"There is grandpa," exclaimed Helen as we neared the summer-house; and I saw an old man sitting in an arm-chair in the sunshine, looking eagerly toward us as if in anxious expectation. "You were gone a long time, Helen," he called out peevishly. "Oh no, dear," she replied soothingly. "Here is Floyd, grandpa." He had looked, when I first saw him from a distance, like a very old man, but when I was shaking hands with him I was surprised to discover that his face had little appearance of age. Even his thin dark hair was but sprinkled with gray at the curly ends on the temples: his eyebrows were a black silky thread, his eyes dark and full of a peculiar glitter. His features were finely formed and feminine in their delicacy, but the expression of his face was marred by the restlessness of his eyes, and made almost pathetic by the dejected, melancholy lines about his thin scarlet lips. He shook hands with me gracefully, and made inquiries about my journey, then sank back into his chair listlessly, and allowed Helen to pull the tiger-skin which formed his lap-robe over his knees. There was a peculiar feebleness about his whole attitude as he sat--something almost abased in the sinking of his chin upon his breast. It was hard for me to realize that he was the owner of all this magnificence, and, dressed although he was with faultless elegance, and although luxurious appurtenances filled the summer-house, waiting for his momentary convenience, I was certain that his great wealth brought him no pleasure, and that, except for his little grandchild, he was comfortless in the world. He was full of complaints toward her. He was sure, he said, that now when I had come she would have no thought of him; that taking care of an old man was a dreary and thankless task; that only the young could be beloved by the young. And her way of listening and answering made me suspect that she was but too used to such querulousness. I was perhaps too young to understand mainsprings of action, yet nevertheless I seemed to know at once that her calm, mature manner and precocious imperiousness were the result of his weakness and wavering, of his selfish and morbid doubts. "You are older than I thought," Mr. Raymond said to me, regarding me for the first time with languid curiosity. "I expected to see a velvet-coated little fellow of Helen's size. What is your age, my boy?" I told him I should be fifteen the next spring, counting, as most young people do, by the milestone ahead of me, instead of the one I had passed. "Oh, that is quite an age," said he with an air of relief. "Do not expect to make a playmate of Mr. Floyd Randolph, Helen: he is quite too old to care for a mere child like yourself." "He is not nearly as old as papa." returned Helen quickly, "and papa will play with me all day long."