found enough to talk about;" with
a short half-laugh.

"And it tired you out, I know. We live so quietly that such an event
quite upsets us," Eunice said in a gentle, deprecating tone.

"It was very pleasant," he added. "I was a good deal interested in
Anthony Drayton. But this is something quite different. Can you recall
that I had a letter from the East Indies the morning the word came from
Cousin Giles?"

"Why, yes!" Elizabeth started in surprise. "I had really forgotten about
it. Business, I suppose, with Anthony Leverett. Why, I think it is high
time he came home."

Chilian sighed. "I am afraid--though I cannot see why we should fear so
much to enter the other portal, since it is the destiny of all, and we
believe in a better world. He was hopelessly ill when he wrote and was
winding up some business matters. He is a brave man to meet death so
composedly. The only pang is parting from his child."

"Oh, his little girl! Let me see--she must be eight or nine years old.
What will become of her?"

"He makes me executor and guardian of the child. She was to start three
weeks after his letter with Captain Corwin in the _Flying Star_. That
will be due, if it meets with no mishap, from the middle to the last of
April."

"But she doesn't come alone!" ejaculated Elizabeth in surprise.

"Yes. He wishes to be buried there beside his wife. And he does not
want her to have the remembrance of his death. So he sends her with the
woman who has been her nurse and maid the last three years, an
Englishwoman."

"Of all things! I wonder what will come next! We seem in the line of
surprises. And it's queer they should happen together. A little girl!
Chilian, do _you_ like it? Why, it will fairly turn the house upside
down!"

There was an accent of protest in Elizabeth's tone, showing plainly her
unwillingness to accept the situation.

"One little girl can't move much furniture about;" with a sound of humor
in his voice.

"Oh, you know what I mean--not actually dragging sofas and tables about,
but she will chairs, as you'll see. And lots of other things. Look at
the Rendall children. The house always looks as if it had been stirred
up with the pudding-stick, and Sally Rendall spends good half her time
looking for things they have carted off. Tom and Anstice were digging up
the path the day we called, and what do you suppose they had! The
tablespoons. And I'll venture to say they were left out of doors."

"There are so m