She would have been surprised at other things a child of nine can feel. If the routine of the house dragged dully to Alexina, Harriet never suspected it. The personal attention was detailed to Nelly, who divined more--Nelly, the freckle-faced, humorous-eyed house girl, taken from the Orphans' Home and trained by Harriet's mother. But, then, Nelly had been orphaned herself, and had known those first days following asylum consignment and perhaps had not forgot. Her sympathy expressed itself through the impersonal, the Blair training not having encouraged the other. "Such a be-yewtiful dress," said she, laying out the clothes for her charge. Which was true; no child of Molly's would have suffered for clothes, Molly loving them too well herself. "And such be-yewtiful slippers," said Nelly, with Alexina in her lap, pulling up the little stocking and buttoning the strap about the ankle. Alexina's hand held tight to Nelly's hard, firm arm, steadying herself. Perhaps she divined the intention. "Can I come, too, when you go to set the table?" she asked. But Harriet never suspected. Nor again, that evening while she and Austen read under the lamp, did Harriet know that Alexina, standing at the open parlour window gazing at the children playing on the sidewalk, was fighting back passionate tears of an outraged love and a baffling sense of injustice. All at once a child's treble came in from the pavement. "Can't you come play?" Alexina turned, with backward look of eager inquiry to her aunt, who had come behind her to see who called. "As you please; go if you want," said Harriet good-humouredly. Austen, too, glanced out. Tip-toe on the stone curbing of the iron fence perched a little girl, spokesman for the group of children behind her. "Who is the child?" he asked his sister. "Her name is Carringford. She is a grand-daughter of the old Methodist minister who lives at the corner; secretary of his church board, or something, isn't he? I've noticed two or three little Carringfords playing in the yard as I go by, and all of them handsome." Austen placed them at once. The child's mother was the daughter of the old minister, and, with husband and children, lived in the little brown house with him. An interest in the details of the human affairs about him was an unexpected phase in Austen's character. He liked to know what a man was doing, his income, his habits, his family ties. "I know Carringford," he remarked; "he is book-keeper for Williams, a good, steady man. As you say, a handsome child, exceedingly so." Harriet watched until the little niece joined the group outside. "Gregarious little creatures they seem to be," she remarked. There was good-humour in her tone, but there was no understanding. The next day was Sunday. On Monday it rained. Tuesday evening Alexina stood at the parlour window as before, looking out. The little figure looked very solitary.