ess only; but he was the last person to impart
such data to a curious public. What they did see was that he at once
assumed a fatherly protectorship over his little niece, and she became
his sole charge and care in life. Though she ate and slept at home,
tripped alone to school, and to church each Sunday hand in hand with
Uncle Jess, his store was her playhouse and his love her happiness until
girlhood was reached. Often on summer days he left the store, utterly
disregarding trade, and with her took long rambles over the island,
hunting gulls' eggs and gathering shells, flowers, or berries. He built
her a boat and taught her to row it in the little harbor, talked to her
for hours of the great world and its people, of the planets and their
motions, of right and wrong, of religion and God. He aided her in her
lessons, teaching her more and faster than she learned at school; and
when her fingers could reach across the strings of his old brown violin,
he taught her the lore of its wondrous voice.

And so the happy years of her girlhood passed, until now, a woman grown,
she had learned the lesson of loving, and had come to him with her
unspoken plea for help. Never had she appealed to him in vain, and never
would, so long as his keen mind was active and heart normal. For weeks
he pondered over this most difficult of all problems, and then he acted.

"I've got a leetle matter to talk over with yer mother to-night, Mona,"
he said, "an' if ye don't mind ye might go an' make a call on one of the
neighbors. It's a sorter peculiar business 'n' it's better we're 'lone
till it's settled."

And it was "peculiar," and so much so that Jess talked for one hour with
Mrs. Hutton in an absent-minded way, while he studied the cheerful open
fire, cogitating, meanwhile, how best to utter what he had to say, while
she sat sewing diligently, on the opposite side of the sitting-room
table.

"Letty," he said at last, "hev ye noticed Mona hain't been overcheerful
the last three months, an' seems to be sorter broodin' over suthin'?"

"I have, Jess," replied Mrs. Hutton, looking up; "and it's all due to
notions that Mr. Hardy's put into her head 'bout her playin' an'
praisin' her so much. I've knowed all 'long her wastin' time fiddlin'
wouldn't serve no good purpose in the long run."

It wasn't an auspicious opening to the subject uppermost in the mind of
Jess, but he paid no heed to it. "Letty," he continued calmly, "fiddlin'
hain't nothin' t