side and endeavored to lead her away. She yielded patiently
enough to my efforts, but, as she turned away, she cast one look at
the mayor and with the tears rolling down her long and hollow cheeks
murmured in horror and amaze:

"He struck me!"

The flash in Mayor Packard's eye showed sympathy, but the demands of the
moment were too great for him to give to those pathetic words the full
significance which I suddenly suspected them to hold. As I led her
tottering figure down the step and turned toward her door I said gently:

"Who was the man? Who was it that struck you?"

She answered quickly and with broken-hearted emphasis "My nephew! my
sister's son, and I had come to give him all our money. We have waited
three days for him to come to us. We thought he would when he knew the
bonds had been found, but he never came near, never gave us a chance to
enrich him; and when I heard he was ill and saw the carriage which had
come to take him away, we could not stand it another minute and so I ran
out and--and he struck me! looked in my face and struck me!"

I folded her in my arms, there and then at the foot of her own doorstep,
and when I felt her heart beating on mine, I whispered:

"Bless God for it! He has a hard and cruel heart, and would make no good
use of this money. Live to spend it as your brother desired, to make
over the old house and reinstate the old name. He would not have wished
it wasted on one who must have done you cruel wrong, since he has lived
so many days beside you without showing his interest in you or even
acknowledging your relationship."

"There were reasons," she protested, gently withdrawing herself, but
holding me for a minute to her side. "He has had great fortune--is a man
of importance now--we did not wish to interfere with his career. It was
only after the money was found that we felt he should come. We should
not have asked him to take back his old name, we should simply have
given him what he thought best to take and been so happy and proud
to see him. He is so handsome and fortunate that we should not have
begrudged it, if he had taken it all. But he struck me! he struck me! He
will never get a dollar now."

Relieved, for the natural good sense of the woman was reasserting
itself, I gave her hands a squeeze and quickly ran back to where the
mayor was holding the door for me.

"She is all right now," I remarked, as I slid by him upstairs; and that
was all I said. The rest must wa