ext day I discharged Florrie, cancelled my
sailing reservations, picked up a strong German woman for a cook, bought
a dog and rode out to my new home. It offered all that I had hoped it
would. There I planned to find a change that would be a rest, to forget
the world about me and live in my past, which was all I had. And for
several weeks I did--until two girls broke in upon my precious privacy."

She told of Robin and Beryl's first visit and then of their second, and
of the gifts they brought from the Manor.

"I confess it was a shock to me to discover that this child was--Gordon
Forsyth. Yet it was the shock I needed to rouse me from my depression.
For, like you, I fell quickly under the girl's charm. From that day on I
found I could not hold my thoughts to my past--in spite of me they
persisted in dwelling upon the present--and the future. You see I am
frank with you."

Cornelius Allendyce nodded. He dared not speak for he did not want to
betray the relief he felt.

"I do not think I would have returned to the Manor for several weeks
yet, for my health has singularly benefited by my--unusual change,
except that this escapade of Robin's made me feel that I was needed
here. Something she said made up my mind for me, rather quickly.
Cornelius Allendyce--that child has a great gift. It is the gift of
giving. An unusual talent in the Forsyth family, you are thinking! But
like all talents it ought to be trained and directed and strengthened
and my work is--to do it. I had thought my life lived--but it is not,
and I am happy to have found it so. I am too old, perhaps, to learn the
new ways but I am not too old to safeguard them."

"You are a wonderful old woman," the lawyer answered, quite
involuntarily and with such instant alarm at his audacity that Madame
Forsyth smiled.

"Oh, no. I am not wonderful at all. I am revealing my heart to you, now,
in a way I do not often open it, but I shall, to my last day, probably,
be a proud, overbearing old woman with a sharp tongue. You, however,
will know what is underneath."

There was a moment's silence, then Madame Forsyth told him of Caesar's
finding Robin in the woods and giving the alarm.

"The child was utterly exhausted. I cannot bear to think of what might
have happened if we--had not been living there. Thank God we found her.
May I summon the girls? I am curious to see more of this rather unusual
young person my niece has attached to my household."

Then the lawye