ng.

"So," she finished, "Professor Jim is going to help us all he can."

"What! Jim Thorpe to the rescue again?" Kate could not accustom herself
to the thought of this shy, awkward, scholarly man, the least considered
of her girlhood adorers, in the role of social sponsor to her children.

"I asked him," explained Jemima, "whether he did not know all the worth
while people in Lexington and thereabouts, and he said he did. So he is
going to see that they invite us to their balls and things. Of course,
we shall have to do our share, too. And then," she added with a
hesitating glance, "I thought perhaps we might go to New York some day,
and visit our father's aunt Jemima."

"That is an idea you may put out of your head at once," said Kate,
quietly. "Your father's aunt and I are not on friendly terms."

"I know. I've often wondered why." She paused, but Kate's face did not
encourage questioning. "She's very rich, and old, and has no children.
Oughtn't we to make friends with her?"

"Jemima!" said her mother, sharply.

The girl looked at her in genuine surprise. "Have you never thought of
that? Well, I think you should have, for our sakes. Even if you and she
aren't good friends, need that make any difference with Jacky and me?
You see, Mother dear, it is we who are really Kildares, not you."

Kate turned abruptly and left the room, more hurt than she cared to
show. Sometimes the paternal inheritance showed so strongly in Jemima as
to frighten her; the same fierce pride of race, the same hardness, the
same almost brutal frankness of purpose. A terrifying question rose in
her mind. When they heard the truth about her, as hear it they soon
must, would her children he loyal to her? Would they understand, and
believe in her? As the girl had said, they were Kildares, and she was
not.

So far, despite the frequently urged advice of Philip, she had kept them
in ignorance of the facts of their father's death. They knew that he had
been killed by a fall from his horse. They knew, too, that Philip's
father was in the penitentiary, a "killer" as the phrase goes in a
hot-blooded country where many crimes are regarded as less forgivable
than homicide. But to connect the two tragedies had never occurred to
them, and the isolation of their life, passed almost entirely among
inferiors and dependents, had made it possible to keep the truth from
them. It would not be possible much longer.

But once more the mother postponed her mo