The child advanced and shook hands politely, then stood still, staring
at this unexpectedly acquired relative.

Her sharp-pointed face was so thin and small that her eyes, beneath
their straight, dark brows, seemed to be enormous--black, sombre eyes,
having no kinship with the intense, opaque brown so frequently miscalled
black, but suggestive of the vibrating darkness of night itself.

Instinctively the man's glance wandered to the face of the child's
mother.

"You think her like me?" she hazarded.

"She is very like you," he assented gravely.

A wry smile wrung her mouth.

"Let us hope that the likeness is only skin-deep, then!" she said
bitterly. "I don't want her life to be--as mine has been."

"If," he said gently, "if you will trust her to me, Pauline, I swear
to you that I will do all in my power to save her from--what you've
suffered."

The woman shrugged her shoulders.

"It's all a matter of character," she said nonchalantly.

"Yes," he agreed simply. Then he turned to the child, who was standing