Not quite a year elapsed before Mr. Hawtry’s genial co-trustee visited his little ward.  The reading of the will had taken place in November, and on the last week of the following June, Mr. Debrett, chancing to be in New York, decided to cultivate the acquaintance of Cecelia Anne.  Mrs. Hawtry and the twins were by this time settled in their country home in Westchester, and Debrett, driving up from the station in the evening with Mr. Hawtry, found it difficult to accept the freckled, barelegged, blue-jumpered form which he saw in the garden, polishing the spokes of a bicycle, as the ward who had lived all these months in his memory:  a fragile little figure in funeral black.  Never had he seen so altered a child, he assured Mrs. Hawtry with many congratulations.  She seemed taller, heavier, more self-assured.  But the smile with which she put a greasy little hand into his extended hand was misty and babyish still.

Presently, while the two men rested with long chairs and long glasses and Mrs. Hawtry ministered to them, Jimmie appeared on the scene and after exchanging proper greetings turned to inspect Cecelia Anne and her work.  “I think you’ve got it bright enough,” he said with kindly condescension.  “You can go and get dressed for dinner now.  And to-morrow morning if I’m not using the wheel maybe I’ll let you use it awhile.”

“Oh, fank you!” said Cecelia Anne who had never quite outgrown her babyhood’s lisp, “and can I have the saddle lowered so’s I can reach the pedals?”

“Oh, I s’pose so,” said Jimmie grudgingly.  “Sometimes you act just like a girl.  You give ’em something and they always want, more.  Now you run on and open the stable door.  I’m goin’ to try if I can ride right into the harness-room without getting off.  Don’t catch your foot in the door and don’t get too near Dolly’s hind legs.”

When the children had vanished around the corner of the house, Mrs. Hawtry turned to Mr. Debrett.

“There’s the explanation of Cecelia Anne’s ruggedness,” said she.  “She and Jimmie are inseparable.  He has taught her all kinds of boys’ accomplishments.  And she’s as happy as a bird if she’s only allowed to trot around after him.  It doesn’t seem to make her in the least ungentle or hoydenish and I feel that she’s safer with him than with the gossipy little girls down at the hotel.”

“Not a doubt of it,” Debrett heartily endorsed.  “She couldn’t have a better adviser.  Her grandmother, a very clever lady by the way, had a high opinion of your son’s practical mind.  A useful antidote, I should say, to his sister’s extreme gentleness.”

He found further confirmation of old Mrs. Hawtry’s acumen when Mr. Hawtry proposed that they should look over Cecelia Anne’s disbursement account, kept by herself, as the will had specified.

Cecelia Anne was delighted with the idea.  Jimmie had wandered out to see about the sports that were going to be held on the Fourth of July, and so the burden of explanation fell upon the little heiress.  She drew her account book from its drawer in her father’s desk, settled herself comfortably in the hollow of his arm and proceeded to disclose the “trend of her inclinations” as is evidenced by her shopping list: