mamma; she was sick a long time, and we were scared to death
about her, but she's better now; she can sit up most all
day.

Oh, Jack! Father _cried_! I'm sure he did, and he almost ran
out of the room, and didn't say anything to anybody all day.
But I was determined I'd find you. I shan't tell you how I
did it, but Uncle John helped me, and now, Jack, he says he
wants just such a fellow as you to learn his business, and
he'll make you a very good offer. And, Jack, that's my
turkey--my Winnie--and nobody but Betty knows anything about
this box and this letter. I send you all my money out of the
savings bank (I didn't tell _anybody_ that), and I _want_
you to come home. You'll find the money under the
cranberries. I thought it would be safe there, and I knew
you'd eat them all, you're so fond of cranberries. I didn't
tell anybody because I want to surprise them, and besides,
let them think you came home because you got ready. It's
nobody's business where you got the money anyway.

Now do come right home, Jack. You can get here in a week's
time, I know.

Your affectionate sister,

JESSIE.

Jack laid the letter down with a rush of new feelings and thoughts
that overwhelmed him. He sat there for hours; he knew nothing of time.
He had mechanically turned the cranberry jar upside down and taken
from the bottom, carefully wrapped in white paper, fifty dollars.

A pang went through him. Well did he know what that money represented
to his sister; by how many sacrifices she had been saving it for a
year or two, with the single purpose of taking the lessons from a
great master that were to fit her to teach, to take an independent
position in the world, to relieve her father, who had lost a large
slice of his comfortable income, and who was growing old and sad under
his burden. She had often talked it over with Jack.

Now she had generously given up the whole to him, all her hopes and
dreams of independence; and he--he who should have been the support of
his sister, the right arm of his father--he had basely deserted.

These thoughts and many more surged through his mind that long
afternoon, and when Tom returned as the shadows were growing long, he
sat exactly as he had been left.

On Tom's entrance he roused himself. There was a new light in his eye.

"Come, Tom," he said, "dinner's waiting. You must be hungry by this