"It went out in the passage, daddy."
"Or some one blew it out, Lizzie."
"Yes; perhaps--Some One--did." With the pleasantest little laugh in the world.
"Preferring to talk in the dark," he suggested, in a singular tone of discontent.
"Yes; perhaps--Some One--does."
Again the pleasant little laugh. That, which was like music, and her joyous happy manner, and her clear voice and pretty ways, made a home of the otherwise lonely room.
"We have been to the theatre to-night," she said; "Some One and me. I should like to be an actress. I think I should have made a good one."
She let her hair fall loose as she spoke, and put on an arch look to provoke a favourable verdict. Muzzy's hitherto dull mood brightened under her influence.
"What theatre did you go to, my dear?"
"To the Olympic. We saw Daisy Farm. Isn't it a pretty name? Now, one would fancy that everybody was happy at Daisy Farm, because of the name; but it wasn't so. They were all in trouble until the end of the play, and then something very unexpected happened, and everything came right. Is it so in real life?"