st of my
opportunities and called freely on their resources for entertainment.

"Yes, love, I am happy to say he is. He has not been here now since you
were quite a little girl, eight years ago. You were just eight."

"Mother," I continued coaxingly, for I loved a story, "why are you so
fond of him, he is only your step-brother?"

"Step-brother!" she exclaimed. "He has been more than a brother to me.
He has been a father, far far more," she added sadly, "than my own
father was. He is, you know, nearly twenty years older than I."

"Will you tell me something about it?" I asked softly.

It was twilight in July, and I lay at the open French window which led
from the drawing-room to the lawn, and from which we had a view across
the park, far out over the country, bounded by the twinkling lights of
Southampton in the distance, for our house was situated on an elevation
in one of the loveliest spots in the New Forest. Dinner was over and
father was in the library clearing off some pressing work, as he had to
leave home for a day or two. It seemed to me the very time for
reminiscences.

"I think I will," said my mother slowly and thoughtfully.

She was a small, graceful woman, of about forty then, whose soft, dark
hair was just beginning to be touched with grey, but her face was as
fresh and dainty-looking as a girl's; a strong, sweet face that I loved
to look at, and that now, that she is no longer with me, I love to
remember.

"You ought to know what he did for your mother, and how much you owe him
indirectly. I should like him, too, to feel that he has his reward in
you."

My curiosity was excited, for I had never heard my mother speak like
that before, and so I settled myself to listen, and to enjoy what she
had to say.

"My childhood was a very wretched one, Cora," she began. "For that
reason I have spoken little of it to you, but endeavoured, assisted by
your father, to make yours the very opposite to it as far as lay in my
power, and that I could do so is due, I may say wholly, to your Uncle
Tone, who taught me to be happy myself, and to endeavour to make others
so."

I slipped my hand into my dear mother's; she was the best, most loving,
and wisest mother that ever lived.

"My mother died when I was born," she continued, "and my father took his
loss so to heart that he shut himself off from all society, grew silent
and morose, and," she added after some hesitation, "became in time a
drunkard."

She br