were mistress there instead of an intruder.

Once she swept the hair back from her forehead with the motion Frank
knew so well, and then the lump came into his throat again, and he
steadied himself against the mantel, while he looked curiously at the
young girl, making herself so much at home and seeming so well pleased
with her surroundings.

'Take her to the nursery now. I must see to that coroner,' he said to
his wife, adding: 'Harold must go too, or there will be the Old Harry to
pay.'

''Ess, 'ess,' came decidedly from the child, who went willingly with
Harold, and was soon ushered into the large upper room, which was used
as both nursery and school-room, for Mrs. Tracy could not allow her two
sons, Tom and Jack, to come in contact with the boys at school; so she
kept a governess, a middle-aged spinster, who, glad of a home, and the
rather liberal compensation, sat all day in the nursery and bore
patiently with Tom's freaks and Jack's dullness: to say nothing of the
trouble it was to have the three-year-old Maude toddling about and
interfering with everything.

'Hallo!' Tom cried, as his mother came in, followed by Harold and Jerry.
'Hallo, what's up?' And throwing aside the slate on which he had been
trying to master the difficulties of a sum in long division, he went
toward them, and said: 'Has the coroner come, and can't I go and see the
inquest? You said maybe I could if I behaved, and I do, don't I, Miss
Howard?'

Just then he caught sight of Jerry, and stopping short, exclaimed:

'By Jingo! ain't she pretty! I mean to kiss her.'

And he made a movement toward the little face, which looked up so shyly
at him. But his mother caught his arm and held him back, as she said,
sharply:

'Don't touch her, there is no tolling what you may catch. I wanted her
to go to the kitchen, the proper place for her, but your father insisted
that she should be brought here. I hope, Miss Howard, you will see that
she does not go near the children.'

'Yes, Madam,' Miss Howard replied, 'but I am sure there can be no
danger. She looks as clean and sweet as a rose.'

Miss Howard was fond of children, and she held out her hand to the
little girl, who seemed to have a most wonderful faculty for
discriminating between friends and enemies, and who went to her readily,
and leaning against her arm, looked curiously at the group of
children--at Tom, and Jack, and Maude, the latter of whom wished to go
to her, but was restrained