e laces, and Aunt Mary, only too ready to
capitulate, surrendered. She held out her arms. Tears welled up in the
Frenchwoman's eyes as she abandoned her charge.

"Pauvre mignonne!" she cried.

But Mrs. Holt rebuked the nurse sharply, in French,--a language with
which neither Aunt Mary nor Uncle Tom was familiar. Fortunately,
perhaps. Mrs. Holt's remark was to the effect that Honora was going to a
sensible home.

"Hortense loves her better than my own children," said that lady.

Honora seemed quite content in the arms of Aunt Mary, who was gazing
so earnestly into the child's face that she did not at first hear Mrs.
Holt's invitation to take breakfast with them on Madison Avenue, and
then she declined politely. While grossing on the steamer, Mrs. Holt had
decided quite clearly in her mind just what she was going to say to the
child's future guardian, but there was something in Aunt Mary's voice
and manner which made these remarks seem unnecessary--although Mrs. Holt
was secretly disappointed not to deliver them.

"It was fortunate that we happened to, be in Nice at the time," she said
with the evident feeling that some explanation was due. "I did not
know poor Mrs. Randolph Leffingwell very--very intimately, or Mr.
Leffingwell. It was such a sudden--such a terrible affair. But Mr. Holt
and I were only too glad to do what we could."

"We feel very grateful to you," said Aunt Mary, quietly.

Mrs. Holt looked at her with a still more distinct approval, being
tolerably sure that Mrs. Thomas Leffingwell understood. She had cleared
her skirts of any possible implication of intimacy with the late Mrs.
Randolph, and done so with a master touch.

In the meantime Honora had passed to Uncle Tom. After securing the
little trunk, and settling certain matters with Mr. Holt, they said
good-by to her late kind protectors, and started off for the nearest
street-cars, Honora pulling Uncle Tom's mustache. More than one
pedestrian paused to look back at the tall man carrying the beautiful
child, bedecked like a young princess, and more than one passenger in
the street cars smiled at them both.

CHAPTER II. PERDITA RECALLED

Saint Louis, or that part of it which is called by dealers in real
estate the choice residence section, grew westward. And Uncle Tom might
be said to have been in the vanguard of the movement. In the days before
Honora was born he had built his little house on what had been a farm on
the Olive Street Ro