Mildred was the first to detect the well-known footsteps on the gravelled path; but she held her peace. Dr. Heriot's keen glance, as he stood on the threshold, had time to scan the features of the little fireside group before a word of greeting had crossed his lips; he noticed Polly's listless attitude as she sat apart in the dark window-seat, and the moody restlessness of Roy's face as he lay furtively watching her. Even Mildred's heightened colour, as she bent industriously over her work, was not lost on him. 'Polly!' he said, crossing the room, and marvelling at her unusual abstraction. At the sound of the kind, well-known voice, the girl started violently; but as he stooped over her and kissed her, she turned very white, and involuntarily shrank from him, but the next moment she clung to him almost excitedly. 'Oh, Heriot, why did you not come before? You knew I wanted you--you must have known how I wanted you.' 'Yes, dear, I knew all about it,' he replied, quietly, putting away the little cold hands that detained him, and turning to the others. A few kind inquiries after the invalid were met at first very irritably, but even Roy's jealousy could not be proof against such gentleness, and he forgot his wretchedness for a time while listening to home messages, and all the budget of Kirkby Stephen gossip which Dr. Heriot retailed over the cosy meal that Mildred provided for the traveller. For once Dr. Heriot proved himself an inexhaustible talker; there was no limit to his stock of anecdotes. Roy's sulkiness vanished; he grew interested, almost amused. 'You remember old Mrs. Parkinson and her ginger-cakes, Polly,' he said, with a weak ghost of a laugh; but then he checked himself with a frown. How was it one could not hate this fellow, who had defrauded him of Polly? he thought, clenching his hand impatiently. Why was he to succumb to a charm of manner that had worked him such woe? Dr. Heriot's fine instinct perceived the lad's transition of mood. 'Yes, Polly has a faithful memory for an old friend,' he said, answering for the girl, who sat near him with a strip of embroidery from which she had not once raised her eyes. As he looked at her, his face worked with some strong emotion; his eyes softened, and then grew sad. 'Polly is faith itself,' speaking with peculiar intonation, and laying his hand on the small shining head. 'You see I have a new name for you to-night, Heartsease.' 'I think I will go to bed, Aunt Milly,' broke out poor Roy, growing suddenly pale and haggard. 'I--I am tired, and it is later to-night, I think.' Dr. Heriot made no effort to combat his resolution. He stood aside while Mildred offered her arm to the invalid. He saw Polly hurriedly slip her hand in Roy's, who wrung it hard with a sort of laugh. 'It is good-bye for good and all, I suppose to-night?' he said. 'Heriot means to take you away, of course?'