were streaming openly down her cheeks. "Oh, you
poor girl, what have you been through?" she said. "What is it?"

"I 'ain't got to go through anything more," said Eva, still with
that rapt look over Amabel's little, fair head. "He's--come back."

"Eva Tenny!"

"Yes, he has," Eva went on, with such an air of inexpressible
triumph that it had almost a religious quality in it. "He has. He
left her a long time ago. He--he wanted to come back to me and
Amabel, but he was ashamed, but finally he came to the asylum, and
then it all rolled off, all the trouble. The doctors said I had been
getting better, but they didn't know. It was--Jim's comin' back.
He's took me home, and I've come for Amabel, and--he's got a job in
Lloyd's, and he's bought me this new hat and cape." Eva flirted her
free arm, and a sweep of jetted silk gleamed, then she tossed her
head consciously to display a hat with a knot of pink roses. Then
she kissed Amabel again. "Mamma's come back," she whispered.

"Mamma, mamma!" cried Amabel.

Andrew and Fanny looked at each other.

"Where is he?" asked Andrew, in a slow, halting voice.

Eva glanced from one to the other defiantly. "He's outside, waitin'
in the road," said she; "but he ain't comin' in unless you treat him
just the same as ever. I've set my veto on that." Eva's voice and
manner as she said that were so unmistakably her own that all
Fanny's doubt of her sanity vanished. She sobbed aloud.

"O God, I'm so thankful! She's come home, and she's all right! O
God, I'm so thankful!"

"What about Jim?" asked Eva, with her old, proud, defiant look.

"Of course he's comin' in," sobbed Fanny. "Andrew, you go--"

But Andrew had already gone, unlocking the parlor door on his way.
"It's your aunt Eva, Ellen," he said as he passed. "She's come home
cured, and your uncle Jim is out in the yard, and I'm goin' to call
him in. I guess you'd better go out and see her."

Chapter LX

Lloyd's had been running for two months, and spring had fairly
begun. It was a very forward season. The elms were leafed out, the
cherry and peach blossoms had fallen, and the apple-trees were in
full flower. There were many orchards around Rowe. The little city
was surrounded with bowing garlands of tenderest white and rose, the
well-kept lawns in the city limits were like velvet, and
golden-spiked bushes and pink trails of flowering almond were beside
the gates. Lilacs also, flushed with rose, purpled the walls of ol