"I really could not go away and leave them looking wistfully out of the windows after us," Mrs. Stanford had declared, with tears in her bright brown eyes. "I should think of them that way every minute while we were gone, and imagine them crying after me."
"They won't cry, dear Mrs. Stanford," Evelyn had assured her. "I shall devote every moment of my time to them and keep them just as happy as wee little birdlings in a nest."
The youngest Stanford child was peacefully engaged in demolishing a book of bright pictures, while his elder brother was trying the blade of a glittering jack-knife on the wood of the mantel-piece, when Miss Tripp re-entered the room.
"Oh, my dears!" exclaimed their new guardian with a tactful smile, "I wouldn't do that!"
The Stanford infant paid no manner of attention to the mildly worded request; but the older boy turned and stared resentfully at her. "This is my jack-knife," he announced conclusively; "my daddy gave it to me to whittle with, an' I'm whittlin'."
"But your father wouldn't like you to cut the mantel-shelf; don't you know he wouldn't, dear?"
"I'm goin' to whittle it jus' the same, 'cause you ain't my mother; you ain't even my gran'ma."
Miss Tripp, unable to deny the refutation, looked about her distractedly. "I'll tell Norah to get you a nice piece of wood," she said. "Where is Norah, dear?"
"She's gone down to the corner to talk to her beau," replied Master Robert, calmly continuing to dig his new knife into the mantel. "She's got a p'liceman beau, an' so's Annie; on'y hers is a street-car driver. Have you got one, Miss Tripp?"