"Yes!" she answered. "We were boy and girl together--and once--
once we were very fond of each other. Perhaps I will tell you the
story some day! Now go up to your rooms and arrange everything as
you like, and rest a little. Would you like some tea? Anything to
eat?"

Poor Innocent, who had left Briar Farm at dawn without any thought
of food, and had travelled to London almost unconscious of either
hunger or fatigue, was beginning to feel the lack of nourishment,
and she gratefully accepted the suggestion.

"I lunch at two o'clock," continued Miss Leigh. "But it's only a
little past twelve now, and if you have come a long way from the
country you must be tired. I'll send Rachel up to you with some
tea."

She went to give the order, and Innocent, left to herself for a
moment, moved softly up to her father's picture and gazed upon it
with all her soul in her eyes. It was a wonderful face--a face
expressive of the highest thought and intelligence--the face of a
thinker or a poet, though the finely moulded mouth and chin had
nothing of the weakness which sometimes marks a mere dreamer of
dreams. Timidly glancing about her to make sure she was not
observed, she kissed the portrait, the cold glass which covered it
meeting her warm caressing lips with a repelling chill. He was
dead--this father whom she could never claim!--dead as Hugo
Jocelyn, who had taken that father's place in her life. She might
love the ghost of him if her fancy led her that way, as she loved
the ghost of the "Sieur Amadis"--but there was nothing else to