin.

Standing at the piano, and playing with a sure, determined touch, she gazed over her shoulder at the children and sang vigorously, nodding her head to emphasise the tempo:

"Faithful and true we lead ye forth Where love triumphant shall lead the way. Bright star of love, flower of the earth, Shine on ye both on your love's perfect day."

As the last line was reached, Mrs. Batholommey raised her hand in a signal to stop.

"That's better. Now, children—not too loud. Remember, this is a very quiet wedding. You're to be here at noon to-morrow. You mustn't speak as you enter the room, and take your places near the piano. Now we'll sing as though the bride were here. I'll represent the bride."

Mrs. Batholommey pointed at Kathrien's door as she spoke, and started toward it with subdued but undeniable enthusiasm.

"Miss Kathrien will come down the stairs from her room, I suppose—and will stand—I don't know where—but you've got to stop when I look at you. Watch me now——"

Bending her knees, she stood bobbing up and down in time to the children's singing, until she caught the step, then started down the stairs, unconsciously raising and lowering her dress skirt to emphasise the rhythm of the song.

Across the room she marched, head bent and eyes cast down, while the children repeated the familiar verse over and over.

Having marched herself into a corner she halted and faced the little singers. At that moment, however, Frederik entered, and the rehearsal was over for the day. Mrs. Batholommey quickly left her role of bride and dismissed the chorus with many warnings and instructions.

"That will do, children. Hurry home between showers and don't forget what I've told you about to-morrow!"

While she busied herself helping them into their rubbers and waterproofs, Frederik puffed at a cigarette in silence and was seemingly without the slightest interest in what was going on around him. A great change had taken place in his demeanour since his uncle's death. He had come into his own. The place, and everything, including Kathrien herself, would be his. He did not even try to veil his feeling of mastership. Walking over to his uncle's desk-chair, he sat down and began to pull off his gloves, looking at the children a trifle superciliously.

Mrs. Batholommey felt it necessary to explain, and murmured with deprecatory haste:

"My Sunday-school children. I thought your dear uncle wouldn't like it if he knew there wasn't going to be any singing during the marriage ceremony to-morrow. I know how bright and cheery he liked everything," she purred. "If he were alive it would be a church wedding! Dear, happy, charitable soul!"

As she spoke she handed the children their umbrellas and, exchanging good-byes, the little choir hurried out into the rain.

"Where's Kathrien?" said Frederik.

"Still upstairs with Willem," answered Mrs. Batholommey, glancing up toward the little boy's room apprehensively as she spoke, and lowering her voice a bit.

Frederik made an inarticulate sound of annoyance, and putting his hand into his pocket, took out two steamer tickets and examined them. His one idea was to get away from the simple, quaint surroundings that his uncle had kept and beautified for him in the fond, proud hope that his nephew would love and care for the place as he had done.

To Frederik it meant nothing but a humdrum existence, full of annoying detail. The money for which it stood had been his goal—that, and Kathrien, his uncle's very brightest flower—a flower which he was about to tear up by the roots and transplant to foreign soil.

Mrs. Batholommey sat down in the big chair by the fire, and took up her crochet work with a sigh. Occasionally she looked at Frederik, and finally she spoke.

"Of course I'm glad to stay here and chaperone Kathrien; but poor Mr. Batholommey has been alone at the parsonage for ten days—ever since your dear uncle—it will be ten days to-morrow since he di—oh, by the way, some mail came for your uncle. I put it in the drawer."

Frederik did not trouble to answer. He merely nodded.

"Curious how long before people know a man's gone," soliloquised Mrs. Batholommey.

Opening the drawer carelessly Frederik took out his uncle's mail—two business letters and one in a plain blue envelope. He looked at them a moment, put them down, and proceeded to light another cigarette. Then he rose, and picking up his gloves looked toward the office.

"Did Hartmann come?" he said.

"Yes," answered Mrs. Batholommey, holding up a corner of the shawl she was crocheting, and surveying it critically. With a coquettish glance toward the bridegroom, she hummed a little bit of the wedding march.

Frederik paid no attention to her, but, turning, gazed out of the window. Mrs. Batholommey, however, as the wife of a clergyman, was not used to being ignored; moreover, she was naturally of a persevering disposition—and, added to that, she had something on her mind and could keep still about it no longer.

"Er——" (Mrs. Batholommey coughed expressively.) "By the way, Mr. Batholommey was very much excited when he heard that your uncle had left a personal memorandum concerning us. We're anxious to have it read."

She might as well have addressed herself to a stone. Frederik made no sort of a response. Instead, he lounged over to the piano and examined some of the wedding presents piled up there.

Mrs. Batholommey rose with decision and approached the piano.

"We are anxious to have it read!"

No answer.

With a scorching glance at Frederik, Mrs. Batholommey, her work gathered in a fluffy white bunch in her arms, marched quickly out of the room and slammed the door.

A moment later James, newly returned from the South, entered the room from the office. Frederik had found it impossible to get on without him in the matter of winding up his uncle's business and had sent an urgent and somewhat peremptory call for his immediate return.

As, just then, he needed James, he was rather more civil to him than usual; but, from the first, he did not fail to sound the employer-employee note.

He came forward and shook hands cordially.

"Good-afternoon. Good-afternoon. How do you do, Hartmann? I'm very glad you consented to come back and straighten out a few matters. Naturally, there's some business correspondence I don't understand."

"I've already gone over some of it," answered Hartmann.

"I appreciate the fact that you came over on my uncle's account."

So saying, Frederik turned away with a ceremonious bow.

Hartmann went over to the desk and took a letter from the file. Then he said coldly:

"Oh, I see that Hicks of Rochester has written you. I hope you don't intend to sell out your uncle before his monument is set up."

Frederik turned toward Hartmann and put down his cigarette.

"I? Sell out? My intention is to carry out every wish of my dear uncle's."

James, at this moment catching sight of Frederik's black-bordered handkerchief, said sceptically:

"I hope so," and vanished into the office with a handful of papers.

He wished as few words as possible with Frederik. He could not bear to look at him—for the thought that to-morrow Kathrien was to marry the man and go out of his own life for all time was almost more than he could stand. He had watched her grow from a lovely little girl to a lovelier woman—he understood her as did no one else, not even Oom Peter, who, too, had loved her so devotedly.

And he felt that she loved him, though no word had ever been said. And now—he must let her go—he must let this worthless fellow take her—to a life of unhappiness; for knowing the sweet soul of Kathrien, who could doubt that such a marriage would bring her unhappiness?

Frederik's eyes rested thoughtfully on Hartmann's retreating figure. Then a slight sound attracted his attention, and he looked up in time to see Kathrien coming downstairs. Her simple white dress held no touch of mourning, yet she was a wistful, pathetic little figure, full of sadness.

"Ah, Kitty! See——" (taking out the tickets as he spoke). "Here's the steamship tickets for Europe. I've arranged everything."

He took a step forward to meet her.

"Well, to-morrow's our wedding day, lievling, yes?"

"Yes," answered Kathrien in a breathless way.

"It'll be a June wedding," Frederik went on, "just as Oom Peter wished."

Kathrien forced herself to speak brightly.

"Yes—just as he wished. Everything is just as he——" she broke off suddenly with a change of manner, and gazed at Frederik with beseeching earnestness.

"Frederik, I don't want to go away. I don't want to take this journey to Europe. If only I could stay quietly in—in my own dear home!"



CHAPTER X

A WASTED PLEA

Frederik concealed his annoyance as best he could, and smiled affectionately at the little bride-to-be, trying to coax her out of her mood. He looked around the familiar room a bit scornfully.

"Huh! This old cottage with its candles and lamps and shadows! What does it amount to? Wait until I've shown you the home I want you to have—the house Mrs. Frederik Grimm should live in."

He patted her arm once or twice as he spoke, to give further weight to his words; but they seemed lost on Kathrien. Her eyes grew more and more troubled and her sweet face increasingly wistful.

"I don't want to leave this house," she said. "I don't want any home but this. I should be wretched if you took me away."

As she spoke, she glanced helplessly at the fresh flowers on Oom Peter's desk, placed there daily by her faithful, loving little fingers.

"I'm sure Oom Peter would like to think of me as here, among our dear, dear flowers!"

Frederik tried to reassure her as one does a child, and answered soothingly:

"Of course—but what you need is a change, yes?"

Kathrien turned away and traced a pattern on the newel post with her slender fingers. She found it very hard to talk. After a moment, she went on:

"I—I've always wanted to please Oom Peter.—I always felt that I owed everything to him—if he had lived and I could have seen his happiness over our marriage, that would have made me happy, almost. But he's gone—and every day—the longer he's away from me, the more I see for myself that I don't feel toward you as I ought. You know it. But I want to tell you again. I'm perfectly willing to marry you. Only—I'm afraid I can't make you happy."

Looking at him with sorrowful, perplexed eyes, she went on:

"It's so disloyal to speak like this after I promised him; but, Frederik, it's true."

Frederik found it hard to keep his patience; yet he continued to reason with Kathrien in a voice even gentler than before, though with an accent of finality in it that she could not disregard as he said:

"But you did promise Uncle Peter you'd marry me, yes?"

Her answering "Yes" was barely audible.

Frederik continued insistently:

"And he died believing you, yes?"

Kathrien merely nodded; she could not look at him, could not speak. After a moment she went on, her eyes still averted:

"That's what makes me try to live up to it. Still, I cannot help feeling that if Oom Peter knew how hard everything seems—how alone I feel——"

"You are not alone while I am here, lievling——"

Kathrien smiled pathetically.

"You don't understand, Frederik. You mean to be kind—and you are kind. And I thank you for it; but if only my mother had lived! As long as dear Oom Peter was here he was father, mother, everything to me. I felt no lack; but now—oh, I want my mother to turn to——"

The girl's eyes were suddenly suffused with tears.

"Don't you see? Try to know how I feel.—Try to understand——"

Suddenly Frederik stopped her torrent of words. He took her in his arms before she realised it, and, kissing her, he said:

"Natuerlich—I understand. I love you—and in time—Wait! You shall see! You must not worry, sweetheart. These things will come right, all in good time."

But Kathrien had released herself with nervous if quiet haste.

"Willem is feeling so much better," she said, with a change of tone to the ordinary.

"Tc!"

With his usual display of annoyance at the mention of Willem, Frederik left Kathrien and walked over to Oom Peter's desk, where he began to pick up and lay down the various articles strewn about its surface; without in the least realising what he was doing.

"I do hope that child will be kept out of the way—to-morrow," he said roughly.

"Why?"

"Oh—oh, I——"

Frederik found it hard to tell why.

"You have always disliked poor little Willem, haven't you?" demanded Kathrien.

"N—no——" answered Frederik. "But——"

His nervousness was very evident as he still moved fussily about the desk.

"Yes, you have," continued Kathrien calmly. "I remember how angry you were when you came back from Leyden University and found him living here. How could you help being drawn to a little blue-eyed, golden-haired baby such as he was then?—Only five years old, and such a darling! He won us all at once, except you. And in all the three years he has been here, we've only grown more and more fond of him each day. You love children—you go out of your way to pick up a child and pet it. Why do you dislike Anne Marie's little boy?"

"Oh!" cried Frederik impatiently, "he has a way of staring at people as though he had a perpetual question on his lips——"

He was interrupted by a vivid flash of lightning and a long roll of thunder.

"Oh, a little child!" said Kathrien reproachfully. "He has only kindness from everybody. Why shouldn't he look at one?"

"And then his mother!" went on Frederik, gazing into the fire, while the rain, steadily increasing with the nearer approach of thunder and lightning, blotted away the pleasant landscape outside the windows.

"Uncle and I loved Anne Marie, and we had forgiven her. Why should you blame her so bitterly? Surely she has suffered enough to expiate——"

"I don't want to be hard upon any woman. I've never seen her since she left the house, but—Hear that rain! It's pouring again! The third day. You're wise to have a fire in here. This old house would be damp otherwise in a long storm like this. By the way, Hartmann is back for a few hours to straighten things out—I'm going to see what he's doing."

Frederik went up to Kathrien, and putting his arms about her, led her up to the piano, saying:

"Kitty, have you seen all the wedding presents? Wait for me a while here and look at them till I come back. I'll be with you again in a few minutes."

Smiling, and giving her cheek a tender pat, he left her alone.

As she stood there, surrounded by all her gay presents, she looked anything but the picture of a happy bride. Giving no thoughts to the gifts, she stood, motionless, her eyes slowly filling with tears.

Suddenly the outer door slammed, and a moment afterward Dr. McPherson entered. His tweed shawl and cap proclaimed the recent violence of the storm as he hurriedly took them off and hung them up, and placed his soaked umbrella in the rack. With a book under his arm, he came quickly toward the girl, saying:

"Good-evening, Kathrien. How's Willem?"

Kathrien tried to hide her tears; but it was impossible to elude the keen eyes of Dr. McPherson. In one quick glance he caught the situation.

"What's the matter?" he said curtly.

"Nothing," said Kathrien in a voice whose tremble she could not control; yet bravely wiping away her tears as she spoke. "I was only thinking—I was hoping that those we love—and lose—can't see us here. I'm beginning to believe there's not much happiness in this world."

The doctor looked at her with affectionate reproof, much as if she had been a naughty child.

"Why, you little snip!" he said whimsically, as he pulled her toward him determinedly. "I've a notion to chastise you! Talking like that with the whole of life before you! Such cluttered nonsense!"

Still talking he started toward the stairs and Willem's room, and Kathrien sank into a chair; but the doctor changed his mind, turned, and came back to her again.

"Kathrien, I understand you've not a penny to your name," he said gruffly, "unless you marry Frederik. He has inherited you—along with the orchids and the tulips."

He put his arm around her with a gentle, protective movement as he went on:

"Don't let that influence you. If Peter's plans bind you—and you look as if they did—my door's open. Don't let the neighbours' opinions and a few silver spoons," glancing towards the wedding gifts, "stand in the way of your whole future."

Having thus opened his warm Scotch heart and his home to the motherless girl, it was indicative of his character that he should give her no chance to thank him. Before she could speak, he had run up the stairs, placed his cigar on the little table in the upper hall, and hurried into Willem's room.

Outside the sky grew blacker and blacker, darkening the room where Kathrien sat. Suddenly she rose from her chair, and stretching out her arms, gave a cry that was dragged from her very soul.

"Oh! Oom Peter, Oom Peter, why did you do it? Why did you do it?"

She looked all at once a woman. No longer the carefree, happy girl she had been but a few short weeks before. Standing thus, her beautiful face full of agony, she did not hear Marta as she came in from the dining-room to carry upstairs the dainty wedding clothes for the morrow—a mass of filmy, fluffy white, laid carefully over both arms.

At first Marta did not see her in the dim yellow gloom of the large room; but a moment later, in alarm, she dropped the clothes in a careful heap on a chair, and ran to Kathrien as fast as her stocky figure and many Dutch petticoats would allow.

"Och," she cried sympathetically. At her pitying touch, Kathrien suddenly buried her face on Marta's broad breast, and broke into convulsive sobs. Marta hushed her as she would a baby, with many sweet, caressing Dutch words.

"Sh! Sh! Lievling, Sh! Sh! Old Marta is here! Cry all you want to——'Twill do you good! A bride to cry on her wedding eve! Who ever heard such things! You should be happy—the good Mynheer Grimm would wish his child happy on her wedding eve! Sh! You will have a fine day to-morrow, for it storms to-night—a good sign! You must have a bright face to show your husband, and a face of happiness! Not a swollen little face—like this! What a face to take to a bridegroom! Marta has fixed the dress—'tis wonderful! See there over the chair, so filmy—like a cloud—you will be like a lily in a cloud of dew to-morrow. Think how beautiful! Do not spoil it all, lievling! Be happy, Kathrien, Kathrien wees, bedard, kindje lievling. Be happy among those who love you so!"

Comforted by Marta's soothing words, and relieved by a good cry, Kathrien wiped her eyes.

"There, there, Marta," she said, drawing a long, quivering breath, "others have troubles too, haven't they?"

Marta nodded her head vigorously.

"Ach!" she sighed. "Gut—Ja! Others have their troubles!"

Kathrien kissed Marta gently, then said:

"I had hoped, Marta, that Anne Marie would have heard of uncle, and come back to us at this time—you are so brave—you never complain—Poor Marta!"

Once more Marta sighed.

"If it could have brought us all together once more—but no message—nothing—I cannot understand—my only child."

Nearer and nearer came the storm. The rain pounded on the shingles and pattered loudly against the windows. The wind howled around the eves, and the old house rattled and shook in spite of its solid foundation.

Marta, still brooding over Kathrien like a motherly hen over her chicken, shuddered at the rattling of the window blinds.

From the midst of the general tumult a new sound detached itself—a sharp double rap from the old-fashioned knocker.

"Och!" cried Marta. "It must be Pastor and the others! You don't feel much like seeing visitors, my lamb. Run away now before I let 'em in—and bathe your eyes in lavender water."

She hurried to the front door, and Kathrien, at once brought to herself, hastened upstairs to her room.

As Marta opened wide the door, Mr. Batholommey and Colonel Lawton (Peter Grimm's former lawyer) seemed fairly blown into the hall.

"Good-evening, Marta," boomed the clergyman's unctuous tones. "The elements are indeed at war to-night! I trust the household is well?"

Marta curtseyed bobbingly to both men as she said:

"Yes, sir, thank you, Mr. Batholommey, only poor little Willem, sir. He's strange and not like himself, sir. The doctor was in and out through the day, and now he's here again—upstairs with Willem."

As Marta talked, Mr. Batholommey divested himself of his long black rainproof coat, and Colonel Lawton (who had not felt it necessary to reply to Marta's civil greeting) hastily took off his rubber poncho, giving it a vigorous shake that sent the raindrops flying. He was a tall, middle-aged man, loosely put together, who wore his clothes very badly. One somehow got the idea that they were never pressed.

"Brr!" he cried, taking off his overshoes. "What a storm for June! It's more like fall! Look at my rubbers—and yours are just as bad—mud-soaked! Get 'em off, quick. They're enough to give any one a chill!"

Marta had slipped out unnoticed, and now Frederik came in just in time to see the dripping coats hung up on the hat rack.

"Good-evening," he said in what he intended for a cordial tone.

"Ah, just in time," answered Colonel Lawton. "Gee Whillikins! What a day!"

Then turning again to Mr. Batholommey he went on jocularly:

"Great weather for baptisms—Parson."

Having successfully disentangled himself at last from all his water-soaked outer coverings, Mr. Batholommey turned and offered a damp and rainy hand to Frederik.

"Good-evening, good-evening, Frederik," he said impressively. "I'm glad to see you. We are pleased to be here, in spite of the weather."

"Well, here we are, Frederik, my boy,——" put in Colonel Lawton. "At the time you set."

After shaking hands with both men, Frederik, perhaps unconsciously, wiped his own on his handkerchief. Then going to the desk, he took a paper from under the paperweight. After studying it a moment, he said (smiling a bit to himself and turning that the others might not see the smile):

"I sent for you to hear a memorandum left by my uncle. I came across it only this morning."

Both Mr. Batholommey and Colonel Lawton tried to conceal their excitement.

"I must have drawn up ten wills for the old gentleman," announced Colonel Lawton, "but he always tore 'em up."

Then, throwing back his head and peering at Frederik through his spectacles:

"May I have a drink of his plum brandy, Frederik?"

"Certainly," answered Frederik carelessly. "Help yourself. Pastor, will you have some?"

Colonel Lawton poured out a glass of brandy and offered it to Mr. Batholommey, then helped himself with alacrity. In the roll of thunder which came at that moment, no one heard the footsteps of Mrs. Batholommey, as she entered from the "front parlour."

The tableau that met her vision caused her to give a little shriek as she stopped short, and gazed with horror-struck eyes at her husband and his brandy glass.

"Why, Henry! What are you doing? Are your feet wet?"

Mr. Batholommey did not get a drink every day, and this one was much too nearly his to be relinquished now. It was not a case for self-denial. It was not a case where it was necessary to be a good example for any one. Therefore the pastor gave place to the husband for a moment, and when Mrs. Batholommey repeated:

"Are your feet wet, Henry?"

He answered with decision:

"No, Rose, they're not. I want a drink and I'm going to take it. It's a bad night."

Mrs. Batholommey said no more, but closing her mouth tightly, turned away with lifted eyebrows and downcast eyes, reproachful indignation bristling at every point.

Her husband, well pleased at his little victory, smacked his lips with enjoyment; returned the now empty glass to the Colonel and, rubbing his hands together, went toward the fireplace. Mrs. Batholommey, her indignation quickly forgotten, joined him there and sat down beside him. Colonel Lawton, hastily replacing decanter and glasses on the table, also drew up a chair in front of the fire—and waited.



CHAPTER XI

THE LEGACIES

Frederik, glancing at the backs of the three eager, huddled figures crouching almost literally in the fireplace, smiled again to himself—and allowed them to wait.

Finally, Colonel Lawton could stand it no longer. Still with his back to the heir, and his eyes toward the fire, he cried:

"Well, go ahead, Frederik."

No response. Mr. Batholommey tried next.

"I knew your uncle would remember his friends and his charities," he said smugly. "He gave it in such a free-handed, princely way."

Frederik could not resist a sarcastic chuckle, as he glanced toward the three backs once more, and then began to read the memorandum aloud.

"For Mrs. Batholommey:"

He got no further for, at the first word, the three chairs were turned around to face Frederik, quickly and simultaneously; so that the beneficiaries might not have even their own backs between them and their coming fortune.

At hearing her name, Mrs. Batholommey burst out:

"The dear man! To think he remembered me! I knew he'd remember the church and Mr. Batholommey—of course—but to think he'd remember me!"

Here she cast her eyes up to heaven in grateful recognition.

"He knew that our income was very limited," she went on comfortably. "He was so thoughtful. His purse," she sighed with feeling, "was always open."

Having delivered this eulogism of the dead, the lady folded her hands placidly, and with eyes cast down, but attentive, settled herself to await developments.

Frederik looked at her a moment, grinned to himself, then continued:

"For Mr. Batholommey:"

The clergyman nodded solemnly, but a pleased expression crept about the corners of his mouth and his face took on an extra look of smugness.

"Our reward is laid up for us," he murmured sententiously, "where we least expect it."

"Quite so——" said Frederik shortly. "And as the doctor isn't here—well, the next is you, Colonel. The others mentioned are people in his employ."

Colonel Lawton settled lower in his chair, until he might almost be said to be lying on his back. He crossed his legs luxuriously and took a cigar from his pocket, saying as he lighted it:

"He knew I did the best I could for him—the grand old man!" Then dropping the eulogistic tone for one of strict business:

"What'd he leave me?"

Frederik kept them waiting a moment longer. He was having the time of his life. He had purposely strung out the situation to its last thread, for the joy of witnessing the self-satisfied eagerness of the three legatees. Silent now, but acutely attentive, they sat with watchful eyes trained on Frederik and the all-important paper which he was holding so carelessly in his hand—the paper that was presently to tell them so much of moment. Then it came.

"Mrs. Batholommey, he wishes you to have his miniature—with his affectionate regard."

Frederik took a miniature from the desk drawer and offered it to Mrs. Batholommey with much ceremony. She did not take it, but sat waiting as before, merely folding her hands as she purred:

"Dear old gentleman—and—er—yes?"

Frederik seemed not to hear her, and laying the miniature on the desk, went on reading:

"To Mr. Batholommey——"

The clergyman's wife broke in quickly.

"But—er—you didn't finish mine!"

Frederik turned around in his chair and looked directly at her.

"You're finished," he said.

"I'm finished?" cried Mrs. Batholommey, in a voice trembling with indignation.

"Rose!" her husband remonstrated in severe rebuke.

"Oh, it's all very well for you to say 'Rose!' How would you like it to get nothing but an old picture? Tell me that!"

Here she had recourse to her handkerchief, and her lips trembled as she wiped her eyes, sniffling sorrowfully and all unheeded by the others.

Frederik took a watch fob from the drawer before he continued his reading.

"To Mr. Batholommey: my antique watch fob—with profound respect."

The executor rolled the words under his tongue.

Mr. Batholommey rose, bowed graciously, and accepted the watch fob without looking at it. Then he sat down.

The voice of Fate went on:

"To Colonel Lawton——"

Before Frederik could get any farther, Mrs. Batholommey was again at the front:

"His watch fob? Is that what he left Henry? Is that all? His——Why! Well! I can't believe it! If he had no wish to make our life easier, at least he should have left something for the church. Oh, Henry!" she cried in consternation. "Won't the congregation have a crow to pick with you!"

Frederik no longer made any effort to conceal his pleasure at the part he had to play. He smiled broadly and maliciously and he was quite willing that they should all see him smile.

It must be said of Mr. Batholommey that he took his disappointment rather well. He said nothing at all, and he tried not to show how he felt. In fact he tried not to feel any resentment toward his late parishioner. It was one of the hardest moments of his life; but he knew that as a clergyman he should be able to forgive—and he tried very hard.

It would have been so comfortable to have a tidy sum to put by for his old age! He had expected it so confidently! He had flattered and praised and praised and flattered! And now, after all, he was left high and dry—with a watch fob to look to for comfort in his declining years! He would keep his feelings to himself if possible, however. He did not care to make Frederik's triumph any greater, or his smile any broader on his account; so he compelled himself to listen to the third part of the memorandum with an expression of polite interest.

"To my lifelong friend, Colonel Lawton, I leave my most cherished possession."

The Colonel preened himself. He stuck his thumbs into the armholes of his vest and wagged his crossed foot complacently. This was to be the real kernel of the memorandum.

His appearance of security was too much for Mrs. Batholommey.

"Oh! When the church hears——"

She was interrupted by Colonel Lawton:

"I don't know why he was called upon to leave anything to the church," he said truculently, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward. "He gave it thousands, and only last month he put in chimes. As I look at it, he wished to give you something he had used—something personal. Perhaps the miniature and the fob ain't worth three whoops in hell—it's the sentiment!"

He lay back in his chair again as he fairly chewed on the word 'sentiment.' Once more he crossed his legs, and peered at Frederik through his glasses.

"Drive on, Fred," he ordered.

"To Colonel Lawton, my father's prayer book."

As he read, Frederik put one hand into the drawer, and took out a worn prayer book.

Mr. Batholommey smiled, and chuckled behind his hand, but Colonel Lawton seemed dazed. His jaw dropped, and he looked helplessly at Frederik and the others.

"What?" he said in a choking voice. "His prayer book—me?"

As in a dream he slowly leaned forward and took it gingerly between two fingers as one might a June bug—gazing at it in amazed horror and incredulity the while.

"Is that all?" demanded Mrs. Batholommey.

"That's all," answered Frederik, bowing to Mrs. Batholommey and smiling radiantly.

Colonel Lawton, still dazed, could only reiterate:

"A prayer book. Me? What for?"

Then he got up slowly.

"Well, I'll be——Here, Parson." As an idea struck him, he turned quickly toward Mr. Batholommey. "Let's shift—you take the prayer book and I'll take the old fob!"

Mr. Batholommey smiled and waved away the offered book.

"Thank you," he said smoothly, "I already have a prayer book."

At this retort, the Colonel wilted completely. Drawing his chair close to the fire he sat down limply and gave himself up to bitter reflection.

Mrs. Batholommey seemed the least able of the three to bear the shattering of her high hopes. She moved around the room restlessly.

"Well, all I can say is"—(her voice shook and her eyes reproached Frederik)—"I'm disappointed in your uncle."

No one paid any attention to her remark, each person being engrossed in his own thoughts. For some moments the air was pregnant with unspoken invective.



CHAPTER XII

MOSTLY CONCERNING GRATITUDE

Finally Colonel Lawton turned toward Frederik. He was now sitting astride his chair and puffing violently at his cigar.

"Is this what you hauled us out in the rain for?" he snarled.

Mrs. Batholommey, all unheeding, went on with her own train of thought.

"I see it all now," she whimpered. "He only gave to the church to show off!"

"Rose!" her husband cried, aghast. "I myself am disappointed, but——"

"He did!" interrupted Mrs. Batholommey in tears of wrath. "Oh, why didn't he continue his work? He was not generous. He was a hard, uncharitable, selfish old man."

"Rose, my dear!" remonstrated Mr. Batholommey. "Think what you are saying!"

"He was! If he were here, I'd say it to his face. The congregation sicked you after him. And now he's gone and you'll get nothing more. And they'll call you slow—slow and pokey! You'll see! To-morrow you'll wake up!"

"My dear!" expostulated her husband once more.

But Mrs. Batholommey paid no attention to his words or to the beseeching look that accompanied them. She waved an arm dramatically.

"Here's a man the rector spent half his time with—and for what? A watch fob!"

The ineffable scorn with which she pronounced these last words caused Mr. Batholommey to hang his head.

"You'll see!" she went on. "This will be the end of you! It's not what you preach that counts nowadays. It's what you coax out of the rich parishioners' pockets."

"Mrs. Batholommey!" thundered the clergyman, taking a step forward; but he might as well have tried to stem the ocean.

"The church needs funds to-day. Religion doesn't stand where it did, when a college professor is saying that—that—"—(here her voice broke)—"the Star of Bethlehem was only a comet."

The end of the sentence resolved itself into a veritable wail and she sat down quickly and subsided into her handkerchief.

"My dear!" reiterated the helpless husband.

"Oh!" she wailed through her tears, "if I said all the things I feel like saying about Peter Grimm"—(here it almost sounded as if she ground her teeth)—"well—I shouldn't be a fit clergyman's wife. Not to leave his dear friends a——"

Again her voice was muffled in the folds of the handkerchief, and Colonel Lawton took advantage of the temporary lull to put in a word.

"He wasn't liberal," he said, rising, "but for God's sake, Madam, think what he ought to have done for me after my patiently listening to his plans for twenty years! Mind, I'm not complaining, but what have I got out of it? A Bible!"

"Oh, you've feathered your nest, Colonel!" cried Mrs. Batholommey, recovering somewhat.

"I never came here," retorted Colonel Lawton spitefully, "that you weren't begging!"

"See here, Lawton," the clergyman interrupted truculently, "don't forget who you are speaking to!"

Colonel Lawton waved his hand patronisingly at the clergyman.

"That's all right, Parson. I know who I'm speaking to. We're all in the same boat—one's as good as another—when we're all up against a thing like this. If anything, you two are worse than I am, for you stand for better things. What would your congregation think of either of you if they could look into your hearts this moment and see 'em as they really are?"

"Really are—really are!" cried Mrs. Batholommey. "I'm not ashamed to have any one see my heart as it really is!"

(And Mrs. Batholommey was telling the truth, for she was a good woman at heart, and it was not her fault that she had a human desire for this world's goods for those she loved, for the church, and for herself.)

Here Frederik, who had watched the scene with much amusement at first, came forward through the increasing gloom. He was getting tired of the childish bickering.

"Well, well, well, I'm disgusted," he said, "when I see such heartlessness! He was putty in all your hands."

"Oh, you can defend his memory. You got the money!" cried Mrs. Batholommey, with asperity. "He liked flattery and you gave him what he wanted and you gave him plenty of it."

"Why not?" retorted Frederik calmly, getting a cigarette out of his case. "The rest of you were at the same thing—yes?"

He struck a match and lighted his cigarette as he continued in a disagreeable tone:

"And I had the pleasure of watching him hand out the money that belonged to me—to me," he repeated. "My money! What business had he to be generous with my money?"

Still talking, Frederik sat down at the desk.

"If he'd lived much longer, I'd have been a pauper. It's a lucky thing for me he di——"

Frederik had the grace to leave the word unfinished.

Mr. Batholommey broke the slight pause.

"Young man," he said solemnly, "it might have been better if Mr. Grimm had given all he had to charity—for he left his money to an ingrate."

The "ingrate" laughed derisively.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" he cried. "You amuse one! You don't know how amusing you are."

No one cared to add further to Frederik's amusement, so they all sat still. The room was now perfectly dark, except for an occasional flash of heat-lightning from the vanished storm.

Night had crept upon them unheeded, so intent had they been on their petty wrangling.

Finally Mrs. Batholommey got up and went towards the desk.

"Where is the miniature?" she demanded. "I don't want it—but I'll take it."

Frederik lighted a match, and by its flickering blaze found the discarded miniature lying face downward on the desk. Mrs. Batholommey snatched it from his fingers, and made her way back to the fireplace.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed Frederik again.

"Rose, my dear," began Mr. Batholommey, "the min——"

"Sh!" interrupted Frederik.

There was a pause. Then he rose.

"Who came into the room?" he asked in a strange voice.

He lit a match and waved it slowly in the direction of the hall door. It was extinguished instantly as if the wind had blown it out. He lighted another, saying:

"We're sitting in the darkness like owls. Who came in?" he demanded again.

There was no answer as he peered around the room, holding the match toward first one corner and then another.

"I didn't hear any one," said the Colonel.

"Nor I," added Mrs. Batholommey.

"No," said Mr. Batholommey.

"I was sure some one came in," Frederik said in a strange voice.

"You must have imagined it," suggested Mr. Batholommey. "Our nerves are all upset."

"I'll get a light," Frederik said, starting toward the dining-room.

At that moment, Marta entered with the welcome lamps. She carried two of them, one already lighted, which she put upon the table. The other Frederik took quickly from her and carried to the chain-bracket over the desk. This he adjusted with Marta's help, and then lighted.

After which he glanced apprehensively about the room once more. Even under the reassuring flood of light his impression that some one had stolen in upon the dim-lit conference would not wholly vanish.



CHAPTER XIII

THE RETURN

The Dead Man came home.

The old collie, lying stretched in the deep porch, safe from the storm, knew him. As the Dead Man came up the walk between the trim beds of rain-soaked flowers, the old dog crawled rheumatically to its feet, the bleared eyes brightening, the feathered tail awag in joyous greeting to the loved master who had been so long and so unaccountably absent.

Peter Grimm laid a hand caressingly on his old pet's head; then passed into his former home.

And so, at Frederik's frightened demand, "Who came into the room?" the Dead Man stood among his own again. Before him was the nephew he had loved. Nearby were the husband and wife whose follies and harmless affectations he had forgiven with a laugh of amusement, for the sake of their goodness and for the devotion they bore himself. Lounging in the chair that had been his own was the lawyer who had been his dear friend and adviser. The friends he had cared for, the nephew on whom his every hope had been set.

With a wistful half-smile, Peter Grimm surveyed the group.

And, as Marta brought in one lighted lamp and then bustled about lighting another, he stood in clear view of them all. Clad in the same old-fashioned garb with which they were so familiar, he was unchanged, save that all age and all care lines were wiped from his face.

He was not a wraith, no grisly spectre, no half-nebulous Shape. He was Peter Grimm, rugged, homespun, the man whose iron individuality had undergone and could undergo no change.

He stood there in the lamplight, plainly visible—to such as had eyes to see him.

The dog, with that sense which God gives to all animals and withholds from all humans, had had no more difficulty in recognising him than when Peter Grimm had walked the earth in the flesh.

The faculty which makes a sleeping dog awake, raise its head, wag its tail and follow with its eyes the movements of some invisible form that moves from place to place in a room,—which makes a flock of chickens scatter squawking and fluttering when no human being can discern cause for their flight—which makes a horse shy violently when travelling a patch of road, apparently barren of anything to alarm him,—which makes a cat suddenly arch its back and spit and strike at the Unseen, or else rub purringly against an invisible hand—this faculty made Peter Grimm very real to his blear-eyed, asthmatic old collie.

But the inmates of the room, being but human, had seen and heard nothing. Frederik, it is true, being in a constant state of nervous tension that rendered his senses less dense and earthy than usual, had fancied he heard—or felt—some one enter the room. But at the disclaimers of the rest, the notion vanished as such notions do. And the warm flood of lamplight dispelled whatever of the psychic may have brooded over the little group, bringing back their comfortable materialism with a rush.

Wherefore, in his old home and among his own, Peter Grimm stood unseen; that deprecatory half-smile on his square, ageless face.

The lighting of the lamps and Marta's noisy return to her own culinary domain served as signals to break up the group about the desk. Mr. Batholommey crossed the room and took his hat and coat from the rack, passing within a hand's-breadth of the smiling, expectant Peter Grimm as he did so.

"Well, Frederik," said the rector doubtfully by way of farewell, "I hope that you'll follow your uncle's example at least as far as our parish poor are concerned,—and keep on with some of his charities."

Mrs. Batholommey, dutifully following her husband to the rack and helping him on with his coat, turned to hear Frederik answer the question she and the rector had so often and so anxiously discussed during the past ten days. The heir did his best to settle their every doubt in the fewest possible words.

"I may as well tell you now, as any time," said he, "that you needn't look to me for any charitable graft at all. Your parish poor will have to begin hustling for a living now. I don't intend to waste good money in feeding what you Americans call 'a bunch of panhandlers.'"

"Oh!" cried Mrs. Batholommey, inexpressibly disappointed.

The smile died on Peter Grimm's face and the light of happy expectancy was gone from his eyes.

"I am very sorry, Frederik," said the rector stiffly, "not only that you can speak so of God's poor, but that you are not willing to continue your uncle's splendid philanthropies. It—it doesn't seem possible that he never told you how dear his charities were to him. Well," he broke off with a shrug, and glancing at his watch, "I've got thirty minutes to make a call before tea time."

"I must be toddling, too," said Colonel Lawton. "Are you going my way, Mr. Batholommey? It's queer, Frederik," he added, bidding his host good-bye, "it's queer—deucedly queer how things turn out. There's one thing certain: the old gentleman should have made a will. But it's too late now for us to grumble about that. By the way, what are you going to do with all his relics and family heirlooms, Frederik? Have you thought of it? I supposed, of course, you'd keep everything just as he left it. But from the way you've talked this afternoon, I wonder——"