"Do you like her, father?" I asked, nestling up to him and slipping my hand into his.

"Awfully, my dear child; she's my very dearest friend."

"Oh! not dearer than I am?" I said, my heart beating hard.

He made no reply to this, and my heart continued to beat a great deal faster than was good for it.

By and by I went to bed. I was very, very tired, so tired that the strange room, with its beautiful furniture, made little or no impression on me. The very instant I laid my head on the pillow I was far away in the land of dreams. Once more I was back with Aunt Penelope, once more the parrot screamed, "Stop knocking at the door!" once more Jonas broke some crockery and wept over his misdeeds, and once more Aunt Penelope forgave him and said that she would not send him away without a character this time. Then, in my dreams, the scene changed, and I was no longer in the quiet peace of the country, but in the bustle and excitement of London. Father was with me. Yes, after all the long years, father was with me again. How I had mourned for him—how I had cried out my baby heart for him—how glad I was to feel that I was close to him once more!

By his side was Lady Helen Dalrymple, and I did not like Lady Helen. She seemed to push herself between father and me, and when at last I awoke with the morning sun shining into my room, I found myself saying to father, as I had said to him in reality the night before, "Lady Helen is not dearer than I am?" and once again, as on the night before, father made no reply of any sort.

I was awakened by a nice-looking maid, who was evidently the maid in attendance on that special floor of the hotel, bringing me some tea and some crisp toast. I was thirsty, and the excitement of the night before had not yet subsided. I munched my toast and drank my tea, and then, when the maid asked me if I would like a hot bath in my room, I said "Yes." This luxury was brought to me, and I enjoyed it very much. I had to dress once again in the clothes that father thought so shabby, the neat little brown frock—"snuff-coloured," he was pleased to call it—the little frock, made after a bygone pattern, which just reached to my slender ankles and revealed pretty brown stockings to match and little brown shoes; for Aunt Penelope—badly as she was supposed to dress me—was very particular where these things were concerned. She always gave me proper etceteras for my dress. She expected the etceteras and the dress to last for a very long time, and to be most carefully looked 

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