'So late, Cardie? Well, well; it is something to find time can pass otherwise than slowly now. You must not find fault with your aunt; she is a good creature, and her talk has refreshed me. I hope, Milly, you and my boy mean to be great friends.' 'Do you doubt it, sir?' asked Richard gravely. 'I don't doubt your good heart, Cardie, though your aunt may not always understand your manner,' answered his father gently. 'Youth is sometimes narrow-minded and intolerant, Milly. One graduates in the school of charity later in life.' 'I understand your reproof, sir. I am aware you consider me often overbearing and dogmatical, but in my opinion petty worries would try the temper of a saint.' 'Pin-pricks often repeated would be as bad as a dagger-thrust, and not nearly so dignified. Never mind, Cardie, many people find toleration a very difficult duty.' 'I could never tolerate evils of our own making, and what is more, I should never consider it my duty to do so. I do not know that you would have to complain of my endurance in greater matters.' 'Possibly not, Cardie. This boy of mine, Milly,' pressing the strong young arm on which he leant, 'is always leading some crusade or other. He ought to have lived centuries ago, and belted on his sword as a Red Cross Knight. He would have brought us home one of the dragon's heads at last.' 'You are jesting,' returned Richard, with a forced smile. 'A poor jest, Cardie, then; only clothing the truth in allegory. After all, you are right, my boy, and I am somewhat weary; help me to my study. I will not join the others to-night.' Richard's face so plainly expressed 'I told you so,' that Mildred felt a warm flush come to her face, as though she had been discovered in a fault. It added to her annoyance also to find on inquiry that Olive had been shut up in her room all the evening, 'over Roy's socks,' as Chrissy explained, while the others had been wandering over the fells at their own sweet will. 'This will never do; you will be quite ill, Olive,' exclaimed Mildred, impatiently; but as Richard entered that moment, to fetch some wine for his father, she forbore to say any more, only entering a mental resolve to kidnap the offending basket and lock it up safely from Olive's scrupulous fingers. 'I am coming into your room to have a talk,' whispered Polly when supper was over; 'I have hardly seen you all day. How I do miss not having my dear Aunt Milly to myself.' 'I don't believe you have missed me at all, Polly,' returned Mildred, stroking the short hair, and looking with a sort of relief into the bright piquant face, for her heart was heavy with many sad thoughts. 'Roy and I have been talking about you, though; he has found out you have a pretty hand, and so you have.' 'Silly children.' 'He says you are awfully jolly. That is the schoolboy jargon he talks; but he means it too; and even Chriss says you are not so bad, though she owned she dreaded your coming.'