CHAPTER XV. 

BERT COMES BACK. 

One raw March evening, when the wind was roaring among the gray branches of the maples like a lion in wrath, some one knocked on the door. 

"Come in!" shouted Anson, who was giving baby her regular ride on his boots. 

"Come in!" added Flaxen. 

Gearheart walked in slowly, closed the door behind his back, and stood devouring the cheerful scene. He was poorly dressed and wore a wide, limp hat; they did not know him till he bared his head. 

"Bert!" yelled Anson, tossing the baby to his shoulder and leaping toward his chum, tramping and shaking and clapping like a madman, scaring the child. 

"My gosh-all-hemlock! I'm glad to see ye! Gimme that paw again. Come to the fire. This is Flaxie" (as though he had not had his eyes on her face all the time). "Be'n sick?" 

Bert's hollow cough prompted this question. 

"Yes. Had some kind of a fever down in Arizony. Oh, I'm all right now," he added in reply to an anxious look from Flaxen. 

"An' this is----" 

"Baby--Elsie," she replied, putting a finishing touch to the little one's dress, mother-like. 

"Where's he?" he asked a little later. 

Anson replied with a little gesture, which silenced Bert at the same time that it explained. And when Flaxen was busy a few moments later, Anson said: 

"Gone up the spout." 

At the table they grew quite gay, talking over old times, and Bert's pale face grew rosier, catching a reflection of the happy faces opposite. 
Was the mood as they spoke at the table happy?
At the table they grew quite gay