h she had
first been taken, sat a long time by her window, looking out upon the
towers and chimneys of Crompton Place, which were visible above the
trees in the park, and wondering at the feeling of unrest which
possessed her, and her unwillingness to leave.

"If I could only see him once more before I go," she thought, the "him"
being Jack, who, with Howard Crompton, was in Worcester, attending a
musical festival.

Not to see him was the saddest part of leaving Crompton, and for a
moment hot tears rolled down her cheeks,--tears which, if Jack could
have seen and known their cause, would have brought him back from
Worcester and the prima donna who that night was entrancing a crowded
house with her song. Dashing her tears away, Eloise's thoughts reverted
to Amy, who had been so kind to her.

"I hoped to thank her in person," she said, "but as that is impossible,
I must write her a note for Tim to take in the morning, together with
the chairs."

The note was written, and in it a regret expressed that Eloise could not
have seen her.

"Maybe when she reads it she will call upon me to-morrow," she thought,
as she directed the note, and that night she dreamed that Amy came to
her, with a face and voice so like her mother's that she woke with a
start and a feeling that she had really seen her mother, as she used to
stand before the footlights, while the house rang with thunders of
applause.

CHAPTER II

THE LITTLE RED CLOAK

Col. Crompton was in a bad way, both mentally and bodily. The pain in
his gouty foot had extended to his knee, and was excruciating in the
extreme; but he almost forgot it in the greater trouble in his mind. In
the same mail which had brought Eloise's letter from California there
had been one for him, which in the morning Peter had taken from the
postman and examined carefully, until he made out its direction.

"Mister Kurnel Krompton, of Krompton Plais, Krompton, Massachusetts."

So much room had been taken up on one side of the envelope with the
address, that half of "Massachusetts" was on the other side, and Peter's
memory instantly went back to years before, when a letter looking like
this and odorous with bad tobacco had come to the Colonel. He had a copy
of the letter still, and could repeat it by heart, and knew that it was
from Jake Harris,--presumably the "Shaky" for whom the little girl
Eudora had cried so pitifully. This was undoubtedly from the same
source. "What can he wa