"It is so for me, anyhow. I wanted to have come earlier in the day to wish you a merry Christmas, but the Collector seemed dull, and I couldn't leave him. But better late than never. And to be greeted by the sound of your voice was good," he added, glancing at the slender, girlish figure on the music stool on which she had wheeled round to greet him in her surprise at his presence. "This will make a delightful paragraph in the letter to your mother I mean to date 'Christmas Day, Madras.' But I must really tell you before we pass on to other things a strange coincidence about this very hymn you were singing. You remember Mr. Morpeth whom we met at Mrs. Fellowes' that morning? I felt so drawn to him that I did what I don't think I ever confessed to you--I sought him out. When I stepped into his verandah I found him alone, and singing that very hymn." Mark hummed some of the lines-- "Light of those whose dreary dwellings Borders on the shades of death." "It has haunted me ever since. I must tell him of this coincidence. I have been corresponding with him, and mean to keep up the acquaintance. I heard from him that you had found your way to Vepery too, Hester, and are doing wonders there." "Ah, that reminds me, Mark! A little bird told me only yesterday that you were the kind donor of our lovely piano for the girls' club. You can't think what a boon it is." "I hope it's a decent one. I fear pianos are rather a lottery out here, and it would have lost a whole season to have ordered one from home." "It has a beautiful tone, Mrs. Fellowes just loves it. It was a good thought of yours, Mark. How pleased mother will be when she hears you were the giver of the piano I told her about! I'm so glad Mrs. Fellowes wormed the secret out of Mr. Morpeth. Do you know I've never seen him since you left? He seems to elude me still--perhaps it's no wonder." Hester lowered her eyes, for she suddenly recalled her husband's reception of him, which she feared Mark must have overheard. "But notwithstanding," she said with a smile, "I don't think he does bear me a grudge, for Mrs. Fellowes told me he seemed pleased to hear I wished to go to see him with her. She says his house is full of interesting things." "It is," returned Mark cordially. "But the man--his personality, his talk--is the most interesting of all. Truly fate has been very good to me since I came to the East. In my first week I met two of the best men I've ever known, David Morpeth and Felix Worsley. To be sure, they are very unlike--as far as the poles asunder in almost everything. The one seemed to me a wise, patient saint, while the Collector is the most impatient of men. I fear, too, he would say I was defaming the name if I was to dub him 'a saint,' yet there is about him the beauty of real dominant goodness. For instance, people say he is proud and all that--well, I find him full of the most winning humility."