'Ah, if I could only feel that!' she whispered. 'I will make you feel it; listen to me, dear. We men are odd, unaccountable beings; we have moods, our work worries us, we have tired fits now and then, nothing is right, all is vanity of vanity, disgust, want of success, blurred outlines, opaque mist everywhere--then it is I shall want my little comforter. You will be my veritable Sunbeam then.' 'But if I fail you?' 'Hush, you will never fail me. What heresy, what disbelief in a wife's first duty! Do you know, Polly, it is just three years since I first dreamt of the beneficent fairy who was to rise up beside my hearth.' 'You thought of me three years ago?' 'Thought of you? No, dreamt of you, fairy. You know you came to me first in a ladder of motes and beams. Don't you remember Dad Fabian's attic, and the picture of Cain, and the strange guardian coming in through the low doorway?' 'Yes, I remember; you startled me.' 'Polly is a hundred times prettier now; but I can recognise still in you the slim creature in the rusty black frock, with thin arms, and large dark eyes, drinking in the sunlight. It was such a forlorn Polly then.' 'And then you were good to me.' 'I am afraid I must have seemed stern to you, poor child, repelling your young impulse in such a manner. I remember, while you were pleading in your innocent fashion, and Miss Lambert was smiling at you, that a curious fancy came into my head. Something hardly human seemed to whisper to me, "John Heriot, after all, you may have found a little comforter."' 'I am so glad. I mean that you have thought of me for such a time.' Polly was dimpling again; the old happy light had come back to her eyes. 'You see it is no new idea. I have watched my Polly growing sweeter and brighter day by day. How often you have confided in me; how often I have shared your innocent thoughts. You were not afraid to show me affection then.' 'I am not now,' she stammered. 'Perhaps not now, my bright-eyed bird; you have borrowed courage and eloquence for the occasion, inciting me to all manner of lover-like and foolish speeches. What do you say, little one--do you think I play the lover so badly, after all?' 'Yes--no--it does not suit you, somehow,' faltered Polly, truthful still. 'What, am I too old?' but Dr. Heriot's tone was piqued in spite of its assumed raillery. 'No, you know you are not; but I like the old ways and manners best. When you talk like this I get shy and stupid, and do not feel like Polly at all.' 'You are the dearest and sweetest Polly in the world,' he returned, with a low, satisfied laugh; 'the most delightful combination of quaintness and simplicity. I wonder what wise Aunt Milly would say if she heard you.'