It was not long after Colonel Carteret’s death, and some thirteen years before the death of Sir David Bright, that the immediate neighbourhood became gradually conscious of the fact that Mrs. Carteret had adopted a little niece, the child of a soldier brother who had died in India.  This child, from the first, made as little effect on her surroundings as it was possible for a child to do.  Molly Dexter was small, thin, and sallow; her dark hair did not curl; and her grey eyes had a curious look that is not common, yet not very rare, in childhood.  It is the look of one who waits for other circumstances and other people than those now present.  I know nothing so discouraging in a child friend—­or rather in a child acquaintance, for friendship is warned off by such eyes—­as this particular look.  Mrs. Carteret took her niece cheerfully in hand, commended the quiet of her ways, and gave credit to herself and open windows for a perceptible increase in the covering of flesh on the little bones, and a certain promise of firmness in the calves of the small legs.  As to the rest:  “Of course it was difficult at first,” she said, “but now Molly is perfectly at home with me.  Nurses never do understand children, and Mary used to excite her until she had fits of passion.  But that is all past.  She is quite a healthy and normal child now.”

Molly was growing healthy, but whether she was normal or not is another point.  It does not tend to make a child normal to change everything in life at the age of seven.  Not one person, hardly one thing was the same to Molly since her father’s death.  The language of her ayah had until then been more familiar to her than any other language.  The ayah’s thoughts had been her thoughts.  The East had had in charge the first years of Molly’s dawning intelligence, and there seemed impressed, even on her tiny figure, something that told of patience, scorn, and reserve.  And yet Mrs. Carteret was quite satisfied.

Once, indeed, the widow was puzzled.  Molly had strayed away by herself, and could not be found for nearly two hours.  Provided with two figs and several bits of biscuit, a half-crown and a shilling, she had started to walk through the deep, heavy lanes between the great hills, with the firm intention of taking ship to France.  Mrs. Carteret treated the escapade kindly and firmly; not making too much of it, but giving such sufficient punishment as to prevent anything so silly happening again.  But she had no suspicion of what really had happened.  Molly had, in fact, started with the intention of finding her mother.  It was two years since she had come to live with Mrs. Carteret, and, if the child had spoken her secret thought, she would have told you that throughout those two years she had been meaning to run away and find her mother.  In that she would have fallen into an exaggeration not uncommon with some grown-up people.  It had been only at moments far apart, or occasionally for quite a succession