father's sister. If she had but known it, the same eyes, too, were
gleaming back at the old lady from the middle of a bush of tangled
brown hair.

'So this is your tomboy, is it?' said Mrs. Crofton, bluntly. 'Come here,
child, and don't stand shivering there. Do you think I am going to do
anything to you?'

Barbara's unusual timidity vanished at the sound of that voice. It was
sharp and abrupt and determined, but it rang true, and there was nothing
in it to frighten anybody.

'I'm not afraid,' she said, returning the old lady's gaze frankly; 'I am
hardly ever afraid of people. Am I, father?'

Mr. Berkeley chuckled in an amused manner. He had been very curious
to see this meeting between his wild little daughter and the sister
who had managed his domestic affairs for him since the death of his wife.
By nature a student, he lived most of his life in his library and in
himself, and only woke up now and then to the fact that he had six
growing children, who probably needed something besides the affection it
was so easy to give them. In these waking moments he would write off to
his sister, Mrs. Crofton of Crofts, for whose judgment he had quite a
pathetic regard, and would carry out to the letter every suggestion she
chose to send him. Only once had he ignored her advice, and that was
when she had proposed a governess for Barbara; for he had passed over
this idea in silence, and the child had continued to run in and out
of his library, reading what books she pleased, and ordering her own
upbringing in a way that seemed to him eminently satisfactory. For
that matter, his library was open to any of his children at any time that
they chose to invade it; and they interrupted him fearlessly as often
as they pleased, without provoking anything worse than a good-humoured
growl from him, that was never to be taken seriously for a moment.
Probably this was why the tie between them and their father had come
to be a friendly as well as an affectionate one.

Just lately, something had happened to change the haphazard course of
affairs in the old London house. That autumn, Mr. Berkeley had brought
out a philosophical work on which he had been engaged for years, and
although it had only had a limited success in England, it had made a
great sensation in America. The result was an invitation to conduct a
lecturing tour in the States, which would take him abroad for something
like half a year. Mr. Berkeley had the vaguest notions as