fter so many years. You don't look any
older than when I saw you last."

Miss Deborah knew very well that she did look older, but still she
was pleased by the compliment. Is there any one who does not like to
receive the same assurance?

"I'm afraid your eyes aint very sharp, Ferdinand," she said. "I feel
I'm gettin' old. Why, I'm sixty-one, come October."

"Are you? I shouldn't call you over fifty, from your looks, aunt.
Really I shouldn't."

"I'm afraid you tell fibs sometimes," said Aunt Deborah, but she said
it very graciously, and surveyed her nephew very kindly. "Heigh ho!
it's a good while since your poor father and I were children
together, and went to the school-house on the hill. Now he's gone,
and I'm left alone."

"Not alone, aunt. If he is dead, you have got a nephew."

"Well, Ferdinand, I'm glad to see you, and I shall be glad to have
you pay me a good long visit. But how can you be away from your
place so long? Did Mr. Stewart give you a vacation?"

"No, aunt; I left him."

"For good?"

"Yes."

"Left a place where you was gettin' a thousand dollars a year!" said
the old lady in accents of strong disapproval.

"Yes, aunt."

"Then I think you was very foolish," said Deborah with emphasis.

"Perhaps you won't, when you know why I left it."

"Why did you?"

"Because I could do better."

"Better than a thousand dollars a year!" said Deborah with surprise.

"Yes, I am offered two thousand dollars in San Francisco."

"You don't say!" ejaculated Deborah, letting her stocking drop in
sheer amazement.

"Yes, I do. It's a positive fact."

"You must be a smart clerk!"

"Well, it isn't for me to say," said Ferdinand, laughing.

"When be you goin' out?"

"In a week, but I thought I must come and bid you good-by first."

"I'm real glad to see you, Ferdinand," said Aunt Deborah, the more
warmly because she considered him so prosperous that she would have
no call to help him. But here she was destined to find herself
mistaken.

CHAPTER XVIII.

AUNT AND NEPHEW.

"I don't think I can come here till to-morrow, Aunt Deborah," said
Ferdinand, a little later. "I'll stay at the hotel to-night, and
come round with my baggage in the morning."

"Very well, nephew, but now you're here, you must stay to tea."

"Thank you, aunt, I will."

"I little thought this mornin', I should have Henry's son to tea,"
said Aunt Deborah, half to herself. "You don't look any like him,
Fer