"I adore his eye-glasses."
"Oh, Marie-Louise—his poor eyes."
"He isn't poor," the child said, passionately, "not even his eyes. Milton was blind—and—and there was his poetry."
"Dr. Dicky hopes his eyes are getting better."
"He says they are. That he sees things now through a sort of silver rain. He has to have some one write for him. His little sister Mimi has been doing it, but she is going to be married."
"Mimi?"
"Yes. He found out that she had a lover, and so he has insisted. And then he will be left alone."
She sat gazing into the fire, a small humped-up figure in a gorgeous dressing-gown. At last she said, "Why didn't you love him?"
"There was some one else, Marie-Louise."
Marie-Louise drew close and laid her red head on Anne's knee. "Some one that you are going to marry?"