“I am not so sure about their loyalty,” said Rowland, recalling to mind Marion’s strict impartiality in respect to her aunt and detachment from her. But he felt sure that Evelyn would be able to explain that away also; and put his foot upon it. No need to make the child out worse than she was; and a rush of paternal kindness came over him now that the two were out of his sight. It was not their fault. He said, “I don’t doubt you’ll do wonders with Marion, my dear. The little thing is very quick. Even in the day or two I was with them, a change came over her. She kept her eye upon me, and without a word just adopted manners. No, I don’t think I am partial. Indeed I found that I was quite the reverse.” I am afraid that a cold shudder, unsuspected by her husband, passed over Evelyn, in which, if there was horror, there was also a distinctly comic element. What sort of a wonderful creature must the girl be who “adopted manners” from good James, the most excellent man, but not a model of refinement. She could not but laugh, yet shivered a little as well. “I am more afraid of Marion than of Archie,” she said, “for he will chiefly be your concern. I shall have only the consoling part, the petting to do with him. I hope your little May is a magnanimous little person, who will not mind being pulled to pieces for her good; for I suppose I shall have to do that--if you are right.” She added these last words with a little quick awakening to possible danger. He had not been at all complimentary to his little girl. Yet was it possible that there was a faint little cloud, a suspicion of a cloud on his face, to be taken at his word, and to have even his wife express, nay repeat what was his own opinion? She was very quick to see these almost imperceptible changes of countenance, and with a little start and catching of her breath, awoke to a sense of risk, which she had never realised before. “I have a story of my own to tell you,” she said hastily, “in which I shall have to crave a great deal of forbearance on your part, James, and pardon for what I have taken upon myself to do, or rather to consent to. I thought of asking your permission first, but then I felt that anything of this kind might seem a want of confidence in you.” His face had changed in a moment to the widest of smiles, and brightest of aspects. “Fancy!” he said, “anything for which you should have to ask my permission, any wish of yours that it would not be my highest pleasure to do.” “Thank you,” she said, “dear. I felt sure you would back me up: and now I have got this pretty speech to the boot, to make me happy. James, do you remember a story I told you when you first spoke to me, when you asked me first, in Helen Stanhope’s house?” “About?”--He paused and added, “Yes: you have seen him again?” “I have seen a man paralysed, in a Bath chair, moved, dressed, fed, ordered about by a servant. The ghost, or far worse than the ghost, the wreck of a man.”