ink of that; but would it be pleasure or vexation
to have in the house this child with her quaint grown-upness, her
confiding ways, and those 'Perdita' eyes? In truth he did not know.

She came to them with touching alacrity--very like a dog, who, left at
home when the family goes for a holiday, takes at once to those who make
much of it.

And she was no trouble, too well accustomed to amuse herself; and always
quaint to watch, with her continual changes from child to woman of the
world. A new sensation, this--of a young creature in the house. Both he
and Sylvia had wanted children, without luck. Twice illness had stood in
the way. Was it, perhaps, just that little lack in her--that lack of
poignancy, which had prevented her from becoming a mother? An only child
herself, she had no nieces or nephews; Cicely's boys had always been at
school, and now were out in the world. Yes, a new sensation, and one in
which Lennan's restless feelings seemed to merge and vanish.

Outside the hours when Nell sat to him, he purposely saw but little of
her, leaving her to nestle under Sylvia's wing; and this she did, as if
she never wanted to come out. Thus he preserved his amusement at her
quaint warmths, and quainter calmness, his aesthetic pleasure in watching
her, whose strange, half-hypnotized, half-hypnotic gaze, had a sort of
dreamy and pathetic lovingness, as if she were brimful of affections that
had no outlet.

Every morning after 'sitting' she would stay an hour bent over her own
drawing, which made practically no progress; and he would often catch her
following his movements with those great eyes of hers, while the
sheep-dogs would lie perfectly still at her feet, blinking horribly--such
was her attraction. His birds also, a jackdaw and an owl, who had the
run of the studio, tolerated her as they tolerated no other female, save
the housekeeper. The jackdaw would perch on her and peck her dress; but
the owl merely engaged her in combats of mesmeric gazing, which never
ended in victory for either.

Now that she was with them, Oliver Dromore began to haunt the house,
coming at all hours, on very transparent excuses. She behaved to him
with extreme capriciousness, sometimes hardly speaking, sometimes
treating him like a brother; and in spite of all his nonchalance, the
poor youth would just sit glowering, or gazing out his adoration,
according to her mood.

One of these July evenings Lennan remembered beyond all ot