hands even more grubby, for he had taken a mechanical turn of late,
and spent his spare moments in manufacturing printing machines--so
called--and fearful and wonderful engines, out of an old stove and
some pots and rusty frying-pans rescued from the rubbish heap.

But he did not tell quite so many stories in these days; that deep
sunset had stolen even into his young heart, and whenever he felt
inclined to say "I never, 'twasn't me, 'twasn't my fault," a tangle
of dark curls rose before him, just as they had lain that night when
he had not dared to move his eyes away from them.

Baby's legs engrossed her very much at present, for she had just
been promoted from socks to stockings, and all who remember the
occasion in their own lives will realize the importance of it to her.

Nell seemed to grow prettier every day. Pip had his hands full with
trying to keep her from growing conceited; if brotherly rubs and
snubs availed anything, she ought to have been as lowly minded as
if she had had red hair and a nose of heavenward bent.

Esther said she wished she could buy a few extra years, a stern
brow, and dignity in large quantities from some place or other--
there might be some chance, then, of Misrule resuming its baptismal
and unexciting name of The River House.

But, oddly enough, no one echoed the wish.

The Captain never smoked at the end of the side veranda now:
the ill-kept lawn made him see always a little figure in a pink
frock and battered hat mowing the grass in a blaze of sunlight.