things as the Sampson Syrup, Mother Maybrick’s infant tablets, Price’s purge for the nursery, Tinkler’s tone-up for tiny tots, Ada Lane’s pills for the poppets, and above and before all, from Professor Jeremiah T. Iplock’s ‘What baby wants’ at two-and-sixpence the bottle, or in tabloid form for the growing child, two-and-eight the box.  Keep his inside clear of all such, and you’ll be thankful, and he’ll bless you both on his bended knees when he comes to know his preservation.”

“He’ll never have them, Mr. Thrush,” said Rosamund, with a sober voice and twinkling eyes.  “Never.”

“Bless you, ma’am, for those beautiful words.  And now really I must be going.”

“You’ll find tea in the housekeeper’s room, Mr. Thrush, as usual,” said Rosamund.

“And very kind of you to have it there, I’m sure, ma’am!” the old gentleman gallantly replied as he made his wavering adieux.

At the door he turned round to face the nursery once more, lifted one hand in a manner almost apostolic, and uttered the final warning “Never cosset!” Then he evaporated, not without a sort of mossy dignity, and might be heard tremblingly descending to the lower regions.

“Rose, since when do we have a housekeeper’s room?” asked Dion, touching Robin’s puckers with a gentle fore-finger.

“I can’t call it the servants’ hall to him, poor old man.  And I like to give him tea.  It may wean him from——­” An expressive look closed the sentence.

That night, at last, Dion drew from her an explanation of her Thrush cult.  On the evening when Mr. Thrush had rescued her in the fog, as they walked slowly to Great Cumberland Place, he had told her something of his history.  Rosamund had a great art in drawing from people the story of their troubles when she cared to do so.  Her genial and warm-hearted sympathy was an almost irresistible lure.  Mr. Thrush’s present fate had been brought about by a tragic circumstance, the death of his only child, a girl of twelve, who had been run over by an omnibus in Oxford Circus and killed on the spot.  Left alone with a peevish, nagging wife who had never suited him, or, as he expressed it, “studied” him in any way, he had gone down the hill till he had landed near the bottom.  All his love had been fastened on his child, and sorrow had not strengthened but had embittered him.

“But to me he seems a gentle old thing,” Dion said, when Rosamund told him this.

“He’s very bitter inside, poor old chap, but he looks upon us as friends.  He’s taken sorrow the wrong way.  That’s how it is.  I’m trying to get him to look at things differently, and Robin’s helping me.”

“Already!” said Dion, smiling, yet touched by her serious face.

“Yes.  He’s an unconscious agent.  Poor old Mr. Thrush has never learnt the lesson of our dear Greek tombs:  farewell!  He hasn’t been able to say that simply and beautifully, leaving all in other hands.  And so he’s the poor old wreck we know.  I want to get him out of it if I can.  He came into my life on a night of destiny too.”