“You love them very much, do you not, Felipa?” I said one day when the child was sitting up for the first time in a cushioned chair.

“Ah, yes:  it is so delicious when they carry me,” she replied.  But it was Edward who carried her.

“He is very strong,” I said.

“Yes, and their long soft hair, with the smell of roses in it too,” said Felipa dreamily.  But the hair was Christine’s.

“I shall love them for ever, and they will love me for ever,” continued the child.  “Drollo too.”  She patted the dog’s head as she spoke, and then concluded to kiss him on his little inch of forehead:  next she offered him all her medicines and lotions in turn, and he smelled at them grimly.  “He likes to know what I am taking,” she explained.

I went on:  “You love them, Felipa, and they are fond of you.  They will always remember you, no doubt.”

“Remember!” cried Felipa, starting up from her cushions like a Jack-in-the-box.  “They are not going away?  Never! never!”

“But of course they must go some time, for—­”

But Felipa was gone.  Before I could divine her intent she had flung herself out of her chair down on to the floor, and was crawling on her hands and knees toward the outer room.  I ran after her, but she reached the door before me, and, dragging her bandaged foot behind her, drew herself, toward Christine.  “You are not going away!  You are not! you are not!” she sobbed, clinging to her skirts.

Christine was reading tranquilly:  Edward stood at the outer door mending his fishing-tackle.  The coolness between them remained unwarmed by so much as a breath.  “Run away, child:  you disturb me,” said Christine, turning over a leaf.  She did not even look at the pathetic little bundle at her feet.  Pathetic little bundles must be taught some time what ingratitude deserves.

“How can she run, lame as she is?” said Edward from the doorway.

“You are not going away, are you?  Tell me you are not,” sobbed Felipa in a passion of tears, beating on the floor with one hand, and with the other clinging to Christine.

“I am not going,” said Edward.  “Do not sob so, you poor little thing!”

She crawled to him, and he took her up in his arms and soothed her into stillness again:  then he carried her out on to the barren for a breath of fresh air.

“It is a most extraordinary thing how that child confounds you two,” I said.  “It is a case of color-blindness, as it were—­supposing you two were colors.”

“Which we are not,” replied Christine carelessly.  “Do not stray off into mysticism, Catherine.”

“It is not mysticism:  it is a study of character—­”

“Where there is no character,” replied my friend.

I gave it up, but I said to myself, “Fate, in the next world make me one of those long, lithe, light-haired women, will you?  I want to see how it feels.”