ected him, and the papers all came out
with big headlines, 'CHURCH ELDER ARRESTED.'"

Allison's voice was deep with loving sympathy as his lips swept her
forehead softly and he murmured, "My poor little girl!" but Jane went
bravely on.

"That was a hard time," she said with trembling lips, "but God was
good; he didn't let it last long. There came an old friend back from
abroad who had known father ever since he was a boy, and who happened
to have been associated with him in business long enough to give
certain proofs that cleared the whole thing up. In a week the case
was dismissed so far as father was concerned, and he was back at
home again, and restored to the full confidence of his business
associates--that is, those who knew intimately about the matter. If
father had lived I have no doubt everything would have been all
right, and he would have been able to live down the whole thing, but
the trouble had struck him hard, he was so terribly worried for my
sake, you know. Then he took a little cold which we didn't think
anything about, and suddenly, before we realized it, he was down
with double pneumonia from which he never rallied. His vitality
seemed to be gone. After he died, the papers said beautiful things
about his bravery and courage and Christianity, and people tried to be
nice, but when it was all over there were still people who looked at
me curiously when I passed, and whispered noticeably together; and
that man's wife and daughter openly called me a forger's daughter
and said that my father had stolen their income, when all the time
they were living on what he had given up to save them from disgrace.
The daughter made it so unpleasant for me that I decided to go away
where I was not known, although I had several dear beautiful homes
opened to me if I had chosen to stay, where I might have been a
daughter and treated as one of the other children. But I thought
it was better to go away and make my own life----"

"But you had evidence. Did you never go and tell those two how wrong
they were and how it was their father, not yours, who was the
forger?"

"No, not exactly," said Jane, lifting clear untroubled eyes to his
face. "You see that was part of father's obligation; it was a point of
honor not to give that man's shame away to his wife--he had
promised--and then, the man, was dead--he could not be brought to
justice; what good would it do?"

"It would have done the good that those two women wouldn't