regularly. The man took her instructions with
a respectful air: she was evidently mistress of the place, and the
centurion in the Gospel had not his servants better under his command
than had she. It was a quaint sight to see the child knitting her
brows over some complaint of Robinson's against McGill the gardener:
she settled it promptly with but half a dozen words. She had energy
enough and to spare for her duties, but she had nothing of that eager
bubbling up of light thoughts and bright hopes which other children
know and use in endless chatter and playful gambollings, like puppies
and kittens and other happy young things. There was always shrewd
purpose behind her few words, and she seemed always on her guard,
always ready to act promptly and with decision.

"Why don't you send those men to Mr. Raymond?" I burst out finally.
"You ought not to be bothered. What do you know about such things?"

"I know all about them," she returned gravely. "I never let anybody
trouble poor grandpapa."

"My mother would not let anything trouble me if she could help it, yet
I am a boy and almost fifteen years old."

She looked at me wistfully and smiled her peculiar indefinable smile,
then put her hand in mine, and we went toward the house together. Just
as night fell dinner-time came. I had gone to my room to dress at five
o'clock, but finding that all my windows looked out upon the water,
I had forgotten everything else in watching the sea, which took hue
after hue as the sun sank, growing black and turbid as it settled into
a bank of gray cloud, then, when the last beams reddened every rift,
lighting up into a brief splendor of crimson and gold, absorbing all
the glory of the firmament. I felt rather homesick and dreary. I knew
that in the dusky streets of Belfield the boys were walking up and
down beneath the russet elms, wondering about me while they talked. I
knew that my mother was sitting in the bay-window with the light of
the sunset in her face, and that she was longing to have me with her
again. When, finally, I roused myself to dress, and went along the dim
halls and down the great staircase lined with niches where calm-faced
statues stood regarding me with a fixed and solemn air, I was quite
dull and dreary, and needed all the cheerful influences of the warmed
and lighted rooms to brighten me up.

At dinner Mr. Raymond seemed more what I had expected him to be than
I had found him at first sight. He was dressed with