And that handmaiden glanced down at the stack of buttered toast and the eggs and young home-raised onions, and made answer with a droll not to say sly look in her light blue eye: "Oh, ja! I make goot care mit her, my Miss Ladies--und ven she eat all dese breakfas', she'll be all right, uf she don't be vorse!" And away she went up the groaning stairs with the odor of coffee trailing behind her. When the three had reached the little station that like a hen covering her brood nestles low at the very foot of the hill, with the glistening metal rails passing on one side and the glittering, dimpling, rippling river flowing by on the other, John Lawton lifted his hat and kissed his daughters good-by with the careful courtesy habitual with him, and holding Sybil's hand a moment he said: "I--I shall walk over to The Beeches to-day, dear----" "Papa!" exclaimed the girl. "Yes," he went on; "I shall make my acknowledgments to Miss Morrell. You think she did a fine thing when she sympathized with and promised to help you, but she did a finer thing when she refused to ignore the parents--the old people, who are generally pushed to the wall in such cases. I shall thank her for her consideration, and----" but the roar of the approaching train sent the girls scurrying through the little waiting-room out to the platform and into the car. A pair of kisses were waved, and they had lost sight of the tall, slender, old gentleman. And Sybil, as she sank into the seat beside Dorothy, exclaimed: "Is he not a dear? Is it not wonderful that this sordid poverty has not made him selfish, narrow-minded, sullen? Poor papa! Do you know, Dorrie, I'm afraid he suffers more than we imagine!" "Oh!" cried Dorothy, "don't say that! I always thought papa was almost contented with things, except on our birthdays! But now we must love him more than ever, Sybbie!" And to drive away the anxious look from her sister's eyes, Sybil called attention to the odd appearance of the car, which was almost filled with gentlemen, and remarked, laughingly: "We have taken what mamma calls 'the busy man's train.' They are a sociable lot, are they not--every man-jack of them with his nose in his paper, and a nice little wrinkle between his puckered brows?" "That's from trying to get and keep the proper focus," laughed Dorrie, who added: "I've a five-cent nickel in my pocketbook, and I'll give it to you, Syb, if you can learn the color of a single pair of eyes in this car--barring mine, of course." "Well, the nickel must be plugged or you wouldn't have it, so I'm not losing much; but, oh! after all, I may win it--plug and all! One male creature has eyes, for he has lifted them, and they are--are! Pass over the nickel, Miss, they are gray with black lashes, and--_oh_!" She stopped in confusion, for the male creature she was watching had lowered his paper a moment, and she recognized the grave young man; and to herself she ruefully remarked: "And the third time's the charm!"