The child’s screams could be heard plainly, coming upward from the lawn, in shrill bursts of infantile ion. Mrs. Simmons was troubled with a mother’s confusion and distress. The nurse was holding little Oscar at arm’s length, for safety, while the child circled about her, kicking and thrusting with legs and arms. Mrs. Simmons stepped through the open window to the terrace and called:

“Oscar! Oscar!” But neither nurse nor child paid any attention to her.

The shrill cries penetrated at last even the room beyond the large drawing-room where the people were gathered, and aroused the father, who had been called on a matter of business into the study. He stepped briskly into the room,—a handsome man of forty, with black curling hair and crisp black beard cut to a point. His cheek-bones were high, and the skin of his upper face was ruddy, as from much living in the open air.

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