"This is Portia, Uncle Christopher." Thereupon a tall old man, rising
from a chair, comes quickly up to them and takes Portia's hand, and,
stooping very low, presses his lips to her forehead.

He is a remarkably handsome old man, with light hair, and a rather warm
complexion, and choleric, but kindly eyes. Even at the first glance
Portia tells herself he would be as harsh a foe as he would be a
champion true, and in so far she reads him right. He is hot-tempered,
obstinate, at moments perhaps unjust, but at all times kind-hearted, and
deserving of tenderest regard.

Now he is holding his new niece's hand, and is gazing down at her with
animated eyes, that no age will ever quite dim.

"So glad. _So_ glad you have come to us," he says, in a tone that
reminds her of Dulce's, though it is so deep and strong and masculine,
and hers so very much the reverse in every way, "Bless me, how days go
by! Just last week, as it seems to me, I saw you a little girl in short
petticoats and frills, and furbelows, and now--"

"I wear petticoats still," says Portia, demurely, with a soft laugh,
"and frills sometimes, and often furbelows, I _think_, though I don't in
the least know what they mean, but they sound nice. So, after all, I
should be now very much as I was."

"Very much. But forgive me," says Sir Christopher, "if I say you were
not anything like as good-looking then as you are to-day."

"A speech easy to forgive," said Portia, lightly. Then, after a pause,
"I, too, remember what _you_ were like in those old days."

"What then?" asked Sir Christopher, giving a sudden pull to his collar,
and betraying an increased degree of interest.

"Nothing like so good-looking as you are to-day," retorts she, with a
quick smile and a little flicker of her eyelids.

"Ah! we shall be friends," cries Sir Christopher, gaily. "Baby and you
and I will ride roughshod over all the others; and we have wanted
somebody to help us, haven't we, Baby?" Then he turns more entirely to
Dulce; "Eh, a sharp wit, isn't it?" he says.

"Auntie Maud sent her love to you," said Portia.

"Eh? Much obliged, I'm sure," says Sir Christopher. "Very good of her;
mine to her in return. A most estimable woman she always was, if short
of nose. How she _could_ have thrown herself away upon that little
insignificant--eh?--though he _was_ my brother--eh?"

"She ought to have had you," says Miss Vibart, with soft audacity.

"Eh? eh?" says Sir Christopher, plainly