He found her this time in the garden next door, talking with the old lady who lived there. As soon as she saw his kindly face she rushed up to him and sprang into his arms with the warm and silent affection she had developed for him, and which so enraptured him. He smiled apologetically over her head at the old lady, and carried her off. She was five now, and tall for her age, thinner than ever, and lovelier. She had lost the softness of babyhood, her little face was pointed, her features clearer. Mr. Petersen looked upon her with an admiration that was almost awe. His feeling for this child was more than he could express, more than he could comprehend; something beyond any paternal affection. Minnie _loved_ her, with a violent and undiscriminating passion, but he was privately convinced that Minnie didn’t quite understand her, or quite appreciate her rareness. She would, he fancied, have loved any child she had borne with the same fervour. “Well, Sandra!” he said, “are you hungry?” “No, Uncle Chris.” So she always answered, and it always worried him. He had been disturbed to learn from Minnie that the child never drank milk, didn’t like it. He found a very particular sort of cow out in the country and arranged with its owner to deliver daily a quart of its milk, and, with bribes and cajolery, got her to drink it. “How much milk to-day?” he asked, as he did every evening. “None. Because Michael tipped over the bottle just when Mother opened it, and _he_ drank it _all_ up, from the floor, like this.” She illustrated with a small tongue. “Now then, that will never do! We shall have Michael growing bigger than you!” That amused her, and together they constructed imaginary scenes with an enormous Michael. “We’re going out to dinner to-night,” he said. “Uncle Chris will make you pretty, eh?” So he carefully washed the little face, and combed her hair, talking to her all the while. “What did the little girl do to-day?” he asked. “I writed a letter to my daddy. I writes to my daddy every day.” He felt a great pity for her, and a generous pity for the man who had had to leave her forever. She often spoke about her father, and in honour bound, Mr. Petersen encouraged it, although it wasn’t altogether pleasant for him. He didn’t like to be reminded of the dead Englishman whom he had supplanted. “That’s right,” he said. “Remember your daddy.” The little girl was sitting on his knee while he buttoned her frock; she rubbed her silky head against his face and rested for a moment against him. He could hear Minnie in the next room, opening bureau drawers in a vain search for some of her perpetually lost belongings. “Mother wroted too, to daddy,” Sandra went on, “and I did post it in the high box.” He wondered casually whom Minnie had been writing to, then in an instant forgot all about it, for he heard her calling him in a queer, desperate voice: “Chris! Chris!”