"The love of that mite for her father is quite wonderful," went on Joanna. "Even Thorold notices it. Quite an hour before Trist is due, Bet will be gluing her face and flattening her nose against the window; and nothing will move her. And all the time she is humming to herself, like a little bird--such funny little scraps of tunes. And then, when he crosses the road, she is out of the room like a dart. And to hear all her old-fashioned questions to him in the passage! Oh, it almost makes me cry to listen to her! 'Are you very tired, father dear? Have you had a hard day? Does your head ache? and are your feet cold? But Aunt Joa has made up such a big fire!'--something like that every night." "Bless her little heart," observed Doreen, sympathetically; but Althea only smiled. "And then she brings him in and makes such a fuss over him," went on Joanna. "Just as though he were some feeble, gouty old gentleman. But Tristram lets her do it. I think he likes to feel her little fingers busy about him. She fetches him his warm slippers, and a footstool, or a screen if the fire is hot; and when he is quite 'comfy,' as she calls it, she climbs up on his knee and gives him an account of the day." When Joanna had taken her leave, Althea stood looking into the fire with a grave, abstracted look. But when Doreen returned to the room, she changed her attitude slightly. "Joa seems very happy, does she not, Dorrie? She has not worn so bright a face since the Old Manor House days!" "No, indeed! And it is all Bet's influence. She is like a hen with one chick; it almost makes me laugh to hear her." "I felt nearer crying, I assure you. But, Dorrie, is it not beautiful to see how love effaces self. 'And a little child shall lead them;' do you remember those words? Already Bet's tiny fingers have smoothed out the lines on Joa's face, and taught her to smile again." Waveney only saw Mr. Chaytor on Thursday evenings at the Porch House. The Shakespeare readings were still in full swing, and she still sat beside Nora Greenwell. She sometimes thought that Mr. Chaytor spoke less to her than to the other girls, though he was always careful to point out any fault of punctuation; now and then, when she was a little weary of following the text, she would raise her eyes from her books; and more than once it had given her an odd shock to find at that very moment Mr. Chaytor was quietly regarding her; then some sudden shyness made her eyelids droop again. Mr. Chaytor took no apparent notice of her. When the reading was over he always joined Althea, and a grave bow, or perhaps a pleasant "good-night," when Waveney left the room, was all that passed between them. It was strange, then, that as Thorold Chaytor walked down the hill in the wintry darkness, a little pale face and a pair of dark, _spirituelle_ eyes should invariably haunt him. Never in his life had he seen such eyes, so soft and deep and magnetic.