im.

Then the two little boys came in with Tip.

"We are not allowed to take him upstairs," explained Harold, "so we
thought he might stay with you and Mr. Lyndsay for a little, till
Charles comes for him."

"If you would let him lie upon your dress, Aunt Cissy," suggested
Denis; "he would like that."

Accordingly he was carefully settled on the outspread folds of the serge
gown; and after the little boys had condoled with him in tones so
melancholy that he was affected almost to tears, they went off to supper
and to bed.

Silence followed, broken only by the ticking of the clock and the
wailing of the wind outside. Mrs. de Noel gazed into the fire with
intent and unseeing eyes. Its warm red light softly illumined her whole
face and figure, for in her abstraction she had let the hand-screen
fall, and was stroking mechanically the little sleek head that nestled
against her. Meantime I stared attentively at her, thinking I might do
so without offence, seeing she had forgotten me and all else around her.
Once, indeed, as if rising for a minute to the surface, with eyes that
appeared to waken, she looked up and encountered my earnest gaze, but
without shade of displeasure or discomfiture. She only smiled upon me,
placidly as a sister might smile upon a brother, benignly as one might
smile upon a child, and fell into her dream again. It was a wonderful
look, especially from a woman, as unique in its complete unconsciousness
as in its warm goodwill; it was as soothing as the touch of her fine
soft fingers must have been on Tip's hot head. I felt I could have
curled myself up, as he did, at her feet and slept on--for ever. But,
alas! the clock was checking the flying minutes and chanting the
departing quarters, and presently the dressing-bell rang, Mrs. de Noel
stirred, gave a long sigh, and, plainly from the fulness of her heart
and of the thoughts she had so long been following, said--

"Mr. Lyndsay, is it not strange? So many people from the great world
come and ask me if there is any God. Really good people, you know, so
honourable, so generous, so self-sacrificing. It is just the same to me
as if they should ask me whether the sun was shining, when all the time
I saw the sunshine on their faces."

"By the way," said Atherley that night after dinner, when Mrs. Molyneux
was not present, "where are you going to put Cissy to-night? Are you
going to make a bachelor of her too?"

"Oh, such an uncomfortable arrangement