"Oh, I am, indeed! Uncle Edward, I can never tell you how much I thank you," she said in trembling tones, and with heartfelt gratitude, throwing her arms around Mr. Bailey's neck and kissing him; "but I do thank you very, very much! I knew you must be thinking of buying a piano, because I saw you and father looking over a list of pianos one day; but I never thought you meant to give me one! Fancy, my having a piano of my very own!" "Listen to that now!" Mr. Bailey said to the others. "We didn't keep our secret as well as we imagined we were doing. Angel, you are too sharp for us." "Gerald, did you know it was to be mine—really mine?" she asked, turning her bright, excited face to her brother. "Yes, and I'm so glad," he responded heartily. "You'll get on splendidly now you've got a piano to practise on." There was no jealousy in the boy's heart as he spoke; he sympathized with his sister's pleasure as he certainly would not have done some months before, a fact his father, who was watching him with secret anxiety, noted with a sense of relief and gladness. Later in the evening Gerald told how he had met Reginald Hope that afternoon, and repeated the conversation which had passed between them. It appeared Reginald Hope had informed him he had given up betting, and had said he was sorry for having induced him to do what was wrong. "Of course, he did influence me a great deal," Gerald acknowledged, his cheeks turning crimson as he thought of the past, "but he could not have done it if I had not been a foolish, wicked boy, and I told him so. He would argue that it was all his fault, but I know it wasn't. Hope seems altered somehow." "That's what the Mickle boys say!" Angel exclaimed. "They consider he has improved." "He was always very nice to talk to," Gerald said thoughtfully, "very amusing; I don't think I ever knew any one who could be nicer than Hope when he liked." "Let us trust he has seen the error of his ways," Mr. Bailey remarked gravely. "I trust he is learning to be manly and straightforward, and will live to be a comfort to his father yet." "What can I say to make you understand how happy you have made me, Uncle Edward?" Angel whispered after she had given Mr. Bailey her good-night kiss. "You are so very good to me, and indeed to us all." "I love to see you happy, child," he replied, as he returned her caress. "What a big girl you're growing," he continued, holding her at arm's length, and surveying her with smiling, affectionate eyes; "no one would recognize you for the delicate-looking little maiden who welcomed me home a year ago! I can always picture you as I saw you, on the stairs, gazing down at me with great eyes—" "'Owly eyes,' Tom Mickle said they were," Angel broke in; "the Mickle girls were telling me so to-day."