‘How are we to settle it?’ Larrie said wearily.
[p 130]
]Dot lifted the child suddenly up on the pillow,—there was a look of resolution in her eyes.
‘We will both hold out our arms,’ she said, ‘whomever he goes to shall have him; it is the fairest way.’
They bent down to the little fellow, father and mother, with faces that would whiten, and arms that trembled despite themselves.
‘Come,’ they both said.
One little roseleaf hand buried itself in Larrie’s curls, one clutched the fur at Dot’s neck.
‘Come,’ they said again, and this time there was a desperate look in Dot’s eyes.
He looked gravely from one to the other and loosened his hold of their separate persons. There was a thoughtful expression in his eyes though his lips smiled. He half turned to Dot, and the intense look of her mouth relaxed faintly. But then suddenly he stretched out his arms and with a rapturous little leap flung himself at Larrie.
[p 131]
]CHAPTER XII
A LITTLE DIPLOMAT
‘Alas to be as we have been,