"Look like Connie," muttered Uncle John. Then his faded eyes flashed sudden intelligence. "I know. Of course she's like Connie. I guessed it, didn't I?" He glanced triumphantly at Marjorie.
"So you did, Uncle John," nodded Marjorie brightly.
Mr. Stevens gazed searchingly at the young girl so like his foster daughter. Mary felt her color rising under that penetrating gaze. It was as though this dreamy-eyed man with the dark, sad face had read her very soul. For a brief instant she sensed dimly the ignobleness of her jealousy of his daughter. She felt that she would rather die than have him know it. Perhaps, after all, she was in the wrong. She would try to dismiss it and do her best to enter into the spirit of the merry-making. An impatient tug at her hand caused her to remember Charlie's presence.
"Talk to me," demanded the child. "Connie says I have to go to bed in a minute, so hurry up."
Mary stooped and wound her arms about the tiny, insistent youngster. She clasped Charlie tightly to her and kissed his eager face. And that embrace sealed the beginning of an affection between them, the very purity of which was one day to lead her from the terrible Valley of Doubt into the sunlight of belief.
"Now you've done it," was Marjorie's merry accusation. "You've stolen my cavalier. Oh, Charlie, I thought I was your very best girl." She made reproachful eyes at Charlie, who, delighted at receiving so much attention, sidled over to her with a ridiculous air of importance and took her hand.
"Everybody likes Charlie," he observed complacently. "Now he can stay up all night and listen to the band."
"You'd go to sleep and never hear the band at all," laughed Constance. "No, Charlie must go to bed and sleep and sleep, or he will never grow big enough and strong enough to play in the band."
The half pout on Charlie's babyish mouth, born of Constance's dread edict, died suddenly. Even the joys of staying up all night were not to be compared with the glories of that far-off future.
"All right, I'll go," he sighed. "But you and Marjorie must come again soon in the daytime when I don't have to go to bed. I'll play a new piece for you on my fiddle. Uncle John says it's a marv'lus compysishun."