Jonesy took his little snub nose out of the pillow as the professor came in, and looked around defiantly as if ready to fight the first one who dared to hint that he had been crying.  The boys took their leave soon after, leading the bear back to his new quarters in the carriage house, where they had made him a comfortable den.  Then they walked slowly up to the house, their arms thrown across each other’s shoulders.

“S’pose it was us,” said Keith, after walking on a little way in silence.  “S’pose that you and I were left of all the family, and didn’t have any friends in the world, and I was to get separated from you and couldn’t get back?”

“That would be tough luck, for sure,” answered Malcolm.

“Don’t you s’pose Jonesy feels as badly about it as we would?” asked Keith.

“Shouldn’t be surprised,” said Malcolm, beginning to whistle.  Keith joined in, and keeping step to the tune, like two soldiers, they marched on into the house.

Virginia found them in the library, a little while later, sitting on the hearth-rug, tailor-fashion.  They were still talking about Jonesy.  They could think of nothing else but the loneliness of the little waif, and his pitiful appeal:  “Oh, don’t let them shut me up where I can’t never get back to Barney.”

“Why don’t you write to your father?” asked Virginia, when they had told her the story of their visit.

“Oh, it is so hard to explain things in a letter,” answered Malcolm, “and being off there, he’d say that grandmother and all the grown people certainly know best.  But if he could see Jonesy,—­how pitiful looking he is, and hear him crying to go back to his brother, I know he’d feel the way we do about it.”

“I called the professor out in the hall, and told him so,” said Keith, “and asked him if he couldn’t adopt Jonesy, or something, until papa comes home.  But he said that he is too poor.  He has only a few dollars a month to live on.  I didn’t mind asking him.  He smiled in that big, kind way he always does.  He said Jonesy was lots of company, and he would like to keep him this summer, if he could afford it, and let him get well and strong out here in the country.”

“Then he would keep him till Uncle Sydney comes, if somebody would pay his board?” asked Virginia.

“Yes,” said Malcolm, “but that doesn’t help matters much, for we children are the only ones who want him to stay, and our monthly allowances, all put together, wouldn’t be enough.”

“We might earn the money ourselves,” suggested Virginia, after awhile, breaking a long silence.

“How?” demanded Malcolm.  “Now, Ginger, you know, as well as I do, there is no way for us to earn anything this time of year.  You can’t pick fruit in the dead of winter, can you? or pull weeds, or rake leaves?  What other way is there?”

“We might go to every house in the valley, and exhibit the bear,” said Keith, “taking up a collection each time.”