The pony phaeton stood before the school-house. Jasper and Hero nodding their heads impatiently in the April sunshine. The prettiest striped lap-robe imaginable was thrown over the empty seat, the plating of the harness made a silvery glitter, and altogether it was a turnout that one might be rather proud of, if one's self-complacency was nurtured upon such things.

And the driver thereof was not to be despised. The girls, as they trooped down stairs, thought Kathie Alston "so lucky!" No one in Brookside had a father or uncle or brother so devoted,—not old, by any means, and certainly good-looking, but, best of all, showing his affection in a manner that made her envied of others.

Sue Coleman had met him several times through the course of the winter, and pronounced him "magnificent," in her enthusiastic fashion. Indeed, he was the kind of man to be very attractive to young girls. She bowed now in her most gracious manner. Belle bit her lip angrily. If she had taken up Kathie instead of that insignificant little gossiping Lottie Thorne! Her mother had been to call at Cedarwood, but it wasn't at all likely that she would be invited within its charmed precincts. Of course she said she did not care; but there was a gnawing jealousy at her heart.

Uncle Robert was so in the habit of coming for Kathie that she sprang in, nodded a gay farewell to the group, and went on for some distance before she thought it anything more than a pleasure drive.

Suddenly her heart gave a quick bound. "You are going to the Darrells'?" she said.

"Yes." Disguise it as he might, there was a glow in the half-averted eyes.

"O, Mr. Meredith hasn't—come home!"

"Hasn't he? Are you quite sure?"—with a little smile.

"O Uncle Robert!"

"They came at twelve. I was in there half an hour, when he insisted that I should drive over for you."

It was very flattering to be remembered first of all; and yet there was something connected with it which made Kathie's heart beat in an unwonted manner, and a quiver came into her throat almost as if she wanted to cry. Six months ago!—how much had happened since then!

He fastened the horses, and entered the hall with Kathie, who seemed strangely shy.

"They took him right up to Miss Jessie's room," said her uncle.

Thither they went, though there was a sound of joyous voices in grandmother's room, just across the hall. The two halted a moment, then Uncle Robert pushed the door a little wider open.

"Have you brought her?"

The dear, well-known voice, sounding a bit husky and tremulous, and with something in it which brought the tears to Kathie's eyes. What with the flood of sunshine, the white bed and pillows a little tumbled, and a gray travelling-wrap thrown partly over somebody, she seemed to see nothing but confusion at first; then a thin white hand was stretched out.

"I am so tired that I cannot rise. Dear Kathie! Dear child!"

They were both crying then, and neither felt ashamed. Just a miracle that he was here at all; and if he had gone to the other country, the golden key opening the gates set with jasper and pearl must have been Kathie's precious words.

"My dear Kathie, I've lost all the little sense I ever did have. I sent Jessie away for fear she might indulge in a scene, and here I am crying like a baby! But there are so many things to think of, and it is so delightful to see familiar faces once more!"

Then Kathie took a look at him. He was very thin and pale, the hair and beard cropped quite close, the eyes sunken, yet with the old bright glow she had watched so many times; and, oddest of all, the once plump hands looking, as Hannah would have said, like "chickens' claws."

"Well, should you know me?"

"Yes, but you are changed."

"And if you had seen me a month ago! The doctors have cut me open, turned me inside out, and run up and down my body with lodestone in search of a stray rebel ball. When they had me nearly killed, they would leave off a little while; but as soon as they saw signs of coming to life they went at it again. It's a kind of gymnastics that a man can't get fat on, try his best."

"I should think not"; and Kathie couldn't help laughing.

"But it's through now. I feel like saying, with Joe Gargery, 'And now, Pip, old chap,' (Pip, in this instance, standing for country) 'we've done our duty by one another.' School is out, and Uncle Sam is sending us home as fast as possible. I've nothing to do now but to be gloriously lazy, and have every one wait upon me."

"O, I am so glad, so thankful," and Kathie pressed the thin hands in her own, so soft and warm, "to have you back here, when we were afraid—"

"It has been a hard struggle, little Kathie. I shall never see a blue coat again without thinking of what many a brave fellow has had to suffer. I seem to have been feasted upon roses; but hundreds of them had no such luck."

"And to come to peace at last,—to know there will be no more calls!"

"It certainly is good tidings of great joy. And though I couldn't be in at the last, losing all the triumph and glory, I feel that I did a little good work, and shall never regret the rest."

Her soft eyes answered him.

"And there is something else. I want to tell you that your precious words bore good fruit after many days. My dear child," drawing her closer to him until the silken curls swept his cheek, "I owe you more than I can ever express, ever pay. It was your sweet, simple daily life, and your unconscious heroism that first led me to think. I have heard hundreds of sermons, and had hosts of religious friends, but nothing ever touched me like your gentle firmness that night so long ago at my brother's, and your rare modesty afterward, and all your straightforward course, even when it involved pain and sacrifice. I can't exactly tell you how the truth and the peace came to me, enabling me to do my duty to God and man; but when I was ill and helpless, and hovering on the verge of death, I want you to know that His love was infinitely precious to me. It took away all perplexity, all care and trouble, and gave me rest in the dreariest of nights. And as He suffered for us, so ought we to be willing to suffer for one another. I never realized before what a great and grand thing life was when obedience to God crowns it first of all And even out there it seemed as if I was always taking lessons of you, remembering what you had said and done."

"O no, no!" she cried, with her utmost sweet humility. "I am not worthy of so much."

"My darling friend, I think you are one of God's own messengers. Through you I have found him, come to see him as he is, a tender, loving Father."

She hardly dared to taste the rich ripe fruit gathered here to her hand. It was such a sacred work to have guided another soul ever so little, and she could scarcely believe that it had come through her.

"Are you going to keep Kathie all the afternoon?" asked a soft, pleading voice.

Both started. For many minutes they had been silently thinking of the little steps that reached to God, made so much more simple and easy by the tender spirit-leading than all the learned philosophy of the world.

"O Miss Jessie!"

"Mrs. Meredith, if you please," he exclaimed with a little laugh in his tone. "There, you have kissed enough. Come, sit down and look at me. I am afraid you will forget about my being one of our country's noble sons."

Jessie might have been a little thinner with all her anxiety and watching, but she was the same dear, sweet friend, and Kathie thought prettier than ever, with her half shy, tender grace.

"He has grown very exacting," the young wife said, with a smile.

Kathie blushed. "It seems so odd for you to—be—"

"Married," exclaimed Mr. Meredith. "Why, what else could I do? When I was a poor, helpless log, unable to stir hand or foot, some one had to take pity upon me. She was very good, I assure you."

"As if I had not known it long before!" and a host of old memories rushed over Kathie.

"Isn't it odd," Mr. Meredith said, in a lower tone, taking his wife's hand, "that it was through Kathie we came to know each other? I can just see the picture she made in the great hall of the hotel, like a little wild-flower blown astray by a gust of wind."

Jessie thought of something else,—how she and Charlie were sitting by the cheerful fire one winter night, when he had expressed a desire to make her happy in some way, because she was always studying the pleasure of others. But for that she might never have known the Alstons so intimately, and of course—

There she had to stop with a dainty blush.

It was very odd, Kathie decided, in her simple child's way.

"And we have to thank Kathie for a good deal of delicacy in keeping our secret," Mr. Meredith said. "Circumstances gave it into her hands long ago."

She smiled a little. "What did Ada say?" she asked, rather shyly.

"I have not been favored with Ada's opinion, but she and her mother are to pay me a short visit presently. George wanted me to come immediately to New York, but I fancied Jessie must be a trifle homesick; and, to confess the truth, I was longing for a glimpse of Brookside. Have you begun gardening yet, Kathie? And tell me the story of the whole winter. I'm just famishing for gossip."

Uncle Robert proposed returning presently, but they would not listen to his taking Kathie. Mr. Meredith begged her and Jessie to have tea up in the room, where he could look at them. His side was still very weak, and his journey had fatigued him too much to admit of his sitting up. "But I shall soon be about with a crutch," he announced, gayly.

Passing the lodge cottage again that evening, Kathie gave a tender thought to its inmates, and the childish longing for fairy power came back to her. No wand, nothing but a Fortunatus's purse with one piece of gold in it, and that could not do everything.

Kathie was up betimes the next morning. There were lessons to study, an exercise to write, and a music practice to be sandwiched in somewhere, for Mr. Lawrence was to come that afternoon. And her head was still so full of Mr. Meredith and dear Jessie.

"It will not do," she said, presently, to herself, when she found that she was listening to every bird, and watching the cloud of motes in the sunshine; so with that she set to work in good earnest.

Belle Hadden was loftier than ever on this day, and seemed to hold herself quite apart. "A new kink of grandeur," Emma Lauriston said.

Lottie Thorne always had the earliest news. Now she made sundry mysterious confidences, prefaced with, "Would you have believed it?"

"What is that, Lottie?" asked one of the girls.

"O, haven't you heard?" the face aglow with a sense of importance. "Papa told us last night, though I suppose it is all over. Poor Belle! Why, it would kill me!"

"But what is it?"

"About Mr. Hadden. He has been embezzling, or making false returns, or something, and charged the government with a great deal more than he supplied. Why, I believe it is almost a million! And he is in prison!"

"Not so bad as that," subjoined Sue Coleman, quietly.

"But he is in prison."

"Yes, there is some trouble, but maybe it will not amount to much."

"I should think she would be ashamed to show her face!"

"How can she help it?" said the softest and sweetest of voices. "It is very hard to punish her or make her answerable for her father's faults."

"What should you do, Kathie Alston, if you had been intimate with her?" It was Sue Coleman who spoke, and there was a husky strand in her voice.

"I should keep on just the same. It will be very painful for her to bear anyhow. Suppose it was one of us!"

"You don't know what hateful things she said about your uncle ever so long ago," pursued Lottie.

"But if they were false, her merely saying them could not make them true, you know."

It was a bit of philosophy quite new to the girls, though each one might have thought of it long before, and was one of the things that had been a great comfort to Kathie many a time.

"But this is true."

"It will be bitter enough to bear, then, without our adding to the burden"; and a tremulous color flitted over Kathie's fair face, not so much at what she had been saying as the fact that these girls were grouped around listening for her verdict.

"I don't believe she will come to-morrow," two or three voices decided.

They never knew how hard her coming was, how she had begged and entreated her mother to let her stay at home, and finally threatened not to go, when Mrs. Hadden had taken her in the carriage. There was no pride in her soul as she stepped out of it, only a bitter, haughty hatred.

"Don't act like a fool!" was her mother's parting advice. "The matter will soon blow over."

For Mrs. Hadden felt that she should not be utterly crushed. The deed of the house was in her name, and the furniture bills had been made out in the same manner, consequently that much was secure. Mr. Hadden had probably not done more than hundreds of others, and she felt confident that he would get out of it somehow. They had plenty of money, and could start afresh in a new place, but the people here should see that she was able to hold her head as high as the best of them.

There was a little bouquet on Belle's desk. No one knew who put it there. They would have suspected Kathie Alston, of course, if they had not seen her come in empty-handed, but no one guessed it was her second coming that morning.

The Brookside Standard copied the report, stating also that Mr. Hadden had asked a suspension of public opinion for the present.

"Do you suppose it is really true?" inquired Kathie of Uncle Robert.

"I believe Mr. Hadden's reputation does not stand very high, at the best. I can forgive a man who is tempted to retrieve himself by some desperate step, when on the brink of ruin; but the men who wronged our poor brave boys with clothing that was but half made, and food of the poorest kind, enriching themselves while the country was at her sorest need, do deserve punishment. Still, it would be hardly kind to begin by meting it out to his children."

"How terrible it must be, Uncle Robert, to know that some one you held dear was guilty of such a crime!"

"Yes, I think it would be worse than taking up poor and uncultivated people"; and a peculiar smile crossed his face. "You will have an opportunity to show your blue blood, Kathie. I believe I never knew a Conover who struck a fallen foe."

"Yes," she answered, wondering if it would be foolish to tell him about the flowers; but just then Freddy ran in, full of tribulation as usual.

Mr. Meredith improved rapidly. Kathie had to take him in her way some time during the day, or there was a most heart-rending complaint.

"It is so delightful to have them all love him so well!" she said to Aunt Ruth. "Charlie has a hero of his own now."

They received a long and characteristic letter from Rob, who wished he was a bombshell and could be dropped down into Brookside. The war was actually ended, and "Johnny was marching home," and everything had happened about right. "Only I am awful sorry about Mr. Morrison. I can't seem to believe but that he will come to light somewhere yet. It gave me such a strange feeling,—thinking, for a moment, if it had been Uncle Robert. We will try all our lives to make it up to Ethel. I will never tease her again, at any rate." Which was all the resolve in Rob's power at present.