Page:Temple Bailey--The Gay cockade.djvu/307

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LADY CRUSOE

Billy went down with him, and when he came back we stood looking into the fire, and he said, "You didn't tell him?"

"Of course not. That's the lovely, lovely thing that he must find out for himself——"

The next day I went to see Lady Crusoe. William Watters took me. "They's a man been hangin' round this mawnin'," he complained, "an' a dawg——"

"What kind of man, William?"

"He's huntin', and Miss Lily she doan' like things killed——"

Half-way up, we passed the man. His hat came off when he saw me. "It's cold weather we're having," he said pleasantly.

"It's getting warmer," I flung back at him, and William drove on with a grunt.

I had Junior with me, and when I reached the house I went straight up-stairs. In the very center of the room in the hooded mahogany cradle was another crumpled rose-leaf of a child. But this was not a "Junior."

"Robin-son," Lady Crusoe had whispered, when I had first bent over her and had asked the baby's name.

"Because of the robins?" I had asked.

She shook her head. "I couldn't call him Crusoe, could I?"

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