“When, the next morning, you told me that your grandmother had named you, and that her name was Stella Winthrop, I had not a doubt; I felt convinced that you must be the child of one of her sons. You thought it merely a strange coincidence, but I knew better, and all my boasted coldness and hardness melted away, and I began to love you then and there. When that dreadful explosion occurred, and you urged me to save myself, as ‘doubtless I had dear friends’ and ‘you had no one to love you’—when you refused to leave me, and took up your station by my side to die with me, as we both believed, I felt as if something of the spirit of my lost love was shining through you. Then your tenderness toward, and your care of me—your heroic self-denial and efforts to save my life while we were helplessly afloat on the mighty ocean—your sweet voice singing those hymns of faith and cheer, completed the conquest of my hardened nature. I can never make you understand how disappointed I was, on arriving in New York, to find you gone. I meant to tell you something of myself, and learn your own destination, so that I might see you once in awhile. “But I never forgot you; and when I visited my nephew in the West, and met only coldness and neglect, simply because of my misfortunes, I could not help contrasting it with your kind attention to an entire stranger. “I left those heartless people and came to my niece, and met with the same reception, when before they had always fawned at my feet, flattered and humored me as if I had been something more than common clay. “I felt forsaken; no one loved me, no one wanted me; I was a burden and incumbrance. But just then you appeared to me, and your heavenly kindness made my poor old heart glow again. Still, I was so embittered by finding my only brother’s children so heartless and selfish, that I was not quite sure of you. It made me mistrust everybody, and I feared you might grow to be like them. But for that I should not have remained a day beneath Ellen Richards’ roof; I should have gone my own way again as soon as I became rested and recruited. Do you remember how you came to me the next morning after my arrival, and cheered me with your merry chat and your thoughtful little gift? I said, ‘Surely this child must be artless—she must be true;’ but I resolved to stay awhile and test and study you, and you have been a blessing to me from the first. My dear, I began to love you for my lost Star’s sake; now I love you for your own. There, you have all my story now, and you must go to rest, for to-morrow will be your birthday, and we must celebrate a little in honor of it,” Mr. Rosevelt concluded, patting her softly on the shoulder. Star lifted a flushed and tearful face to his.