beautiful and wayward elf.

“Daddy!”

She sprang up and raced towards him.

“Daddy, come along. I’ve got to cook the supper for the fairies.”

Canterton had never evolved a more beautiful flower than this child of his, Lynette. She was his in every way, without a shred of her mother’s nature, for even her glowing little head was as different from Gertrude Canterton’s as fire from clay.

“Hallo, come along.”

He caught her up with his big hands, and set her on his shoulder.

“Now then, what about Princess Puck? You don’t mean to say the greedy little beggars have eaten up all that pudding we cooked them last night?”

“Every little bit.”

“It must have been good. And it means that we shall have to put on our aprons.”

On the short grass at the bottom of the clearing was a fairy ring, and to Lynette the whole wilderness was full of the little people. The dell was her playing ground, and she fled to it on those happy occasions when Miss Vance, her governess, had her hours of freedom. As for Canterton, he was just the child that she was, entering into all her fancies, applauding them, and taking a delight in her gay, elf-like enthusiasm.

“Have you seen Brer Rabbit to-night?”

“No.”

“He just said ‘How de do’ to me as I came through the wood. And I saw old Sergeant Hedgehog taking a nap under a tuft of grass.”

“I don’t like old Hedgehog. I don’t like prickly people, do you, daddy?”

“Not much.”

“Like Miss Nickleton. She might be a pin-cushion. She’s always taking out pins, and putting you all tidy.”

“Now then, we’ve got to be very serious. What’s the supper to be to-night?”

“Baked potatoes and tea.”

“By Jove, they’ll get fat.”

Canterton set her down and threw himself into the business with an immense seriousness that made him the most convincing of playfellows. He took off his coat, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and looked critically at the fire.

“We want some more wood, daddy.”

“Just so.”

He went among the larches, gathered an armful of dead wood, and returned to the fire. Lynette was kneeling and poking it with a stick, her hair shining in the sunlight, her pale face with its hazel eyes full of a happy seriousness. Canterton knelt down beside her, and they began to feed the fire.

“Rather sulky.”

“Blow, daddy.”

He bent down and played Æolus, getting red in the face.

“I say, what a lot of work these fairies give us!”

“But won’t they be pleased! I like to think of them coming out in the moonlight, and feasting, and then having their dance round the ring.”

“And singing, ‘Long live Lynette.’”

They heated up the water in the saucepan, and made tea—of a kind—and baked the potatoes in the embers of the fire. Lynette always spread the feast on the bottom of a bank near the fairy ring. Sergeant Hedgehog, black-eyed field mice, and an occasional rat, disposed of the food, but that did not matter so long as Lynette found that it had gone. Canterton himself would come down early, and empty the tea away to keep up the illusion.

“I think I’ll be a fairy some night, Lynette.”

Her eyes laughed up at him.

“Fancy you being a fairy, daddy! Why, you’d eat up all the food, and there wouldn’t be room to dance.”

“Come, now, I’m hurt.”

She stroked his face.

“You’re so much better than a fairy, daddy.”

The sun slanted lower, and shadows began to cover the clearing. Canterton smothered the fire, picked up Lynette, and set her on his shoulders, one black leg hanging down on either side of his cerise tie, for Canterton always wore Irish tweeds, and ties that showed some colour.

“Off we go.”

They romped through the larch wood, up the hill-side, and into the garden, Lynette’s two hands clasped over her father’s forehead. Fernhill House showed up against the evening sky, a warm, old, red-brick building with white window frames, roses and creepers covering it, and little dormer windows peeping out of the tiled roof. Stretches of fine turf were unfurled before it, set with beds of violas, and bounded by great herbaceous borders. A cedar of Lebanon grew to the east, a noble sequoia to the west, throwing sharp black shadows on the gold-green grass.

“Gallop, daddy.”

Canterton galloped, and her brilliant hair danced, and her red mouth laughed. They came across the grass to the house in fine uproarious style, and were greeted by the sound of voices drifting through the open windows of the drawing-room.

Their irresponsible fun was at end. Canterton set the child down just as the thin primrose-coloured figure came to one of the open French windows.

“James, Mrs. Brocklebank has come back with me. Where is Miss Vance?”

Lynette replied for Miss Vance.

“She had a headache, mother.”

“I might have inferred something of the kind. Look at the front of your dress, Lynette.”

“Yes, mother.”

“What have you been doing? And you have got a great hole in your left stocking, over the knee.”

“Yes, mother, so I have.”

“Lynette, how often have I told you——”

Mrs. Brocklebank or no Mrs. Brocklebank, Canterton interposed quietly in Lynette’s defence.

“If it’s anybody’s fault it’s mine, Gertrude. Let the child be a child sometimes.”

She turned on him impatiently, being only too conscious of the fact that Lynette was his child, and not hers.

“How can you expect me to have any authority? And in the end the responsibility always rests with the woman.”

“Perhaps—perhaps not. Run along, old lady. I’ll come and say good night presently.”

Lynette walked off to the south door, having no desire to be kissed by Mrs. Brocklebank in the drawing-room. She turned and looked back once at her father with a demure yet inimitable twinkle of the eyes. Canterton was very much part of Lynette’s life. Her mother only dashed into it with spasmodic earnestness, and with eyes that were fussily critical. For though Gertrude Canterton always spoke of woman’s place being the home, she was so much busied with reforming other people’s homes, and setting all their social machinery in order, that she had very little leisure left for her own. A housekeeper managed the house by letting Mrs. Canterton think that she herself managed it. Miss Vance was almost wholly responsible for Lynette, and Gertrude Canterton’s periodic plunges into the domestic routine at Fernhill were like the surprise visits of an inspector of schools.

“Mrs. Brocklebank is staying the night. We have some business to discuss with regard to the Children’s Home.”

Canterton detested Mrs. Brocklebank, but he went in and shook hands with her. She was a large woman, with the look of a very serious-minded white cow. Her great point was her gravity. It was a massive and imposing edifice which you could walk round and inspect, without being able to get