s be--as his daughter came into the room to see that
he had everything he wanted about him.

'It is really getting colder at last, father,' she said. 'At Thetford,
Bessie writes, they have had some snow. And Margaret was delighted
because it made her think of Christmas, and Christmas means coming
home.'

'Poor old Mag!' said Captain Harper. 'Mag' was his own special name for
his youngest daughter; and no one else was allowed to use it. 'Poor old
Mag! I really think she's very happy at school, though--don't you,
Camilla? Bessie, I knew, would be all right, but I had my misgivings
about Mag. And it is in every way such a splendid chance for them. It
would be'----And he hesitated.

'What, father?'

'Such a pity to break it up,' he said, 'as--we have almost come to think
must be done.'

'They would be perfectly miserable to stay there, if they understood--as
indeed they do now,' Camilla replied, 'that it would be only at the cost
of what you _must_ have, father dear.'

Her voice, though low, was very resolute. Captain Harper glanced at her
half-wistfully.

'I wish you didn't all see things that way,' he said. 'You see it's
this, Camilla. If I go up to London to be under Maclean for three
months, it _may_ set me up again to a certain point, but unless it be
followed by the "kur" at the baths, and then by that other "massage"
business within a year or so, it would be just the old story, just what
it was before, only that I am three or four years older than I was,
and--certainly not stronger. So this is the question--is it _worth
while_? It will be at such a cost--stopping Bessie and Mag's schooling,
wearing out your mother and you--for what will be more trying than
letting this house for the spring, as must be done, and moving you girls
into poky lodgings. That, at least, we have hitherto managed not to do.
And then the strain on your poor mother being up alone with me in
London--so dreary for her too. And at best to think that a partial,
temporary cure is all we can hope for. No, my child, I cannot see that
it is worth it. I am happy at home, and more than content to bear what
must be, after all not so very bad. And I _may_ not get worse. Do,
darling, try to make your mother see it my way.'

It was not often--very, very seldom indeed--that Captain Harper talked
so much or so long of himself. Now he lay back half-exhausted, his face,
which had been somewhat flushed, growing paler than before.

Camilla wound her ar