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tea." She sailed down the stairs.
Even the bang of the hall door failed to convey any relief to Cecilia.
For the second time she toiled upstairs, to the bare freshness of her little
room. Generally, it had a tonic effect upon her; to-day it seemed that
nothing could help her. She leaned her head against the window, a
wave of homesick loneliness flooding all her soul. So deep were its
waters that she did not hear the hall door open and close again, and
presently swift feet pounding up the stairs. Someone battered on her
door.
"Cecilia! Are you there?"
She ran to open the door. Bob stood there, a short, muscular fellow, in
Air Force blue, with twinkling eyes. She put out her hands to him with
a little pitiful gesture.
"Don't say that horrible name again," she whispered. "If anyone else

calls me Cecilia I'll just go mad."
Bob came in, and flung a brotherly arm round her shoulders.
"Has it been so beastly?" he said. "Poor little Tommy. Oh, Tommy, I
saw the over-ornamented pie sailing down the street, and I dived into a
side alley until she'd gone out of range. I guessed from her proud and
happy face that you'd been scarified."
"Scarified!" murmured Cecilia. But Bob was not listening. His face was
radiant.
"I couldn't wait in the park any longer," he said. "I had to come and tell
you. Tommy, old thing--I'm demobilized!"

CHAPTER II
THE RAINHAMS
It was one of Mrs. Mark Rainham's grievances that, comparatively late
in her married life, she should suddenly find herself brought into
association with the children of her husband's first marriage. They were
problems that Fate had previously removed from her path; she found it
extremely annoying--at first--that Fate should cease to be so tactful,
casting upon her a burden long borne by other shoulders. It was not
until she had accepted Mark Rainham, eleven years before, that she
found out the very existence of Bob and Cecilia; she resented the
manner of the discovery, even as she resented the children themselves.
Not that she ever dreamed of breaking off her engagement on their
account. She was a milliner in a Kensington shop, and to marry Mark
Rainham, who was vaguely "something in the city," and belonged to a
good club, and dressed well, was a distinct step in the social scale, and
two unknown children were not going to make her draw back. But to
mother them was quite another question.
Luckily, Fate had a compassionate eye upon the young Rainhams, and

was quite willing to second their stepmother's resolve that they should
come into her life as little as possible. Their father had never concerned
himself greatly about them. A lazy and selfish man, he had always been
willing to shelve the care of his small son and daughter--babies were
not in his line, and the aunt who had brought up their mother was only
too anxious to take Bob and Cecilia when that girl-mother had slipped
away from life, leaving a week-old Cecilia and a sturdy, solemn Bob of
three.
The arrangement suited Mark Rainham very well. Aunt Margaret's
house at Twickenham was big enough for half a dozen babies; the
children went there, with their nurse, and he was free to slip back into
bachelor ways, living in comfortable chambers within easy reach of his
club and not too far, with a good train service, from a golf links. The
regular week-end visits to the babies suffered occasional interruptions,
and gradually grew fewer and fewer, until he became to the children a
vague and mysterious person named Papa, who dropped from the skies
now and then, asked them a number of silly questions, talked with great
politeness to Aunt Margaret-- who, they instinctively felt, liked him no
better than they did-- and then disappeared, whereupon every one was
immensely relieved. Even the fact that he generally brought them a
packet of expensive sweets was as nothing beside the harrowing
knowledge that they must kiss him, thereby having their faces brushed
with a large and scrubby moustache. Aunt Margaret and nurse did not
have to endure this infliction--which seemed to Bob and Cecilia
obviously unfair. But the visits did not often happen--not enough to
disturb seriously an existence crammed with interesting things like
puppies and kittens, the pony cart, boats on the river that ran just
beyond the lawn, occasional trips to London and the Zoo, and delirious
fortnights at the seaside or on Devonshire moors. Cecilia had never
known even Bobby's shadowy memories of their own mother. Aunt
Margaret was everything that mattered, and the person called Papa was
merely an unpleasant incident. Other little boys and girls whom they
knew owned, in their houses, delightful people named Daddy and
Mother; but