"Only your short little legs would not carry you any quicker. Is that not so, darling? Well, since you were all good, there is nothing to scold you about." "Helen's faith is sublime," laughed Jean, in an aside to Nathalie. Helen took little Gladys in her arms, and sat down in a large rocker, which stood close to the front door. She was a slender, frail-looking girl. Her soft, brown hair was arranged close to her head with the utmost simplicity, and her rather pale face would perhaps have been plain, had it not been redeemed by a pair of beautiful sad brown eyes. She was the eldest of the Lawrences, and it seemed to her only a brief time since the Angel of Death had, twice in one short year, visited their home, leaving them bereft of father and mother. Her father had been a physician of undoubted skill, a man of wide learning and great culture. Had the lash of poverty given an incentive to his somewhat lagging spirit, he might have commanded the attention and the admiration of his fellow-men; but his was a nature of great shyness and reserve, and when his father died, leaving him a comfortable fortune, he had, with an almost unconscious sigh of relief, turned his back on ambition and withdrawn to the old homestead in the sleepy little town of Hetherford, content with a small country practice which left him undisturbed hours among his books and in his laboratory. Mrs. Lawrence's inclinations were thoroughly social; but so unbounded was her faith in her husband's judgment that it never occurred to her to complain of the narrowness and isolation of their life in Hetherford. As her girls grew older, however, she reproached herself with the thought that she was hardly doing them justice in thus secluding them from the advantages of contact with the great world which lay beyond their own pretty village. She appeased her conscience by giving them occasional visits to town and one long, happy summer in Europe, which they had enjoyed to their hearts' content. The winter following this last delightful holiday, Dr. Lawrence had been stricken with a fatal illness and, after weeks of suffering, had passed away. Mrs. Lawrence survived this blow but two months, and at little Gladys' birth had turned to Helen with a weary, heartbroken sigh: "My darling, I am so lonely--your father. Take care of the little ones--this wee lamb. God bless you, my----" Helen had sunk speechless at her mother's bedside, until the sound of a wailing cry brought her once more to herself. "My dear," said gentle Aunt Helen, leaning over her, "won't you take the poor little baby? Perhaps she will help to comfort you." And Helen took her little sister in her arms, and made her way into the nursery, where, in two small cribs, side by side, lay her little brothers, fast asleep. Jean and Nathalie stood by the nursery window, looking out into the night. At Helen's entrance they turned sharply.