r such things in our family. I never
could understand your objections; for, that you had objections, I could
not help seeing."

Milly laughed.

"I find that such objections as I entertained were not well founded,"
she answered.

"Perhaps so, but that does not tell me what they were," I insisted.

"Well," she said, "I was a little afraid that Jim might feel that you
were trespassing on his preserves; and your field for charity is so
large, and his so small, that I did not wish him to imagine that he was
interfered with."

"Well, that is disposed of, for he is delighted with my co-operation,"
I said. "Now, what else was it?"

Milly was reluctant to say; but I persisted, and at last she
answered,--

"I feared that it was only--that you would soon tire of it, Amy, and
that the experiment would then prove good neither for you nor for
Matty; but in that too I hope I was wrong."

After events left no room to prove whether or no I should have been
long steadfast to my purpose of caring for poor Matty; that was taken
out of my hands.

Jim's report from school had been one of unbroken credit for weeks
now,--in conduct, that is; and to those who knew the boy's fiery,
impulsive, and, until he fell under Milly's care, untrained, nature,
the record was a remarkable one. In his classes, he was doing fairly
well, and making progress of which he had no need to be ashamed, but
his lessons were by no means always perfect; and, happily, it was not
so much to them that we looked, as the chief means for his gaining
uncle Rutherford's prize, for Theodore's standing in this respect was
generally a better one than his own.

I had noticed, and Milly at length came to do so, that if the record
was an unusually good one, and he received an extra amount of praise,
he still always appeared sheepish and ill at ease, and as though he had
something on his mind which he was half-inclined to make known. But he
never came to the point of doing so, and Milly had ceased to ask him.

We were kept pretty well informed, too, of the progress and standing of
Theodore Yorke; partly by uncle Rutherford's interest in the matter and
the inquiries he made of the teachers every week, and also by the
captain's pride in his grandson, whom he considered a prodigy of
learning. The boy was certainly bright and clever, as was Jim; and the
two kept fairly even in their record, both for lessons and conduct.

But while Jim continued to grow in popularity with b