nxiety--then would dawn a glimmer of longing question; and then,
all at once, it would slip back into the original ordinary look,
which, without seeming attractive, had yet attracted. Her father
was never harsh to her, yet she looked rather frightened at him; but
then he was cold, very cold, and most children would rather be
struck and kissed alternately than neither. And the bond cannot be
very close between father and child, when the father has forsaken
his childhood. The bond between any two is the one in the other; it
is the father in the child, and the child in the father, that reach
to each other eternal hands. It troubled Ginevra greatly that, when
she asked herself whether she loved her father better than anybody
else, as she believed she ought, she became immediately doubtful
whether she loved him at all.

She was eating porridge and milk: with spoon arrested in
mid-passage, she stopped suddenly, and said:--

"Papa, what's a broonie?"

"I have told you, Jenny, that you are never to talk broad Scotch in
my presence," returned her father. "I would lay severer commands
upon you, were it not that I fear tempting you to disobey me, but I
will have no vulgarity in the dining-room."

His words came out slowly, and sounded as if each was a bullet
wrapped round with cotton wool to make it fit the barrel. Ginevra
looked perplexed for a moment.

"Should I say brownie, papa?" she asked.

"How can I tell you what you should call a creature that has no
existence?" rejoined her father.

"If it be a creature, papa, it must have a name!" retorted the
little logician, with great solemnity.

Mr. Galbraith was not pleased, for although the logic was good, it
was against him.

"What foolish person has been insinuating such contemptible
superstition into your silly head?" he asked. "Tell me, child," he
continued, "that I may put a stop to it at once."

He was rising to ring the bell, that he might give the orders
consequent on the information he expected: he would have asked
Mammon to dinner in black clothes and a white tie, but on
Superstition in the loveliest garb would have loosed all the dogs of
Glashruach, to hunt her from the property. Her next words, however,
arrested him, and just as she ended, the butler came in with fresh
toast.

"They say," said Ginevra, anxious to avoid the forbidden Scotch,
therefore stumbling sadly in her utterance, "there's a
broonie--brownie--at the Mains, who dis a'--do