of the instincts of a gentleman, after all," she told herself. "He didn't come back to bother me after doing what he could to help."

Two hours later the Bray girls were seated in their aunt's comfortable room at a boarding house on a much better block than the one on which the tenement stood. Aunt Jane had ordered up tea and toast, and was sipping the one and nibbling the other contentedly before a grate fire.

"This is what I call comfort," declared the old lady, who still kept her bonnet on--nor would she remove it save to change it for a nightcap when she went to bed.

"This is what I call comfort. A pleasant room in a house where I have no responsibilities, and enough noise outside to assure me that I am in a live town. My goodness me! when Hammond came along and wanted to marry me, and I knew I could leave Hillcrest and never have to go back----Well, I just about jumped down that man's throat I was so eager to say 'Yes!' Marry him? I'd ha' married a Choctaw Injun, if he'd promised to take me to the city."

"Why, Aunt Jane!" exclaimed Lyddy. "Hillcrest Farm is a beautiful place. Mother took us there once to see it. Don't you remember, 'Phemie? _She_ loved it, too."

"And I wish she'd had it as a gift from the old doctor," grumbled Aunt Jane. "But it wasn't to be. It's never been anything but a nuisance to me, if I _was_ born there."

"Why, the view from the porch is the loveliest I ever saw," said Lyddy.

"And all that romantic pile of rocks at the back of the farm!" exclaimed 'Phemie.

"Ha! what's a view?" demanded the old lady, in her brusk way. "Just dirt and water. And that's what they say _we're_ made of. I like to study human bein's, I do; so I'd ruther have my view in town."

"But it's so pretty----"

"Fudge!" snapped Aunt Jane. "I've seen the time, when I was a growin' gal, and the old doctor was off to see patients, that I've stood on that same porch at Hillcrest and just _cried_ for the sight of somethin' movin' on the face of Natur' besides a cow. View, indeed!" she pursued, hotly. "If I've got to look at views, I want plenty of 'life' in 'em; and I want the human figgers to be right up close in the foreground, too!"

'Phemie laughed. "And I think it would be just _blessed_ to get out of this noisy, dirty city, and live in a place like Hillcrest. Wouldn't you like 

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