nastiest things about her, just as the other people in the county did
when she first came to live among us. I rather believe that she had this
feeling all along, more or less, but now she seems positively to hate
her--though she confesses that she doesn't know why she does! Isn't that
like Auntie? And now she has been asking me never to notice Mrs.
Stapleton, and not to speak to her again when she returns, in fact to
drop the acquaintance entirely--and that just as we have called, and
I've tried to be nice to her out hunting, and we've had her to dine; I
told you how taken father was with her, and how he took her all over the
house and showed her simply everything. I really don't see why I should
draw back now. Nor does father. As a matter of fact, I don't see how we
can--it has gone too far--and just to satisfy one of dear old Auntie's
whims! She has a good many, as you know, Mike. There is just this one
thing, however, that sometimes one of her unaccountable whims or
dislikes turns out to have been well grounded."

My darling then went on to speak of her father and of the happiness our
engagement afforded him, happiness tempered, as she could not help
knowing, by the sorrow her leaving him would bring to him, for the most
wonderful confidence and companionship existed between father and
daughter. This sadness, Dulcie went on, came out almost pathetically in
her father's even added tenderness to her--he whose tenderness and
affection had always been such a wonderful thing to her since her
earliest childhood. But now, she said, her father sometimes followed her
about the house and grounds when she had been absent from him for a
short time, seeking occasion for talks with her, giving her his
confidence, and consulting her wishes on matters about the gardens and
stables in a way that was quite touching. It was as though, now that the
parting was so soon to take place, he could not get enough of his only
daughter's company, as if the old man clung to her more than