eks. So I
must get busy. But honestly, Rosanna, I do think it would be pretty hard
for mother to take her in. I could enter her in some good
boarding-school in the city."

"But they wouldn't _love_ her!" cried Rosanna. "Little girls want to be
_loved_."

Uncle Robert cleared his throat. "We will have to see to that part
somehow, won't we, Rosanna? Well, I will talk to mother, and as soon as
we decide I will come and tell you about it. At least I will if you will
promise to take a nap."

"I will if you will promise to wake me up."

"It's a go!" agreed Uncle Robert, and went off whistling.

Mrs. Horton heard the whistle.

"Robert has something on his mind," she said to Mrs. Hargrave. "He has
whistled just like that ever since he was a tiny boy whenever he was
fussed or worried or in mischief. He will come in here and tell me
something; just you see if he doesn't. Well, Robert," as the young man
entered, "did you find Rosanna looking pretty well?"

"Perfectly fine! That child is going to be a beauty some day, mother. I
never realized how pretty she is."

"You have been gone three years, and that makes all the difference in
the world in a child her age," said Mrs. Horton.

"That may be so," conceded Robert. Then he tumbled headlong into his
story, and Mrs. Horton looked at Mrs. Hargrave with an amused smile.

"Well, mother, I want to 'fess up to something. I hope you will not pass
judgment until I have told you the whole story. Do you both care to
listen?"

Both ladies assured him that they would be delighted.

"For a couple of months I was billeted in a little French village near
the border. I was fortunate to find my quarters in a house which must
have been very fine at one time. It was very nearly a ruin when I
arrived but the owner, an old noblewoman, was still living in one corner
and welcomed me as though she was still a woman of leisure and fortune
greeting an expected and distinguished guest. She was certainly a dear
old lady and we were regular pals in no time.

"She did all the work; of course there was no one to help her, except
her little niece, an orphan girl about the age of Rosanna. It must have
been Rosanna that made me notice her, and she was certainly a dainty
little thing. The aunt was miserably ill. I got one of our doctors after
her case, but he said there was no hope. She was simply burned out with
the terrors and hardships she had been through. And her heart was all to
the bad.

"Sh