keen, good-looking face lit up with a
very agreeable expression of kindliness and of good-will, a wave of
appreciation seemed to surge towards him from the body of the hall.

Poor Milly's father had been the sort of landowner--to the honour of
England be it said the species has ever been comparatively rare--who
regarded his tenants as of less interest than the livestock on his home
farm. What he had done for them he had done grudgingly; but it was even
now clear to them all that in the new squire they had a very different
kind of gentleman.

Varick was moved and touched--far more so than any of those present
realized. The scene before him--this humble little school-room, and the
simple people standing there--meant to him the fulfilment of a life-long
dream. And that was not all. As he was hesitating for his first word,
his eyes rested on the front bench of his audience, and he saw Helen
Brabazon's eager, guileless face, upturned to his, full of interest and
sympathy.

He also felt himself in touch with the others there. Blanche, looking
her own intelligent, dignified, pleasant self, was a goodly sight. Sir
Lyon Dilsford, too, was in the picture; but Varick felt a sudden pang of
sympathy for the landless baronet. Sir Lyon would have made such a
good, conscientious squire; he was the kind of man who would have helped
the boys to get on in the world--the girls, if need be, to make happy
marriages. James Tapster looked rather out of it all; he looked his
apathetic, sulky self--a man whom nothing would ever galvanize into real
good-fellowship. How could so intelligent a woman as Blanche think that
any money could compensate a clever, high-spirited girl like Bubbles for
marrying a James Tapster? Varick was glad Bubbles was not "in front."
She was probably divesting herself of that extraordinary witch costume
of hers behind the little curtained aperture to his left.

And then, all at once, he realized that Bubbles was among his audience
after all! She was sitting by herself, on a little stool just below the
platform. He suddenly saw her head, with its shock of dark-brown hair,
and there came over him a slight feeling of discomfort. Bubbles had
worked like a Trojan. All this could not have happened but for her; and
yet--and yet Varick again told himself that he could very well have
dispensed with Bubbles from his Christmas house party. There was growing
up, in his dark, secretive heart, an unreasoning, violent dislike to th