h pink and gold, while
all the air was rosy with a wonderful glow which painted the mountains,
even the dappled-grey plane trees, and the fronts of the gaily decorated
shops.

The donkey women were leading their patient little animals away from the
stand on the sea promenade, up to Sorbio for the night; and their dark
faces under the queer, mushroom hats were ruddy and beautiful in the
rose-light.

"As soon as the sun goes down, it gets dark here," said Rosemary,
regretfully. "Thank you very much, but I'd rather go home now. You see,
I do _so_ want you to be there already, waiting to surprise Angel when
she comes in."

"No time even to buy a doll?"

"I'd rather go home, thank you. Besides, though I should like to have a
new doll, perhaps darling Evie would be sad if I played with another."

Hugh was obediently turning the car's bonnet towards Monte Carlo, and
for the fraction of a second he was foolish enough almost to lose
control of it, on account of a start he gave. "Evie!" he echoed.

It was years since he had spoken that name.

"She's my doll," explained Rosemary.

"Oh!" said Hugh.

"But I don't think she'd mind or be sad if you gave me a doll's house,"
went on the child, "if you _should_ have time to get it for me by and
bye; that is, if you really want to give me something for Christmas, you
know."

"Of course I do. But tell me, why did you name your doll Evie?"

He put the question in a low voice, as if he were half ashamed of asking
it; and as at that instant a tram boomed by, Rosemary heard only the
first words.

"I 'sposed you would," she replied. "Fathers do like to give their
little girls Christmas presents, Jane says; maybe that's why they're
obliged to come back always on Christmas Eve, if they've been lost. Do
you know, even if there aren't any fairies, it's just like a fairy story
having my father come back, and take me to Angel in a motor car on
Christmas Eve."

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Hugh Egerton. "Did you say--father?"

"Yes," replied Rosemary. "You're almost like a fairy father, I said."

So, he was her father--her long lost father! Poor little lamb, he began
to guess at the story now. There was a scamp of a father who had "not
been very kind" to Angel, and had been lost, or had thoughtfully lost
himself. For some extraordinary reason the child imagined that he--well,
if it were not pathetic, it would be funny. But somehow he did not feel
much inclined to laugh. Poor little t