up with Elizabeth at this rate," they said. But at the end of the summer
the father and daughter had not even had a passing glimpse of each
other. One day, late in September, as the Little Colonel clattered up
and down the hall with her grandfather's spur buckled on her tiny foot,
she called back over her shoulder: "Papa Jack's comin' home to-morrow."

The Colonel paid no attention.

"I say," she repeated, "Papa Jack's comin' home to-morrow."

"Well," was the gruff response. "Why couldn't he stay where he was? I
suppose you won't want to come here any more after he gets back."

"No, I 'pose not," she answered, so carelessly that he was conscious of
a very jealous feeling.

"Chilluns always like to stay with their fathahs when they's nice as my
Papa Jack is."

The old man growled something behind his newspaper that she did not
hear. He would have been glad to choke this man who had come between him
and his only child, and he hated him worse than ever when he realized
what a large place he held in Lloyd's little heart.

She did not go back to Locust the next day, nor for weeks after that.

She was up almost as soon as Mom Beck next morning, thoroughly enjoying
the bustle of preparation.

She had a finger in everything, from polishing the silver to turning the