"I shall give Doreen warning of what I am going to do at once," said he,
"before Horne turns up."

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. He was obstinate himself.

Mr. Wedmore crossed the long room to the door, and opened it sharply.

The hall was full of people and of great bales of goods, which were
piled upon the center-table and heaped up all around it.

"Doreen!" he called, sharply.

Out of the crowd there rushed a girl--such a girl! One of those radiant
creatures who explain the cult of womanhood; who make it difficult even
for sober-minded, middle-aged men and matrons to realize that this is
nothing but flesh and blood like themselves; one of those beautiful
creatures who claim worship as a right and who repay it with kindness
and brightness and sweetness and laughter.

No house was ever dull that held Doreen Wedmore.

She was a tall girl, brown-haired, brown-eyed, made to laugh and to live
in the sunshine. Nobody could resist her, and nobody ever tried to.

She sprang across the hall to her father and whirled him back into the
dining-room, and put her back against it.

"Dudley's come!" said she. "He's in the hall--among the blankets!"

"Blankets!"