and lack-lustre for want of the cleaning and polishing which require
many servants. In the huge fire-place some big logs were burning, and
Donald and Bess threw themselves down before it with a sigh of
satisfaction. The girl looked round her, just as she had looked round
the stable-yard; then, tossing her soft hat and whip on the old oak
table, she went to one of the large heavy doors, and knocking, said in
her clear voice:

"Father, are you there?"

Inside the room an old man sat at a table. It was littered with books,
some of them open as if he had been consulting them; but before him lay
an open deed, and at his elbow were several others lying on an open
deed-box. He was thin and as faded-looking and as worn with age as the
house and the room, lined with dusty volumes and yellow,
surface-cracked maps and pictures. He wore a long dressing-gown which
was huddled round him as if he were cold, though a fire of logs almost
as large as the one in the hall was burning in the open fire-place.

At the sound of the knock he raised his head, an expression, which was
a mixture of fear and senile cunning came into his lined and pallid
face, his dull eyes peered from under their lids with a flash of sudden
alertness, and with one motion of his long hands he hurriedly folded
the deed before him, crammed it, with the others, into the box, locked
it with a hurried and trembling hand, and placed it in a cupboard,
which he also locked; then he drew one of the large books into the
place were the deed had been, and with a cautious glance round the
room, shuffled to the door, and opened it.

As the girl entered, one would have noticed the resemblance between her