“I see.  Well, yes, Ann, you must teach me to be a father.”

And so they began their lives together.  And after a few days Lynda saw that during the child’s stay with Betty the crust of sullen reserve had departed—­the little creature was the merriest, sweetest thing imaginable, once she could forget herself.  Protected, cared for, and considered, she developed marvellously and soon seemed to have been with them years instead of days.  The impression was almost startling and both Lynda and Truedale remarked upon it.

“There are certain things she does that appear always to have been waiting for her to do,” Conning said, “it makes her very charming.  She brushes the dogs and cats regularly, and she’s begun to pick up books and papers in my den in a most alarming way—­but she always manages to know where they belong.”

“That’s uncanny,” Lynda ventured; “but she certainly has fitted in, bless her heart!”

There had been moments at first when Lynda feared that Thomas would remember the child, but the old eyes could hardly be expected to recognize, in the dainty little girl, the small, patched, and soiled stranger of the annoying visit.  Many times had Thomas explained and apologized for the admittance of the two “forlornities,” as he called them.

No, everything seemed mercifully blurred; and Ann, in her new home, apparently forgot everything that lay behind her.  She never even asked to go back to Betty’s though she welcomed Betty, Brace, and Bobbie with flattering joy whenever they came to visit.  She learned to be very fond of Lynda—­was often sweetly affectionate with her; but in the wonderful home, her very own, waited upon and cared for, it was Conning who most appealed to her.  For him she watched and waited at the close of day, and if she were out with Lynda she became nervous and worried if they were delayed as darkness crept on.

“I want father to see me waiting,” she would urge; “I like to see his gladness.”

“And so do I!” Lynda would say, struggling to overcome the unworthy resentment that occasionally got the better of her when the child too fervently appropriated Conning.

But this trait of Ann’s flattered and delighted Truedale; often he was amused, but he knew that it was the one thing above all else in the little girl that endeared her to him.

“What a darling she is!” he often said to Lynda when they were alone together.  “Is she ever naughty?”

“Yes, often—­the monkey!”

“I’m glad to hear it.  I hate a flabby youngster.  Does she ever speak of her little past, Lyn?”

“Never.”

“Isn’t that strange?”

“Yes, but I’m glad she doesn’t.  I want her to forget.  She’s very happy with us—­but she’s far from perfect.”  “To what form of cussedness does she tend, Lyn?  With me she’s as lamblike as can be.”

“Oh! she has a fiery temper and, now that I think of it, she generally shows it in reference to you.”