“All right, Bob,” answered Mr. Flint, with a curious, kindly look in his eyes that was not often there. “I'm glad to see you home. I have to go to the bank.”

“Well, Father,” said Bob, “school must be out, and I imagine you know where I'm going. I just thought I'd stop in to—to thank you, and get a benediction.”

“I am very happy to have you back, Robert,” replied Mr. Worthington, and it was true. It would have been strange indeed if some tremor of sentiment had not been in his voice and some gleam of pride in his eye as he looked upon his son.

“So you saw her, and couldn't resist her,” said Bob. “Wasn't that how it happened?”

Mr. Worthington sat down again at the desk, and his hand began to stray among the papers. He was thinking of Mr. Flint's exit.

“I do not arrive at my decisions quite in that way, Robert,” he answered.

“But you have seen her?”

“Yes, I have seen her.”

There was a hesitation, an uneasiness in his father's tone for which Bob could not account, and which he attributed to emotion. He did not guess that this hour of supreme joy could hold for Isaac Worthington another sensation.

“Isn't she the finest girl in the world?” he demanded. “How does she seem? How does she look?”