Mr. Compton, whose cigar had gone out, laid aside his paper, and forgetting his drink, glanced behind him, almost expecting to see hovering over him some bright and glorious creature of another world. Bobby went on: “May the soul of my dear papa and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen. God bless mamma—and God bless—uncle!”

Compton dropped his cigar.

“And,” continued Bobby, raising beautiful and loving eyes to the ceiling, “Oh, blessed Saviour bring back my mamma to me!”

Here Bobby broke down utterly.

“Steady, Bobby! You know what you told me. Didn’t you say God will bring her back?”

Bobby at these words mastered his tears, made the sign of the cross, and answered as he rose: “And I say so still. Good-night, uncle.”

Bobby leaned over with pursed lips. Compton was perspiring. He raised his head, which was enough for Bobby, who gave him a hearty smack resembling in sound the explosion of a mild firecracker.

About eleven o’clock that night Compton tiptoed into the guestroom. The moon’s silvery rays revealed clearly the sleeping lad. How sweet and calm looked the innocent face in the magic light!

“Is there an angel watching over him?” the man asked himself. Twenty-four hours earlier he would have considered it a silly question, but now—

He stooped lower and gazed more intently upon the child’s face. Was that a tear upon the cheek? He felt the pillow. It was wet in places.

“What a brave little chap he is!” he commented. “He’s feeling his separation from his mother dreadfully. But he keeps it to himself.”

Once more Compton gazed. And then for a moment he saw another face—sweet, noble—the face of Bobby’s mother as he had known her in her early teens.

“Ah,” he considered, “she was the sweetest woman that ever came into my life! What a fool I was not to have taken her advice! I left her for the husks of swine.”

Compton bent down, and with trembling lips touched the boy, lightly, reverently on the brow, and with a suppressed sigh turned away to give to sleep the last hour of the most remarkable day of his life.

It was a little after eight of the clock on the following morning that the comedian took his way along the boulevard towards the Lantry studio. Bobby’s eyes were dancing with mischief; the soul of the weather, gay and bland, had entered into him. As he went his way he dispensed lavish smiles to right and left, and poor indeed was he in human feeling who failed to return smile for smile. Many a passer-by craned his neck, having passed Bobby, to take an admiring look at the tiny dispenser of joy who, attired in black broadcloth knickerbockers, a vest of the same material cut away generously from the breast and decked with two shining buttons where it met at the waist, a white shirt foaming into frills, the sleeves of which were held up above the wrists by two bewitching white ribbons, was really rather like to a lily of the field than Solomon clothed in all his glory.

Of course Hollywood, like all known civilized places where men do congregate, had its array of camera fiends.

“I beg your pardon,” said one of these, a tall severe-looking man with dark glasses, “but would you mind my snap-shotting you?”

Bobby turned, folded his hands, and grinned.

“Shoot,” he said.

“Thank you,” said the man, his severe mien drowned in a wave of smiles almost as gay as Bobby’s.

We have all heard of St. Francis preaching a sermon simply by walking in silence through a thronged city. Does not many an innocent child as he goes his happy way, smiling and wondering, preach a sermon that has for its theme the charm of candid innocence, and the strange and alluring possibility of every one who is so minded to become, by taking himself in hand, a child again? And is it not true that such little children bring a man’s thoughts regretfully and humbly back to the days when he too was young, unsophisticated and unspoiled?

“You’re getting quite popular, Bobby,” observed Compton as they resumed their way. “Everybody seems to like you.”

“So do I,” returned Bobby.

“What’s that?”

“I like everybody, too.”

“Out of the mouths of children,” Mr. Compton murmured to himself.

“I didn’t quite hear you, uncle.”

“I was saying,” translated the elder, “that whether you knew it or not you have given the true secret of popularity.”

“Have we time to go in?” asked Bobby as they neared the Church of the Blessed Sacrament.

“Why, yes, and I’ll be glad to go in with you.”

Mr. Compton’s sign of the cross was beyond criticism, his genuflection not so bad; also, he knelt straight, and, in a word, showed the outward signs of intelligence so lacking on the occasion of his first visit.

“I say, uncle,” Bobby remarked as they came out, “you’ve improved a lot. You didn’t look around a bit.”

“Why should I?”

“People often do, you know, when they’re praying; but it’s not right. Did you notice me looking around at the walls when I said the prayer ‘Angel of God’ last night?”

“Now that you come to speak of it, I believe I did.”

“There was a reason.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Compton, in a tone at once exclamatory and interrogatory.

“Yes. At home when I came to that prayer I always looked at the picture of the guardian angel which hung just above mamma’s head.”

“And you looked around my walls among the pictures to see whether you could find a picture of the guardian angel, eh?”

“Yes, uncle; but I didn’t find a picture anything like one.”

“I should say not!” said Compton with energy. “But, Bobby, I was glad last night when you prayed for me. I hope you’ll keep it up.”

“Aha!” cried Bobby dramatically, jumping in front of his uncle and shaking a triumphant finger at him. “So you do believe in prayer.”

“In your prayers, Bobby. Put that finger down and stop your jigging; everybody is looking at us.”

As a matter of fact, Bobby had achieved a feat seldom achieved on the Hollywood Boulevard. He had, unintentionally of course, excited the attention of nearly every one he had encountered. Now on the gay and festive Hollywood Boulevard, be it known, all varieties of dress and action are to be seen, and nobody seems to bother about them. In the solemn watches of the night cavalcades of cowboys on horseback may come clattering along, shooting in the real sense of the word, and shouting. Possibly some light sleeper may rouse sufficiently to grasp the situation. Turning in his bed, he remarks: “There go them moving-picture fellers again,” and resumes his interrupted slumbers. There’s an old man, white-bearded, redfaced from exposure, bare-footed, clad in a modern substitute for the garments of St. John, and wearing a staff. He is frequently seen on the street, but nobody seems to be concerned so much as to take a second look.

I forgot to say that this imitation St. John the Baptist goes bareheaded. Practically all the men on the boulevard go bareheaded. I myself, I dare say, could patrol that famous thoroughfare in cassock and biretta without exciting any further comment than, “I wonder what picture that fellow’s made up for.” Painted ladies—painted so profusely that their own mothers would not know them—would there escape comment or criticism. It would be taken for granted that they were actresses. The camera would mitigate their extravagance, and their presentment on the screen would be entirely lacking the grossness of their real flesh-and-blood appearances. But Bobby, gay and smiling, taking off now the stride of his uncle, now the gait of a passing flapper, woke the street from its passive acquiescence in all things queer.

It remained for Bobby to create a sensation. He did so, and in the following way.

Mr. Compton, excusing himself and inviting the festive youth to survey the scenery and fill his soul with its beauty, had passed into a shop to renew his supply of cigars. He delayed a few moments, very excusably, to tell a friend what a wonderful find his nephew was.

Now, since their leaving the Hollywood Catholic church, there had been shadowing Bobby, Chucky Snuff, bellhop of yesterday’s play. It had never occurred to Chucky that Bobby’s attempt to help him had been made in the way of kindness. Quite otherwise. In justice to the younger set of moving-picture actors, it should be stated that Chucky Snuff was not up to form. He was, as the girls said, mean. Nobody liked him. A fond father and a foolish mother had accounted him, in his tender years, a swan; and they so petted and spoiled him as to develop him—allowing for difference of sex—into a goose. At the age of ten Chucky was stunted and blasé.

Taking advantage of Compton’s disappearance, Chucky picked up a piece of wood and hastened to overtake Bobby.

“Why, halloa!” said Bobby as Chucky, running in front of him, blocked the way.

By way of return the other put on a face which, had he assumed it in the rehearsal, might have saved him his position.

“There!” he said, placing the wood on his right shoulder, “you knock that chip off my shoulder!”

Bobby’s smile left him, and all the elves of merriment. Perplexity wrinkled his brow. The aggressor was much encouraged. Bobby, he judged, was a coward.

“Go on,” he urged. “I’m going to knock your block off, you big stiff. Do you hear me? Go on and knock it off!”

Bobby perceived that he was in for it. His mind, as usual, worked quickly. It came back to him then how his father had once said, “My son, never indulge in vulgar fist-fighting if you can possibly help yourself; but if you must, it’s a capital thing to get in the first blow.” Accordingly, no sooner had his opponent ceased his adjuration than Bobby’s left hand lightly swept the chip away, while at the same moment his right shot out with what force he could put into it, and landed squarely on the tip of the other’s chin.

Pain, astonishment, vast astonishment, swept over the face of Chucky Snuff. He turned, and with a howl which really attracted attention dashed away for parts unknown.

“Fine work! Excellent!” exclaimed a haughty young man with a close-trimmed mustache and severely aristocratic features as he caught Bobby’s hand, while an admiring audience gathered round to listen avidly to one of the matinee idols of filmdom. “That was splendidly done. That other fellow played the tough to a nicety. The way he had his chin stuck out and the way you landed on it was perfect. Say, it was perfectly rehearsed! You can shoot it right away. Where’s the camera man?”

“Why, that wasn’t acting,” Bobby explained. “That was a real scrap.”

“Oh!” said the actor, deeply chagrined and departing forthwith; and the disappointed spectators, realizing that there was to be no encore, melted away. Thus in Hollywood are real life and reel life confounded.

When John Compton, airily smoking, returned, Bobby was rubbing a skinned knuckle, the cause of which, on inquiry, he explained.

“My fault!” acknowledged the comedian. “You’re in my care and I should not leave you alone. However, perhaps it’s just as well. I know young Chucky Snuff pretty well, and I’m sure he’ll not bother you again.”

Presently Bobby, on his way in the mazes of the Lantry Studio to put himself into the bellhop’s clothes, came upon a little miss seated dolefully in a chair, her head buried in her hands, her shoulders bowed, and dejection in her entire pose. She was dressed like a princess. The elegance of her attire, however, did not impress Bobby; it was her hair, raven-black in a wealth of curls. Where had he seen that hair before? He looked at the hands. They were dark. A light came to him.

“Halloa, Peggy!”

At the words the girl raised her head, and her large wondrously beautiful eyes rested upon Bobby. With a gasp, she sprang from her chair, while her eyes grew larger and larger. Fear and wonder shone from them.

“Don’t you know me, Peggy?” asked the boy, smiling radiantly.

Wonder and fear in those eyes changed to a joy that was nothing less than bliss.

“Oh, Bobby! You’re alive!”

“I’ll say so!”

“Bobby!” she screamed, and threw her arms about his neck.

“Oh, I say!” protested the highly embarrassed youth, “cut out the rough stuff.”

“But, Bobby,” continued Peggy, whose face was irradiated with joy, “I saw you drown myself!”

“You did not. A nice, big man came and fished me out.”

“Oh, thank God! Last night I couldn’t sleep a wink thinking of you and your poor mother. Where is she, Bobby?”

“I wish I knew, Peggy. Didn’t you see her last?”

Then Peggy told Bobby her side of the story.

“And so my mother thinks I’m drowned! I never thought of that, Peggy. But I’ll tell Uncle Compton, and he’ll find where she is and let her know that I’m alive.”

“Uncle Compton! Why, is he your uncle?”

“I don’t know; it all depends. First I was his aunt, and then his uncle, and then his grandfather. He said so himself. Anyhow, I call him uncle. He’s a dandy.”

“Isn’t he, though!” exclaimed Peggy. “I just love him. He’s so kind to children. You know, Bobby, I work with him.”

“What!” cried Bobby, picking up the chair which Peggy in rising had upset, and seating himself. “Why, yesterday you never said a word to me about your being in the movies.”

“I didn’t think it would interest you. I’m in his new play, and there’s an awfully tough bellhop in it who takes a fancy to me, and I reform him.”

Bobby took in a deep breath, and expelled it in a sort of whistle.

“I’m the bellhop,” he said, lowering his eyes, turning down a corner of his mouth, drawing in and upward his shoulders.

“Bobby!” panted Peggy, “let me have that chair.”

Bobby, changing back to himself, arose and helped Peggy to seat herself. Peggy was faint with joy.

“Say,” cried the boy, “we’ll have dead loads of fun.”

“Oh!” said Peggy.

“And we’ll make it go.”

“I know it,” said Peggy. “Just then you looked like the kind of bellhop I’d like to reform. But tell me how you got here.”

“Between the ax, Peggy,” said Bobby, magnificently, after the manner of Compton explaining to the janitor. “I’ll tell you between the ax. I’ll tell you then. I’m now going to dress or I’ll be late.”

There was great headway made on the picture that day. Bernadette, already in love with Peggy, took Bobby into her affections too. Bobby and Peggy worked together like the clever and gifted pals they actually were. Even the “hams” caught the infection of joy, alertness and enthusiasm.

“Say, old man,” said Heneman, in an aside to Compton, “we’ve got something unusual here. Every man, woman and child in this picture is all right from the toes up to the top of the head. None of them are good just as far as the neck. We’re going to speed this thing up and have it out in two weeks. We can do it.”

“I never saw Peggy do so well before, and she always was a corking little actress,” commented Compton.

“It’s Bobby,” explained the director. “He’s got a diffusive sort of pep; it’s catching. I’ve got a great scene coming. When Bob gets to admiring Peggy—in the play, I mean—I’m going to have him show his admiration by imitation. The boy is a born imitator. Of course he’ll have to caricature it, especially her dancing. It’s going to be the very best sort of light comedy.”

“If imitation,” mused Compton, “is the beginning, middle and end of all acting, Bobby will be a star. Between times he’s taking off every carpenter, electrician or camera man around who happens to have any peculiarity.”

“I’d like to see him have a part where he could star,” said Heneman. “It isn’t work to train him. It’s fun.”

The days passed swiftly. Everybody concerned in the production was on edge to get it through. There were no hitches, no delays. Bobby and Peggy worked their parts into an importance undreamed of by the author of the scenario. There was but one unpleasant episode. It happened on the eighth day. A girl of fifteen enjoying a local reputation for calisthenics had been secured to give a short exhibition of her grace and skill. The young miss more than shared the good opinion of her admirers concerning her own ability, and made no secret of it. While awaiting her turn she watched the performers at work, with scarcely veiled contempt. Several of the actors gave her an opportunity to snub them, and in every case she embraced the opportunity.

“You don’t mean to say,” she observed to Peggy, “that they pay you for what you’re doing here.”

“They pay me every week.”

“That’s what you call easy money, isn’t it? And I suppose that little boy there gets paid, too. And all he does is just to be natural. Now, I’ve studied Delsarte for over five years, and fancy dancing for three; and when I appear, though it’s only for four or five minutes, I’m putting into my work the study of a lifetime.” Saying which, the young lady with elevated brows and haughty carriage turned away to seek some other person who ought to be snubbed. When it came to elevating brows and assuming a haughty carriage Bobby Vernon was unusually gifted, as he forthwith demonstrated to Peggy in a splendid caricature of the follower of Delsarte. The girl’s mother was on hand and observed Bobby’s private performance with strong disfavor. She did not like Bobby anyhow. It had become a personal matter with her that Bobby was drawing a higher salary than her own accomplished and superior child.

Presently the dear child performed her stunt. It was really good, good despite a certain superciliousness in the doing. Now Bobby could not help noticing this defect, and it was so easily imitated. He watched carefully for some time until he had got a fair idea of a few of the young miss’s simplest movements; then calling Peggy aside he gave, all things considered, a very good Delsarte exhibition, with a strong injection of the supercilious. Peggy’s sweet voice rang out in laughter which attracted several to the side-show; and Bobby, unconscious of the addition to his original audience of one, went on, gaining in force of caricature with each movement. It was when his nose was tiptilted to an unusual angle and his eyebrows raised as far as he could get them that the fond mother caught him by the hair and gave him, as she afterwards triumphantly declared, “a good wooling.” It took the major part of the spectators to separate the woman from her victim. However, Bobby got a good lesson. It dawned upon him that in “taking off” people he met he might give offense. From that day he became a little more careful. Mr. Compton too, his best friend, let him know that it served him right, although he did not express the opinion in terms so crude. Bobby apologized, and sealed the apology with a box of candy. The young miss, seeing herself as others saw her, received in turn a valuable lesson, with the result that on repeating her part she did it in a way that pleased everybody present, including Bobby himself.

Meditating on all this that afternoon, John Compton got a bright idea.

“Bobby,” he said, as they turned homewards, “for the next seven days I want you to give your evenings to reading while I work.”

“Work?”

“Yes. I’ve just got the idea for a scenario in which you will star. It’s a sure thing. As I see it now it will be something new and, if it goes through as I think, you’ll earn enough money to pay off everything your mother owes.”

“Great!” exclaimed the boy. “Say; you know of course I believe all right. But don’t you think God is taking His time about answering my prayers?”

“I thought you said that you left it all to Him,” remonstrated Compton.

“I do, I do. But I do so miss her, especially at night.”

No one knew this better than John Compton. When the boy’s thoughts were occupied by the day’s work and incidents, he was apparently care-free; but at night alone, as Compton could testify, his tears were frequent.

“Never mind, Bobby. I’m as sure as you that no real harm has befallen your mother. And we’re bound to find her. The detective agency I have put on the case is working hard. Be patient, my boy, and each day of her absence think that you are working for her.”

While the two were thus conversing the object of their talk was standing beside the ranchman’s wife. Like her child, love was the great force of Mrs. Vernon’s life. From the moment she entered the ranchman’s home, her heart went out to the frail, sweet woman upon whom the hand of death seemed to have set his seal. She saw at once that nothing but heroic, constant care and watching would avail. Day after day she gave herself devotedly to the task of fighting with death for the prize of a single life. She hardly slept, she ate little, but the very power of love that had nearly driven her to madness nerved her for an ordeal sublime in its self-sacrifice.

In those eight days a change had come over Barbara. She was thin, hollow-eyed, and a waxen pallor had come upon her face. The light lines of utmost weariness were stamped upon her features. But the chin was set, the mouth firm. The only relief to her constant vigils were the visits of the children. They were grateful beyond their years, and their gratitude manifested itself in little hourly attentions which only love could have devised. It was but natural that Barbara should return their affection, and she did so with interest. And in loving them she felt that she was vicariously spending her love upon her dear lost boy.

Upon this particular afternoon her haggard face, lovely even in its haggardness, was touched by a new expression—satisfaction. Clearly her invalid was better. Even as she gazed the doctor entered the room.

“Good day, Doctor Meehan,” she said, “I’m so glad you came. Don’t you notice a change?”

“Let me look,” responded the doctor, drawing close and peering into the invalid’s face.

“Halloa!” he exclaimed, and felt her pulse.

Jim Regan, the ranchman, with his two children, Agnes and Louis, had followed him into the room.

“By George, Regan!” said the doctor, straightening up and turning with a smile of relief upon the family, “this is no age of miracles. But we have a near-miracle here. Your wife is no longer ill; she’s convalescent. All she needs is rest and food and ordinary care. Barbara Vernon has, with her own hands, dragged her back from the grave. Halloa! What’s the matter?”

It was Mrs. Vernon who had drawn this question from the doctor. On hearing the glad news that brought tears and smiles of joy from the family, Barbara’s face flushed with a sense of relief, went pale again, and, the suspense over, she would have fallen had not the doctor caught her in his arms.

He placed her upon a lounge and made a hasty examination.

“I hope this is not a life for a life,” he said presently. “But the sick person of this house is not your wife, but Barbara Vernon. She’s in for a long siege, I fear.”

“Doctor,” said the ranchman, “if love or money can help her, I’ll not fail. Tell me what to do.”

“I like that sort of talk,” said the physician. “She needs a nurse badly, as badly as your wife needed one. Now, fortunately I have at my disposal the very nurse I would have had for your wife.”

“Can you send her, doctor?”

“I’ll have her here before nightfall, and she’ll bring the necessary medicines and directions as to the line of treatment I want carried out for Barbara, who has collapsed completely. Now mind, it isn’t altogether her care of your wife that has brought this on. If Barbara Vernon has not had some terrible nervous shock before you met her, you may tear up my diploma and put me to carrying a hod. Barbara is threatened with a serious nervous collapse. Put her to bed at once, and keep her there till further orders.”

“And what about my wife?” asked Regan.

“The simplest thing in the world. She hardly needs watching at all, and that jewel of a girl of yours, Agnes, can do all that’s needed to the queen’s taste.”

“Oh, I love to nurse,” said the girl. “I’ve watched dear Miss Barbara, and I’ve learned so much. I know I can do it.”

“I believe you, my girl,” said the doctor kindly. “In fact, I’m sure of you. Now your father and I will carry Barbara to her bedroom, and you will then care for her till our nurse comes. I’ll lose no time in getting her.”

So Barbara was put to bed, and many and many a week passed before she rose from it again.

“Say, uncle,” said Bobby one afternoon as the two were returning from a very successful day’s work at the Lantry Studio, “do you know that Peggy Sansone goes to communion every morning?”

“Oh, she does, does she?”

“Yes, at the seven-o’clock Mass. She used to go only once a week.”

“Why has she changed?”

“That is what gets me, uncle. She’s going every day in thanksgiving because I was not drowned.”

“That’s very nice of her.”

“Isn’t it? And she offers up each communion for my mother.”

“I wish there were more Peggies in the world.”

“So do I. Now look, uncle—I want to go to communion, too. I’m old enough to make my first communion.”

“Sure, Bobby! You just go on and make it. Do you want to do it now?”

“Look here, uncle; I’m—I’m surprised at you.”

“Why, what have I done now?”

“Don’t you know a boy must be prepared, and go to confession and get permission of the priest to go to communion?”

“You don’t say!”

“Yes. And you can’t go any time. Why, uncle, if I were to go into the church now and ask for communion the priest would think I was a nut. No, you must go at Mass in the morning, and be fasting from midnight.”

“What do you mean by communion, Bobby?”

“Don’t you know that? It means the receiving of Our Lord’s body and blood under the form and appearance of bread.”

“Oh, I remember,” said Compton. “One day on our way down to the studio, when we went into the church for your visit, the priest came down from the altar and put small, white, round things on the tongues of some people who came up near the altar. Is that what you mean?”

“No, I don’t. He comes down and gives them Our Lord, and those small, white, round things are the form and appearance of bread.”

“And do you really believe that, Bobby?”

“Believe it!” cried Bobby. “Why, of course I do!”

“Please tell me why. You see, Bobby, if an honest man tells me something about what I don’t see—for instance, that his horse is black—I believe him. But no matter how honest he is, if he tells me the horse he is riding on is black and I see the horse is white, how can I accept his statement?”

“Say, that’s easy,” said Bobby. “Not exactly easy,” he hastened to add, “till it’s been explained right. You see, before I left Cincinnati I was in a communion class, and we had the nicest priest, who seemed to love every child in the class, and there were eighty of us, not one over eight years. We left Cincinnati just one week before our communion day, and that is why I haven’t made it. But he taught us a lot, and that is one of the things he taught us. Do you want me to explain?”

“I certainly do, Bobby.”

“Well, listen. You believe in God, don’t you?”

Compton looked irresolute.

“Say, don’t you?”

“Well, suppose that I do.”

“All right. Now God is the creator of all things. He can make things out of nothing. Can’t He?”

“Go on, Bobby.”

“Now, if He can create out of nothing, He can make a thing nothing again if He wants to.”

“That is,” suggested Compton, “He can annihilate.”

“Say,” cried Bobby, highly gratified, “where did you get that word? It’s the one our priest used, but I couldn’t think of it. It’s easy to teach you. Now look—stand still here.”

Mr. Compton stood still, facing Bobby.

“You’re here now, aren’t you?”

“That’s certain.”

“Couldn’t God, if He wanted, annihilate you just where you are?”

“Let’s suppose He could.”

“Then there wouldn’t be any John Compton.”

“I see.”

“But if God could annihilate you, couldn’t He leave here where you stand a form and appearance that would look just exactly like you?”

“That would be a dummy.”

“Now, you hold on, uncle! Couldn’t God put inside that form and appearance of yours a spirit—an angel maybe—so that your form and appearance, under the power of that angel, would talk and act exactly like you?”

“I don’t think an angel would talk and act like me.”

“Say, you’re getting the idea. It isn’t a question whether an angel would talk and act like you; the question is, could an angel do it?”

“It sounds all right.”

“Now,” said Bobby triumphantly, poking his uncle in the ribs, “suppose that God just now annihilated you and put an angel in your place, how could I know it wasn’t you?”

“Why, you just couldn’t know. You would think it was me.”

“Think again, uncle; it’s a hard question. It stumped the whole of our communion class for five minutes, and I got the right answer, and the priest gave me a holy picture for answering it.”

Mr. Compton wrinkled his brows in thought.

“There’s one thing sure,” he at length said, “God would know that the thing in my place was not John Compton.”

“Uncle, you’re getting hot.”

“And therefore,” pursued Compton, speaking slowly, “if God told you—”

“Hurrah!” cried Bobby, clicking his heels together as he jumped into the air. “You go to the head of the class. I’d know it if God told me.”

“But would you believe it?” objected the elder.

Bobby’s lip curled.

“Say, uncle, didn’t we agree that God could do it?”

“Well, yes.”

“Why shouldn’t we believe Him, then?”

“I guess you’re right. But what’s that got to do with Holy Communion?”

“Listen. At the Last Supper, Christ, who was God, took bread, and blessed it, and said: ‘Take ye and eat; this is my body.’ ”

“I remember hearing that.”

“And didn’t the Apostles believe Him?”

“I suppose they did.”

“And yet what Christ held in His hands looked like bread, tasted and felt and smelt like bread. Was it bread?”

“Yes; I guess it was bread.”

“Now, look here, uncle—who am I to believe, you or Christ?”

“What’s that—Oh, why Christ of course.”

“Well, you say it’s bread, and a whole lot of people say the same thing. But Christ says it is His body, and His word is worth more than the word of all the duffers in the world.”

“Let’s walk on,” said Compton, and fell into thought. “Bobby, why do you want to make your first communion?”

“Because I want to pray for my mother and—and for you, and to get grace and strength. You know, uncle, it’s the greatest thing in the world.”

“Well, suppose we go in and see a priest?”

“Uncle!” exclaimed Bobby, “you’re all right.”

Father Mallory, a zealous, kindly young priest, received Bobby with a rare cordiality, and while Compton sat by in respectful attention, questioned the boy at length.

“Mr. Compton,” said Father Mallory, before ten minutes had quite elapsed, “this boy is as well prepared as any child I ever met. He has brains and, what is immeasurably better, faith. Bobby, you may go to confession, say, three days from now, and then to communion the next day, Saturday morning.”

“Oh, Father,” said Bobby, “thank you! And may I use that telephone?”

“Certainly.”

“That you, Peggy?—Yes, this is Bobby. Say, I’ve got great news.—No, no news of my mother, but I know she’s all right.—Guess again.—No.—You’re getting cold.—Now you’re getting warmer. Oh, say; I’ll bust if I keep it in any longer. I’m going to make my first communion next Saturday.”

The two in waiting heard clearly a scream of delight.

“Isn’t it great?” pursued the boy. “And if Father Mallory, who is a jim-dandy, will let me, I’m going to go every day. Yes, I thought you’d be glad to know. Good-by.”

“I was talking to Peggy,” explained Bobby as he hung up the receiver. “She’s mighty glad, too.”

The next three days were crowded ones. Bobby, who had heard of retreats before first communion, decided that he would try, so far as he could, to make one.

“Uncle,” he said the next morning, “I’ve been thinking last night, and I’m going to keep silence for three days.”

“Eh?” cried Compton.

“Yes; I’m going to make a retreat before my first communion—that is, as much as I can. Of course I’ll work just the same.”

In like manner he conveyed his intentions to Peggy, who thought it a capital idea. And during these three days the company derived no end of innocent merriment from the pantomime performances of Peggy and the boy, who really kept silence, but who nevertheless showed an extraordinary ability in conveying his emotions by gestures and motions and facial expression. On the whole, Peggy and Bobby during these three days had the time of their lives. It must be stated that Bobby more than once fell from grace, and made an attempt at starting a conversation. But Peggy, older by two years, was resolute. Up went her finger to the mouth, while reproach, gentle but sincere, shone from her eyes.

Only once did Peggy fail in her duty as directress of this unusual retreat. On the third day Bobby handed her a note.

Peggy in the course of these three days had received twenty-four written communications from her pal. They were all carefully preserved among her treasured possessions.

“Oh, Bobby,” she exclaimed on the reading of this, the twenty-fifth, “may I sit next to you, and go up alongside and receive with you?”

“I was hoping you would ask that,” returned Bobby. “I won’t miss mother so much.”

And then with bright and flashing eyes they broke into a conversation which would not interest the reader, but which, I am sure, was listened to with loving attention by at least two angels. How long they would have continued is beyond conjecture had not Miss Bernadette Vivian happened along.

“So you’re talking once more, are you?” she remarked. “Let me in, too, on this conversation.”

“Oh, I forgot,” said Bobby, looking contrite.

“And so did I,” added Peggy. “Bobby!”

Bobby looked into her reproving eyes and beheld a warning finger at her lips. They talked no more that day.

During this odd triduum Bobby made it a point on the way home to visit the Blessed Sacrament. He remained on each occasion for half an hour, during which time his uncle indulged in conversation with Father Mallory.

On the last day Bobby made his general confession, while Peggy waited without on her knees, her eyes fastened on the tabernacle, her lips moving in prayer that her pal might make it a good one. They parted wordlessly without the vestibule, though it was a matter of five minutes before their adieus were completed. Indeed, they might have gone on for a much longer period in their making of farewells had not a bright-eyed boy, an acolyte of the church, after watching them for a few minutes in wide-eyed amazement, called out to a young friend on the sidewalk, “Hey, Jimmie, come on here quick. There’s a couple of deaf-mutes here talking the sign language.”

Then they parted.

The next morning the romantic little church at Hollywood had, considering that it was a week day, an unusual number of worshipers at the eight-o’clock Mass. The director, Joseph Heneman, was there, and every actor in the play now nearing completion. Even the exponent of the Delsarte system, a chastened young lady, was in attendance. Many were non-Catholics. Many had come to see, but, I firmly believe, all remained to pray.

Just before the Mass Mr. Compton, looking like the last possibility in the way of a comedian, walked up the aisle behind Bobby, who, with eyes cast down and hands clasped in reverence, seemed oblivious, as in fact he was of course, of everything and every one. Compton saw him into a seat in the front pew and modestly took his own place in the pew behind. A few seconds later Peggy appeared. She walked up the aisle rather briskly. Nor were her eyes cast down. Peggy had business. It was no difficult task to discover Bobby, and to him she went. Leaning over so as to bring her head on a line with that of the kneeling boy, she handed him an ivory-bound prayer-book, her own communion present for the lad. Then she opened the book and pointed out to Bobby the prayers he should recite in preparation for his first communion.

Bobby and Peggy were dressed in white; and if ever that color, emblematic of innocence, was appropriate to any occasion, it was appropriate to this. To some gazing on the two it was a vision. A non-Catholic, a man who had scored and been scarred in the battle of life, whispered to his neighbor:

“How those little ones love each other!”

“You are right,” returned the other. “And it is a love which draws down in admiration ‘the angels in heaven above,’ and sends ‘the demons down under the sea’ scattering.”

“That’s just what I mean,” said the first, and—a thing that had not occurred in his life since early boyhood—fell to praying.

Peggy, having accomplished her mission, now passed over to the opposite pew, where, kneeling as immobile as a statue, she remained until the time of communion. The two went up together, and as they passed up to the communion railing a wave of the supernatural swept over every one present; and when, having received the Body of the Lord, they arose and turned, their faces were enough to make an atheist believe in God.

The non-Catholics present were carried away; and they left the church as though they had seen a vision.

To describe the breakfast, with Bobby at the head and Peggy at the foot, and every member of the company seated between, would be an anti-climax. It was a happy party.