“Certainly they may stay, though I should think your supper table could hardly stand the strain.”

“Where there are five already, two more make no difference, save in better appetite for all,” said Mother Carey, smiling and rising.

“If you will allow me to get my hat and coat I will accompany you to the main road,” said Mr. Lord, going to the front hall, and then opening the door for Mrs. Carey.  “Let me take your parcel, please.”

He did not know in the least why he said it and why he did it.  The lady had interfered with his family affairs to a considerable extent, and had made several remarks that would have appeared impertinent, had they not issued from a very winsome, beautiful mouth.  Mrs. Ossian Popham or Mrs. Bill Harmon would have been shown the door for saying less, yet here was Henry Lord, Ph.D., ambling down the lane by Mother Carey’s side, thinking to himself what a burden she lifted from his shoulders by her unaccountable interest in his unattractive children.  He was also thinking how “springy” was the lady’s step in her short black dress, how brilliant the chestnut hair looked under the black felt hat, and how white the skin gleamed above the glossy lynx boa.  A kind of mucilaginous fluid ran in his veins instead of blood, but Henry Lord, Ph.D., had his assailable side nevertheless, and he felt extraordinarily good natured, almost as if the third volume were finished, with public and publishers clamoring for its appearance.

“I don’t know where Olive could have got any such talent as you describe,” he said, as they were walking along the lane.  “She had some lessons long ago, I remember, and her mother used to talk of her amusing herself with pencil and paint, but I have heard nothing of it for years.”

“Ask to see her sketches when you are talking with her about her work some day,” suggested Mother Carey. (Stab seven.) “As a matter of fact she probably gets her talent from you.”

“From me!” Printed letters fail to register the amazement in Professor Lord’s tone.

“Why not, when you consider her specialty?”

“What specialty?”

Really, a slender sword was of no use with this man; a bludgeon was the only instrument, yet it might wound, and she only wanted to prick.  Had the creature never seen Olive sketching, nor noted her choice of subjects?

“She paints animals; paints nothing else, if she can help it; though she does fairly well with other things.  Is it impossible that your study of zoology—­your thought, your absorption for years and years, in the classification, the structure, the habits of animals—­may have been stamped on your child’s mind?  She has an ardor equal to your own, only showing itself in a different manner.  You may have passed on, in some mysterious way, your knowledge to Olive.  She may have unconsciously blended it with some instinct for expression of her own, and it comes out in pictures.  Look at this, Professor Lord.  Olive gave it to me to-day.”