Bless you, my child, I know what he only meant! He explained it to
me very fully. He meant that when a widow is left with a ten-year-old
child, she should apply to distant cousins to manage her and her funds."

"Disgusting beast!" the colonel exclaimed with feeling, possessing
himself of one of Hannah's beaten biscuits, and smiling as Lady Jane's
white fingers dropped just the right number of lumps in his tea.

How charming she was, how dignified, how tender to her merry little
mother, this grave, handsome girl! He saw her, in fancy, opposite him at
his table, moving so stately about his big empty house, filling it with
pretty, useless woman's things, lighting every corner with that last
touch of grace that the most faithful housekeeper could never hope to
add to his lonely life. For Theodosia had taught him that he was lonely.
He envied Dick this sister of his.

He wondered that marriage had never occurred to him before: simply it
had not. Ever since that rainy day in April, twenty years ago, when
they had buried the slender, soft-eyed little creature with his twisted
silver ring on her cold finger, he had shut that door of life; and
though it had been many years since the little ring had really bound him
to a personality long faded from his mind, he had never thought to open
the door--he had forgotten it was there.

He was not a talkative man, and, like many such, he dearly loved to be
amused and entertained by others who were in any degree attractive to
him. The picture of these two dear women adding their wit and charm and
dainty way of living to his days grew suddenly very vivid to him; he
realized that it was an unconscious counting on their continued interest
and hospitality that had made the future so comfortable for so long.

With characteristic directness he began:

"Will your Ladyship allow me a half-hour of business with the
queen-mother?"

She rose easily and stepped out through the long window to the little
side porch, then to the lawn. They watched her as she paced slowly away
from them, a tall violet figure vivid against all the green.

"She is a dear girl, isn't she?" said her mother softly.

A sudden flood of delighted pride surged through the colonel's heart.
If only he might keep them happy and contented and--and his! He never
thought of them apart: no rose and bud on one stem were more essentially
together than they.

"She is too dear for one to be satisfied forever with even our charming