"Why! Is he a Christian Scientist?"

For answer Eloise laughed low but heartily. "Nat a Christian Scientist!" she mused aloud. "Not exactly, my little cousin!"

"Then should I like him as well as Dr. Ballard?" asked Jewel incredulously.

"I don't know. Tastes differ."

"Does he like horses?" asked the child.

"He knows everything about a horse and a yacht except how to pay for them, poor boy," returned Eloise.

"Is he poor?"

"Yes, he is poor and expensive. It is a bad combination; it is almost as bad as being poor and extravagant. His mother is a widow, and they haven't much, but what there was she has insisted on spending on him—that is, all she could spare from the doctor's bills."

"She needs Science then, doesn't she?"

"Jewel, that would be one thing that would keep me from wanting to be a Scientist. What's the fun of being one unless everybody else is? My mother, for instance."

"Yes; but then you'd find out how to help her."

Eloise glanced at the child curiously. She thought it would be interesting to peep into Jewel's mind and see her estimate of Aunt Madge.

"My mother has a great deal to trouble her," she said loyally.

"Yes, I know she thinks she has," returned the child.

Again her response surprised her companion.

"I'll take you as you are, Jewel," she said. "I'm glad you're not grown up. You're fresher from the workshop."



CHAPTER XXI

AN EFFORT FOR TRUTH

When Eloise spoke in the ravine of talking with her grandfather, it was because for a few days she had been trying to make up her mind to an interview with him. A fortnight ago she would have felt this to be impossible; but subtle changes had been going on in herself, and, she thought, in him. If her mother would undertake the interview now and take that stand with Mr. Evringham which Eloise felt that self-respect demanded, the girl would gladly escape it; but there was no prospect of such a thing. Mrs. Evringham was only too glad to benefit by her father-in-law's modified mood, to glide along the surface of things and wait—Eloise knew it, knew it every day, in moments when her cheeks flushed hot—for Dr. Ballard to throw the handkerchief.

The girl wished to talk with Mr. Evringham without her mother's knowledge, and the prospect was a dreaded ordeal. She felt that they had won his contempt, and she feared the loss of her own self-control when she should come to touch upon the sore spots.

"What would you do, Jewel," she asked the next morning, after they had read the lesson; "what would you do if you were afraid of somebody?"

"I wouldn't be," returned the child quickly.

"Well, I am. Now what am I going to do about it?"

Anna Belle, who always gave unwinking attention to the lesson, was in Jewel's lap, and the child twisted out the in-turning morocco foot as she spoke.

"Why, I'd know that one thought of God couldn't be afraid of another," she replied in the conclusive tone to which Eloise could never grow accustomed.

"Oh, Jewel, child," the girl said impatiently, "we'd be sorry to think most of the people we know are thoughts of God."

"That's because you get the error man mixed up with the real one. Mother explains that to me when we ride in cable cars and places where we see error people with sorry faces. There's a real man, a real thought of God, behind every one of them; and when you remember to think right about people every minute, you are doing them good. Did you say you're afraid of somebody?"

"Yes, and that somebody is a man whom I must talk to."

"Then begin right away to know every minute that the real man isn't anybody to be afraid of, for God made him, and God has only loving thoughts; and of course you must be loving all the time. It'll be just as easy by the time you come to it, cousin Eloise!"

The girl often asked herself in these days why she should begin to feel unreasonably hopeful and lighter hearted. Her mother no longer complained of her moods. Mrs. Evringham laid the becoming change in her daughter's expression to the girl's happiness in discovering that she did reciprocate Dr. Ballard's evident sentiments.

"Eloise is so high minded," thought the mother complacently. "She would never be satisfied to marry for convenience, like so many;" and considering herself passingly astute, she let well enough alone, ceased to bring the physician's name into every conversation, and bided her time.

One morning Mr. Evringham, coming out of the house to go to town, met Eloise on the piazza.

"You are down early," he said as he greeted her, and was passing on to the carriage.

"Just one minute, grandfather!" she exclaimed, and how her heart beat. He turned his erect form in some surprise, and his cold eyes met the girlish ones.

"She's a stunning creature," he thought, as the sunlight bathed her young beauty; but his face was impenetrable, and Eloise nerved herself.

"Were you thinking of going golfing this afternoon?" she asked.

"Yes."

"I thought you said something about it at dinner last evening. Would you let me go with you?"

Mr. Evringham, much astonished, raised his eyebrows and took off the hat which he had replaced.

"Such a request from youth and beauty is a command," he returned with a slight bow.

Tears sprang to the girl's eyes. "Don't make fun of me, grandfather!" she exclaimed impulsively.

"Not for worlds," he returned. "You will do the laughing when you see me drive. My hand seems to have lost its cunning this spring. Shall we say four-thirty? Very well. Good-morning."

"Now what's all this?" mused Mr. Evringham as he drove to the station. "Has another granddaughter fallen in love with me? Methinks not. What is she after? Does she want to get away from Ballard? Methinks not, again. She's going to ask me for something probably. Egad, if she does, I think I'll turn her over to Jewel."

Eloise's eyes were bright during the lesson that morning.

"It's to-day, Jewel," she said, "that I'm going to talk with that man I'm afraid of."

"Never say that again," returned the child vehemently. "You are not afraid. There's no one to be afraid of. Do you want me to handle it for you?"

"What do you mean, Jewel?"

"To declare the truth for you."

"Do you mean give me a treatment for it?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Do you know that seems very funny to me, Jewel?"

"It seems funny to me that you are afraid, when God made you, and the man, and all of us, and there's nothing but goodness and love in the universe. Fear is the belief of evil. Do you want to believe evil?"

"No, I hate to," returned Eloise promptly.

"Then you go away, cousin Eloise, and I will handle the case for you."



"Oh, are you going golfing?" said Mrs. Evringham that afternoon to her daughter. "Do put on your white duck, dear."

"Yes, I intend to. I'm going with grandfather."

"You are?" in extremest surprise. "Oh, wear your dark skirt, dear; it's plenty good enough. Do you mean to say he asked you, Eloise?"

"No, I asked him."

Mrs. Evringham stood in silent amaze, her brain working alertly. She even watched her daughter don the immaculate white golf suit, and made no further protest.

What was in the girl's mind? When finally from her window she saw the two enter the brougham, Mr. Evringham carrying his granddaughter's clubs, she smiled a knowing smile and nodded her head.

"I do believe I've wronged Eloise," she thought. "How foolish it was to worry. I've been wondering how in the world I was going to get father to give her a wedding, and how I was going to get her to accept it, and now look! That child has thought of the same thing, and will manage it a hundred times better than I could."

Jewel stood on the steps and waved her hand as the brougham rolled away. Eloise had seized and squeezed her surreptitiously in the hall before they came out.

"I do feel braced up, Jewel. Thank you," she whispered hurriedly.

"Is the man over at the golf links?" asked the child, surprised to see that Eloise and her grandfather were going out together.

"He will be by the time I get there," returned the girl.

As soon as the carriage door had closed and they had started, Eloise spoke. "You must think it very strange that I asked this of you, grandfather."

There was a hint of violets clinging to the fresh white garments that brushed Mr. Evringham's knee.

"I would not question the gifts the gods provide;" he returned.

She seemed able to rise above the fear of his sarcasms. "Not that you would be surprised at anything mother or I might ask of you," she continued bravely, "but I have suffered, I'm sure, as much as you have during the last two months."

"Indeed? I regret to hear that."

If there was a sting in this reply, Eloise refused to recognize it.

"In fact I have felt so much that it has made it impossible hitherto to say anything, but Jewel has given me courage."

Mr. Evringham smoothed his mustache. "She has plenty to spare," he returned.

"She says," went on Eloise, "that everything that isn't love is hate; and hate, of course, in her category is unreal. It is because I want the real things, because I long for real things, for truth, that I asked to have this talk, grandfather, and I wanted to be quite alone with you, so I thought of this way."

"It's the mater she's running away from, then," reflected her companion. He nodded courteously. "I am at your disposal," he returned.

Subtly the broker's feeling toward Eloise had been changing since the evening in which Jewel wrote to her parents. His hard and fast opinion of her had been slightly shaken. The frankness of her remarks on Christian Science in the presence of Dr. Ballard the other evening had been a surprise to him. The cold, proud, noncommittal, ease-loving girl who in his opinion had decided to marry the young doctor was either less designing than he had believed, or else wonderfully certain of her own power to hold him. He found himself regarding her with new interest.

"I've been waiting for mother to talk with you," she went on, "and clear up our position; but she does not, and so I must." The speaker's hands were tightly clasped in her lap. "I wish I had Jewel's unconsciousness, her certainty that all is Good, for I feel—I feel shame before you, grandfather."

It seemed to Mr. Evringham that Jewel's eyes were appealing to him.

"She says," he returned with a rather grim smile, "Jewel avers that I am kindness itself inside. Let us admit it for convenience now, and see if you can't speak freely."

"Thank you. You know what I am ashamed of: staying here so long; imposing upon you; taking everything for granted when we have no right. I want to understand our affairs; to know if we have anything, and what it is; to have you help me, you; to have you tell me how we can live independently, and help me to make mother agree to it. Oh, if you would—if you could be my friend, grandfather. I need you so!"

Mr. Evringham received this impetuous outburst without change of countenance. "How about Ballard?" he said. "I thought he was going to settle all this."

There was silence in the brougham. The flash of hurt in the girl's eyes was quenched by quick tears. Her companion reddened under the look of surprise she bent upon him, her lovely lips unsteady.

"No offense," he added hastily. "Ballard's sentiments are evident enough, and he is a fine fellow."

Eloise controlled herself. "Will you take the trouble to explain our affairs to me?" she asked.

"Certainly," responded Mr. Evringham quickly. "I wish for your sake there was more to explain, more possibilities in the case."

"We have nothing?" exclaimed the girl acutely.

"Your father took heavy chances and lost. His affairs are nearly settled, and what there is left is small indeed." The speaker cast a quick glance at the girl beside him. She had caught her lip between her teeth. Jewel's soft voice sounded in his ears. "Cousin Eloise feels sorry because she isn't your real relation." An inkling of what the girl might suffer came to him.

"Your mother and you have a claim upon me," he went on. "I should certainly feel a responsibility of all my son's debts, and the one to his wife and daughter in particular. I will try to make the situation easier for you in some way."

"Manage for us to go away, grandfather. Haven't you a little house somewhere?"

The beseeching in her tone surprised Mr. Evringham still more. What did the girl mean? Didn't she intend to marry Ballard? He had believed her to be planning to preside in the Mountain Avenue mansion.

"Yes, it can be arranged, certainly," he answered vaguely; "but there's no hurry, Eloise," he added, in the kindest tone he had ever used toward her. "Some evening we will go over the affairs, and I will show you where your mother stands financially, and we will try to make some plan that shall be satisfactory."

Eloise gave him a grateful look, as much in response to his manner as to his words. "Thank you. The present condition is certainly—error," she said.

"Well, we'll try to find harmony," replied the other. "Jewel would say it was easy. I should like to have you remain at my house at least as long as she does, Eloise. I should probably have to tie her hair ribbons again if you went."

The two found themselves smiling at each other. The atmosphere was lightened, and the brougham drew up at the clubhouse.

Mr. Evringham handed out the girl, gave Zeke the order to return for them, and they went up the steps.

"I would drive back with him, grandfather, only that mother would wonder, and ask questions," said Eloise. "Don't let me detain you in any way. I'll just sit here on the piazza."

"Not play? Nonsense!" returned Mr. Evringham brusquely.

"Please don't feel obliged"—Eloise began humbly.

"But I can't help being obliged if you'll play with me," interrupted her companion.

Some men observed the confidential attitude of the broker and the beautiful girl. "What's doing over there?" asked one. "Is Evringham beginning to take notice?"

"Why, don't you know?" returned the other. "That's his granddaughter."

"His daughter, do you mean? Didn't know he had one."

"Not a bit of it. She's Lawrence's stepdaughter."

The other shook his head. "That's too involved for me. She's a queen, anyway."

"Going to marry Ballard, they say."

"That so? Then I won't go up and fall on Evringham's neck. My bank book isn't in Ballard's class. She can play, too," as he observed Eloise make a drive while she waited the reappearance of her companion from the clubhouse. "Isn't that a bird!—and say, there's young Lochinvar himself!" for here a light automobile whizzed briskly up to the clubhouse.

Dr. Ballard sprang out, for he had recognized the figure at the first teeing ground.

"You gave me the slip!" he cried as he approached.

"Oh, I just went with a handsomer man," returned Eloise, smiling, as they shook hands.

"I didn't know I could come until the last minute, then I went to the house for you and found I had missed you."

Mr. Evringham and the caddy approached. "I cut you out for once, Ballard," he said. "Well, we're off, Eloise. I saw you drive. I doubt if he catches us."



Jewel's eyes questioned Eloise that evening when she reached home, and she received the smiling, significant nod her cousin gave her with satisfaction.

It was an apparently united family party that gathered about the dinner table. Mr. Evringham and Eloise discussed their game, while Mrs. Evringham fairly rustled with complacence.

As Jewel clung to her grandfather's neck that evening in bidding him good-night, she whispered:—

"How happy we all are!"

"Are we, really? Well now, that's very gratifying, I'm sure. Good-night, Jewel."



CHAPTER XXII

IN THE HARNESS ROOM

"Mother, can I have three dollars?" asked Eloise the next morning.

"Were you thinking of a new riding hat, dear? I do wish you had it to wear this afternoon. Yours is shabby, certainly, but you can't get it for that, child."

"No; I was thinking of a copy of 'Science and Health.' I don't like to take Jewel's any longer, and I'm convinced."

"What of—sin?" asked Mrs. Evringham in dismay.

"No, just the opposite—that there needn't be any. The book teaches the truth. I know it."

"Well, whether it does or doesn't, you haven't any three dollars to spend for a book, Eloise," was the firm reply. "The idea, when I can barely rake and scrape enough together to keep us presentable!"

"Where do you get our money?" asked the girl.

"Father gives me a check every fortnight. Of course you know that he has charge of our affairs."

Eloise's serene expression did not change. She looked at the little black book in her hand. "This edition costs five dollars," she said.

"Scandalous!" exclaimed Mrs. Evringham. "I can tell you this is no time for us to be collecting editions de luxe. Wait till you're married."

"I'm going to run in town for a while this morning, mother."

"You are? Well don't get belated. You know that you are to ride with Dr. Ballard at half past four. Dear me," her brow drawn, "you ought to have that hat. Now I think that I could get on without that jet bolero."

Eloise laughed softly and drew her mother to her. "Have your jet bolero, dear," she answered. "My hat isn't bad."

Eloise went to her room, and closing the door, took from one of her drawers a box. It contained her girlish treasures, the ornaments and jewels her father had given her from time to time. She took out a small diamond ring and pressed it to her lips.

"Dear papa! I love it because you gave it to me, but I can get with it a wonderful thing, a truth which, if we had known it, would have saved you all those torturing hours, would have saved your dear life. I know how gladly you would have me get it now, for you are learning it too; and it will be your gift, dear, dear papa, your gift just the same."

Jewel had to study the lesson with only Anna Belle's assistance that morning, but she received the third letter from her mother and father. Their trip was proving a success from the standpoints of both business and pleasure, but their chief longing was to get back to their little girl.

It was very like visiting with them to read it over, and Jewel did so more than once. "I'll show it to cousin Eloise as soon as she comes home," she reflected. Then she dressed Anna Belle to go out.

Running downstairs the child sought and found Mrs. Forbes in the kitchen. The housekeeper no longer questioned her going and coming, although she still considered herself in the light of the child's only disciplinarian, and was vigilant to watch for errors of omission and commission, and quick to correct them.

"Mrs. Forbes, may I have an old kitchen knife?"

"Certainly not. You'll cut yourself."

"I want it to dig up plants."

Mrs. Forbes stared down at her. "Why, you mustn't do any such thing."

"I mean wild flowers for a garden that Anna Belle and I are going to make."

"Oh. I'll see if I can't find you a trowel."

There was one at hand, and as the housekeeper passed it to the child she warned her:—

"Be careful you don't make a mistake, now, and get hold of anybody's plants. What did your cousin Eloise go to New York for?"

"I don't know."

"Well I hope it's for her trousseau."

Jewel smiled. "My mother makes those."

"I don't believe she'll ever make one for you, then," returned Mrs. Forbes, but not ill-naturedly. She laughed, glancing at Sarah, who stood by.

"But I think she will for Anna Belle," returned Jewel brightly, "when she gets older."

The housekeeper and maid both laughed. "Run along," said Mrs. Forbes, "and don't you be late for lunch."

"She's an awful sweet child," said Sarah half reproachfully. "Just the spirit of sunshine."

"Oh well, they'd turn her head here if it wasn't for me," answered the other complacently.

Jewel was not late to lunch, but eating it tete-a-tete with aunt Madge was not to her taste.

Mrs. Evringham utilized the opportunity to admonish her, and Mrs. Forbes for once sympathized with the widow's sentiments.

Aunt Madge took off her eyeglasses in a way she had when she wished to be particularly impressive.

"Jewel," she said, "I don't think any one has told you that it is impolite to Dr. Ballard to say anything about Christian Science in his presence."

"Why is it?" asked the child.

"Because he is a learned physician, and has, of course, a great respect for his profession."

"I have a great respect for him," returned the child, "and he knows I wouldn't hurt his feelings."

"The idea!" exclaimed Mrs. Evringham, looking down from a height upon the flaxen head. "As if a little ignorant girl could hurt the feelings of a man like Dr. Ballard!"

Mrs. Forbes also stared at the child, and she winced.

"I do love them, and they do love me," she thought. "I don't remember ever speaking about it before the doctor unless somebody asked me," she said aloud.

"Your cousin Eloise may ask you," returned Mrs. Evringham. "Nobody else would. She does it in a spirit of mischief, perhaps, but I shall speak to her. She has a passing curiosity about your ideas because it is odd and rather amusing to find a child who has such unnatural and precocious fancies, and she tries to draw you out; but it will not last with her. Neither will it with you, probably. You seem to be a sensible little girl in many ways." Mrs. Evringham made the addition magnanimously. She really was too much at peace with all the world just now to like to be severe.

Outwardly Jewel was silent. Inwardly she was declaring many things which would have surprised her companions.

"Does your cousin Eloise pretend to you that she is becoming seriously interested in your faith?" pursued Mrs. Evringham.

"She will tell you all about it," returned Jewel.

Aunt Madge shrugged her shoulders and laughed a little. Her thoughts reverted to her daughter's trip to the city. She had wondered several times if it had any pleasant connection with her sudden good understanding with Mr. Evringham.

To Jewel's relief her thoughts remained preoccupied during the remainder of the meal; and as soon as the child could leave, she flew to the closet under the stairs, where Anna Belle often went into retreat during the luncheon hour, and from thence back to the garden she was making by the brookside.

When she returned to the house her eyes lighted as she saw two horses before the piazza, and Dr. Ballard standing beside one of them.

"How are you, Jewel?" he asked, as she danced up to him smiling. Stooping, he lifted her into the side saddle, from whence she beamed upon him.

"Oh, what fun you're going to have!" she cried.

"I'd like to be sure of that," he answered, his gloved hand on the pommel.

"What do you mean?" incredulously. "You don't like that automobile better, do you? They're so—so stubby. I must have a horse, a horse!" She smoothed and patted her steed lovingly.

"You ought to have—Jewel of the world," he said kindly. "My bad angel!" he added, looking up quizzically into her eyes, and smiling at the widening wonder that grew in them.

"Your—what?" she asked, and then Eloise came out in her habit.

"I'm going instead of you," cried the child gayly, "to pay you for staying away all day."

"Did you miss me?" asked the girl as she shook hands with her escort.

"I tried not to. Anna Belle and I have something to show you in the ravine." As she spoke, Jewel slid down into the doctor's arms, and stood on the steps watching while he put Eloise up and mounted himself.

The child's eyes dwelt upon the pair admiringly as they waved their hands to her and rode away. Little she knew how their hearts were beating. Mrs. Evringham, watching from an upper window, suspected it. She felt that this afternoon would end all suspense.

The child gave a wistful sigh as the horses disappeared, and jumping off the piazza, she wandered around the house toward the stable. There had been no rules laid down to her since the night of Essex Maid's attack, and Zeke was always a congenial companion.

As she neared the barn a young fellow left it, laughing. She knew who he was,—one of the young men Zeke had known in Boston. He had several times of late come to call on his old chum, for he was out of work.

As he left the barn he saw the child and slouched off to one side, avoiding her; but she scarcely noticed him, congratulating herself that Zeke would be alone and ready, as usual, to crack jokes and stories.

The coachman was not in sight as she entered, but she knew she would find him in the harness room. Its door stood ajar, and as the child approached she heard a strange sound, as of some one weeping suppressedly. Sturdily resisting the sudden fear that swept to her heart, she pushed open the door.

There stood Mrs. Forbes, leaning against a wooden support, her forehead resting against her clasped hands in a hopeless posture, as she sobbed heavily. The air was filled with an odor which had for Jewel sickening associations. The only terror, the only tragedy, of her short life was wrapped about with this pungent smell. She seemed again to hear her mother's sobs, to feel once more that sensation of all things coming to ruin which descended upon her at the unprecedented sight and sound of her strong mother's emotion.

All at once she perceived Zeke sitting on a low chair, his arms hanging across his knees and his head fallen.

The child turned very pale. Her doll slid unnoticed to the floor, as she pressed her little hands to her eyes.

"Father, Mother, God," she murmured in gasps. "Thou art all power. We are thy children. Error has no power over us. Help us to waken from this lie."

Running up to the housekeeper, she clasped her arms about her convulsed form. "Dear Mrs. Forbes," she said, her soft voice trembling at first but growing firm, "I know this claim, but it can be healed. It seems very terrible, but it's nothing. We know it, we must know it."

The woman lifted her head and looked down with swollen eyes upon the child. She saw her go unhesitatingly across to Zeke and kneel beside him.

"Don't be discouraged, Zeke," she said lovingly. "I know how it seems, but my father had it and he was healed. You will be healed."

The coachman lifted his rumpled head and stared at her with bloodshot eyes.

"Great fuss 'bout nothing," he said sullenly. "Mother always fussing."

Something in his look made the child shudder. Resisting the sudden repugnance to one who had always shown her kindness, she impulsively took his big hand in both her little ones. "Zeke, what is error saying to you?" she demanded. "You can't look at me without love. I love you because God does. He is lifting us out of this error belief."

The young fellow returned the clasp of the soft hands and winked his eyes like one who is waking. "Mother makes great fuss," he grumbled. "Scott was here. We had two or three little friendly drinks. Ma had to come in and blubber."

"What friendly drinks? What do you mean?" demanded Jewel, looking all about her. Her eyes fell upon a large black bottle. She dropped the coachman's hand and picked it up. She smelled of it, her eyes dilated, and she began to tremble again; and throwing the whiskey from her, she buried her face for a moment against Zeke's shirt sleeve.

"Is it in a bottle!" she exclaimed at last, in a hushed voice, drawing back and regarding the coachman with such a white and horrified countenance that it frightened the clouds from his brain. "Is that terrible claim in a bottle, and do people drink it out?" she asked slowly, and in an awestruck tone.

"It's no harm," began Zeke.

"No harm when your mother is crying, when your face is full of error, and your eyes were hating? No harm when my mother cried, and all our gladness was gone? Would you go and drink a claim like that out of a bottle—of your own accord?"

Zeke wriggled under the blue eyes and the unnatural rigidity of the child's face.

"No, Jewel, he wouldn't," groaned Mrs. Forbes suddenly. "Zeke's a good boy, but he's inherited that. His father died of it. It's a disease, child. I thought my boy would escape, but he hasn't! It's the end!" cried the wretched woman. "What will Mr. Evringham say! To think how I blamed Fanshaw! Zeke'll lose his place and go downhill, and I shall die of shame and despair." Her sobs again shook her from head to foot.

Jewel continued to look at Zeke. A new, eager expression stole over her face. "Is it the end?" she asked. "Don't you believe in God?"

"I suppose so," answered the coachman sullenly. "I know I'm a man, too. I can control myself."

"No. Nobody can. Even Jesus said, 'Of myself I can do nothing.' Only God can help you. If you can drink that nasty smelling stuff, and get all red and rumply and sorry, then you need God the worst of anybody in Bel-Air. You look better now. It's just like a dream, the way you lifted up your face to me when I came in, and it was a dream. I'll help you, Zeke. I'll show you how to find help." The child suddenly leaned toward the young fellow, and then retreated. "I can't stand your breath!" she exclaimed, "and I like to get close to the people I love."

This seemed to touch Zeke. He blushed hotly. "It's a darned shame, kid," he returned sheepishly.

"Mrs. Forbes, come here, please," said Jewel. The housekeeper had ceased crying, and was watching the pair. She saw that her boy's senses were clearer. She approached obediently, and when the child took her hand her own closed tightly upon the little fingers.

"Zeke, you're a big strong man and everybody likes you," said Jewel earnestly. "Isn't it better to stay that way than to drink out of a bottle, no matter how much you like it?"

"I don't like it so awfully," returned Zeke protestingly. "I like to be sociable with the boys, that's all."

"What a way to be sociable!" gasped the child. "Well, wouldn't you rather be nice, so people will like to get close to you?"

"Depends on the folks," returned the boy with a touch of his usual manner. "You're all right, little kid." He put out his hand, but quickly withdrew it.

Jewel seized it. "Now give your other one to your mother. There now, we're all together. If your mother thinks you have a disease, Zeke, then she must know you haven't. If you want me to, I'll come out here every day at a quiet time and give you a treatment, and we'll talk all about Christian Science, and we'll know that there's nothing that can make us sick or unhappy—or unkind! Think of your unkindness to your mother—and to me if you go on, for I love you, Zeke. Now may I help you?"

The soft frank voice, the earnest little face, moved Zeke to cast a glance at his mother's swollen eyes. They were bent upon Jewel.

"Do you say your father was cured that way, child?" asked Mrs. Forbes.

"Yes. Oh yes! and he's so happy!"

"Zeke, let's all be thankful if there's anything," said the woman tremulously, turning to him appealingly.

"I'd just as soon have a visit from you every day, little kid," said the young fellow. "You're a corker."

"But you must want more than me," returned the child. "God and healing and purity and goodness! If you're in earnest, what are you going to do with that?" She touched the black bottle with the toe of her shoe.

Zeke looked at the whiskey, then back into her eyes. They were full of love and faith for him.

He stooped and picked up the bottle, then striding to a window, he flung it out toward the forest trees with all the force of his strong arm.

"Damn the stuff!" he said.

Mrs. Forbes felt herself tremble from head to foot. She bit her lip.

Her son turned back. "Getting near train time," he added, not looking at his companions. "Guess I'll go upstairs."

When he had disappeared his mother stooped slowly and kissed Jewel. "Forgive me," she said tremulously.

"What for?" asked the child.

"Everything."

The housekeeper still stood in the harness room after Jewel had gone away. She bowed her head on her folded hands. "Our Father who art in heaven, forgive me," she prayed. "Forgive me for being a fool. Forgive me for not recognizing Thine angel whom Thou hast sent. Amen."



CHAPTER XXIII

MRS. EVRINGHAM'S CALLER

Mrs. Evringham was busily chewing the cud of sweet fancies only, that afternoon. Following the equestrians in their leafy woodland path, she pictured them as talking of their future, and herself built many castles in the air. "Ah," she thought sentimentally, leaning back in her reclining chair, "how charming is youth—with plenty of money!"

She was roused from these luxurious meditations by the appearance of Sarah, bearing a card on a salver.

"A man!" she exclaimed with annoyance. "I'm not dressed."

Lifting the card, she read it with a start.

"Mr. Nathan Wycliffe Bonnell."

"Tell him I'll be down soon," was all she said; but her thoughts ran swiftly as she hurriedly slipped into her gown. "How in the world comes the boy out here? Just as well that Eloise is away. It would only be painful to her, all the old associations." But old associations cropped up more and more enticingly for Mrs. Evringham as she made her swift toilet, and by the time she reached the drawing-room her eagerness lent her cordiality a very genuine tone.

"Nat, dear boy, how are you?"

The young man who rose eagerly to meet her would have been noticeable in any crowd. She gazed up into his smooth-shaven, frank face, with its alert eyes and strong chin, and felt a yearning affection for all which he represented to her. "What are you doing out here?"

"Visiting you and Eloise," he answered, with the hearty relish which always characterized his manner when circumstances were agreeable. "Where is she?"

"Riding. I don't know when they will come home, either. It's such a charming day, isn't it? So good of you to hunt us up, Nat. We've been out of the world so long. I can't tell you what a rush of memories comes over me at sight of you, you nice, big boy. I do believe you've been growing." She gave a glance of approval at the young man's stalwart proportions.

"Oh, don't humiliate me," he laughed, as she drew him to a divan, where they seated themselves.

"How could you get away at this hour?"

"I'm changing my business, and get a week's vacation thereby. Great luck, isn't it?"

"I hope so. Are you going to do better?"

"Much better. It's only a little matter of time now, Mrs. Evringham—automobiles, steam yachts, and all the rest of it."

"Ah, the optimism of youth!" she sighed, gazing at the dancing lights in his eyes. "It's very beautiful, and usually entirely unfounded. You look so radiant, my dear. Perhaps you have come out here to let us congratulate you. Have you found that desirable girl? I certainly should be the first to be told, for I always talked to you very plainly, didn't I?"

"Indeed you did, Mrs. Evringham. You always kept my ineligibility before me strenuously."

"A certain sort of ineligibility, dear boy," returned the lady with a flattering cadence. "Your capital did not happen to consist of money. Tell me all, Nat. Who is she?"

He shook his head. "She's still not impossible, but improbable," he returned.

"Oh, you are too difficult, my dear. Really, I thought at the time our misfortunes fell upon us that it was going to be Miss Caton. She would have been a great assistance to you, Nat. It isn't as if you could even afford to be a bachelor. In these days so much is expected of them. How is your mother?" Mrs. Evringham made the addition in that tone of fixed sympathy which one employs when only a depressing answer can be expected.

"Very well, thank you."

"You mean as well as usual, I suppose."

"No, I mean well. Wonderful, isn't it?"

"Really, Nat?" Mrs. Evringham straightened up in her interest. "Who did it?"

"She was healed by Christian Science."

"You don't mean it!"

"Indeed I do."

Mrs. Evringham thanked her holy stars that Eloise was absent.

"Well! I never for one moment classed your mother as a malade imaginaire!" exclaimed the lady.

Her companion raised his eyebrows. "I fancy no one did who knew her."

"You believe it, then?"

"I should be an idiot if I didn't."

"Do you mean to say she is out of her wheeled chair?"

"No chairs for her now. When she wishes to walk she walks."

"Then she always could!" declared Mrs. Evringham.

"I think you know better than that," returned the other calmly.

"How long since?" asked Mrs. Evringham.

"Three months."

Silence.

"Aren't you glad for her?" asked Bonnell with a slight smile of curiosity into the disturbed face. "I ought to have told you at first that osteopathy did it; then after your joy had subsided, break the truth gently."

"Of course I'm glad," returned the other stiffly, "but I'd rather Eloise did not hear of it at once."

"May I know why?"

"Certainly. We have a very dear friend who is a physician. It looks very much as if he might be something nearer than a friend. It is he with whom Eloise is riding this afternoon. It is very distasteful, naturally, to have these alleged cures discussed in our family. We have had some annoyance in that line already. You can understand how doctors must feel."

"Yes, so long as they believe a cure to be only alleged; but where one is convinced that previously hopeless conditions have been healed, and it does happen once in a while, they are glad of it, I'm confident. We haven't a finer, broader minded class of men in our country than our physicians."

"I think so," agreed Mrs. Evringham, drawing herself up with a fleeting vision of the Ballard place on Mountain Avenue.

"But they are not the wealthiest at the start," said Nat. "Is it possible that you are allowing Eloise to ride unchaperoned with a young physician?"

Mrs. Evringham did not remark the threatening curves at the corners of the speaker's lips.

"Oh, this one is different," she returned seriously; "very fine connections, and substantial in every way."

Her companion threw back his head and laughed frankly.

"We have to smile at each other once in a while, don't we, Mrs. Evringham?" he said, in the light, caressing manner which had for a few years been one of her chief worries; "but all the same, you're fond of me just as long as I don't forget my place, eh? You're glad to see me?"

"You know I am." Mrs. Evringham pressed her hand against the laces over her heart. "Such a bittersweet feeling comes over me at the very tones of your voice. Oh, the happy past, Nat! Gone forever!" She touched a dainty handkerchief to her eyes. "I suppose your mother is still in her apartment?"

"She has taken a place at View Point for the summer, and has set her heart on a long visit from you."

"How very kind of her," responded Mrs. Evringham with genuine gratitude. "I don't know what father means to do in the hot weather or whether he—or whether I should wish to go with him. Your mother and I always enjoyed each other, when she was sufficiently free from suffering."

"That time is always now," returned Nat, a fullness of gratitude in his voice.

His companion looked at him curiously. "I can't realize it."

"Come and see," was his reply.

"I will, I certainly will. I shall anticipate it with great pleasure."

A very convenient place to prepare a part of Eloise's trousseau, Mrs. Evringham was considering, and the girl safely engaged, Nat's presence would have no terrors. "You think you are really getting into a good business arrangement now?" she asked aloud.

"Very. I wake up in the morning wondering at my own good fortune."

"I am so glad, my dear boy," responded the other sympathetically. "Perhaps, after all, you will be able to wait for a little more chin than Miss Caton has. Of course she's a very nice girl and all that."

Bonnell smiled at the carpet.

They talked on for half an hour of mutual friends over cups of tea, and then he rose to go.

"Eloise will be sorry!" said Mrs. Evringham effusively. "It's such a long way out here and so difficult for you to get the time. It isn't as if you could come easily."

"Oh, I have several days here. I'm staying at the Reeves's. Do you know them?"

"No," returned the lady, trying to conceal that this was a blow.

"It is Mr. Reeves with whom I am going into business, and we are doing some preliminary work. I shall see Eloise soon. Remember me to her."

"Yes, certainly," replied Mrs. Evringham. She kept a stiff upper lip until she was alone, and then a troubled line grew in her forehead.

"It will be all right, of course, if things are settled," she thought. "I can scarcely wait for Eloise to come home."



Jewel had come from the barn straight to her room, where she thought upon her problem with the aids she loved.

At last she went downstairs to a side door to watch for Zeke as he drove from the barn on his way to the station to meet Mr. Evringham. As the horse walked out of the barn she emerged and intercepted the coachman.

Mrs. Forbes at a window saw Zeke stop. She wondered what Jewel was saying to him, wondered with a humble gratitude novel to her dominating nature.

"Wait one minute, Zeke," said the child. "I've been wondering whether I ought to say anything to grandpa."

"If you do I'll lose my place," returned the young fellow; "and I've never done wrong by the horses yet."

"I know you haven't. God has taken care of you, hasn't he, Zeke? Do you think it's right for me not to tell grandpa? I've decided that I'll do whatever you say."

It was the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove. Zeke, nervously fingering the whip handle, looked down into the guileless face and mentally vowed never to betray the trust he saw there.

"Then don't tell him, Jewel," he returned rather thickly, for the fullness in his throat. "You come out to the barn the way you said you would, and we'll talk over things. I don't care if the boys do laugh. I've sworn off. I believe you helped Essex Maid the other night. I believe you can help me."

Jewel's eyes were joyful. "If you know you want help, Zeke, then you'll get it. Mother says that's the first thing. Mortal mind is so proud."

"Mine ain't strutting much," returned Zeke as he drove on.

Jewel amused herself about the grounds until the phaeton should return with her grandfather.

When she saw it coming she ran down to the gate and hopped and skipped back beside it, Mr. Evringham watching her gyrations unsmilingly.

As he dismounted at the piazza she clung to his hand going up the steps. "Which are you going to do, grandpa, go riding or play golf?"

"Which do you want me to do?" he asked.

"When you ride it's more fun for me," she replied.

He seated himself in one of the chairs and she leaned against its broad arm.

"It's rather more fun for me, too. I'm growing lazy. I think I'll ride."

"Good!"

"What have you been doing to-day, Jewel?"

"Well,"—meditatively,—"cousin Eloise went to New York, so I had to get my lesson alone. And I didn't braid my hair over."

Mr. Evringham looked startled. "She'll do it, I dare say, before dinner," he replied.

"If she has time. She has gone riding with Dr. Ballard. They just trotted away together. Oh, it was lovely!"

Mr. Evringham, leaning his head back, looked off under his heavy brows as he responded:—

"Across the hills and far away, Beyond their utmost purple rim, And deep into the dying day The happy princess followed him,

"and all that sort of business, I suppose."

"I don't know what you mean," said Jewel doubtfully.

"I should hope not. Well, what else have you done? Been treating any rheumatism? I haven't had it since the sun shone."

"You never asked me to," returned the child.

Mr. Evringham smiled. "The sunshine is a pretty good treatment," he observed.

"Sometimes your belief comes into my thought," said Jewel, "and of course I always turn on it and think the truth."

"Much obliged, I'm sure. I'd like to turn on it myself at times."

"You can study with cousin Eloise and me, if you'd like to," said Jewel eagerly.

"Oh, thank you, thank you," rejoined the broker hastily. "Don't disturb yourself. There must be some sinners, you know, or the saints would have to go out of business—nobody to practice on. Well, have you been to the ravine?"

"Oh yes! Anna Belle and I, and we had more fun! We made a garden."

"Morning or afternoon?"

"Morning."

"Well I wish to know," said Mr. Evringham in a suddenly serious and impressive tone, "I wish to know if you reached home in time for lunch."

Jewel felt somewhat startled under the daze of his piercing eyes, but her conscience was clear. "Yes, I was here in plenty of time. I wanted to surely not be late, so I was here too soon."

"That's what I was afraid of," returned Mr. Evringham gravely. "I don't wish you to be unpunctual, but I object equally to your returning unnecessarily early when you wish to stay."

"But I couldn't help it, grandpa," Jewel began earnestly, when he interrupted her.

"So I've brought you this," he added, and took from his pocket an oblong package, sealed at each end.

The child laid her doll in the broker's lap,—he had become hardened to this indignity,—and her fingers broke the seals and slipped the paper from a morocco case.

"Push the spring in the end," said Mr. Evringham.

She obeyed. The lid flew up and disclosed a small silver chatelaine watch. The pin was a cherub's head, its wings enameled in white, as were the back and edges of the little timepiece whose hands were busily pointing to blue figures.

Jewel gasped. "For me?"

Her grandfather smoothed his mustache. He had presented gifts to ladies before, but never with such effect.

"Grandpa, grandpa!" she exclaimed, touching the little watch in wondering delight. "See what Divine Love has sent me!"

Mr. Evringham raised his eyebrows and smiled, but he was soon assured that Love's messenger was not forgotten. He was instantly enveloped in a rapturous hug, and heroically endured the bitter of the watchcase pressing into his jugular for the sweet of the rose-leaf kisses that were assaulting his cheek like the quick reports of a tiny Gatling gun.

"See if you can wind it," he said at last.

Jewel lifted her treasure tenderly from its velvet bed, and he showed her how to twist its stem, and then pinned it securely on the breast of her light sailor suit, where she looked down upon it in rapt admiration.

"Now then, Jewel, you have no excuse!" he said severely.

She raised her happy eyes, while her hand pressed the satin surface of her watch. "Grandpa, grandpa!" she said, sighing ecstatically, "you're such a joker!"



CHAPTER XXIV

THE RAVINE GARDEN

Mrs. Evringham tried heroically to look impassive when her daughter returned from the ride. There was barely time then to dress for dinner, and no opportunity for confidences before the meal, nor afterward until bedtime; but the look of peace and sweetness in Eloise's face could have but one significance to the mother, who believed that peace lay only in the direction upon which she had set her heart.

Mr. Evringham took coffee with them after dinner in the drawing-room, while Jewel caressed her watch, never tiring of looking at its clear face and the little second hand which traveled so steadily its tiny circuit.

Mrs. Evringham looked often toward the door, expectant of the doctor's entrance. The evening wore on and he did not come. Still Eloise's face wore the placid, restful expression. A gentle ease with her grandfather replaced her old manner.

Her mother determined to try an experiment.

"You could never guess who called to-day, Eloise," she said suddenly.

Her daughter looked up from her coffee. "No. Who was it?"

"Nat Bonnell."

"Really!" The girl's tone indicated great surprise, and that only. "I wish I might have seen him."

The addition was made so calmly, almost perfunctorily, that Mrs. Evringham smiled with exultation.

She turned to her father-in-law. "Who would believe that Mr. Bonnell was Eloise's brightest flame a year ago? 'How soon are we forgot!'" she said lightly.

When Jewel had kissed them all good-night and gone upstairs, and Mr. Evringham had withdrawn to his library, Mrs. Evringham took her child's hand and looked fondly into her eyes.

"Well?" she asked.

"Well," returned Eloise, "do tell me everything Nat said."

"After you've told me everything Dr. Ballard said. I supposed you'd fly to tell me, dear."

The girl looked tenderly back into the eyes that were sharp with inquiry. "Dear little mother," she returned, "it can't be."

"What can't be?"

"What you wish. Dr. Ballard."

"Have you—refused him—!" Mrs. Evringham's face whitened, and unconsciously she stepped back.

"It didn't have to come to that. Dr. Ballard is so fine—such a wise man in so many ways. I do admire him so much."

"What did you say to him? I will know!" exclaimed Mrs. Evringham passionately.

Eloise was mute, and her eyes besought her mother.

"Speak, I say! Was it Christian Science? Did you dare, Eloise Evringham, did you dare spoil your life—my life—our future, by scaring Dr. Ballard with that bugbear?" The angry woman was breathing fast.

"Mother dear, don't give us something so painful to remember. Don't, I beg of you. Dr. Ballard does not reproach me. He thinks I shall change, and he wishes to give me time to see if I do. Think of him, if you will not think of me. He would be so shocked to have you take it this way. If you could have seen how kind he was, how patient. Dear mother, don't cry. It isn't anything I can help, unless I should deliberately turn dishonest."

But Mrs. Evringham did cry, and heartily. She hurried away to her own room as quickly as possible, and locked the door against Eloise, who lay awake for hours with a strange mingling of regret and joy at her heart, and a constant declaring of the truth.

At midnight the girl heard the door unlock and saw her mother emerge.

"Darling mamma!" she exclaimed, springing out of bed.

"Oh, Eloise," moaned the poor woman, dissolving again upon her child's shoulder. "I never went to bed without your kiss, and I can't bear it. How can you be so cru—cru—cruel!"

"Darling, everything is going to come right," returned Eloise, holding her close. "Nothing good would come of doing wrong. I never loved you so much as now. I never saw duty so plainly. Dearest, in one way I suffer for you, but still I was never so happy. I have grasped the end of the clue that will surely lead us safely through the labyrinth, no matter what life brings. You will see, mamma dear, after a while you will see. Don't go back. Come into my bed."

Disconsolately Mrs. Evringham obeyed, and in a few minutes, worn out with emotion, she had sobbed herself to sleep in her child's arms; and although for many days afterward she wore a languid air, and declared that there was nothing to live for, she yielded herself to Eloise's courageous and quietly joyful atmosphere, with silent wonder at her child's altered outlook.

On the morning following the painful interview with her mother, Eloise presented herself in Jewel's room at the usual hour.

Smiling, she approached the child and exhibited three fresh new books. India paper editions of the Bible and "Science and Health," and the little brown pamphlet were in her hands.

"Yours?" exclaimed the child.

Eloise nodded.

"Good, good!" Jewel hopped up and down, and forthwith brought Anna Belle to have her share in the rejoicing.

"You were afraid you couldn't get them. Now see!" cried the child triumphantly. "As if Divine Love couldn't send you those books!"

"He showed me a way," returned the girl. "See where I've written my name. I want you to put 'Jewel' right under it in each one."

"Oh, in those lovely books?" said the child doubtfully. "I don't write very well."

"Yes, I want it, dear, when we go downstairs and can get some ink. Did anybody fix your hair yesterday?"

"I just brushed it down real smooth on the outside," returned the child.

"It looks so," said Eloise, laughing. "Let's fix it before we have the lesson. By the way, what time is it, Jewel?"

The little girl smiled back at her cousin's reflection in the glass, and took the open morocco case from the bureau. "Anna Belle and I put him to bed last night," she said, looking fondly at the silver cherub on its velvet couch. "We've named him Little Faithful. He'll come to the lesson, too. I know he's going to be a lovely Scientist."

"I'm sure I hope he will, and neither be fast nor lazy," returned Eloise, as she unbraided the short pigtails.

"I tell you it wasn't so nice getting the lesson alone yesterday," said Jewel. "You were away all day! Did you have a nice ride?"

"Yes," Eloise responded slowly. "The day was very nice—and so is Dr. Ballard."

"Did he enjoy it?" asked the child hopefully. The doctor had been a good deal on her mind.

"Some of the time," responded Eloise soberly.

"Why not all the time? Did error creep in?"

The older girl brushed away in silence for a minute.

"I didn't mean to talk about grown-up things," said the child, somewhat abashed. "Mother says I must be careful not to."

"It is all right, Jewel. The new ideas I have been learning have made me see some things so clearly. One is to perceive what it is that really draws people together in a bond that cannot be broken. There is only one thing that can do it and will do it, and that is loving the same truth. Two people can have a very good time together for a while, and like each other very much, but the time comes when their thoughts fly apart unless that one bond of union is there—unless they love the same spiritual truth."

The speaker caught, in the glass, the child's eyes fixed attentively upon her.

"Wouldn't Dr. Ballard look at our book?" asked Jewel softly.

"No, dear."

The child reflected a minute, and her eyes filled. "I just love him," she said.

Her cousin stooped and kissed her cheek. "You well may," she returned quietly. "He deserves it."

They studied the lesson and then went downstairs, where Jewel in her very best hand slowly transcribed her name in the new books; then she told Eloise that she was going out to the barn.

"I'm going to visit with Zeke," she said. "He has a claim of error, and he is willing Science should help him."

"Is he ill?"

Jewel looked off. "It isn't that kind of error."

"There are plenty worse," rejoined Eloise. She looked doubtfully at the little girl. "Wouldn't you better tell me, dear? Is it right for you to go?"

"Yes, it's right. His mother knows it, and she's so kind to me. What do you think! At breakfast she asked me if I wouldn't like to bring Anna Belle down. She says I can bring her to the table whenever I want to. Isn't it nice? The dear little creature has been so patient, never having a thing to eat!"

Eloise could not help laughing, the manner in which Jewel finished was so suddenly quaint; but she shook her head in silent wonder as she watched the short skirted figure setting forth for the barn.

"Oh cousin Eloise." Jewel turned around. "Will you come to the ravine after lunch, and see what Anna Belle and I have done?"

"Yes."

Jewel walked on a little further and turned again. "You won't wear your watch, will you?" she called.

"No, I'll surely forget it," returned the girl, smiling.

The small figure went on, well content.

"Oh, if I could only be invisible in that barn!" soliloquized Eloise. "How I would like to hear what she will say. How wonderful it is that that little child has more chance of success, whatever trouble Zeke has been getting into, than any full-grown, experienced sage, philosopher, or reformer, who is a worker in mortal mind."

Anna Belle came to luncheon that day. Mrs. Forbes actually put a cushion in one of the chairs to lift the honored guest to such a height that her rosy smile was visible above the tablecloth. Not content with this hospitality, the housekeeper brought a bread-and-butter plate, upon which she placed such small proportions of food as might be calculated to tempt a dainty appetite. Jewel felt almost embarrassed by the eminence to which her child was suddenly raised.

"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Forbes," she said; "you needn't take so much trouble. Anna Belle's just used to having a part of mine."

But nothing now was too good for Anna Belle. "She shall have a cup-custard to-morrow," returned the housekeeper.

Mrs. Evringham looked on with lack-lustre eyes. As well make much of Anna Belle as any other idol. Everything was stuffed with sawdust!

How the sunbeams glanced in the woods that day as Jewel, one hand clasping her doll and the other in Eloise's, skipped along the road to the ravine!

When they had stooped under the wire and gone down the bank, how the brook sang, and how the violets bloomed in Jewel's garden!

"It's very pretty," said Eloise, regarding the paths and flower beds which Jewel exhibited with pride. "It's very pretty, but it lacks one thing."

"What?" asked the child eagerly.

"A pond."

"But it is by the side of a rushing river," returned Jewel.

"Yes, but all the more easy to have a pond."

"How?"

"We'll set a shallow pan, and sink it in the ground, and plant ferns about it to hang over. Anna Belle can have some little china dolls to go in wading in it."

"Oh yes, yes!" cried Jewel delighted. "Hear that, dearie? Hear what Love is planning for you?"

Anna Belle's nose was buried in the grass and her hat was awry. If she had a fault, it was a tendency to being overdressed. At present her plumed hat and large fluffy boa gave her an aspect unsympathetic with the surroundings. Jewel pulled her upright and placed her on the mossy divan.

"If I'd only brought the trowel I could get the hole ready," Jewel was saying, when a whistle, soft and clear as a flute, sounded above the brook's gurgle.

She lifted a finger in caution. "Oh," she whispered, looking up into her cousin's face, "the loveliest bird! Hush."

Clear, sweet, flexible, somewhere among those high branches sounded again the same elaborate phrase.

Jewel was surprised to see her cousin's pleased, listening expression alter to eager wonder, then the girl flushed rosy red and started up. "Siegfried!" she murmured.

Again came the bird motif sifting down through the rustling leaves.

"Nat!" called Eloise gladly.

"Any nymphs down there?" questioned a man's voice.

"Oh yes!"

"May Pan come down?"

"Yes indeed."

Jewel, watching and wondering, saw a young man in light clothes swing himself down from tree to tree, and at last saw both his hands close on both her cousin's.

The two talked and laughed in unison for a minute, then Eloise freed herself and turned to the serious-faced child. "You remember my speaking of Nat the other day?" she asked. "This is he. Mr. Bonnell, this is my cousin Jewel Evringham. She is landscape gardening just now, and may not feel like giving you her hand."

"I can wash it," said Jewel, dipping the earthy member in the brook, wiping it on the grass, and placing it in the large one that was offered her.

"How did you ever find us? I thought you'd gone back to New York. I had no idea of seeing you," said Eloise in a breath.

"Didn't your mother tell you? I have a week off."

The girl's bright face sobered. "Poor mother! She had a—a shock after you were here yesterday. I suppose it put everything out of her head. Was it she who sent you to find us?"

"No; a massive lady met me at the door and informed me that your mother wished to be excused from every one to-day, but that you had fallen down a crack in the earth which could be reached up this road." The speaker looked about. "As there doesn't seem any place to stand here, hadn't we better sit down before we fall in the brook? I might rescue you, but the current is swift."

Eloise at once sank upon the green incline, and he followed her example. Jewel watched him with consideration, and he became aware of her gaze.

"What are you making, little girl?" he asked, with his sunshiny smile.

"A garden; and I could dig the pond if I had brought the trowel."

"Perhaps my knife will do." He took it out and opened the largest blade. "What do you think of that?"

"Do you suppose I should break it?" asked the child doubtfully.

"You're welcome to try," he replied.

She leaned forward and accepted it from his outstretched hand.



CHAPTER XXV

MUTUAL SURPRISES

"I thought I knew Bel-Air Park," said Bonnell looking about him. "I never suspected this."

"Jewel is the Columbus of this spot. She has named it the Ravine of Happiness."

Nat looked at his speaker. "That's rather ambiguous. Does she mean where happiness is buried or where it is found?"

Eloise smiled. "Jewel never buries any happiness. Well, how is everybody, Nat? Your mother, first of all."

"Didn't Mrs. Evringham tell you?"

The girl's face clouded with apprehension at his surprised tone. "No. You will think it very strange, but poor mamma was under such excitement, you must pardon her. Everything went out of her head. Don't tell me that dear Mrs. Bonnell"—she lowered her voice—"that you have lost her!"

He shook his head. "No, I've gained her. She's well."

"Well!" repeated the girl amazed. "Why, what do you mean? How glorious! How long since?"

"About three months."

"I am so glad! Tell me more good news. Tell me about your own frivoling, and then I shall hear about the other people."

The young man shook his head. "I observed Lent this year scrupulously, and I haven't changed my tactics since Easter. I've been keeping my nose to the grindstone. Began to see things a little differently, Eloise. I decided it was mother's innings—decided to drop the butterfly and do the bee act."

"Is it possible!" The girl laughed. "Will wonders never cease! What was the matter? Did the heiresses cut you?"

"I cut the whole thing, and I have my reward. I suppose your mother didn't tell you that, either. I'm going into business with Mr. Reeves. Do you know him? Jewel does." He smiled toward the child, who lifted an interested face.

"Yes, I do," she said. "You remember about him, cousin Eloise."

"Certainly." The girl looked at her friend questioningly.

"I'm spending this week at his house."

"And you know about Jewel? He has told you?"

"Certainly. The one person of his acquaintance who hasn't to unlearn anything."

"You mean he talked to you of Christian Science?"

Bonnell's hands were clasping his knees. His hat lay on the bank beside him and the thick hair tossed away from his brow. He nodded slowly, wondering at the sudden attentive interest of her look.

"Yes," he replied. "We talked on the tabooed subject."

"Tabooed with whom? You?" she asked disappointedly.

"No, with you I understand."

Color flew into Eloise's face. "Who told you that? Mother of course."

Bonnell nodded, giving a fleeting glance toward the child, who was again busy at her excavation.

"Are congratulations in order, Eloise?" he asked quietly.

"Yes, congratulations." Her eyes grew full of light. "For I have come to see the truth. That child has shown me."

The young man's lips remained apart for a second in his surprise at this declaration, after Mrs. Evringham's detailed representations.

"Then I may tell you how my mother was healed," he said at last.

"Oh, was it really so?"

"Yes."

"And you, Nat?" Unconsciously Eloise leaned her whole body toward him, supporting her hand on the ground. "You know about it yourself? You understand?"

"Yes."

"And you believe in it?"

"With all my heart."

Her face shone. "Oh, Jewel, do you hear? Mr. Bonnell is a Scientist." The girl's breathing was hastened. Her eyes were like stars.

The child sank back from her work and regarded the visitor, smiling. She was glad, but she was not astonished. In her world a great many young men had found the key to life, but to Eloise it was something wonderful. She looked at her old friend as if she had never seen him before. She reviewed all she knew of his gay life with its background of suffering.

"Do you study the lessons?" she asked incredulously. "You?"

"Every day. I am surprised beyond measure to find you interested, for your mother told me—And the doctor—?"

"Is a very fine man," returned Eloise gravely, as he paused.

Bonnell's mental questions were answered by her manner. He put his hand in the pocket of his sack coat and drew out a small, thin, black book.

Eloise took it. "'Unity of Good,'" she read on its cover. "I haven't seen this one," she said eagerly.

"You will," he replied.

She looked up. "Do you know, I thought just now you were going to take out your pipe?" she said naively. "That's where you used to keep it."

"My pipe doesn't like me any more," he rejoined quietly.

"Are you happy, Nat?" she asked, scrutinizing his face with childlike, searching eyes.

"I was never a very solemn codger, was I?" he returned.

"But are you happier? Does the world look different? Of course it does, with your mother well."

"Oh yes," he answered in a changed tone, tossing his head back, and making a gesture as of throwing away something. "There was nothing in it before, nothing in it."

"Yes, yes, I know," she returned comprehendingly.

Jewel had watched them, and now, as they paused, her voice broke the silence in which the two friends looked into each other's faces.

"Cousin Eloise is going to church with me on Sunday," she announced.

"Oh, certainly." Bonnell smiled. "Wednesday evening meetings and all now, Eloise. Haven't you attended yet?"

"No, I've only just learned. I've only just seen. I'm only beginning to see, Nat. Your mother was healed. Oh, it is true, isn't it! It's so wonderful to find that you, you, know more about it than I do, when I supposed you would scorn it. I can't help expecting to wake up."

"That is just what you will do," returned Bonnell. "You will waken—to a thousand things. So your mother objects."

"Poor little mother," returned Eloise, looking down with sudden sadness.

"My mother wants you and yours to make us a long visit at View Point this summer."

The girl's lovely eyes raised hopefully. "The best thing that could happen," she exclaimed.

"I think so," responded her companion.

When Mr. Evringham returned from golf that afternoon, only his daughter-in-law was in sight. She inclined her head toward him with the air of a Lady Macbeth.

"Have you seen anything of the girls?" she asked as he approached her.

"Nothing. Where are they?"

She slowly shrugged her shoulders. "I'm the last one to ask. They wouldn't think of telling me," she returned.

"What's up now?" thought Mr. Evringham. "You don't look well, Madge," he said aloud.

Once she would have welcomed the evidence of solicitude. Now nothing mattered.

"I don't feel well," she replied, "and I can't even call the physician I prefer."

Mr. Evringham stared down at her for a silent minute, and light broke upon him.

"Is it all off with Ballard?" he asked bluntly.

"Yes; and that's what you have done, father, by allowing that child Jewel to come here."

Mr. Evringham bit his lip. This amused him.

"Eloise has mounted the new hobby, and is riding for dear life away from common sense, away from everything that promised such happiness."

"Do you mean Christian Science?"

"Of course I do."

"It's a strange thing, Madge. Do you know, it captures people with good heads." Mr. Evringham seated himself near his daughter's chair. "I came out on the train with my friend Reeves. He was talking about young Bonnell, of whom you spoke last night. Said his mother was cured when the doctors couldn't do anything. You know her, eh?"

"As well as if she were my own flesh and blood."

"Is it a fact, what they say?"

"She was considered incurable. I know nothing about the rest of it. Nat was telling me yesterday. Now he is probably infatuated also, and, sooner or later, Eloise is sure to meet him."

"H'm, h'm. An old flame, you said," remarked Mr. Evringham. "Indeed! In—deed! I trust for your sake, Madge, that his is not objectionable to you."

"He is," snapped Mrs. Evringham. "A poor fellow, with his way to make in the world. He's been out of college a couple of years and hasn't done anything worth speaking of yet."

"Reeves is going to take him into the business," returned Mr. Evringham. "I don't know why or wherefore, but the mere fact is decidedly promising."

"Oh, who can tell if that will last!" returned the other with scornful pessimism. "Nat has let too many cotillions to do anything else well. I can only pray that he will get away without seeing Eloise. Mrs. Bonnell has invited us to make her a visit this summer. I certainly shall not go one step!"

A sudden sound of laughter was heard on the quiet air. Mrs. Evringham leaned forward. "There are the children now," she said, as figures turned in at the gateway; "and who is that? It is"—with desperation,—"he's here! Nat Bonnell is with them!"

She sat upright with disapproval, clasping the arm of her chair, while her father-in-law looked curiously at the approaching group. His gaze fixed on the young man with the well-set head who, swinging his hat in his hand, was talking fast to Eloise of something that amused them both. Jewel apparently interrupted him and he stooped with a quick motion, and in a second she was sitting on his shoulder, shrieking in gleeful surprise.

Thus they approached the piazza and came close before noting that it was occupied.

"Grandpa, see me!" cried Jewel delightedly.

Bonnell met the unsmiling gaze of his host as Mr. Evringham rose, and then caught sight of Mrs. Evringham stonily gazing from her chair.

"Ah, how do you do?" he called laughingly.

"Jove, he is a good looking chap!" thought the host, and Bonnell set Jewel down at his feet with such velocity that Anna Belle was cast heavily to earth.

"A thousand pardons!" exclaimed Nat, catching up the doll by the skirt and restoring her.

Jewel gave him a bright look. "She knows there is no sensation in matter," she said scornfully.

Poor Anna Belle! The topography of the ravine was full of hazards for her, and her seasons there were always so adventurous and full of sudden and unlooked-for bumps that her philosophy was well tested, and she might reasonably have complained of this gratuitous blow; but she smiled on, as Jewel hugged her. Her mental poise was marvelous, whatever might be said of the physical.

Eloise introduced her friend and went to her mother's side, while Bonnell shook hands with Mr. Evringham and exchanged some words concerning Mr. Reeves and business matters.

"Wide awake," was the older man's mental comment. "Doesn't seem at all the sort of person to be fooled about that healing business. Good eye. Good manner. Perhaps this was Ballard's handicap all the time. I guess you're in for it, Madge."

Nat moved to greet Mrs. Evringham, who gave him no welcoming smile. She leaned back listlessly, not caring what effect she produced. He seemed to her a part of the combination entered into by the Fates to thwart and annoy.

Bonnell knew her nearly as well as Eloise did. "I'm sorry you're under the weather," he said sympathetically, when he had discovered that, in his own phrase, there was "nothing doing." "I received a letter from my mother to-day, in which she impressed upon me that she expected you both by the middle of June."

"My plans have changed since yesterday, Nat," returned Mrs. Evringham dismally. "Yes. We shall not be able to go to your mother's, as I had hoped. Some time during the season I shall try to look in on her of course. You tell her so, Nat, when you write."

"Nonsense, nonsense, Mrs. Evringham. You don't in the least mean it," he returned cheerfully, with the smile and manner which she could not and would not endure.

"I do mean it, Nat. I tell you my plans are changed. Eloise and I may go to Europe."

Naturally she had never thought of Europe until that moment, but that laughing, caressing light in Nat Bonnell's eyes was insufferable.

"Ah, in that case, of course," he returned, "we couldn't say a word," and then he moved to go.

Mr. Evringham urged the visitor to stay to dinner, but he declined and once more shook hands.

"Good-by, Jewel," he said to the child. "Sunday, you know."

"Yes indeed, I know," she returned, an irresistible tendency to hop moving her feet. On nearer acquaintance she had found Mr. Bonnell exhilarating.

"Good-by, Nat," said Eloise.

He looked into the face on which rested a cloud. "I think you might be a degree more attentive," he suggested.

"How?"

"Oh—take me to the gate, for instance."

Eloise smiled and went with him. He turned with a slight bow that included the group, and they strolled down the path.

"It's all up, Madge," remarked Mr. Evringham, half smiling. "No use wriggling, no use staying away from the mother. Might as well yield gracefully. I think Ballard might have been told, that's all."

"There was nothing to tell, father! How can you be so unkind? That's just Nat's manner. He is used to everybody liking him, and always having his own way; but Eloise never—she never"—the speaker saw that if she continued, in a moment more she would be weeping, and she certainly was not going to weep in this company. So she contented herself by glaring toward the gate, where could be seen two figures in earnest conversation.

"I had counted so much on Mrs. Bonnell's influence," Eloise was saying. "What does mother mean? She knows my mind is made up as to Christian Science. What is she afraid of?"

Bonnell caught his thumbs in his coat pockets and lifted himself slightly on his toes. "She is afraid of me."

"Of you?" The girl lifted surprised eyes to his and let them fall again, her grave face coloring.

"She has always been more or less afraid of me. I'm ineligible, you know."

"Yes, you are, awfully, Nat," returned Eloise earnestly. "That's what makes you so nice. Didn't we always have a good time together?"

"Yes, on those rare occasions when we had a chance, but Mrs. Evringham always suspected me. She never felt certain that I wasn't waiting for your skirts to be lengthened and your hair to go up in order to steal you."

Eloise tried to look at him, but found it more comfortable to examine the inexpressive gravel path. "But now you have something to think of besides girls," she said gently.

"Yes. Do you know, Eloise, if I had been promised the granting of one wish as I took the cars for Bel-Air, it would have been that I might find you convinced of the truth of Christian Science."

She looked at him now brightly, gladly. "It is such a help to me to know that you are in it," she returned. Their hands simultaneously went forth and clasped. "What shall we do about mother?"

He smiled. "That will all come right," he returned confidently.

"There are classes, Nat," she said. "Have you been through one?"

"Not yet. Perhaps we could enter together."

"Do you think so?" she returned eagerly.

He was looking down at her still—calm, strong.

She started. "I mustn't be late to dinner. Good-by. Sunday, Nat."

"Not to-morrow? I want some golf."

"Yes, go. It's a fine links. I'm sorry, but I'd better not go there for the present. Good-by."

She was gone, so he strolled on and out through the park, and as he went he put two and two together, and suspected the cause of the girl's objection to golf.



CHAPTER XXVI

ON WEDNESDAY EVENING

"This is my silk dress, grandpa," said Jewel, coming out on the piazza Sunday morning.

Mr. Evringham was sitting there reading the paper. He looked up to behold his granddaughter standing expectantly.

She had on the cherished frock. Her plump black legs ended in new shoes, the brim of her large hat was wreathed with daisies, snowy ribbons finished her well-brushed braids, while, happiest touch of all, Little Faithful was ticking away on her breast.

"Well, who is this bonnie lassie?" asked Mr. Evringham, viewing her.

"It's my best one," said Jewel, smilingly, coming close to him.

"I should hope so. If you were anything grander I should have to put on smoked glasses to look at you. Church, eh?" He took the brown pamphlet she carried and examined it.

"Yes. I wish you were coming."

"Oh, I have an important engagement at the golf club this morning."

"Have you? Well, grandpa, I was thinking you can't play golf or ride at night, and wouldn't you take me Wednesday evening?"

"Where to?"

"Church."

"Heavens, child! Wednesday evening prayer meeting?" asked the broker in perturbation.

"No. It's just lovely reading and singing and interesting stories," replied Jewel, endeavoring to paint the picture as attractively as possible.

"H'm. H'm. Do you suppose Mr. Reeves goes?"

"Why, of course," replied the child. "Scientists never stay away."

"Then should I be considered a Scientist if I went? I still have some regard for my reputation."

"A great many visitors go," replied the child earnestly. Then she added, with unmistakably sincere naivete, "I don't mind leaving you in the daytime, because we're used to it; but I was thinking it would make me homesick, grandpa, to go away in the evening and leave you in the library."

Mr. Evringham took her little hand in his. "Have you thought, Jewel," he asked, "how it will be when you leave me altogether?"

"I shall have mother and father then," returned the child.

"Yes; but whom shall I have?"

The question came curtly, and Jewel looked into the deep-set eyes in surprise. "Shall you miss me, grandpa?" she asked wonderingly.

"Whom shall I have, I say?" he repeated.

The child thought a minute. "Just who you had before," she answered, slipping her arm around his neck. "There's Essex Maid, you know."

The broker gave a short laugh. "Yes. It's lucky, isn't it?" he returned, rather bitterly.

"Do you like to have me with you, grandpa?" pursued the child, pleased.

"Yes; confound it, Jewel, yes."

"Then Divine Love will fix it somehow, for I love to be with you, too."

"You do, eh? Then I'll tell you that I received a letter from your father yesterday. It was a very pleasant letter, but it said they felt obliged, if they could, to stay over a little longer—two or three weeks longer."

The child's face grew thoughtful.

"He said they had just received your letter, and were very pleased and thankful to know that you were happy. He said it would be a business advantage to them to stay, but that they could come home at the appointed time if you wished it. I am to cable them to-morrow, if you do." Silence for a minute while Jewel thought. "Do you think you can be happy with me a little longer than you expected?"

"I do want to see mother and father very much," returned the child, "but I'm just as happy as anything," she added heartily, after a pause.

Mr. Evringham had listened with surprising anxiety for the verdict. "Very well, very well," he returned, with extra brusqueness, picking up his newspaper. "I guess there won't be anything to prevent my going to that meeting with you Wednesday evening, Jewel. Just once, you understand, once only."

At this moment the brougham drove around to the steps, and Eloise came out upon the piazza. She was a vision of dainty purity in her white gown, white hat, and gloves.

Mr. Evringham rose, lifted his hat, and going down the steps opened the door of the carriage. "A man need not be ashamed to have these two ladies represent him at church," he said, looking into Eloise's calm eyes.

She smiled back at him. There was no suspicion now of sarcasm or stings. The air she breathed was wholesome and inviting. The lump had been leavened.

Arrived at the hall where the services were held, the girls were ushered into good seats before the room rapidly filled.

They saw Mr. Reeves and his family and Mr. Bonnell come in on the other side, and the latter did not rest until he had found them and sent over a bright, quick nod.

The platform was beautiful by a tall vase of roses at the side of the white reading-desk, and Eloise listened eagerly to the voices of the man and woman who alternately read the morning lesson. The peace, simplicity, and quiet of the service enthralled her. She looked over the crowd of listening, reverent faces with wistful wonder. Nat was among them, Nat! Sometimes she glanced across at his attentive face. Nat at church, in the morning; thoroughly interested! She pinched her arm to make quite certain.

Once when they rose to sing, it was the hymn she had heard. The voices swelled:—

"O'er waiting harpstrings of the mind There sweeps a strain, Low, sad, and sweet, whose measures bind The power of pain."

The girl in the white dress did not sing. She swallowed often. The voice of the child at her side soared easily.

"And o'er earth's troubled, angry sea, I see Christ walk; And come to me, and tenderly, Divinely, talk."

What a haven of promise and peace seemed this sunny, simple place of purity.

"From tired joy and grief afar, And nearer Thee, Father, where Thine own children are I love to be."

Jewel, looking up at her companion, was surprised to see her lashes wet and her lower lip caught between her teeth.

"What's the matter, cousin Eloise?" she whispered softly as they sat down.

The girl tried to smile. Words were not at her command. "Gladness," she returned briefly; which reply caused Jewel to meditate for some time.

They had a talk with Nat and were presented to the Reeves family after church, and Eloise felt herself in an atmosphere of love.

Jewel left the group for a private word to Zeke before her cousin should come to enter the brougham. 'Zekiel sat bolt upright in the most approved style, and did not turn his face, even when the child addressed him.

"I've been wondering this morning," she said, "how we can manage for you to come to church, 'Zekiel."

"Oh, I have it six times a week," returned the coachman.

"But it's so lovely just to listen to them read and not have to hunt up the places or anything."

"I'm satisfied with my minister," returned Zeke, almost smiling.

Eloise and Mr. Bonnell came out to the carriage, so there was no further time for talk.

The subject remained in Jewel's mind, however. On Wednesday morning, just before Mr. Evringham went to the station, the child seized him in the hall.

"Grandpa, don't you think it would be nice to go in the trolley car to church to-night?"

"To—where?" asked the broker, frowning.

"This is the night we're going to church, you know."

"The dev—Ah, to be sure. So we are. Well—a—what did you say? Trolley car? Why?"

"Well, we could all go then, you know," returned Jewel. "Cousin Eloise wants to go, but," the child's honesty compelled her, "she wouldn't have to go with us because it is Mr. Bonnell's last night in Bel-Air, and I heard him ask if he might come for her; but I do so want Zeke to go, grandpa!"

"Well, for the love of"—began the broker slowly.

"Yes, Zeke is getting to understand a good deal about Christian Science. He has some claims of error that his mother knows about, and they make her sorry, and I've been helping him and reading to him out of my books, and I do want him to go to the testimonial meeting so much."

The child looked wistfully up into the dark eyes that rested upon her. Mr. Evringham had remarked his housekeeper's change of spirit toward the little girl, had wondered at the increasing and even reckless indulgence of Anna Belle, who from being an exile in the stair closet had now arrived at a degree of consideration and pampering which threatened to turn her head.

"Jewel," he said impressively, "I wish you to understand one thing distinctly. You are not now or at any future time to try to make a Christian Scientist of Essex Maid."

From wondering sobriety Jewel's lips broke into a gleeful smile. "I don't have to," she cried triumphantly. "She is one! Anyway, she has demonstrated everything a horse ought to!"

Mr. Evringham flung his hands over his head despairingly. "Great heavens!" he exclaimed tragically, rushing out to the brougham, Jewel at his heels in peals of laughter.

But they went to church in the trolley car. Eloise reached the same place with Mr. Bonnell, but whether she walked or drove or rode nobody ever knew, and it didn't matter much, for a full moon illumined the night.

Early in the evening a young man entered the hall quietly and took a back seat. It was Zeke.

Mr. Reeves saw Jewel and her grandfather come in, and softly he smote his knee. "She's done it!" he ejaculated mentally. He noted the broker's haughty carriage, the half challenging glances he threw to right and left as he proceeded up the aisle to the position of Jewel's choice.

Mr. Reeves composed his countenance with some difficulty, and catching the wandering eye, gave his friend a grave bow.

Testimonial meetings differ in point of continued interest. This proved to be a good one. The most interesting narrative of the evening was Nat Bonnell's. His self possession, fine presence, and good voice made more effective the marvelous story of his mother's resurrection to strength. He told it with dignity and directness, and Mr. Evringham was impressed.

"What's my rheumatism to that, eh, Jewel?" he whispered, as Nat sat down.

"Just nothing, grandpa," replied the child.

"You think the Creator'd consider me worth attending to, eh?"

"God doesn't know you have the rheumatism," exclaimed Jewel with soft scorn.

"Doesn't? Well! I've always supposed He thought I needed reminding on account of a number of things, and so touched me up with that. I didn't blame Him much.

"If He knew it, it would be real, and then it couldn't be changed," returned Jewel earnestly in the ear he bent to her.

The broker sat up and looked down on her large hat and short legs. "Whew, but I'm a back number!" he mused.

The next testimonial made Jewel's eyes brighten. It was given by a man who told a story of hopeless intemperance and his family's want. The unaffected humility and gratitude that sounded in his voice as he described the changed conditions which followed his cure caused the roses to deepen in Jewel's cheeks. She wondered where Zeke was sitting.

Altogether she was happy over the meeting, and her grandfather's attitude was as kindly as could have been expected.

Eloise came into her mother's room that night, beaming.

"I wish you had come with us," she said. "It was wonderful."

Mrs. Evringham turned to her with a lofty air. "I have too much loyalty to friendship to be seen in such a place," she returned.

"Nat said he wouldn't ask you to come down to bid him good-by, because he expects to come out to spend Sundays for a while."

Mrs. Evringham looked at her daughter. All the girl's face had lacked of vivacity and happy expression it wore now, making her radiant.

"You could never guess the news I have for you, mother."

Mrs. Evringham's lips tightened. "Eloise, if you will not marry the fine man who had my entire approval, it will be outrageous for you to marry an ineligible, a young fellow whose goods are all in the show window, who has not proved himself in any way. I refuse to hear your news," she returned impetuously.

The girl laughed. "Do you mean Nat, dear?" she asked, her rosy face coming close. "I'm afraid he's going to spoil himself by becoming eligible. He has been telling me a lot about the business to-night."

"Ho! Nat Bonnell could always talk."

Eloise's arms closed around her. "There's only one source of supply, mother. Nat has found Him. I am finding Him. We shall not want. What do you think I have here for you? Grandfather gave it to me." Eloise put into her mother's hands a draft for a thousand dollars.

Mr. Evringham appeared to lose sight of the dagger she had been seeing before her for days. "What is this?" she ejaculated. "A present from father?"

"Not at all. Some unknown man owed it to papa, and his conscience made him pay the debt. It came in grandfather's evening mail, and he has only just opened it."

Mrs. Evringham examined the paper eagerly.

"How wonderful!" she exclaimed.

"How natural," returned Eloise. "That is the wonderful part of it."



CHAPTER XXVII

A REALIZED HOPE

One afternoon Mr. Evringham did not return from the city at the usual time. Jewel, watching for him, was surprised after a while to see him walking up from the gate.

"Why, what's happened?" she asked. "Zeke went for you."

"Yes; but he found he had to leave Dick to be shod."

"Then are you going to saddle Essex Maid yourself? Oh, can I see you do it, grandpa?" She hopped with anticipation.

"I don't know that I'll ride just now. It's an excellent day for walking. It seems rather strange to me, Jewel, that you've never shown me the Ravine of Happiness. You talk a good deal about it."

"Oh, would you like to come?" cried the child, flushing. "Good! I have the pond all fixed in Anna Belle's garden, and the ferns droop over it just like a fairy story."

"Have you put up a sign for the fairies to keep out?"

"No—o," returned Jewel, drawing in her chin and smiling.

"Oh well, you may be sure they're at it, then, every moonlight night. They haven't a particle of respect, you know, for anything. If I were in Anna Belle's place, I should put up a sign, 'Private Grounds.'"

"Oh, she's so unselfish she wouldn't. If they only won't break the flowers she won't care," returned the child, entering into the fancy with zest.

Mr. Evringham took the doll from her arms, and carrying it up the steps deposited it in the piazza chair.

"Isn't she going?" asked Jewel soberly.

"No, not this time. She doesn't care, she's been there so much. Just see how cheerful and comfortable she looks!"

There was, indeed, a smile of almost cloying sweetness on Anna Belle's countenance, and she seemed to be seeing pleasing visions.

"I never saw such a good child!" said Jewel with an admiring sigh; then she put her hand in her grandfather's and they strolled out into the park and up the shady road. Just before reaching the bend around which lay the gorge, Mr. Evringham surprised his companion by breaking in upon her lively chatter with a tune which he whistled loudly.

It was such an unusual ebullition that Jewel looked up at him. "Why, grandpa, I never heard you whistle before," she said.

"You didn't? That's because you never before saw me out on a lark. I tell you, I'm a gay one when I get started," and forthwith there burst again from his lips a gay refrain, that sounded shrilly up the leafy path. They rounded the bend in the road, and the broker looked down into the eyes that were bent upon him in admiration.

"You whistle almost as well as Mr. Bonnell," said the child.

"Give me time and I dare say I shall beat him out," was the swaggering response. "Ah, here's your ravine, is it?"

"Yes, that's"—began Jewel, and went no further.

A couple of rods from where she suddenly came to a standstill was an object which for a moment rooted her to the spot. A small horse, black as jet, with a white star in his forehead and a flowing, wavy mane and tail, stood by the roadside. His coat, gleaming like satin, set off the pure white leather of his trappings. On his back was fastened a side saddle, and he was tethered to the rail of the light fence.

Mr. Evringham appeared not to see him. He was looking down the rocks and grass of the steep incline.

"Is there any sort of a path?" he asked, "or do you descend it as you would a cellar door? I think you might have told me, so I could change these light trousers."

"Grandpa!" exclaimed Jewel in a hushed tone, pointing before her. "See that horse—just like the coal black steed the princess rides in a fairy story."

"Why, that's so. He is a beauty. Where do you suppose the princess is?"

"She's probably gone down the ravine," returned the child, her feet drawn forward as if by a magnet. "Let's not go down yet."

The broker allowed himself to be led close to the pony, who turned his full bright eyes upon the pair curiously.

"Do you think I might touch him, grandpa?" asked the child, still in the hushed voice.

"If he's a fairy horse he might vanish," returned Mr. Evringham. "Let's see how he stands it." So saying he gave the shining flank some sturdy love pats. "Oh, he's all right. He's good substantial flesh and blood."

"But the lady," said Jewel, looking about, the pupils of her eyes dilated with excitement.

"Oh, I don't think a very big lady has been riding in that saddle. You can do as you'd be done by, I fancy."

Upon this Jewel stroked the pony over and over lovingly, and he nosed about her in a friendly way.

"Grandpa, see him, see him! And oh grandpa, see his beautiful star, white as a snowflake!"

"Well, upon my word, if this isn't lucky," remarked Mr. Evringham. "Here is some sugar in my pocket, now." He passed some lumps to the child.

"Would it be right?" she asked, glancing down the ravine. "Had I better wait till the girl comes up?"

"She won't mind, I'll wager," returned Mr. Evringham; so the child, thus encouraged, fed the coal black steed, who, for all his poetical appearance, had evidently a strongly developed sweet tooth.

"Hello, what's this!" exclaimed the broker, stepping to the fence and taking up something black and folded. When he shook it out, it proved to be a child's riding skirt.

"She's left it there," said Jewel eagerly. "We ought not to touch it. It's very hard on clothes going down the ravine, and she's left it there. Don't you think, grandpa, you ought to put it back?" for to her great surprise her punctilious and particular relative was shaking the fine skirt about recklessly and examining it.

"Here's a name," he said, bringing his prize to Jewel and showing her an oblong bit of white cloth, much as tailors use inside dresses. "What do you make of it?"

The child, disturbed by such daring, and dreading to see the owner of these splendid possessions scramble up the bank, looked reluctantly.

The name was a long one, but so familiar that she recognized it at once. "Evringham."

She lifted her eyes to her grandfather. "It's the same as ours."

"There isn't another Evringham in Bel-Air," returned the broker. "The fairies dropped this for you, I guess, Jewel. It certainly won't fit me. Let's try it on."