'And Wallace and everybody love Lotty, I'm sure of that.' 'Oh, Wallace loves me, and would die for me any day. But, of course, everybody doesn't. I'm only just a property, you know.' 'But your father and mother?' Frank Antony Blake felt the small, soft hand tremble in his. 'There is no mother, sir. Never was a mother in my time. But father'---- The child was crying--yes, and sobbing--as if her heart would break. Then, though Frank Antony was tall and strong for his eighteen years, he didn't really know what to do with a girl who burst into tears at night on a lonesome moor. He could remember no precedent. It mightn't be correct, he thought, to take her in his arms and kiss her and try to soothe her, so he merely said, 'Never mind, Lotty; never mind. It is sure to come all right somehow.' For the life of him, however, he couldn't have told you what was wrong or what there was to come right. In the fast-waning light Lotty looked up at him ever so sadly, and he could not help noticing now what he had not noticed before--Lotty was really a beautiful child. 'You talked to me so kindly like,' she said, 'and hardly anybody does that, and--and that was it. Don't talk to me kindly again, sir, ever, ever, ever!' He patted her hand. 'That's worse,' said Lotty, feeling she wanted to cry again, and she drew the hand away. 'You'll have me crying again. Speak gruff to me, as others do, and call me "Lot!"' But at that moment Antony had a happy inspiration. He remembered that in his big coat-pocket he had a large box of assorted chocolates, and here close by on a bare part of the moor was a big white stone. 'Come,' he cried, 'there is no great hurry, and I'm going to have some chocolates. Won't you, Lot?' Down he sat on the big white stone, and Lotty stood timidly in front of him. But Antony would not have this arrangement, so he lifted her bodily up--'how strong he is!' she thought--and seated her beside him, then threw a big handful of the delicious sweets into her lap. She was smiling now. She was happy again. It was not the chocolates that worked the change; but the chance companionship of this youth of gentle blood, so high above her, seemed to have wakened a chord long, long untouched in that little harp of a heart of hers. Was it but a dream, or had there been once a time, long--ever so long--ago, when voices quite as pleasant and musical and refined as Antony's were not strange to her? And had she not, when young--she was twelve now, and that is so old--lived in a real house, with bright cushions on real sofas, and lamps and mirrors and flowers everywhere? No, that must have been a dream; but it was one she often dreamt while she swung by night in her cot, as the winds rocked the caravan and lulled her to sleep.