only seven cats taking their meals here now," suggested Mrs. Grey.

"My dear, those are humble dependents; of those I hope we shall always have a store, for I want the little grey house to be the asylum for homeless creatures it was in my mother's day," said Mr. Grey, busying himself with the basket-strap. "But a cat, all our own, and one of the family, we have lacked since the day when poor old Nellie Grey went to the reward of cats of blameless character. Yes, Oswyth; this is, indeed, snow-white Billy, and I consider it a great honor that his mistress will intrust us with her pet." Mr. Grey had unfastened the strap by this time, and, lifting the basket-cover, displayed a half-grown kitten, snowy white and odorous of violet sachet, cowering, trembling, with dilated eyes, on the pale blue knitted shawl with which his loving mistress had tried to soften his departure.

"Now, don't jump at him," said Mr. Grey, who understood and loved all animals. "Remember, a cat is the most nervous creature on earth, and this one is dreadfully frightened."

"I've often petted him at Mrs. Bonell's; he may remember me," said Oswyth. "Let me take him." Very gently she raised the downy creature, who immediately put his forepaws around her neck and clung to her, his poor little heart thumping wildly against Wythie's throat. "Dear Billy, you gentle, sweet, little kitten," Wythie murmured, sitting down to rock him, while Rob and Prue looked on longingly.

"You don't object, Lady Grey?" said Mr. Grey. "He's so much of a pet already, and so very white, he can't bother you."

"Why, you know, Sylvester, I'm quite as much of a goose about pets as the children—or as you are," laughed Mrs. Grey, and so Billy was adopted.

"I'd like to call him Kiku—that's Japanese for chrysanthemum. I wonder if Mrs. Bonell would mind? It would be so lovely to say: 'O Kiku-san,' when we called him," said Rob.

"She would never mind," said Prue, while Wythie began to sing to the old lullaby tune of Greenville: "O Billy-san, O Kiku-Billy-san; O Kiku-san, O Kiku-Billy-san." As she rocked to and fro in perfect content, frightened, puzzled little Billy shut his eyes and clung to her, his heart beating less tumultuously as he began to realize that here, too, were gentle hearts and hands.

"I want you when you can come, Rob, my son," said Mr. Grey, going toward the room which had been set apart for his special uses. It was a well-worn, but well-wearing, joke between Roberta and her father that she was his son Rob, his mainstay and dependence. "And I'd like to be able to see you when you come," he added, as a parting shot. "Just now you are in partial eclipse from blacking."

Rob laughed and ran upstairs. Presently she returned, and went to her father's room, carefully closing the door behind her.

It was a curious place, a mixture of study, library, workshop, and laboratory. It had been built for the kitchen of the little grey house when it was new, a hundred years ago. Its walls were wainscoted to half their height in panels of grained and varnished wood. The fireplace was made of narrow panels, with little cupboards above the high, narrow, wooden mantelpiece, and the handles of these cupboard-doors were tiny brass knobs. The old rush-bottomed chairs sitting around the walls, and the tables as well, were littered with papers. Between the windows, where the light was strongest, sat a common kitchen table, and on it stood a model of the bricquette machine, and models of its component parts. Two tall bookcases, one filled with scientific and mechanical books, the other with novels, essays, and poetry, stood opposite these models, and across the room on another table standing close to the sink and small portable stove, were scattered chemical apparatus.

Rob was perfectly at home in these queer surroundings; among them she had spent a great deal of her childhood, creeping, "mousy-quiet," to sit on a stool by her oblivious father, her chattering tongue silenced and her busy brain full of loving awe.

Her father looked up now as she entered. "Ah, Rob, come in," he said. "I want to go over this with you. You read to me what I have written here, while I move the model according to those directions, and see if I have made it clear and correct."

"Yes, Patergrey," said Rob, taking the closely written manuscript which he handed her, well used to this sort of service. And then she began to read.

Sometimes, not fully understanding what she read, Rob paused and watched her father manipulate the model, and refer to its sections, until she comprehended perfectly what the words were intended to convey. So far from this interest on her part annoying the inventor, it delighted him, and largely explained what was unquestionably true—that Rob was his favorite daughter.

"You will be as well able to exhibit this as I shall when it is done, Rob, my son," Mr. Grey laughed, well pleased, as, her point cleared up, Roberta read on, pausing only at a word from her father. "Wait a moment, Rob; this isn't quite right." "Mark that with the blue pencil, Rob; I'll say that more briefly." "Slowly, Rob; my fingers won't move as fast as your tongue."

At last they were through, and Mr. Grey threw himself into his big chair with the shabby cushions, sighing contentedly.

"That's all right, Rob," he said. "Next autumn will see the machine completed—December at the latest, I hope. What a help you are, Rob, my son!"

"It's a comfort to hear you say that, like a sort of grace, every time we get through, Patergrey," said Rob. "But if I am a help to you, I wonder if I can get you to do something for me?"

"Yes, you know you can," said Mr. Grey, anticipating a request to be taken fishing, or to go for a long stroll in the twilight. But Rob, who would never allow anyone to insinuate that her father could accomplish more than he did, had other plans in her teeming brain. With a sensitive flush, fearing to wound her father, she said:

"Didn't you tell me, Patergrey, that a magazine had asked you to write a special article for it on something or other scientific, and offered you quite a sum of money if you'd do it?"

"Why, yes," said Mr. Grey, startled into animation by the unexpected question. "On fuels and means of heating and lighting in the future, and the world's storage of such fuel; they thought I should be prepared for such an article—as I am. Yes, they asked me—why?"

"Because dear Mardy is worried over present prospects; she lies awake planning, and can't see her way out—she told us so this morning," said Rob, bravely. "She says we must have an extra hundred dollars—and she has no idea where it can come from. We've used up the coal money—you know she divides her poor little pennies into piles for different things—and if we get coal late it will cost more, besides, how can we get it later any better than now? So I never said a word to the rest, but I thought of the article, and I made up my mind I'd get the dear daddy to put a wee bit of his cleverness on paper, and surprise the blessed Lady Grey by giving her her hundred—do you suppose it could be as much as that, Patergrey?"

"They offered me a hundred dollars for three thousand words," said her father, adding quickly, as Rob clapped her hands rapturously: "But it will take my mind off the invention, Rob, and I don't want to delay that a day. Something seems to impel me—compel me is better—to finish it as soon as I can, and anything that retards it is a mistake, my dear."

"But you are all prepared—you said so, Patergrey—and you are so clever you can do it in a week," coaxed Rob, getting up to kneel beside