the child a
moment, and then said:

'How old are you, Harold?'

'Ten, last August,' was the reply; and Mr. Tracy continued:

'You do not remember your mother?'

'No, sir, only a great crowd, and grandma crying so hard,' was Harold's
reply.

'You look like her,' Mr. Tracy said.

'Yes, sir,' Harold answered, while into his frank, open face there came
an expression of regret for the mother who had died when he was three
years old, and whose life had been so short and sad.

'Now, hurry off with the telegram, and mind you don't lose it. It is
from my brother. He is coming to-night.'

'Mr. Arthur Tracy, who sent the monument for my mother--is he coming
home? Oh, I am so glad!' Harold exclaimed, and his handsome face lighted
up with childish joy, as he put the telegram in his pocket and started
For Tracy Park, wondering if he should encounter Tom, and thinking that
if he did, and Tom gave him any chaff, he should lick him, or try to.

'Darn him!' he said to himself, as he recalled the many times when Tom
Tracy, a boy of his own age, had laughed at him for his poverty and
coarse clothes. 'Darn him! he ain't any better than I am, if he does
wear velvet trousers and live in a big house. 'Taint his'n; it's Mr.
Arthur's, and I'm glad he is coming home. I wonder if he will bring
grandma anything. I wish he'd I bring me a pyramid. He's seen 'em, they
say.'

Meantime, Mr. Frank Tracy had resumed his seat, and, with his hands
clasped together over his head, was wondering what effect his brother's
return would have upon him. Would he be obliged to leave the park, and
the luxury he had enjoyed so long, and go back to the old life which he
hated so much.

'No; Arthur will never be so mean,' he said. 'He has always shown
himself generous, and will continue to do so. Besides that, he will want
somebody to keep his house for him, unless--' and here the perspiration
started from every pore, as Frank Tracy thought: 'What if he is married,
and the _us_ in his telegram means a wife, instead of a friend or
servant, as I imagined!'

This would indeed be a calamity, for then his own and Dolly's reign was
over at Tracy Park, and the party they were to give that night to at
least three hundred people would be their last grand blow-out.

'Confound the party!' he thought, as he arose from his chair and began
to pace the room. 'Arthur won't like that as a greeting after eleven
years' absence. He never fancied being cheek by jowl with T