"Yes, it's a queer pixie," her father said. "But it's going to do something some day, or _I'm_ much mistaken." "It's going to make a nuisance of itself if you put such nonsense into its head, or I'm much mistaken," Mrs. Caldwell observed. "I shall _not_ make a nuisance of myself," Beth indignantly protested. "I shall never be able to make you understand, Caroline," Captain Caldwell exclaimed. "Little pitchers are generally bad enough, but when there is large intelligence added to the long ears, they're the devil." Before the doctor left he said to Mrs. Caldwell, "We must keep our patient amused, you know." "O doctor!" Beth exclaimed, clasping her hands in her earnestness, "do you think if Sophie Keene came?" The doctor burst into a shout of laughter, in which Captain Caldwell also joined. "Just stay here yourself, Beth," he said, when he had recovered himself. "For amusement, neither Sophie Keene nor any one else I ever knew could hold a candle to you." "What's 'hold a candle to you'?" Beth instantly demanded. And then there was more laughter, in which even Mrs. Caldwell joined; and afterwards, when the doctor had gone, she actually patted Beth on the back, and stroked her hair, which was the first caress Beth ever remembered to have received from her mother. "Now, mamma," she exclaimed, with great feeling, in the fulness of her surprise and delight, "now I shall forget that you ever beat me." Her mother coloured painfully. Her father muttered something about a noble nature. "And that was the child you never wanted at all!" slipped, with a ring of triumph, from Mrs. Caldwell unawares--an interesting example of the complexity of human feelings. Captain Caldwell soon went back to his duty--all too soon for his strength. The dreadful weather continued. Day after day he returned soaking from some distant station to the damp and discomfort of the house, and the ill-cooked, unappetising food, which he could hardly swallow. And to all this was added great anxiety about the future of his family. His boys were doing well at school by this time; but he was not satisfied with the way in which the little girls were being brought up. There was no order in their lives, no special time for anything; and he knew the importance of early discipline. He tried to discuss the subject with his wife, but she met his suggestions irritably. "There's time enough for that," she said. "_I_ had no regular lessons till I was in my teens." "But what answered with you may be disastrous to these children," he ventured. "They are all unlike you in disposition, more especially Beth." "You spoil that child," Mrs. Caldwell protested. "And at any rate I can do no more. I am run off my feet."