He would have been ashamed to admit how eagerly he listened for her step on the stairs every day, or what longings wakened in his lonely old heart, when he sat by his loveless fireside after she had gone home, and there was no more sound of children's voices in the next room.
There had been good times in the old Ciseaux house also, once, and two little brothers and a sister had played in that very room; but they had grown up long ago, and the ogre of selfishness and misunderstanding had stolen in and killed all their happiness.

Ah, well, there was much that the world would never know about that misunderstanding.

There was much to forgive and forget on both sides.
Joyce had a different story for each visit.

To-day she had just finished telling Jules the fairy tale of which he never tired, the tale of the giant scissors.
"I never look at those scissors over the gate without thinking of you," said Jules, "and the night when you played that I was the Prince, and you came to rescue me." "I wish I could play scissors again, and rescue somebody else that I know," answered Joyce.

"I'd take poor old Number Thirty-one away from the home of the Little Sisters of the Poor." "What's Number Thirty-one ?" asked Jules.