As Jane walked up the circling graveled path which led to the picturesque, rambling, low-built brown house that she called home her heart was filled with conflicting emotions. She bit her trembling lips and brushed away the tears that quivered on her eyelashes. She knew, oh, how well she knew, that they were prompted only by self-pity. She struggled to awaken the nobler self that her brother was so confident still slumbered in her soul, but she could not. She felt cold, hard, indignant every time she recalled that her father had sacrificed his children's comfort for a Quixotic ideal. "It is no use trying," she assured herself, noticing vaguely that they were passing the rose garden, which was a riot of fragrant, colorful bloom. How tenderly her father cared for that garden, for every bush in it had been planted by the loved one who was gone. The tall lad carrying her satchels walked silently at Jane's side. He well knew the conflict that was raging in the heart of the girl he had always loved, in spite of her ever-increasing selfishness, with a tenderness akin to that which he had given his mother, but he said no word to try to help. This was a moment when Jane must stand alone. They were ascending the wide front steps when the door of the house was flung open and a little girl of ten leaped out with a glad cry. "Oh, Janey, my wonderful big sister Janey." Two arms were held out, and in another moment, as the older girl well knew, she would be in one of those crushing embraces that the younger children called "bear hugs." She frowned slightly. "Don't, Julie!" she implored. "My suit has just been pressed. Won't you ever grow up, and greet people in a more dignified way?" The glad expression on the freckled face of the little girl, who could not be called really pretty, changed instantly. Her lips quivered and her eyes filled with tears. "Don't be a silly," Jane said rebukingly, as she stooped and kissed the child indifferently on the forehead. A dear old lady, wearing a pretty lavender gingham and a white "afternoon apron," appeared in the doorway all a-flutter of happy excitement. She had not seen Jane for two years, and she took the girl's hands in her own that trembled. "Dear, dear Jenny!" (How the graduate of fashionable Highacres had always hated the name her grandmother had given her.) "What a blessing 'tis that you have come home at last. It'll mean more to your father to have you here than you can think." The old lady evidently did not notice the scornful curling of the girl's lips, or, if she did, she purposely pretended that she did not, and kept on with her speech. "You know, dearie, you're the perfect image of that other Jane my Daniel loved so dearly, and she was just your age, Jenny, when they met. It'll be like meeting her all over again to have you coming home now, when he's in such trouble, you being so like her, and she was most tender and brave and unselfish."