by the nurse. The moment the door closed on
Mrs. Tracy, Tom walked up to the child, and said:

'I shall kiss her now, anyhow.'

But Jerry hid her face, and could not be induced to look up until he had
moved away from her.

'Catty as well as pretty,' Tom said. 'I wonder who she is anyway, and
how she will like the poor-house?'

'Who said she was going to the poor-house?' Harold exclaimed
indignantly.

'Mother said so,' Tom replied. 'I heard her talking to the cook. Where
would she go if she did not go to the poor-house? Who would take care of
her?'

'I!' Harold answered, and to Miss Howard he seemed to grow older a dozen
years, as he stood there with his arms folded and the light of a brave
manhood in his brown eyes. 'I shall take care of her. She will live with
grandmother and me. I found her, and she is mine.'

''Ess, 'ess, 'ess,' came from Jerry, as she swung one little foot back
and forth and looked confidingly at her champion.

'_You_ take care of her!' Tom sneered, with that supercilious air he
always assumed toward those he considered his inferiors. Why, you and
your grandmother can't take care of yourselves, or you couldn't if it
wasn't for Uncle Arthur. Mother says so. You wouldn't have any house to
live in if he hadn't given it to you,'

Harold's arms were unfolded now and the doubled fists were in his
pockets clenching themselves tighter and tighter as he advanced to Tom,
who, remembering his black eye, began to back towards the nurse for
safety.

'It's a lie, Tom Tracy,' Harold said. 'Mr. Arthur does not take care of
us. We do it ourselves, and have for ever so long. He did give us the
house, but it ain't for you to twit me of that. Whose house is this, I'd
like to know? It isn't yours, nor your father's, and there isn't a thing
in it yours. It is all Mr. Arthur's.'

'Wall, we are to be his _hares_--Jack, and Maude, and me. Mother says
so,' Tom stammered out, while Jerry, who had been looking intently,
first at one boy, and then at the other, called out in her own language:

'Nein, nein, nein,' and struck her hand toward Tom.

'What does she mean by her "Nine, nine, nine,'" he asked of Miss Howard,
who replied that she thought it was the German for 'No, no, no,' and
that the child probably did not approve of him.

Tom knew she did not, and though she was only a baby, be felt chagrined
and irritable. Had he dared, he would have struck Harold, who asked him
what he meant by being his uncle's _