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Leila Buckney, a few weeks ago, had announced her engagement to the mild-looking blond young man, Parker Hoyt, and she was just now attempting to hold him by a charm she suspected she did not possess for him, and at the same time to give her mother and sister the impression that Parker was so deeply in her toils that she need make no further effort to enslave him.
He thought of it a great deal, was thinking of it this moment, in fact, and Leila suspected that he was. But Mrs. Buckney, aside from a half-formed wish that young persons were more demonstrative in these days, and that the wedding might be soon, had not a care in the world, and, after a moment's unresponsive silence, returned blithely to her query about Clarence Breckenridge.
Then, for the first time in all that dreadful night, Miss Connie gave out. She sat weakly down, crying like a very little child. "Oh, Buckney!" she sobbed, "they told us not to take a Barnardo boy; that they were, half of them, just street arabs; that we we couldn't trust them. So, sometimes I've been afraid to hope you were all right; and now you have probably saved my life."
Or would he decide that there was no hurry about it, and that he might as well rather keep away from the Buckney house until he'd made up his mind?" "I suppose he might convince himself that an hour or two's delay wouldn't matter!" said the doctor, laughing.
Hoyt volunteered. "You say he has?" Mrs. Buckney took him up promptly. "Is that so? I knew he did all the time, of course, but I hadn't heard lately. Well ! Pretty hard on Mrs. Breckenridge, isn't it?" "Pretty hard on his daughter," Miss Leila drawled. "He has all kinds of money, hasn't he, Park?" "Scads," said Mr. Hoyt succinctly. Conversation languished.
Archibald Buckney, a large, generously made woman of perhaps fifty, who stood a little apart from the group, with two young women and a mild-looking blond young man, suddenly interrupted a general discussion of scores and play with a personality. "Is Clarence Breckenridge playing to-day, I wonder? Anybody seen him?"
The Barnardo Boy The only thing that young Buckney could say to express his surprise at the wonderful stone buildings was "Blow me!" He had expected to find that the great Canadian city of Montreal would be just a few slab shacks, with forests on all sides, and painted Indians prowling, tomahawk in hand, in search of scalps.
Then, as he looked at Buck as if he saw him for the first time, he beheld his bleeding feet and torn knees. "Officers," said the great: surgeon, "you asked who he is. He's our boy! He's my boy! I never had a son of my own, but but Buckney goes to college next year, and he goes as my adopted son. This night has shown me what he's made of."
Elderly persons, after looking vaguely about for seats, disposed of their coffee and salad while standing, and soon there was a general breaking-up; the Buckney- Hoyt wedding was almost a thing of the past. Rachael, thinking of the impending dinner-hour of little Gerald Fairfax Gregory, began to watch the swirling groups for Warren.
"THERE'S some love for you," said Doctor Gregory, glancing across the room to the figures of Miss Leila Buckney and Mr. Parker Hoyt, who were laughing over a cabinet full of ivories. "I wonder just what would happen there if Parker lost his money to-morrow if Aunt Frothy died and left it all to Magsie Clay?" Rachael suggested, smiling. The doctor answered only with a shrug.
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