he same question, and it usually received the same
answer. Marjory would feel very shy and awkward, and say, "All right,
thank you," and nothing more. She never could think of anything that she
felt would be interesting to her uncle. Week after week she would
resolve to try to be less awkward, but when the time came it was usually
only by a long list of questions that her uncle could get any
information from her. On this particular Sunday morning she sat waiting
for the inevitable question. It soon came. "Well, Marjory, how's
things?"

Marjory made a valiant effort, and at last she gave her uncle a
different reply. She looked up and said, "Better, thank you, uncle."

"Better, eh?" he said, with a twinkle in his eye. "That's good, if
better _can_ be good!"

"Everything's so different since Blanche came," Marjory went on, "and
now that I'm going to have real lessons."

"It certainly has been an exciting week for you. First you quarrelled
with that frizzle-pated Smylie girl, then with your old good-for-nothing
of an uncle, then you met Blanche, then you made up your quarrels,
Blanche came here, you went there, and so on." And the doctor smiled.

Marjory answered the smile, thinking how nice her uncle looked when he
smiled, and wishing that he would do it oftener.

The smile was simply a response to her own effort in trying to
understand her uncle better. She had been blaming him for his seeming
indifference to her, when in reality she herself had been very much at
fault. Of late the doctor had begun to feel that it was no use trying to
win Marjory's confidence, she seemed to keep herself so aloof from him;
but since she had faced him in the study, first like a little fury
demanding to be sent to school, then pale and trembling, asking for his
pardon, he had felt that he knew something more of the real Marjory, and
he, too, had determined to try to preserve this better understanding.

Soon after breakfast they started off to church. It was a walk of about
a mile, and Marjory and the doctor always went together. Silky always
knew when Sunday came round. He would sit quite still by the gate and
watch them with serious, longing eyes, but he never offered to accompany
them. He made it a rule, however, to go to meet them on the way back. He
always sat waiting by a certain milestone, and as soon as they turned
the bend of the road beyond it, he would go bounding towards them,
frisking and wagging his tail, and barking exci