ren up there."

"Yes, I'm better, Becky," was the languid reply. "Put a clean dress on
Lloyd if you are going to take her out."

Mrs. Sherman closed her eyes again, thinking gratefully, "Dear, faithful
old Becky! What a comfort she has been all my life, first as my nurse,
and now as Lloyd's! She is worth her weight in gold!"

The afternoon shadows were stretching long across the grass when Mom
Beck led the child up the green slope in front of the hotel.

The Little Colonel had danced along so gaily with Fritz that her cheeks
glowed like wild roses. She made a quaint little picture with such short
sunny hair and dark eyes shining out from under the broad-brimmed white
hat she wore.

Several ladies who were sitting on the shady piazza, busy with their
embroidery, noticed her admiringly. "It's Elizabeth Lloyd's little
daughter," one of them explained. "Don't you remember what a scene there
was some years ago when she married a New York man? Sherman, I believe,
his name was, Jack Sherman. He was a splendid fellow, and enormously
wealthy. Nobody could say a word against him, except that he was a
Northerner. That was enough for the old Colonel, though. He hates
Yankees like poison. He stormed and swore, and forbade Elizabeth ever
coming in his sight again. He had her room locked up, and not a soul on
the place ever dares mention her name in his hearing."

The Little Colonel sat down demurely on the piazza steps to wait for the
children. The nurse had not finished dressing them for the evening.

She amused herself by showing Fritz the pictures in an illustrated
weekly. It was not long until she began to feel that the ladies were
talking about her. She had lived among older people so entirely that
her thoughts were much deeper than her baby speeches would lead one to
suppose.

She understood dimly, from what she had heard the servants say, that
there was some trouble between her mother and grandfather. Now she heard
it rehearsed from beginning to end. She could not understand what
they meant by "bank failures" and "unfortunate investments," but she
understood enough to know that her father had lost nearly all his money,
and had gone West to make more.

Mrs. Sherman had moved from their elegant New York home two weeks ago
to this little cottage in Lloydsborough that her mother had left her.
Instead of the houseful of servants they used to have, there was only
faithful Mom Beck to do everything.

There was something m