A LOST BROTHER How long it may have been before the man, eager as he was to hear the full explanation of the seeming miracle through which his happiness had been made possible, was ready to urge Rose to tell the story which she had promised, and what whispered words the cricket heard in the interim, concern only the three of them. When, at last, he was able to bring his winging thoughts down from the clouds to earth, it was to discover still another unsuspected trait in the woman who had become his all; for Smiles, eager and excited, was still dwelling in a world of romance, and she insisted upon recounting what had happened, almost verbatim, and in a dramatic manner quite unlike the simplicity which naturally characterized her speech. Nor could Donald's commonplace interruptions, during the course of which he affirmed that fact _was_ stranger than fiction and that the world _was_ a small place after all, check her narrative. "I don't know whether I can make you understand why I acted as I did, when Philip asked me for my answer, dear. Indeed, I hardly know, myself," she began. "It wasn't that I didn't know what I had got to tell him, for I had made up my mind long ago--at least, it seems long ago, although it was only this morning, when I got his letter. Much as I cared for him, my heart knew that there was only one man in the world for me--even though he appeared not to want me!" The digression caused a further and wholly natural delay. "Perhaps it was because I hated to hurt him, and wanted desperately to postpone the evil moment; but, at any rate, I begged him to wait, and said that he didn't know all the facts about me. I told him that I wasn't sure that I ought to marry any one. And that was true, Donald. I've often worried about it, for I didn't know anything about my parents, and heredity counts for so much, doesn't it? "Of course he replied, just as I might have expected, that he didn't know what I meant, but that nothing else could possibly matter to him, if only I ... I cared. "But I said that I had to explain,--I guess that I was a little panic-stricken, he seemed so deadly in earnest,--and then I told him that I wasn't Big Jerry's grandchild really, but only a little waif whom he had taken in. 'So, you see, I am a nameless girl, Philip,' I said. 'I don't mean it in a bad sense, for I know that I had a dear father and mother, whom I just barely remember, but....' "I don't know exactly what I was going to add, but he broke in with, 'What earthly difference do you think that could make to me, dear?' And then he told me that he _knew_ I was ... was good and pure, that _any one_ who was acquainted with me could see that I must have come from sterling stock, even if my parents were simple mountaineers.