"That doesn't help us much," he said to Mr. Mason. "Brown is a common name, and the Atlanta before the war was not like the Atlanta of to-day."

"Perhaps something inside will give a cue," Mr. Mason suggested, and Jack opened one of the letters carefully, for it was nearly torn apart.

The spelling was bad and the writing was bad, but it rang true with a young man's love for the girl of his choice, and it seemed to Jack like sacrilege to read it. Very hurriedly he went through the four letters, finding nothing to guide him but "Atlanta," and a few names of people who must have been living in the vicinity.

"Here's another," Eloise said, passing him the paper which she had picked from the floor.

Jack took it, and opening it, glanced at the contents. Then, with a cry of "Eureka!" he began a sort of pirouette, while Eloise and Mr. Mason wondered if he, too, had gone quar, like the Harrises.

"It's the marriage certificate," he said, sobering down at last, and reading aloud that at the Hardy Plantation, Fulton County, Georgia, on December—, 18—, the Rev. John Covil united in marriage James Crompton, of Troutburg, Massachusetts, and Miss Eudora Harris, of Volucia County, Florida.

Upon no one did the finding of this certificate produce so miraculous an effect as upon Jake.

"Fo' de Lawd!" he exclaimed, "I feels as if I mus' have de pow',—what I hain't had since I jined de 'Piscopals. To think dat ar was lyin' in thar all dis time, an' I not know it. I 'members now dat Elder Covil comed hyar oncet after the lil chile was bawn, to see Miss Dory, an' I seen him write a paper an' give it to her, an' she put it in her bosom. I axed no questions, but I know now 'twas this. The Cunnel tole her not to tell, an' if she said she wouldn't, she wouldn't. Dat's like de Harrises,—dey's mighty quar, stickin' to dar word till they die like that Cassy-by-anker on de burnin' ship. Glory to God, glory! I mus' shout, I mus' hurrah. Glory!"

He went careering round the room like one mad, knocking over a chair, waking up Amy, and bringing her to the scene of action.

"Bress de Lawd!" he said, taking her by the arm and giving her a whirl, "we've done foun' your mudder's stifficut in de letters whar she put it an' tied 'em wid her weddin' ribbon. Glory hollerluyer!"

Amy looked frightened, and when Eloise explained to her she did not seem as much impressed as the others. Her mind had grasped Jake and the old home, and could not then take in much more. Still, in a way she understood, and when Eloise said to her, "Col. Crompton was really your father,—married to your mother,—and you were Amy Crompton, and not Harris," she said, "I am glad, and wish he knew. He used to taunt me with my low birth and call me a Cracker. When are we going home?"

Her mind had reverted at once to Crompton Place, now hers in reality, although she probably did not think of that.

"I am very glad, and congratulate you that Crompton Place is your home without a doubt," Jack said to her. Then, turning to Eloise, he continued, in a low tone, "I can't tell you how glad I am for you, provided you don't feel so high and mighty that you want to cast me off."

"Oh, Jack," Eloise replied, "don't talk such nonsense. I am still of the Harris blood and part Cracker, and maybe quar. If you can stand that I think I can stand you."

At this point there was the sound of hurrying feet outside, and a woman's voice was heard saying, "Now, mind your manners, or you'll cotch it." Then four woolly heads were thrust in at the door and with them was Mandy Ann.

"Hyar she comes wid de fo' twins," Jake said, going forward to meet her. "Mandy Ann," he began, "hyar's de lil chile Dory. Miss Amy they done call her. Would you know'd her?"

"Know'd her? I reckon so,—anywhar in de dark. Praise de Lawd, an' now let His servant 'part in peace, 'case my eyes has seen de lil chile oncet mo'," Mandy Ann exclaimed, going up to Amy and putting her hands on her shoulders.

"She's 'peatin' some o' de chant in de Pra'r Book. Mandy Ann is mighty pious, she is," Jake said in a low tone, while Amy drew back a little, and looked timidly at the tall negress calling her lil chile Dory.

"Mandy Ann wasn't so big," she said, turning to the twins, Alex and Aaron, Judy and Dory, who brought the past back more vividly when Mandy Ann was about their size.

A look of inquiry passed from Mandy Ann to Jake, who touched his forehead, while Mandy whispered, "Quar, like ole Miss an' all of 'em. Oh, de pity of it! What happened her?" Then to Amy she said, with all the motherhood of her ten children in her voice, "Doan' you 'member me, Mandy Ann, what use' to dress you in de mornin', an' comb yer har, an' wass yer face?"

"Up, instead of down," Amy said quickly, while everybody laughed instead of herself.

"To be shu'," Mandy Ann rejoined. "I reckon I did sometimes wass up 'sted of down. I couldn't help it, 'case you's gen'rally pullin' an' haulin' an' kickin' me to git away, but you 'members me, an' Judy, wid dis kind of face?"

She touched her eyes and nose and mouth to show where Judy's features were marked with ink, and then Amy laughed, and as if the mention of Judy took her back to the vernacular of her childhood, she said, "Oh, yes, I done 'members Judy. Whar is she?"

This lapse of her mother into negro dialect was more dreadful to Eloise than anything which had gone before, but Mr. Mason, who read her concern in her face, said to her, "It's all right, and shows she is taking up the tangled threads."

No one present knew of Judy's sale at the Rummage, and no one could reply to the question, "Whar is she?" Amy forgot it in a moment in her interest in the twins, whom Mandy presented one after another, saying, "I've six mo' grow'd up, some on 'em, an' one is married, 'case I'se old,—I'se fifty-three, an' you's about forty."

To this Amy paid no attention. She was still absorbed with the twins, who, Mandy Ann told her, had worn her white frock at their christening. Mandy Ann had not yet heard of the finding of the marriage certificate, and when Jake told her she did not seem greatly surprised.

"I allus knew she was married, without a stifficut," she said. "I b'lieved it the fust time he come befo' lil Miss Dory was bawn."

"Tell me about his coming," Eloise said, and Mandy Ann, who liked nothing better than to talk, began at the beginning, and told every particular of the first visit, when Miss Dora wore the white gown she was married in and buried in, and the rose on her bosom. "And you think this is it?" Eloise asked, holding carefully in a bit of paper the ashes of what had once been a rose.

"I 'clar for't, yes," Mandy said, "I seen her put it somewhar with the card he done gin me. You'se found it?"

Eloise nodded and held fast to the relics of a past which in this way was linking itself to the present. "Tell us of the second time, when he took mother," Eloise suggested, and here Mandy Ann was very eloquent, describing everything in detail, repeating much which Jake had told, telling of the ring,—a real stone, sent her from Savannah, and which she had given her daughter as it was too small for her now. From a drawer in the chamber above she brought a little white dress, stiff with starch and yellow and tender with time, which she said "lil Miss Dory wore when she first saw her father."

This Eloise seized at once, saying, "You will let me have it as something which belonged to mother far back."

Mandy Ann looked doubtful. There would probably be grandchildren, and Jake's scruples might be overcome and the white gown do duty again as a christening robe. But Jake spoke up promptly.

"In course it's your'n, an' de book, too, if you wants it, though it's like takin' a piece of de ole times. Strange Miss Dora don't pay no 'tention, but is so wropp'd up in dem twins. 'Specs it seems like when de little darkys use' to play wid her," he continued, looking at Amy, who, if she heard what Mandy Ann was saying, gave no sign, but seemed, as Jake said, "wropp'd up" in the twins.

There was not much more for Mandy Ann to tell of the Colonel, except to speak of the money he had sent to her and Jake, proving that he was not "the wustest man in the world, if she did cuss him kneeling on Miss Dory's grave the night after the burial." She spoke of that and of "ole Miss Thomas, who was the last to gin in," and wouldn't have done it then but for the ring on her finger. At this point Jake, who thought she had told enough, said to her, "Hole on a spell. Your tongue is like a mill wheel when it starts. Thar's some things you or'to keep to your self. Ole man Crompton is dead, an' God is takin' keer of him. He knows all the good thar was at the last, an' I 'specs thar was a heap."

By this time Amy had tired of the twins, who had fingered her rings and buttons, and stroked her dress and hair, and called her a pretty lady, and asked her on the sly for a nickel. She was getting restless, when Jakey said, "If you'd like to see your mudder's grave, come wid me."

From the house to the enclosure where the Harrises were buried he had made a narrow road, beside which eucalyptus trees and oleanders were growing, and along this walk the party followed him to Eudora's grave.

"I can have 'Crompton' put hyar now that I am shu'," Jake said, pointing to the vacant space after Eudora. "I wish dar was room for 'belobed wife of Cunnel Crompton.' I reckons, though, she wasn't 'belobed,' or why was he so dogon mean to her?" he added, kneeling by the grave and picking a dead leaf and bud which his quick eye had detected amid the bloom. "Couldn't you done drap a tear 'case your mother is lyin' here?" he said to Amy, who shook her head.

The dead mother was not as real to her as the living Jake, to whom she said, "As you talk to me I remember something of her, and people making a noise. But it is long ago, and much has happened since. I can't cry. Is it wrong?"

She looked at Eloise, who replied, "No, darling; you have cried enough for one day. Some time we will come here again, and you'll remember more. Let us go."

"What is your plan now?" Mr. Mason asked Jack when, after a half hour spent with Jake, they were driving back to the Brock House.

"I have been thinking," Jack replied, "that I will leave the ladies for a few days at the hotel, while I go to Palatka and Atlanta, and see if anything can be learned of the Browns, or Harrises, or the Hardy plantation, where the marriage took place. I wish to get all the facts I can, although the certificate should be sufficient to establish Mrs. Amy's right to the estate. I don't think she realizes her position, as heir to the finest property in Crompton."

She didn't realize it at all, but was very willing to stay at the Brock House with Eloise, while Jack went to Palatka and Atlanta to see what he could find. It was not much. Tom Hardy had been killed in the war, and had left no family. This he was told in Palatka. In Atlanta he learned that before the war there had been a plantation near the city owned by a Hardy family, all of whom were dead or had disappeared. There were Browns in plenty in the Directory, and Jack saw them all, but none had any connection with the Harrises. At last he struck an old negress, who had belonged to the Hardys, and who remembered a double wedding at the plantation years before, and who said that an Andrew Jackson Brown, who must have been present, as he was a son of the house, was living in Boston, and was a conductor of a street car. With this information as the result of his search Jack went back to Enterprise, where he found Amy greatly improved in mind and body. Every day Jake and Mandy Ann had been to see her, or with Eloise she had driven to the clearing, where her dormant faculties continued to awaken with the familiar objects of her childhood. Many people and much talking still bewildered her, and her memory was treacherous on many points, but to a stranger who knew nothing of her history she seemed a quiet, sane woman, "not a bit quar," Eloise said to Jack as she welcomed him back. "And I believe she will continue to improve when we get her home, away from the people who talk to her so much and confuse her. When can we go?"

"To-morrow, if you like," Jack said, and the next day they left Enterprise, after bidding an affectionate good-by to Mandy Ann, with whom they left a substantial remembrance of their visit.

Amy would have liked to take the twins with her, but Eloise said, "Not yet, mother; wait and see, and perhaps they will all come later."

It was sure that Jakey was to follow them soon and spend as much time with them as he pleased.

"Stay always, if you will. We owe you everything," Eloise said to him, when at parting he stood on the platform with his "God bress you, Mas'r Harcourt an' Miss Amy, an' Miss t'other one," until the train was out of sight.

They made the journey by easy stages, for Amy was worn with excitement, and it was a week after leaving Florida when a telegram was received at the Crompton House saying they would arrive that evening.



CHAPTER IX

WHAT HOWARD FOUND

Jack had sent Howard a postal on the road to Florida, and a few lines from Enterprise on the day of their arrival. Since that time he had been so busy that he had failed to write, thinking he could tell the news so much better, and Howard argued from his silence that the errand had been unsuccessful. Crompton Place was undoubtedly his, and still he had not been altogether happy in his role as heir. The servants had been very respectful; people had treated him with deference; trades-people had sought his patronage; subscription papers had poured in upon him from all quarters, and in many ways he was made to feel that he was really Crompton of Crompton, with a prospective income of many thousands. He had gone over his uncle's papers, and knew exactly what he was worth, and when his dividends and rents were due. He was a rich man, unless they found something unexpected in Florida, and he did not believe they would. It seemed impossible that if there were a marriage it should have been kept secret so long. "My uncle would certainly have told it at the last and not left a stain on Amy," he said to himself again and again, and nearly succeeded in making himself believe that he had a right to be where he was,—his uncle's heir and head of the house. Why no provision was made for Amy he could not imagine. "But it will make no difference," he said; "I shall provide for her and Eloise."

At the thought of her his heart gave a great throb, for she was dearer to him than he had supposed. "I believe I'd give up Crompton if I could win her," he thought, "but that cannot be; Jack is the lucky fellow," and then he began to calculate how much he would give Amy out and out. "She can live here, of course, if she will, but she must have something of her own. Will twenty thousand be enough, or too much?" he said, and from the sum total of the estate he subtracted twenty thousand dollars, with so large a remainder that he decided to give her that amount in bonds and mortgages, which would cause her as little trouble as possible. There were some government bonds in a private drawer, through which he had searched for a will. He would have a look at them and see which were the more desirable for Amy. He had been through that drawer three or four times, and there was no thought of the will now as he opened it, wondering that it came so hard, as if something were binding on the top or side. It shut harder, or, rather, it didn't shut at all, and with a jerk he pulled it out to see what was the matter. As he did so a folded sheet of foolscap, which had been lodged between the drawer and the side of the desk, fell to the floor. With a presentiment of the truth Howard took it up and read, "THE LAST WILL AND CONFESSION OF JAMES CROMPTON!"

It had come at last, and, unfolding the sheet, Howard began to read, glancing first at the date, which was a few weeks after Amy came from California.

"KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS," it began, "that I, JAMES CROMPTON, am a coward and a sneak and a villain, and have lived a lie for forty years, hiding a secret I was too proud to divulge at first, and which grew harder and harder to tell as time went on and people held me so high as the soul of honor and rectitude. Honor! There isn't a hair of it on my head! I broke the heart of an innocent girl, and left her to die alone. AMY EUDORA SMITH is my own daughter, the lawful child of my marriage with EUDORA HARRIS, which took place December—, 18—, on the Hardy Plantation, Fulton County, in Georgia, several miles from Atlanta."

Up to this point Howard had been standing, but now the floor seemed to rise up and strike him in the face. Sitting down in the nearest chair, he breathed hard for a moment, and then went on with what the Colonel called his CONFESSION, which he had not had courage to make verbally while living.

When in college he had for his room-mate Tom Hardy from Atlanta. The two were fast friends, and when the Colonel was invited to visit Georgia he did so gladly. Some miles from the town was the plantation owned by the Hardys. This the Colonel visited in company with his friend. A small log-house on a part of the farm was rented to a Mr. Brown, a perfectly respectable man, but ignorant and coarse. His family consisted of himself and wife and son, and daughter Mary, a pretty girl of twenty, and a cousin from Florida, Eudora Harris, a beautiful girl of sixteen, wholly uneducated and shy as a bird. There was about her a wonderful fascination for the Colonel, who went with his friend several times to the Brown's, and mixed with them familiarly for the sake of the girl whose eyes welcomed him so gladly, and in which he at last read unmistakable signs of love for himself, while the broad jokes of her friends warned him of his danger. Then his calls ceased, for nothing was further from his thought than marriage with Eudora. At last there came to him and Tom a badly written and spelled invitation to Mary's wedding, which was to take place on the afternoon of the nineteenth day of December, 18—.

"Let's go; there'll be no end of fun," Tom said, but when the day came he was ill in bed with influenza, and the Colonel went without him, reaching the house just as the family were taking a hasty lunch, preparatory to the feast which was to follow the wedding.

"I sat down with them," the Colonel wrote, "and made myself one of them, and drank vile whiskey and home-made wine until my head began to feel as big as two heads, and I do not think I knew what I was about. As bad luck would have it, the man who was to stand with Eudora as groomsman failed to come, and I was asked to take his place.

"'Certainly, I am ready for anything,' I said, and my voice sounded husky and unnatural, and I wondered what ailed me.

"'Then, s'posin' you and Dory get spliced, and we'll have a double weddin'. You have sparked it long enough, and we don't stand foolin' here,' Mr. Brown said to me, in a half-laughing, half-threatening tone.

"I looked at Eudora, and her beautiful eyes were shining upon me with a look which made my pulses quicken as they never had before. I don't know what demon possessed me, unless it were the demon of the whiskey punch, of which I had drank far too much, and which prompted me to say, 'All right, if Eudora is willing.'

"To do her justice, she hesitated a moment, but when I kissed her she yielded, and with the touch of her lips there came over me a feeling I mistook for love, and everything was forgotten except the girl. Elder Covil performed the double ceremony, and looked questioningly at me, as if doubtful whether I were in my right mind or not. I thought I was, and felt extremely happy, until I woke to what I had done, and from which there was no escape. I was bound to a girl whose sweet disposition and great beauty were her only attractions, and whose environments made me shudder. I could not bring her to Crompton Place and introduce her to my friends, and I did not know what to do.

"Tom was furious when he heard of it, and suggested suicide and divorce, and everything else that was bad. But Dora's eyes held me for two weeks, and then I became so disillusionized and so sick of my surroundings, that I was nearly ready to follow Tom's advice and blow out my brains.

"'If you won't kill yourself,' he said, 'send the girl home to Florida, and leave her there till you make up your mind what to do. There must be some way to untie that knot. If not, you are in for it.'

"I sent her home, and after two or three weeks, during which Tom and I revolved a hundred plans, I decided on one, and went to see her in her home—and such a home! A log-house in a palmetto clearing, with a foolish old grandmother who did not know enough to ask or care what I was to Eudora. I could not endure it, and I told Eudora how impossible it was for me to take her North until she had some education and knowledge of the world. I would leave her, I said, until I could decide upon a school to which I would send her, and, as it would be absurd for a married woman to be attending school, she was to retain her maiden name of Harris, and tell no one of our marriage until I gave her permission to do so. I think she would have jumped into the river at my bidding, and she promised all that I required.

"'I shall never tell I am your wife until you say I may,' she said to me when I left her, but there was a look in her eyes like that I once saw in a pet dog I had shot, and which in dying licked my hands.

"Through Tom Hardy, who left Atlanta for Palatka, I sent her money regularly and wrote occasionally, while she replied through the same medium. Loving, pitiful letters they were, and would have moved the heart of any man who was not a brute and steeped to the dregs in pride and cowardice. I burned them as soon as I read them, for fear they might be found. I told her to do the same with mine, and have no doubt she did. I did mean fair about the school, and was making inquiries, slowly, it is true, as my heart was not in it, and I had nearly decided upon Lexington, Kentucky, when the birth of a little girl changed everything, but did not reconcile me to the situation. I never cared for children,—disliked them rather than otherwise,—and the fact that I was a father did not move me a whit.

"There was a letter imploring me to come and see our baby, and I promised to go, with a vague idea that I might some time keep my word. But I didn't. I had no love for Eudora, none for the child; and still a thought of it haunted me continually, and was the cause of my giving the grounds and the school-house to the town. I wanted to expiate my sin, and at the same time increase my popularity, for at that time I was trying to make up my mind to acknowledge my marriage and bring Eudora home. The poor girl never knew it, for on the day of the lawn party she was buried. Tom Hardy wrote me she was dead, and that he was about starting for Europe, and had given Jake, a faithful servant of the family, my address. God knows my remorse when I heard it, and still I put off going for the child until Jake wrote me that the grandmother, too, had died, and added that it was not fitting for the little girl to be brought up with Crackers and negroes. He did not know that I had heard of Eudora's death from Tom, and was waiting for—I did not know what, unless it was to hear from him personally. There was more manliness in that negro's nature than in mine, and I knew it, and was ashamed of myself, and went for my daughter and stood by my wife's grave, and heard from Jake the story of her life, and knew she had kept her promise and never opened her lips, except to say that 'it was all right.'

"The people believed her for the most part, and anathematized the unknown man who had deserted her, but they could not heap upon me all the odium I deserved. Why the story has never reached here I hardly know, except that intercourse between the North and the extreme South was not as easy as it is now, and then the war swept off Tom Hardy and most likely all who knew of the marriage.

"When I brought Amy home I was too proud to acknowledge her as my daughter. The Harrises and the palmetto clearing stood in the way, and I let people think what they chose, hating myself with an added hatred for allowing a stain to rest on her birth. I was fond of her in a way, and angry when she married Candida, who died in Rome. Then she married a Smith, who took her round the country to sing in concerts, until her mind gave way, when he put her in a private asylum in San Francisco. I was very proud of her, and loved her more than she ever knew, but could not confess my relationship to her. When she married Candida I cast her off. She must have some of my spirit, for she never came begging for favors. Her rascally second husband wrote once for money, but I shut him up so that he never wrote again, and the next I heard was a message from Santa Barbara, where he died, and where, before he died, he had bidden his physician to write to me that his wife was in an asylum in San Francisco. I found her and brought her home, shattered in health and in mind, but I think she will recover. If she does before I die, I have sworn to tell her the truth, and will do it, so help me God!

"She has at times spoken of a baby who died,—Smith's probably, and I hated him and did not care for his child. I have thought to make my will, but would rather write this confession, which will explain things and put Amy right as my heir. I have, however, one request to make to her, or those who attend to her affairs. I want my nephew, Howard, to have twenty thousand dollars,—enough for any young man to start on if there is any get-up in him, and Howard has considerable.

"Written by me and signed this — day of July, 18—, the anniversary of Eudora's funeral and the big picnic on my grounds.

"JAMES M. CROMPTON."



CHAPTER X

HOWARD'S TEMPTATION

Howard did not know how long it took him to read this paper. It seemed to him an age, and when it was read he felt as if turning into stone. There was a fire in the grate before which he sat, and something said to him, "Burn it," so distinctly, that he looked over his shoulder to see who was there. "It's the devil," he thought, and his hand went toward the flame, then drew back quickly. He knew now what his uncle had tried so hard to tell them, and remembered how often his eyes had turned in the direction of the private drawer. He had put his confession there, and it had become wedged in and was out of sight, until frequent opening and shutting the drawer had brought it into view. He read the document again, and felt the perspiration oozing out of every pore. The twenty thousand recommended for him made him laugh, as he thought that was the sum he had intended for Amy, and which looked very small for his own needs. "Six times two are twelve," he said, calculating the interest at six per cent. "Twelve hundred a year is not much when one expected as many thousands. I believe I'll burn it!" and again the paper was held so near the fire that a corner of it was scorched.

"I can't do it," he said, drawing it back a second time. "It would do no good, either, if they find out in Florida. I don't see, though, how they can, and if they have, Jack would have written, but I can't burn it yet. I must think a while."

He put the paper aside, and, without his overcoat, went out into the cold, sleety rain, which was falling heavily. It chilled him at once, but he did not think of it as he went through the grounds and gardens and fields of the Crompton Place, where everything was in perfect order and bespoke the wealth of the owner. It was a fair heritage, and he could not give it up without a pang. He never knew how many miles he walked back and forth across the fields and through the woods. Nor did he know that he was cold, until he returned to the house with drenched garments and a chill which he felt to his bones. He had taken a heavy cold, and staid in-doors the next morning, shivering before the grate, which he told Peter to heap with coal until it was hot as—. He didn't finish the sentence, but added, "I'm infernally cold,—influenza, I reckon, but I won't have any nostrums brought to me. All I want is a good fire."

Peter heaped up the fire until the room seemed to him like a furnace, and then left the young man alone with his thoughts and his temptation, which was assailing him a second time, stronger than before. He firmly believed the devil was there, urging him to burn the paper, and held several spirited conversations with him, pro and con, the cons finally gaining the victory.

Late in the afternoon Jack's telegram was brought to him. "We'll be home this evening."

"That means seven o'clock, and dinner at halfpast seven," he said to Peter. "Send Sam with the carriage, and see that there are fires in their rooms."

He had given his orders and then sat down to decide what he would do.

"I know the Old Harry is here with me, but his company is better than none," he said, wishing he had a shawl, he was so cold, with the room at 90 degrees.

The short day drew to a close. Peter came in and lighted the gas, and put more coal on the grate, and said Sam had gone to the station. Half an hour later Howard heard the whistle of the train, and then the sound of wheels coming up the avenue.

"Now or never!" was whispered in his ear, and his hand, with the paper in it, went toward the fire.

There was a fierce struggle, and Howard felt that he was really fighting with an unseen foe; then his hand came back with the paper in it, safe except for a second scorch on one side.

"By the great eternal, it is never! I swear it!" he said, as his arm dropped beside him and the paper fell to the floor.

There was a sound below of people entering the house. They had come, and he heard Eloise's voice as she passed his door on her way to her room with Amy. Was Jack there too? he was wondering—when Jack came in, gay and breezy, but startled when he met the woe-begone face turned toward him.

"By George! old man," he said, "Peter told me you were shut up with a cold, but I didn't expect this. Why, you look like a ghost, and are sweating like a butcher, and no wonder. The thermometer must be a hundred. What's the matter?"

"Jack," Howard said, "for forty-eight hours I have had a hand-to-hand tussle with the devil. He was here bodily, as much as you are, but I beat him, and swore I wouldn't burn the paper. Read it!"

He pointed to it upon the floor at his feet.

"I had it pretty near the fire twice, and singed it some," he continued, as Jack took it up, and, glancing at the first words, exclaimed, "A will! You found one, then?"

"Not a regularly attested will, but answers every purpose," Howard replied, while Jack read on with lightning rapidity, understanding much that was dark before, and guessing in part what it was to Howard to have all his hopes swept away.

"By Jove!" he said, as he finished reading, "there was good in the old man after all. I didn't think so when I heard Jakey's story, and saw where his wife lived and died. We found the marriage certificate."

"You did!" Howard exclaimed, a great gladness that he had not destroyed the paper taking possession of him. "Why didn't you write and tell me? It would have saved me that fight with the devil."

"I don't know why I didn't," Jack replied. "I was awfully busy, and went at once to Palatka to see if Tom Hardy left any family there, and found he was never married. Then I went to Atlanta to find some trace of the Browns and the Hardy plantation. The latter had been sold, the Hardys were all gone, and the Browns, too,—killed in the war, most likely, except one who is a street-car conductor in Boston, and I am going to hunt him up, as I believe he was at the wedding, although he must have been quite young. Yes, I ought to have written, and I'm sorry for you, upon my soul. You look as if you'd had a taste of the infernal regions. I'm glad you didn't burn it."

He took Howard's hand and held it, while he told him, very briefly, the circumstances of their finding the certificate, of whose existence Col. Crompton could not have known. "And, Howard," he added, "I've something else to tell you. Eloise is to be my wife. We settled it in the train before I knew she was a great heiress. Can't you congratulate me?" he asked, as Howard did not speak.

"I expected it. You've got everything,—money and girl, too," Howard said at last. "You are a lucky dog, and, whether you believe me or not, I'd rather have the girl than the money. I asked her to marry me. Did she tell you?"

"Of course not," Jack replied, and Howard went on, "Well, I did, and kissed her, too!"

"Did she kiss you?" Jack asked a little sharply, and Howard replied, "No, sir; she was madder than a hatter; you've no cause to be jealous."

"All right," Jack answered, his brow clearing. "All right. I'm more sorry for you now than I was before. I didn't know you really cared for her that way; but, I say, aren't you coming to dinner? The bell has rung twice, and I still in my travelling clothes and you in your dressing-gown."

Howard shook his head. "Don't you see, I am sick with an infernal cold," he said. "Got it tramping in the rain without my overcoat, and that fight I told you of has unstrung me. It was a regular battle. But you go yourself, and perhaps Eloise will come to see me. I shall show her the Colonel's confession, and she can do as she pleases about telling her mother."

Jack left him and went to the dinner, which had been kept waiting some time, and at which Amy did not appear. She had gone at once to bed, Eloise explained, when she took her seat at the table with Jack. When told of Howard's message, she said, "Of course I'll go to him," and half an hour later she was in his room, and greatly shocked at his white, haggard face, which indicated more than the cold of which he complained. He did not tell her of his temptation. It was not necessary. He congratulated her upon her success, and upon her engagement, of which Jack had told him. Then he gave her the paper he had found, and watched her as she read it, sometimes with flashes of indignation upon her face, and again with tears of pity in her eyes.

"He was a bad man," she said, with great energy, and then added, "A good one, too, in some respects, although I cannot understand the pride which made him such a coward."

"I can," Howard rejoined. "It's the Crompton pride, stronger than life itself. I know, for I am a Crompton. You, probably, are more Harris than Crompton, and do not feel so deeply."

He did not mean to reflect upon her mother's family, but Eloise's face was very red as she said, "The Harrises and Browns are not people to be proud of, I know, but they were as honest, perhaps, as the Cromptons, and they are mine, and if they all came here to-night I would not disown them."

She looked every inch a Crompton as she spoke, and Howard laughed and said, "Good for you, little cousin; I believe you would, and if Jack finds the conductor in Boston, I dare say you will have him at your wedding. When is it to be?"

"Just as soon as arrangements can be made," Jack replied, coming in in time to hear the last of Howard's remark, "and, of course, we'll have the street conductor if he will come. I start to-morrow to find him."

He took an early train the next morning for Boston, and two days after he wrote to Eloise: "I believe there are a million street cars in the city and fifty conductors by the name of Brown. Fortunately, however, there is only one Andrew Jackson, or Andy, as they call him, and I found him on one of the suburban trains, rather old to be a conductor, but seemed young for his years. He is your grandmother's cousin, and was present at the double wedding, when Eudora Harris was married by Elder Covil to James Crompton, 'a mighty proud-lookin' chap,' he said, 'who deserted her in less than a month. I remember him well. Pop threatened to shoot him if he ever cotched him, but the wah broke out and pop was killed, and all of us but me, who married a little Yankee girl what brought things to us prisoners in Washington. She's right smart younger than I am, and I've got eight children and five grandchildren, peart and lively as rabbits. And you want me to swear that I seen Eudory married? Wall, I will, for I did, and I'd like to see her girl—Amy you call her. Mabby Mary Jane an' me will come to visit her when I have a spell off.'

"All this he said in a breath, and when I told him I was to marry Amy's daughter, he called me his cousin, and asked when the wedding was to be. If it had not been for those eight children and five grandchildren, thirteen Browns in all, which I felt sure he would bring with him, I should have promised him and Mary Jane an invitation. As it was, I did nothing rash. I got his affidavit, and we parted the best of friends, he urging me to call at his shanty and see Mary Jane and the kids. I had to decline, but told him perhaps I'd bring my wife to see them. What do you say? Expect me to-morrow.

"Lovingly,

"JACK."



CHAPTER XI

CONCLUSION

It did not take long for all Crompton to know that Amy was Col. Crompton's daughter, and that the Colonel had left a paper to that effect, which Mr. Howard had found, and that Eloise had also found the marriage certificate, proving her mother's legitimacy beyond a doubt, and making her sole heir to the Crompton estate. It was Friday night when the travellers returned from the South, and on Saturday morning, Mrs. Biggs's washing day, she heard the news. Leaving her clothes in the suds, and her tubs of rinsing and bluing water upon the floor, she started for the Crompton House, which she reached breathless with haste and excitement, and eager to congratulate Amy and Eloise.

"I swan, it 'most seem's if I was your relation," she said, shaking Eloise's hand, and telling her she always mistrusted she was somebody more than common, "and I hope we shall be neighborly. I s'pose you'll live here?"

Eloise received her graciously, and said she should never forget her kindness, and told her some incidents of her journey, and, as Mrs. Biggs reported to Tim, "treated me as if I was just as good as she, if she is a Crompton."

Ruby Ann came later in the day, genuinely glad for Eloise, and sure that nothing would ever change the young girl's friendship for herself, no matter what her position might be. Many others called that day and the following Monday, and Eloise received them with a dignity of which she was herself unconscious, and which they charged to the Crompton blood. Howard, who was still suffering from a severe cold, kept his room until Jack returned. Then he came out with a feeling of humiliation, not so much that he had lost the estate, as that he had thought to burn the paper which took it from him. This feeling, however, gradually wore off under Jack's geniality and Eloise's friendliness, and Amy's sweetness of manner as she called him Cousin Howard, and said she hoped he would look upon Crompton as his home. Then he was to have twenty thousand dollars when matters were adjusted, and that was something to one who, when he came to Crompton, had scarcely a dollar. His visit had paid, and, though he was not the master, he was the favored guest and cousin, who, at Eloise's request, took charge of affairs after Jack went home to New York.

Early in December Jake came from the South, and was welcomed warmly by Amy and Eloise. To the servants he was a great curiosity, with his negro dialect and quaint ways, but no one could look at the old man's honest face without respecting him. Even Peter, who detected about him an order of the bad tobacco which had so offended his nostrils in the letters to his master, and who on general principles disliked negroes, was disarmed of his prejudices by Jake's confiding simplicity and thorough goodness. Taking him one day for a drive around the country and through the village, he bought him some first-class cigars with the thought "Maybe they'll take that smell out of his clothes."

"Thankee, Mas'r Peter, thankee," Jake said, smacking his lips with his enjoyment of the flavor of the Havanas. "Dis yer am mighty fine, but I s'pecks I or'to stick to my backy. I done brought a lot wid me."

He smoked the Havanas as long as they lasted, with no special diminution of odor as Peter could discover, and then returned to his backy and his clay pipe.

In the love and tender care with which she was surrounded, Amy's mind recovered its balance to a great extent, with an occasional lapse when anything reminded her of her life in California as a public singer, or when she was very tired. She was greatly interested in Eloise's wedding, which was fixed for the 10th of January, her twentieth birthday. Jack, who came from New York every week, would have liked what he called a blow-out, but the recent death of the Colonel and Amy's mourning precluded that, and only a very few were bidden to the ceremony, which took place in the drawing-room of the Crompton House, instead of the church. Amy gave the bride away, and a stranger would never have suspected that she was what Jakey called quar. After Eloise left for her bridal trip she began to assume some responsibility as mistress of the house and to understand Mr. Ferris a little when he talked to her on business. Jake was a kind of ballast to her during Eloise's absence, but a Northern winter did not agree with the old man, who wore nearly as much clothing to keep him warm as Harry Gill, and then complained of the cold.

"Florida suits me best, and I've a kind of hankerin' for de ole place whar deys all buried," he said, and in the spring he returned to his Lares and Penates, leaving Amy a little unsettled with his loss, but she soon recovered her spirits in the excitement of going abroad.

It was Jack who suggested this trip, which he thought would benefit them all, and early in May they sailed for Europe, taking Ruby with them, not in any sense as a waiting maid, as some ill-natured ones suggested, but as a companion to Amy, and as the friend who had been so kind to Eloise in her need.

That summer Howard was a conspicuous figure at a fashionable watering place with his fast horse and stylish buggy, and every other appearance of wealth and luxury. He had received his twenty thousand dollars and more, too, for Eloise was disposed to be very generous toward him, and Amy assented to whatever she suggested.

"I'll have one good time and spend a whole year's interest if I choose," he said, and he had a good time and made love to a little Western heiress, whose eyes were like those of Eloise, and first attracted him to her, and who before the season was over promised to be his wife.

Just before she left for Europe Eloise brought her grandmother, Mrs. Smith, from Mayville, and established her in Crompton Place as its mistress, but that good woman had little to say, and allowed the servants to have their way in everything. The change from her quiet home to all the grandeur and ceremony of the Crompton House did not suit her, and she returned, like Jakey, to her household gods when the family came back in the spring.

* * * * *

Several years have passed since then, and Crompton Place is just as lovely as it was when we first saw it on the day of the lawn party. Three children are there now; two girls, Dora and Lucy, and a sturdy boy, who was christened James Harris Crompton, but is called Harry. The doll-house has been brought to light, with Mandy Ann and Judy, to the great delight of the little girls, and Amy is never brighter than when playing with the children, and telling them of the palms and oranges, alligators and negroes in Florida, which she speaks of as home.

Eloise is very happy, and if a fear of the Harris taint ever creeps into her mind, it is dissipated at once in the perfect sunshine which crowns her life. Nearly every year Jakey comes to visit "chile Dory an' her lil ones," and once Mandy Ann spent a summer in Crompton as cook in place of Cindy, who was taking a vacation. But Northern ways of regularity and promptness did not suit her.

"'Clar for't," she said, "I jess can't git use't to de Yankee Doodle quickstep nohow. At Miss Perkinses dey wasn't partic'lar ef things was half an hour behime."

Her mind dwelt a good deal on what she had seen at Miss Perkins's, more than forty years before, and on her children and Ted, and when Cindy returned in the autumn she went back to him and the twins, laden with gifts from Amy and Eloise, the latter of whom saw that her mother gave more judiciously than she would otherwise have done. Both Amy and Eloise are fond of driving, and nearly every day the carriage goes out, but the coachman is no longer Sam. He is married and lives in the village, and his place is filled by Tom Walker, who wears a brown livery, and fills the position with a dignity one would scarcely expect in the tall, lank boy, once the bully in school and the blackguard of the town.

There have been three or four different teachers in District No. 5,—all normal graduates, and all during their term of office boarding with Mrs. Biggs, who is never tired of boasting of her intimacy with the Cromptons, and Eloise in particular. Every detail of the accident is repeated again and again, with many incidents of Amy's girlhood. Then she takes up the Colonel and his private marriage, and with his introduction we end our story and leave her to tell hers in her own way.

THE END.