A lonely old bachelor, looking in through the window at the firelit room, might perchance have envied Mr. Scratchell his healthy young family might have thought that this circle of eager faces, and buzz of voices, meant happiness; yet for Bella home meant anything but happiness. She was heartily tired of it all. She pictured herself in that ideal vicarage, with the only man she had ever admired for her husband. She was thinking of him all through the confusion of tea-time--the clinking of tea-spoons and rattling of cups--the spilling of tea--an inevitable feature in every Scratchell tea party--the fuss about the kettle, with much argumentation between Mrs. Scratchell and the maid of all work as to whether it boiled or did not boil--the scrambling for crusts, and general squabbling--through all she was thinking of Cyril’s earnest face--hearing his thrilling voice close at her ear. ‘Can it be true?’ she asked herself. ‘Can it be true that he cares for me--ever so little even? Oh, it would be too much--it would be heaven!’ Here Bertie’s cup of hot tea came into collision with his sister’s elbow, foundered and went down, amidst a storm of shrill young voices and maternal expostulation. CHAPTER IX. A FLINTY-HEARTED FATHER. BEATRIX walked up and down by the river, till the gray day grew darker and duller, and the first shadows of evening began to show blue behind the gables and chimney stacks and square church tower of Little Yafford. Her heart beat faster as the time went on. Every minute might bring her a summons to the library to hear her father’s decision. Or Cyril would come into the garden to seek her, perhaps. But the light grew grayer--evening was at hand, and there was still no summons. ‘Can he have gone away without seeing me? Cruel,’ she thought. Miss Scales came running out, with her shawl over her head, full of reproaches about the risk of evening air. ‘Do you know if papa has had any visitors, Miss Scales, sweet?’ asked Beatrix, taking her governess’s arm affectionately. ‘My dear, when does your papa ever have visitors?’ ‘Then there hasn’t been any one.’ ‘I have been in my own room all the afternoon!’ ‘Then you couldn’t have seen any one if they had come,’ said Beatrix. ‘Why didn’t you say so before?’ ‘My dear Beatrix, you have not your usual amenity of manner,’ remonstrated the governess. ‘I beg your pardon, dear, but I have such a frightful headache.’ ‘If you would only try a seidlitz----’ ‘No, it will be better by and by. Let us go in----’ ‘You shall have a cup of tea, dear.’ They went in together, and Beatrix pleaded exemption from the formality of dinner, on account of her headache. She went to her room, and threw herself on her sofa, and took up the first book that her hand lighted on, amidst a litter of books and papers on the old-fashioned writing-table.