ng which my purpose grew with
every moment I gazed down on her brave but pitiful face, put on my hat
and jacket and went next door.

I found the two old ladies seated in their state apartment making
calculations. At sight of my face they both rose and the "O my dear"
from Miss Charity and the "God bless you, child," from Miss Thankful
showed that both hearts were yet warm. Gradually I introduced the
topic of their nephew; gradually I approached the vital question of the
disgrace.

The result upset all my growing hopes. He had never told them just what
the disgrace was. They really knew nothing about his life after his
early boyhood. He had come home that one time when fortune so suddenly
smiled upon them and they thought then that he would tell them
something; but the disappointment which had followed effectually closed
his lips, and he went away after a few days of fruitless search, not
to approach them again till just before he took up the position of
secretary to their great neighbor. Then he paid them one short and
peremptory visit, during which he was able to impress upon them his
importance, his reasons for changing his name, which they could not now
remember, and the great necessity which this made for them not to come
near him as their nephew. They had tried to do what he asked, but it
had been hard. "Charity," Miss Thankful proceeded to bewail with a
forgetfulness of her own share in the matter, "had not been able to
keep her eyes long off the house which held, as she supposed, our double
treasure." So this was all! Nothing to aid me; nothing to aid Mayor
Packard. Rising in my disappointment, I prepared to leave. I had
sufficient self-control and I hope good feeling not to add to their
distress at this time by any unnecessary revelations of a past they were
ignorant of, or the part this unhappy nephew of theirs had played and
still promised to play in the lives of their immediate neighbors.

Miss Thankful squeezed my hand and Miss Charity gave me a kiss; then as
she saw her sister looking aside, whispered in my ear "I want to show
you something, all of Johnnie's little toys and the keepsakes he sent us
when he was a good boy and loved his aunts. You will not think so badly
of him then."

I let Miss Charity lead me away. A drawer held all these treasures. I
looked and felt to a degree the pathos of the scene; but did not give
special attention to what she thrust under my eyes till she gave me a
little old l