he fireplace. The suddenness, the freedom, the disrespect
of the action were too much.

"For shame, Mr. Graham!" was her indignant cry, "put me down!"--and
when again on her feet, "I wonder what you would think of me if I were
to treat you in that way, lifting you with my hand" (raising that
mighty member) "as Warren lifts the little cat."

So saying, she departed.

CHAPTER III.

THE PLAYMATES.

Mr. Home stayed two days. During his visit he could not be prevailed on
to go out: he sat all day long by the fireside, sometimes silent,
sometimes receiving and answering Mrs. Bretton's chat, which was just
of the proper sort for a man in his morbid mood--not over-sympathetic,
yet not too uncongenial, sensible; and even with a touch of the
motherly--she was sufficiently his senior to be permitted this touch.

As to Paulina, the child was at once happy and mute, busy and watchful.
Her father frequently lifted her to his knee; she would sit there till
she felt or fancied he grew restless; then it was--"Papa, put me down;
I shall tire you with my weight."

And the mighty burden slid to the rug, and establishing itself on
carpet or stool just at "papa's" feet, the white work-box and the
scarlet-speckled handkerchief came into play. This handkerchief, it
seems, was intended as a keepsake for "papa," and must be finished
before his departure; consequently the demand on the sempstress's
industry (she accomplished about a score of stitches in half-an-hour)
was stringent.

The evening, by restoring Graham to the maternal roof (his days were
passed at school), brought us an accession of animation--a quality not
diminished by the nature of the scenes pretty sure to be enacted
between him and Miss Paulina.

A distant and haughty demeanour had been the result of the indignity
put upon her the first evening of his arrival: her usual answer, when
he addressed her, was--"I can't attend to you; I have other things to
think about." Being implored to state _what_ things:

"Business."

Graham would endeavour to seduce her attention by opening his desk and
displaying its multifarious contents: seals, bright sticks of wax,
pen-knives, with a miscellany of engravings--some of them gaily
coloured--which he had amassed from time to time. Nor was this powerful
temptation wholly unavailing: her eyes, furtively raised from her work,
cast many a peep towards the writing-table, rich in scattered pictures.
An etching of a child playing