"Do you think Dad may get here in time for the party?" Alice's tone was a
tiny bit mournful, and Aunt Janice hastened to dispel any feeling of
homesickness.

"Who can tell? Perhaps he may surprise us at any time now; anyway, I'm
sure he wants you to spend happy days at the old place."

"We are, indeed we are!" chorused the Merediths together.

Alice placed an arm around Aunt Janice's shoulder, and began
coaxingly--"Tell us the story of the Tower room, please." In vain Nora
shook her head, but Alice did not look up. "The first day that we went
through the gardens, Janey saw something white waving from the
window, but we hurried by, as you said, we must. Nora said, it was
only a pigeon!"

Alice had completely forgotten her promise, and dismayed, but helpless to
stop her, the others sat around, speechless.

Aunt Janice's face whitened with the request, but she patted gently the
golden head against her shoulder.

"The story of the tower room is a long one, dearie, but perhaps you
should know it. I shall try and hurry through it. Your own father could
tell you much of those happy days gone by; Harry, his brother, and senior
by a good many years, married Gwendolyn Arlington, and they had one son,
beloved by his parents to almost a painful degree. When he was about
sixteen years old perhaps, he insisted that the only thing that he wanted
to do, was to go to sea, and although it almost broke his mother's heart,
they gave in to his whim. With his departure, the life of the old place