f the long, slender type,
which his beard, worn in the Vandyke style, intensified. His hair was
light and his eyes were a grayish blue, and he had a refined and gentle
expression.

"So this is our little traveler," he said. "Your father was somewhat
older, perhaps, when we bade him good-by, but I have often thought of
him. We corresponded a little off and on. And I am glad to be able to do
all that I can for his child."

Doris glanced up, feeling rather shy, and wondering what she ought to
say, but in the next breath Betty had said it all, even to declaring
laughingly that as Doris had come to them they meant to keep her.

"Doris," he said softly. "Doris. You have a poetical name. And you are
poetical-looking."

She wondered what the comparison meant. "Paradise Lost" was so grand it
tired her. Oh, there was the old volume of Percy's "Reliques." Did he
mean like some of the sweet little things in that? Miss Arabella had
said it wasn't quite the thing for a child to read, and had taken it
away until she grew older.

Uncle Winthrop took her hand again--a small, slim hand; and his was
slender as well. No real physical work had hardened it. He dropped into
the high-backed chair beside the fireplace, and, putting his arm about
her, drew her near to his side. Uncle Leverett would have taken her on
his knee if he had been moved by an impulse like that, but he was used
to children and grandchildren, and the bookish man was not.

"It is a great change to you," he said in his low tone, which had a
fascination for her. "Was Miss Arabella--were there any young people in
the old Lincolnshire house?"

"Oh, no. Miss Henrietta was very, very old, but then she had lost her
mind and forgotten everybody. And Miss Arabella had snowy white hair and
a sweet wrinkled face."

"Did you go to school?"

"There wasn't any school except a dame's school for very little
children. I used to go twice a week to Father Langhorne and read and
write and do sums."

"Then we will have to educate you. Do you think you would like to go to
school?"

"I don't know." She hung her head a little, and it gave her a still more
winsome expression. There was an indescribable charm about her.

"What did you read with this father?"

"We read 'Paradise Lost' and some French. And I had begun Latin."

Winthrop Adams gave a soft, surprised whistle. By the firelight he
looked her over critically. Prodigies were not to his taste, and a girl
prodigy would be a