So I danced at Sara’s wedding as if my heart were as light as my heels; but, after she and Jack had settled down at Glenby I closed The Maples and went abroad...being, as I have hinted, one of those unfortunate mortals who need consult nothing but their own whims in the matter of time and money.  I stayed away for ten years, during which The Maples was given over to moths and rust, while I enjoyed life elsewhere.  I did enjoy it hugely, but always under protest, for I felt that a broken-hearted man ought not to enjoy himself as I did.  It jarred on my sense of fitness, and I tried to moderate my zest, and think more of the past than I did.  It was no use; the present insisted on being intrusive and pleasant; as for the future...well, there was no future.

Then Jack Churchill, poor fellow, died.  A year after his death, I went home and again asked Sara to marry me, as in duty bound.  Sara again declined, alleging that her heart was buried in Jack’s grave, or words to that effect.  I found that it did not much matter...of course, at thirty-two one does not take these things to heart as at twenty-two.  I had enough to occupy me in getting The Maples into working order, and beginning to educate Betty.

Betty was Sara’s ten year-old daughter, and she had been thoroughly spoiled.  That is to say, she had been allowed her own way in everything and, having inherited her father’s outdoor tastes, had simply run wild.  She was a thorough tomboy, a thin, scrawny little thing with a trace of Sara’s beauty.  Betty took after her father’s dark, tall race and, on the occasion of my first introduction to her, seemed to be all legs and neck.  There were points about her, though, which I considered promising.  She had fine, almond-shaped, hazel eyes, the smallest and most shapely hands and feet I ever saw, and two enormous braids of thick, nut-brown hair.

For Jack’s sake I decided to bring his daughter up properly.  Sara couldn’t do it, and didn’t try.  I saw that, if somebody didn’t take Betty in hand, wisely and firmly, she would certainly be ruined.  There seemed to be nobody except myself at all interested in the matter, so I determined to see what an old bachelor could do as regards bringing up a girl in the way she should go.  I might have been her father; as it was, her father had been my best friend.  Who had a better right to watch over his daughter?  I determined to be a father to Betty, and do all for her that the most devoted parent could do.  It was, self-evidently, my duty.

I told Sara I was going to take Betty in hand.  Sara sighed one of the plaintive little sighs which I had once thought so charming, but now, to my surprise, found faintly irritating, and said that she would be very much obliged if I would.