"This"-- and her eyes sought those of the man as though beseeching confirmation--"is your uncle." The child advanced and shook hands politely, then stood still, staring at this unexpectedly acquired relative.
Her sharp-pointed face was so thin and small that her eyes, beneath their straight, dark brows, seemed to be enormous--black, sombre eyes, having no kinship with the intense, opaque brown so frequently miscalled black, but suggestive of the vibrating darkness of night itself.
Instinctively the man's glance wandered to the face of the child's mother.
"You think her like me ?" she hazarded.
"She is very like you," he assented gravely.
A wry smile wrung her mouth.
"Let us hope that the likeness is only skin-deep, then!" she said bitterly.

"I don't want her life to be--as mine has been." "If," he said gently, "if you will trust her to me, Pauline, I swear to you that I will do all in my power to save her from--what you've suffered." The woman shrugged her shoulders.
"It's all a matter of character," she said nonchalantly.
"Yes," he agreed simply.

Then he turned to the child, who was standing a little distance away from him, eyeing him distrustfully.

"What do you say, child! You wouldn't be afraid to come and live with me, would you ?" "I am never afraid of people," she answered promptly.

"Except the man who comes for the rent; he is fat, and red, and a beast.