Chapter TWENTY: Third (4)

"It is a very pretty dress; it is too bad Frances can't wear it," Mrs. Bond remarked, examining it critically.

"Then you will let me give it to Emma?"

Emma's mother was not hard hearted; she liked to see her children happy, but she had a stern feeling that hardship was likely to be their lot in this world, and the sooner they became used to it the better. However, when her pride was convinced that Mrs. Morrison could not use the dress, she accepted it gratefully.

Emma's joy was beyond words, and she very much wondered how the Spectacle Man could have known that something was going to happen.

When the eventful day came, Mrs. Morrison rolled her hair for her and tied her long braids with butterfly bows of red, white, and blue, and when she was dressed, Frances said, "Why, Emma, I believe you are as pretty as Gladys!"

Certainly no little girl waved her flag with more enthusiasm, or rejoiced more truly in the celebration of Washington's Birthday.

CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.

AT THE LOAN EXHIBIT.

Before the end of February there began to be hints of spring in the air; now and then there came a day so mild and fair it seemed to belong to April, and as the winter passed it carried with it some at least of the cares that had for a while rested upon the inmates of the optician's house.

Frances and her mother rejoiced because every day brought nearer their traveller's return; Miss Moore, busy with the Easter work in her kindergarten, was finding a new meaning in the season; and even Lillian Sherwin felt now and then a thrill of joy that was like a prophecy of days to come, to her sore heart.

Mr. Clark was cheerful because he loved sunshine; and though he could not as yet see the way through his difficulties, he felt sure it was there, and that in good time he should find it.

The pleasure of Washington's Birthday lingered with Emma; the General, restored to health and amiability, was no longer such a care, and she found time once more to spend in that haven of delight upstairs with Frances.

George Washington was sent to the Loan Exhibit, together with the cabinet, some silver candlesticks, and the Wedgwood cream jug and sugar dish. With the blank space over the mantel the study looked deserted; and the owl, deprived of his resting-place on the cabinet, perched forlornly on a corner of the bookcase.

Frances took great interest in the Exhibit, and insisted upon going, chiefly it seemed for the purpose of seeing how Washington looked in his new surroundings. As Mrs. Morrison was housed with a cold, Miss Sherwin offered to take her.

They found a beautiful display of valuable and interesting things arranged in a large, handsomely decorated hall; but not until Frances had viewed the portrait and made a diligent search for Mr. Clark's other possessions would she give any attention to less familiar things.

She and Lillian were bending with delight over a case of miniatures when she heard her name spoken, and turning, saw Mrs. Marvin.

"Do you like the miniatures?" the lady asked. "Then come over to the other side; there is one there I want you to see."

She pointed out a picture, set in diamonds, of a lovely young woman.

"How pretty! Is it you?" Frances asked, seeing a resemblance to the handsome face beside her.

Mrs. Marvin smiled. "No, it is my mother,--the little girl you are so fond of, after she was grown. They wanted the portrait too," she added, "but I have decided not to trust it out of my hands again."

She pointed out several other miniatures in which she thought Frances would be interested, all the while keeping the child's hand clasped in her own. Miss Sherwin, seeing her charge had found an acquaintance, moved on down the aisle.

"Your friend seems to be interested in the manuscripts; suppose we rest a few minutes," and Mrs. Marvin drew Frances down beside her on a settee that stood near a tall case of lace and embroidery.

"Who is the young lady with you?" she asked.

Frances' explained, and Mrs. Marvin remarked that she was a handsome girl.

"And she is clever, too, for she writes lovely stories and illustrates them," said Frances, impressively.

"Does she, indeed?"

"Yes, she wrote one for us about a song the Spectacle Man--I mean Mr. Clark--sings. It is a fairy tale, and _The Young People's Journal_ took it and are going to publish it next month. It has a beautiful moral to it."

"What do you know about morals?" laughed Mrs. Marvin.

"I found this one out when I had a quarrel with Gladys. Mr. Clark helped me to see it," was the reply; and then, as her companion looked interested, Frances continued:

"It is hard to explain it because you haven't read the story. It is called 'The Missing Bridge,' and is about a young man who couldn't get across the river that was between him and the girl he was going to marry, because there wasn't any bridge. That is he _thought_ there wasn't, though it really was there all the time, and had just been made invisible by a magician.

"Well, you know Gladys said she never would speak to me again, and that was like having the bridge broken between us; don't you think so? But Mr. Clark said he thought it was only hidden by the clouds of anger and unkindness. I think it is very uncomfortable to quarrel, don't you?" then, seeing an odd expression in her companion's face, Frances hastened to add: "Of course I know you wouldn't quarrel with any one _now_, but I thought maybe you had when you were a little girl. But don't you think it is a nice moral? and--oh, yes--the last of it is that love and courage can always find a way."

"And how about you and Gladys?"

"We made up. If you would like to read the story, Mrs. Marvin, it will be out next week. The March number of _The Young People's Journal_, and it's only twenty-five cents."

Mrs. Marvin smiled. "I shall certainly get a copy," she said, adding, "I see your friend looking this way. Suppose we go to her; I should like to meet her."

Why she said this she couldn't have told, and she half repented it the next minute; but when Frances introduced Miss Sherwin she was all graciousness.

"Frances and I have an odd way of meeting every now and then, and have become great friends. I have been showing her a miniature of my mother, and she has been telling me about your story."

"Why, Frances!" said Miss Sherwin, a pretty color coming into her face.

This girl was extremely attractive, Mrs. Marvin decided, and found a good deal to say to her over the collection of ancient missals. After a while Frances wandered off to look at the portraits.

Mrs. Marvin's eyes followed her as, with her hands clasped behind her, she stood gazing at an old pioneer.

"She is a very charming child," she remarked.

"She is, and she ought to be, for her mother is one of the sweetest women in the world," Miss Sherwin responded, in eager praise of her friend, but the next moment she had the feeling of having somehow said the wrong thing. Was it some change of expression in the handsome face, or simply the silence that followed her little outburst, which caused her discomfort? She could not tell. She had been wonderfully charmed by this stately person, but now the spell was broken; with one impulse they moved toward Frances.

"I don't believe I like her, after all," Lillian thought; and yet there was a marvellous sweetness in the smile that greeted the child, and brought her with instant response to Mrs. Marvin's side.

As they were making their way to the door after taking leave of Mrs. Marvin, Miss Sherwin saw a lady step out from a group of people, and exclaim: "Why, Mrs. Richards! how do you do? It was only the other day I heard of your unexpected return." And the person to whom this greeting was addressed was no other than Mrs. Marvin herself. It puzzled her, but she said nothing about it to Mrs. Morrison when they related their morning's adventures.

CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.

THE MARCH NUMBER OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE'S JOURNAL.

Mrs. Marvin was in a sadly restless state of mind. She wished again and again that chance had not brought this child in her way. Having seen her, she could not forget her, and each meeting cost her fresh pain.

And what was to be the outcome of it? Nothing? Frances had said they would soon be going away. Perhaps then she might be able to settle down again into the old life of resolutely putting aside the past.

She was not so strong as she used to be, yet she must endure it as she had done for so many years. There was nothing she could do. Her pride told her this with added emphasis each time the half-formed question rose in her mind.

She actually fretted herself into a fever which the doctor pronounced malarial, advising change of air,--a prescription Mrs. Marvin had no thought of trying at present.

After several days in bed, she was lying on her couch weak and languid one morning, when she suddenly remembered the March number of _The Young People's Journal_. She would send for it and read the story.

When it was brought there came with it the swift recollection that Jack used to take it. She could see him now poring over the puzzle column, looking up with such a triumphant light in his brown eyes when he discovered an answer.

She held the paper for a long time without opening it, lying quite still with a desolate look on her face that was more than Caroline, her faithful nurse, could stand.

"I declare, if Miss Frances doesn't cheer up, I don't know what I shall do," she said to the seamstress.

After a while Mrs. Marvin began to turn the pages, till she found the story of "The Missing Bridge," with the gay little tune for a heading.

It is doubtful if under ordinary circumstances she would have had patience to read the simple story through, but to-day she found something soothing in its very simplicity.

"No power can destroy the bridge between true and loving hearts." She lay thinking of what Frances had said about her quarrel with Gladys. Ah! many another bridge had been made invisible by clouds of anger and pride. The paper slipped from her grasp. "I _did_ love him so dearly," she cried, clasping her hands; "and I thought he cared for me, but now he has probably forgotten."

"Faith and courage can find the way--" so said the story.

"But I have neither," sighed Mrs. Marvin.

Her unquiet mind seized upon the words of the little song, and all through the day she said them over and over:--

"The bridge is broke and I have to mend it."

The clock ticked:--

"The bridge is broke and I have to mend it, mend it, mend it, mend
it."

Even the horses' hoofs on the asphalt street rang out the same refrain.

Mrs. Marvin rose from her couch in some respects a changed woman. It seemed to her she had lived years in that illness of two weeks. In her soul a battle had been waged, and the struggle had left her passive and unresisting; she was waiting. The outward result was a strange, new gentleness of manner.

At the time of the Loan Exhibit she had been commissioned by a friend to purchase a wedding gift, which was to be, if possible, something antique. The silver candlesticks belonging to Mr. Clark rather pleased her; and thinking he might have other interesting things, she had written his address in her note-book, intending to go and see for herself, but her illness had interfered. When she was once more able to be out this was her first thought.

In the meantime the March _Journal_ was being read by a good many persons who ordinarily never looked at it. The household at the Spectacle Man's naturally took a deep interest in it; and Miss Sherwin said she felt she ought to divide the profits, for if it had not been for the song and Mrs. Morrison's suggestion, the story would never have been written.

Frances laid emphatic commands upon her father to buy a copy the minute he landed in San Francisco; and Mr. Clark was also charged to remind Mark of the story, when he wrote.

In the hurry of sending telegrams, attending to his baggage, and making arrangements for an early start eastward, Mr. Morrison forgot this important matter, and it did not occur to him till, halfway on his homeward journey, he one morning saw the paper among others the train boy was carrying through the cars. He promptly purchased it, for it would never do to meet his little daughter without having read the story which was, she said, almost as good as one of his own.

Soon after leaving San Francisco, Mr. Morrison had made the acquaintance of a young civil engineer who was on his way to his home in Tennessee for a visit. He had frank, gentlemanly manners, and the cheerful, self-reliant air of a trained worker who loves his work, and the travellers were at once attracted to each other. As so often happens, they discovered mutual friends, and also that they had the same affection for Southern life and ways. Alexander Carter, as he gave his name, had recently accepted a position with a Western mining company,--a place of trust and responsibility of which he was justly proud in a modest way.

"You seem to have found something amusing," he remarked, seeing Mr. Morrison smiling over the magazine.

"Well, no, it happens to be a rather serious story, but something reminded me of my little daughter," was the reply. "By the way, Carter," he added, "it is odd, but the hero of this tale bears a remarkable resemblance to you--I mean in the illustration. See here!" Mr. Morrison held before him the picture of the young farmer as he knelt to release the white rabbit. "This is your profile exactly. Don't you see it yourself?"

Mr. Carter laughed. "I believe there is a faint likeness, which only goes to show that I have a very ordinary countenance."

"That is just what you have not, which is the curious part of it," said Mr. Morrison.

"Who wrote the story?" his companion asked.

"It is unsigned, and I have forgotten the name. She is a young lady of whom my wife and daughter are very fond."

At St. Louis the travellers separated with cordial good-byes, feeling like old friends, and Mr. Morrison rushed off to catch the train that would take him to his destination some hours earlier than he had expected to arrive.

Mr. Carter, gathering up his things in a more leisurely way, noticed _The Young People's Journal_ lying on the seat, and put it in his bag.

CHAPTER NINETEENTH.

SURPRISES.

"Expect me Wednesday evening; will wire from St. Louis," so read the telegram from San Francisco; and on Wednesday morning Frances had just exclaimed over her oatmeal, "O dear, what a long day this will be!" when the door opened and there stood a familiar figure, looking, oh, so bright and well!

After some moments of rapturous hugs and incoherent remarks, the traveller was allowed to have some breakfast, while Mrs. Morrison and Frances looked on, too happy to eat.

"I had to surprise you, for a despatch sent after I left St. Louis would have aroused you in the night, or else not have reached you till about this time," Mr. Morrison explained as he helped himself to a muffin.

"Jack, how brown you are, and how well you look! It is a delight to see you," said his wife.

"I never was better in my life; but I can't tell you how I have wished for you and Frances."

"Next time you'll take me, won't you, father?" Frances asked.

"Yes, indeed. Wink, I believe you have grown a foot! You'll soon be a young lady, and I don't like it; people will begin to think your mother and I are elderly, when we are really in the heyday of youth."

In this irrelevant fashion conversation went on through the day. There were all the winter experiences to be related, and Frances could not rest till each person in the house had been brought in to see her father. First of all Mr. Clark ran up to say how glad he was to see the traveller back again; and on her way to school Miss Moore looked in with a merry greeting; then Emma and the General were waylaid in the hall and introduced, the former in a dreadful fit of shyness; and last, Miss Sherwin was pounced upon and dragged reluctantly into the sitting room.

To her Mr. Morrison's return meant the breaking up of the pleasant companionship of the winter, and she was not in the least glad to see him. Mrs. Morrison's exclamation as she entered was somewhat disconcerting.

"Jack, I want you to know Lillian, she has been so good to me!"

"Good! I?" Miss Sherwin cried in a tone that made them all laugh, and then her hand was given a cordial grasp by a tall man with a boyish face, who said, "We shall have to take each other on sufferance, Miss Sherwin, till we can find out for ourselves how much truth there is in what our friends say of us."

"I am very glad we came here; it has really been a delightful winter,--all but those two dreadful days when Frances was so ill,--but I don't think I can ever let you go again," Mrs. Morrison said. It was after lunch, and Frances had gone to get ready for a walk with her father.

"Then, will you go to New York with me next week?" asked her husband.

"I may have to stand that. It will depend on how soon we must leave here permanently. Jack, there is one rather strange thing I must tell you--" but just here Frances danced in, and her mother did not finish her sentence.

When they returned from their walk late in the afternoon they stopped in the shop for a moment to speak to Mr. Clark. Peterkin was the only person to be seen, but the door into the study stood open, and, supposing the Spectacle Man was there, Frances and her father entered. Some one was standing before the mantel looking up at the portrait of Washington, and Frances gave an exclamation of surprise, for it was not the optician, but, of all persons, Mrs. Marvin!

It was not very light, and for a second she thought she must be mistaken, then something very strange happened. Mrs. Marvin turned, and with a little cry stepped forward, holding out her hands appealingly. "Jack, O Jack!" she said.

The astonished child saw the light in her father's eyes as he exclaimed, "Auntie!" and then his arms were around her, her cheek pressed to his.

"Jack, I have wanted you so;" the words came with a sob.

"Dear auntie, I am so glad!"

Mrs. Marvin was not one to lose her self-control for long; she presently lifted her head, with one hand on his shoulder she looked at him. "You have not changed," she said, "but I have grown old."

In truth, she was very white now the first flush of excitement was fading, and with gentle hands Jack put her into the shabby leather chair, and drew another to her side.

"I wonder if I shall wake and find it a dream," she said, smiling up at him.

"It is better than any dream," he answered, bending over her.

"I have been so lonely,--it has been so long. I thought perhaps you had forgotten, and-- I am sorry-- Jack." It was the proud woman's surrender, and John Morrison was touched to the heart. Tears rose to his eyes.

"It was more my fault than yours, dear,--the years have taught me that, and I have often wished I could tell you so," he said.

Frances had stood an amazed spectator of this scene. What did it mean? Ought she to stay? It was plain she was forgotten. After a little she touched her father's arm, saying softly, "Daddy, I'm here, you know."

The plaintive tone recalled both her companions; her father drew her to his side, but before he could speak Mrs. Marvin took her hand.

"Frances darling, you will love me, won't you? You are my own little niece. The day when I first saw you in my library you reminded me of my dear Jack."

It was Mr. Morrison's turn to be surprised as his daughter impulsively threw her arms round the lady's neck, exclaiming, "I do love you, but I didn't know you knew father."

"And I didn't know you knew each other," he said.

"And I don't understand how you happened to come here," added his aunt.

"Why, we live here, Mrs. Marvin," Frances replied.

"Mrs. Marvin!" echoed Mr. Morrison.

"That is a mistake which I encouraged because I wanted to see more of her," his aunt said; adding, "Is this really the house of the Spectacle Man?"

There was so much to be explained it seemed almost hopeless; Mr. Clark came in and went out again unobserved. It was not an opportune time for selling candlesticks, evidently.

"We will not try to unravel the tangle all at once," Mr. Morrison said, rising. "Auntie, will you come upstairs? I want you to meet Katherine."

This was hardest of all. It brought back one of her old disappointments; and without doubt Katherine Morrison was aware how Jack's aunt felt about his marriage, but she did not hesitate. It was not her custom to do things by halves.

Mrs. Morrison, sitting in the twilight lost in happy thoughts, was aroused by Frances' excited voice: "Mother, what do you think has happened?"

Surprised at sight of the stranger, she rose; her husband met her and drew her forward: "Auntie, this is my wife, to whom I owe my greatest happiness."

His aunt understood. This fair, girlish looking little person filled the first place in his heart; whatever else was changed, this was not.

"You must try to love me for Jack's sake," she said, taking Katherine's hand with that new gentleness her nephew found so touching.

It won his wife. "I shall not have to try," she answered.

"Are you willing to forget and begin again?--that is what we are going to do, is it not, Jack?" his aunt looked from his wife to him. "It will make a great difference in my life," she continued; "I have been very lonely, and I want this little girl;" she put her arm around Frances.

"Then she will certainly have to take us, too; won't she, Katherine?" and Mr. Morrison laughed happily.

Frances still seemed puzzled. "If this is my Aunt Frances--" she said slowly, "who is the little girl? Is she the Girl in the Golden Doorway, truly?--the portrait, I mean.

"I think she must be, and she is also your great-grandmother," her aunt replied.

"Then who is a Certain Person. You said he was abroad, father." Frances evidently thought it time all mysteries were solved.

"Why, yes, auntie, how does it happen you are not abroad? I heard last summer on the best authority that you would spend the winter in Egypt," said her nephew.

"I fully expected to be gone eighteen months when I left, but the death of the mother of my friend, Mrs. Roberts, changed our plans. I did not wish to go alone."

Frances was listening intently. "Father! you don't mean Aunt Frances is a Certain Person?" she cried. "I thought it was a man."

"It is a character we are going to forget. I am your father's aunt and yours, dear, and I am not Mrs. Marvin, but Mrs. Richards. Mrs. Marvin is my cousin. You understand it all now, don't you?"

Frances was not quite certain of this, but there was no doubt about her pleasure in her new relative; and when her father went home with his aunt she was rather impatient at not being allowed to go too.

"Come sit beside me, Wink, and have a little talk," Mrs. Morrison suggested when they were alone.

Frances came and nestled down beside her mother; the day had been so full of excitement she found it hard work to keep still.

"You know, dear, that Aunt Frances and father have not seen each other for years,--not since before you were born,--and of course they have a great deal to say to each other. There was some trouble--a misunderstanding--but now it is over--"

"They have found the bridge like Gladys and me," Frances put in.

"Yes; but what I was going to say is this: we mustn't be selfish. We must let Aunt Frances have father to herself sometimes. Don't you think so?"

As they sat quietly there in the twilight Mrs. Morrison saw opening before her a path she would not have chosen. She was a person of simple tastes and wide sympathies, and the world of wealth and convention to which her husband would return so naturally had few attractions for her. She would have need of love and courage, she told herself.

"What do you think, Kate; auntie wants me to take you to New York with me and leave Frances with her!" said Mr. Morrison, coming in.

"She has never been away from me in her life. What do you say, Wink?" and her mother lifted the face that rested against her shoulder and kissed it.

"I don't know; I believe I'd like it, for then I could see the little girl every day," was the reply.

"I think her great-grandmother has cut out all the rest of her relations," her father remarked, laughing.

"I don't see how she _could_ be my great-grandmother," Frances said meditatively.

Mrs. Richards remembered the candlesticks next day, and they gave her an excuse for an early visit to Mr. Clark. She felt in love and charity with all men, and, finding the optician at leisure, she entered into conversation with him in her most gracious manner. His old-fashioned courtliness pleased her, and she recalled him as one of the proprietors of the large jewellery store of Mason and Clark, years ago.

Mr. Clark remembered her father, Judge Morrison, and all together she spent an exceedingly pleasant hour looking over his valuables and talking of old times. She purchased the candlesticks, and also the two pieces of Wedgwood which exactly matched some her grandfather had brought from England.

"You have shown me all you care to sell?" she asked, rising.

"I believe there is nothing else, madam, except the house. I should like very much to sell it," was Mr. Clark's reply.

When Zenobia ushered her into the sitting room upstairs some minutes later, Mrs. Richards was struck with its cosey beauty. Truly, there were ways of living--pleasant ways--of which she had not dreamed.

Frances was washing the sword fern while she recited her history lesson to her mother, who was sewing.

"I have come to take you home with me to lunch; I can't do without you," Mrs. Richards announced.

"Why don't you stay with us--auntie?" Frances spoke the new title hesitatingly.

"That will be much the better plan, and it will please Jack," added Mrs. Morrison, cordially, and Mrs. Richards stayed.

The next time she and her nephew were alone together she said to him: "Jack, there is something I want you to explain to Katherine. I do not think I could make any difference in my manner of living at my age, even if I wished to, and I do not; but I am beginning to see that there may be a charm about--other ways."

"Yes, auntie," as she paused, "the years I have spent knocking about without any money, having to work hard for Kate and the baby, have been the happiest and best of my life. There was only one drawback to it all--" he laid his hand on hers.

She smiled fondly at him. "I want you to say to Katherine that I know I must seem narrow to her; I realize that she may perhaps fear my influence upon Frances--" her nephew began a protest, but she silenced him. "No, let me finish. I have come to see things differently; I want you to live your own lives in your own way; I want Frances to go on as she has begun--sweet, generous, unconscious, and I only ask to be near you."

When Mr. Morrison repeated this to his wife, tears rose to her eyes. "I haven't been fair to her," she said. "I have been afraid, but I shall not be any more. I shall love her dearly."

CHAPTER TWENTIETH.

CAROLINE'S STORY.

"Well, I suppose you have heard the news?"

Caroline's pleasant face was more beaming than usual as Emma ushered her into the room where Mrs. Bond sat with her sewing, the General being safe in dreamland.

"No, I haven't heard any so far as I remember," was her reply.

Emma gave the visitor a chair, and retreated with her books to a corner behind her mother, in the hope that she might not be sent away. She knew something had happened.

"Then you don't know that Mr. Morrison has turned out to be our Mr. Jack, Miss Frances' nephew?"

"Who is her nephew, did you say?" asked Mrs. Bond, going on with her work.

"Mr. Morrison, to be sure, the father of little Frances, bless her!"

"He is Mrs. Marvin's nephew?"

"Yes," said Caroline, laughing; "only she isn't Mrs. Marvin at all, but Mrs. Richards. It is as good as a play."

Mrs. Bond actually dropped her hands in her lap, as she asked, "Do you mean there isn't any such person as Mrs. Marvin?"

"Of course there is a Mrs. Marvin. She was staying at our house while Miss Frances was abroad,--she is her cousin,--and the first sewing you did was for her. I did not think of explaining, so you went on supposing it was all for Mrs. Marvin. Then when Miss Frances found out that Frances thought she was Mrs. Marvin, she asked me not to tell you any different. I couldn't understand why, then."

"Why should she care who I thought she was?" Mrs. Bond asked, taking up her sewing.

"It is plain enough now. You see, she and Mr. Jack had had a quarrel years ago, and she had not seen or heard of him since; then one day, you know, Frances came to our house with Emma, and Mrs. Richards saw her and knew right away who she was, and was mightily taken with her, but she didn't want Frances or her mother to know that she was Mr. Morrison's aunt; don't you see?

"You may say it happened," Caroline continued, "but I say the Lord brought it about. Why should that child walk into the library and stand before her great-grandmother's portrait, and Miss Frances come in and find her there, looking as much like Mr. Jack when he was little as two peas! Isn't he a splendid man! and just his old self. Why, when he came out yesterday, he ran upstairs to my room calling out just as he used to do,--'Where's Caroline?' It made me too happy to sleep."

"Did Mr. Morrison live at your house once?" Emma ventured to ask.

"Of course he did. When his mother died Miss Frances adopted him. He was six years old, and it was the same year I went to live with her,--thirty years this spring. You see, Mr. Jack's father, who was Mrs. Richards' favorite brother, was thrown from his horse and killed when his little boy was only three. It was a dreadful blow to the whole family; his wife did not outlive him long, and his father, Judge Morrison, never recovered from the shock, for his only other son was an invalid.

"I used to think nobody had as much trouble as Miss Frances. She married very young and was left a widow before she was twenty-two, and it seemed as if Mr. Jack was her only comfort, for her father's mind began to fail, and the old home was so changed she couldn't bear to go there; but she was wrapped up in the child.

"In those days he wasn't hard to manage, though he had a quick temper; you couldn't help loving him on account of his sweet ways. He was devoted to Miss Frances, and gave up to her wonderfully, so I suppose she got to thinking she would always have things her own way with him, as she had with every one else.

"There were gay times, I can tell you, when he came home for his holidays, after he began to go away to school. He might bring home as many friends as he pleased, and there wasn't anything he couldn't have for the asking. Yet he wasn't half as spoiled as you'd think.

"The trouble began about the time he left college, but I didn't know much about it then. Miss Frances had set her heart on his being a lawyer like his grandfather; but though he studied it to please her, he did not take any interest in law. Then I think she wanted him to marry a niece of her husband's who used to be at the house a great deal. That is-- I don't think she really wanted him to marry at all, but was just afraid he'd take to some one she did not like. He had always been fond of Miss Elsie, and it did look contrary in him to turn around and be so indifferent when he found how his aunt felt.

"Mr. Jack went abroad for a year, and it was soon after he came back that they had the trouble. I happened to pass the library door one evening when I heard Miss Frances say, 'If you have no regard for my wishes perhaps you had better provide for yourself in the future--' and he answered back as cool as you please, 'Thank you for suggesting it, Aunt Frances; I have been an idler on your bounty quite too long.' I never forgot those words. They didn't either of them mean what they said, but were too proud to take it back. Miss Frances had never denied him anything, and had more than enough for both, yet it was natural for her to think he ought to go her way.

"I never knew any more about it, except that Mr. Jack came to my room to tell me he was going, with a face as white as a sheet. He had some property of his own, though not much, for his grandfather made way with almost everything before he died--no one knew how. He had softening of the brain, brought on by grief.

"The next I knew Mr. Jack sent me a paper with a notice of his marriage. Mrs. Morrison was the daughter of one of the professors in the college where he went. But--" Caroline concluded, with a sigh of content, "it is all right now, and maybe it has all been for the best."

"I suppose they'll be going away soon?" said Mrs. Bond.

"Yes, Mr. Morrison and his wife are going to New York, and Frances is coming to stay with us."

Emma listened to this story with breathless interest. It seemed to her quite the most natural and suitable thing that such good fortune should come to Frances, but it made her feel sorrowful to think she was going away.

After their visitor had gone Mrs. Bond said, as she folded her work: "Now, Emma, I do not want you to be foolish. Make up your mind not to see anything of Frances after this, and you'll not be disappointed."

"Why, mother?"

"Because they are rich and we are poor, and it is not to be expected that they will care for your society. I never go where I am not wanted, and I do not choose to have you. Understand, I am not saying anything against the Morrisons. Frances is a nice child, and her mother is very pleasant and kind, but you can't change the world; birds of a feather will flock together."