nounces his return. Next instant the little lobby
is filled: a bevy of daughters, the good house-mother, one or two
youngsters dragging at his legs, everyone eager to welcome the
breadwinner home. They divest him of his wraps, soothing him the while
with that tender loving solicitude a man finds only at his own happy
hearth.

He unfolds his budget of news: a lugger driven by stress of weather
upon the Castle Rock; suspicions of smuggling among the rough beyond
Langness Cove; Dr. Holden's new partner arrived last night.

"I have asked him to come up this evening. A decent sort of chap."

Forthwith they fired a volley of questions. Was he old or young,
married or single? had he blue eyes or brown? and how was he called?

To all papa makes shift to reply. The name he had forgotten, also the
colour of his hair; but the fellow had eyes and two arms and two legs;
he did not squint; had a pleasant address and all the appearance of an
unmarried man.

"How could you see that, wise father?" asked Doll.

"He looked so sheepish when I mentioned my daughters. Doubtless he had
heard of you, Miss Doll, and of your dangerous wiles."

She pinched his ear. They were excellent friends, were father and
eldest daughter. Mr. Driver, a scholar and a man of letters, who had
been thankful to exchange an uncertain footing upon the lower rungs of
the ladder of literature for a small post under Government, had for
years devoted his talents to the education of the children. In Dolly,
as his most apt pupil, he took a peculiar pride.

"Come in, doctor!" cried Mr. Driver that night. "We are all dying, but
only to make your acquaintance."

The new visitor was checked at the very threshold by Dolly's cry--

"Mr. Purling!"

And Harold stood confessed to his cousins without a chance of further
disguise.

"Cousin Harold, you mean," he said, as he offered Dolly his hand.

She tried hard to hide her blushes; and then and there Mrs. Driver,
after the manner of mothers, built up a great castle in the air, which
her husband shook instantly to its foundations by asking
unceremoniously and not without a shade of angry suspicion in his
tone--

"Why did you not claim relationship this morning?"

He disliked the notion of a man stealing into his house under false
colours.

"I waited for you to speak. You heard my name."

"I did not catch it clearly. Besides, I had never heard of you. None
of us have. Your mother did not choose to recognise the