which followed. Mr. Stewart in turn regarded the child attentively.

"Would it please you to keep her here, Dame Kronk?" he asked at last.

As my aunt made glad assent, I could scarcely refrain from dancing. I
walked over to the little girl and took her hand in mine, filled with
deep joy.

"You render me very grateful, Tom," said Major Cross, heartily. "It's a
load off my mind.--Come, Philip, make your farewells. We must be off."

"And isn't the child to be mine--to go with us?" the boy asked,
vehemently.

"Why be childish, Philip?" demanded the Major. "Of course it's out of the
question."

The English lad, muffled up now for the ride, with his large flat hat
pressed down comically at the sides by the great knitted comforter which
Bob had tied under his chin, scowled in a savage fashion, bit his lips,
and started for the door, too angry to say good-by. When he passed me,
red-faced and wrathful, I could not keep from smiling, but truly rather at
his swaddled appearance than at his discomfiture. He had sneered at my
apron, besides.

With a cry of rage he whirled around and struck me full in the face,
knocking me head over heels into the ashes on the hearth. Then he burst
into a fit of violent weeping, or rather convulsions more befitting a
wild-cat than a human being, stamping furiously with his feet, and
screaming that he _would_ have the child.