Pointz Barbary, a gentleman by descent, and once of fairly good substance, had been a great traveller, had roved pretty nearly all over the world. The very few relatives he possessed lived in Canada--people of condition, it was said--and his own property (what was left of it) was also there. He had been married twice. First to a young lady in France; her friends (English) having settled there for economy's sake. She died at the end of the year, leaving him a little girl, that the mother's people at once took to. Next he married a Miss Reste, daughter of Colonel Reste, in her Majesty's service. A few years later she also died--died of consumption--leaving him a widower and childless. It's true he had his first wife's daughter, but she lived in France with her mother's sister, so he did not get much benefit from her. Mr. Barbary was poor. No mistake about that. The interest of his first wife's money brought him in fifty-two pounds yearly, and this he would enjoy till his death, when it went to his daughter. Miss Reste had brought him several thousand pounds; but he and she had lived away, and not a stiver remained of it. His own means had also been spent lavishly; and, so far as was known, he had but the two and fifty pounds a year to live upon at Caramel Cottage, with a chance remittance from Canada now and again. He made no acquaintance at Church Dykely, and none was made with him. Civilly courteous in a rather grand and haughty way when he met people, so far as a few remarks went, touching the weather or the crops, and similar safe topics, he yet kept the world at a distance. As the time went on it was thought there might be a reason for this. Whispers began to circulate that Mr. Barbary's doings were not orthodox. He was suspected of poaching, both in game and fish, and a strong feeling of shyness grew up against him. Some few months prior to the present time--August--his daughter came to Caramel Cottage. Her aunt in France was dead, and she had no home henceforth but her father's. That I and Tod had not seen or heard of her until now, was owing to the midsummer holidays having been spent at Crabb Cot. The vacation over, and Mrs. Todhetley back at Dyke Manor, she found herself called upon by Miss Barbary. Hearing that Mrs. Todhetley wished her little girl to begin French, she had come to offer herself as teacher. The upshot was that she was engaged, and came for a couple of hours every morning to drill French into Lena. "What's she like?" asked Tod of the mother, upon her explaining this. "Long and thin and dark, like Barbary, and disagreeable with a self-contained reticence?"