ood that
Elizabeth had never told Worth anything about her family's resentment
of her marriage. It was not a pleasant thing to have to explain it all
to Elizabeth's child, but it must be done.

"I think, my dear," she said gently, "that I will have to tell you a
little bit of our family history that may not be very pleasant to hear
or tell. Perhaps you don't know that when your mother married
we--we--did not exactly approve of her marriage. Perhaps we were
mistaken; at any rate it was wrong and foolish to let it come between
us and her as we have done. But that is how it was. None of us
approved, as I have said, but none of us was so bitter as your Uncle
Paul. Your mother was his favourite sister, and he was very deeply
attached to her. She was only a year younger than he. When he bought
the Greenwood farm she went and kept house for him for three years
before her marriage. When she married, Paul was terribly angry. He was
always a strange man, very determined and unyielding. He said he would
never forgive her, and he never has. He has never married, and he has
lived so long alone at Greenwood with only deaf old Mrs. Bree to keep
house for him that he has grown odder than ever. One of us wanted to
go and keep house for him, but he would not let us. And--I must tell
you this although I hate to--he was very angry when he heard we had
invited you to visit us, and he said he would not come near the Grange
as long as you were here. Oh, you can't realize how bitter and
obstinate he is. We pleaded with him, but I think that only made him
worse. We have felt so bad over it, your Aunt Ellen and your Uncle
George and I, but we can do nothing at all."

Worth had listened gravely. The story was all new to her, but she had
long thought there must be a something at the root of her mother's
indifferent relations with her old home and friends. When Aunt
Charlotte, flushed and half-tearful, finished speaking, a little
glimmer of fun came into Worth's grey eyes, and her dimple was very
pronounced as she said,

"Then, if Uncle Paul will not come to see me, I must go to see him."

"My dear!" cried both her aunts together in dismay. Aunt Ellen got her
breath first.

"Oh, my dear child, you must not think of such a thing," she cried
nervously. "It would never do. He would--I don't know what he would
do--order you off the premises, or say something dreadful. No! No!
Wait. Perhaps he will come after all--we will see. You must have
patie