nt to her side. "What
is worrying you, dear?" she asked gently. "I'm not a great French
scholar, but I think I may be able to help."

"Thank you," said Jeanie, in her voice of tired courtesy. "You mustn't
help me. No one must."

"I can find the words you don't know in the dictionary," said Avery.

"No, thank you," said Jeanie. "Father doesn't like us to have help of
any kind."

There were deep shadows about the eyes she raised to Avery's face, but
they smiled quite bravely, with all unconscious wistfulness.

Avery laid a tender hand upon the brown head and drew it to rest against
her. "Poor little thing!" she said compassionately.

"But I'm not little really, you know," said Jeanie, closing her eyes for
a few stolen moments. "I'm thirteen in March. And they're all younger
than me except Ronnie and Julian."

Avery bent with a swift, maternal movement and kissed the blue-veined
forehead. Jeanie opened her eyes in slight surprise. Quite plainly she
was not accustomed to sudden caresses.

"I'm glad we've got you, Mrs. Denys," she said, with her quiet air of
childish dignity. "You are a great help to us."

She turned back to her French exercise with the words, and Avery, after a
moment's thought, turned to the door. She heard again the child's sigh of
weariness as she closed it behind her.

The wails of the violin were very audible in the passage outside. She
shivered at the atrocious sounds. From a further distance there came the
screams of an indignant baby and the strident shouts of two small boys
who were racing to and fro in an uncarpeted room at the top of the house.
But after that one shiver Avery Denys had no further attention to bestow
upon any of these things. She went with her quick, light tread down to
the square hall which gave a suggestion of comfort to the Vicarage which
not one of its rooms endorsed.

Without an instant's hesitation she knocked upon the first door she came
to. A voice within gave her permission to enter, and she did so.

The Reverend Stephen Lorimer turned from his writing-table with a face of
dignified severity to receive her, but at sight of her his expression
changed somewhat.

"Ah, Mrs. Denys! You, is it? Pray come in!" he said urbanely. "Is there
any way in which I can be of service to you?"

His eyes were dark and very small, so small that they nearly disappeared
when he smiled. But for this slight defect, Mr. Lorimer would have been a
handsome man. He rose as Avery app