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Whether or not, he would cordially approve, I used to speculate. Difficult to say. He was much taken up with scientific interests; keen, intent, and somewhat oppugnant in what concerned his favourite pursuits, but unsuspicious and trustful in the ordinary affairs of life. From all I could gather, he seemed to regard his ‘daughterling’ as still but a child, and probably had not yet admitted the notion that others might look on her in a different light: he would speak of what should be done when ‘Polly’ was a woman, when she should be grown up; and ‘Polly,’ standing beside his chair, would sometimes smile and take his honoured head between her little hands, and kiss his iron-gray locks; and, at other times, she would pout and toss her curls: but she never said, ‘Papa, I am grown up.’

She had different moods for different people. With her father she really was still a child, or child-like, affectionate, merry, and playful. With me she was serious, and as womanly as thought and feeling could make her. With Mrs. Bretton she was docile and reliant, but not expansive. With Graham she was shy, at present very shy; at moments she tried to be cold; on occasion she endeavoured to shun him. His step made her start; his entrance hushed her; when he spoke, her answers failed of fluency; when he took leave, she remained self-vexed and disconcerted. Even her father noticed this demeanour in her.

‘My little Polly,’ he said once, ‘you live too retired a life; if you grow to be a woman with these shy manners, you will hardly be fitted for society. You really make quite a stranger of Dr. Bretton: how is this? Don’t you remember that, as a little girl, you used to be rather partial to him.’

‘Rather, papa,’ echoed she, with her slightly dry, yet gentle and simple tone.

‘And you don’t like him now? What has he done?’

‘Nothing. Y-e-s, I like him a little; but we are grown strange to each other.’

‘Then rub it off, Polly: rub the rust and the strangeness off. Talk away when he is here, and have no fear of him!’

‘He does not talk much. Is he afraid of me, do you think, papa?’

‘Oh, to be sure! What man would not be afraid of such a lit tle silent lady?’

‘Then tell him some day not to mind my being silent. Say that it is my way, and that I have no unfriendly intention.’

‘Your way, you little chatter-box? So far from being your way, it is only your whim!’

‘Well, I’ll improve, papa.’

And very pretty was the grace with which, the next day, she tried to keep her word. I saw her make the effort to converse affably with Dr. John on general topics. The attention called into her guest’s face a pleasurable glow; he met her with caution, and replied to her in his softest tones, as if there was a kind of gossamer happiness hanging in the air which he feared to disturb by drawing too deep a breath. Certainly, in her timid yet earnest advance to friendship, it could not be denied that there was a most exquisite and fairy charm.

When the Doctor was gone, she approached her father’s chair.

‘Did I keep my word, papa? Did I behave better?’

‘My Polly behaved like a queen. I shall become quite proud of her if this improvement continues. By and by we shall see her receiving my guests with quite a calm, grand manner. Miss Lucy and I will have to look about us, and polish up all our best airs and graces lest we should be thrown into the shade. Still, Polly, there is a little flutter, a little tendency to stammer now and then, and even to lisp as you lisped when you were six years old.’

‘No, papa,’ interrupted she, indignantly, ‘that can’t be true.’

‘I appeal to Miss Lucy. Did she not, in answering Dr. Bretton’s question as to whether she had ever seen the palace of the Prince of Bois l’Etang, say “yeth,” she had been there “theveral” times.’

‘Papa, you are satirical, you are méchant! I can pronounce all the letters of the alphabet as clearly as you can. But tell me this: you are very particular in making me be civil to Dr. Bretton, do you like him