On that very day the picture was to be finished. So far the going had been unusually good, and the wind-up would take but a few hours. It mattered little, therefore, that the director began work an hour late. Present at this last rehearsal were a striking-looking boy of eight or nine and an extremely beautiful girl of seven. Bobby’s eyes rested upon them, and, as he showed by a grin, he was pleased.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning, Bobby,” said the boy, reaching out the hand of cordiality. “My name is Francis Mason. I’m in the movies myself. Say, I saw you make your first communion. It was nice.”

The little girl during this introduction was beaming impartially on both. It was the sweet smile of trusting youth.

“I was there too, Bobby,” she added. “I’m not a Catholic, but it was just lovely. My name is Pearl Wright. I’m in the movies, too.”

“We’ve come to see you and Peggy,” smiled Francis.

“Yes,” added Pearl. “We’ve heard a lot about you; and it was very nice of Mr. Compton to get us in.”

Then Peggy came over, and a fellowship was there and then formed between the four juvenile stars, which, in the retrospect, will take on all the glory of romance.

At about eleven o’clock Peggy and Bobby had completed their work. So far as they were concerned the picture was done. Then it was that Compton called the four children aside.

“Say, Mr. Compton,” said Francis, “those two sure know how to act. It beats anything I ever saw.”

“That’s what I think,” Pearl put in. “I could just look at Peggy and Bobby all day and all night.”

“You don’t know, children, how glad I am to see you get on so well together.”

“We’re friends, you see,” smiled Pearl.

“I believe you,” said Compton. “Now come with me.” Saying which he led them into a set well screened off from observation. “There’s a little dance in the play, Pearl and Francis, which is done by Peggy and Bobby. It’s a very pretty thing, and is really the creation of Peggy Sansone.”

“No, no,” dissented the Italian. “I just saw a minuet and a gavotte and some other dances and pieced them together.”

“It was fine piecing, at any rate, Peggy. Now what I like about it is that it has all that is lovely you can find in any dance, and expresses grace and springtime and innocent gayety without the least taint of the low or the sensual. Now I want you two children to watch Peggy and Bobby while they do it for your benefit. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

In point of fact he did not return until the word finis, almost two hours later, had been pronounced. The picture was done. When he returned he was in the company of Mr. Heneman. Their entrance was not observed; the four youngsters were too engrossed to be easily aroused. Bobby was placing Francis in a pose which called for some unusual control of one’s equilibrium; Peggy was marking a line on the floor, upon which Pearl was gazing as though it were an exhibit of diamonds.

“Didn’t I tell you?” said Compton triumphantly.

“You were a prophet,” answered the manager, smiling broadly.

“Oh, goody!” cried Peggy, lifting her eyes and spying the visitors. “You’re just in time. Francis and Pearl, just as soon as we finished, started to do it themselves.”

“Aha!” said Compton sotto voce. “Didn’t I tell you? Imitation!”

“Yes,” added Bobby, “and they came mighty near getting it right the first time. Didn’t they, Peggy?”

“They did, Bobby.”

“And then,” put in Pearl with dancing eyes, “Peggy started us to making it a dance for four. And we’ve had such a good time that—”

“That we didn’t miss you at all,” broke in Bobby.

“And,” added Francis, looking at his wrist watch, “we didn’t even notice it was an hour past dinner time.”

“Look,” said Compton to the director. “Could you, from here to New York, find four sweeter children?”

“And they’re all first-rate actors, too,” said the manager, who looked as happy as though he had come into a fortune. “Compton, I think you have hit upon a big thing.”

“I know it,” said Compton.

The children meanwhile had put their heads together, literally and figuratively.

“You do it,” said Peggy to Bobby.

“No, you do it. It’s your dance, anyhow.”

“All right,” sighed Peggy. Then advancing to the two elders, she went on:

“Please, wouldn’t you like to see our little dance?”

“Nothing would please us better,” answered Heneman.

“Thank you. Come on now; we’re going to show them what we’ve learned.”

It is hard to interest a seasoned director in such things, and almost impossible to secure the interest of a Compton. But there are exceptions to every rule. For five minutes or more the audience of two was spellbound.

It was a variation of the original dance, a wonderful variation, retaining all its grace and beauty and springtime aroma, with little touches, magical touches, which charmed it into the realms of fairyland.

“By jove,” roared the manager, “that’s simply wonderful! Peggy, you’re a genius!”

“Listen, children,” said Compton. “You’ve done more than I expected. I had a bet with the manager that if I put you together, Pearl and Francis would go to work and pick up that dance. But you’ve done more. You’ve saved me the trouble of getting up a dance to fit into our new scenario which we start at the day after to-morrow. It is called ‘Imitation,’ and you are all four to be in it.”

The children gazed at each other in speechless joy and wonder.

“There are to be four principals: Bobby, Francis, Peggy and Pearl. Mr. Heneman and myself have chosen you because we know you can act, and—and—”

“Because we love you,” supplemented Heneman.

Whereupon Pearl and Peggy threw their arms about each other’s necks and the two boys rolled over in ecstasy.

“So that is what you’ve been working on, uncle?” asked Bobby when he had finally come once more to his feet.

“Yes. You gave me the idea, Bobby. You know you’re always doing what other people are doing. You’re always taking somebody off.”

“Like a policeman?” inquired Pearl. “Well,” she went on to explain, “the policeman on our beat sometimes takes people off. I saw him once myself.”

While Peggy, drawing Pearl aside, instructed her in the meaning of the expression on this occasion, Mr. Compton proceeded:

“The idea came to me on the day you took off that Delsarte girl and got wooled for your pains. It struck me that I could build up a story on the idea of four entirely different children, different in their surroundings, their station in life, their education and their refinement, being brought together. The tenement girl is thrown in with the daughter of a magnate; and the son of the same magnate is thrown in with a tough little kid who is by way of developing into a first-rate pickpocket.”

“Something like the first part of Oliver Twist?” ventured Peggy.

“In a way, yes. But here’s the difference: No children are really bad, and some who are on the way to wickedness may have splendid qualities. And that’s the way it is to be in this play. All four children are to have splendid qualities. Francis will be the tough boy; but he is naturally kind and brave. Bobby will be the magnate’s son—good, but sissified. Peggy will be a child of the tenements, rough in her ways and uncouth. You, Pearl, will be the magnate’s daughter, nice as pie, but babyish. And you and Peggy will fall to liking each other just the same as Bobby and Francis. And here’s where the difference comes in from the story of Oliver Twist. Because you like each other you will each try to resemble each other. What Peggy admires in Pearl she will try to be; and Pearl will try to resemble Peggy in her best qualities. You see the idea?”

“Where’s the action coming in?” asked Francis.

“Oh, that’s another thing. A kidnaper steals the magnate’s two children. He puts the girl in a tenement in charge of Peggy’s father, and puts the boy with a friend who is a thief and a maker of thieves. Peggy and Francis, their children, are won over by love to your side, Bobby. They help you to escape. Francis and Bobby succeed in escaping first. Then Francis traces you girls, and he and Bobby contrive to get you free. You tramp along the road until, footsore and weary, you happen upon the home of a kind and fairly wealthy married couple. It is there that Peggy and Pearl, who have long danced together, teach you, and it is there that Bobby’s and Pearl’s mother unexpectedly arrives, and clasps her children to her arms, and Francis doesn’t have to pick pockets or Peggy sell newspapers any more. The magnate and his family find that their boy and girl have kept all their good qualities and gained many new ones, while, as for Peggy and Francis, they have so changed that no friend of former days would know them. And so you live happily ever afterwards.”

“Say, that’s swell!” cried Francis.

“I just love it!” exclaimed Peggy.

“And am I to wear the tenement clothes in the dance?” asked Peggy.

“That’s what I’d like to know, too—about my clothes,” said Bobby.

“Oh, no. The nice gentleman and his wife, once they have seen you rehearse, dress you up just fit to kill, and all four of you when you do your dance will look like magnified humming birds.”

“I am so glad to hear that!” said Peggy.

“Did you ever see a girl,” observed the philosophic Francis, “who didn’t like to fix herself up in her prettiest?”

“You were just as anxious as I was,” flared Peggy.

“Well, it’s going to be great,” said Francis. “I wish we could start in right now.”

The meeting broke up in happy shouts and merry laughter, and, I believe, all four in slumber dreamed that night of happy things, not far off, but coming towards them in the bright hues of romance.

“Well, how is your ‘Imitation’ getting along?” asked the head of the scenario department in the Lantry Studio some three weeks later.

“Getting on!” repeated Compton. “Getting on is no name for it. Do you know, Moore, that, other things being equal, children are the finest actors in the world? You see, they are docile. You tell ’em to do a thing and how to do it; and if they get your meaning that’s enough. Of course we’re extremely fortunate; we’ve got together four of the brightest children in or out of movieland. And they are such pals! They all stand up for each other; they all help each other. Of course they have a little tiff now and then. Otherwise we wouldn’t know they were human. We might conclude that they were not descended from Adam.”

“Eh?” said the astonished Moore, taking his pipe out of his mouth. “Where did you get that sort of talk? I thought you were a giddy pagan, foolish but harmless.”

“Well,” laughed Compton, reddening slightly, “I hope I’m getting more sense.”

“You need it,” said Moore dryly, replacing his pipe and puffing comfortably. “But to return to our mutton—which one of your heaven-descended quartet is doing best?”

“That,” returned Compton, “is a question which Joe Heneman and myself discuss every day. Sometimes we think it’s Peggy. Those large, dark eyes of hers can be so wistful and, on occasion, so tragic. The next day we settle upon Francis. In dealing with Bobby in the play he can be so genial and smile upon him with the serene philosophy of one so much older, so much more intimately acquainted with the ways of the world. By the time we have settled upon Francis along comes Pearl with the sweetest smile and the most gracious manner. Bobby is in the running all the time. In the trick of imitating he leads them all. We haven’t come yet to the great scene, the scene where he meets his mother after an absence of four weeks. That, so far as the children are concerned, is the last scene. I’m confident that Bobby, if he performs it as I think, will bring tears to the eyes of millions; and if he does he will be the star of stars.”

“Did you know, Compton, that Bobby made his first screen appearance on the Broadways of the big cities yesterday?”

“That’s a fact! I had quite forgotten. Yesterday was the day of release. I hope they’ll like me in it.”

“I don’t think they’ll bother about you. It is Bobby they will like,” said Moore.

“And I forgot to look at the papers this morning,” mused Compton regretfully.

“I did not forget, but I haven’t had time. Wait a minute; there may be something about it.”

Moore returned shortly, wearing a smile and waving the Los Angeles Times.

“Say, that old thing of yours, ‘You Hardly Can Tell,’ has scored a tremendous hit. Look at these headlines!” And Compton looked and gasped. These were the headlines:

“Say,” exclaimed Compton, running his eyes down the review itself, “that’s good stuff! I’m a little jealous of my reputation, but there are a few persons in the world who may outshine me, and I’m glad of it; and Bobby is first of all.”

“I think,” said Moore, “that you’ll have plenty of chance to be glad, then.”

“The boy comes by his gifts honestly,” continued Compton. “His father was an actor, and as for his mother, though she never appeared upon the regular stage, she was a wonder, both at the convent school and later in society, as an amateur actress. Nothing could persuade her to go on the stage, though she received before her marriage most tempting offers.”

“You know a lot about her,” said Moore incredulously.

“I didn’t live in Los Angeles all my life,” returned Compton.

“Oh, say, uncle,” cried Bobby, all out of breath, “there’s a reporter man here and he wants to take my picture.”

The two men glanced at each other.

“Behold the entrance to the gates of fame,” exclaimed Moore, airily waving his pipe.

“Come on, Bobby,” said Compton, “I’ll go with you.”

“Say, uncle, what’s a Lothario?”

“Eh?” queried the amazed comedian.

“A L-o-t-h-a-r-i-o?” spelled the boy.

“Why, that’s the name of a person.”

“Is your name Lothario, uncle?”

“Certainly not. What makes you ask that?”

“Because I heard that new star with the doll face, Bennie Burnside, say that you were a gay Lothario.”

“Bennie Burnside,” said Compton severely, “on the outside is a fine figure of a man from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. On the inside he is absolutely perfect up to and including his neck. He is a matinee idol.”

“But, uncle, what is a gay Lothario?”

“It is said of the kind of fool who is soon parted from his money; it means a man whose most earnest endeavor is to make an ass of himself.”

“But you’re not a fool, uncle.”

“Thank you, Bobby. I will try to believe you. Anyhow, I may be a fool now, but I am not the forty-three varieties of fool I once was.”

Indeed, so great a change had come upon John Compton since the arrival of Bobby that all the world—the moving-picture world, at any rate—wondered. Nothing could persuade him to leave his quarters at night. The dance knew him no more; the hotel lobby, whither a certain set of foolishly joyous moving-picture men most did congregate, missed him from his accustomed place. A local magistrate wondered what had become of him. He had not been fined for speeding in five weeks. In a word, John Compton had suddenly abandoned his mad quest of pleasure, and, having abandoned the quest, was cheerier, happier than he had been since attaining his majority. Compton was known to be a man of more than ordinary intellect. His friends had for years expected great things of him. In college days he had given promise of developing into a writer of taste and imagination. But he had so far disappointed these high expectations. His pen had been barren, his life had been strewn with good intentions—till Bobby came.

And now it was so different. He had written a scenario, “Imitation,” which was new in matter, touching in treatment, and which, in the opinion of the Lantry Studio critics, gave promise to set a high mark for other scenario writers. He was already busy upon a second play. Bobby was almost his sole companion in these days, Bobby and Father Mallory, for whom he had conceived a strong liking, and whom he visited regularly every afternoon.

As the two made their way to an office where the reporter was cooling his heels there came swooping upon them, dressed for their respective parts, Peggy and Francis and Pearl.

“Hey, Bobby!” “Gee, Bobby!” “Oh, Bobby!” they shouted in a splendid enthusiasm, “you’re in the headlines.”

They had the morning paper between them, and in each one’s endeavor to show Bobby the place and the words they damaged the sheet considerably.

“And we’re all so glad!” said Francis, who had himself starred in five productions.

“We’re proud of you, Bobby,” said Pearl, smiling angelically.

“And we all love you,” chimed in Peggy, “and Mr. Compton,” she thoughtfully added.

“Just wait until I read this,” said Bobby. And while, moving his mouth in the slow pronunciation of each word, the lad read his own praises, Francis, in a dreamy ecstasy, seated himself, absently placing in his mouth the pipe he was later to use in the production, and gazed upon the loved one in happy and ungrudging admiration.

“Oh, just wait till they see ‘Imitation,’ ” said Bobby, after glancing over the text under the headlines. “Then they’ll have something to write about. I don’t mean me. I mean you, Peggy, and you, Pearl, and you, Francis.”

“And just think of the heaps and heaps of fun we’re having,” chortled Peggy. “People say we’re working during vacation. Do you call this work?”

“I should say not,” said the other three, one after the other in such quick succession that their words almost chimed together.

As they went on to chat gayly of their present joy and their future plans, Compton was in earnest converse with Joe Heneman.

“Look here, Heneman,” he said, “may I offer a suggestion?”

“I’ve known you to do it before and come away with your life.”

“Say, can’t you run the children through their parts right away and hold up all the other parts till the little ones have finished?”

“Why? What’s the big idea?”

“The big idea is this: the detective agency has a hunch that Mrs. Vernon is dead. They’ve sent me a story about some woman picked up dead near San Luis Obispo, and they claim it is Barbara. That is, they claim it’s Bobby’s mother. When I got that letter two days ago I nearly dropped.”

“Did you tell Bobby?”

“What kind of an idiot do you think I am? Of course I didn’t. And after the first shock I did not believe a word of it.”

“Why not?”

“I believe that she’s alive, because Bob is certain. You ought to see that boy pray! Why, that boy has all heaven on his side.”

“Well, I’ll be—” Not finishing his expression of astonishment, Heneman went on: “But what under the sun has this to do with hurrying the children through their parts?”

“Why, just this: Bobby’s picture is going into the papers. His mother will see or hear of it. She’ll trace him up. You know she thinks he’s dead. She’ll come here, and who can keep her from taking him away?”

“You’re not half as foolish as they say you are,” was Heneman’s comforting comment. “You’re right, Compton. Let me see. I think with full time we can get them through by next Monday afternoon.”

“Then go to it,” urged Compton.

At this very moment Barbara Vernon, propped up in bed, pale and weak, was for the first time since her collapse awakening to the existence of a world from which she had well-nigh departed.

“Oh, thank God, thank God!” little Agnes was saying. “This is the first time nurse let me in to see you. And she says you will be all right in a week or ten days at the most.”

“Agnes, I know I am going to get well. I had such a beautiful dream last night. My little son, my dear little son, appeared to me. He looked just as alive as when I last saw him. And he said, ‘Mother, sweet mother, faith can move mountains.’ And then he pressed his dear lips upon mine and disappeared. I awoke then, but I felt that he had been with me.”

“And do you now think he is alive?”

“I don’t know, my dear. But I feel so happy. O God, give me the faith that moves mountains!”

Hereupon entered the nurse, wearing the mien of one who had fought long and conquered.

“It is a happy day,” she said blithely. “The doctor will be along before noon, but we don’t need any doctor to tell that you’re getting well. Do you know, Mrs. Vernon, that you were calling for your little Bobby day and night all these weeks?”

“Was I?”

“Yes; and it was always in a tone of sadness or of despair. But last night it was different. You called his name but once, and your voice sounded as though you were gazing upon some heavenly vision, and your face grew beautiful and joyous.”

“I understand why,” said Barbara. “Agnes, do you tell her my dream.”

And Agnes, almost word for word, repeated Mrs. Vernon’s account.

“And now,” pursued the smiling invalid, “I’m going, with God’s grace, to wait in patience and faith till that day ‘when dreams come true.’ ”

“I think,” observed the nurse, “that there’s a lady outside that would like to see you. Come in, Mrs. Regan.”

And Mrs. Regan entered and fondly embraced the woman who had saved her life. Then came Louis and then the father; and all lavished upon the dear convalescent a wealth of simple, homely love.

“Upon my word!” said Barbara, as, after a few minutes of affectionate conversation, the visitors reluctantly departed, “I never imagined since I lost Bobby that I could be so happy.”

It was Monday, the day on which Mr. Joseph Heneman had counted to finish all that part of the picture in which the four children were to appear. And it looked, in the morning, as though he would be right in his reckoning. But in the closing scene, the scene in which Bobby was to surpass himself, there came an unexpected hitch, and no other than our friend, Miss Bernadette Vivian, was the cause.

Like most rising artists, Bernadette was temperamental, which, in other words, signifies that she was too easily swayed by her feelings. Now it had happened that on the previous evening she had met a most pleasing and engaging young man; and with the two it was a case of love at first sight. On this day, therefore, her shapely head was filled with visions of orange blossoms, bridal veils and a teasing wonder as to what kind of engagement ring he would select. With all these matters on her mind, is it at all surprising that she was in no mood to represent a mother meeting her lost children?

She was, in this particular scene, to register the agony of separation, the ecstasy of meeting, and the tears of joy, all of which things Miss Bernadette signally failed to accomplish. The only thing that could have brought comfort to her soul and any expression of joy to her face would be her young man advancing smilingly upon her, holding in his dear hand a diamond engagement ring. In vain did Heneman expostulate with her; in vain did Compton remonstrate. In vain, too, did the four children, whom she really loved, cast upon her glances of friendly reproach. Nothing could arouse her from “love’s young dream,” than which, we are credibly informed by a poet, “there’s nothing half so sweet in life.”

Up to this day Bernadette had been ambitious. She was a star in embryo, and her laurels were in the winning. But the young man whose bright smile still haunted her was very wealthy. Upon marrying him she would retire at once.

If Mr. Heneman said things that any proper censor would properly delete, let it be said in his defense that he said them under his breath; for the director, as no doubt four guardian angels urged in his behalf at heaven’s chancery, ever cherished the highest reverence for children.

By four o’clock of that evening the director was unnerved, Compton almost frantic, the children in ill humor. They were all worn out. And if the four youthful thespians did quarrel a little and sulk for almost ten minutes, let it be said in their behalf that before going home they all abjectly apologized one to the other, and proved once more the truth of Tennyson’s lines:

During all this Miss Bernadette, happily seated and with crossed legs, powdered her nose, consulted her hand mirror and, for the nonce an unmitigated flapper, gazed heavenward with a smile that would have been absolutely idiotic on a young lady less favored of feature. The distress of all her friends impressed her not in the least. In fact, it never dawned upon her consciousness that anybody was distressed. Truly, love is blind.

“Attention, please!” called Heneman when it was nearing five o’clock. “The weather is rather close and it has been a trying day. Perhaps that’s the reason we can’t get this reuniting business over. I’m sorry, but we’ll have to try it over to-morrow at ten. The play is going to be a big thing, and so far you’ve made it a big thing. But we don’t want an anti-climax to spoil it all.”

“What kind of an aunty is that?” asked Bobby.

This remark sent them all off in good humor.

Bobby went to confession before going to the suite. He confessed, by the way, every week, and went with Peggy to communion every morning. Also, he lingered to make a special and earnest prayer for that falling star, Bernadette, and I fear that if Bernadette, in the light of what happened that evening, were to have learned the import of that prayer, she would have waylaid Bobby and given him a sound spanking.

“O good Lord”—such was the import of Bobby’s prayer—“bring that nice young lady, Bernadette Vivian, to her senses; and do it in a hurry so that to-morrow we can shoot that scene the way it ought to be shot, and be done with it.”

That night the lovers met and there were five minutes of unbroken bliss. In these five minutes they plighted their troth over and over. Nothing in the heavens above or the earth beneath or the waters under the earth could ever dissever their souls. In the next five minutes there arose a slight difference about the style of the engagement ring; and before the quarter was quite ended both were in a towering rage and vowed repeatedly never, never to look upon each other’s face again. Then the idol of her heart went out and got drunk—a weakness of his of which Bernadette was entirely ignorant—and left his fond one bathed in tears.

It was a bad night for Bobby, too. An inconsiderate friend of Compton’s, Benny Burnside, meeting Bobby as he returned from confession, asked the boy whether it was true that his mother was dead.

“Of course she is not dead,” answered Bobby resolutely.

“Oh, I’m so glad to hear it! So that woman they found dead in the woods at San Luis Obispo was not your mother after all,” continued the admired one of every flapper in the land. It was he who had said that Compton was a gay Lothario.

Bobby’s lips quivered.

Thereupon Mr. Benny Burnside told him, not without some embroidery to make the story more convincing, of the reports of the detective agency on the case. If Mr. Burnside did not fully convince the lad of his mother’s death, it was not due to any lack of effort on his part.

Bobby, on retiring, had several sleepless hours. Faith struggled with alleged fact, and the struggle brought with it agony and tears. But the boy was not alone in the fight. To his aid he summoned the Mother of God, his guardian angel, his patron saint. Before midnight confidence returned; and Bobby, his face still wet with tears, fell into a dreamless sleep.

On that same day, in the morning hours, Mrs. Barbara Vernon, seated on the ranchman’s front porch, a deep peace upon her face, touched once more with the glow of health, looked out calmly upon a world made strangely beautiful through the magic given only to the eye of the convalescent. Never, even in the first blush of maidenhood, had she looked more beautiful. Sickness had etherealized her beauty. Upon her features was the resignation which, falling short of joy, gives contentment touched with melancholy.

“Oh, Mrs. Vernon!” cried two eager voices, their owners rushing through the front door in a race to reach her first. Agnes and Louis were flushed with unusual excitement. Something big had come into their lives.

“What is it, my dears? Good news?”

In answer to which, Louis, raising his voice to a shrill pipe, poured forth a volume of sound as intelligible as though his mouth were cluttered with pins.

“But what is it?” asked Barbara, breaking into a smile. “I can’t make out a word you say.”

“Let me talk, Louis,” said Agnes, making sure of the success of this request by clapping her hand over the excited youth’s mouth, and keeping it there. “Mrs. Vernon, there’s a matinee at the moving-picture house of San Luis Obispo this afternoon, and—and—” Here Agnes manifested her excitement by losing her breath, taking advantage of which, Louis, very much handicapped by the restraining hand still held over his mouth, made an effort to say, “Won’t you come?” giving the effect, however, of a bulldog’s growl.

“And,” continued Agnes, “it’s a swell show. And, oh, Mrs. Vernon, wouldn’t you like to come with us?”

“I don’t think,” Barbara made answer, “that I am in a mood just yet for anything like that. I am sure you can go by yourselves.”

The hand of Agnes dropped, as did her jaw. Louis dug his fists into his eyes. The girl’s lips quivered.

“But if you would like to have me,” amended the convalescent, reading sympathetically the signs of woe in the children, “why, of course—”

“Whoop-la!” yelled Louis, running at breakneck speed towards the door and yelling in his flight. “Hey, dad! she’s going to go.”

“Oh, you are so kind, Mrs. Vernon!” cried Agnes. “Just now papa got a long-distance telephone call from San Luis Obispo. There’s a friend of his there who went to the picture show last night, and he called dad up to tell him what a nice, clean picture it was. He says that it’s a first-run picture. The proprietor of the movie house there generally uses older runs, but there’s some kind of convention in the town this week, and so he engaged this new picture and raised the admission price from twenty to forty cents, and added three matinees. And the man said that if dad wanted to go he would hold five tickets for us. And dad said he would go and take ma and us children, provided you would go. Oh, isn’t that a treat? We’ll start in an hour. Dad thinks that the ride and a picture like that will do you a lot of good.”

“Why didn’t you let me know at first that you couldn’t go unless I went? Indeed I’m sure it will make me happy, if for nothing else than that it will give joy to two of the dearest little children I have ever met.”

And so fifteen minutes later Barbara, Mr. and Mrs. Regan, and the happy children were speeding onward to San Luis Obispo.

The lobby of the San Luis Obispo moving-picture house was thronged, and there was a crush at the ticket office. As Regan and his party pushed their way to the entrance, the ticket seller was announcing that the house was sold out.

To get through this unheard-of crowd Mr. Regan was forced to use his elbows freely. Mrs. Vernon and his family, according to his directions, followed him in close single file. None of them had an opportunity to notice the posters and the pictures of various scenes in the much heralded play. Had the lobby been less thronged, it is doubtful whether they would have attended the performance.

“To accommodate all,” cried a strong voice as they reached the ticket taker, “there will be another performance at four o’clock sharp; and until a quarter to four positively no more seats will be sold.”

At two-thirty to the second, but a few minutes after the Regan party had seated themselves, the lights went out and the “News of the Week” was flashed upon the curtain. The assembled crowd, filling every seat, had not come for the “News of the Week”; hence they were in no wise disappointed when it was taken off, with most of the news left out. The manager with a view to the second performance was shortening his program.

There was a moment’s pause, and then there flashed upon the screen the words, “You Hardly Can Tell”; whereupon everybody sat up and adjusted himself for the promised treat.

Perhaps the only exception was Mrs. Vernon. Seated between Agnes and Louis, she was affectionately watching now one, now the other, and rejoicing in their eager joy.

The story at the first moved slowly, a close-up being given of a few of the leading characters, including first and foremost the fair Vivian.

“Isn’t she sweet!” exclaimed Agnes breathlessly.

“She has a nice face,” returned Barbara, raising her eyes momentarily to the screen and then turning them once more upon Agnes.

Suddenly the girl’s face changed from admiration to merriment.

“Oh, look! Ain’t he funny!”

Mrs. Vernon did look and gasped.

There grinning upon them all with a fatuous face, made still more fatuous by the arrangement of his hair, was her old friend—and more than friend—John Compton! There came back vividly to her the memory of their last meeting, something over ten years ago, when she had parted in sorrow and he in anger, and, as he said bitterly, forever. She was glad to see his face once more—glad and disappointed. She had expected more of him. His name by this time should have been known far and wide, not as a wearer of the motley, but as a writer, a thinker, a leader of men; and why had he disappointed her expectations? At the moment a feeling of remorse came upon her. She meditated.

“I was just. But was I kind? It is true I could never bring myself to marry a man who refused to believe in God. But was I not brutal in the way I refused him? Possibly, if I had been gentle and patient, he might have been brought to the truth. Forgive, O my God, the offenses of a proud and unthinking youth.” Thus meditating she was suddenly brought back to the present by a roaring and laughing and stir that were little short of tumult. Agnes jumped to her feet, and remembering herself, sat down again exclaiming, “Oh! oh! oh!” Louis had risen uttering yelps of delight, and remained standing until a justly aggrieved man behind him dragged him back to his seat.

Mrs. Vernon raised her eyes and saw Bobby Vernon!

“O God! O my God!” she exclaimed, jumping up herself and for a moment on the point of rushing up the aisle to catch her Bobby in her arms. Her long discipline of self-restraint, however, asserted itself. She reseated herself, and catching a hand of Agnes in her own, squeezed it until the child winced.

Yes, it was her own Bobby. The twisted mouth, the bellhop uniform, the serio-comic face—these were all, in a way, no matter of surprise to her; for Bobby, as no one knew better than herself, was a born mimic. But he was alive! Bobby was alive! “O God!” she whispered, “there is a faith that can move mountains. Blessed be Thy name!” She followed the picture now, but in a way almost unheard of. It was to her a long, sweet meditation. Over and over she murmured, “My son that was dead has come to life again!” “With God all things are possible.” “Oh, my son, my son!” Tears coursed down her cheeks, tears of joy incredible. But no one noticed her. All were absorbed in the play, and when the lights were turned on and the performance over, Agnes was astounded beyond measure at Barbara, who embraced her almost violently and said:

“It was the sweetest, most touching thing I ever saw. It has taught me never to fail in trusting in God.”

Now Agnes thought it was the most mirth-provoking thing she had ever seen, and, as to trusting in God, that lesson, like the flowers that bloom in the spring, had nothing to do with the case.

Before leaving the theater Mrs. Vernon, excusing herself, had a few words privately with the manager.

Of course the next morning, as Bobby arose and dressed for Mass, gave with its golden sunshine and balmy air every promise of a perfect day. This was the only thing to be expected. Los Angeles, as far as Bobby knew, had only one kind of weather. All the days since his arrival had been gay, fragrant, cloudless, sunshiny days. The inhabitants of Los Angeles never bothered to discuss the weather; it was not the fertile topic of conversation that it is in the East. When they spoke of it, it was simply to burst forth into paeans of praise, generally expressed in the exclamation “Isn’t it a wonderful day!” and that always ended further discussion.

“Good morning, Bobby,” said Mr. Compton, to Bobby’s surprise shaved and dressed.

“Why, halloa! What got you up?”

“I just thought, Bobby, I’d go along with you to Mass this morning.”

“Oh,” said Bobby, puckering his brows. “I suppose,” he went on after some close conjecturing, “that you are going to church to pray for the success of that part that didn’t go right yesterday.”

“That is one of the things I am going to pray for.”

“Anything else, uncle?”

“Bobby,” said Compton, ignoring the question, “did you sleep well last night?”

“Not at first, uncle.”

“I thought so; you do not look quite up to form.”

“I need Holy Communion, uncle. Then after breakfast—I need that too—then you watch me!”

“Bobby, I want to ask you another question. Did you hear anything yesterday that worried you?”

“Oh, it’s all over now, I guess,” evaded the child.

“You were crying last night.”

“Who told you?”

“I thought I heard you moaning, and before I went to sleep I went into your room. There were stains of tears on your pillow.”

“Uncle, there was a man yesterday, Benny Burnside, who tried to make me think my mother was dead.”

Mr. Compton squeezed his lips together, and sparks shot from his eyes.

“If all the fools in Los Angeles were sentenced to death and all were pardoned except one, he’s the one who would go hang. He’s a handsome creature; but all his beauty isn’t anywhere near enough to make up for the tremendous vacancy in his head. And did you believe him, Bobby?”

“He almost made me believe. That’s what I was fighting about before I could get to sleep. But I did feel so mean!”

“There’s no sense, my boy, in giving up hope till you have to.”

“I say, uncle, you were worrying too last night. You don’t look right yourself.”

As a matter of fact John Compton had passed a long and sleepless night.

“Well, suppose we toddle along,” he said, with a forced smile. So forth went the two, each struggling for faith against an uneasiness born of a foolish detective’s rash report.

Francis and Peggy were at Mass and went to communion. They wanted Bobby to “put it over,” and directed the intention of their communion accordingly. Pearl, though not a Catholic, was there too. She came to pray, rather startling the worshipers at her entrance by going up the aisle and making her prettiest little curtsy before the tabernacle. This curtsy had won the hearts of many a stranger in the moment of introduction. No doubt our Lord’s love for her, already great—for the dear Lord who was once a child loves all children in a special way—went out to her in a new excess.

Pearl, at the end of Mass, repeated the curtsy, which would have won her distinction in any earthly court—and why not in the heavenly?—and went outside, where she continued to smile and bow at the returning worshipers as though they were all friends of hers. And so far as she was concerned, so they were, God bless her!

“Good morning, Bobby; good morning, everybody!” she cried, as she shook the hand of Compton, Bobby, Francis and Peggy, dispensing as she did so a running stream of smiles. “It’s going to be all right. I just know it’s going to be all right. Bobby, you’re just sure to put it over.”

“It’s going to be the greatest day of all,” chimed in Francis.

“We’ll be finished before noontime,” added Peggy. “And you’ll see, Mr. Compton,” she went on, fixing large, earnest, questioning eyes upon Compton, “that we haven’t been praying for nothing.”

“I believe you, my dear,” returned Compton humbly.

And Peggy, who knew something about Compton’s religious, or rather irreligious, convictions, wondered.

“I’m hungry,” said Bob.

“So am I,” said Pearl. “You see, I couldn’t go to communion, but I could fast and I did.”

“Then,” said Compton, greatly cheered by the simple, loving little company, “we’ll all breakfast at the restaurant right below here.”

The two girls and Francis protested that their mothers would be worried; whereupon Compton let loose their arrested joy by assuring them that he would telephone each proper home and make himself responsible for the whole party.

The breakfast was a success, an abundance of watermelon and cream cakes being large factors, and off they hopped and danced, light as birds and immeasurably gayer, to the last rehearsal.

Miss Bernadette Vivian had preceded them. She too had had a white night. The day before she had confided to the amicable clerk who kept the visitor’s gate and answered the telephone at the Lantry Studio the story of her great romance. She had made it clear to that amiable young lady that her engagement was as good as settled, that her Romeo, in addition to a personal pulchritude beyond power of words to describe, was as wealthy as Colossus—meaning, no doubt, Crœsus—that he had four automobiles and a country villa in addition to a home worth at least thirty thousand dollars: to all of which the gentle and sympathetic young lady, discounting each of these statements by at least fifty per cent, lent an attentive ear. Now it occurred to Vivian that, since there was no secrecy enjoined, the young lady might make her romance known. Hence it was that, unable to sleep, she hastened down to the studio bright and early with her revised version of love’s young dream.

“Do you know,” she said, after an affectionate exchange of greetings, “that I am thinking seriously of entering a convent?”

“That would be very sweet of you,” said Miss Cortland. “But you don’t want to break the heart of that young man, do you?”

“That young man,” said Miss Vivian darkly, “has no heart to break!”

“Dear me! Aren’t you going to be engaged to him?”

“We were engaged.”

“But you didn’t tell me that.”

“It only happened last night. We were engaged for over ten minutes.”

“And then?” interrupted Miss Cortland.

“Oh, I’m sick and tired of all men!” ejaculated Vivian, clasping her hands. “They have no ideals! They are so—so common! I’ve always found that out before it was too late. I’d like to hear what they’ll say when I go into a convent.”

“Did you have a quarrel, Vivian?”

“I never quarrel,” returned the young lady with dignity. “We had a difference of opinion, and I discovered that his ideals were not mine.”

By ideals Miss Vivian must have meant diamonds. The kind she wanted for her engagement was the kind her swain disliked.

“Well, anyhow, I’ve learnt a good lesson. And, oh, I’m so miserable! I slept badly, and I feel like going to Ocean Park and throwing myself into the sea. Upon my word, I believe I will!”

Miss Cortland was minded to point out to the distressed damsel that throwing herself into the ocean and entering a convent were hardly compatible; but, thinking better of it, she observed:

“This is your fifth case, isn’t it?”

“My seventh,” retorted Vivian, indignantly, and left the office in a huff.

To set at rest the minds of Miss Vivian’s many admirers, it may be stated that she did not enter a convent, nor has the ocean received her into its insatiable maw. She realizes still that there are lots of good fish in the sea, and, though she nets one every month or so, she has not yet caught a fish that quite measures up to her expectations. Her present romance is now number eleven.

“Say, Bobby,” whispered Francis, as they repaired to the scene of their final rehearsal, “do you want to shed real tears in the part where you meet your mother?”

“I’d like to,” returned Bobby.

“Well, I’ve got a trick to do it. It’s a pinch I learned from a fellow. It doesn’t make a mark, but it will smart like fun and bring the tears. Now, if you need it, just let me know; we’ve got to put this across.”

As the event proved, Francis was not called upon to reduce Bobby to tears. Bobby, thinking of his own dear mother, and grieving for her the more bitterly for the ugly rumor which had left him sleepless, found it an easy task to imagine Bernadette to be Mrs. Vernon, with the result that his acting was clearly more perfect than it had been on the preceding day. As for Vivian, that volatile young lady, a flapper yesterday, was now persuaded that she was refined by a bitter experience, that all love leading toward matrimony was vanity and affliction of spirit, and that children were the most interesting and lovable things in the world. Thus chastened by these reflections, she put on a more mature air, diffused an atmosphere of sorrow akin to despair, and, to the astonishment and delight of Heneman, Compton and all the players, went through her part in a manner that touched the hearts of all.

“Great!” cried Heneman. “Now get ready for the camera! Ready? Shoot!”

Pearl, Peggy and Francis were all in the set. Pearl, as the magnate’s daughter, had already met her mother when Bobby entered. He sees the magnate’s wife standing palpitating and holding out tender arms. He stares, breaks into a radiant smile of happiness, cries out “Mother!” rushes into her arms and weeps upon her bosom.

“Done!” announced Heneman, rubbing his eyes. “It’s perfect.—Why, what’s the matter, Bobby?”

For Bobby, released from Vivian’s arms, was weeping bitterly.

“Are you ill, my boy?” asked Compton, rushing over and putting an arm about the lad’s neck.

“I—I was th-thinking of my own dear mother,” sobbed Bobby. As he spoke he raised his eyes. A moment later they grew wide in astonishment, wonder and incredulity.

“And there she is!” he exclaimed, darting forward to meet a woman now hurrying toward him.

In a moment Bobby, weeping and laughing, was rushing into the arms of his own dear mother.

It was a tensely dramatic moment. Those concerned in the play gazed in awe; then realizing the tremendous strain thus taken off mother and son, they entered into the joy of the moment.

Compton was the first to advance and greet the happy mother.

“You remember me, Barbara?”

“Indeed and indeed I do! I was thinking of you yesterday—thinking of the past. And I have something that I want to say to you.”

“He’s the best man in the world, mamma,” said Bobby enthusiastically. “He’s treated me as though I were his own son. Why, uncle, why have you got your head down?”

“I didn’t know it,” said Compton. “But anyhow, I do not feel fit to look upon your dear mother’s face.”

The impending awkwardness was averted by the quick approach of the three children.

“Oh, Mrs. Vernon!” exclaimed Peggy, her dark eyes luminous and her olive complexion alive with rosy emotion, “I’m almost as happy as you!” And Peggy threw her arms about Barbara’s neck.

“Dear little Peggy,” and Mrs. Vernon returned the embrace.

“And,” Peggy went on, running her words into one another, “you know it was so stupid of me to tell you Bobby was dead. Oh, I’m so glad!”

“May I kiss you, ma’am?” said Pearl, with her charming smile and her graceful curtsy as Peggy slipped aside. “I’m one of Bobby’s friends, too.”

“And I too,” said Francis. And Mrs. Vernon, flushed and radiant, fondly kissed the two children, who in their expressions of delight fell little short of Bobby himself.

By this time many of the elders had gathered about the reunited pair, and all in their various ways extended their felicitations. Bernadette Vivian was so overcome with emotion that she had to be led away by her attendant. It was a moment of tension.

“Come, Mrs. Vernon,” whispered Compton; “my automobile is waiting outside. I am sure you want to get away and have Bobby to yourself.” Saying which, he conducted her away with her boy still clinging to her, and was presently whirling homeward.

“But, mother,” said Bobby, resting in her arms, “what became of you? Uncle John had detectives looking all over for you.”

Mrs. Vernon explained in a few words the reason of her long disappearance.

“And,” she added, “when I saw you on the screen yesterday, I went to the manager of the theater and found out where you had been working. He was most kind. He inquired and learned that a train three hours late would pass at eleven o’clock that night. He took care of me and saw me aboard. Mr. Regan and his family wanted to see me off. Bobby, if we wish, we can have a home with them.”

“Bobby’s not poor,” said Compton. “There’s twenty-four hundred dollars to his credit in the bank just now.”

“And it’s all yours, mother. I was working for you.”

When they entered John Compton’s suite, Barbara gazed about the sitting-room in pleased surprise. There was a change in the room since Bobby’s first entrance there. Most of the photographs were gone, and most prominent of all the pictures adorning the walls was a beautiful engraving of a guardian angel tenderly watching his innocent charge, a little boy, in years and appearance resembling Barbara’s son.

“What!” she exclaimed, blushing prettily. “Do you believe in angels, John Compton?”

“I do! Indeed I do! And I learned that sweet belief from your own little boy’s example.”

“Then,” pursued Mrs. Vernon, “then you must believe in God.”

“Barbara,” responded Compton, with a catch in his voice, “it must have been God who sent your boy to me. He has changed my life. For several weeks, though Bobby doesn’t know it, I have been receiving instructions from Father Mallory—”

“What’s that?” cried Bobby eagerly.

“And to-morrow I am to be received into the Catholic Church.”