irregular. There is a
boat-house, and a strip of gravelly beach, now that the tide is out.

Grandon turns and looks toward the house. Yes, it _is_ handsome, grand.
Youth and age together did not make any blunder of it. There is the
tower, that was to be his study and library and place of resort
generally. What crude dreams he had in those days! Science and poesy,
art and history, were all a sad jumble in his brain, and now he has
found his life-work. He hopes that he may make the world a little
wiser, raise some few souls up to the heights he has found so
delightful.

Cecil dances about like a fairy. She is at home amid green fields once
more, for the ocean was to her a dreary desert, and the many strange
faces made her uncomfortable. She is oddly exclusive and delicate, even
chary about herself, but alone with her father she is all childish
abandon.

There is a stir about the house presently, and Grandon begins to
retrace his steps.

"Don't go," entreats Cecil.

"My dear, we must have breakfast. Grandmamma and the aunties will be
waiting."

"Are they going to live there always!" with an indication of the fair
head.

"Yes, some of them."

"And are we going to live there for ever and ever?"

He laughs gayly.

"I hope we will live there to a good old age."

"And madame--must she stay there, too?"

"Madame will stay for a little while. And Cecil must be kind and
pleasant----"

"I can't like her!" interrupts the child, petulantly.

He studies her with some curiosity. Why should the gracious, beautiful
woman be distasteful to her?

"I don't really suppose she will care much," he replies, in a rather
teasing spirit.

"But if she doesn't, why should she want me to kiss her?"

"I do not believe she will ask you again. You must not be rude to any
one. And you must kiss grandmamma or the aunties if they ask you."

Cecil sets her lips firmly, but makes no reply. Grandon wonders
suddenly what charm Aunt Dora possessed, and how people, fathers and
mothers, govern children! It is a rather perplexing problem if they
turn naughty.

They walk back to the great porch, where Mrs. Grandon comes out and
wishes her son a really fond good morning. Cecil submits quietly to a
caress with most unchildlike gravity. Marcia comes flying along; she is
always flying or rustling about, with streamers somewhere, and a very
young-girlish air that looks like affectation at twenty-seven, but she
will do the same at forty-seven.