She had different moods for different people. With her father she really was still a child, or childlike, affectionate, merry, and playful. With me she was serious, and as womanly as thought and feeling could make her. With Mrs. Bretton she was docile and reliant, but not expansive. With Graham she was shy, at present very shy; at moments she tried to be cold; on occasion she endeavoured to shun him. His step made her start; his entrance hushed her; when he spoke, her answers failed of fluency; when he took leave, she remained self-vexed and disconcerted. Even her father noticed this demeanour in her.

“My little Polly,” he said once, “you live too retired a life; if you grow to be a woman with these shy manners, you will hardly be fitted for society. You really make quite a stranger of Dr. Bretton: how is this? Don’t you remember that, as a little girl, you used to be rather partial to him?”

“ Rather , papa,” echoed she, with her slightly dry, yet gentle and simple tone.

“And you don’t like him now? What has he done?”

“Nothing. Y-e-s, I like him a little; but we are grown strange to each other.”

“Then rub it off, Polly: rub the rust and the strangeness off. Talk away when he is here, and have no fear of him!”

“ He does not talk much. Is he afraid of me, do you think, papa?”

“Oh, to be sure, what man would not be afraid of such a little silent lady?”