own upon her; then she put her hand into his, and
saying, "Good-night, Monsieur," went into her own room. Graham
closed the door, and returned to his writing. That was all
that passed between them, but from that time Madelon's feeling
for Horace Graham approached adoration.

CHAPTER IV.

Madelon's Promise.

A week later, and Madelon was again, as on the day of her
father's death, standing at a long open window, looking out on
the fading glories of another evening sky. But instead of the
narrow Paris street, with its noisy rattle of vehicles, and
high white houses limiting the view of earth and heaven,
before her lay the small garden of a Liege hotel, and beyond,
the steep slope of a hill, where, mingled with trees, roof
rose above roof, to where two churches crowning the ridge,
showed their grey masses outlined against the clear pale blue.

Madelon had left Paris with Horace Graham the day before, and
they had arrived at Liege that afternoon. The young doctor,
bent on fulfilling the promise he had made to M. Linders, had
altered all his plans, remaining in Paris till his little
charge's affairs were settled, and then bringing her to Liege,
with the intention of leaving her in her aunt's hands, and
then proceeding to Switzerland for the accomplishment of as
much of his proposed tour as should still be practicable. He
willingly forfeited these days out of his brief holiday, for
he had come to regard the child so unexpectedly thrown upon
his care, with a very sincere interest, an affection not
unmixed with wonder. Madelon was not at all like any other
little girl he had ever had anything to do with, or rather--for
his experience on this point was limited--unlike his
preconceived notions of little girls in general. We, who know
what Madelon's education had been, cannot feel surprised at
her total ignorance of all sorts of elementary matters, her
perfect unconsciousness of the most ordinary modes of thought
current in the world, and of the most generally received
standards of right and wrong, combined with a detailed
experience in a variety of subjects with which children in
general have no acquaintance. But for Graham, there was much
that could only be matter for conjecture, much that he could
only learn from inference, and to him there was something at
once strange and pitiable in the simplicity with which she
talked to him of her past life, dwelling on little episodes
that only served to exhibit more and more