“My will was made some time ago,” Mrs. Johnson continued, “and I need not tell you that with a few exceptions, such as legacies to Densie Densmore, and some charitable institutions, you are my sole heir.  Mr. Liston is to be your guardian, and will look after your interests until you are of age, or longer if you choose.  You know that as both your father and myself were the only children you have no near relatives on either side—­none to whom you can look for protection.

“You will remember having heard me speak occasionally of some friends now living in Kentucky, a Mrs. Worthington, whose husband was a distant relative of ours.  Ralph Worthington and your father were schoolboys together, and afterward college companions.  Only once did anything come between them, and that was a young girl, a very young girl, whom both desired, and whom only one could have.”

Alice was interested now, and forgetting in a measure her grief, she asked quickly:  “Did my father love some one else than you?”

“I never knew he did,” and a tear rolled down the faded cheek of the sick woman.  “Ralph Worthington was true as steel, and when he found another preferred to himself, he generously yielded the contest.”

“Oh, I shall like Mr. Worthington,” Alice exclaimed, a desire rising in her heart to see the man who had loved and lost her mother.

“He was, at his own request, groomsman at our wedding, and the bridesmaid became his wife in little less than a year.”

“Did he love her?” Alice asked, in some astonishment, and her mother replied evasively: 

“He was kind and affectionate, while she loved him with all a woman’s devotion.  I was but sixteen when I became a bride, and several years elapsed ere God blessed me with a child.  Your father was consumptive, and the chances were that I should early be left a widow.  This it was which led to the agreement made by the two friends that if either died the living one should care for the widow and fatherless.  To see the two you would not have guessed that the athletic Ralph would be the first to go, yet so it was.  He died ere you were born.”

“Then he is dead?  Oh, I’m so sorry,” Alice exclaimed.

“Yes, he’s dead; and, as far as possible, your father fulfilled his promise to the widow and her child—­a little boy, five years old, of whom Mrs. Worthington herself was appointed guardian.  I never knew what spirit of evil possessed Eliza, but in less than a year after her husband’s death, she made a second and most unfortunate marriage.  Mr. Murdoch proved a greater scoundrel than we supposed, and when their little girl was nearly two years old, we heard of a divorce.  Mr. Johnson’s health was failing fast, and we were about to make the tour of Europe.  Just before we sailed we visited poor Eliza, whom we found heartbroken, for the brutal wretch had managed to steal her daughter, and carried it no one knew whither.  I never shall forgot the