it was a whole month before he brought himself to go there at an hour
when he could see the child if he would. The fact is, he was afraid.
What would the sight of this little creature stir in him? When Betty,
the nurse, brought her in to see the soldier gentleman with "the leather
hand," who had sent her those funny toys, she stood calmly staring with
her large, deep-brown eyes. Being seven, her little brown-velvet frock
barely reached the knees of her thin, brown-stockinged legs planted one
just in front of the other, as might be the legs of a small brown bird;
the oval of her gravely wondering face was warm cream colour without red
in it, except that of the lips, which were neither full nor thin, and
had a little tuck, the tiniest possible dimple at one corner. Her hair
of warm dark brown had been specially brushed and tied with a narrow red
ribbon back from her forehead, which was broad and rather low, and this
added to her gravity. Her eyebrows were thin and dark and perfectly
arched; her little nose was perfectly straight, her little chin in
perfect balance between round and point. She stood and stared till
Winton smiled. Then the gravity of her face broke, her lips parted,
her eyes seemed to fly a little. And Winton's heart turned over within
him--she was the very child of her that he had lost! And he said, in a
voice that seemed to him to tremble:

"Well, Gyp?"

"Thank you for my toys; I like them."

He held out his hand, and she gravely put her small hand into it. A
sense of solace, as if some one had slipped a finger in and smoothed his
heart, came over Winton. Gently, so as not to startle her, he raised her
hand a little, bent, and kissed it. It may have been from his instant
recognition that here was one as sensitive as child could be, or the way