be more out of the common than Olive. Olive has all sorts of absurd notions in her head. It is odd Mrs. Lambert's training should have failed so signally in her girls. I am afraid your preciseness will be sometimes offended,' he continued, looking round the room, which, with all its homeliness, had the little finishes that a woman's hand always gives. 'Olive might have arranged those flowers, but she would have forgotten to water them, or to exclude their presence when dead.'

'You are a nice observer,' returned Mildred, smiling. 'Do not make me afraid of my duties beforehand, as though I do not exactly know how all the rooms look! Betha's pretty drawing-room trampled by dirty boots, Arnold's study a hopeless litter of books, not a corner of the writing-table clear. Chrissy used them as bricks,' she continued, laughing. 'Roy and she had a mighty Tower of Babel one day. You should have seen Arnold's look when he found out that The Seven Lamps of Architecture laid the foundation; but Betha only laughed, and told him it served him right.'

'But she kept them in order, though. In her quiet way she was an excellent disciplinarian. Well, Miss Lambert, I am trespassing overmuch on your goodness. To-morrow I am to make my ward's acquaintance—one of the clique has brought her over from Dieppe—and I am to receive her from his hands. Would it be troubling you too much if I ask you to accompany me?—the poor child will feel so forlorn with only men round her.'

'I will go with you and bring her home. No, please, do not thank me, Dr. Heriot. If you knew how lonely I am here——' and for the first time Mildred's eyes filled with tears.

CHAPTER II

'IF YOU PLEASE, MAY I BRING RAG AND TATTERS?'

So this was Polly.

It was only a shabby studio, where poverty and art fought a hand-to-hand struggle for the bare maintenance, but among the after scenes of her busy life Mildred never forgot the place where she first saw Dr. Heriot's ward; it lingered in her memory, a fair, haunting picture as of something indescribably sweet and sad.

Its few accessories were so suggestive of a truer taste made impossible by paucity of success; an unfinished painting all dim grays and pallid, watery blues; a Cain fleeing out of a blurred outline of clouds; fragmentary snatches of colour warming up pitiless details; rickety chairs and a broken-down table; a breadth of faded tapestry; a jar of jonquils, the form pure Tuscan, the material rough earthenware, a plaster Venus, mutilated but grand, shining out from the dull red background of a torn curtain. A great unfurnished room, full of yellow light and warm sunshine, and, standing motionless in a ladder of motes and beams, with brown eyes drinking in the twinkling glory like a young eagle, was a girl in a shabby black dress, with thin girlish arms clasped across her breast. For a moment Dr. Heriot paused, and he and Mildred exchanged glances; the young figure in its forlornness came to them like a mournful revelation; the immobility was superb, the youthful languor pitiful. As Dr. Heriot touched her, she turned on them eyes full of some lost dream, and a large tear that had been gathering unconsciously brimmed over and splashed down on his hand.

'My child, have we startled you? Mr. Fabian told us to come up.' For a moment she looked bewildered. Her thoughts had evidently travelled a long way, but with consciousness came a look of relief and pleasure.

'Oh, I knew you would come—papa told me so. Oh, why have you been so long?—it is three months almost since papa died. Oh, poor papa! poor papa!' and the flush of joy died out of her face as, clasping her small nervous hands round Dr. Heriot's arm, she laid her face down on them and burst into a passion of tears.

'I sent for you directly I heard; they kept me in ignorance—have they not told you so? Poor child, how unkind you must have thought me!' and a grieved look came over Dr. Heriot's face as he gently stroked the closely-cropped head, that felt like the dark, soft plumage of some bird.

'No, I never thought you that,' she sobbed. 'I was only so lonely and tired of waiting; and then I got ill, and Mr. Fabian was good to me, and so were the others. But papa had left me to you, and I wanted you to fetch me. You have come to take me home, have you not?'

She looked up in his face pleadingly as she said this; she spoke in a voice sweet, but slightly foreign, but with a certain high-bred accent, and there was something unique in her whole appearance that struck her guardian with surprise. The figure was slight and undeveloped, with the irregularity of fourteen; but the ordinary awkwardness of girlhood was replaced by dignity, almost grace, of movement. She was dark-complexioned, but her face was a perfect oval, and the slight down on the upper lip gave a characteristic but not unpleasing expression to the mouth, which was firm but flexible; the hair had evidently been cut off in recent illness, for it was tucked smoothly behind the ears, and was perfectly short behind, which would have given her a boyish look but for the extreme delicacy of the whole contour.

'You have come to take me home, have you not?' she repeated anxiously.

'This lady has,' he replied, with a look at Mildred, who had stood modestly in the background. 'I wish I had a home to offer you, my dear; but my wife is dead, and——'

'Then you will want me all the more,' she returned eagerly. 'Papa and I have so often talked about you; he told me how good you were, and how unhappy.'

'Hush, Mary,' laying his hand lightly over her lips; but Mildred could see his colour changed painfully. But she interrupted him a little petulantly—

'Nobody calls me Mary, and it sounds so cold and strange.'

'What then, my dear?'

'Why, Polly, of course!' opening her brown eyes widely; 'I have always been Polly—always.'

'It shall be as you will, my child.'

'How gently you speak! Are you ever irritable, like papa, I wonder?—he used to be so ill and silent, and then, when we tried to rouse him, he could not bear it. Who is this lady, and why do you say you have no home for me?'

'She means to be our good friend, Polly—there, will that do? But you are such a dignified young lady, I should never have ventured to call you that unasked.'

'Why not?' she repeated, darting at him a clear, straightforward glance. Evidently his reticence ruffled her; but Dr. Heriot skilfully evaded the brief awkwardness.

'This lady is Miss Lambert, and she is the sister of one of my best friends; she is going to take charge of his girls and boys, who have lost their mother, and she has kindly offered to take charge of you too.'

'She is very good,' returned Polly, coldly; 'very, very good, I mean,' as though she had repented of a slight hauteur. 'But I have never had anything to do with children. Papa and I were always alone, and I would much rather live with you; you have no idea what a housekeeper I shall make you. I can dress salad and cook omelettes, and Nanette taught me how to make potage. I used to take a large basket myself to the market when we lived at Dresden, when Nanette was so bad with rheumatism.'

'What an astonishing Polly!'

'Ah! you are laughing at me,' drawing herself up proudly, and turning away so that he should not see the tears in her eyes.

'My dear Polly, is that a "crime"?'

'It is when people are in earnest I have said nothing that deserves laughing at—have I, Miss Lambert?' with a sweet, candid glance that won Mildred's heart.

'No,