d of in her letters during the last three weeks. Were
they never going to stop?

He passed into view of those within, and said:

"Aren't you very hot, Nollie?"

She blew him a kiss; the young man looked startled and self-conscious,
and Eve called out:

"It's a bet, Uncle. They've got to dance me down."

Pierson said mildly:

"A bet? My dears!"

Noel murmured over her shoulder:

"It's all right, Daddy!" And the young man gasped:

"She's bet us one of her puppies against one of mine, sir!"

Pierson sat down, a little hypnotized by the sleepy strumming, the slow
giddy movement of the dancers, and those half-closed swimming eyes of his
young daughter, looking at him over her shoulder as she went by. He sat
with a smile on his lips. Nollie was growing up! Now that Gratian was
married, she had become a great responsibility. If only his dear wife had
lived! The smile faded from his lips; he looked suddenly very tired.
The struggle, physical and spiritual, he had been through, these fifteen
years, sometimes weighed him almost to the ground: Most men would have
married again, but he had always felt it would be sacrilege. Real unions
were for ever, even though the Church permitted remarriage.

He watched his young daughter with a mixture of aesthetic pleasure and
perplexity. Could this be good for her? To go on dancing indefinitely
with one young man could that possibly be good for her? But they looked
very happy; and there was so much in young creatures that he did not
understand. Noel, so affectionate, and dreamy, seemed sometimes
possessed of a little devil. Edward Pierson was naif; attributed those
outbursts of demonic possession to the loss of her mother when she was
such a mite; Gratian, but two years older, had never taken a mother's
place. That had been left to himself, and he was more or less conscious
of failure.

He sat there looking up at her with a sort of whimsical distress. And,
suddenly, in that dainty voice of hers, which seemed to spurn each word a
little, she said:

"I'm going to stop!" and, sitting down beside him, took up his hat to fan
herself.

Eve struck a triumphant chord. "Hurrah I've won!"

The young man muttered:

"I say, Noel, we weren't half done!"

"I know; but Daddy was getting bored, weren't you, dear? This is Cyril
Morland."

Pierson shook the young man's hand.

"Daddy, your nose is burnt!"

"My dear; I know."

"I can give you some white stuff for it.