ll
be an orphan till you get back."

"Oh, honey!" cried her mother.

"There now!" said Nan, jumping up quickly and going around the table to
her mother's side. "You poor dear! I won't say anything more to hurt and
trouble you. I'm a selfish thing, that's what I am."

Momsey wound her arms about her. Papa Sherwood still looked grave. "We
get no nearer to the proper solution of the difficulty," he said. "Of
course, Nancy, the orphan asylum is out of the question."

"I'll stay here, of course," Nan said, with some difficulty keeping her
voice from quavering.

"Not alone in the house, honey," Momsey said quickly.

"With Mrs. Joyce?" suggested Nan tentatively.

"No," Mr. Sherwood said. "She is not the person to be trusted with you."

"There's Mrs. Grimes' boarding house around the corner?" suggested Nan.

Momsey shuddered. "Never! Never! My little girl in a boarding house. Oh,
Papa Sherwood! We must find somebody to care for her while we are away,
who loves Nan."

And it was just here that a surprisingly gruff voice took up the matter
and decided it in a moment.

"That's me," said the voice, with conviction. "She's just the sort of
little girl I cotton to, sister Jessie. And Kate'll be fairly crazy
about her. If you're going anywhere for a long spell, just let me take
her up to Pine Camp. We have no little girls up there, never had any.
But I bet we know how to treat 'em."

"Hen!" shouted Mr. Sherwood, stumbling up from the table, and putting
out both hands to the big man whom Mrs. Joyce had ushered in from the
kitchen so unexpectedly.

"Henry Sherwood!" gasped Momsey, half rising herself in her surprise and
delight.

"Why!" cried Nan, "it's the bear-man!" for Mr. Henry Sherwood wore the
great fur coat and cap that he had worn the evening before when he had
come to Nan's aid in rescuing the boy from Norway Pond.

Afterward Nan confessed, naively, that she ought to have known he was
her Uncle Henry. Nobody, she was quite sure, could be so big and brawny
as the lumberman from Michigan.

"She's the girl for me," proclaimed Uncle Henry admiringly. "Smart as a
whip and as bold as a catamount. Hasn't she told you what she did last
night? Sho! Of course not. She don't go 'round blowing about her deeds
of valor, I bet!" and the big man went off into a gale of laughter that
seemed to shake the little cottage.

Papa Sherwood and Momsey had to learn all the particulars then, and both
glowed with pride over their l