"What does that mean, Missy?" queried father.

He was regarding her kindly, with no hint of hidden amusement.
Father was a tall, quiet and very wise man, and Missy had sometimes
found it possible to talk with him about the unusual things that
rose up to fascinate her. She didn't distrust him so much as most
grown-ups.

So she smiled at him and said informatively:

"It means to be in intense sympathy with."

"Oh, I see. Did you find that in the French dictionary?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I see we'll all have to be taking up foreign languages if
we're to have such an accomplished young lady in the house."

He smiled at her in a way that made her almost glad, for a moment,
that he was her father instead of a Duke who might surround her with
baronial magnificence. Mother, too, she couldn't help loving,
though, in her neat, practical gingham dress, she was so unlike Lady
Chetwoode, the mother in "Airy Fairy Lilian." Lady Chetwoode wore
dainty caps, all white lace and delicate ribbon bows that matched in
colour her trailing gown. Her small and tapering hands were covered
with rings. She walked with a slow, rather stately step, and there
was a benignity about her that went straight to the heart. . . Well,
there was something about mother, too, that went straight to the