en she was a year old.

"Oh!--is that you, Uncle George? Yes,--just as soon as I do up my back
hair." The voice came from the top of the stairs--a lark's voice singing
down from high up. "Father's out and--"

"Yes--I know he's out; I met him on his way to the club. Hurry now--I've
got the best news in the world for you."

"Yes--in a minute."

He knew her minutes, and how long they could be, and in his impatience
roamed about the wide hall examining the old English engravings and
colored prints decorating the panels until he heard her step overhead
and looking up watched her cross the upper hall, her well-poised,
aristocratic head high in air, her full, well-rounded, blossoming body
imaged in the loose embroidered scarf wound about her sloping shoulders.
Soon he caught the wealth of her blue-black hair in whose folds her
negro mammy had pinned a rose that matched the brilliancy of her cheeks,
two stray curls wandering over her neck; her broad forehead, with
clearly marked eyebrows, arching black lashes shading lustrous,
slumbering eyes; and as she drew nearer, her warm red lips, exquisite
teeth, and delicate chin, and last, the little feet that played hide and
seek beneath her quilted petticoat: a tall, dark, full-blooded, handsome
girl of eighteen with an air of command and distinction tempered by a
certain sweet dignity and delicious coquetry--a woman to be loved even
when she ruled and to be reverenced even when she trifled.

She had reached the floor now, and the two arm in arm, he patting her
hand, she laughing beside him, had entered the small library followed by
the old butler bringing another big candelabra newly lighted.

"It's so good of you to come," she cried, her face alight with the joy
of seeing him--"and you look so happy and well--your trip down the bay
has done you a world of good. Ben says the ducks you sent father are the
best we have had this winter. Now tell me, dear Uncle George"--she had
him in one of the deep arm-chairs by this time, with a cushion behind
his shoulders--"I am dying to hear all about it."

"Don't you 'dear Uncle George' me until you've heard what I've got to
say."

"But you said you had the best news in the world for me," she laughed,
looking at him from under her lashes.

"So I have."

"What is it?"

"Harry."

The girl's face clouded and her lips quivered. Then she sat bolt
upright.

"I won't hear a word about him. He's broken his promise to me and I will
never