John Everett may, or may not, have been excusable for neglecting to inform Jane Blythe of a matter which nearly concerned her, and which had occupied his own attention for an hour or more that very day. The firm of lawyers with whom he was associated—Messrs. Longstreet and Biddle, to be exact—had received by the morning's post a letter from certain London solicitors instructing them to advertise for, and otherwise endeavor to locate the whereabouts of one Jane Evelyn Aubrey-Blythe, who was known to have left England for America on or about April 6th of the current year. Information regarding this person, who was otherwise described as being young and of pleasing appearance and address, would be thankfully received by Messrs. Thorn, Nagle & Noyes, attorneys and counselors-at-law.

In pursuance of this desired end, John Everett had been deputed to frame a suitable inquiry to be inserted in the public prints, and the leading New York, Brooklyn, and Jersey City papers were presumably at that moment setting the type for said notices. Just why Mrs. Belknap had neglected to inform her brother of what she had been pleased to term Jane's romantic but imaginary appellation, she could not afterwards recall.

It was Bertha Forbes who finally brought John Everett's soaring thoughts to earth again, when he presented himself at her lodgings as the escort of Jane on that memorable rainy evening in May. Miss Forbes was officially crisp and cogent in her manner at first; but thawed perceptibly when the two took her wholly into their confidence.

Jane had appeared quite unmoved by the news of the legal inquiry which concerned itself so particularly with her person.

"It will be Uncle Robert," she said calmly. "I suppose he has been frightfully annoyed at my disappearance—and Aunt Agatha, too. But," she added, with a fleeting glance at her lover, "I'm glad I ran away."

"So am I!" echoed John Everett fervently.

Bertha Forbes caught herself smiling. "Such foolish escapades frequently turn out quite otherwise," she said severely. "The question—now that this young person has been 'found,' so to speak—is what do Messrs. Thorn, Nagle & Noyes want with her?"

"They wish me to return to England—to Aunt Agatha," Jane was positive.

"You'll not go, Jane," whispered John Everett.

Bertha Forbes caught the whisper. "She may be obliged to go," she said curtly. "You must leave her for the present, young man, in my care. Communicate with your London lawyers and find out the particulars. Your plans for Jane's future are so extremely recent that they will bear deferring a bit, I fancy."

When John Everett went away at last, after bidding his sweetheart good night under the coldly impersonal eyes of Miss Forbes, he walked on air. And for exactly six days thereafter he was the happiest man on earth. On the seventh day arrived a cablegram from Messrs. Thorn, Nagle & Noyes, which read as follows: "Return Aubrey-Blythe next steamer. Sole heir to uncle's estate."

Jane shook her head when she heard this.

"Impossible," she said at first. "I have no uncle except Uncle Robert." Later she recalled the dim memory of a younger brother, one Foxhall Aubrey-Blythe, a wild scapegrace of a fellow, who had been bred to the army, sent to South Africa in the Zulu wars, and lost sight of by his family. "It was thought," she said soberly, "that he was killed, though his death was never reported in the despatches. He was officially starred and labeled 'missing'."

"He has evidently turned up again," said John Everett gloomily. "That is to say, he has been heard of again as rich and dead; and you are his heiress."

"It may not be much," said Jane Blythe thoughtfully. "I suppose," she added, "that I must go back to England. But I shall not stay there."

Then she looked at John Everett. He was staring sternly at the toe of his boot, a most unhappy expression clouding his handsome face. "You—don't like it—John?" she faltered, with an adorable little quaver in her clear voice.

He avoided her eyes. "I—ought not to have spoken to you as I did that night," he said at last. "Jane, I don't know what you will think of me. I—knew that the inquiry had been set on foot when I rushed out after you. I meant to have told you—that. But when I saw you—" He paused to groan aloud, then went on hurriedly: "I forgot all about that confounded letter from Thorn, Nagle & Noyes; I forgot everything except that I had found you. I was so sorry for you, dear, and so angry with my sister, and—well, I've come to the conclusion that I made a confounded fool of myself, Jane. Can you—can you forgive me?"

Jane's happy face had paled during this halting monologue. "I'm afraid I don't—understand," she said in a low voice. "Do you—mean that you are sorry you—told me——"

"I ought to have waited," he said doggedly.

"And if you had—waited?" she asked breathlessly.

He raised his unhappy eyes to hers. "If you had gone back to England free and rich you would have been glad to forget America and all your unhappy experiences here; wouldn't you, Jane? Why, when I think that I have actually sat still and allowed you to hand me my coffee of a morning I—I hate myself!"

"I hope," said English Jane tranquilly, "that I shall be allowed to hand you your coffee a great many mornings. Every morning, in fact, after we—." A great wave of lovely color rolled gloriously over her fair face. "O John!" she whispered, "didn't you mean it when you told me that you loved me?"

"Didn't I mean it?" he echoed. "Well, I should say I did!" And he looked it, to her complete satisfaction. "But——"

"You loved me when all the world despised me," murmured Jane. "I shall never forget that. Besides," she added shyly, "I—love you, and it would break my heart to——"

"Darling!" exclaimed John Everett. "Then we'll be married to-morrow. For to tell you the truth, Jane, I'm downright afraid to let you go back to England alone."

Of course this ridiculously hasty decision of John Everett's had to be severely modified and reconstructed by the various ladies nearly concerned in the case. Bertha Forbes, for one, immediately took a hand in the affair and pooh-poohed the notion of such unseemly haste.

"What do you know about this young man, anyhow, that you should be willing to marry him out of hand in this mad fashion?" she demanded with decided acrimony.

"I love him," Jane replied, with stubborn tranquillity. "I shall never love anyone else," she added confidently.

"What about Mr. Towle?" inquired Bertha coolly.

"Mr. Towle!" echoed Jane, with an air of extreme surprise. "What, pray, has Mr. Towle to do with it?"

"Isn't he a lover of yours?"

"I'm sure I can't help that," pouted Jane, with a shrug of her slim shoulders. "He is ages older than I am, and besides——"

"Well," grunted Miss Forbes, "go on; what other crimes has he committed?"

"Of course he can't help being bald, poor man. But, Bertha, he came to see me one day at Mrs. Belknap's; I can never forgive him for that. Fancy his waiting in the kitchen, and being sent away—like a—like a butcher's boy! But that wasn't enough, even; he came back and persisted in talking to me on the kitchen porch. Do you know if it hadn't been for Buster interrupting, just as he did, I actually believe I should have—that is, I might have—and only think, Bertha, how horrible that would have been! No; he shouldn't have come. I shall always think so."

Miss Forbes stared meditatively at the girl for a long minute; then she burst into what Jane was disposed to regard as unreasoning laughter of the variety which was once sapiently characterized as "the crackling of thorns under a pot."

"I can't see," observed Jane, very grave and dignified, "why you should laugh. There was nothing to laugh about in what I said."

Miss Forbes instantly grew sober. "Heaven forfend that you should ever see, my dear child," she observed in a grandmotherly tone, "and far be it from me to attempt an explanation! Suppose we talk about clothes, instead. And—how will you ever go to work to metamorphose that late imperious mistress of yours into a fond sister-in-law?"

But Mrs. Belknap came to the front full of tears and handsome apologies and congratulations, all mixed up with embarrassed blushes and smiles, and wouldn't dear Jane forgive her, and in token thereof be married from her house?

Jane was inclined to be a trifle stiff with her prospective sister-in-law at first. Recent memories were far too poignant to admit of the new relationship with real cordiality. But she relented perceptibly when Master Belknap flung himself upon her with glad cries of joy.

"I yuve my Jane!" he cooed confidentially. "I'm doin' to div' oo my fwannel el'phunt an'—an' my wed bwocks, if 'oo won't cwi any more, Jane."

"You must call her Aunt Jane now, Buster," observed his uncle, who was watching the scene with an air of proud proprietorship.

"I yuve my Aunt Jane," amended the infant docilely. Then, eyeing his male relative with a searching gaze, "Have you dot any choc'late dwops, Uncle Jack?"

Jane laughed outright at this.

"You'll come; won't you, dear Jane?" pleaded Mrs. Belknap, seizing the auspicious moment.

"I'm afraid Mary MacGrotty would——"

"She's gone, thank Heaven!" exclaimed Mrs. Belknap with a shudder. "I haven't a soul in the house."

"And I can't cook, you know," murmured Jane teasingly, as she hid her blushing face on the infant's small shoulders.

"Don't rub it in, Jane," advised Mr. Belknap urgently. "We'll have a caterer and everything shipshape. Later, though, when you're back from England you'll do well to let Madge here give you some cooking lessons. Buster and I would have starved to death long ago if we hadn't been able to keep our cook; wouldn't we, old fellow?" And he tossed his son and heir high above his head amid a burst of infant exuberance.

And so it was finally settled. The excellent Bertha Forbes handed over her official duties to an underling for a whole week, while she shopped and sewed and fetched and carried for Jane with an untiring devotion, which earned that small person's lasting gratitude and friendship. On the day of the simple home wedding Miss Forbes stood up, tall and grenadier-like, bearing the bride's bouquet, with so uncompromising an air and manner that Master Belknap actually desisted from three several pieces of mischief while he gazed solemnly at her with large, round eyes.

When the last flutter of pearl-gray veil and white handkerchief had faded from view on the deck of the retreating steamer, Miss Forbes wiped her eyes openly. "I'm glad she's gone," she said sternly. "She ought never to have come."

"If Miss Jane Aubrey-Blythe had not entered this port with five thousand dollars of lace upon her person, she would not now be leaving it under such happy auspices," observed Mr. Belknap mildly. "And that, Miss Forbes, would be on the whole, a regrettable circumstance; don't you agree with me?"

"Hum!" said Bertha Forbes, rather shamefacedly, "I bought in some of that very lace at a customhouse sale. It was that which trimmed her wedding dress. I thought"—firmly—"that it was no more than right."

Mr. Belknap cast an admiring glance at the lady. "Miss Forbes," he said feelingly, "your sense of poetic justice does you credit; it does indeed. I hope we shall see a lot of you in the future. Our house on Staten Island is always open to you."

"Thanks," said Bertha Forbes gruffly. But she shook hands with right manly heartiness when she took leave of the little party on the dock, and she actually kissed the infant, while depositing an unwholesomely large box of confectionery in the pocket of his coat. "It is a shame to call this child Buster," said Miss Forbes. "I detest the name myself; think it exerts a positively demoralizing influence on the character. I shall call him Everett in future."

And she did so on the numerous pleasant occasions when she visited the Belknap family.

As for Master Everett, thus happily restored to his rightful appellation, he actually came to adore Miss Forbes, and called her his "dear old Berfa," to her immense delight and satisfaction.