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“Oh, dear, dear, dearest Miss Dallas, please let me call Mother myself! I don’t get many chances to telephone, and I love, just love to do it! And I want to tell mother my own self what a great, great thing has happened to me. You said a carriage, didn’t you, Mr. Latham? It’s pretty nearly always a car. I’m not quite, perfec’ly certain I ever’ve rode—roden—I mean ridden in a carriage. I’ve rode—ridden—in the grocer’s wagon, but I can’t remember a carriage. I’d love to tell mother. And with a real poet! Would you mind, Miss Anne Dallas, if I did it myself?”

“Bless your funny little heart, Anne, of course I shouldn’t mind!” cried Anne Dallas. “Come, both guests!”

Richard Latham, left behind, stood quietly waiting, unconsciously listening to the telephone jingle, to Kit’s strong voice, to little Anne’s excited piping.

Suddenly and unreasonably he felt old and alone. He was not old, but he was alone, and around him in the beautiful room that he had made, with its spacious calm, its books, its pictures, was complete darkness.