THE Formans were at breakfast, at least two of them were. The others were absorbed with the morning mail. The table was neatly spread, the aroma of coffee was in the air, and the plate of home-made cookies invited attention, but Jean, the youngest daughter, and Derrick, the son, were the only ones who paid the slightest attention to breakfast.

Jean was eating grapes, and Derrick, as he reached for the fourth cookie, said: “I wonder if I am expected to eat all these.”

Jean giggled. “You are getting well under way, I think; keep right on; I’m attending to the grapes myself. Only look at them!—I mean the folks, Dickie dear, not the grapes—even mother is lost in a letter. I wonder who it can be from? It’s an awfully long one.” Then she raised her voice: “I think one of you might read aloud for the benefit of Dick and me—and the cookies; mother, there won’t be a single cookie left if you don’t attend to Dick.”

Thus roused Mrs. Forman laid down her letter with a little sigh, and grasped the handle of the coffee pot as she said: “What is it you want, Derrick, a cup of coffee?”

“No, mother; no coffee for me. I’ll just take a cookie or two and be off.” Saying which he reached for his fifth and, to the sound of Jean’s laughing protest, hastily left the room.

Mrs. Forman did not smile; she was still preoccupied; but she tried to rally her thoughts. “Joseph your coffee is getting cold. Girls, will you have coffee? Have you letters from any of the relatives?”

“Mine isn’t,” said Florence, the second daughter. “It is from Nannie Douglass; they are at Delmont, and expect to stay through the month. Oh mother, I wish I could have Nannie spend a week with me while they are so near.”

There was a pathetic note in her voice suggesting the hopelessness of the wish, but the mother, usually quick to sympathize, did not respond to it even by a glance. Ray, the observant oldest daughter, noticed the tightening of muscles about her father’s mouth, and knew that, although he was supposed to be absorbed in his paper, he had heard. She telegraphed a note of warning to her sister, who, however, did not need it. The girl had returned to her neglected muffin, her face grave and sad; but evidently she had thought, and meant to say no more.

“My letter,” said Ray, “was from the girls, all of them; they are at Ocean Beach for a week together; only four of the class missing; isn’t that doing well for so large a class?”

“Eleven girls!” Jean exclaimed. “What a babel they must make! I hope they are not all at the same boarding house! Where are the others?”

“The others? of the class? Why, Edith and Emily Prentiss are still in the East; Edith is studying music in Boston.”

“And the other two?” persisted the heedless Jean. Her sister turned grave eyes upon her.

“Don’t you remember, Jean, that Celia Roberts died only a few weeks after commencement?”

“Oh, I remember; and you are the fourth? Poor Ray! you ought to be there this minute.”

Mr. Forman rose up suddenly, his coffee still waiting. “I must go,” he said. Mrs. Forman protested anxiously; wouldn’t he let her give him a cup of hot coffee? No, he wouldn’t; he murmured something about it being later than he had realized, and hurried away.

Mrs. Forman waited until the door closed after him, then spoke in a discouraged tone: “I wish, Jean, you could learn to be a little more considerate of your father’s feelings; it is hard enough for him to be compelled to deny you all sorts of pleasures, without having it stabbed into him.”

“It was horrid of me, mommie,” said the penitent Jean. “I wish I hadn’t such an awful forgettery; but father knows that I didn’t mean a thing.”

“Where is Dick?” The mother had just awakened to his absence.

“He and the cookies skipped, I guess, while you were reading that long letter,” Florence explained. “Who is it from, mother?”

Mrs. Forman looked down at the closely written pages and sighed, as she answered: “It is from Aunt Caroline, and it is all about your Aunt Elsie; she wants us to let her come here.”

“Aunt Elsie!” Florence exclaimed.

“Oh, mother!” from Jean.

Then Ray: “Why, mother, what is the matter?”

“It is a long story, girls, going back before you were born; but the part that concerns us now is simple enough. The woman who has lived with Aunt Elsie for years, and cared for her like a daughter, has recently died, and there must be an entire change of arrangements.”

“Well,” Florence said, after an ominous silence, “why should that make it—what about Aunt Caroline? Why doesn’t she look after her own sister?”

“Company,” she says. “Two of her husband’s relatives to stay through the fall, one for all winter, perhaps. Besides, she has no suitable downstairs room; and there are half a dozen other reasons; the main one, I imagine, being that she doesn’t want her.”

“Neither do we,” murmured Jean, but no one noticed her, and Mrs. Forman continued.

“Those sisters have not been together, except for a few hours at long intervals, since they were young girls, and they seem to have nothing in common.”

Then Florence interposed: “Why doesn’t she go to Uncle Evarts? He has a large house and servants to wait on her.”

“That, your Aunt Caroline says, is quite out of the question. It seems that the married daughter has come home to spend the winter, and has three little children. Your uncle says it would be very bad for his sister to be shut into a furnace-heated house all winter in the centre of a great city, ‘with three lively children who would fit her for the lunatic asylum before the winter was half over.’”

Mrs. Forman had taken up her letter again and was quoting from it. A silence that suggested consternation fell upon them, broken presently by Jean.

“Mother, will we have to do it?”

“Do what, Jean?”

“Why—have her come here?”

Mrs. Forman’s expressive eyes rested full upon her youngest daughter, with a shade of rebuke in them.

“Isn’t that a strange way to speak of having a visit from your aunt?”

“Well, but—” Jean hesitated, her face flushing under the rebuke, then she hurried on: “Mother, it isn’t just an ordinary visit; you said for all winter, didn’t you? That is what it means, anyway; and she is only a half aunt; it isn’t as though she were father’s own sister; he doesn’t even know her very well; it seems as though he had enough—”

She left her sentence unfinished, but the mother answered what she had meant to say.

“He certainly has, Jean; for that reason we must not do anything to make it harder; he has always looked upon your Aunt Elsie as his sister, and although he left home when he was a mere boy he remembers her perfectly as a little child of whom he was fond; it would break his heart to be compelled, with all the rest, to deny her any kindnesses she may need.”

“But that’s just it; she can’t help being an added burden, and there are her own sister and brother, both of them with plenty of money; they could do a great deal more for her than we possibly can. Do you really think he would want her to come if he realized that?”

Mrs. Forman made a gesture almost like despair, and Ray came to the rescue.

“Of course, Jean, he will want to receive his sister if she wants to come. We can manage to make her comfortable, can’t we, mother?”

“Well, I must say I don’t see how,” Florence said, without waiting for her mother. “You say Aunt Caroline has no downstairs room, and I’m sure we haven’t; why isn’t that an excellent reason for her not coming? For that matter we haven’t an upstairs room, either, that would be nice for her, unless—how could we possibly manage it? Mother, why don’t you speak?”

“You and Jean do not give her any chance,” Ray said, trying to laugh.

Mrs. Forman spoke with evident effort: “There is only one way, Florence; your father and I would have to take an upstairs room.”

“Father move!” Jean’s tone was expressive, and her mother answered it.

“I know—but there is no other way; Aunt Elsie is lame, and stairs for her are out of the question; but I am sure your father would rather move out of the house altogether than be forced to turn down this appeal for his help. We can manage to be comfortable upstairs, I think, in any room that our children are-willing to give up to us.”

She attempted a smile. Ray spoke quickly: “Of course, mother, if it comes to that you and father must have our room; Jean can go with Florence.”

Groans followed from both of the younger girls, but Jean recovered speech quickly and wanted to know what Ray proposed to do with herself; did she mean to dress on the back porch, as well as sleep there? Then, dolefully: “Oh, Ray, your lovely big room, with all your college things in it! how can you?”

“Never mind, Jeanie,” the girl said, brightly. “Don’t you know how often we have said that mother and father ought to have that room? I could manage nicely with the little one back of it, but I was thinking—will it do, mother, to leave Aunt Elsie alone on the first floor?”

Mrs. Forman admitted that it might not be right for a lame person to sleep so far from others, yet she did not know how else to plan; that was certainly the only downstairs sleeping room, and there was no other that could be converted into one. Then Ray wondered if a couch could not be set up in the little trunk room if the trunks were moved to the attic; she believed the room was long enough on the south side for a cot, and, if so, she could sleep there and be within call.

Jean exclaimed: “Why, Ray Forman! that is nothing but a closet. The idea!”

“It has a wide window, Jean dear; I could sleep with my head out of doors if I chose; and think what a nice roomy place I should have upstairs, with the bed out of the way; I can do it nicely, mother, if you want to plan it so.”

Mrs. Forman sighed again, and said that Ray was doing, once more, what she had done ever since she was able to think and plan—sacrificing herself for others; she, the mother, ought to be used to it, but it did seem a pity that it must always be the same one on whom the burden fell heaviest. She arose from the table as she spoke, the others following her lead. Jean, as she clattered the cups and saucers, gathering them for the little maid in the kitchen, continued to express her mind, with no listener save herself. “All I have to say is that I think there are a lot of awfully selfish people in this world, and they don’t all live in this house, either. I just detest rooming with Florence, but, of course, I’ll do it, and mother knows I will; she needn’t think that Ray does all the sacrificing. If I were Aunt Caroline, or Uncle Evarts—which, thank goodness, I’m not—I should be ashamed to look any of us in the face after this.”

Nothing had occurred for months to upheave the Forman household as did this letter from Mr. Forman’s youngest sister. The family had grown accustomed, at least in a degree, to straitened means and careful economies. Mr. Forman’s failure in business had occurred when Jean, the youngest, was a mere child; yet she distinctly remembered the great house on Duval Circle, and especially the fine car in which she daily rode, attended by a maid. The others, of course, had vivid recollections of the refinements and luxuries, as well as of many things that they used to name necessities, that had to be given up when the crash came; but time had softened much of the bitterness connected with the change; they were even growing used to the small, plain house on Fourth Street and one untrained little maid, although they still never went in the vicinity of Duval Circle if it could be avoided; and Florence had not yet trained herself away from occasional outbursts over the changed conditions. These, however, were very rare in her father’s presence. She still remembered with remorse the day when, after an especially harrowing experience, she had burst forth with: “Oh, if father could only have been persuaded not to trust that horrid man who is responsible for all this” and then had heard a heavy book drop to the floor with a thud, and a deep groan from the father whom she had supposed was not in the house. A moment afterwards the door of the little reading room, which now served as his library, was quietly closed, and save for the look of unutterable reproach on her mother’s face as she closed it, no reference was ever made to the incident. But that groan had burned into her heart. Jean, under like circumstances, would have rushed into her father’s arms and fairly smothered him with kisses while she poured forth a volume of regrets and frantic promises never to do so again; she would also be liable to forget it all, before the day was done, and fail in exactly the same way. Florence was different. However, they all, in their differing ways, had for a central object in life the saving of their father’s feelings.

[CHAPTER II]
PREPARATION

MRS. FORMAN and her two daughters, Ray and Florence, were in the attic studying the possibilities of certain stowed-away pieces of furniture; also arguing as to the merits—or possibly demerits—of a set of old curtains.

Florence was sure that they would not do at all for Aunt Elsie’s room, although while she said it she was oppressed by the thought that new curtains were not even to be mentioned. Only that morning her mother had tried to impress them with the fact that even very small expenditures must be carefully guarded; they really must not for the present spend an unnecessary penny. It evidently comforted the poor lady to use that phrase “for the present,” although they knew she had a haunting fear that the future would not make the pennies more plentiful.

“If we had a new edge to replace this dreadfully frayed one, we might make these curtains answer for the present,” she thought aloud, rather than said, and the sentence closed with that much-worked word “but,” which is capable of eloquently leaving unsaid many things.

“Oh, mother!” was Florence’s dismayed protest, but Ray intercepted her.

“I’ll crochet an edge for them. Don’t you know that little lace edge I made for Jean’s waist? With coarser cotton it would make a pretty curtain trimming, and the pattern is so simple I can make it very fast. I’ll begin it to-night; I have the cotton.”

“Florence,” said Mrs. Forman, “if I should declare that I didn’t know how to get along another day without a new house, don’t you think Ray would say, ‘I’ll make you one?’”

By way of answer Florence said grimly that if Ray had been one of those old Israelites she would have had no trouble at all in making bricks without straw.

Then the front door opened and closed with a bang, and Derrick’s shout was heard through the hall. “Mother! Ray! where are you all? Say, mother, don’t you think they are coming to-day, on the two-fifty!”

“Who are?” Florence asked, appearing at the head of the stairs.

“Uncle Evarts and Aunt Elsie, and I don’t know how many more. Where’s mother? Say, mommie, daddy had a telegram; here it is; he sent over to our school for me to get excused and skip home with it and stay here and help. What do you want first?”

By this time Mrs. Forman had the telegram in hand and read it aloud: “Compelled to go East to-night; must bring Elsie. Reach Welland afternoon train Friday. Evarts.”

“The idea!” said Florence. “Isn’t that cool? He hasn’t even given us time to write and say that she could come.”

“That’s what he’s after,” Derrick explained. “Says he to himself: ‘I’ll rush the old lady off before they have a chance to say no, then they’ll just have to take her in.’ See? Trust Uncle Evarts for being sharp, every time.” But no one was heeding him. Mother and daughters were making a rush for that downstairs room to try to accomplish in breathless haste the dozen or more “last things” that were waiting for a leisure hour.

Left to himself the boy, with hands thrust into his pockets, tramped about the attic for a few minutes, curious to see what the great unfurnished room, which he seldom visited, had, stowed away in its keeping. He passed a number of interesting-looking packages, from whose bulging ends he caught glimpses of things that he could utilize in his “shop,” and mentally resolved to forage here some day and see what he could find. But he carried a divided mind, and although he whistled a few bars as he ran downstairs it was a rather gloomy-faced fellow who presently appeared before his mother for orders.

Being a boy who was distinctly loyal to his father, Derrick Forman had made very few remarks aloud about the family innovation; nobody but himself, at least so he fondly believed, knew how utterly he disliked the thought of it. He did not in the least remember his Aunt Elsie, although there was a tradition in the family that once in his very early childhood she had kissed him fervently and declared that he “looked enough like father” to be her brother.

“I’m awfully glad that I’m not!” he told himself, savagely, as he recalled the incident, “and I wish she were in Jericho. She isn’t a speck like my father, I know that; none of ’em are; but that’s something to be glad over. A fellow can afford to shout over the fact that he isn’t a bit like any of them.”

He had a distinct boyish recollection of his Aunt Caroline and his Uncle Evarts, and disliked them both. Aunt Caroline, as he remembered her, was always saying: “Dear me! Why do you yell so when you talk? None of your family is deaf.” Or: “If you were my boy I should give you a good whipping every time you rolled down stairs in that lubberly fashion.” Or: “For pity’s sake, Dick, don’t whistle all the time! your family do not seem to have any nerves.” “An everlasting nagger,” was the phrase with which he summed up her defects.

Yet after all, the real thorn in his heart was the fact that his aunt had not confined her “nagging” to the girls and himself, but was given to much advising his mother, and finding fault with her ways. He had a vivid memory of Aunt Caroline’s voice, high and insistent, as it came out to him when he stood in the hall waiting for a chance to speak to his mother: “You really ought to insist on Joseph’s having things fixed conveniently for you in the kitchen, at least; you can’t expect to keep a girl unless you furnish her with some of the modern conveniences; in these days they won’t stand it. Joseph ought to know that there are labor-saving devices that all respectable people use. He doesn’t understand, of course; men never do; but you ought to be firm about it; because he chose to trust a man that nobody else would, and so lost all his money, is no reason why he should let his family go without ordinary comforts. I’ll risk that he could raise some money for you if he knew he had to.” Then his mother’s voice, too low for him to hear, and his aunt’s again, in reply: “Oh, now, Louise, there is no use in getting on your dignity just because I mentioned Joseph; I’m sure I didn’t say anything against him; I said not a word more than I would of my own husband if he had been such a fool as to place confidence in that man. You need to remember that I knew Joseph long before you did, and, in some respects, I think I know him better now than you do.”

How the boy waiting in the hall hated her! He wanted to burst in upon her and say, fiercely: “You let my mother alone! She knows a great deal more than you do about everything; and don’t you dare to say another word about my father; he is the best father in the world, and we all think so; and I’m awful glad that he isn’t the least little speck like you.”

Of course, he did nothing of the kind; instead, he gave over the hope of a word with his mother, and went noisily down the hall, whistling very loud, and banged the door as hard as he could; these demonstrations being for his Aunt Caroline’s benefit. But he nursed his dislike of his aunt through the years; nothing in his after experiences helping to change his impressions of either her or his Uncle Evarts. He was all ready to dislike his Aunt Elsie as soon as she appeared. Even the memory of those early kisses rankled in his thoughts. What if she should think she could kiss him now, when he was taller than his father?

“If she tries it on me,” he muttered, “I’m afraid I’ll shake her. O yah! what a mess! Wish I was to be done with high school to-morrow, and could get out of this town. Home is spoiled, anyhow.”

His sister Ray, as she watched him a few minutes later swing down the street on an errand for his mother, had a shadow on her face over this very fear. It had been troubling her thoughts for days. Were they spoiling home for Derrick? If they were—ought it to be done? Derrick, the heedless, noisy, fun-loving boy, who rarely stopped to consider whether his fun was a pleasure or an annoyance to even his best friends. Derrick, who was inclined to be—gay; she had almost thought that hateful word “fast!” Already he liked the streets at night too well, and was chafing a little even under the very mild restraints that they had tried to throw around him. If this unknown aunt were like her sister and brother, might she not drive him from home altogether?

Ray Forman could not have told the precise time in her life when she began to shoulder responsibilities and try to devise ways for relieving the family burdens. It seemed to her that she had always known that both father and mother had more work and care than they ought, and that Florence and Jean, and especially Derrick, were not old enough to realize it, but she was, and must help. Right royally she had been doing it for years. The winning of a scholarship had enabled her to spend two years in an institution far in advance of the local college where she had expected to graduate. She had paid her board during this time by teaching for two hours each day in the preparatory department; and her incidental expenses had been so much less than her sister’s as to call from their father the dry remark that they ought to have sent Florence also, for economy’s sake.

It was not alone in money matters that Ray helped. To both Jean and Derrick she had been more like a mother than a sister. Derrick especially, since the time when she had followed him patiently through the long, bright days of his second summer while her mother lay ill, had seemed to be her very special charge. He had accepted her watchful care with cheerfulness, even with satisfaction; often, from force of habit, rushing in search of her—when in need of help—instead of his mother.

It was only quite recently that she had begun to feel a foreshadowing of restiveness under her suggestions. Not that he had outspokenly rebelled; nor referred to her fretfully as the others did occasionally. More than once Florence had been heard to exclaim: “Oh, Ray, don’t be so awfully old maidish! What’s the harm?” The utmost that Derrick had allowed himself was a good-humored drawling jibe, like: “Oh, yes, grandma, I’ll be careful; I won’t even get my feet wet when I go in swimming,” or some kindred sarcasm intended to emphasize the folly of her solicitude; yet Ray understood and puzzled over it all, questioning sometimes as to whether she was helping, or hindering.

That hint of “old maidishness” touched a sorer spot in her heart than her sister realized. There were hours when she assured herself that there was no prospect of her being able to leave her mother with a daily increasing burden of work and care upon her, and set up a home of her own; the only honorable course for her was to explain this to Kendall Forsythe and beg him to give up even hope; it was more than a year since she had promised to be his wife, and at that time they had hoped and believed that the way would very soon open for them, but instead it had seemed to close even more securely with each passing month. Kendall’s mother, who had been his housekeeper and daily companion since the time when they two were suddenly left alone together, front being a very efficient and capable woman had dropped into permanent invalidism, to be cared for by the son, who was still struggling with an insufficient salary and the promise of a larger one when conditions permitted; and there were no present indications of a rise.

Notwithstanding all this the young man steadily urged immediate marriage; he had gone over the whole ground carefully, he assured Ray, and with pencil and paper and eloquence he tried to convince her how much better the salary could be managed if she were there to help. When, after careful where consideration and the shedding of some bitter tears, she reached the point where she urged upon him honorable freedom, representing it as the only wise course, he merely scoffed, not considering the suggestion worthy of being treated seriously. She might talk to him about that, he said, on his hundredth birthday; certainly before that date he should not be ready to give it the slightest attention. Nevertheless, Ray, glad over his unhesitating refusal to listen to her, was yet seriously considering that she ought to take steps which would compel him to do so. In all his rose-colored plans for their mutual spending of his salary, Ray had given no voice to the one word that loomed before her portentously; that fateful word—clothes. She knew that she realized, as he could not, that Ray Forman, one of the girls in her father’s unpretentious house, could be clothed respectably on a much smaller sum of money than would suffice for Mrs. Kendall Forsythe, who would enter a family that had for generations made a bride the excuse for all manner of social functions, of which she was expected to be the centre. The Forsythe family, at least that portion of it to which Kendall belonged, were no longer wealthy, but they were aristocratic, and were looked upon as one of the oldest and most honored of the “first families”; as often as Ray tried to imagine herself making ready to be the lady of honor at one of their dinner parties she shivered and thought of her father’s burdens. Certainly they must not marry yet, not for a long time, probably; and the probability grew to certainty in her own mind as she watched the trend of circumstances. Now here was coming Aunt Elsie to add to the household duties and expenses! Certainly she ought to have that emphatic break with Kendall that would mark her hereafter as one who had a right to be “old maidish.”

Her thoughts were hovering about matters like these when she heard a suppressed shout from Jean: “Ray! Ray Forman! Where on earth are you? They’ve come! Two hours before the train is due. Did you ever! Florence says you are to come down quick and see to them; she hasn’t got the room ready yet, and mother is in the oven.”

[CHAPTER III]
THE ARRIVAL

DESPITE the startling nature of that last announcement Ray answered the summons quietly enough; she was used to Jean. As she neared the living-room she could hear her uncle getting off smooth, easy-flowing sentences that somehow gave the impression of thoughts clothing themselves in words without any help from the speaker.

“Yes, the limited stopped at the junction for us; I didn’t think it would, we were so late getting in; it is interesting to see what diplomacy will accomplish; saved us nearly two hours, which is a good deal of time to a busy man, not to mention having an invalid in charge; but Elsie is a capital traveller in spite of her crutches. I made it as easy for her as I could, of course; parlor car and all that sort of thing; and Dick here did the honors at the station splendidly. I say, Dick, you are almost a man, aren’t you? I was expecting to see a little chap; I had forgotten how time flies; I’ve reached the age, you know, when it is convenient to forget the passing years; let me see—how old are you, anyhow?”

At this point Ray decided to open the door; there seemed to be no use in waiting for a full period. Her entrance simply changed the current of the flow of words.

“Hello! if here isn’t—let me see—not Jean, of course, but—oh, yes, Ray, to be sure. I’m great on mixing names. It is a good while since I’ve seen you, though.”

Ray helped him by reminding that she was away from home on the occasion of his visit three years before.

“That’s so,” he said, briskly. “I remember all about it now; you are the oldest girl, of course. Bless me! Elsie, think of Joe’s oldest being a fresh young girl yet in her teens.”

Ray, in all the dignity of her twenty years, only laughed; Uncle Evarts never really desired information, and she felt that he neither knew nor cared how old she was. Words flowed on.

“It is bewildering, anyhow; here is Dick sprung up in the night like a mushroom! I should never have known him in the world if he hadn’t claimed me for an uncle. By the way, Dick, what is it to be? law, medicine or theology?”

But Derrick, every line of his pressing annoyance, muttered something about not being absolutely driven toward any of them, and made his escape under cover of his mother’s entrance. She had emerged from the “oven” with her face much flushed and a dab of flour on her left cheek. Her brother-in-law effervesced again at sight of her.

THE STREAM OF COMPLIMENT WAS STILL FLOWING

“Upon my word, Louise, I can’t see that you look much older than you did the day Joe brought you home a bride. How do you contrive to cheat old Father Time so successfully? Look at those cheeks, Elsie.”

“They must be reflecting the cook stove,” Mrs. Forman managed to say, while the stream of compliment was still flowing.

Ray, in the background waiting for a chance to carry off her aunt and minister to her comfort, felt her face rippling into laughter as she recalled a remark of her mother’s, made several years before: “If Evarts ever said anything he would be worth listening to, he has so many words at his command.”

It would have been hard to find two people more unlike in every respect than were Evarts Forman and his sister Elsie. He was above medium height, straight as an arrow and well proportioned; he wore his clothes with the air of one who knew they were faultless, and gave one the impression of being always at ease, knowing to a fraction what ought to be said or done next. His sister was much below the average height of women, and was used to being described by her sister Caroline as “dumpy.” She had scant gray hair unbecomingly arranged, and although her blue eyes must once have been bright they had faded and were growing dim. Her dress was plain to severity, and was unmistakably the work of a country dressmaker. As for her conversational powers, on this day at least, she seemed to have almost no words; but, after all, that was not strange when her brother Evarts was present to furnish volumes.

In the privacy of Jean’s room that evening her disrespectful nephew expressed his opinion to his boon companion.

“Isn’t she just about the homeliest critter you ever looked at? Turned-up nose, and no eyes to speak of, and the oddest little wad of gray hair perked on top of her head. I can’t imagine how she and Aunt Caroline ever came to be sisters.”

“She is mortally homely,” Jean agreed. “But then she isn’t the least bit like Aunt Caroline in other ways, and I’m sure that is a comfort. I can see why she didn’t plan to go and live with her, can’t you? Aunt Caroline would simply crush her!”

“She would sit down on her, all right; you can bet your life on that. If it weren’t for having her around all the time spoiling everything, a fellow could be almost glad that she is to have mother, instead of a woman like Aunt Caroline; mother will be lovely to her.”

Jean sighed. “Yes, and so will Ray. I don’t see why people who belong to the same family are so different; there are regular sets of us; mother and Ray make one set and you and Florence and I the other.”

“Father doesn’t belong to the family, I suppose!” Derrick chuckled. Jean joined the laugh, then grew suddenly serious.

“Father doesn’t belong to the sets,” she said. “He is all by himself; he tries, but he doesn’t rise above things as mother and Ray do. I suppose it is because responsibilities rest heavier on him. Dick, what is going to become of us all, anyhow? Can’t you see that things are growing harder all while? I’m just afraid that by the time you and I get ready to take hold there won’t be any father to help.”

“Don’t croak!” said Derrick, in a changed and as cross a tone as he ever used to this favorite sister. He left her at once, but did not whistle as he went down stairs, nor for a full half-hour afterwards.

Uncle Evarts, notwithstanding his joy over those two hours saved from the train, thus enabling him to continue his journey that same evening, changed his mind and stayed over night. His brother and sister-in-law gave him their newly acquired room and took refuge in Derrick’s, and that long suffering youth “slept around in any old place” to quote his own language. Also Uncle Evarts stayed for morning family worship and led in prayer, and the two who were sure to talk things over together discussed him from this standpoint on their way to school, Jean leading with:

“Do you know, Dick, I like Uncle Evarts less when he prays than at any other time?”

Derrick laughed. “I ‘like him less’ so much on all occasions,” he said, “that I don’t often stop to particularize. What is the special grievance about him then?”

“Oh, I don’t know; I can’t put it into words; he has a lot of high-sounding phrases that would mean really wonderful things if one only meant them at all; but when he uses them, they seem like cathedral bells tolling simply to be heard; just sound, you know, no soul behind them. I can’t describe the feeling they give me, but—father’s prayers never seem like that.”

Derrick’s only reply was a request that she would have the goodness not to mention father and Uncle Evarts in the same sentence, because he didn’t think he could stand their being brought so close together. On the whole it was evident that their uncle’s suave efforts at comradeship had not been successful. Ray and Florence were less outspoken, but they, as well as the younger ones, had resented their uncle’s attempts to be sympathetic with their mother.

“It is too bad, Louise,” he had said, a few minutes before his departure, “to have Elsie foisted upon you in this way. I told Caroline that I thought she ought to plan to have her for part of the winter, at least; but I made no impression; she insisted that it was no more than fair for Joe to take his turn first, since he was the oldest. She doesn’t realize how hard up poor Joe is; I didn’t myself, until I saw him this time; grows old fast, doesn’t he? Poor old chap! Between you and me, Louise, Caroline is a bit tempted think of her own comfort first. Well, I wish I could do something myself, but you know how my hands are tied. Elsie is a good soul, she won’t make any more trouble than she can help; and perhaps by another year something will turn up. Who knows? That’s my car, isn’t it?”

As they watched him spring briskly to the platform, and wave his hand in graceful farewell, Florence gave vent to her pent-up feelings.

“I must say I detest that man! He talks about Aunt Elsie as though she were a bale of cotton to be dumped down wherever it happened. Wouldn’t I hate to be beholden to him! ‘Poor Joe’ indeed! what right has he to speak in that way of father? Didn’t you feel like choking him, mother?”

But Mrs. Forman’s only reply, after a moment of eloquent silence, was:

“I am glad your father had to go down town early.”

For the next two days the Forman family struggled with the problem of being and doing just as usual, with the consciousness always upon them that there was an added member who made all things different. They succeeded fairly well. Ray spent most of the time with her aunt, unpacking and regulating, and stooping over boxes and baskets and reaching up to hooks and shelves that were all beyond the powers of the little lame woman. Much planning had been necessary in order to lodge many things in a small space, for Aunt Elsie had certainly brought many things. Jean grumbled over that fact in her characteristic way: “Whatever Uncle Evarts and Aunt Caroline meant, that little woman has evidently planned to spend her life with us.” And Derrick replied, with energy:

“Humph! they did the planning. You bet your life those two know what they are about. They mean that ‘poor Joe’ shall do his share with a vengeance! If I were father I wouldn’t stand that sort of thing.”

However, the two who had done most of the settling were well pleased with the result. At the Friday evening dinner table Aunt Elsie announced that, thanks to the most efficient helper a lame woman ever had, she was all settled, ready to begin to live. She had owned, however, to being very tired and had gone early to her room. The younger Formans speculated as to whether that might be her usual habit, every one of them owning to the hope that such was the case; though Ray did her best to keep the cheerful side of the innovation in the forefront. Aunt Elsie, she said, had been ever so nice, all day; not a bit fussy or overparticular. She had loads of pretty things, but she had not been afraid to have them touched, and had been cheery and genial throughout the weariness of unpacking and settling. She had not lost her good nature even when none of her boxes would fit on the shelves where she wanted them to go. But Florence was not to be comforted.

“Why shouldn’t she be good-natured?” she had demanded, fiercely. “You did all the work and she had only to sit and look on and give orders. Oh, you needn’t tell me; I know as well as though I had watched the whole performance that you worked all day like a slave, and fixed every last thing exactly as she wanted it. I only hope she has sense enough to realize what a downy nest she has dropped into! Father treats her as though she were a queen, and mother—well, we all know what mother is.”

“But think of poor Ray,” Jean interrupted. “She lives almost in the same room, ready to be summoned any minute, day or night. The rest of us can go on living much as usual except at meal times, and prayers, and a few such functions, but Ray will have her all the time. I’m glad I’m not in your shoes, Ray Forman! It’s a blessed thing that I am not the oldest daughter; I couldn’t play the part worth a cent; but you will do it beautifully.”

Still, on this Saturday morning things were not quite as usual anywhere in the Forman household. Or rather they were, as Jean expressed it, “a good deal more ‘usual’ than they usually were.” Trouble had begun when it was admitted that Ray must go to town to look after errands that only she could manage. Jean had complained that the business in hand would keep Ray in town “the whole blessed day,” and her mother had looked so grave when she acknowledged this that it had immediately called forth another outburst.

“Mother remembers that she must get through with Saturday’s baking and frying and all other extra-ing without the help of her efficient eldest daughter, and only Jean to take her place. O mommie! I’m almost sorrier for you than I am for myself.” Whereupon she flew at her mother with kisses and caresses, petitioning her not to worry; that she, Jean, would help all day like a tornado; see if she didn’t.

Florence’s dismay over the state of things had been too deep for words. She felt that they all ought to know without her saying it that she would be by far the greatest sufferer through Ray’s absence. A function of importance in her social world was to take place that evening. A classmate who was about to marry into aristocratic circles had invited a very select few to meet the prospective groom, and Florence, being one of the elect, had her best gown partially ripped ready to undergo a severe refurbishing. Of course, there had been a tacit understanding that Ray was to assume the lion’s share of the work. Mrs. Forman had not for several years been able to do much sewing, and she frankly admitted that since Ray had come to the front she had lost what little skill in that direction she had possessed. No wonder that Jean, having almost smothered her mother, had turned to the trouble-faced seamstress with another doleful:

“Poor Florence! I’m awfully sorry for you; if I only knew how, I could help you like a whirlwind.”

“I have no doubt but you would, and be almost as useful!” was Florence’s answer.

She was too troubled to be other than sarcastic over the doubtful offer. It was just at that moment that the thump of a crutch was heard in the hall.

[CHAPTER IV]
THE “GLORIFIED” DRESS

“OH, DEAR!” Florence groaned, as her ear caught the sound; “if Aunt Elsie is coming in here I may as well give up; I can’t sew, with her looking on. Why can’t she stay in her room when we have given up the best one in the house for her use!”

“Good-by,” said Jean, with a spring toward the door that led to the kitchen. “I belong to the culinary department, thank goodness. Poor Florrie!”

The thump of the crutch stopped and presently the door of the dining-room swung back to admit Aunt Elsie.

“I thought likely you were sewing,” she said, cheerfully. “I brought my thimble and spectacles, thinking there might be something that I can do.”

Florence made haste to explain. “Oh, thank you, but this is just some fussy sewing that I have to do myself; I’m fixing over an old dress, and of all stupid tasks I consider that the worst.”

“It is pretty,” said her aunt, examining the goods with critical eye, “and the color just suits you, doesn’t it? You will have to hem it over again, won’t you? That is done by hand, of course?”

“I’m sorry to say that it is,” Florence admitted, with a sigh. “The machine won’t do for this thin stuff; I tried a little bit and it looked horrid.”

“Do you ever hem with ravellings? In goods of this kind they generally do nicely; here is a scrap that would be just right to ravel out; suppose I hem a little bit, and see if it looks well?”

Florence gave reluctant consent, with doubt in her heart; she was what Jean called “fussy” about her work, and she had never sewed with “ravellings”; she resolved to watch closely and be ready with objections at the earliest possible moment. But while the volunteer was choosing a needle Derrick came ready to do the errand that had been asked of him, and to ask innumerable questions. Just what was it she wanted at Wheeler’s and where was the thing to be matched. Must he undertake to match it, or would the clerk do it for him. Just exactly how much did she want, and what would it probably cost. If he did not find it at Wheeler’s was he to go elsewhere, and if so, where. Florence had to hunt through boxes and baskets for the desired samples, then go to her mother for advice as to measurements, then find her pocketbook for Derrick to use, as he announced himself “dead broke.” When she at last turned from him to give belated attention to ravellings her remarks were all exclamatory:

“You don’t mean that you have done it! Have you been all round that skirt already? Why it is only a few minutes since you began! Do look at it! The stitches are not there at all! I mean I can’t find one of them! How perfectly lovely! I just dreaded that hem! Aunt Elsie, I believe you are a witch!”

“It doesn’t take long to hem with ravellings,” Aunt Elsie said when she was given a chance to speak. “I saw the stitches weren’t going to grin, and as you were busy with Derrick I pushed right on. Now suppose you let me put in these sleeves? I’m a master hand at sleeves; I took lessons how to do them, of a first-class dressmaker’s.”

Florence, who was not a “master hand” and had dreaded the sleeves almost as much as the hem, relinquished them with a relieved sigh, and boasted of them the next time she made a dash to the kitchen to consult her mother.

“Don’t you think, they came right the first time! and even Ray has to rip them out once. She goes at things as though she had been a dressmaker all her life; and she’s quick, too.”

When the garment reached the trying-on stage, and Florence was posing before the sideboard mirror, her aunt, who had worked steadily and skillfully on other than hems and sleeves, asked a question that was even then puzzling the young girl:

“How are you going to finish the neck? Is it to be faced, or bound, or what?”

“I guess it will have to be ‘What,’” Florence said, trying to laugh. “I don’t know how to fix it, I am sure. I suppose I shall use the old collar again in some fashion; it is too small, and not the right shape anyway, but it will have to do.”

Her aunt reached for the collar in question and examined it critically.

“It could be set on with a bit of lace,” she said, presently. “Wide lace, you know, falling below it, and a narrower bit above, of the same pattern; you have seen them made in that way, haven’t you?”

“Oh, yes, I have; that is the very latest style; but you see the trouble is I haven’t the lace. Mother used to have a piece of nice lace that she lent to us girls on occasions, but it was in that dreadful trunk that was lost in the railroad accident. It seems sometimes as though nearly everything we had that was worth much was in that burned-up trunk.”

“I wonder if I haven’t a bit that would do for this dress,” the elder lady said, thoughtfully. “I believe I have, if there is enough for the sleeves, too. Suppose you climb up to that highest shelf in my closet and get the little green box at the left corner, and we’ll measure and see.”

Florence made a vigorous protest and, failing, went with a reluctance that covered dismay. What had she done now! She heard herself trying to argue with Aunt Elsie over a strip of cheap lace to prove, without hurting her feelings, that it was not suitable for the dress in question. What if she should fail and be obliged to accept it?

“I won’t do it!” she told herself, firmly, as she climbed after the green box. “She has helped me a lot, and I’m thankful, but I simply can’t reward her by tricking myself out in her old cotton finery; not if she were father’s mother, instead of his half-sister. Oh, dear! If Ray were only at home, she would help me out of this scrape. I don’t care! We can’t sacrifice everything in order to save her feelings. I’m just going to tell her that I can’t use it.”

But in less than half an hour from that resolute moment this same maiden was standing before the sideboard mirror, aglow and eyes very bright, “tricked out” in Aunt Elsie’s “finery,” and what she was telling her was this:

“Oh, Aunt Elsie! I never saw anything so lovely in all my life! It is as fine as a cobweb, and so wide! Dear me! I should like to have Frances Powell see this; she thinks she has the most wonderful piece of old lace in the world; it was her grandmother’s and it is beautiful, but nothing like this! May I just show it to her some time? Of course, I do not mean on the dress; I couldn’t think of wearing it. Oh, I wouldn’t for the world! It is much too fine for me.”

Said Aunt Elsie, stepping back to view it with a critic’s eye: “It would look better, I believe, dropped a little lower on the shoulder; just let me try it. There, isn’t that more graceful? Stand still, dear, until I pin it all around, then I can sew it on in a minute. Nonsense, child, of course you will wear it; that is what it is for; I’m glad there is enough for the sleeves; I was a little bit afraid—but there is plenty.”

The lace went to the party that same evening, accompanied by a radiant girl, who, as she surveyed herself in the mirror confided to Jean that, thanks to Aunt Elsie, she felt herself to be really well dressed for the first time in her life.

“The idea!” Jean said, “when you have worn that same dress dozens of times.”

“Yes, but you see it has been glorified; it never looked like this before.”

Jean regarded her gravely, with a faraway look in her eyes; evidently her thoughts were elsewhere. Unconsciously to herself she began to sing softly:

“I shall rise again at morning’s dawn, I shall put on glory then.”

“What on earth!” began Florence, wheeling about to stare at her. Jean laughed shamefacedly.

“Evidently you don’t think my selection fits the occasion,” she said. “It was your ‘glorified’ dress that did it. That is a song we are to sing next week at vespers; it is a very catchy tune; I find myself humming it half the time.” Whereupon she sang again:

“I’m travelling toward life’s sunset gate, I’m a pilgrim going home.”

“To be sure, you are a pilgrim going away from home,” she broke off to say, “but you have ‘put on glory’ all the same. You look too lovely for anything, as Florry Mitchell is always saying. Aunt Elsie ought to give you that lace; it just fits you. How queer for her to have such a costly cobweb as that! I wonder how it feels to be near that other home?” She was humming again:

“For the glow of eventide I wait, I’m a pilgrim going home.”

“How dreadfully you mix things!” Florence shivered a little as she spoke.

“Well,” said Jean, with a graver face than one often saw her wear, “things are dreadfully mixed in this life. You know that Helen Darroll who stayed to dinner here the night it rained so hard? She has been planning for more than a week for that dancing party to-night at Dr. Willard’s; couldn’t think or talk of anything else; and just before school closed to-day she had a telegram that her father had been thrown from his horse and killed.”

“Oh, how dreadful!” said Florence.

“Isn’t it? So sudden! She is travelling home to-night, instead of dancing. I wonder if her father has ‘put on glory’? I hope he was a good man.”

Florence gave her sister another quick, searching look, and after a moment said: “You are a very strange girl, Jean, do you know it?”

“Why?” Jean asked. “What is there strange about hoping that a man who had to exchange worlds without a moment’s warning was ready for it? Florence, the way that lace falls back from your arms is exquisite; I shouldn’t wonder if you would be the most becomingly dressed girl there. Isn’t it time you were off? The moon has risen. Oh, look! isn’t it a glorious night!”

She drew back the curtain to gaze on the shimmering glory, and Florence went downstairs to the sound of her voice trilling:

“For the glow of eventide I wait, I’m a pilgrim going home.”

An hour later Derrick came clattering downstairs and bounced into the family sitting-room with an imperious question: “Where is Ray?”

When his mother explained that Kendall had taken her out for a moonlight walk, he growled: “Oh, bother Kendall! He is always carrying her off just when a fellow needs her most. I can’t make any sense of this mess and I’ve gone over it fifty times, at least. I wish there wasn’t such a language as Latin, anyhow, or else I wish that a fellow like me had—”

At that point he stopped, and his mother took up the unfinished sentence: “Had a mother who knew enough to help him out of trouble, was that what you were about to say?”

“Not much it wasn’t!” with a quick little flash from expressive eyes. “I’ve got exactly the kind of mother I like best; but I wish I had brains enough to see through a thing, without everlasting drudgery; I spend more time on my Latin than all the fellows do put together, and then don’t more than half know. Ray, now, could tell in two minutes what all this fool stuff is about. Why can’t I see it?”

Then from a voice just behind him came a surprising suggestion: “What if you should let me have a peep at it, young man? I used to be called a fairly good Latin scholar once; I may not have forgotten all of it.”

Derrick turned suddenly. Up to that moment he had not noticed that his Aunt Elsie was in the room; and he thought he would not have been more astonished if the bronze figure supporting the droplight had offered to help him.

“Do you know Latin?” he asked, with an emphasis on the pronoun that marked his amazement. His aunt laughed good-naturedly.

“Try me,” she said, as she reached for the book in his hand. “I used to be somewhat familiar with this book, which is open to the very page over which I once puzzled, for—I believe I won’t confess how long; but I’ll venture to guess that this second paragraph is the one that you sit up nights with.”

“You’ve guessed right the first time,” he said, gleefully. “If you can help a fellow out of a snarl like that, I shall conclude you are a witch. None of the boys can make sense of it.”

As he spoke he kicked a hassock toward her and seated himself on it; Aunt Elsie, book in hand, bent toward him, and for the next half hour the two were absorbed. At the end of that time, Derrick gave a triumphant whistle.

“There you are!” he stopped to say, pounding his translation for emphasis. “Straight as preaching; never believed it could be done. I say, Aunt Elsie, you’re a trump! Who would have thought that old—I mean that a woman of your age would—would be interested in Latin!”

Aunt Elsie laughed. “I used to be wonderfully interested in it,” she said. “Very few of the girls in our neighborhood studied Latin; it wasn’t as common then as it is now, but I wanted to do everything that my brother did. The brother you are named for was the best Latin scholar in our school.”

At this Derrick frowned slightly, and cast a quick look at his aunt as he said: “I was named for my grandfather.”

“I know—and for your Uncle Derrick as well; your father’s brother; you know of him, of course?”

By this time they were alone; Jean, after yawning over her books for a while, had declared herself too sleepy to study, and said good-night. A few minutes afterwards Mrs. Forman had slipped away to see if her husband’s head was better, leaving the two absorbed ones to their Latin. Derrick glanced around to make sure that no one else was within hearing before admitting that he had heard of such a person, but had never felt any great desire to claim him as an uncle.

“Then you do him very great injustice,” his aunt said, quickly. “He was worthy of your respect, as well as your love; you didn’t know him, of course, but I did; I knew him as a child, and he was the dearest big brother a little girl ever had; if you knew all that I do about him you would be proud to claim Derrick Forman as an uncle.”

Derrick, the nephew, made flourishing capital D’s all over the blank half page in his exercise book and considered.

[CHAPTER V]
A SENSE OF HONOR

PRESENTLY he asked a question: “Wasn’t there something pretty shady about him, Aunt Elsie? I never knew just how it was, only—well, mother told us kids not to ask father any questions about his oldest brother because it made him feel badly to even think of him, and I know we got to feeling that he wasn’t the sort of uncle to be proud of, to say the least.”

Then he had a new view of his aunt; her gray eyes flashed as he had not dreamed that they could, and her voice rang: “Do you mean me to understand that that old story is hanging around yet! Doesn’t Joseph—doesn’t your father know that there wasn’t a word of truth in it?”

“I don’t know much about it, Aunt Elsie, that’s a fact. Mother told us children once, a good while ago when I was just a kid, about the stolen money, and how they came to know that father’s brother took it; and—” Aunt Elsie interrupted him:

“They didn’t know any such thing; it was false, Derrick, utterly false; your Uncle Derrick did not take a penny of that money any more than you did, and they drove him wild trying to make him confess a thing that he had never done.”

“Well, anyhow, they thought he did; and he ran away and stayed away, didn’t he? And isn’t that just exactly the way a thief would act? What made him do that, if he was all right?”

His aunt spoke more quietly, she was evidently holding herself in check, but her voice was as firm as before:

“It seems almost beyond belief that you haven’t been told all about it. I can not think that your father doesn’t understand; it doesn’t seem possible that Evarts and Caroline could have been so cruel as not to—but there! I mustn’t judge them; they must have thought they were doing right.”

Derrick’s interest was on the increase; his own opinion of Uncle Evarts and Aunt Caroline was such that he could fancy them doing anything they pleased which would further their own interests. He closed his Latin reader with a slam and, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, in the attitude of attention, said eagerly:

“Begin at the beginning, Aunt Elsie, and tell me all about it. Honestly, I never heard much about father’s home folks and the time when he was a boy.”

“The beginning of this,” said his aunt, “dates back to the time your Uncle Derrick chose for a friend a boy who wasn’t worthy of his friendship. I suppose you never heard of Horace Beach? I knew him well, and never liked him, although he was smooth-spoken enough, and tried to pet me; it seemed as though I always knew he was a kind of sneak. He was several years older than Derrick, and had great influence over him; mother used to say that Horace Beach could make him do anything he chose. The last time the fellow was at our house was a Christmas vacation; Derrick coaxed to be allowed to bring him home with him, because his mother was in Europe and he was lonesome; and he had word to go out and join her, before the vacation was over. If she had only sent a few days sooner poor Derrick’s life would have been very different.”

“What happened?” questioned the listener. He saw that his aunt was in danger of losing herself among mournful memories.

“Why, father’s old college friend, Colonel Banks, was visiting us, and one evening he showed us children a very curious leather belt that he said he always wore when travelling; he was a great traveller. I think he had been twice around the world, and that was a great feat in those days. The belt was to carry his money; gold, he always had, for his journey. He said he would be for weeks together where there was no bank or exchange office, or any way to get money. It is all arranged differently now, but he grew to liking that way so much that he said he carried his money about with him even when he was where banks were handy. He had it filled with gold that night; he showed it to us. The bag had an opening at one end that shut with a spring lock, and one who did not understand couldn’t have opened it. Then he showed us how it clasped about his waist, with another spring, that he said sometimes he couldn’t unlock, himself, without a good deal of fussing. I guess I remember every word he said about it, and every other thing that happened that night and the next day; it seemed sort of burned into me; and I wasn’t quite nine years old, either. While he was showing us this, and talking about it, a neighbor came to call; and very soon after that the boys, Derrick and Evarts and Horace, asked to be excused, and went up stairs. As Derrick was passing out, Colonel Banks motioned to him and gave him the money belt to carry to his room. He told him to open the valise that he would find there and lay it inside—and that was the last that was ever seen of that money belt.”

Derrick, the listener, whistled sharply to express his dismay.

“Yes,” said his aunt, as though he had spoken, “it is dreadful, but it is true. There is no use in my trying to tell about the days that followed; I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. Poor Derrick acted so very strangely; at least it seemed so to us at the time. He admitted that he took the belt from Colonel Banks’ hand, but he said that he did not take it up stairs and did not know what had become of it.”

“Rot!” said young Derrick. “How could he expect anybody to believe such a story?”

“I believed it,” Aunt Elsie said, firmly. “I was only a little bit of a girl, but I never believed for a single minute that your Uncle Derrick stole that belt; not a bit more than I believe it now.”

“And didn’t he, Aunt Elsie, honor bright?”

The boy had a flash from the gray eyes then. “Didn’t I tell you that there wasn’t a word of truth in that wretched story? That dreadful boy, who was three older than Derrick and ought never to have been his companion, was the thief; and Derrick, because of a false sense of honor, wouldn’t even explain the circumstances that would have helped to find out the truth. Don’t you know that there are boys trustworthy in all other ways who have a mistaken idea of friendship? They think they must shield a friend even to the extent of doing injustice to others, no matter what he has done.”

Derrick Forman flushed under this remark and shot a quick questioning glance at his aunt; did she possibly surmise how sorely he was being tempted just now in that very direction? A “false sense of honor,” was it really that? How much did she know, anyhow? Whatever she knew or surmised she made no sign, and continued her story:

“Well, that is just what poor Derrick did; stuck to it that he was telling the truth, and did not know anything about that money belt. And as he was used to being believed he was amazed to find that they doubted him. In a moment of horror over the discovery that some people actually thought him a thief, he did, as you said, the very worst thing for himself that he could do—ran away.”

“Was my father at home then?” interrupted Derrick.

“Oh, no; Joseph had been gone from home for two years, when Derrick went away.”

“But didn’t father go back home for vacations and such things?”

“Not very often, nor for long at a time; he was with your Grandfather Stuart, you know. I don’t think he was very happy at home. He and Evarts didn’t get on well together.”

“I don’t wonder at that!” young Derrick interrupted under his breath. His aunt took no notice.

“And mother—mother didn’t understand boys very well; Evarts was the only boy she ever had, you know, and Joseph and Derrick were different from him, and so—well, I needn’t go into that; but after I was grown up I had a feeling that perhaps mother was—was a little hard on Derrick; I don’t know; she meant to be good.”

Aunt Elsie’s eyes had dimmed and her voice faltered. Her nephew was watching her with keen, searching eyes. In his heart was a thought that, given voice, would have been: “If she goes back on her own mother I won’t have anything to do with her.” He was conscious of a distinct feeling of relief when her voice dropped into silence. Still he was eager for more and urged her on with a question:

“Didn’t grandfather believe what his son said? My father would take my word in spite of all the evidence against me that could be trumped up.”

“You have a good father, Derrick; I hope you will see to it that you honor the trust he has in you. Your Uncle Derrick made a mistake; I can’t deny that; he would be the last one to want me to; and father, I suppose, was stern; he was the very soul of honor himself, and there had never been a stain on the family name; he didn’t mean to be oversevere, and mother didn’t but—” That last little word was eloquent, especially when followed by silence.

Derrick shook himself impatiently and sat up straight; his heart was beginning to insist on some one besides Aunt Elsie who would champion his Uncle Derrick; she was not noticing him; she sat with folded hands and eyes dropped; apparently she had gone back into the past. After a moment she began again:

“As a matter of fact your Uncle Derrick did not run away, he simply ran after that young man, Horace Beach. I don’t believe he ever meant to stay away; he just thought, boy fashion, that he would find Horace and get everything straightened out. You see, it was this way: When they went out of the room that night Derrick remembered that he must look after the furnace before he went upstairs, so he handed the money belt to Horace and told him to lay it in Colonel Banks’ room, and that was the last he ever saw of it! He wouldn’t mention that part, because he thought it would be casting suspicion on his friend; and Horace was to leave at daylight the next morning, so he had a good chance, you see, to make away with it.”

“Well, didn’t he follow the sneak, and make him own up?” young Derrick asked, in great excitement.

“Oh, yes, he followed him, all right; that was why he seemed to be running away; he went off in a hurry, without explaining anything to anybody. But he was too late in New York; the steamer that was to carry Horace out to his mother in London had ready sailed. So, then, the poor boy wrote to him, and it must have been a pitiful letter; he begged Horace to own up to it for the sake of father—Derrick just about worshipped his father, and he knew it was breaking his heart to think that a son of his had become a thief!”

“But, Aunt Elsie, I don’t understand it at all! How did you find all this out, and when?”

“I didn’t find it out until long afterwards. Horace Beach answered the poor boy’s letter with an indignant denial of any knowledge of the money belt, even hinting at the belief that Derrick had taken it himself, and was trying to put the blame on him! And it wasn’t until death came to the rescue, years and years afterwards, that we knew the truth. Horace Beach, on his dying bed, had the whole story written out, his confession, you know, and his terrible remorse for the whole thing. The minister, who had been coming every day to see him, wrote it out just as he told it, and as soon as Horace was gone he sent it to Derrick. But by the time it reached him Horace had been in the grave for more than a month; you see, nobody knew just where he was, and that good minister went to all sorts of trouble to have him traced.”

“And when did my uncle come home?”

“He never came home, Derrick; we never saw him again. You see, he was dumbfounded over Horace’s answer to his appeal; he had fully counted on his making everything right; up to that time he believed in his friend, and thought that it could all be accounted for by a confession of carelessness on his part. Then he began to realize how his own rushing away would look; and it seemed to him that he could not go back without any proof of his innocence, since they had not believed his word; so he just stayed away. He was only a boy, remember, and couldn’t realize how much better a straight-forward course all through would have been. He got a chance to work his way out West, about as far as he could get, in those days, and there he stayed; all the time hoping and believing that something would happen to make it possible for him to go home with an unstained name. But the confession came too late for father. When at last Derrick wrote the full account of it to mother, sending her copies of the minister’s letters, father had been gone for a long time. Derrick knew that; he managed somehow to get news of the family though we never any of us heard from him. He wrote to mother several times, after that; and sent her the $100 that was in the money belt, with interest, to be forwarded to Colonel Banks. Horace Beach himself had looked out for that part. He hadn’t the excuse of poverty to plead for his theft; they had plenty of money; but it seems he had got into some scrape and made debts that he knew his guardian would not allow, and this money belt full of gold came to him as an easy way out of trouble. He knew he was going abroad for a long stay, and he knew that Colonel Banks was a rich man; it seems he thought that there wouldn’t be much fuss made about so small a sum as a hundred dollars, and that by the time he came home it would all have been forgotten. The dishonesty of it did not seem to trouble him; he must have been very strangely brought up.”

“So my grandfather died before it was straightened out,” interrupted Derrick. “That’s too bad! But they let everybody know about it then, of course? Why wasn’t father told?”

“That,” said Aunt Elsie, earnestly, “is a part that I can not understand. Evarts had the business of the family to attend to, and we supposed, of course—Derrick, are you quite sure that your father doesn’t know about it?”

“Of course I am, dead sure; it isn’t two months since he reminded me, one night in talk we were having, that I had my grandfather’s name, which no breath of dishonor had ever sullied, so far as he was concerned; and while he didn’t say anything out plain about Uncle Derrick—he never has to me—he knew that I understood where the dishonor came in. That wouldn’t have been one bit like father, if he had known all this.”

“No,” said Aunt Elsie, “it wouldn’t.” Then she set her lips in a way that made her firm chin look firmer still, as she added: “He shall know it, though, before I am a day older.”

It was at that moment that Mrs. Forman returned to remind Derrick that it was growing late and that he had a hard day’s work coming.

“That’s so,” the boy said, springing up: “And I’ve got a whole page to copy into my exercise book before I sleep!” Whereupon he kissed his mother in haste and disappeared.

[CHAPTER VI]
RAKING UP AN OLD DISGRACE

AUNT ELSIE was true to her word, and on the evening following her long talk with her nephew, Derrick, came her opportunity.

Mr. Forman was on the couch in the little sitting-room resting from a day of hard work, while his wife read the evening papers aloud. His sister was the only other listener.

In the midst of the reading Mrs. Forman was summoned to the aid of a neighbor who was ill, and Aunt Elsie offered to read in her stead. This was done with such acceptance that Mr. Forman was moved to compliment. “It isn’t often I find a reader who is as satisfactory as Louise,” he added. “Most of the young people read too fast, and those who don’t, mumble their words.”

“I had a long apprenticeship,” his sister said. “I used to read to father by the hour. Through that long illness of his it seemed as though I was always reading to him. We began reading aloud when we were little children, you know. Don’t you know how father used to have Derrick in to read to him every night after supper? Derrick was a good reader for a boy, wasn’t he?”

Mr. Forman made a sound as of assent, and she went on sturdily: “You don’t remember those evenings as well as I do, I suppose; you went away from home so early. Derrick was naturally a stay-at-home boy; he never seemed to care to run with the other boys, evenings, as Evarts did, and he seemed to understand just what parts of the paper father wanted, without being told. I have always been thankful that father had so much comfort with his boy.”

If she hoped to awaken sympathetic response she was disappointed. Mr. Forman remained silent, with his face shaded from view.

But Aunt Elsie’s resolve was strong within her, and although she stood somewhat in awe of this grave brother, of whom she had seen very little since her childhood, she went bravely on:

“Doesn’t it seem almost too bad that Derrick’s whole life should have been shadowed and he separated from all the people he loved just through a mistake?”

Forced to speak, Mr. Forman made his words few:

“I should have to call it by a graver name than ‘mistake.’”

“For Horace Beach, you mean? Yes, of course, his part was sin; though I don’t think even that was premeditated; it was just a sudden temptation that he was too flabby to resist. But I was thinking of father, and—” There was a second’s hesitation, then she added, bravely: “And mother. It was such a dreadful mistake on their part not to trust a boy who had never deceived them. Of course, he was wrong, as well as foolish, in hurrying away without confiding in them, but even that grew out of the natural nobility of his nature, and he never would have done it in the world if father had shown confidence in him. I heard your Derrick say, last night: ‘My father would take my word in spite of all the evidence against me that could be trumped up,’ and I’m sure you would. If our father could only have seen it his duty to trust the boy in spite of appearances, all these wasted years need not have been.”

Mr. Forman pushed aside his hand-screen and came to a sitting posture, with a quick motion and an incisive question:

“Elsie, what in the world are you talking about?”

Despite the boy Derrick’s strongly expressed belief, that ought to have prepared her, she was startled; what she had thought all through the years still had her in possession. On thinking it over after her talk with Derrick, she had decided that he was mistaken. Joseph simply had not credited his brother’s tardy explanation, and so had chosen to say nothing about it to his children. She had hoped for a chance to ask him if he thought this was fair to his dead brother; but if he really was ignorant of the facts all that she had said must have been hard for him to hear. Now she must do as Derrick said: “Begin at the beginning.” She gave the story in more minute detail than she had for the boy, adding little illuminating incidents gathered from various sources through the years. After the first few minutes Mr. Forman asked no more questions; he dropped back among the cushions and again shaded his eyes from the light. When he finally spoke it was in a voice husky with emotion:

“I would have given my life for that boy. I thought of him as my special charge; my mother gave him into my care with almost her last breath; I was to ‘look after him for her.’ And I tried, I tried hard, as long as I had a chance. When the stepmother was—well, never mind that; I did my best, and I thought he trusted me fully. When he disappeared in that terrible way, making no sign, and giving me no chance to help him all through the years, it broke my heart.”

The silence of years had been broken now; the rush of words that followed, and the strong excitement under which they were spoken, would have amazed those who knew Mr. Forman only as a reserved, silent man, who looked much older than he really was. His half-sister seemed to understand.

“I know—” she said, sympathetically; “it was hard; and it seems too hard that you have never until now known the truth!”

“Why didn’t he write to me?” Mr. Forman broke out again. “Why didn’t he confide in me? He might have known that I—” His voice broke and he stopped abruptly. His sister’s voice was very gentle:

“He made mistakes, Joseph; it was a mistake to go away as he did, with all the appearance of running from discovery; he realized it all, afterwards; but he was very young; he said he was ‘young and foolish and proud.’ I suppose it would be hard for you to imagine just how you would feel or act if people should suddenly refuse to believe your word! I think it sort of stunned him.”

But Mr. Forman had already dropped into silence, his face almost entirely hidden. His sister had never felt a stronger desire to bestow comfort than she did at that moment. Also, there struggled within her another feeling, that of fierce indignation. Memory had taken her suddenly back to an afternoon of long ago when she and her brother Evarts were walking home together from Sunset Rock. A chance word had reminded her of the lost brother, and she had said how strange it was that he had never written to Joseph, his own brother, who used always to be looking out for him. She could almost hear Evarts’ words in quick response:

“It’s a mighty good thing he didn’t. Joe had a terribly soft streak in him where Dick was concerned; the scamp would have been sure to pull the wool over his eyes; it is a great wonder, though, that he didn’t try it. He really did the only decent thing left for him to do after disgracing us all. I didn’t expect it of him. I was looking for years to see him come whining back, by letter, at least, asking for help, and wheedling father out of more money than he spent in searching for him.”

Every word Evarts spoke seemed to have burned into her memory. She recalled how angry he had made her, and how eagerly she tried to say something in Derrick’s favor.

It was years after that talk before she knew of Derrick’s letter to his one brother, and his failure to answer it. That memory also was connected with Evarts, speaking volubly. He was making one of his flying visits to her at the old home and she told him of it.

The fortunate calamity

THE FORTUNATE CALAMITY

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

[CHAPTER I]
THE ANNOUNCEMENT

[CHAPTER II]
PREPARATION

[CHAPTER III]
THE ARRIVAL

[CHAPTER IV]
THE “GLORIFIED” DRESS

[CHAPTER V]
A SENSE OF HONOR

[CHAPTER VI]
RAKING UP AN OLD DISGRACE

The fortunate calamity

THE FORTUNATE CALAMITY

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

[CHAPTER I]THE ANNOUNCEMENT

[CHAPTER II]PREPARATION

[CHAPTER III]THE ARRIVAL

[CHAPTER IV]THE “GLORIFIED” DRESS

[CHAPTER V]A SENSE OF HONOR

[CHAPTER VI]RAKING UP AN OLD DISGRACE

[CHAPTER I]
THE ANNOUNCEMENT

[CHAPTER II]
PREPARATION

[CHAPTER III]
THE ARRIVAL

[CHAPTER IV]
THE “GLORIFIED” DRESS

[CHAPTER V]
A SENSE OF HONOR

[CHAPTER VI]
RAKING UP AN OLD DISGRACE