tes, and when the carriage was ready, she came
down in her hat and furs, and we went at a merry pace down Franklin
Street to the boarding-house in which Jessy was living. As we drove up
to the pavement, the door of the house opened and my little sister came
out, dressed for walking and looking unusually pretty.

"Why, Ben, she's a beauty!" said Sally, in a whisper, as the girl
approached us. To me Jessy's face had always appeared too cold and
vacant for beauty, in spite of her perfect features and the brilliant
fairness of her complexion. Even now I missed the glow of feeling or of
animation in her glance, as she crossed the pavement with her slow,
precise walk, and put her hand into Sally's.

"How do you do? It is very kind of you to come," she said in a measured,
correct voice.

"Of course I came, Jessy. I am your new sister, and you must come and
stay with me when I am out of mourning."

"Thank you," responded Jessy gravely, "I should like to."

The cold had touched her cheek until it looked like tinted marble, and
under her big black hat her blond hair rolled in natural waves from her
forehead.

"Are you happy here, Jessy?" I asked.

"They are very kind to me. There's an old gentleman boarding here now
from the West. He is going to give us a theatre party to-night. They say
he has millions." For the first time the glow of enthusiasm shone in her
limpid blue eyes.

"A good use to make of his millions," I laughed. "Do you hear often from
President, Jessy?"

The glow faded from her eyes and they grew cold again. "He writes such
bad letters," she answered, "I can hardly read them."

"Never forget," I answered sternly, "that he denied himself an education
in order that you might become what you are."

While I spoke the door of the house opened again, and the old gentleman
she had alluded to came gingerly down the steps. He had a small, wizened
face, and he wore a fur-lined overcoat, in which it was evident that he
still suffered from the cold.

"This is my brother and my sister, Mr. Cottrel," said Jessy, as he came
slowly toward us.

He bowed with a pompous manner, and stood twirling the chain of his
eye-glasses. "Yes, yes, I have heard of your brother. His name is well
known already," he answered. "I congratulate, sir," he added, "not the
'man who got rich quickly,' as I've heard you called, but the fortunate
brother of a beautiful sister."

"What a perfectly horrid old man," remarked Sally, some minut