tta flitting backwards and forwards
between kitchen and dining-room, with flushed cheeks and brightly
shining eyes, was a pretty sight--"a sight to make an old man young,"
thought Mr. Colwyn, as he watched her furtively from beneath his
half-closed eyelids. She looked so trim, so neat, so happy in her work,
that he would be hard to satisfy who did not admire her, even though she
was not what the world calls strictly beautiful. She succeeded so well
in her cooking operations, with which she would not allow the servant to
intermeddle, that in a very short time a couple of dainty dishes and
some coffee smoked upon the board; and Janetta bidding her father come
to the table, placed herself near him, and smilingly dispensed the
savory concoction.

She would not enter upon any account of her evening's work until she
felt sure that the wants of her father's inner man were satisfied; but
when supper was over, and his evening pipe--the one luxury in the day he
allowed himself--alight, she drew up a hassock beside his chair and
prepared for what she called "a good long chat."

Opportunities for such a chat with her father were rather rare in that
household, and Janetta meant to make the most of this one. Nora had
good-naturedly volunteered to stay away from the dining-room, so as to
give Janetta the chance that she wished for; and as it was now barely
ten o'clock, Janetta knew that she might perhaps have an hour of her
father's companionship--if, at least, he were not sent for before eleven
o'clock. At eleven he would probably go to Mrs. Maitland's to fetch his
wife home.

"Well, Janet, and what have you to tell me?" he said kindly, as he
stretched out his slippered feet to the blaze, and took down his pipe
from the mantel-piece. The lines had cleared away from his face as if by
magic; there was a look of rest and peace upon his face that his
daughter liked to see. She laid her hand on his knee and kept it there
while she told him of her experiences that evening at Brand Hall.

Mr. Colwyn's eyebrows went up as he listened. His face expressed
astonishment, and something very like perplexity. But he heard the whole
story out before he said a word.

"Well, you have put your head into the lion's den!" he said at last, in
a half-humorous tone.

"What I want to know is," said Janetta, "why it is thought to be a
lion's den! I don't mean that I have heard the expression before, but I
have gathered in different ways an impression t