and spiders; but it has been made spick and
span to day for its mistress. Does it still please you? or will you
care to alter anything?"

"No, nothing. I shall pay a compliment to my childish taste by letting
everything stay just as it is. I must have been rather a nice child,
Jim, don't you think? if one passes over the torn frocks and the
shrewish tongue."

"I don't think I ever saw a tear in your frocks," says Sir James,
simply, "and if your tongue was shrewish I never found it out."

Miss Peyton gives way to mirth. She sits down on a wretchedly
uncomfortable, if delightfully mediaeval, chair and laughs a good deal.

"Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!"

she quotes, gayly. "Those lines, meant by poor Burns as a censure on
frail humanity, rather fall short at this moment. Were I to see myself
as you see me, Jim, I should be a dreadfully conceited person, and
utterly unbearable What a good friend you make!"

"A bad one, you mean. A real friend, according to my lights, is a
fellow who says unpleasant things all round and expects you to respect
his candor. By and by, when I tell you a few home truths, perhaps you
will not like me as you do now."

"Yes, I shall always like you," says Clarissa. "Long ago, when you
used to scold me, I never bore malice. I suppose you are one of those
rare people who can say the ungracious thing in such a manner that it
doesn't grate. But then you are old, you know, Jim, very
old,--though, in appearance, wonderfully young for your years. I do
hope papa, at your age, will look as fresh."

She has risen, and has slipped her hand through his arm, and is
smiling up at him gayly and with a sweetness irresistible. Sir James
looks as pleased as though he had received a florid compliment.

"What a baby you are!" he says, after a pause, looking down at her
admiringly. Judging by his tone, babies, in his eyes, must possess
very superior attractions. "There are a good many babies in the world,
don't you think?" he goes on, presently. "You are one, and Geoffrey
Branscombe is another. I don't suppose he will ever quite grow up."

"And Horace," says Clarissa, idly, "is he another?"

But Sir James, though unconsciously, resents the question.

"Oh, no!" he says, hastily. "He does not come within the category at
all. Why," with a faint smile, "he is even older than I am! There is
no tender baby-nonsense about him."

"No, he is so clever,--so far above us