Rowena Arbuthnot leant her elbows on the wide windowsill and looked in upon her sister-in-law from the garden, with her mischievous blue-grey eyes which always seemed to twinkle with some hidden joke. Rowena's eyes had been the cause of her continually getting into trouble, from the time she had been a child, when the rector of the parish had requested her not to laugh at him in the pulpit. She was older now; and had gone through more trouble than most girls of her age. But though her lips were grave, and a trifle sad when in repose, yet her eyes had never lost their gleam of hidden laughter. Young Mrs. Arbuthnot, sitting in her pretty drawing-room, stitching away at a white frock for her youngest child, felt impatient with Rowena. "I never shall understand you," she said; "I thought you and Ted were so devoted, that if you had not cared a button about the children or me, you would be disappointed at not coming with us. Our home has been yours for the last four years; and we have always looked upon you as one of the family." "My dear Geraldine, tears are too expensive a luxury to be wasted in public. Shall I conjure up two for your benefit? I might if I tried hard."

Amy (Amelia Sophia) Le Feuvre (1861-1929) was born into a large family in Blackheath, London in the first part of 1861 and educated by a governess. She dedicated herself to writing children's literature and used her stories to teach Biblical principles. The quaint child, the child with delicate health, the naughty, misunderstood child were some of her favourite characters. Her first book Eric's Good News came out in 1894. She was a prolific author and wrote some 65 books in her career. She died on April 29, 1929 in Exeter, Devon.