I said the words in a sad voice; I could not help it; there was a lump in my throat. Father gazed at me, and all of a sudden his manner altered. He seated himself in a chair, and motioned to me to take another. He pulled the little tray with the nice tea towards him, poured out a cup, and drank it. Then he looked at the poached egg, put on his glasses, and gazed at it more fixedly. "That's a queer sort of thing," he said; and then he ate it with considerable relish. "It's very good," he said when he had finished it. "Who did it?" "Mr Von Marlo." "Rachel, you must be mad!" "No, father; he isn't an English boy, you know. He helped me; he is a very nice boy." My father sank back in his chair, and suddenly, to my amazement and relief, he burst into a roar of laughter. "Well, well!" he said, "I admit that I was in a temper; and I was rude to the lad, too. If you ever have headaches like mine you will get into passions too, Rachel. Pray that you may never have them; my misery is something too awful; and when I saw that lad, with his great dark head, and that hair of his coming straight down to his eyebrows, marching up the stairs with you, I really thought a burglar had got into the house. But, after all, it was only the Dutch lad, and he is clever enough, and doesn't know our English customs. And to think that he poached an egg!" "And he made the toast, father." My father laughed again. "Whatever he did, he has cured my headache," was his next remark; "I feel as right as a trivet. I'll come downstairs, and I'll turn those lads out, and those girls." "But, father--father darling--they have come by invitation. It isn't their fault." My father took my hand. "So you are lonely, Dumps?" he said. "And why in the world should you be lonely?" "I want friends," I said. "I want some one to love me." "All women make that sort of cry," was his next remark. He pulled me close to him and raised my head and looked into my face. "You have a nice little face of your own," he said, "and some day you will find--But, pshaw! why talk nonsense to the child? How old are you, Dumps?" "I'll be sixteen in six months," I said. "It is a long way off to have a birthday, but it will come in six months." "And then you'll be seventeen, and then eighteen, and, hey presto! you'll be a woman. My goodness, child! put off the evil day as long as you can. Keep a child as long as possible." "But, father, most children are happy." "And you are not? Good gracious me! what more do you want?" "I don't know, father; but it seems to me that I want something." "Well, look here, you want girls about you, do you?" "Yes, some girls." "And you think Rita and Agnes Swan, the daughters of our local doctor, quite delightful companions?" I made no answer. "Just wait for me a minute, Dumps, and I'll get dressed and come down and inspect them." "Oh, but you won't frighten them?"