is so strange to have anyone go away forever that I think you can't take
it in somehow. And Miss Arabella was always so good. She said if she had
been younger she should never have agreed to my coming. And all papa's
relatives were here, and someone who wrote to her and settled about the
journey."

She glanced up inquiringly.

"Yes. That's Uncle Winthrop Adams. He isn't an own uncle, but it seems
somehow more respectful to call him uncle. Mr. Adams would sound queer.
And he will be your guardian."

"A--guardian?"

"Well, he has the care of the property left to your father. There is a
house that is rented, and a great plot of ground. Cousin Charles owned
so much land, and he never was married, so it had to go round to the
cousins. He was very fond of your father as a little boy. And Uncle
Winthrop seems the proper person to take charge of you."

Doris sighed. She seemed always being handed from one to another.

She was sitting on the stool now, and when Betty slipped into the vacant
chair she put her arm over the child's shoulder in a caressing manner.

"Do you mean--that I would have to go and live with him?" she asked
slowly.

Warren laughed. "I declare I don't know what Uncle Win would do with a
little girl! Miss Recompense Gardiner keeps the house, and she's as prim
as the crimped edge of an apple pie. And there is only Cary."

"Cary is at Harvard--at college," explained Betty. "And, then, he is
going to Europe for a tour. Uncle Win teaches some classes, and is a
great Greek and Latin scholar, and translates from the poets, and reads
and studies--is a regular bookworm. His wife has been dead ever since
Cary was a baby."

"I wish I could stay here," said Doris, and, reaching up, she clasped
her arms around Betty's neck. "I like your father, and your mother has
such a sweet voice, and you--and him," nodding her head over to Warren.
"And since that--the other lady--doesn't live here----"

"Aunt Priscilla," laughed Betty. "I think she improves on acquaintance.
Her bark is worse than her bite. When I was a little girl I thought her
just awful, and never wanted to go there. Now I quite like it. I spend
whole days with her. But I shouldn't spend a night in praying that
Providence would send her to live with us. I'd fifty times rather have
you, you dear little midget. And, when everything is settled, I am of
the opinion you will live with us, for a while at least."

"I shall be so glad," in a joyous, relieved t