d
serenely--

"With neither donkeys nor bicycles we ought to do quite nicely!" and
quite nicely they did, Mrs. Henchman arriving in such good condition
and spirits that she proposed walking a short distance to see the view
while tea was being got ready.

Denys held up the little basket of grapes Charlie had given her.

"I will take these in to Mrs. Lyon while you are gone," she said.

She tapped softly at Mrs. Lyon's door, and before any answer came, the
woman with whom she had left her note on the previous day, opened her
kitchen door with a scared look in her face.

"Oh, Miss!" she said. "Oh, Miss! don't tell any one, but she's gone!
Poor dear, she's gone!"

"Gone!" echoed Denys.

The woman burst into low, restrained weeping.

"The visitors mustn't know," she sobbed. "They are afraid of death,
but I've been longing and hoping for you all day, Miss. Poor dear,
poor dear, she died last night."

CHAPTER IX.

BROTHERS-IN-LAW.

The news of his sister Nellie's death came upon Jim Adams with the
suddenness of a thunderclap. The weeks had gone by since she wrote to
ask him to take Harry, with no further news of her, and after
watching every post for a few days in the expectation of a black-edged
envelope, he had begun to think that it was only a scare, and that she
was not going to die at all, and it was really a pity that he had had
all that bother with Jane!

Yet, in spite of this feeling, the incident had done him good in more
ways than one.

He had fought for duty instead of running away from it. He had been
reminded of things which he had hardly wanted to remember. He had
been strengthened for the right by the mere fact that somebody never
dreamed but that he would do right.

Also he had taken Tom's advice, and had had what Jane deridingly
called "a teetotal spell," the result of which was a respectable
banking account which perfectly astonished him. He had no idea small
sums could total up so.

The idea of saving a little money had come to him from one of Jane's
harangues, in which she informed him that when "that brat" came, she
did not intend to spend any of her housekeeping money upon him; Jim
would have to give her more. She was quite short enough as it was,
especially with a great romping baby of her own, and she supposed
that Jim would be sorry to see _him_ getting thin and pale and perhaps
dying altogether, because somebody else's child ate the food that
ought to have been in his mou