er large eyes grew dark as she closed, and the child received a sense
of the turbulence that underlay her words.

"Thank you for explaining," she returned in an awed tone. "I wish my
mother was here; but God is, and He'll take care of you, cousin Eloise.
Mother says we don't ever need to stay in the shadow. There's always the
sunshine, only we must do our part, we must come into it."

"How Jewel? Supposing you don't know how."

"You can learn how," replied the child earnestly, "right in those books.
Lots of sorry people grow glad studying them."

CHAPTER XVII

JEWEL'S CORRESPONDENCE

While Jewel still stood turning over in her mind what she had heard,
charming strains of music began coming up through the hall. Cousin
Eloise had gone to the piano.

"I almost which I hadn't made her tell me," thought the child, "for how
can I help grandpa not to be sorry they are here? Wouldn't I be sorry
to have aunt Madge come and live with me when I never asked her to?"
She stood for some minutes wrestling with the problem, but suddenly her
expression changed. "I was forgetting!" she exclaimed. "I mustn't get
sorry too. God is All. Mortal mind can't do anything about it." She
closed her eyes, and pressing her hand to her lips, stood for a minute
in mute realization; then with a smile of relief, she took up Anna
Belle.

"Let's go down, dearie, and hear the music," she said light heartedly.

When the summons to luncheon sounded and Mrs. Evringham entered the
parlor, she found the child curled up in a big chair, her doll in her
lap, listening absorbedly to the last strains of a Chopin Ballade.

"Do you like music, Julia?" she asked patronizingly, as her daughter
finished and turned about.

"The child's name is Jewel," said Eloise.

"Yes, aunt Madge, I love it," replied the little girl; "and I didn't
know people could play the piano the way cousin Eloise does."

Mrs. Evringham smiled. "I suppose you've not heard much good music."

"Yes'm, I've heard our organist in church."

"And Jewel can make good music herself," said Eloise. "She can sing like
a little lark. I've been up in her room this morning."

Mrs. Evringham welcomed the look on her daughter's face as she made the
statement. "Thank fortune Eloise has played herself into good humor,"
she thought.

"Indeed? I must hear her sing some time. You're playing unusually well
this morning, my dear. I wish Dr. Ballard could have heard you. Come to
luncheon."

The th