ucational and financial."

"It seems funny for you to be a school trustee," said Rebecca
contemplatively. "I can't seem to make it fit."

"You are a remarkably wise young person and I quite agree with you," he
answered; "the fact is," he added soberly, "I accepted the trusteeship
in memory of my poor little mother, whose last happy years were spent
here."

"That was a long time ago!"

"Let me see, I am thirty-two; only thirty-two, despite an occasional
gray hair. My mother was married a month after she graduated, and she
lived only until I was ten; yes, it is a long way back to my mother's
time here, though the school was fifteen or twenty years old then, I
believe. Would you like to see my mother, Miss Rebecca?"

The girl took the leather case gently and opened it to find an
innocent, pink-and-white daisy of a face, so confiding, so sensitive,
that it went straight to the heart. It made Rebecca feel old,
experienced, and maternal. She longed on the instant to comfort and
strengthen such a tender young thing.

"Oh, what a sweet, sweet, flowery face!" she whispered softly.

"The flower had to bear all sorts of storms," said Adam gravely. "The
bitter weather of the world bent its slender stalk, bowed its head, and
dragged it to the earth. I was only a child and could do nothing to
protect and nourish it, and there was no one else to stand between it
and trouble. Now I have success and money and power, all that would
have kept her alive and happy, and it is too late. She died for lack of
love and care, nursing and cherishing, and I can never forget it. All
that has come to me seems now and then so useless, since I cannot share
it with her!"

This was a new Mr. Aladdin, and Rebecca's heart gave a throb of
sympathy and comprehension. This explained the tired look in his eyes,
the look that peeped out now and then, under all his gay speech and
laughter.

"I'm so glad I know," she said, "and so glad I could see her just as
she was when she tied that white muslin hat under her chin and saw her
yellow curls and her sky-blue eyes in the glass. Mustn't she have been
happy! I wish she could have been kept so, and had lived to see you
grow up strong and good. My mother is always sad and busy, but once
when she looked at John I heard her say, 'He makes up for everything.'
That's what your mother would have thought about you if she had lived,
and perhaps she does as it is."

"You are a comforting little person, Rebecca,"