ack to the warmer
intimacies of retrospect.

"It was in this very room," he said, "that I saw your dear mother
first."

Lydia looked up, brightly ready for diversion. Anne sat, her head bent a
little, responsive to the intention of his speech.

"I was sitting here," said he, "alone. I had, I am pretty sure, this
very book in my hand. I wasn't reading it. I couldn't read. The maid
came in and told me a lady wanted to see me."

"What time of the day was it, Farvie?" Lydia asked, with her eager
sympathy.

"It was the late afternoon," said he. "In the early spring. Perhaps it
was a day like this. I don't remember. Well, I had her come in. Before I
knew where I was, there she stood, about there, in the middle of the
floor. You know how she looked."

"She looked like Lydia," said Anne. It was not jealousy in her voice,
only yearning. It seemed very desirable to look like Lydia or their
mother.

"She was much older," said the colonel. "She looked very worried indeed.
I remember what she said, remember every word of it. She said, 'Mr.
Blake, I'm a widow, you know. And I've got two little girls. What am I
going to do with them?'"

"She did the best thing anybody could," said Lydia. "She gave us to
you."

"I have an idea I cried," said the colonel. "Really I know I did. And it
broke her all up. She'd come somehow expecting Jeff's father to account
for the whole business and assure her there might be a few cents left.
But when she saw me dribbling like a seal, she just ran forward and put
her arms round me. And she said, 'My dear! my dear!' I hear her now."

"So do I," said Anne, in her low tone. "So do I."

"And you never'd seen each other before," said Lydia, in an ecstasy of
youthful love for love. "I call that great."

"We were married in a week," said the colonel. "She'd come to ask me to
help her, do you see? but she found I was the one that needed help. And
I had an idea I might do something for her by taking the responsibility
of her two little girls. But it was no use pretending. I didn't marry
her for anything except, once I'd seen her, I couldn't live without
her."

"Wasn't mother darling!" Lydia threw at him, in a passionate sympathy.

"You're like her, Lydia," said Anne again.

But Lydia shook her head.

"I couldn't hold a candle to mother," said she. "My eyes may be like
hers. So is my forehead. So's my mouth. But I'm no more like mother----"

"It was her sympathy," said their father quietly, s