I’m very sure of one thing, however. If I ever do marry anyone it won’t be you! But I don’t care to talk any more about this now. My mind has been occupied with so many sorrowful things that marriage doesn’t seem to belong in the scheme of things, and I really must ask you to excuse me now. Thank your mother, please, for her kind invitation. I’m sure she meant to be very sweet. But tell her it is quite impossible for me to visit anywhere at present.”

Jennifer drew herself up with a sweet young dignity, and stood waiting for him to take his leave, when suddenly there came a tremendous jarring sound as if something heavy had fallen on the floor, and Jennifer lifted a quick questioning glance above, trying to identify that sound, anxiety, perplexity in her eyes. There was a breathless instant when Peter, too, stood looking up to the ceiling with wonder. Then there came a quivering gasp from above, followed by an awful wail of a frightened baby, and howl of anguish.

“I¾v–v–vants my muvver!”

But by this time Jennifer was halfway up the stairs, flying as if wings were on her feet. That was Robin! What had happened?

She found him lying on the floor before the bed where he had been so sweetly asleep a little while ago, sobbing as if his heart would break. She gathered him quickly into her arms and sat down on the edge of the bed, holding him close, her lips on his soft baby face and kissing his wet closed eyelids.

“I v–v–vants my muvver! I vants my bootiful muvver!” he wailed with quivering lip.

Jennifer’s tears were falling now, mingling with his. She was not aware that Peter Willis had followed her upstairs to see what catastrophe had occurred and that he was standing in the doorway witnessing a new Jennifer, a Jennifer he had never known before. A Jennifer all maternal sweetness and gentle comfort. Something strange twinged in the place he had for a heart, as he saw the rareness of the girl who had just turned him down so completely.

Not that he believed for an instant that she meant it. She was only angry, of course. But what a girl she was! What would it be when he had her for his own, and that gentleness and sweetness, and tender comfort should be for his mishaps and annoyances.

But the little boy was continuing to wail. “I vants my muvver!”

“But she isn’t here just now, Robin-boy,” said the controlled voice of the young sister.

Robin sat up and looked around the room anxiously. “Wes, she was here. She vas standing wight beside my bed, and I twied to weach her and kiss her, and I wolled out of bed on the floor! Vare is she? I vant her.”

“Listen, Robin,” said the sister, drawing a deep breath and suddenly looking quite mature and dependable, “don’t you remember Mother and Daddy have gone to heaven for a little while? I’m sorry I can’t get Mother for you, but she isn’t here, precious.”

“But I seed her. I weally did, sister!” The little boy’s eyes were big and earnest now, the tears still trembling on his round pink cheek.

Jennifer looked earnestly into his eyes.

“No, dear, that was just a lovely dream of Mother you had. Perhaps Mother asked God to send it down to you to comfort you. Wasn’t that nice to have a lovely dream of Mother?”

Jennifer, through her own tears, was smiling at her little brother. He looked at her with a great questioning in his eyes, and then he suddenly broke into a sweet child smile.

“Wes!” he said happily, and his face was like the sunshine on a rain cloud, full of little rainbows.

“Will you have a pwetty dweam of muvfer, too, Jennifer?” he asked earnestly.

“Perhaps,” said Jennifer, with a wistful tenderness in her eyes.

“And Daddy, too?”

“Perhaps. And now, Robin, have you forgotten how good and quiet you were going to be, and how there was a piece of candy for everybody after the nap, and three pieces for the one who went to sleep first? And do you know that you were the one who won the prize? You were asleep a whole minute ahead of Karen.”

“Vas I?” Robin smiled delightedly.

“Yes, come on now, and let’s go very softly to see if the rest have waked up yet.”

She put him down with his bare pink feet on the floor, taking his warm little hand in hers, and not till then did she notice that Peter Willis was standing in the door watching her.

She gave him a dreamy, absent smile and went on past him, only taking in the significance of his presence when she reached the hall.

“I’m sorry, Peter,” she said pleasantly, distantly, “but you can see I am very busy just now.”

He suppressed a quick thundercloud in his eyes and nodded condescendingly. “This evening, then,” he said with a kind of authority in his voice. “I’ll be over about eight. The circus will certainly be over by that time, won’t it?”

“No!” said Jennifer sharply. “Not this evening! Please, Peter, let me alone, won’t you? I can’t stand any more tonight! Can¾you let yourself out?”

“Oh, certainly!” said Peter, in a displeased tone, but he watched her leading Robin away to have his face washed, and in spite of himself he saw something lovely in it all that he had not dreamed of in connection with the bright young Jennifer. So he set his determined lips in a firmer line than ever.

Chapter 6

By the time Jennifer had Robin bathed and suitably clothed for the journey she had completely forgotten the existence of Peter Willis. She heard the great hall clock downstairs chiming four o’clock and knew she had very little time in which to do a great deal. She had no time for former beaus.