“Oh, we have so many words; every day; all our lives long,” said Toppie, and, though she continued to advance, Alix felt a slight constraint in her voice. “He is a dear, is he not, Giles?” she added, as if irrelevantly. “Oh, a dear!” said Alix. “I felt him that at once. And so good; and so intelligent.”—“More intelligent than Captain Owen; more good,” was in her mind. But that made, she knew, no difference. People were not loved for their intelligence, or their goodness, either. “A great dear, Giles,” Toppie repeated, but with no intention, evidently, of being urged by her young companion’s warmth beyond her own sense of due commendation. “Owen loved him devotedly. After his mother it was Giles he loved best of all his family.” “They were all three of the same _pâte_, were they not.” “_Pâte?_” Toppie questioned. Her French was not quite so good as Giles’s. “The paste, you know, of which earthenware or porcelain is made.” “I see. Yes. And Owen was porcelain; and Giles is earthenware; and dear Mrs. Bradley is both together.” Toppie mused on the simile with satisfaction. But it did not satisfy Alix. “Some earthenware is very rare and precious; tough and fine at once. And it wears and wears.” “But it never has the beauty,” said Toppie. Giles was now within speaking distance, and by the light of their lantern Alix saw that his eyes were fixed upon Toppie with an indefinable expression; not alarm; not inquiry; but a steady watchfulness that, to her perception, controlled these feelings. “I was afraid you’d run away with our young guest and came out to look for you,” he said. “It’s six o’clock.” While Alix, feeling a soft touch on her glove, looked down to see the earnest, illumined eyes of Jock. “I didn’t realize it was so late,” said Toppie, and to Alix’s ear the tone of her voice was altered. Toppie, for all her familiarity, would never, she felt, have talked with any of the Bradleys as she had with her this afternoon. “We’ve talked and talked; haven’t we, Alix. I must fly!” “Come in for a little. Mother’s just back. She’d love to see you,” said Giles. “No, indeed, I can’t. Give her my love. I’ll drop in upon her to-morrow afternoon, after my class.” “Well, we’ll go back with you, then. It’s late for you to be out alone.” “For me! On the common! How absurd you are, Giles! Good-night.” “Good-night,” said Giles. He showed no grievance; some shade, rather, seemed lifted from him, and in a moment, as he and she walked on together, Alix divined that his anxiety had been lest she had said anything to hurt Toppie or revived memories that cut too deep. It had not been so much to see Toppie as to watch over her that he had come. The lantern made a soft round of light into which they advanced and the November air was pleasant. “And what have you talked and talked about?” Giles asked.