Gradually as she talked the sobbing ceased, and when the white face lifted itself from its hiding place there was a look upon it as if the needed strength had been sought and to some extent imparted. “My will was made some time ago,” Mrs. Johnson continued, “and that with a few exceptions, such as legacies to your nurse Densie Densmore, and some charitable institutions, you are my sole heir. Mr. Liston is to be your guardian, and will look after your interests until you are of age, or longer if you choose. You know that as both your father and myself were only children, you have no near relatives on either side to whom you can look for protection. There is a kind of second cousin, it is true, the old gentleman who visited us just before we came here. But his family are gay, fashionable people, and I’d rather you should not go there, even if he were willing. Mr. Liston would give you a home with him, but I do not think that best and there is but one other alternative. “You will remember having heard me speak occasionally of a friend now living in Kentucky, a Mrs. Worthington whose husband was a distant relative of ours. Ralph Worthington and your father were school boys together, and afterward college companions. They were more like brothers than friends; indeed, they were often likened to David and Jonathan, so strongly were they attached to each other. “I was but sixteen when I became a bride, and, as you know, several years elapsed ere God blessed me with a living child. Your father was consumptive, and the chances were that I should early be left a widow. This it was, I think, which led to the agreement made by the two friends to the effect that if either died the living one should care for the widow and fatherless as for a brother’s family. To see the two as they pledged themselves to keep this solemn compact, you would not have guessed that the tall, athletic, broad chested Ralph, would be the first to go, yet so it was. He died ere you were born.” “Then _he_ is dead? Oh, I’m so sorry,” Alice exclaimed.