In regard to "the surprise" Gerty's information was correct. And as Melia, looking and feeling far more fashionable than she had ever done in her life, turned up at Strathfieldsaye at a quarter past one, "the surprise" duly materialized even before the Christmas luncheon at one-thirty. Her father gave her a check for fifty pounds. On Melia's last visit to Strathfieldsaye she had felt quite "out of it," but not so now. Partly it may have been the new clothes. Formerly, she had felt self-conscious, awkward, hopelessly shabby in the midst of a grandeur to which she was unused, whereby she was thrown back upon her embittered self, but now her changing circumstances, the considered kindness of her mother and Gerty, and especially her father's new attitude towards her gave her a sense of happiness almost. Perhaps the fact that Ethel, Mrs. Doctor Cockburn, was unable to be present may also have ministered a little to this feeling. Ethel's absence was much deplored. Somehow a void was created which seemed to rob the modest function of any claim to distinction it might have had; yet in her heart Melia felt that the absence of Mrs. Doctor made it easier for her personally, and even for her mother, whatever it may have done for people so accomplished in the world as her father now was, and for Aunt Gerty who somehow had learned to be genteel without being stuck-up. With Ethel, on the other hand, she had never felt quite at her ease. Nor did anybody, if it came to that. Putting people at their ease was not among Mrs. Doctor Cockburn's many gifts. She was so much a lady that simple folk were apt to be overwhelmed by her sense of her happy condition. It was difficult for ordinary people to be their plain selves in her presence; ordinary they might be, but in social intercourse Mrs. Doctor seemed almost to resent their plainness as being in the nature of a slight upon herself. However, Ethel was not there. And in Melia's opinion her absence gave a finer flavor to the turkey, a gentler quality to the plum pudding and a more subtle aroma to the blazing fumes that crowned it. Nevertheless, it was a theme for much comment. An Event of the first magnitude was almost due to take place in the family; and the head of it, presiding over the modest feast with a kind of genial majesty which ever-growing public recognition of his unusual qualities seemed to enhance and to humanize, made no secret of the fact that he very much wanted to have a little grandson. "Well, Josiah," said the gallant Gerty, adding a little water to some excellent claret and smiling at him with two level rows of white teeth, "I am sure we all hope your wish will be gratified. No man, I'm sure, if I may be allowed to say so, more thoroughly deserves a little grandson than yourself."