he pin. A rare and costly example of the
jeweller's art reposed there, as might have been expected.

"I'll not exchange, thank you."

"Neither will I," declared Atchison, leaning back with a laugh and
passing the pin on down the line.

Hugh Breckenridge gave the obviously cheap and commonplace little article
one careless glance, and handed it to Miss Forrest. She examined it
soberly, as if seeking to find its peculiar value in its owner's eyes.
Then she looked at Brown.

"This has a story, I am sure, or you wouldn't care so much for it," she
said. "Are we worthy to hear it, Mr. Brown?"

His eyes met hers, though as he stood she could barely make out
that fact.

"I should like you to hear it."

"Come out of the darkness, Don, please!" begged his sister again.

The others echoed the wish, and Brown, yielding against his
will--somehow he had never wanted more to remain in the shadow--took a
chair at one end of the hearth, where he was in full view of them all.
"It was given me," said Brown, speaking in a tone which instantly
arrested even Hugh Breckenridge's careless attention, though why it did
so he could not have said, "by a man whose son was wearing it when he
stood on a plank between two windows, ten stories up in the air, and
passed fifteen girls over it to safety. Then--the plank burned through
at one end. He had known it would."

There fell a hush upon the little group. Mrs. Brainard put out her hand
and touched Brown's shoulder caressingly.

"No wonder you wouldn't exchange it, Don," she said, very gently.

"Was the father at your dinner, Don?" Doctor Brainard asked, after a
minute.

"Yes, Doctor."

"So you wore it to please him," commented Sue.

"He wore it," said Helena Forrest, "as a man might wear the
Victoria Cross."

"Ah, but I didn't earn it," denied Brown, without looking up.

"I'm not so sure of that," Mrs. Brainard declared. "You must have
done something to make the father feel you worthy to wear a thing he
valued so much."

"He fancied," said Brown--"he and the mother--that there was a slight
resemblance between my looks and those of the son. And they have a finer
memorial of him than anything he wore; they have one end of the burned
plank. The father has cut the date on it, with his son's name, and it
hangs over the chimney-piece."

"What a tragic thing!" cried Sue, shuddering. "I don't see how they can
keep it. Do tell us something else, Don. Doesn't anything amusing ever
happ