f living--pleasant ways--of which she had not dreamed.

Frances was washing the sword fern while she recited her history lesson
to her mother, who was sewing.

"I have come to take you home with me to lunch; I can't do without
you," Mrs. Richards announced.

"Why don't you stay with us--auntie?" Frances spoke the new title
hesitatingly.

"That will be much the better plan, and it will please Jack," added Mrs.
Morrison, cordially, and Mrs. Richards stayed.

The next time she and her nephew were alone together she said to him:
"Jack, there is something I want you to explain to Katherine. I do not
think I could make any difference in my manner of living at my age, even
if I wished to, and I do not; but I am beginning to see that there may
be a charm about--other ways."

"Yes, auntie," as she paused, "the years I have spent knocking about
without any money, having to work hard for Kate and the baby, have been
the happiest and best of my life. There was only one drawback to it
all--" he laid his hand on hers.

She smiled fondly at him. "I want you to say to Katherine that I know I
must seem narrow to her; I realize that she may perhaps fear my
influence upon Frances--" her nephew began a protest, but she silenced
him. "No, let me finish. I have come to see things differently; I want
you to live your own lives in your own way; I want Frances to go on as
she has begun--sweet, generous, unconscious, and I only ask to be near
you."

When Mr. Morrison repeated this to his wife, tears rose to her eyes. "I
haven't been fair to her," she said. "I have been afraid, but I shall
not be any more. I shall love her dearly."

CHAPTER TWENTIETH.

CAROLINE'S STORY.

"Well, I suppose you have heard the news?"

Caroline's pleasant face was more beaming than usual as Emma ushered her
into the room where Mrs. Bond sat with her sewing, the General being
safe in dreamland.

"No, I haven't heard any so far as I remember," was her reply.

Emma gave the visitor a chair, and retreated with her books to a corner
behind her mother, in the hope that she might not be sent away. She knew
something had happened.

"Then you don't know that Mr. Morrison has turned out to be our Mr.
Jack, Miss Frances' nephew?"

"Who is her nephew, did you say?" asked Mrs. Bond, going on with her
work.

"Mr. Morrison, to be sure, the father of little Frances, bless her!"

"He is Mrs. Marvin's nephew?"

"Yes," said Caroline, laughing; "only she