change. Then she began walking softly around the room, examining
everything.

In one corner stood a tall, gilded harp that her grandmother had played
in her girlhood. The heavy cover had kept it fair and untarnished
through all the years it had stood unused. To the child's beauty-loving
eyes it seemed the loveliest thing she had ever seen.

She stood with her hands clasped behind her as her gaze wandered from
its pedals to the graceful curves of its tall frame. It shone like
burnished gold in the soft firelight.

"Oh, gran'fathah!" she asked at last in a low, reverent tone, "where did
you get it? Did an angel leave it heah fo' you?"

He did not answer for a moment. Then he said, huskily, as he looked up
at a portrait over the mantel, "Yes, my darling, an angel did leave it
here. She always was one. Come here to grandpa."

He took her on his knee, and pointed up to the portrait. The same harp
was in the picture. Standing beside it, with one hand resting on its
shining strings, was a young girl all in white.

"That's the way she looked the first time I ever saw her," said the
Colonel, dreamily. "A June rose in her hair, and another at her throat;
and her soul looked right out through those great, dark eyes--the
purest, sweetest soul God ever made! My beautiful Amanthis!"

"My bu'ful Amanthis!" repeated the child, in an awed whisper.

She sat gazing into the lovely young face for a long time, while the old
man seemed lost in dreams.

"Gran'fathah," she said at length, patting his cheek to attract his
attention, and then nodding toward the portrait, "did she love my
mothah like my mothah loves me?"

"Certainly, my dear," was the gentle reply.

It was the twilight hour, when the homesick feeling always came back
strongest to Lloyd.

"Then I jus' know that if my bu'ful gran'mothah Amanthis could come down
out of that frame, she'd go straight and put her arms around my mothah
an' kiss away all her sorry feelin's."

The Colonel fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair a moment. Then to his
great relief the tea-bell rang.

CHAPTER IX.

Every evening after that during Lloyd's visit the fire burned on the
hearth of the long drawing-room. All the wax candles were lighted, and
the vases were kept full of flowers, fresh from the conservatory.

She loved to steal into the room before her grandfather came down, and
carry on imaginary conversations with the old portraits.

Tom's handsome, boyish face had the grea