took delight—­perhaps a selfish delight—­in all the many pretty ways she perpetually found of convincing him, if he had needed conviction, that he was ever the first object with her.  The nurse told him that half an hour or so before the earliest time at which he could be expected home in the evenings, Miss Ellinor began to fold up her doll’s things and lull the inanimate treasure to sleep.  Then she would sit and listen with an intensity of attention for his footstep.  Once the nurse had expressed some wonder at the distance at which Ellinor could hear her father’s approach, saying that she had listened and could not hear a sound, to which Ellinor had replied: 

“Of course you cannot; he is not your papa!”

Then, when he went away in the morning, after he had kissed her, Ellinor would run to a certain window from which she could watch him up the lane, now hidden behind a hedge, now reappearing through an open space, again out of sight, till he reached a great old beech-tree, where for an instant more she saw him.  And then she would turn away with a sigh, sometimes reassuring her unspoken fears by saying softly to herself,

“He will come again to-night.”

Mr. Wilkins liked to feel his child dependent on him for all her pleasures.  He was even a little jealous of anyone who devised a treat or conferred a present, the first news of which did not come from or through him.

At last it was necessary that Ellinor should have some more instruction than her good old nurse could give.  Her father did not care to take upon himself the office of teacher, which he thought he foresaw would necessitate occasional blame, an occasional exercise of authority, which might possibly render him less idolized by his little girl; so he commissioned Lady Holster to choose out one among her many protegees for a governess to his daughter.  Now, Lady Holster, who kept a sort of amateur county register-office, was only too glad to be made of use in this way; but when she inquired a little further as to the sort of person required, all she could extract from Mr. Wilkins was: 

“You know the kind of education a lady should have, and will, I am sure, choose a governess for Ellinor better than I could direct you.  Only, please, choose some one who will not marry me, and who will let Ellinor go on making my tea, and doing pretty much what she likes, for she is so good they need not try to make her better, only to teach her what a lady should know.”

Miss Monro was selected—­a plain, intelligent, quiet woman of forty—­and it was difficult to decide whether she or Mr. Wilkins took the most pains to avoid each other, acting with regard to Ellinor, pretty much like the famous Adam and Eve in the weather-glass:  when the one came out the other went in.  Miss Monro had been tossed about and overworked quite enough in her life not to value the privilege and indulgence of her evenings to herself, her comfortable schoolroom,