He smiled, and stepped out of it, as out of a cast-off garment.  This quick movement shook up the talking-machine, and at once voices issued from the great horn shrilly protesting into his ear—­“Quack! Quack! Kommt, Fraulein!” “Une fille stupider!” “Gid-dap!” “Honk!  Honk!  Honk!”—­and then, rippling upward, to the accompaniment of dancing feet, a scale on a piano.

He peered into the horn.  “When did I come by this?” he demanded.  “Well, I shan’t carry it another step!” And moving his shoulders as if they ached, let the talking-machine slip sidewise to the glass.

There was a crank attached to one side of the machine.  This he grasped.  And while he continued to stuff bills into the mahogany box with one hand, he turned the crank with the other.  Gwendolyn had often marveled at the way bands of music, voices of men and women, chimes of clocks, and bugle-calls could come out of the self-same place.  Now this was made clear to her.  For as her father whirled the crank, out of the horn, in a little procession, waddled the creatures who had quacked so persistently.

There were six of them in all.  One wore patent leather pumps; one had a riding-whip; the third was in motor-livery—­buff and blue; another waddled with an air unmistakably French (feathers formed a boa about her neck); the next advanced firmly, a metronome swinging on a slender pince-nez chain; the last one of all carried a German dictionary.

Her father observed them gloomily. “That’s the kind of ducks and drakes I’ve been making out of my money,” he declared.

The procession quacked loudly, as if glad to get out.  And waddled toward the stream.

“Why!” cried Gwendolyn; “there’s Monsieur Tellegen, and my riding-master, and the chauffeur, and my French teacher, and my music-teacher, and my Ger—!”

His eyes rested upon her then.  And she saw that he knew her!

“Oh, daddy!”—­the tender name she loved to call him.

“Little daughter!  Little daughter!”

She felt his arms about her, pressing her to him.  His pale face was close.  “When my precious baby is strong enough—­,” he began.

“I’m strong now.”  She gripped his fingers.

“We’ll take a little jaunt together.”

“We must have moth-er with us, daddy.  Oh, dear daddy!”

“We’ll see mother soon,” he said; “—­very soon.”

She brushed his cheek with searching fingers.  “I think we’d better start right away,” she declared. “’Cause—­isn’t this a rain-drop on your face?”

CHAPTER XV

Without another moment’s delay Gwendolyn and her father set forth, traveling a road that stretched forward beside the stream of soda, winding as the stream wound, to the music of the fuming water—­music with a bass of deep pool-notes.

How sweet it all was!  Underfoot the dirt was cool.  It yielded itself deliciously to Gwendolyn’s bare tread.  Overhead, shading the way, were green boughs, close-laced, but permitting glimpses of blue.  Upon this arbor, bouncing along with an occasional chirp of contentment, and with the air of one who has assumed the lead, went the Bird.