When Dilly grew older and began to understand what real living was, it seemed as if this was her actual induction into it. She had run about and played, listened to stories and songs, gravitated between the two houses, ridden with grandad, who was always a little jealous that most of her relatives should be on the French side. She could shut her eyes and hear Kirsty's raucous voice and the two bells he was ringing and see grandad's upturned nose and his derisive tone. She awoke to the fact that she really had a father. Grandad used to come over in the evening and play piquet with old grandfather. It was a game two could enjoy, and the women folk were no great hands at card-playing. Now and then, when Norah was not too busy, they had a friendly, social game. It rained two days and then cleared up in the glory of perfect autumn weather. Nothing came to counteract the good tidings. Grandad came for Daffodil to take a ride with him, and that evening he sauntered in and had a game of piquet and beat. It always delighted him. It was fighting the French over again. Barbe improved rapidly now. People were quite apt to have what was called a run of fever in the autumn at the change of the seasons, and there were some excellent home-brewed remedies and tonics that answered, if the case was not too severe. Dilly and her mother talked a great deal about the return of the husband and father. "Is he like grandad?" she inquired with a little contraction of the brows. "Oh, not much. He was called a handsome young fellow. Your eyes are like his, and he had such a brilliant color then," sighing a little and wondering if the hardships had made him old before his time. "And--and his nose?" hesitatingly. Barbe laughed. "It isn't short like grandad's. His mother was a handsome woman." "It's queer," said the child reflectively, "that you can have so many grand relatives and only one father. And only one gran'mere. For Norry isn't _real_, is she, since she isn't father's mother. And how many wives can one have?" "Only one at a time. It's quite a puzzle to little folks. It was to me." Daffodil looked at her mother with wondering eyes and said thoughtfully, "Were you truly little like me? And did you like grandad? Did he take you out on his big horse?" "We were living in Virginia then. Great-grandfather and great-grandmother were living there--she was alive then. And when she died gran'mere and gran came out here. I was about eight. And we didn't like it here. The children were so different." "It is all very queer," said Dilly. "You are little, and then you grow, and--and you get married. Will I be married? Must you find some one----" "Oh, Dilly, I think some one will find you;" and her mother laughed. "You will have to grow up and be--well, eighteen, I think, almost a dozen years before you need to think about it." "I'm very glad," she said soberly.