as Mr. Bates, one of the leading brethren then, who
loved him and spoilt him ... above all, through and beyond it all,
there was his father, who adored him and whom he adored.

That adoration--of God, of his father, of life itself! Was it possible
that a small boy, normal and ordinary enough in other ways, could feel
so intensely such passions?

The dark room was crowding him with figures and scenes. A whole world
that he had thought dead and withered was beating--urgently,
insistently, upon his consciousness.

In another instant he did not know what surrender, what acknowledgement
he might have made. It seemed to him that nothing in life was worth
while save to receive again, in some fashion, that vitality that he had
once known.

The door was flung open; a stream of light struck the dark; the
shadows, memories, fled, helter-skelter, like crackling smoke into the
air.

Amy stood in the doorway, blinking at him, scowling. He knew, for some
undefined reason, that he could not meet his father's eyes. He jumped
up and walked to the window.

CHAPTER II

EXPECTATION

Maggie developed marvellously during her first weeks in London. It
could not truthfully be said that her aunts gave her great opportunity
for development; so far as they were concerned she might as well have
been back in the green seclusion of St. Dreots.

It is true that she accompanied her Aunt Elizabeth upon several
shopping expeditions, and on one hazardous afternoon they penetrated
the tangled undergrowth of Harrods' Stores; on all these occasions
Maggie was too deeply occupied with the personal safety and happiness
of her aunt to have leisure for many observations.

Aunt Elizabeth always started upon her shopping expeditions with the
conviction that something terrible was about to happen, and the
expectation of this overwhelming catastrophe paralysed her nerves.
Maggie wondered how it could have been with her when she had ventured
forth alone. She would stand in the middle of the street hesitating as
to the right omnibus for her to take, she was often uncertain of the
direction in which she should go. She would wave her umbrella at an
omnibus, and then when it began to slacken in answer to her appeal,
would discover that it was not the one that she needed, and would wave
her umbrella furiously once more. Then when at last she had mounted the
vehicle she would flood the conductor with a stream of little
questions, darting her eyes angr