coming forward. "How that child
has grown!"

CHAPTER IV

ON THE VERANDA

What a luxurious, happy, sleepy time Jewel had that night in the pretty
rose-bower where her mother undressed her while her father and grandfather
went back downstairs.

It was very sweet to be helped and cuddled as if she were again a baby, and
as she lay in bed and watched her mother setting the flowers in the
bathroom and arranging everything, she tried to talk to her on some of the
subjects that were uppermost in her mind. Mrs. Evringham came at last and
lay down beside her. Jewel nestled into the loving arms and kissed her
cheek.

"I'm too happy to go to sleep," she declared, then sighed, and instantly
pretty room and pretty mother had disappeared.

Mrs. Evringham lay there on the luxurious bed, the sleeping child in her
arms, and her thoughts were rich with gratitude. Her life had never been
free from care: first as a young girl in her widowed mother's home, then as
wife of the easy-going and unprincipled youth, whose desertion of her and
her baby had filled her cup of bitterness, though she bravely struggled on.
Her mother had died; and soon afterward the light of Christian Science had
dawned upon her path. Strengthened by its support, she had grown into new
health and courage, and life was beginning to blossom for her when her
repentant husband returned.

For a time his wayward habits were a care to her; but he was sincerely
ashamed of himself, and the discovery of the development of character in
the pretty girl whom he had left six years before roused his manhood. To
her joy he began to take an interest in the faith which had wrought such
changes in her, and after that she had no doubts of the outcome. From the
moment when she obtained for him a business position, it became his
ambition to take his rightful place in the world and to guard her from
rough contact, and though as yet he still leaned upon her judgment, and she
knew herself to be the earthly mainspring of all their business affairs,
she knew, also, that his desire was right, and the knowledge sweetened her
days.

Here in this home which was, to her unaccustomed eyes, palatial in its
appointments, with her child again in her arms, she gave thanks for the joy
of the present hour. A day or two of pleasure in these surroundings, and
then she and Harry would relieve Mr. Evringham of the care they had imposed
upon him.

He had borne it nobly, there was no doubt abo