e'n half to git her to give
up at the end o' this term. With what she's laid by, and what I've got
left, we could live mighty comfertable together. Who's your uncle,
child?" pursued Mrs. Scattergood, who had not lost sight of her main
inquiry.

"Mr. Jason Day. He's my father's half brother."

"Ya-as. I didn't know them Days very well when I lived there. How
long did you say you was goin' to stay in Poketown?"

"I don't know, Ma'am," said Janice, sadly. "Father didn't know how
long he'd be in Mexico----"

"Good Land o' Goshen!" ejaculated Mrs. Scattergood, suddenly, "ain't
that where there's fightin' goin' on right now?"

"Yes'm. That's why he couldn't take me with him," confessed Janice,
eager to talk with a sympathetic listener. "You see, I guess 'most all
the money we've got is invested in some mine down there. The fighting
came near the mine, and the superintendent ran away and left
everything."

"Goodness! why wouldn't he?" exclaimed the old lady, knitting faster
than ever in her excitement.

"But then that made it so my father had to go down there and 'tend to
things," explained Janice.

"What! right in the middle of the war? Good Land o' Goshen!"

"There wasn't anybody else _to_ go," said Janice, sadly. "The
stockholders might lose all they put into it. And our money, too.
Why! we had to rent our house furnished. That's why I am coming East
to Uncle Jason's while father is away."

"Too bad! too bad!" returned the old lady, shaking her head.

"But you see," Janice hastened to say, with pride, "my father is that
kind of a man. The other folks expected him to take hold of the
business and straighten it out. He--he's always doing such things, you
know."

"I see," agreed Mrs. Scattergood. "He's one o' these 'up an' comin'
sort o' men. And you're his darter!" and she cackled a little, shrill
laugh. "I kin see _that_. You're one o' these new-fashioned gals, all
right."

"I hope I'm like Daddy," said Janice, quietly. "Everybody loves
Daddy--everybody depends on him to go ahead and _do_ things. I hope
Uncle Jason will be like him."

With the light breeze fluttering the little crinkles of hair between
her hat and her brow, and an expression of bright expectancy upon her
face, Janice was worth looking at a second time. So Mrs. Scattergood
thought, as she glanced up now and again from her knitting.

"Poketown--Poketown," the girl murmured to herself, trying to spy out
the land ahead