with Crackers and negroes as spectators; and
only a demented woman, a little child, and black Jake and Mandy Ann as
mourners. The mourners here were Amy and Howard, Eloise and Jack, and
next to him a plain-looking, elderly woman, who, Mrs. Biggs told every
one near her, was old Mrs. Smith, Eloise's supposed grandmother from
Mayville.

Eloise had sent for her, and while telling the story of deception and
wrong which had been practised so long, and to which the mother listened
with streaming eyes, she had said, "But it makes no difference with us.
You are mine just the same, and wherever I live in the future, you are
to live, too, if you will."

Mrs. Smith had smiled upon the young girl, and felt bewildered and
strange in this grand house and at this grand funeral, unlike anything
she had ever seen. It seemed like an endless line of carriages and foot
passengers which followed the Colonel to the grave, and when the
services were over, a few friends of the Colonel, who had come from a
distance, returned to the house, and among them Mr. Ferris, the lawyer,
who had been the Colonel's counsel and adviser for years, and managed
his affairs. This was Howard's idea. He could not rest until he knew
whether there was in the lawyer's possession any will or papers bearing
upon Amy. When lunch was over he took the old man into his uncle's
library, and said, hesitatingly, "I do not want to be too hasty, but it
is better to have such matters settled, and if I have no interest in the
Crompton estate I must leave, of course. Did my uncle leave a will?"

Lawyer Ferris looked at him keenly through his glasses, took a huge
pinch of snuff, and blew a good deal of it from him and some in Howard's
face, making him sneeze before he replied, "Not that I know of; more's
the pity. I tried my best to have him make one. The last time I urged it
he said, 'There's no need. I've fixed it. Amy will be all right.' I was
thinking of her. If there is no will, and she wasn't adopted and wasn't
his daughter, it's hard lines for her."

"But she was his daughter," came in a clear, decided voice, and both the
lawyer and Howard turned to see Eloise standing in the door.

Rain was beginning to fall, and she had come to close a window, with no
thought that any one was in the library, until she heard the lawyer's
last words, which stopped her suddenly. Where her mother was concerned
she could be very brave, and, stepping into the room, she startled the
two me