“Shall I begin at the beginning?”

“No—I mayn’t like it. Do a bit just where you wus. Wait, till I get back,” and she climbed daintily on to his knee.

And Bransby read, smiling:—“‘“We are young and inexperienced, aunt, I know,” I replied, “and I dare say we say and think a good deal that is rather foolish. But we love one another truly, I am sure. If I thought Dora could ever love anybody else, or cease to love me; or that I could ever love anybody else, or cease to love her; I don’t know what I should do—go out of my mind, I think?” “Ah, Trot!” said my aunt, shaking her head, and smiling gravely, “blind, blind, blind!” “Some one that I know, Trot,” my aunt pursued, after a pause, “though of a very pliant disposition, has an earnestness of affection in him that reminds me of poor Baby. Earnestness is what that Somebody must look for, to sustain him and improve him, Trot. Deep, downright, faithful earnestness.” “If you only knew the earnestness of Dora, aunt!” I cried. “Oh, Trot!” she said again; “blind, blind!” and without knowing why, I felt a vague unhappy loss or want of something overshadow me like a cloud.’”

“Silly man!” exclaimed Helen. She was bored. “No one shouldn’t be blind. I’m not blind—not a bit. I see.”

“You! you’ve eyes in the back of your head,” Hugh said, speaking for the first time in half an hour. In those early days he had a talent for silence. It was by way of being a family gift.

It seems a pity to feel obliged to record it of the one remark of a person who so infrequently made even that much conversational contribution, but Hugh was wrong. Helen was not a particularly observing child. She felt, she dreamed; but she was as lax of observation as she was indolent of thought. Perhaps she realized or sensed this, for she said promptly, “I have not. I see with my front.”

“What do you see now?” her father asked idly.

She pointed to the glowing fire, and sighed dreamily: “I see things, in there. I see Gertrude. Her face is in there all smiley. And she looks sleepy.”

Bransby smiled indulgently and cuddled the pretty head nestling in the crook of his arm.

“David Copperfield” slid to the floor. The opportunity was too good to be neglected—too inviting. The volume was bound in calf, full limp calf, and had all the Cruikshank’s illustrations finely reproduced. Caroline got up very carefully and took up the book. Bransby saw her, but he only 

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