"Too bad to bother you with our troubles," he said, with a little
smile like his father's. "To us, of course, it seems like the end of
the world, but I am sorry to distress YOU! Dad just doesn't seem to
grasp it, he hasn't been excited, you know, but he doesn't seem to
understand. I don't know that any of us do!" he finished simply.

"Here they are!" Anne said warningly, as the two other men came down
the stairs.

"Hello, Dad!" said young Rideout, easily and cheerfully, "I came to
bring you home!"

"This is MY boy, Mrs. Warriner," said his father; "you see he's
turned the tables, and is looking after me! I'm glad you came,
Charley. I've been telling your good husband, Mrs. Warriner," he
said, in a lower tone, "that we--that I--"

"Yes, I know!" Anne said, with her ready tenderness, and a little
gasp like a child's.

"So you will realize what impulse brought me here to-day," the older
man went on; "I was talking to my wife of this house only a day or
two ago." His voice had become almost inaudible, and the three young
people knew he had forgotten them. "Only a day or two ago," he
repeated musingly. And then, to his son, he added wistfully, "I
don't seem to get it through my head, my boy. For a while to-day, I
forgot--I forgot. The heart--" he said, with his little old-world
touch of dignity--"the heart does not learn things as quickly as the
mind, Mrs. Warriner."