punctuality each day; and each day he found himself more and more
interested in its arrival, though when it had come he ate it with no
special haste. Indeed, sometimes it almost seemed that it had served its
purpose in merely having been brought, judging by the moments of reverie
in which Henry seemed to have forgotten it, and to be thinking of
something else.

Yes, he had soon begun to watch for that bright little face, and it was
hardly to be wondered at; for, particularly come upon against such a
background, the face had something of the surprise of an apparition. It
seemed all made of light; and when one o'clock had come, and Henry heard
the expected footsteps of his little waiting-maid, and the tinkle of the
tray she carried, coming up the yard, her entrance was as though some
one had carried a lamp into the dark office. Surely it was more like
the face of a spirit than that of a little human girl, and you would
almost have expected it to shine in the dark. When you got used to the
light of it, you realised that the radiance poured from singularly, even
disproportionately, large blue eyes, set beneath a broad white brow of
great purity, and that what at first had seemed rays of light around her
head was a mass of sunny gold-brown hair which glinted even in shadow.

Strange indeed are the vagaries of the Spirit of Beauty! From how many
high places will she turn away, yet delight to waste herself upon a slum
like this! How fantastic the accident that had brought such a face to
flower in such a spot!--and yet hardly more fantastic, he reflected,
than that which had sown his own family haphazard where they were. Was
it the ironic fate of power to be always a god in exile, turning mean
wheels with mighty hands; and was Cinderella the fable of the eternal
lot of beauty in this capriciously ordered world?