he truth is, that they were like her mother's, clear gray,
with pupils of unusual size, and heavy lashed, especially on the under
lid.

She was still under five, but I had not been with her a quarter of an
hour before I recognized a potent and wonderful personality and knew
that there was something which this small soul had in her keeping to
give the world which others have not.

"Sandy was here," I heard her sweet voice saying when I had recovered
myself. "Sandy was here one day. He fetched the drey hen you sent me."
Here she patted my knee, looking up as though to assure me of her
protection.

"He said the rabbits were from you," she went on; "and the owl got
broke that was in the box. It was too little for him."

"Sandy brought me," she said finally, "the child that stares so," and
she pointed, her eyebrows puckered together, at a rag-doll, with
painted cheeks and round, offensive eyes, sitting head down in a corner
of the porch.

Beyond money, I had not sent even a message to the child in all these
years of absence, and my heart filled with gratitude to that friend who
had made me a fairy-grandfather and won a child's love for me, who was
so unthoughtful and so far away.

As we sat thus, Dame Dickenson heard the sound of voices, and came from
the house to welcome me with a smile, though the tears were in her eyes
as she spoke her words of welcome.

Her life of ease and freedom from money-care had changed her greatly,
and with her black silk frock, her lace kerchief and cap, she seemed
quite like some old gentlewoman. I tried, knowing the inadequacy of
words, even while speaking, to thank her for my wonderful child, when
she interrupted me.

"I should have died but for her--after"--she broke off here, not
wishing to name the sorrow between us. "But you've not seen the wonder
of her yet; she has the whole Cairn Mills bewitched, and if she were a
queen on her throne could not have her way more than she does now."

It was of a piece with the Dame's thoughtfulness to have prepared for
me a room which I had never known, and where no memories dwelt; a
low-raftered apartment on the land-side of the house, with a window
looking over the garden and a fire burning cheerily in the corner
chimney. Dropping off to sleep, happier than I thought it possible for
me to be again, I became aware that there was some one in the room with
me. Opening my eyes, I found Nancy, with her long white gown gathered
on her breast to ke