"All our tragedies!" laughed Anne.
"Didn't that hurt her mouth?" said the caller, interestedly, lifting Diego into the curve of his arm.
Diego rested his golden mop comfortably against the big shoulder.
"It hurt her teef," he said dreamily, and subsided.
As if it were quite natural that the child should be there, the gentleman eyed Anne over the little head.
"I've not told you my name, madam," said he. "I am Charles Rideout. Not that that conveys anything to you, I suppose—?"
"But it does, as it happens!" Anne said, surprised and pleased. "Jim—my husband, is with the Rogers-Wiley Company, and I think they do a good deal of cement work for Rideout & Company."
"Surely," assented the man, "and your husband's name is—?"
"Warriner,—James Warriner," Anne supplied.
"Ah—? I don't place him," Mr. Rideout said thoughtfully. "There are so many. Well, Mrs. Warriner," he turned his smiling, bright eyes to her again, from the fire, "I am intruding on you this afternoon for a reason that I hope you will find easy to forgive in an old man. I must tell you first that my wife and I used to live in this house, a good many years ago. We moved away from it—let me see—we left this house something like twenty-six or—eight years ago. But we've talked a hundred times of coming back here some day, and having a little look about 'little Ten-Twelve,' as we always used to call it. I see your number's changed. But"—his gesture was almost apologetic—"we are busy people. Mrs. Rideout likes to live in the country a great part of the time; this neighborhood is inaccessible now—time goes by, and, in short, we haven't ever come back. But this was home to us for a good many years." He was speaking in a lower voice now, his eyes on the fire. "Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am," he said gently, "I brought Rose here a bride—thirty-three years ago."