things. I like comfort and nice clothes and I hate, hate, hate drudgery and work of every kind. I suppose now I shall have to scrub for a living.” Jane was recalling what the working girl on the ferry had said.

Dan’s amused laughter rang out. “Oh, Jane, what nonsense. Do you suppose that while I have a strong right arm I would let my little pal work in any of those drudgery ways? No, indeed, so forget that fear, if it’s haunting you.” But the boy could say no more, for another violent coughing spell racked his frail body.

Instantly Jane was self-reproachful. “Oh, Dan, Dan,” she said, “I know you would give your very life to help me. I’m so selfish, so very selfish! I’m going to think of only one thing, and that is how I can help you to get well, for I can see now that you must have been ill.”

The boy took advantage of this momentary tender spell to turn and take the girl’s hands in his and say imploringly: “Dear, we’re almost home. If you really want to help me to get well, be loving and brave to Dad. Your unhappiness grieves me more than our loss, little girl, and I can’t get strong while I am so worried.”

There were again tears in the beautiful dark eyes of the girl, and impulsively she kissed the one person on earth whom she truly loved. “Brother, for your sake I’ll try to be brave,” she said with a half sob as the hack stopped in front of their home.

CHAPTER IV.
A SAD HOMECOMING

As Jane walked up the circling graveled path which led to the picturesque, rambling, low-built brown house that she called home her heart was filled with conflicting emotions. She bit her trembling lips and brushed away the tears that quivered on her eyelashes. She knew, oh, how well she knew, that they were prompted only by self-pity. She struggled to awaken the nobler self that her brother was so confident still slumbered in her soul, but she could not. She felt cold, hard, indignant every time she recalled that her father had sacrificed his children’s comfort for a Quixotic ideal. “It is no use trying,” she assured herself, noticing vaguely that they were passing the rose garden, which was a riot of fragrant, colorful bloom. How tenderly her father cared for that garden, for every bush in it had been planted by the loved one who was gone.

The tall lad carrying her satchels walked silently at Jane’s side. He well knew the conflict that was raging in the heart of the girl he had always loved, in spite of her ever-increasing selfishness, with a tenderness akin to that which he had given his mother, but he said no word to try to help. This was a moment when Jane must stand alone.

They were ascending the wide front steps when the door of the house was flung open and a little girl of ten leaped out with a glad cry. “Oh, Janey, my wonderful big sister Janey.” Two arms were held out, and in another moment, as the older girl well knew, she would be in one of those crushing embraces that the younger children called “bear hugs.” She frowned slightly. “Don’t, Julie!” she implored. “My suit has just been pressed. Won’t you ever grow up, and greet people in a more dignified way?”

The glad expression on the freckled face of the little girl, who could not be called really pretty, changed instantly. Her lips quivered and her eyes filled with tears. “Don’t be a silly,” Jane said rebukingly, as she stooped and kissed the child indifferently on the forehead.

A dear old lady, wearing a pretty lavender gingham and a white “afternoon apron,” appeared in the doorway all a-flutter of happy excitement. She had not seen Jane for two years, and she took the girl’s hands in her own that trembled.

“Dear, dear Jenny!” (How the graduate of fashionable Highacres had always hated the name her grandmother had given her.) “What a blessing ’tis that you have come home at last. It’ll mean more to your father to have you here than you can think.” The old lady evidently did not notice the scornful curling of the girl’s lips, or, if she did, she purposely pretended that she did not, and kept on with her speech. “You know, dearie, you’re the perfect image of that other Jane my Daniel loved so dearly, and she was just your age, Jenny, when they met. It’ll be like meeting her all over again to have you coming home now, when he’s in such trouble, you being so like her, and she was most tender and brave and unselfish.”

Even the grandmother noticed that her well-meant speech was not acceptable, for the girl’s impatience was ill concealed.

“Where is my father?” she said in a voice which gave Dan little hope that the nobler self in the girl had been awakened.

“He’s working in the garden, dearie; out beyond the apple orchard,” the old lady said tremulously. “He told me when you came to send you out. He wants to be alone with you just at first. And your little brother, Gerald; I s’pose you’re wondering where he is. Well, he’s got a place down in the village as errand boy for Peterson’s grocery. They give him his pay every night, and he fetches it right home to his Dad. Of course my Daniel puts the money in bank for Gerald’s schooling, but the boy don’t know that. He thinks he’s helping, and bless him, nobody knows how much he is helping. There’s ways to bring comfort that no money could buy.”

Dan knew that Jane believed their gentle old grandmother was preaching at her. He was almost sorry. He feared that it was antagonizing Jane; nor was he wrong.

“Well, I think the back orchard was a strange place for father to have me meet him,” she said, almost angrily, as she flung herself out of the house. Dan sighed. Then, stooping, he kissed the little old lady. “Don’t feel badly, grandmother,” he said, adding hopefully: “The real Jane must waken soon.”

The proud, selfish girl, again rebellious, walked along the narrow path that led under the great, old, gnarled apple trees which the children had used for playhouses ever since they could climb. She felt like one stunned, or as though she were reading a tragic story and expected at every moment to be awakened to the joyful realization that it was not true.

Her father saw her coming and dropped the hoe that he had been plying between the long rows of beans. “How terribly he has changed,” Jane thought. He had indeed aged and there was on his sensitive face, which was more that of an idealist than a business man, the impress of sorrow, but also there was something else. Jane noticed it at once; an expression of firm, unwavering determination. She knew that appealing to his love for his daughter would be useless, great as that love was. A quotation she had learned in school flashed into her mind—“I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more.”

There was, indeed, infinite tenderness in the clear gray eyes that looked at her, and then, without a word, he held out his arms, and suddenly Jane felt as she had when she was a little child, and things had gone wrong.

“Father! Father!” she sobbed, and then she clung to him, while he held her in a yearning, strong embrace, saying, “It’s hard, my daughter, terribly hard for all of us, but it was the thing that I had to do. Dan, I am sure, has told you all that happened. But it won’t be for long, Janey. What I have done once, I can do again.” He led her to a rustic bench under one of the trees, and removing her hat, he stroked her dark, glossy hair. “Jane, dear,” he implored, when her sobs grew less, “try to be brave, just for a time. Promise me!” Then, as the girl did not