instantly in the older woman's eyes.

"Miss Sheridan?" she said.

"Mama," Alice exclaimed, suddenly, clasping a warm hand over her
mother's trembling one, and looking at her with all love and
reassurance, "you know how Chris and I love you, don't you?"

Tears came into Mrs. Melrose's eyes.

"Of course I do, lovey," she faltered.

"Mama, you know how we would stand behind you--how anxious we are to
share whatever's worrying you!" Alice went on, pleadingly. "Can't
you--I'm not busy like Annie, or young like Leslie, and Chris is your
man of business, after all! Can't you tell us about it? Two heads--three
heads," said Alice, smiling through a sudden mist of tears, "are better
than one!"

"Why," Mrs. Melrose stammered, with a rather feeble attempt at
lightness, "have I been acting like a person with something on her mind?
It's nothing, children, nothing at all. Don't bother your dear, generous
hearts about it another second!"

And she looked from one to another with a gallant smile.

Chris eyed his wife with a faint, hopeless movement of the head, and
Alice correctly interpreted it to mean that the situation was worse
instead of better.

"You remember the night you sent for me, some weeks ago, Aunt Marianna?"
he ventured. Mrs. Melrose moistened her lips, and swallowed with a dry
throat, looking at him with a sort of alert defiance.

"I confess that I was all upset that night," she admitted, bravely. "And
to tell you children the truth, Kate Sheridan coming upon me so
unexpectedly----"

"Joseph quite innocently told me that evening that you had anticipated
her coming!" Christopher said, quietly, as she paused.

"Joseph was mistaken!" Mrs. Melrose said, warmly, with red colour
beginning to burn in her soft, faded old face. "Kate had been associated
with a terrible time in my life," she went on, almost angrily. "And it
was quite natural--or at least it seems so to me!--I don't know what
other people would feel, but to _me_----But what are you two
cross-examining me for?" she interrupted herself to ask, with a sudden
rush of tears, as Chris looked unconvinced, and Alice still watched her
sorrowfully. "Little do you know, either of you, what I have been
through----"

"Mama," entreated Alice, earnestly, "will you answer me one question? I
promise you that I won't ask another. You know how anxious we are only
to help you, to make everything run smoothly. You know what the family
is--to us. Don't you _see_ we are?