THE friendship between Miss Mountford and Ralph Torrance grew rapidly. The ice once broken was not likely to close again, especially as the boy was feeling his father's continued absence a real trouble. His grievances² were poured into Kathleen's sympathetic ear, and so far as she was able she comforted him.

 

"You see, father has never stayed away like this before," said Ralph. "If he went for a long time, he always took me, and if for a little while, he came back just when he had promised to do. I thought he was going to London for three days, and now, maybe he won't be back for Christmas. He says the people he is with cannot do with children, because of their grown-up visitors. I think they might have me, for I'm a boy, not a baby."

 

Ralph tossed back his head with an air of insulted dignity, but strove to keep back threatening tears. His father had been ten days absent, and Christmas was very near. There had always been visitors of some sort at this season, and if there had been no one else, his father's presence would have satisfied Ralph.

 

"Perhaps," said Kathleen, "one boy would have been considered in the way. If there were other boys in the house, you know, it would be different."

 

"I wouldn't have bothered anybody. But it's no use; a fellow can't go to a place unless people ask him, can he, Miss Mountford? 'Specially¹ if they don't know him. Besides, I don't know where father is staying. He writes to me and sends me envelopes directed like this."

 

Ralph showed his latest, somewhat tumbled through being carried, together with his father's letter, in a pocket too narrow to hold it properly.

 

Kathleen declined to look at the address which Ralph was eager to show her, but she could not well refuse to listen when the boy said, "Here is a bit for you. Father says, 'Tell Miss Mountford that I do not know how to thank her for being so good to my motherless boy. I am more grateful to her than words can express. When I come back, I shall try to tell her how deeply I feel her goodness.'"

 

"And you have been good. You have asked me here four times, besides bringing me from the station that first day. You've let me ride out on the Kelpie twice, along with you, and once you let me try if I could sit your beautiful mare³. I enjoyed that most of all, for Polly is a beauty, though she would be too big for me in a general way, you know."

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