You stand and fall by your own work, remember, and it's waste of time to think of any one else in this battle.' Dick paused, and the longing that had been so resolutely put away came back into his eyes.

He looked at Maisie, and the look asked as plainly as words, Was it not time to leave all this barren wilderness of canvas and counsel and join hands with Life and Love?
Maisie assented to the new programme of schooling so adorably that Dick could hardly restrain himself from picking her up then and there and carrying her off to the nearest registrar's office.

It was the implicit obedience to the spoken word and the blank indifference to the unspoken desire that baffled and buffeted his soul.

He held authority in that house,--authority limited, indeed, to one-half of one afternoon in seven, but very real while it lasted.

Maisie had learned to appeal to him on many subjects, from the proper packing of pictures to the condition of a smoky chimney.