"He was the most delightful man I ever knew." There was a noticeable change in Edward Webb's enthusiasm for this parent. "I wish you had known him, Theresa. You would have been such friends." "Tell me." And "Tell me," she urged again, when her father had smiled too long at his memories. "He was a musician and a poet, my dear. He played the organ at the cathedral, and he wrote songs, music, and words. I can see him now as he sat at the piano, playing and singing, trying to make your grandmother laugh." "Why wouldn't she?" "Because she didn't always approve, I'm afraid. They were very often about her, too." He chuckled at another recollection. "'Your pretty ankle's slender grace, Your skirts when they are thrumming.' "It was on a Sunday night he began that, drawing it out of the last chords of a hymn. I forget the rest. He reeled it off without a thought. A strip of a man with a solemn face--until you saw his eyes; then you had to laugh, you didn't know why." "Except grandmother." "Yes-es. Your grandmother hadn't the comic spirit, Theresa." She nodded. She was on Olympus when her father talked with her thus, a little above her comprehension, so that she must strain for meanings, while her faith in herself grew great with her stretch. "I wish grandfather hadn't died," she said. "I don't mind about grandmother. I think she must have been flannelly." "Flannelly?" "You know the kind--not pretty underclothes like mother's, but grey things with long sleeves and no trimming." "Well--yes, yes; I don't know about that. She was very handsome, my dear." "But not so pretty as Mother or Grace?" "Certainly not as pretty as they are." "Tell me some more about grandfather, and I'll make toast for tea." "Isn't that rather wasteful of the butter?" he asked anxiously, conscious that his domestic cares were being doubled by Nancy's inefficiency. "There's dripping, Bessie told me, from Thursday's beef. That's cheap, isn't it?" "Yes; I think we can still afford that." "We're poor, aren't we?" "Yes, Theresa." "Well, never mind. I think it's rather nice to be poor, and Grace says she's going to make her fortune. She wants to be a lady in a pantomime. I think she would look lovely. I should like to be one, too, but then I shouldn't look right. I shall have to be something where I don't show. I've decided to write books." His eyelids flickered. "You will have to work hard at school, then." "Yes. Would you mind cutting me another piece of bread?" she asked quickly.