“You must please to excuse Nettie, sir; indeed she is the wildest, queerest child that ever was born. But then, you know, she was wild and queer before ever I took her in hand,” said Miss Joe, who was all this time busy with a saucepan over the fire; and a pitcher, a bowl, and some eggs, sugar, and spices on a chair by her side. “Nettie seems to have very little self-control or any other sort of control,” dryly observed the general. “Now if you aint mad long o’ granny. Just as if it was her fault. And she making you mulled cider, too, to keep the cold out of your stomach. And taking the top-knot hen’s eggs, too, that she was saving to set, because they’re a first-rate breed of hens, that lay eggs all the winter, and she wants more of them. And she had but six eggs, and now she’s taken three to make you mulled cider to keep the cold from striking to your stomach; and you to get mad long o’ her, and cut her up short for nothing. Never mind him, granny. I’ll speak right up for you, and take your part,” said Nettie, with her arms still clasped around Hugh’s neck, looking at her guardian, who was regarding her with a smile of mingled amusement and condescending toleration. “Don’t you mind her, sir. Eggs aint no scarcity in this house; no, nor anything else you could want. Would you like the leg of a cold turkey, broiled, with a little currant jelly, sir? Or a few queen-cakes, with a glass of good old sherry?” “Why, granny, I thought you hadn’t——” began Nettie, but Hugh put his hand over her lip and whispered: “Don’t talk too much, Nettie. Go make friends with your guardian.” Nettie turned, saw once more the tolerant, indulgent smile that was beaming upon her, and, with her usual way of assimilating only the good and the beauty of a mixed thing, sprang at once to his arms, to his neck, and caressing him vehemently, asked: “You are not mad with me, are you, godfather? I love you dearly! dearly! ’Deed I do, godfather!” And turning around his bushy face between her little hands, she kissed him many times, repeating her question: “You are not mad ’long o’ me, are you, godfather?” “No, darling little Nettie, I am not.” I have often thought that the spell of power that child held over that man’s hard, stern, reserved nature was this: The blending of passionate fondness with perfect freedom, frankness, and fearlessness in her feelings and her manners toward him.