is daughter, who was
standing on the side-path, talking to Dulce.

Dulce, who always seemed a sort of reflection and shadow of her
sisters, and who withdrew somewhat in the background, obscured a
little by Nan's beauty and Phillis's sprightliness, was nevertheless
in her way a most bewitching little maiden.

"There comes my father!" observed Elizabeth, tranquilly, never
doubting that he would join them; and Dulce looked up a little shy and
fluttered from under her broad-brimmed hat; for she had taken a fancy
to the colonel, with his white moustache and kindly inquisitive
eyes. He was a sort of hero in her fancy; and Dulce loved
heroes,--especially when they wore a medal.

Colonel Middleton saw the little girl dimpling and blushing with
pleasure, and his old heart thumped a little with excitement and the
conflict of feeling: the innocent child-look appealed to his fatherly
sympathies. There was a moment's wavering; then he lifted his white
hat, with a muttered "Good-morning," and the next minute he was
walking on with squared shoulders and tremendous energy.

Poor little Dulce's lip quivered with disappointment: she thought it
hard, when other people were so kind to them. Elizabeth said nothing;
but she bade the child good-bye with greater tenderness than usual,
and sent all sort of messages to her mother and Nan.

The colonel, meanwhile, had retreated into the house, and was opening
his papers with more than his usual fuss.

"It is for Hammond," he murmured to himself. "When one has boys, one
must do one's duty by them; but it was confoundedly hard, by Jove!"
And all the remainder of the day a pair of appealing eyes seemed to
reproach him with unkindness. But Elizabeth never said a word; it was
not her place to find fault with her father.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

"HOW DO YOU DO, AUNT CATHERINE?"

One drizzling November morning, Mattie was standing at the hall door,
looking out a little blankly through the open gateway at the prospect
before her,--at the rotting leaves that lay heaped up in the road, and
at the gray, humid sky,--when a very big man suddenly blocked up the
entrance, and startled her dreadfully.

Mattie afterwards described the occurrence very graphically to her
brother:

"He was the biggest man I ever saw in my life, Archie. He looked as
strong as a navvy; and his shoulders reminded me of one of those men
one sees in brewers' drays. And his face was so red, and his hair,
too,--that dreadful