r the Laurances, for I had a cable despatch this morning from
Mr. Palma, intimating that the stock panic had grievously crippled
several of General Laurance's best investments. This news will be
delightful to Minnie, but I see it distresses you. Now, Regina,
regnant, listen to me. Have no controversy with your mother; she is
just now in no mood to bear it, and I want no distrust to grow up
between you. Whether you wish it or not, she will establish her
claim, and she is right in doing so. Now I wish to make a contract
with you. Keep quiet, and if we find that the Laurances will really
be reduced to want, I will supply you with the funds necessary to
provide a comfortable home for them, and you shall give it to your
father and little Maud. Minnie must not know of the matter, she would
never forgive us, and neither can I consent that your father should
consider me as his friend. But all that I have, my sweet girl, is
yours, and Laurance may feel indebted to his own repudiated child for
the gift. It is a bargain?"

"Oh, Uncle Orme! how good and generous you are! No wonder my heart
warmed to you the first time I ever saw you! How I love and thank
you, my own noble uncle! You have no idea how earnestly I long for
the time when you and mother and I can settle down together in a
quiet home somewhere, shut out from the world that has used us all so
hardly, and safe in our love, and confidence for and in each other."

She had thrown her arms around his neck, and pressing her head
against his shoulder, looked at him with eyes full of hope and
happiness.

"I am afraid, my dear girl, that as soon as our imaginary Eden is
arranged satisfactorily, the dove that gives it peace and purity will
be enticed away, caged in a more brilliant mansion. You will love
Minnie and me very much I daresay until some lover steals between us
and lures you away."

She hid her countenance against his shoulder, and her words impressed
him as singularly solemn and mournful.

"I shall have no lover. I shall make it the aim and study of all my
future life to love only God, mother, and you. My hope of happiness
centres in the one word Home! We all three have felt the bitter want
of one, and I desire to make ours that serene, holy ideal Home of
which I have so long dreamed: 'We will bear our Penates with us;
their atrium, the heart. Our household gods are the memories of our
childhood, the recollections of the hearth round which we gathered;
of the fos