d that I should see so little of him.
But what can I do? He will not come to my house; and when I go to
his he is angry with me because I wear a shovel hat and ride on
horseback."

"I should leave my hat and my horse at the borders of the last
parish," said Lucy, timidly.

"Well; yes, certainly; one ought not to give offence even in such
matters as that; but my coat and waistcoat would then be equally
objectionable. I have changed,--in outward matters I mean,--and he
has not. That irritates him, and unless I could be what I was in the
old days, he will not look at me with the same eyes;" and then he
rode on, in order, as he said, that the first pang of the interview
might be over before Robarts and his sister came upon the scene. Mr.
Crawley was standing before his door, leaning over the little wooden
railing, when the dean trotted up on his horse. He had come out after
hours of close watching to get a few mouthfuls of the sweet summer
air, and as he stood there he held the youngest of his children in
his arms. The poor little baby sat there, quiet indeed, but hardly
happy. This father, though he loved his offspring with an affection
as intense as that which human nature can supply, was not gifted with
the knack of making children fond of him; for it is hardly more than
a knack, that aptitude which some men have of gaining the good graces
of the young. Such men are not always the best fathers or the safest
guardians; but they carry about with them a certain _duc ad me_
which children recognize, and which in three minutes upsets all the
barriers between five and five-and-forty. But Mr. Crawley was a
stern man, thinking ever of the souls and minds of his bairns--as
a father should do; and thinking also that every season was fitted
for operating on these souls and minds--as, perhaps, he should not
have done either as a father or as a teacher. And consequently his
children avoided him when the choice was given them, thereby adding
fresh wounds to his torn heart, but by no means quenching any of the
great love with which he regarded them.

He was standing there thus with a placid little baby in his arms--a
baby placid enough, but one that would not kiss him eagerly, and
stroke his face with her soft little hands, as he would have had her
do--when he saw the dean coming towards him. He was sharp-sighted
as a lynx out in the open air, though now obliged to pore over his
well-fingered books with spectacles on his nose; and