’Not that everything isn’t fair and above-board, and he is welcome to look into matters as much as he likes,’ Frank said over and over to himself, as he sat stating blankly at the telegram, while the cold chills ran up and down his back and arms.  ’Yes, he can examine all Colvin’s books and he will find them straight as a string, for didn’t he tell me to use what I needed as remuneration for looking after his property while he was gallivanting over the world; and if he objects that I have paid myself too much, why, I can at once transfer those investments in my name to him.  No, it is not that which affects me so, it is the suddenness of the thing, coming without warning and to-night of all nights, when the house will be full of carousing and champagne.  What will Dolly say!  Hysterics of course, if not a sick headache.  I don’t believe I can face her till she has had a little time to get over it.  Here, boy, I want, you!’ and he rapped at the window at a young lad who happened to be passing with a basket on his arm.  ’I want you to do an errand for me,’ he continued, as the boy entered the office, and, removing his cap, stood respectfully before him ’Take this telegram to Mrs. Tracy, and here is a dime for you.’

‘Thank you, but I don’t care for the money,’ the boy said ’I was going to the park anyway to tell Mrs. Tracy that grandma is sick and can’t go there to-night.’

‘Cannot go!  Sick!  What is the matter?’ Mr. Tracy asked, in some dismay, feeling that here was a fresh cause of trouble and worry for Dolly, as he designated his wife when off his guard and not on show before his fashionable friends, to whom she was Dora, or Mrs. Tracy.

‘She catched cold yesterday fixing up mother’s grave,’ the boy replied; and, as if the mention of that grave had sent Mr. Tracy’s thoughts straying backward to the past, he looked thoughtfully at the child a moment, and then said: 

‘How old are you, Harold?’

‘Ten, last August,’ was the reply; and Mr. Tracy continued: 

‘You do not remember your mother?’

‘No, sir, only a great crowd, and grandma crying so hard,’ was Harold’s reply.

‘You look like her,’ Mr. Tracy said.

‘Yes, sir,’ Harold answered, while into his frank, open face there came an expression of regret for the mother who had died when he was three years old, and whose life had been so short and sad.

’Now, hurry off with the telegram, and mind you don’t lose it.  It is from my brother.  He is coming to-night.’

’Mr. Arthur Tracy, who sent the monument for my mother—­is he coming home?  Oh, I am so glad!’ Harold exclaimed, and his handsome face lighted up with childish joy, as he put the telegram in his pocket and started For Tracy Park, wondering if he should encounter Tom, and thinking that if he did, and Tom gave him any chaff, he should lick him, or try to.

‘Darn him!’ he said to himself, as he recalled the many times when Tom Tracy, a boy of his own age, had laughed at him for his poverty and coarse clothes.  ’Darn him! he ain’t any better than I am, if he does wear velvet trousers and live in a big house.  ’Taint his’n; it’s Mr. Arthur’s, and I’m glad he is coming home.  I wonder if he will bring grandma anything.  I wish he’d I bring me a pyramid.  He’s seen ’em, they say.’