[Illustration: "Want you? I always want you!"]

"God knows why they died--I don't!" The man's arm about the boy's
shoulder tightened convulsively.

"But how old were they?"

"Ned was seven and Jerry was four, and they were the light of my eyes,
and--But why do you make me tell you? Isn't it enough, Keith, that
they went, one after the other, not two days apart? And then the sun
went out and left the world gray and cold and cheerless, for the next
day--your mother went."

"And how about me, dad?"

The man did not seem to have heard. Still with his arm about the boy's
shoulder, he had dropped back into the seat before the easel. His eyes
now were somberly fixed out the window.

"Wasn't I--anywhere, dad?"

With a start the man turned. His arm tightened again. His eyes grew
moist and very tender.

"Anywhere? You're everywhere now, my boy. I'm afraid, at the first,
the very first, I didn't like to see you very well, perhaps because
you were ALL there was left. Then, little by little, I found you were
looking at me with your mother's eyes, and touching me with the
fingers of Ned and Jerry. And now--why, boy, you're everything. You're
Ned and Jerry and your mother all in one, my boy, my boy!"