The tom-cat uttered a second “ps-s-st—ye-ow!” and shot up a ladder to the top shelf, from which vantage he looked down, showering insults on his enemy in a low and threatening tone. “Bless me!” repeated Joseph Stagg, taking off his eyeglasses and leaving them in the ledger to mark his place. “What have you brought that dog in here for?” He came to the office door. Without his glasses, and with the girl standing between him and the light, Mr. Stagg squinted a little to see her, stooping, with his hands on his knees. “I—I didn’t have any place to leave him,” was the hesitating reply to the rather petulant query. “Hum! Did your mother send you for something?” “No-o, sir,” sighed the little visitor. “Your father wants something, then?” questioned the puzzled hardware dealer. “No-o, sir.” At that moment a more daring ray of sunlight found its way through the transom over the store door and lit up the dusky place. It fell upon the slight, black-frocked figure and, for the instant, touched the pretty head as with an aureole. “Bless me, child!” exclaimed Mr. Stagg. “Who are you?” The flowerlike face of the little girl quivered, the blue eyes spilled big drops over her cheeks. She approached Mr. Stagg, stooping and squinting in the office doorway, and placed a timid hand upon the broad band of black crêpe he wore on his coat sleeve. “You’re not Hannah’s Car’lyn?” questioned the hardware dealer huskily. “I’m Car’lyn May Cameron,” she confessed. “You’re my Uncle Joe. I’m very glad to see you, Uncle Joe, and—and I hope—you’re glad to see me—and Prince,” she finished rather falteringly. “Bless me!” murmured the man again, leaning for support against the door frame. Nothing so startling as this had entered Sunrise Cove’s chief “hardware emporium,” as Mr. Stagg’s standing advertisement read in the _Weekly Bugle_, for many and many a year. Hannah Stagg, the hardware merchant’s only sister, had gone away from home quite fifteen years previously. Mr. Stagg had never seen Hannah again; but this slight, blue-eyed, sunny-haired girl was a replica of his sister, and in some dusty corner of Mr. Stagg’s heart there dwelt a very faithful memory of Hannah. Nothing had served to estrange the brother and sister save time and distance. Hannah had been a patient correspondent, and Joseph Stagg had always acknowledged the receipt of her letters in a business-like way, if with brevity. “Dear Hannah: “Yours of the 12th inst. to hand and contents noted. Glad to learn of your continued good health and that of your family, this leaving me in the same condition. “Yours to command, “J. Stagg.”