It was pretty to see the devotion of the two little girls to the poor
crippled boy.

"Are you quite sure you're comfortable, Jack?" Winifred kept asking over
and over again, while Betty looked anxiously into her brother's radiant
face to make sure he was not getting tired.

It was a glorious spring afternoon, and the park had never looked more
lovely. How Jack enjoyed it no words could describe.

"I don't believe mother's park was any more beautiful than this one," he
said to Betty, as, in answer to a direction from Mrs. Hamilton the
coachman turned the horses to go round a second time. "I haven't seen
any deer, but there are sheep and swans."

"Where's your mother's park?" Winifred inquired, with pardonable
curiosity.

Betty blushed and gave her brother a warning glance. Jack looked as if
he had said something he was sorry for.

"It's a story mother tells us," he explained, "about a park she used to
see when she lived in England. It was a beautiful park, and we love to
hear about it."

"My friend Lulu Bell's father and mother used to live in England," said
Winifred, "and she went there with them once for a visit. Did you ever
live there?"

"No," answered Betty, Jack's attention having been called off for the
moment by the sight of some new wonder, "father and mother came to this
country before we were born."

"Has your father been long dead, dear?" Mrs. Hamilton asked kindly.

"He died six years ago, when I was only five. I don't remember him very
well, and Jack doesn't remember him at all. Oh, Jack, look at that
carriage without any horses. That's an automobile."

It was nearly five o'clock before the carriage again drew up before the
door of the big apartment house, and Mr. Jones came out and once more
lifted Jack in his arms to carry him upstairs.

There was a tinge of bright color on the little boy's usually pale
cheeks and his eyes were shining.

"I've had the most beautiful time I ever had in my life," he said,
turning to Mrs. Hamilton with a radiant smile. "You've been so very
kind, and so has Winifred, and--and, please, I'd like to kiss you
both."

CHAPTER IV

GATHERING CLOUDS

"Oh, dear! I do wish it would stop raining," sighed Betty, glancing out
of the window one wet afternoon a few days later. "It's rained just as
hard as it can for two whole days, and it doesn't look a bit more like
clearing now than it did yesterday morning."

"I hope mother won't take any more cold," said