My speech was cut short at that point by Cornelia at the window, calling out rather sharply:—
"Oliver, why do you suppose the children don't come?" Almost in the same breath she sprang to her feet and, pulling aside the curtain, cried:—
"Oh! Oh! Oliver, what's that?" And an instant later, "Oh! Oh! Oh! How dreadful! Thank God! Thank God! Oh, thank God, it's not the children!"
"Of course not!" soothed Oliver, with his arm about her shoulder. "Of course not. What was it? Tell us about it."
We ourselves had heard, not indistinctly,—the apartment is on the second floor,—the prolonged steady screech of an automobile horn, and, in response to Cornelia's cry, had rushed to her side, expecting, I suppose, to see the fire department clearing its right of way up the avenue.
"Oh, there's been a dreadful accident," cried Cornelia. "That poor little boy—Oh, that poor little boy! They were driving like mad—to the
