No family should be without her.

When I was small she gave me chocolates, tin soldiers, pop-guns warranted to endanger my brothers' and sisters' eyesight.

And now, in a thousand ways, conscious and unconscious," he laughed quietly, naughtily, the words running over each other in the rapidity of his speech--"she gives me such a blessed good conceit of myself!" And Damaris Verity, caught by the wave of his light-heartedness and inherent desire to please, softened again, her serious eyes alight for the moment with answering laughter.

Whereupon Tom crossed the threshold and stood close beside her upon the grass in the brooding sunshine, the beds of scarlet and crimson geraniums ranging away on glowing perspective to left and right.

He glanced at the three ladies seated beneath the giant ilexes, and back at his companion.