hich he was attempting to silence her. "It isn't what you
think at all. My father _wasn't_ a forger! He was a good man!"

"He wasn't!" exclaimed Allison joyously. "Then what in thunder? Why
didn't you tell 'em so, Jane?" He tried to draw her to him, but she
still resisted.

"That's just it, Allison, I can't. I _never_ can----"

"Well, then _I_ will! You shan't have a thing like that hanging over
you----!"

"But that is just what you _must not do_. And you _can't_ do it,
either, if I don't tell you about it, for you wouldn't have a thing to
say, nor any way to prove it. And I won't tell you, Allison, ever,
unless you will promise----!"

Allison was sobered in an instant.

"Jane, don't you know me well enough to be sure I would not betray any
confidence you put in me?"

"I thought so----" said Jane, smiling through her tears.

"Dear!" said Allison in a tone that was a caress, full of longing and
sympathy.

Jane sat up bravely and began her story.

"When I was twelve years old my mother died. That left father and me
alone, and we became very close comrades indeed. He was a wonderful
father!"

Allison's fingers answered with a warm pressure of sympathy and
interest.

"He was father and mother both to me. And more and more we grew to
confide in one another. I was interested in all his business, and used
to amuse myself asking him about things at the office when he came
home, the way mother used to do when she was with us. He used to talk
over all my school friends and interests and we had beautiful times
together. My father had a friend--a man who had grown up with him,
lived next door and went to school with him when he was a boy. He was
younger than father, and--well, not so serious. Father didn't always
approve of what he did and used to urge him to do differently. He
lived in the same suburb with us, and his wife had been a friend of
mother's. She was a sweet little child-like woman, very pretty, and an
invalid. They had one daughter, a girl about my age, and when we were
children we used to play together, but as we grew older mother didn't
care for us to be together much. She thought--it was better for us not
to--and as the years went by we didn't have much to do with one
another. Her father was the only one who kept up the acquaintance, and
sometimes I used to think he worried my father every time he came to
the house. One day when I was about fourteen he came in the afternoon
just after I got home fro