Edgar with a strange expression in his eyes--angry, intense, and yet
uncertain. He wanted to protect Leam, yet he did not want to offend
Adelaide; and though he was angry with this last, he did not wish her
to see that he was.

"Dear Leam! I am sure she is very sweet and nice," breathed Josephine;
but little Fina, playing with Josephine's chatelaine, said in her
childish treble, "No, no, she is not nice: she is cross, and never
laughs, and she has big eyes. They frighten me at night, and then I
scream. Your are far nicer, Missy Joseph."

Adelaide laughed outright; Josephine was embarrassed between the weak
good-nature that could not resist even a child's caressing words and
her constitutional pain at giving pain; Edgar tried to smile at the
little one's pertness as a thing below the value of serious notice,
while feeling all that a man does feel when the woman whom he loves
is in trouble and he cannot defend her; but Leam herself said to the
child, gravely and without bitterness, "I am not cross, Fina, and
laughing is not everything."

"Right, Miss Dundas!" said Edgar warmly. "If the little puss were
older she would understand you better. You unconscionable little
sinner! what do you mean? hey?" good-humoredly taking Fina by the
shoulders.

"Oh, pray don't try and make the child a hypocrite," said Adelaide.
"You, of all people in the world, Edgar, objecting to her naive
truth!--you, who so hate and despise deception!"

While she had spoken Fina had crawled over Josephine's lap to the
side where Edgar was standing. She put up her fresh little face to be
kissed. "I don't like Learn, and I do like you," she said, stroking
his beard.

And Edgar, being a man, was therefore open to female flattery, whether
it was the frank flattery of an infant Venus hugging a waxen Cupid
or the more subtle overtures of a withered Ninon taking God for her
latest lover--with interludes.

"But you should like Leam too," he said, fondling her, "I want you to
love me, but you should love her as well."

"Oh, any one can get the love of children who is kind to them," said
Adelaide. "You know you are a very kind man, Edgar," in a quiet,
matter-of-fact way. "All animals and children love you. It is a gift
you have, but it is only because you are kind."

The context stood without any need of an interpreter to make it
evident.

"But I am sure that Leam is kind to Fina," blundered Josephine.

"And the child dislikes her so much?" was Ad