"Do you do nothing but read all day long?" he questioned curiously. "Why, you are a regular little bookworm! But I think you spend too much time indoors! Little girls should have roses on their cheeks, and you have none. You are far too pale! Have you no young friends, my dear?" "No, Uncle Edward; but I don't want young friends—at least sometimes I think I should like some, not many, just a few, you know! I have father, and Gerald, and—" "But your father has his painting, so you really see but little of him; and Gerald is at school. Why, you must spend the greatest part of your days alone. How is it you don't go to school yourself?" "I am going to school later on," she informed him hurriedly. "I—I don't mind much not going now. You mustn't think I do!" He surveyed her in puzzled silence, passing his hand through his thick, grizzled hair, as she had noticed he had a trick of doing if he failed to understand the situation. "Youth is the time for learning," he remarked at length, "but, of course, children do not realize that themselves. I remember when I was a schoolboy how I used to idle the precious hours away; and many a time since, I've regretted the opportunities I foolishly lost. Now, my brother—your grandfather, you understand, Angel—was quite different to me; he was always studying, and if he had lived long enough he would have made a mark as a clergyman, for he was a fine preacher, and popular with all who came in contact with him, besides being most zealous in the work he had chosen. But it was not to be, as you know, my dear; God took him away from his earthly labours when he was barely thirty years of age." "Yes; father has often told me how his father died when he was a baby, and his mother did not live many years afterwards. It was very, very sad!" "It was God's will," Mr. Bailey said reverently, "and He knows best, though we cannot always see His reasons for all He does; but it was a great loss for your father to be thus bereft of both parents at such an early age." Angel had put down her book, and taken a chair close to Mr. Bailey's. Already she was beginning to find out that he was a most interesting companion. "I know how good you were to father when he was a boy," she said gently, "and that you paid his school-bills, and gave him pocket-money, and—" "Pooh, child! That was nothing. I was doing well in Australia and could well afford to do the little I did for him. I must confess, though, I was disappointed and vexed when I came home to England—more than twenty years ago it was now—and found your father so set upon being an artist. I would have liked him to join me in Australia, and he should then have had a partnership in my business." "Father would not like to be anything but an artist," Angel replied. "He is a genius, and some day he will be famous!" "Perhaps so, perhaps so! I am no judge of pictures myself, so I cannot say; but the road to fame is not an easy one, my dear."