ed, 'Why, we think Margaret rather silent,' she said, 'That is what I mean: it is her silence that is so sympathetic; she answers you with it far more effectually than many persons do with their talkative

ness.'

"I'm afraid you talked, Aunt Katrina," said Winthrop, laughing.

"I never do," replied Mrs. Rutherford, with dignity. And she confided to me, also," she went on, resuming her leisurely gossip, in her calm, handsomely dressed manner (for even Mrs. Rutherford's manner seemed clothed in rich attire), "that that young De Torrez had asked her permission to address Garda, as she expressed it."

"To address Garda? Confound his impertinence! what does he mean?" said Winthrop, in a disgusted tone. "Garda's a child."

"Oh, well," replied Mrs. Rutherford, "she's half Spanish, and that makes a difference; they're so much older. But I don't think the mother favors the Cuban's suit. She prefers something more Saxon'; she said so. And, by-the-way, she asked me if you were not 'more recently

"Oh, I don't know," replied Mrs. Rutherford, comfortably; it doesn't concern us, does it? It will depend upon what Garda thinks; and Garda will think what she pleases; she isn't a girl to be guided.”

"She hasn't been difficult to guide so far, I fancy," said Winthrop, after a moment's pause.

"She will be, then," responded his aunt, nodding her head with an assured air.

That night Winthrop, smoking a last cigarette before going to bed, was sitting with his elbows on the parapet of the Seminole's long veranda, gazing seaward in the soft darkness. He finished his cigarette. And then a second. "It will depend," he said to himself, answering mentally Mrs. Rutherford's statement-"it will depend, I think, upon who guides her.”

I

HAVE never told the story till now. No one ever knew it all, except Max and me, and Max is dead. She is gone too, poor child; so no one can be troubled by the tale, and I should like to tell the whole truth before I too go away. I need not go farther back than the day she first came to us; the story really begins there. Of Max's life before that day, and of mine, no one will care to hear, and I do not care to speak. Max was a doctor, and a good one, I think, having many patients, who loved and trusted him well. He was not yet thirty, but he seemed older, being grave and quiet-made so by things which had happened in that past of which I am not going to speak-and I was his sister, ten years older, a plain, shy, silent woman, but the only one he had ever loved, for he did not remember his mother. We lived together in Sudbury, a little New England village, and there we were quietly happy in our small but cozy house.

I am an old woman now, but I remember as if it were yesterday just how

everything looked on that day-the day my story begins. The village street ran east and west; our house, with its little yard in front, stood on that street, and faced the south. It was early in June, but the season was backward; my roses were as yet only green buds, but I had been at work among them, fastening a spray here, picking off there a dead leaf, and brushing the dust away. The sun was low; it was late afternoon; I walked to the gate and looked down the street, for it was time to expect Max. I can see that street now just as it looked then. heavy farm wagon was lumbering along, raising clouds of dust-there had been little rain that spring-and as I looked toward the west, the sun, so low down then, shone through that dusty cloud, and made it like yellow gold in the air, and through that misty brightness she was coming to me. From the west, down the village street, I saw a figure walking toward me. It was a young girl, slight and rather tall. I could not see her face plain

A

ly against the brightness, and I waited for her. I knew all the young folk of the village, and they had ever a pleasant word or smile for the doctor's old-maid sister. But as I stood at the open gate looking to ward her, I saw that she was a stranger; I had never seen that slight young form, the pretty head, with the bright loose hair about the forehead, seeming part of the sunset's misty glow, those soft brown eyes, that wistful mouth. Yes, she was certainly a stranger; but, as I thought this, a smile, which was surely a recognizing one, broke over the face, and the light steps were quickened. I had seen that she wore a simple print gown of blue and white, and that her straw hat with its blue ribbon was swinging by its looped strings upon one arm. With a half-impatient, weary air she shook back her light loose hair, and stretching out toward me her small, pretty hands, she said: “You are waiting for me. Oh, I am so glad to be at home!"

People nowadays are taught to take to pieces and examine their feelings, and afterward explain them to others. I never learned this, and I can not tell you, after all these years, just how I felt when this strange young thing, whom I had never before seen, looked at and spoke to me thus, but I knew I was greatly amazed. For an instant I felt a bodily dizziness, as when I had suddenly risen from stooping over my flower beds; my head swam, and before I could speak, the sweet childish voice began again: "Am I late? I have taken such a long walk, and it grew so warm! You are not vexed with me?" And the two small, pretty hands clasped my arm, while the brown, soft eyes looked into mine.

What I should have said I do not know. There is no use in trying to guess that, for at that very instant I saw Max coming. He was at the gate almost before I knew it, and looking curiously at us two. Then I found my voice, and gasped out, "Oh, Max!" That was all. But at the words the child turned toward him with a bright look of welcome, but no surprise, and with a faint, soft blush, said, in her low, sweet voice, "Dear Max!"

When I try to remember the look that came upon my brother's face at these words, I find that I am looking at it in the light of what came afterward; and it seems as if even then there was no start of wonder, no amaze: only gladness and answering

love in that look as he bent it on her. But I know that I turned quickly toward him, and tried to convey by a look the thought which had just come to me, the feeling that the child's mind was astray, and we must aid her. That he read my meaning at once was owing to no skill of mine, but to his own quickness-Max was so clever always. Taking the little hand she had laid upon his arm, he said, in a quiet, natural voice,

"Let us go into the house now and have our tea."

And we all went in. As we entered the little sitting room, the girl, walking with no uncertain tread, but as if she knew the place, took her hand from Max's arm and stepped lightly toward the looking-glass which hung between the windows.

"Oh, how my hair is blown about!" she said, with a laugh in her voice. "Shall I run upstairs and smooth it?"

"No, dear. Just come into my room now, you are so tired." And I led the way into my little bedroom on the first floor, and left her there. Then in hurried words I told Max all I knew. "There is something wrong with the brain,” he said, "and she has wandered away from her friends. Do not excite or startle her; let her rest quietly to-night, and we will decide what course to take."

Then she came back to us, and we had our tea. She was quiet, seeming tired, but there was no flush of fever on her face, no wild, unsettled look in the soft brown eyes. Max talked, told of his patients, spoke of the village news, and sometimes the girl would say something of her walk, of the sunset, of the flowers on the table; always in that strangely sweet childish voice, which seemed then, as ever afterward, the best music I had ever heard. Then, later, she went, quite of her own accord, to the piano, and ran her fingers over the keys, playing little bits, some new and strange to us, some old and familiar. Then her voice sounded faint but sweet as she sang softly to herself. Suddenly the strain grew louder, and we knew the air and words, and looked quickly at each other.

The dear old song heard so long ago, in our very childhood, and never since till now.

"The old days, the dear days, where are they?"

So it rang out, as from that far-away past, and we forgot the present, forgot the

strangely quiet child sitting there in the dim summer twilight, and thought only of our dead.

"The old days, the dear days, where are they?"

The voice died away, the sad questioning was stilled, and a little form sank quietly to the floor, and lay there white and still. That was the beginning of a long and terrible illness, a kind of brain-fever, but with some complications which seemed to puzzle the doctors, one and all, for Max called to his aid other, but I am sure not wiser, heads. And all the time most careful and diligent search was made for the child's friends, for some clew to the mystery of her coming. But all in vain. Advertisements, inquiries, and even the assistance of experienced detectives all failed utterly. She had been seen at the far end of the village street, and from there onward to our door, on the afternoon she came to us, but farther back than that we could not trace her. She herself could not be questioned. For many days she knew no one, and lay sometimes in a strange quiet almost like death itself, then again in delirium, with quick excited talk. But from no speech of hers could we learn anything save that she was gently bred, and that there seemed nothing in her young soul that was not white and sweet. So the days went on. We had laid her in the airy pleasant bedroom upstairs, where years before our little sister slept, the young sister whom we had laid away with many tears in the sad past. And while watching and nursing the young stranger there in that sacred room we grew at times almost to think that our dead was again with us, and we loved her as our own. Max was unwearied in his care, watching day and night, and I was almost always at her bedside. There was nothing painful or distressing in the girl's talk, even when most excited. Hour after hour the sweet voice would run on, telling of childish play, of country sights and sounds, of lessons learned, of work, or play, or study. I need not tell you that we watched eagerly for names, either of people or places, which should aid us in our search for her friends. But nothing came. She spoke of "the hill," "the bridge," of "down the river," she called the "girls" and the "children," she asked why the "horses" did not come, and if the "grass" was cut. But that was all. In her whole illness of many weeks no

name ever passed her lips, and all her past was still a sealed book to us, when one day in midsummer the wandering, faraway look left her eyes, and the soul came back to the child.

Max and I were both with her; no one else was there. She had been sleeping a long time sweetly and quietly. Again and again I had bent over her, and seen the white lids still shut down, and heard the soft regular breathing. But at last, as I stood at her side and Max sat by the window, both of us looking at the pale thin face upon the pillow, the brown eyes opened, and we saw, both of us at once, that she seemed to know us. We were silent, watchful, for an instant, and then saw the eyes turn toward the window, a light come into them, the hands reach feebly out toward the sunlight and him, and she murmured, as on that first June day when she came to us, "Dear Max!"

Ah, well, I find I can not remember it all as well as I thought I could. What did Max do then, what did I do, as we saw that with the light of reason there yet came no light upon the child's past? I do not seem to recall the steps by which we came to see that she was our own, a part of our present lives, belonging to us and to our history, and to no one else on earth, and that we could no more send her from us than we could have driven away our own flesh and blood.

As far as we could see, she had no past. If God had made her newly that June day, and set her down fresh and sweet and unstained in our village street on that golden summer afternoon, she could not have seemed more wholly devoid of a history, a hitherto. Her convalescence was slow, she was so very weak, and she could learn of us, of our life, and of all her surroundings gradually, a little at a time, as a child learns its home and friends. She may have learned in that way; I do not know; but nothing ever seemed as if new and strange to her, or appeared to surprise her as unfamiliar. I can never remember when she first spoke my name. Max called me by itRuth-and she soon used the name as though she had always known it. In the days of her great feebleness she spoke little but our names and the names of the things she needed or wished for. As she grew stronger she talked more with us, but it was of the things about her, of her illness and our loving care.

"How long have I been sick?" she asked one day; and we told her. "Yes," she said. "It is August now-is it not?-and I was taken ill that day in June after my long walk." And again she said, "It seems like a dream, these long weeks, and I remember nothing distinctly since I sat singing to you and Max that last evening." Among the doctors who were called in to see her during her illness was one who was skilled in nervous ailments, and who knew, oh, so much! of the workings of the brain. He seemed wonderfully interested in the patient, and watched her closely and curiously. I used to hear him and Max talking, and tried to understand, but I could not follow them. It was all about the little girl's brain, and the part of it which had gone wrong, and the gray matter" there, and how it would come all right with returning health, and she would have the past again which she had lost, and know that the present and we and our lives were new and foreign, and not her own. I knew they were very wise, and that I was very ignorant, but I could not feel that they were right in this. Perhaps I did not want to believe it. For I loved her so, and I was beginning to be jealous of a past in which we-Max and I-had no part. I liked to think that she was all our own, that God gave her to us, all new and fresh in her young girlhood, and yet with a kind of memory of things in our past which somehow made it her own, and drew her to us. I am growing sadly confused, and am quite beyond my depth, I see. You can not understand, and I can not put it into better words. But who could see the love that shone in her face when she looked at us, the child-like trust and confidence in us, and believe that she had not at least dreamed of us before? And, oh, how can I tell you of her feeling toward Max? No one could possibly mistake that. There was no room for doubt. She gave him the love a girl gives only to her promised husband. Something I know not what-had given her the right to love him so, to claim his love. And Max loved her. I tell it abruptly, but it did not come as a sudden revelation to me. I seemed to know it from the first, and without any surprise, as if I had watched the love story in its very beginning, and knew how it would end. And so, without asking of his or consent of hers (unless in some dream-land we knew nothing of), they were plighted lovers. Perhaps you

We

will wonder that we did not, as she grew stronger, question her as to her history. We dared not, for fear of startling her, and frightening away the reason which had just come back. The doctors agreed in this, that we should not trouble her with questions, but wait with what patience we could for the memory which they believed would soon return. did not yet know what to call her. Her clothing was without mark of any kind, and she had never spoken of herself by any name. I have said that in the years gone by we had lost a young sister. That sister's name was Faith, and it was dearer to us both than any name on earth. The dead girl's picture hung in the sittingroom down-stairs, and the first day that our patient was carried there and placed on the sofa under the windows, she seemed attracted by the sweet face in the picture. She lay looking at it a long time silently, and at last I said, "Do you think our little sister Faith is like me?"

"No," she answered, thoughtfully; "I can never see any look in her face like yours, though I often look for it. I have always been glad that my name was Faith, like hers. I think you love me better for that." And so it was we came to call her by that dear name, and for her other name we gave her ours.

You will not wonder that in our quiet little village the story of our strange guest made much stir and talk. We said as little as possible of the matter, but such things come soon to be known among people who have little excitement in their dull lives. The notices inserted in the local papers, the inquiries made, the famous doctors' visits, the general air of mystery about our visitor and her illness, were talked and gossiped of, in spite of all we could do. And I saw that this pained Max greatly. As the days went on, and no word came to us from any one who might claim the girl, and as the tie between him and her grew stronger and tenderer, he shrank from any questioning into the matter even from me, and the village talk was intolerable; and so it came about that he accepted an offer made him some months before, and we left forever our old home, and went to a town hundreds of miles distant, where our story was unknown. And here our little Faith, bearing our name and living with us, was supposed to be some relative, and known also as Max's betrothed.

You would hardly think that a person without a past, or at least lacking the memory of one, would seem so like other people, and show the want so little. I can not tell you why this was so, but certainly no one appeared to notice anything strange about the girl, and we ourselves almost forgot at times how she had come to us. I can remember, as I look back, some things she said, which from time to time recalled the mystery of her former life, and made us wonder again, as at first, if we should ever know more. One day we had been reading together a story which told of a mother's devotion-a pretty tale and Faith was very thoughtful afterward. She sat looking into the fire silently, and then startled me by asking, "Ruth, do I remember my mother?" "What do you think, dear?" I said. She answered slowly, as if trying to recall something: "Sometimes I think I do, not as a person whose face or form I can at all remember, but as a love, a tenderness, a great beautiful care all about me, something that pitied and was sorry for me, and-" Her voice died away, and she sat thinking again; then suddenly said, "But it goes away, and then it is you I remember, and all your goodness to me." She left her seat, and coming over to me, knelt down, and putting her arms about me, said, “I have not needed my mother, dear Ruth, you have been so good, so loving; I have not needed anything with you and Max." I was so glad she said that! Were we indeed taking the place of anything bright and beautiful she might have had in that unknown world of hers?

Certainly she was very happy. I do not say much of the love which she and Max bore each other; it is something I can not talk of. Max had never loved before; his had been a troubled life, with many cares and some bitter sorrows. And his whole heart went out with a mighty love toward this fair young thing who came to him that summer day from some unknown world where she had loved and trusted and belonged to him while yet he knew it not. They were to be married in June. "I will wait a year," Max had said to me. "If we hear nothing before that time, I shall surely have the right to take her for my wife."

I have said that during her illness no name ever passed her lips. But afterward, in the winter, she spoke two or three names

we did not know. She had taken a slight cold, and was somewhat feverish. I had gone to her bedside before I slept to give her a good-night kiss. As I stooped over her she said, drowsily, as if half asleep, "Are we going back to Greenmore to-morrow?" I caught at the name, the first she had ever spoken which might tell us anything, and asked, “Where is Greenmore, Faith?" She opened her eyes wider, looked strangely at me for just one instant, then said, "I meant Sudbury," and further questioning brought nothing more. She did not know Greenmore; she meant Sudbury, so she kept saying. But I told Max, and he agreed with me that we must follow out this new clew. No town bearing the name of Greenmore could be found. You may be sure that though Max dreaded unspeakably finding those who might take our little one away, still he was conscientious and painstaking in his search. But he sought in vain. When we had quite given up the search there was found in an old town history among some books belonging to our father the name we were looking for. But it was given as the ancient name of a village now bearing another and quite different one. However, Max went there, taking a long journey to the spot. He found a busy manufacturing village called Millburg, and was assured that it had never borne any other name. But on looking up and questioning some of the oldest inhabitants he was told that the first site of the town was on a bleak hill several miles away. Many years ago it had been deserted, and the inhabitants had come down into a more fertile and better watered spot, and built their new village there, and the old town had been called Greenmore. That was more than sixty years ago. Max visited the desolate spot, saw its few ruined buildings, the wooden walls black with time and wear, the windows gone, and came away with a strange wonder growing upon him.. Where had she heard the name of this deserted, dreary, old-time place? Had she by chance met it in the old book where we first came across it, and which she might have taken from the shelf, where she often handled the volumes? Perhaps so; I can not explain it thus. It is only a part of the mystery to It was not meant for us to under

me.

stand.

Another name came several times from her lips. The first time was when, as in