Mr. Meredith picked up the gorgeous parasol meekly enough and gave it to her.  Mrs. Davis seized it and marched out.  Jerry and Carl had given up banister sliding and were sitting on the edge of the veranda with Faith.  Unfortunately, all three were singing at the tops of their healthy young voices “There’ll be a hot time in the old town to-night.”  Mrs. Davis believed the song was meant for her and her only.  She stopped and shook her parasol at them.

“Your father is a fool,” she said, “and you are three young varmints that ought to be whipped within an inch of your lives.”

“He isn’t,” cried Faith.  “We’re not,” cried the boys.  But Mrs. Davis was gone.

“Goodness, isn’t she mad!” said Jerry.  “And what is a ‘varmint’ anyhow?”

John Meredith paced up and down the parlour for a few minutes; then he went back to his study and sat down.  But he did not return to his German theology.  He was too grievously disturbed for that.  Mrs. Davis had wakened him up with a vengeance.  Was he such a remiss, careless father as she had accused him of being?  Had he so scandalously neglected the bodily and spiritual welfare of the four little motherless creatures dependent on him?  Were his people talking of it as harshly as Mrs. Davis had declared?  It must be so, since Mrs. Davis had come to ask for Una in the full and confident belief that he would hand the child over to her as unconcernedly and gladly as one might hand over a strayed, unwelcome kitten.  And, if so, what then?

John Meredith groaned and resumed his pacing up and down the dusty, disordered room.  What could he do?  He loved his children as deeply as any father could and he knew, past the power of Mrs. Davis or any of her ilk, to disturb his conviction, that they loved him devotedly.  But was he fit to have charge of them?  He knew—­none better—­his weaknesses and limitations.  What was needed was a good woman’s presence and influence and common sense.  But how could that be arranged?  Even were he able to get such a housekeeper it would cut Aunt Martha to the quick.  She believed she could still do all that was meet and necessary.  He could not so hurt and insult the poor old woman who had been so kind to him and his.  How devoted she had been to Cecilia!  And Cecilia had asked him to be very considerate of Aunt Martha.  To be sure, he suddenly remembered that Aunt Martha had once hinted that he ought to marry again.  He felt she would not resent a wife as she would a housekeeper.  But that was out of the question.  He did not wish to marry—­he did not and could not care for anyone.  Then what could he do?  It suddenly occurred to him that he would go over to Ingleside and talk over his difficulties with Mrs. Blythe.  Mrs. Blythe was one of the few women he never felt shy or tongue-tied with.  She was always so sympathetic and refreshing.  It might be that she could suggest some solution of his problems.  And even if she could not Mr. Meredith felt that he needed a little decent human companionship after his dose of Mrs. Davis—­something to take the taste of her out of his soul.