“He is scarcely so tall,” said she, rising to look out, “but not very unlike him. But the lady, papa,--the lady is Miss Barrington.” Bad as M'Cormick's visit was, it was nothing to the possibility of such an advent as this, and Dill's expressions of anger were now neither measured nor muttered. “This is to be a day of disasters. I see it well, and no help for it,” exclaimed he, passionately. “If there was one human being I 'd hate to come here this morning, it's that old woman! She's never civil. She's not commonly decent in her manner towards me in her own house, and what she 'll be in mine, is clean beyond me to guess. That's herself! There she goes! Look at her remarking,--I see, she's remarking on the weeds over the beds, and the smashed paling. She's laughing too! Oh, to be sure, it's fine laughing at people that's poor; and she might know something of that same herself. I know who the man is now. That 's the Colonel, who came to the 'Fisherman's Home' on the night of the accident.” “It would seem we are to hold a levee to-day,” said Polly, giving a very fleeting glance at herself in the glass. And now a knock came to the door, and the man who acted gardener and car-driver and valet to the doctor announced that Miss Barrington and Colonel Hunter were below. “Show them up,” said Dill, with the peremptory voice of one ordering a very usual event, and intentionally loud enough to be heard below stairs. If Polly's last parting with Miss Barrington gave little promise of pleasure to their next meeting, the first look she caught of the old lady on entering the room dispelled all uneasiness on that score. Miss Dinah entered with a pleasing smile, and presented her friend, Colonel Hunter, as one come to thank the doctor for much kindness to his young subaltern. “Whom, by the way,” added he, “we thought to find here. It is only since we landed that we learned he had left the inn for Kilkenny.” While the Colonel continued to talk to the doctor, Miss Dinah had seated herself On the sofa, with Polly at her side. “My visit this morning is to you,” said she. “I have come to ask your forgiveness. Don't interrupt me, child; your forgiveness was the very word I used. I was very rude to you t' other morning, and being all in the wrong,--like most people in such circumstances,--I was very angry with the person who placed me so.” “But, my dear madam,” said Polly, “you had such good reason to suppose you were in the right that this _amende_ on your part is far too generous.”