said Polly in a houseless pause.

Detected in the ignoble fact, he felt obliged to admit, apologetically:

"I am afraid I was looking rather hard at you, Polly."

"Why do you stare?" asked Polly.

"I cannot," he murmured to himself, "recall why.--I don't know, Polly."

"You must be a simpleton to do things and not know why, mustn't you?"
said Polly.

In spite of which reproof, he looked at the child again intently, as she
bent her head over her card structure, her rich curls shading her face.
"It is impossible," he thought, "that I can ever have seen this pretty
baby before. Can I have dreamed of her? In some sorrowful dream?"

He could make nothing of it. So he went into the building trade as a
journeyman under Polly, and they built three stories high, four stories
high; even five.

"I say! Who do you think is coming?" asked Polly, rubbing her eyes after
tea.

He guessed: "The waiter?"

"No," said Polly, "the dustman. I am getting sleepy."

A new embarrassment for Barbox Brothers!

"I don't think I am going to be fetched to-night," said Polly. "What do
you think?"

He thought not, either. After another quarter of an hour, the dustman
not merely impending, but actually arriving, recourse was had to the
Constantinopolitan chamber-maid: who cheerily undertook that the child
should sleep in a comfortable and wholesome room, which she herself would
share.

"And I know you will be careful, won't you," said Barbox Brothers, as a
new fear dawned upon him, "that she don't fall out of bed?"

Polly found this so highly entertaining that she was under the necessity
of clutching him round the neck with both arms as he sat on his footstool
picking up the cards, and rocking him to and fro, with her dimpled chin
on his shoulder.

"Oh, what a coward you are, ain't you?" said Polly. "Do you fall out of
bed?"

"N--not generally, Polly."

"No more do I."

With that, Polly gave him a reassuring hug or two to keep him going, and
then giving that confiding mite of a hand of hers to be swallowed up in
the hand of the Constantinopolitan chamber-maid, trotted off, chattering,
without a vestige of anxiety.

He looked after her, had the screen removed and the table and chairs
replaced, and still looked after her. He paced the room for half an
hour. "A most engaging little creature, but it's not that. A most
winning little voice, but it's not that. That has much to do with it,
but there is something more. Ho