overed at odd times and said
nothing about, with the modesty which is characteristic of the true
giver.

The parting was a truly sad one, yet not without its funny side, for the
old gentleman was so torn up in mind that his actions were irresistibly
funny. He whisked his red handkerchief about with such energy that its
edges were pretty near in strips; and he blew his poor old nose in such
repeated and violent fashions, that it clearly resembled a highly
colored tomato.

"There won't be any little girl any where," he said, mournfully. "It
will be so lonesome in the morning, and in the evening, and all in the
day, and I will wonder if Jeanie is never coming down stairs to sit in
my lap in the old library. I shall get cross, and ugly as a bear, for
want of two little hands to smooth the wrinkles out of my old forehead,
and a dear little girl to keep my heart in good working order. It will
all be dreadful! dreadful!"

There was something pathetic in the picture they made, sitting there.
The old man, with his white head and tear dimmed eyes, holding Jean in
his lap, with her arms about his neck, and his wrinkled cheek rested on
her curly hair.

"I haven't very much longer to live," he went on, in that pathetic way,
"and I shall have to crawl through the last little while all by myself.
I suppose the dear good Lord knows best, but I don't see why He gave me
two little girls to love, and then took them both away. Even Olive won't
go back with me, and Roger will go off, and it will be dreadful!
dreadful!"

So far down had the poor man's spirits gone, that he seemed perfectly
lost in pathetic resignation. Even the apparently unquenchable
handkerchief hung limp and inactive from a coat-tail pocket, where it
had been jammed in a moment of unresigned despair; and the big tears
dropped one by one on Jeanie's hair, as he talked now in that quiet,
grieved way.

"Will you come back to us?" asked Mrs. Dering, much touched, and laying
her hands on his shoulder. "We should so love to have you, Uncle Ridley,
all of us. Go home and send Roger off if he wants to go; leave the Hall
with such old servants as you can trust, and then come back to us, and
call this home. Will you?"

"Will I?" Mr. Congreve jumped up, and the handkerchief came out in all
its color and activity. "Are you really in earnest, Elizabeth? Would you
have such a crusty old humbug as I am, around?"

"In the truest and warmest earnest, Uncle Ridley."

"Oh, plea