about it? Would he think the child might take her thoughts from him?
But at that she smiled; he could not be so foolish! "I'll write and
ask him, anyhow. Of course, if he objects, I wouldn't dream of it. I
wonder what he will think?"




CHAPTER IV


Mr. Lloyd Pryor thought very deeply after he read Mrs. Richie's
letter. He sat in his office and smoked and reflected. And as he
reflected his face brightened. It was a handsome face, with a mouth
that smiled easily. His heavy-lidded eyes behind astonishingly thick
and curling lashes were blue; when he lifted them the observer felt a
slight shock, for they were curiously motionless; generally, however,
the heavy lids drooped, lazily good-humored. He read Mrs. Richie's
letter and tapped the edge of his desk with strong, white fingers.

"Nothing could be better," he said.

Then suddenly he decided that he would go to Old Chester and say so in
person. "I suppose I ought to go, anyhow; I haven't been there for six
weeks. Yes; this child is just what she needs."

And that was how it came about that when he went home he pulled his
daughter Alice's pretty ear and said he was going away that night. "I
shall take the ten-o'clock train," he said.