Something heavy was being dragged along the passage, accompanied by extraordinary sibilant sounds, resembling the swishing and hissing of an ostler rubbing down a horse. Both the girls seemed to recognise the sounds, for Waveney frowned and bit her lip, and Mollie said, in a troubled tone,-- "Oh, it is poor old 'Canute' come back;" and then they ran into the passage and looked over the balusters. Noel and a little fair man in a shabby velveteen coat were hauling a large picture between them, with much apparent difficulty. One end had got jammed in the narrow staircase, and Noel's encouraging "swishes" and "Whoa, there--steady, old man! Keep your pecker up, and don't kick over the traces," might have been addressed to a skittish mare. Then he looked up and winked at his sisters, and almost fell backwards in his attempt to feign excessive joy. "Hurrah! three cheers! Here we are again--large as life, and as heavy as the fat woman in Mrs. Jarley's wax-works. But what's the odds as long as you are happy, as the lobster said as he walked into the pot." "Hold your tongue, Noel," returned his father, good-naturedly. "It is your fault the confounded thing has got wedged. Keep it straight, and we shall manage it well enough;" and then he looked up at the two faces above him. "There you are, my darlings," he said, nodding to them. "You see I am bringing our old friend back; we will have him up directly if only this young jackanapes will leave off his monkey tricks." And then in a singularly sweet tenor voice he chanted,-- "You hear that boy laughing? You think it is fun, But the angels laugh too at the good he has done. The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all." "Oliver Wendell Holmes," whispered Mollie; but Waveney made no answer; she only ran down a few steps and gallantly put her shoulder to the wheel, and after a few more tugs "King Canute" was safely landed in the studio, where Noel executed a war-dance round him, with many a wild whoop, after the manner of Redskins. "Father, dear," whispered Mollie, in a delightfully coaxing voice, "sit down on Grumps while I make your coffee;" for the Ward family, being somewhat original, gave queer names to their belongings; and since they were children the old couch had been called "Grumps," tired hands and tired limbs and aching hearts always finding it a comfortable refuge. "So I will, dear," returned Mr. Ward; and then both the girls hung about him and kissed him, and Mollie brushed back his hair, and put a rose in his buttonhole; but Waveney only sat down beside him and held his hand silently. There was no difficulty in discovering where Noel got his good looks. In his youth Everard Ward had been considered so handsome that artists had implored him to sit to them; and for many years well-principled heads of girls' colleges feared to engage him as drawing-master.