disgrace
the name. He wants to do something for you. That's the whole thing in a
nutshell; and you let him do it, Julia." In an exuberance of spirits, aided
by the fresh, inspiring morning, the speaker took his wife in his arms, as
they stood there on the wide veranda, and hugged her heartily.

"Do you think I shall get over my awe of him?" She half laughed, but her
tone was sincere. "I'm so unused to people who never smile and seem to be
enduring me. Oh, if you were only going to stay, too, Harry, then it would
be a vacation indeed!"

"Here, here! Where are your principles? Who's afraid now?"

"But he's so stately and forbidding, and I shall feel such a responsibility
of keeping Jewel from troubling him."

Harry laughed again. "She seems entirely capable of paddling her own canoe.
She didn't seem troubled by doubts or compunctions in the carriage last
night; and up there in the bedroom when she flew at him! How was that for a
case of _lese majeste_? Gad, at her age I'd sooner have tackled a lighted
fuse! What do you suppose it was she whispered to him?"

"I've no idea, and I must say I was curious enough to ask her while I was
putting her to bed; but do you know, she wouldn't say!" The mother laughed.
"She sidled about,--you know how she does when she is reluctant to speak,
and seemed so embarrassed that I have to laugh when I think of it."

"Perhaps it concerned some surprise she has persuaded father to give us."

"No, it couldn't be that, because she answered at last that she'd tell me
when she was a young lady."

They both laughed. "Well," said Harry, "she isn't afraid of him so you'd
notice it; and you can give her a few pointers so she needn't get in
father's way now that she has you again. He has evidently been mighty
considerate of the little orphan."

"How good he has been!" returned Julia fervently. "If we could only go home
with you, Harry," she added wistfully, "while there's so much good feeling,
and before anything happens to alter it!"

"Where are your principles?" asked Harry again. "You know better than to
think anything will happen to alter it."

"Yes, I do, I do; but I always have to meet my shyness of strangers, and it
makes my heart beat to think of your going off and leaving me here. Being
tete-a-tete with your father is appalling, I must confess."

"Oh, well, it wouldn't do to slight his offer, and it will do you a world
of good."

"You'll have to send me my summer gowns."

"I wil