“You see, it makes company for me,” explained Mary. “I take myself as typical,” she continued. “When I was twenty I could have loved you. You were the type of man I did love.”!

“I’m just running round to the doctor’s,” she whispered. “His medicine hasn’t come. I shan’t be long.” “Didn’t you love him?” asked the girl, staring. “Wouldn’t you have helped him?”

“How did she come to fall in love with you?” asked Joan. “I don’t mean to be uncomplimentary, Dad.” She laughed, taking his hand in hers and stroking it. “You must have been ridiculously handsome, when you were young. And you must always have been strong and brave and clever. I can see such a lot of women falling in love with you. But not the artistic woman.” “I felt it just the same when young Mr. McKean left us,” she explained with apologies. “He had been with us five years. He was like you, miss, so unpracticable. I’d got used to looking after him.” “I met her pretty often during those months that Helen Lavery was running her round,” she said at length. “It always seemed to me to have a touch of the heroic, that absurd effort she was making to ‘qualify’ herself, so that she might be of use to him. I can see her doing something quite big, if she thought it would help him.”