dissimulating the deep shadows under the eyes--feeling to his heart that most intimate confidence and trust in him, the reliance, almost unconscious, of a child, the utter dependence and weakness which could put up no barriers of the conventional, nor stop to think what would be agreeable: these things found out secret crevices in Sir Robert’s armor of which neither he nor any one else had dreamed. The water stood in his eyes as he looked at her, saying “Poor lassie, poor little lassie!” secretly in his heart. She was as good company then, though she did not know it, as when she started from her brief sleep and exerted herself to make him talk, to make him laugh, to feel himself the most interesting of _raconteurs_ and delightful of companions. Many people had flattered Sir Robert in his day--he had been important enough in much of his life for that--but he had never found flattery so sweet as Lily’s demands upon the stores of his long experience, her questions upon his history, her interest in what he told her. It was not only that she was herself such a companion as he had not dreamed of, but that he never had been aware before what excellent company he was himself. He almost grudged to see her growing stronger, though he rejoiced in it from the bottom of his old world-worn heart. “And so you are going to leave me, Lily--you’ve settled, that Robina woman and you--and you’re off in two days seeking adventures?” “Yes, uncle--in two days; but only for a little while.” “Without a thought of an old man left desolate--upon the edge of the moor.” “Yes, with a thought that is very pleasant--that there’s somebody there wanting me back”--she paused a moment with a faint sigh and added: “and that I am coming back to in a little while. And then, as for the moor, it is full of diversion. You’re never lonely watching the clouds and the shadows and all the changes: I have had much experience of it, Uncle Robert--two years, that were sometimes long, long.” “I never knew,” said Sir Robert, a little abashed, “how lonely it was, Lily, and that all the old neighbors were gone. I pictured you surrounded with young folk, and as merry as the day was long.” “It was not exactly that,” she said, with a smile; and then her face changed, as it did from moment to moment, like the moor which she loved, yet hated--shadows flying over it as swift, as sudden, and as deep. “But it’s all past, and why should we think more of it? When I come back, Uncle Robert, we’ll be cheery, you and me together by the fireside all the winter through, and never ask whether there are neighbors or not--or other folk in the world.” “I would not go so far as that,” said the old gentleman. “We’ll get the world to come to us, Lily, a small bit at a time. But you have never told me where you are going when you leave me here.” “To Edinburgh,” she said.