The minister smiled.  “I have not been able to give unlimited rein even to that mild ambition.  Fortunately, the rarer the opportunity, the greater the pleasure it brings with it—­and the old books never lose their charm.”

Mr. Paul Shaw flicked the ashes from his cigar.  “And the girls—­you expect them to fit in, too?”

“It is their home.”  A note the elder brother knew of old sounded in the younger man’s voice.

“Don’t mount your high horse just yet, Phil,” he said.  “I’m not going to rub you up the wrong way—­at least, I don’t mean to; but you were always an uncommonly hard chap to handle—­in some matters.  I grant you, it is their home and not a had sort of home for a girl to grow up in.”  Mr. Shaw stood for a moment at the head of the steps, looking off down the peaceful, shadowy street.  It had been a pleasant week; he had enjoyed it wonderfully.  He meant to have many more such.  But to live here always!  Already the city was calling to him; he was homesick for its rush and bustle, the sense of life and movement.

“You and I stand as far apart to-day, in some matters, Phil, as we did twenty—­thirty years ago,” he said presently, “and that eldest daughter of yours—­I’m a fair hand at reading character or I shouldn’t be where I am to-day, if I were not—­is more like me than you.”

“So I have come to think—­lately.”

“That second girl takes after you; she would never have written that letter to me last May.”

“No, Hilary would not have at the time—­”

“Oh, I can guess how you felt about it at the time.  But, look here, Phil, you’ve got over that—­surely?  After all, I like to think now that Pauline only hurried on the inevitable.”  Mr. Paul Shaw laid his hand on the minister’s shoulder.  “Nearly twenty years is a pretty big piece out of a lifetime.  I see now how much I have been losing all these years.”

“It has been a long time, Paul; and, perhaps, I have been to blame in not trying more persistently to heal the breach between us.  I assure you that I have regretted it daily.”

“You always did have a lot more pride in your make-up than a man of your profession has any right to allow himself, Phil.  But if you like, I’m prepared to point out to you right now how you can make it up to me.  Here comes Lady Shaw and we won’t waste time getting to business.”

That night, as Pauline and Hilary were in their own room, busily discussing, for by no means the first time that day, what Uncle Paul had said to Hilary that morning, and just how he had looked, when he said it, and was it at all possible that father would consent, and so on, ad libitum, their mother tapped at the door.

Pauline ran to open it.  “Good news, or not?” she demanded.  “Yes, or no, Mother Shaw?”

“That is how you take it,” Mrs. Shaw answered.  She was glad, very glad, that this unforeseen opportunity should be given her daughters; and yet—­it meant the first break in the home circle, the first leaving home for them.