il me, Norah," said Dale, watching her. Then he
laughed. "But, my dear, all these pretty trickings and ornamentations
are fairly wasted on me."

"No, they aren't," said Norah, breathing hard, seeming to purr with
pleasure. "They can't be wasted, if you've noticed them, Mr. Dale;"
and as she lifted her head, she shook back the dark curling hair from
her forehead. "P'raps they'd be wasted if you didn't know they were
there."

"Oh, we rough old chaps don't require such prettiness about them."

Norah displayed her small white teeth in a broadening smile; then she
looked at the revered master thoughtfully.

"Why do you say you're _old_? You aren't really old, Mr. Dale."

"Oh, aren't I? I wonder what you call old, lassie."

"I call father old, and Mr. Bates--and Mrs. Goudie."

"Well, I mayn't be as old as them--as they; but I think I'm like the
walnut tree out there. I still stand up straight, but I fear me I've
seen my best days.... There! What are you up to now?"

She was lugging and pushing the great porter's chair from its corner.

"I don't want that."

"It's your chair, so why shouldn't you sit in it at breakfast as well
as supper?" She brought it to the table, and looked at him over the
back of it shyly, yet with a kind of defiance--much as his own
children looked at him when they had made up their minds to be cheeky.
"It's quite an old man's chair, sir--so it'll suit you nicely."

He sat in the chair, amused by her impudence, but holding up his
finger with mock reproof. She had run to the kitchen door, and she
stood there for a moment laughing merrily. "Oh, you do look all a
gran'father in that chair, Mr. Dale. You do, indeed."

Next moment she was singing at her work outside in the kitchen. Then
there came a silence; her shadow passed the window, and he guessed
that she was taking a circuitous route to the room up-stairs where the
children and Ethel were busily engaged in toilet operations. Rather
than risk disturbing him at his breakfast by coming through here, she
had gone right round the house and in again at the front door. She was
always like that--always thinking of other people's comfort, never
sparing her own labor.

Then he heard her voice at a distance somewhere near the cowhouse. She
had not gone up-stairs after all; she had gone out there on dairy
business. Soon she came singing back--singing, he thought, as blithely
as a lark; just as sweetly and tunefully as any bird one could name.

Oth