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“And did the children love it,–the country?” said Anne, wistfully.

“Made them over!” said he, nodding reflectively. “Yes. I remember that the day after we moved was a Sunday, and we had quite a patch of lawn over there that I thought needed cutting. I shall never forget those little girls tumbling about in the cut grass, and Rose watching from the steps, with the baby in her lap. It made us all over.” His voice fell again, and he stared smilingly into the fire.

“The children were born here, then?” said Anne.

“The little girls, yes. And the oldest boy. Afterward there was another boy, and a little girl–” he paused. “A little girl whom we lost,” he finished gravely.

“Both these babies were born here,” Anne said, after a moment. Her caller looked from one child to the other with an expression of interest and understanding that no childless man can ever wear.

“Our Rose was born here, our first girl,” he said. “Sometimes a foggy morning even now will bring that morning back to me. My wife was very ill, and I remember creeping out of her room, when she had gone to sleep, and hearing the fog-horns outside,–it was early morning. We had an old woman taking care of her,–no trained nurses in those days!–and she was sitting here by this fireplace, with the tiny girl in her lap. Do you know–” his smile met Anne’s–“do you know, I was so tired, and we had been so frightened for Rose, and it seemed to me that I had been up and moving about through unfamiliar things for so many, many hours, that I had almost forgotten the baby! I remember that it came to me with a shock that Rose was safe, and asleep, and that morning had come, and breakfast was ready, and here was the baby, the same baby we had been so placidly expecting and planning for, and that, in short, it was all right, and all over!”

“Oh, I KNOW!” Anne laid an impulsive hand for a second on his, and the eyes of the young wife, and of the man who had been a young father thirty years before, met in wonderful understanding. “That’s–that’s the way it is,” said Anne, a little lamely, with a swift thought for another foggy morning, when the familiar horn, the waking noises of the city, had fallen strangely on her own senses, after the terror and triumph of the night. Neither spoke for a moment. Diego’s voice broke cheerily into the pause.

“I can undress myself,” he announced, with modest complacence.

“Can you?” said Charles Rideout. “How about buttons?”

“I can’t do buttons,” Diego qualified firmly.

“Well, I think–I can–remember–how to unbutton–a boy!” said the man, with his pleasant deliberation, as he began on the button that was always catching itself on Diego’s hair. Diego cheerfully extended little arms and legs in turn for the disrobing process. Presently a small heap of garments lay on the floor, and the children were quite delicious in baggy blue flannels. All the four were laughing and absorbed, when James Senior came in a few minutes later, and found them.

“Jim,” said his wife, eagerly, rising to greet him, and to bring him, cold and ruddy, to the fireplace, “this is Mr. Rideout, dear!”

“How do you do, sir?” said Jim, stretching out his hand, and with a smile on his tired, keen, young face. “Don’t get up. I see that my boy is making himself at home.”

“Yes, sir; we’ve been having a great time getting undressed,” said the visitor.

“Jim,” Anne went on radiantly, “Mr. Rideout and HIS wife lived here years ago, when THEY were just married, and their children were born here too!”

“No–is that so!” Jim was as much pleased and surprised as Anne, as he settled himself with Virginia’s web of silky hair against his shoulder. “Built it, perhaps, Mr. Rideout?”

“No. No, it was eight or ten years old, then. I used to pass it, walking to the office. We had a little office down on Meig’s pier then. As a matter of fact, my wife never saw it until I brought her home to it. She was the only child of a widow, very formal Southern people, and we weren’t engaged very long. So my brother and I furnished the house; used–” his eyes twinkled–“used to buy our pictures in a lump. We decided we needed about four to each room, and we’d go to a dealer’s, and pick out a dozen of ’em, and ask him to make us a price!”