table. His face, perhaps
from the reflection of the green-shaded student-lamp, looked pale and
worn. His shoulders, too, seemed to Winifred's abnormally quickened
perception to have caught a new stoop. The fact forced itself upon her
consciousness with a sudden, swift pang, that her father was growing
old. She had never thought of age in connection with him before. To
her he had been simply and sufficiently "my father," without thought
of other relations or conditions; but now it rushed upon her with a
wave of insistent remorse, that his life was slipping by, while she
was doing so little for his happiness. A rather bare and dreary life
it seemed to her now, as she contemplated its monotony; for Winifred
had no appreciation of "the still air of delightful studies." Her
world was peopled with live, active figures, always pushing forward,
seeking, striving, loving. And her father had loved once. Yes, that
too struck her now, almost with a shock of surprise. He, too, had
asked for some one's love as ardently, perhaps, as Jonathan Flint for
hers. More than that, he had won the love he sought. Won it and lost
it again. Could it ever come to that for her? The thought smote her
with an intolerable sharpness.

Mr. Anstice was a strange man to be the parent and guardian of such a
girl as Winifred. The world for him was bounded by the walls of his
study. Even his teaching seemed an interruption to the real business
of his life, and he turned his back upon his class-room with a
sensation of relief.

He was not a popular professor among the body of the students; but the
unfailing courtesy of his manner, and the solidity of his scholarship,
won the respect of the many, and the esteem and warm admiration of the
few.

His bearing, in spite of the scholar's stoop, was marked by a certain
distinction, and the lines of his worn face curiously suggested the
fresh curves which marked his daughter's brow and cheek. The beauty of
youth is an ivorytype; the beauty of age is an etching, bitten out by
the burin and acid of thought, experience, and sorrow.

The prevailing mood with James Anstice was one of gentle weariness. He
felt that his life was ended, and that the years were going on in a
sort of monotonous anti-climax. Yet, in spite of this undertone of
depression, his manner was responsive, genial, even gay at times, and
he lived much in the reflected light of Winifred's youth and energy.

If it caused him some surprise that any on