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Chicago, Sept. —, 18—.

DEAR Sister:—I write in great haste to tell you of
little Annie's accident, and that you must come out
and see her, if only for a few days. It happened
the week after mother died. Her foot must have slipped, or
hit on something, and she fell from the top of the stairs to
tbe bottom, and hurt her back or hip; I hardly think the
doctor knew which, or in fact what to do for her. She cannot
walk a step, and lies all day in bed, or sits in her chair,
with no other company than old Aunt Luna, who is faithful
and kind. But Annie wants you and talks of you all the
time, and last night, when I got home from the store, she
told me she had written to you, and gave me this bit of
paper, which I inclose.

“And now, Georgie, do come if possible, and come at
once. There are so many things I want to consult you
about now that mother is gone. I can ill afford to lose the
time; but if you will start the —th day of October, I will
meet you in Buffalo, so that you will not have far to travel
alone. I shall expect your answer, saying yes.

This letter, or rather the slip of paper it contained, had
taken Georgie Burton to Buffalo, and on to Iona, where the
accident occurred. She might have resisted Jack's appeal,
and thought it one of his scares, and that Annie was not
much hurt, and would do well enough with the old negress,
Luna; but Annie's letter was a different thing from Jack's,
and Georgie wept passionately when she read it. It was a
little child's letter, and some of the words were printed, for

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Annie was just beginning to learn to write of Jack, who was
her teacher in all things.

“Dear sister Gorgy,” the note began, “mother is dead
and I've hurted my back and have to ly all day stil, and it
do ake so hard, and I'me so streemly lonesome, and want to
see my sweet, pretty sister so much. I ask Jack if you will
come and he don't b'leeve you will, and then I 'members
my mother say, ask Jesus if you want anything, and I does
ask him and tell him my back akes, and mother's gone to live
with him. And I want to see you, and won't he send you to
me for Christ's sake, amen. And I know he will. Come,
Gorgy, pleas, and bring me some choklets.

Georgie could not withstand that appeal, and when Mrs.
Burton tried to dissuade her from going, she paid no heed
whatever. Indeed, she scarcely heard what her mother was
saying, for her thoughts were far away with a little goldenhaired
child, for whom she stowed away in her trunk the
chocolates asked for, and the waxen doll and the picture
book and pretty puzzle found that day at the shop in the
little town near Oakwood.

Jack met her in Buffalo as he had said he would, and took
her to the hotel for the night, and, in the privacy of her room
she said things she never would have said had there been
other ears to listen than those of Jack,—faithful, trusty Jack,
who knew that of her which no other living creature knew.
Alone with him she needed no disguise, and her voice was
not as soft and sweet and bird-like as it always was at Oakwood;
but it sounded much like any ordinary voice, as she
asked after Annie, and if it really was necessary to send for
her and compel her to take that long, tiresome journey.

“Perhaps it was not necessary; Aunt Luna and I could
take care of her, of course; but, Georgie, she wanted you so

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badly, and I thought maybe”—here Jack's chin quivered
a little, and he walked to the window, and stood with his
back to Georgie—“I thought you might want to see her.
It's two years almost since you did see her. And mother's
being dead, and all, we feel so lonely and broken up, and
don't know what to do. A man's nothing with a little child
like Annie. I say, Georgie,”—and Jack suddenly faced
about—“I thought maybe you'd stay with us a spell. We
want a head; somebody to take the lead. Won't you,
Georgie? It is not like Oakwood, I know; and you'll
feel the change; but it is a great deal better than it used
to be when you were there; for Annie's sake, maybe, you'll
do it, and I'll work like a horse for you both. I'm getting
good wages now,—better than ever before. I can give you
some luxuries, and all the comforts, I guess. Mother
thought you would. She told me to tell you it was your
duty—”

Jack stopped suddenly, arrested by something in the expression
of his sister's face, which he did not like. She had
listened in silence, and with a good deal of softness in her
eyes, until he spoke of her staying with him. Then there
was a sudden lifting of her eyebrows, and she shot at him a
look of surprise that he should presume to propose such a
thing. When he reached his mother's message touching
her duty, her face flushed with resentment, and she broke
out impulsively:

“Don't go any further, Jack. You can work upon my
feelings when you talk of Annie's wanting me, but when you
try to preach duty to me, you fail of your object at once. I
parted company with duty and principle, and everything of
that sort, years ago; and you, who know me so well, ought
to know better than to try and reach me through any such
channel. I am going to see Annie, to do what I can for

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her, and then return to Oakwood. The kind of life I have
led there, since leaving you, has unfitted me for—for—”

“For our four rooms on the second floor of a tenement
house,” Jack said, a little bitterly, and then there was silence
between them; and Georgie sat, thinking of Oakwood, with
all its luxurious elegance, and Jack's presumption in supposing
she would voluntarily give it up for those four rooms on
the second floor, with their plain furniture and still plainer
surroundings.

And while she was thus employed, Jack, who had come
back from the window, was leaning upon the mantel and
intently looking at the beautiful woman with marks of culture
and high breeding in every turn of her graceful head,
and motion of her body,—the woman whose charms were
enhanced by all the appliances of wealth, and who looked a
very queen born to adorn some home as elegant and beautiful
as herself. She would be out of place in the four rooms
which constituted his home, he thought; and yet her natural
place was there, and in his heart he felt for a moment as if
he despised her for her selfishness and lack of all that was
womanly and right. But she was his sister. They had
called the same man father; they had been children together,
and though he was the younger of the two, he had always
assumed a kind of protecting air toward the little girl whose
beauty he admired so much, and whom he once thought so
sweet and lovely.

As she grew toward womanhood, and her marvellous
beauty expanded day by day until it became the remark of
even passers-by, who saw her at the window, he worshipped
her as a being infinitely superior to himself, and when a
great and crushing sorrow came upon her early in life, he
stood bravely by her, shielding her as far as possible from
disgrace, and took her to his own fireside, and, boy though
he was in years, told her she was welcome then and forever,

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and overtasked his strength and gave up his hopes of an
education, that she might be warmed and fed and clothed,
even in dainty apparel which suited her brilliant beauty so
well. Latterly their lives had lain apart from each other,
hers at Oakwood, where, the petted idol of her indulgent
aunt, she had no wish ungratified; and his in the noisy city
of the West, where, at the head of a family, he toiled for
his mother and the little Annie who was like a sister to him,
and whom he loved with a deeper love than he had given
to Georgie, inasmuch as she was more worthy of his love.
His mother was now dead; Annie was a cripple; and in
his loneliness and perplexity his heart went after Georgie as
the proper one to help him. She had acceded to his wishes
in part, but refused him where he had the greatest need,
and his heart was very sore as he stood looking at her and
thinking of all that was past in her life, and of the possible
future.

She suspected his thoughts, and with her old, witching
smile and manner, arose and stood by him, and parting his
hair with her white hand, said coaxingly:

“Don't be angry with me, Jack. I cannot bear that, for
you are the best, the truest friend I have in the world, and I
love you so much, and will do anything for you but that;
I cannot stay with you. I should neither be happy myself
nor make you so; and then my remaining in Chicago would
seriously interfere with my plans, which may result in bringing
us all together beneath one roof. Trust me, please, and
believe I am acting for the best.”

She was thinking of Roy Leighton, and how her staying in
Chicago might prevent what she so ardently desired. The
living together beneath one roof was a thought of the instant,
and nothing she had ever considered for a moment, or ever
would. But it answered her purpose just as well; and she
smoothed Jack's hair so lovingly, and looked at him with so

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soft, beseeching eyes, in which there was a semblance of tears,
that Jack began to forgive her, and feel that she was right
after all, and it was not of any use to make her unhappy
by insisting upon her staying where she did not wish to
stay.

This was in Buffalo, where he met her. Then followed the
catastrophe, and Jack uttered no word of remonstrance
against staying till Russell came, although he knew just how
the little girl at home was longing for them. He wrote her
a note, telling her to be patient, as sister Georgie was coming,
and then gave himself to the suffering ones around him,
with Georgie as a most valuable aid. He had no thought
of her turning back to Leighton, and the fact that she was
intending to do so, came like a thunderbolt. He could see
no reason for it, and when she pleaded Mrs. Churchill's
grief, which she could quiet better than any one else, he was
guilty of swearing a little about the whole Leighton tribe,
Roy not excepted; and he made Georgie cry, and didn't
care either, and would not ask her when she was coming,
but received the chocolates, and the doll, and the puzzle in
silence, and put them away in his travelling bag, with a half-muttered
oath as he thought of Georgie's selfishness, and a
choking lump in his throat as he remembered the little one
at home, and her disappointment. Georgie was all sweetness
to the last, and her face wore an injured, but still a
forgiving, angelic look, as she bade Jack good-by and said
to him:

“I shall be with you almost before you know it. Tell
Annie not to cry, but be a good girl till sister comes.”

Jack did not reply, and his face was very sad when he
went back to Edna, and asked what he could do for her. He
had done for her already something she would never know,
but which, nevertheless, was just as great a kindness. After
hearing from Georgie of Charlie's entire dependence upon

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Roy, it had occurred to him to take charge of the dead
youth's pocket-book, and see how much it contained. Ten
dollars,—that was all,—and Jack's heart gave a great throb
of pity, as he counted out the little roll, and thought how
much Edna would need.

“Oh, I do so wish I was rich,” he said; and then he drew
out his own purse and counted its contents,—twenty-five
dollars, and twenty of that he had mentally appropriated for
the purchase of a coat, to be worn in the store, as the one
he was wearing now was getting shabby and old. “Maybe
Aunt Luna can fix it up,” he said to himself. “It is not
threadbare; it's only shiny-like in spots. I'll wear it another
quarter, and here goes for that poor, little frightened thing.”

He put fifteen dollars in Charlie's purse, and ten back into
his own; then he looked at Charlie's watch, but when he
saw upon it, “Presented by his mother, Christmas, 18—,”
he said this must go back to Leighton, and the watch was
reverently laid aside to be given into Russell's care, but the
purse he kept for Edna, telling Georgie that he had it, and
when she asked how much was in it, answered, “twenty-five
dollars,” but said nothing of his coat and generous self-denial.
He was used to such things; he would hardly have
known himself with no one to care for, and when Georgie
was gone with Charlie's body, he turned to Charlie's wife,
and began to plan for her comfort. It never occurred to him
that much as he desired to be at home, he could leave her
alone with only a woman to look after her. If it had, he
might have gone that night, but he chose to wait till the next
day, when he hoped Edna would be able to bear the journey.

She was very weak and feverish when the morrow came,
and Jack lifted her in his arms as if she had been Annie, and
carried her into the car, where by turning two seats together
he improvised a very comfortable bed, with his own and Mrs.

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Dana's travelling shawl. Nor did he say good by until he
had carried her into Mrs. Dana's house, and deposited her
upon a lounge around which four little children gathered
wonderingly.

“I shall run in and see how you are to-night or to-morrow.
Now I must go to Annie,” he said; and Edna felt drearier,
more desolate than ever, as the door closed upon him, and
she heard his footsteps going from her, and leaving her there
in that strange place alone, with the children huddling around
her, and the baby screaming loudly at the sight of its mother.