the dinner table before her. Nancy usually started the meal
promptly at half past six, so that the children's first raging
appetites might be partly assuaged; bread was buttered, milk
poured, bibs tied, and all the excitement of commencing the meal
abated when Bert came in. It was far from being the ideal
arrangement, both parents admitted that, but like a great many
other abridgements and changes in the domestic routine, it worked.
The rule was that no one was to interrupt Dad until he had talked
a little to Mother, and had his soup, and this worked well, too.
It was while the soup-plates were going out that Bert usually
lifted his daughter bodily into his arms, and paid some little
attention to his sons.

But to-night he came rushing in like a boy, and the instant Nancy
saw the cause of his excitement, she was up from her place, and as
wild with pleasure as a girl. The deeds! The actual title to Holly
Court! Then it was all right? It was all right! It was theirs.
Nancy showed the stamped and ruled and folded paper to the
children. Oh, she had been so much afraid that something would go
wrong. She had been so worried.

Nothing else was talked of that night, or for many days and
nights. Bert said that they might as well move at once, no use
paying rent when you owned a place, and he and Nancy entered into
delightful calculations as to the placing of rugs and tables and
chairs. The things might come out of storage now--wouldn't the
banjo clock and the pineapple bed look wonderful in Holly Court!
The children rejoiced in the parental decision to go and see it
again next Sunday, and take lunch this time, and be all by
themselves, and really get to know the place.