It was a very tempting lunch, and Edna felt her lost appetite returning when she saw the oysters fried to just the brown she liked, the slices of rich baked ham, the delicate rolls, home-made and fresh from the oven, the creamy butter, the pot of raspberry jam, and the steaming chocolate which Annie liked so much and was occasionally allowed to drink. A dish of apples and oranges with clusters of rich purple grapes completed the bill of fare, and Annie proved herself a very competent little hostess, as she did the honors of the table and urged the good things upon Edna, who enjoyed it nearly as much as Annie herself, and forgot in part the dark shadow which had fallen upon her life. As if they had been princes lunching in some palatial mansion, old Luna waited upon them, showing a skill and readiness which rather surprised Edna until she heard from the negress herself that she had been a house servant in her late mistress’s family in St. Augustine, Florida, that her duties had been wholly confined to the dining-room and its appointments until three years since, when she came to Mrs. Heyford. Since then, to use her own words, “she has done little of everything, tend here, tend there, bake, and wash, and iron, and do what only low-lived trash does at home.” She seemed a very capable, intelligent woman, and evidently regarded “Master Jack and Miss Annie” with feelings amounting almost to adoration. Of Georgie she said but little, and that little showed conclusively her opinion of a young lady “who would turn her back on her own flesh and blood, and never come a nigh even when they sickened and died, just because they was poor and couldn’t give her all the jimcracks she wanted.” “She was here oncet, two years or so ago,” she said to Edna, who, after lunch, went with her to the kitchen for a moment. “She staid about three weeks, and seemed to think it was such a piece of condescension on her part to do even that. And we waited on her as if she’d been a queen, and Master Jack’s bill for the ices, and creams, and fruit, and carriages, which he got for her was awful, and pinched us for three months or more. I must say though that she took wonderfully to Miss Annie. Never seen anything like it. Don’t understand it, no how, and ’taint none of my business if I did.” Here Aunt Luna broke off abruptly, and Edna went back to Annie, to whom she gave the first lesson in drawing. Annie bade fair to prove an apt pupil, and Edna felt all her old ambition and love for the work coming back as she directed the child’s hand, and then with a few rapid curves and lines made a little sketch of her pupil’s face. The likeness was perfect, and Annie screamed with delight as she took it in her hand and inspected it more closely. “It looks some like Jack,” she said, “but none like Georgie. I wish I was like her, but Jack says I’m most like my father.” “How long has he been dead?” Edna asked, and Annie replied: