r mother
would have wished it so. She was going to leave school. That was her
work.

Mattie Tiffany, with her passion for picturesque philanthropies, knew
right well that she had neglected somewhat the plain, unpicturesque
philanthropy which lay close to her hand. She had neither the heart
nor the conscience to deny Eleanor this sacrifice. In that hour, there
grew up between the childless aunt and the motherless niece an
understanding which those three years of first infancy, when Eleanor
had lain on her breast like a daughter, had never brought at all.

In three months more, during which time Billy Gray reformed, lapsed,
reformed, lapsed again, the wiser head of Judge Tiffany found the way.
The Sturtevant estate, nearly fifty thousand dollars in all, lay in
his hands as trustee. Upon Eleanor's majority, it was to be divided,
one third accruing to her, the surviving grandchild, and two-thirds to
Mattie Tiffany.

Of late, Judge Tiffany had been turning his mind toward the Santa
Clara Valley fruit farms, and especially toward the Santa Lucia tract.
He had made the struggle with his own world and lost; that is another
story. At sixty-eight, life held little for him except an easy descent
into the grave after a career in which he had played only too little.
That leisurely style of farming, which would permit him to keep an
eye on his dwindling law practice, attracted him. And nothing, it
seemed to him, would better further the intention, now awakened in all
of them, to do something for Billy Gray. He bought, therefore, two
tracts, already planted and bearing in diversified fruits; one of
forty acres, with a little cottage home, for Eleanor; the other of
eighty acres, with a large bungalow, for himself.

So far as his intentions toward Billy Gray went, Judge Tiffany made
this venture with little hope. Billy Gray had tried the Keeley Cure
twice. After each course of treatment, he had "beaten it," although he
must gargle whisky, through a deadly sickness, in order to get back
into the habit again. His was that variety of drunkenness which is not
only an unnatural thirst, but also a mania to forget. There on the
Santa Lucia tract, Billy Gray, sure of a living, might tilt at
happiness and success with that independent writing which is the
chimera of all newspaper men until the end of their days; and Eleanor
might help him make the fight.

The next four years--they were a monotony of variety. For her broken,
incompetent fa