bent head and closed eyes, was saying
softly and reverently as she knelt at her nurse's knee--

"And, O God, bring Tommy back, and don't let him be a probable son any
more. Bring him home very soon, please, and will you bring back all your
probable sons who are running away from you, for Jesus Christ's sake.
Amen."

Sir Edward did not escape several visits from ladies in the neighborhood
offering to befriend his little niece, but all these overtures were
courteously and firmly rejected. He told them the child was happy with
her nurse, he did not wish her to mix with other children at present,
and a year or two hence would be quite time enough to think about her
education. So Milly was left alone, more than one mother remarking with
a shake of the head--

"It's a sad life for a child, but Sir Edward is peculiar, and when he
gets a notion into his head he keeps to it."

The child was not unhappy, and when the days grew shorter, and her
rambles out of doors were curtailed, she would lie on the tiger-skin by
the hall fire with Fritz for the hour together, pouring out to him all
her childish confidences.

Sometimes her uncle would find her perched on the broad window-seat
half-way up the staircase, with her little face pressed against the
windowpanes, and late on one very cold afternoon in November he
remonstrated with her.

"It is too cold for you here, Millicent," he said sternly; "you ought to
be in the nursery."

"I don't feel cold," she replied. "I don't like being in the nursery all
day; and when it gets dark, nurse will have the lamp lit and the
curtains drawn, and then there are only the walls and ceiling and the
pictures to look at. I'm tired of them; I see them every day."

"And what do you see here?" asked Sir Edward.

"You come and sit down, and I will tell you. There's room, uncle; make
Fritz move a little. Now, you look out with me. I can see such a lot
from this window. I like looking out right into the world; don't you?"

"Are we not in the world? I thought we were."

"I s'pose we are, but I mean God's world. The insides of houses aren't
His world, are they? Do you see my trees? I can see Goliath from this
window; he looks very fierce to-night; he has lost all his leaves, and I
can almost hear him muttering to himself. And then, uncle, do you see
those nice thin trees cuddling each other? I call those David and
Jon'than; they're just kissing each other, like they did in the wood,
you know. Do yo