ame automobile, driven at
a speed at which the most conscientious of traffic guardians could not
complain, passed them slowly at the left. The young man made an effort
to conceal the fact that he was surveying the girl in the victoria, but
Alice cut short his suspense.

"It is! it is!" she cried, eagerly; and with the recognition made
certain the boy shut off his power, and, springing out of the car, was
beside her before even the discreet coachman could draw up to the curb.

"I thought I couldn't be mistaken--" he began.

"But you weren't sure," Alice finished for him. "You were trying to
remember a little girl with a pigtail down her back and horrid freckles
all over her face--now, weren't you?"

"If that's the way you really looked, I evidently wasn't as fussy about
such things then as I am now," he laughed. "All I remember is that you
were the dandiest little playmate I ever had."

The unexpected compliment caused Alice to turn quickly to Mrs. Gorham.

"This is Allen Sanford, Eleanor; and this, Allen, is my mother, sister,
and dearest friend all in one."

"And my name's Pat," added the child, refusing to be ignored and holding
out her hand cordially.

The boy was even more embarrassed by the unexpected meeting with the
second Mrs. Gorham than to find Alice developed into so lovely and
fascinating a young woman. He had always thought of Alice's step-mother,
when he had thought of her at all, as of a type entirely different from
this slender, attractive woman only a few years older than Alice
herself. There was a self-possession about Mrs. Gorham, a quiet dignity,
which made the difference in their ages seem greater than it really was;
yet, had he not known, Allen would have thought them sisters. His father
was sceptical when he heard of Gorham's second marriage: "It's bigamy,
that's what it is," were Stephen Sanford's words. "Gorham is married to
his business. Everything he touches turns into gold. Business to him is
what a great passion for a woman would be to one man, or a supreme
friendship to another; but the lever which moves Robert Gorham is
neither love nor steel; it is cold, hard cash."

All this flashed through Allen's mind in that brief moment of silence
after the introduction, but the thoughts of at least one of the two
women had been equally active. To Alice this chance meeting recalled a
time in her life sanctified by the loss of her mother, later made easier
to look back upon by the rare sympa