uch nice things on a big gold plate--really
gold, you know, like Princess Dove's; and Mr. Erle was there, and
Percy--and oh! I forgot the poor man in the cab, who is blind--quite
blind, but he is very nice too."

"Will you let me explain about your little sister, Miss Trafford,"
said Raby in his pleasant voice; and Fern, turning in some surprise,
saw a very tall man in clerical dress standing beside her, as she
afterward expressed it to her mother, "with the very nicest face she
had ever seen."

"I do not know if you have ever heard my name; I am Mr. Ferrers, and
your friend Miss Davenport, as she calls herself, is my sister's
cousin."

"Oh, yes, I know," and Fern's voice grew pitiful all at once; "and you
have come just as Crystal has left us; did Florence tell you? Oh, I am
so sorry, so very sorry."

"Yes, the child told me; but there is much that I want to ask you. May
I come in? The cab will wait for me." And then, as Fern guided him up
the narrow staircase, she told him that her mother was out--an evening
class had detained her; and she had been thankful that this had been
the case, and that she should have been spared the anxiety about
Fluff. Mrs. Watkins's boy was scouring the neighborhood, making
inquiries of every one he met; and she had just made up her mind to
send for her mother when the cab drove up.

"And she really found her way to Belgrave House?" asked Fern, in a
voice between laughing and crying; "oh, what will mother say," and she
listened with eagerness to Mr. Ferrers's account of how the child had
accosted him, and of her meeting with Mr. Huntingdon.

Raby himself had been much mystified--he had known nothing of his
host's past history; he had thought that the child was only paying an
impromptu visit until she mentioned her name. Erle had told him that
Mrs. Trafford was Mr. Huntingdon's daughter, and that he had never
seen her since her marriage. This clew guided him to the meaning of
the sternness in Mr. Huntingdon's voice; but he had hardly understood
in what way Erle was implicated, or why the child should receive so
little notice from her brother. When Raby had finished his account,
which was annotated in a rambling and far from lucid manner by Fluff,
Fern sent the child away to change her frock and make herself tidy,
and whispered in her ear that she might stay with Mrs. Watkins for a
little; and when Fluff had left them she began to speak of Crystal,
and to answer the many questions he