nd help her to bear her manifold infirmities?

Sylvia's tears were still rather near the surface, and she mopped her
eyes with her handkerchief, and mopped them again, and then carefully
dried them on a dry place, and craned forward to look in the glass and
see if they looked very red and tell-tale. The bleared reflection had a
wonderfully calming effect, and she limped to her couch and read
persistently to distract her thoughts, until the peal of the bell
announced the Hilliards' arrival. From her corner she could not see the
doorway, but judging from the sounds of coming and going, of dragging
heavy weights, of scurrying along the passage, of whispered colloquies,
and sudden explosions of laughter, it was evident that some great
mystery was in the air.

Then the cab drove away, the dining-room door closed with a bang, she
heard the furniture being dragged to and fro, and wondered how long it
would be before the drawing-room was raided in its turn. For a quarter
of an hour the conspirators remained shut up together, then Esmeralda
came sailing into the room, all smiles and amiability.

"A happy Christmas to you, Miss Trevor! Excuse me for not coming in
before, but I am so anxious to arrange my presents before the others
come home from church. I want the easel from that corner, and I want
you to promise faithfully that you won't come into the dining-room
before you are allowed!"

"I can't walk so far without help. You are quite safe so far as I am
concerned," said Sylvia regretfully, and Esmeralda looked at her with
quick scrutiny.

"So bad as that! I didn't know. Is that why you have been crying?"

"No--oh no! I am used to that now. I felt a little lonely, that's all.
I wanted my father."

The beautiful face changed suddenly, the lips tightened, the eyes grew
large and strained. There was a ring of pain in the clear voice.

"Is he dead?"

"No, no, only so far-away. At the other end of the world, in Ceylon!"

"You will see him again!" said Esmeralda shortly. She looked at the
portrait of a handsome, reckless face which hung on the wall above the
sofa, and drew a fluttering sigh. "That was my father. It is nearly
two years since he had his accident, and I thought I could never be
happy again. If I could write to him, if I could get his letters, and
think that some day, it might be in twenty years to come, he would be
back among us again, I should feel as if there was nothing else to wish
for."