demanded Mrs.
Gray.

It was voted by acclamation, that Hippopotamus was agreeable to the
company.

"And now, I have a fourth to propose," announced Mrs. Gray. "I think I
should like to import my great-nephew, Tom Gray, from New York. He is a
little older than these boys, perhaps. Nineteen is his age, I think, and
I haven't seen him since he was a child; but he's obliged to be nice
because he bears the name of one beloved by all who knew him."

"Whose name, Mrs. Gray?" asked Nora.

"That of my husband," said the old lady, softly. "The nicest Tom Gray
this world has ever known." And she looked at a portrait over the
sideboard of a very handsome young man dressed in the uniform of an Army
officer.

"He loved his country, my dears, and fought for it nobly. He was a
soldier and a gentleman," went on the old lady proudly, "and I am sorry
he left no son to follow in his footsteps. He was a great hunter and
traveler, too. I used to tell him if he had not loved his family so
dearly, he would certainly have been a gypsy. He liked camping and
tramping, and used to wander off in Upton Woods for hours at a time. He
knew the names of all the trees and birds and animals that exist, I
believe. But he loved his home, too, and no woods had the power to draw
him away from it for long. I used to tell him he had brought a piece of
the forest and put it in our front yard, for he planted all those
beautiful trees you now see growing on my lawn, which my old gardener,
who has been with me since I was first married, cherishes as he would
his own children."

"And is young Tom Gray like him, Mrs. Gray?" interposed Grace.

"I hope so, my dear," sighed the old lady. "If he has inherited the
beautiful traits of his uncle, his wholesome tastes for the outdoors and
nature, he can't help being a fine fellow. But I have not seen my nephew
since he was a child. He has been living here and there all these years,
sometimes in America and sometimes in England. His mother and father are
both dead, and he has been brought up by his mother's unmarried sisters,
who are half English themselves. But he must be a nice boy, even if he
has only one drop of his uncle's blood in his veins."

The girls sighed and said nothing. It was touching and beautiful to see
the old lady's loyalty and devotion after all these years of loneliness;
for her husband had been dead since she was a young woman. Still Mrs.
Gray never brooded. She was always cheerful and happy i