When I had in some degree recovered my self-control, the child sat down beside me, so close that she pushed her small body against mine, with one rose-leaf of a hand laid upon my knee in a protective fashion, every little while giving me a pat, as a mother soothes a child. Sitting thus, my arm around her, my soul stirred to its depths, my eyes brooded over all her baby charms. She was of a slender, round figure, with dimpled neck and arms. Her head was broad, her forehead low, with noticeably black brows, and she had a way, when perplexed, I very soon discovered, of drawing these together, the right one falling a bit lower than the left. It was the eyes which struck one first, however; brooding, passionate, observant, quick to look within or without, and fearless in their glance. Mrs. Opie states that they were black, and Reynolds painted them bright blue; but the truth is, that they were like her mother's, clear gray, with pupils of unusual size, and heavy lashed, especially on the under lid. She was still under five, but I had not been with her a quarter of an hour before I recognized a potent and wonderful personality and knew that there was something which this small soul had in her keeping to give the world which others have not. "Sandy was here," I heard her sweet voice saying when I had recovered myself. "Sandy was here one day. He fetched the drey hen you sent me." Here she patted my knee, looking up as though to assure me of her protection. "He said the rabbits were from you," she went on; "and the owl got broke that was in the box. It was too little for him." "Sandy brought me," she said finally, "the child that stares so," and she pointed, her eyebrows puckered together, at a rag-doll, with painted cheeks and round, offensive eyes, sitting head down in a corner of the porch. Beyond money, I had not sent even a message to the child in all these years of absence, and my heart filled with gratitude to that friend who had made me a fairy-grandfather and won a child's love for me, who was so unthoughtful and so far away. As we sat thus, Dame Dickenson heard the sound of voices, and came from the house to welcome me with a smile, though the tears were in her eyes as she spoke her words of welcome. Her life of ease and freedom from money-care had changed her greatly, and with her black silk frock, her lace kerchief and cap, she seemed quite like some old gentlewoman. I tried, knowing the inadequacy of words, even while speaking, to thank her for my wonderful child, when she interrupted me. "I should have died but for her--after"--she broke off here, not wishing to name the sorrow between us. "But you've not seen the wonder of her yet; she has the whole Cairn Mills bewitched, and if she were a queen on her throne could not have her way more than she does now."