“H—­m, h—­m,” said the banker.

On the porch were twenty children.  In forty eyes the new light of happiness was dawning.  At the beginning, many of them had been hopeless and even evil, but now it was all different, for they had found out that they could laugh.

Aunty Stevens herself, full of laughter and bubbling over with joy at seeing her friends again, surrounded by the shouting children, made them more than welcome.

Bobby’s grandfather was armed with a huge box, which he had mysteriously guarded all day; he now set it down upon the porch.

“If you children don’t make this box lighter at once, I shall have no use for you,” he declared.  And they all, scenting candy with infallible instinct, fell upon it with rapture.

They had tea on the lawn, that evening, and, after a consultation with Mrs. Stevens, Bobby’s grandfather sent a message over the telephone that was followed very shortly by a man with ice cream and a huge cake.  When eight o’clock came, one of the teachers began to play a march on the piano in the hall.  At once the children fell into line, marking time with their feet, and singing,

    “Good-night, good-night,
    Children and blossoms who sleep all the night,
    Always will wake up happy and bright,
    Good-night, good-night!”

As they sang, they marched away to bed.  The others followed them in.

The boys’ dormitories were in a building on one side of the lawn, and the girls’ on the other, while the babies’ nursery was in the main building.

The spirit of the Home was helpfulness, so each child aided some one else in getting ready for the night.  When they were in their white night-gowns, they all dropped upon their knees, and one of the teachers said a short prayer after which they all joined with her in the Lord’s Prayer.

When the guests came down into Aunty Stevens’s sitting-room where the open fire was dancing—­for the evening was a trifle chilly—­Bobby’s grandfather put a few questions to Mrs. Stevens.

“When the children are thievish and given to bad language and lying, what do you do?” he asked.

“In some way they seem to shed those things, as a worm does its cocoon, after they are here for a while,” she answered.  “In the light of loving care, the sunny child nature comes out—­it cannot help it, any more than a rose can help blooming in the sun; and, with the other children who have been here from the first to regulate things, we do not have much trouble.  They are too young to stay vicious, and when they go away they are well enough grounded in good habits not to forget them, we hope, and to go on helping others.”

“Do you have to refuse many applicants?”

“Yes, that is one trouble.  We ought to be able to take at least fifty children, and we need an infirmary; but those things will come in time.”

Bobby’s grandfather opened his mouth to speak, just as Bobby himself climbed into his lap with a question trembling on his lips.