is getting too troublesome."

And while he was pacing moodily up and down the terrace outside, a
little white-robed figure, with bent head and closed eyes, was saying
softly and reverently as she knelt at her nurse's knee--

"And, O God, bring Tommy back, and don't let him be a probable son any
more. Bring him home very soon, please, and will you bring back all your
probable sons who are running away from you, for Jesus Christ's sake.
Amen."

Sir Edward did not escape several visits from ladies in the neighborhood
offering to befriend his little niece, but all these overtures were
courteously and firmly rejected. He told them the child was happy with
her nurse, he did not wish her to mix with other children at present,
and a year or two hence would be quite time enough to think about her
education. So Milly was left alone, more than one mother remarking with
a shake of the head--

"It's a sad life for a child, but Sir Edward is peculiar, and when he
gets a notion into his head he keeps to it."

The child was not unhappy, and when the days grew shorter, and her
rambles out of doors were curtailed, she would lie on the tiger-skin by
the hall fire with Fritz for the hour together, pouring out to him all
her childish confidences.

Sometimes her uncle would find her perched on the broad window-seat
half-way up the staircase, with her little face pressed against the
windowpanes, and late on one very cold afternoon in November he