nhood, admired and sought after by everyone, was the desire of his
heart, and as he believed that money was necessary to the perfect
fulfilment of his desire, for her sake he would carry his secret to the
grave.

'Are you sick, papa?' Maude asked, looking into his pale face, on which
the moon shone brightly.

'No, pet,' he answered, 'only tired. I am thinking of little Jerry
Crawford. She was here this afternoon,'

'Yes, I saw her in the park with Harold. Isn't he handsome, papa? and
such a nice boy! so different from Tom,' said Maude, and then she went
on: 'Jerry is pretty too; prettier than I am; her hair curls and mine
doesn't, but her dress is so ugly--that old high apron and calico gown.
What makes her so poor and me so rich?'

Mr. Tracy groaned inwardly, as he replied:

'You are not rich, my child.'

'Oh, yes, I am,' Maude said, 'I heard mamma tell Mrs. Brinsmade so. She
said Uncle Arthur was worth a million, and when he died we should have
it all, because he could not make a will if he wanted to, and he had no
children of his own,'

Although little more than seven years old, Maude Tracy was very knowing
and precocious in some respects, and, like her brother Tom, had heard so
much from her mother and others of their prospective wealth, that she
understood the situation far better than she ought, and was already
counting on the thousands waiting for her when her uncle died. And yet
Maude Tracy had in her nature qualities which were to ripen into a noble
womanhood. Truthful and generous, her instincts of right and wrong were
very keen, and young as she was she had no respect for anything like
deception or trickery. This her father knew, and his bitterest pang of
remorse came from this thought, 'What would Maude say if she knew?' And
it was more for her sake he was sinning than for his own or that of any
other. She was so pretty, or would be when grown to young ladyhood, and
the adornments which money could bring would so well become her.

'Maude,' he said at last, 'how would you like to change places with
Jerry? That is, let her come here and live, while we go away and be
poor; not quite as she is, but like many people.'

'And not wear a sash, and beads, and buttoned boots every day?' Maude
interrupted him quickly. 'I should not like it at all. Why, Jerry
dresses herself, and wipes the dishes, and wears those big aprons all
the time. No, I don't want to be poor;' and as if something in her
father's mind h