"What am I to do, Evangeline?" said Mr. Delaney, a few moments later.
He stood up as he spoke, shook himself, and gazed straight before him.
It was exactly as if he were really speaking to the children's mother.
Then again he buried his face in his big hands, and his strong frame
shook. After a moment's pause he took up a photograph which stood
near, and looked earnestly at the beautiful pictured face. The eyes,
so full of truth and tenderness, seemed to answer him back. He started
abruptly to his feet. "You always directed me, Evangeline," he said.
"God only knows what I am to do now that you have left me. I am in
some matters as weak as a reed, great, blustering fellow though I
appear. And now that Jane has come--she always did bully me--now that
she has come and wants to take matters into her own hands, oh,
Evangeline! what is to be done? The fact is, I am not fit to manage
this great house, nor the children, without you. The children are not
like others; they will not stand the treatment which ordinary children
receive. Oh, why has Jane, of all people, come? What am I to do?"

He paced rapidly up and down his big study; clenching his hands at
times, at times making use of a strong exclamation.

The butler knocked at the door. "Dinner will be served in half an
hour, sir," he said. "Am I to lay for two?"

"Yes, Johnson. Mrs. Dolman, my sister, has arrived, and will dine with
me. Have places laid for two."

The man withdrew, and Mr. Delaney, stepping out through the open
window, looked across the lawns which his sister had so strongly
disapproved of.