"Well, Jane," said I, cheerfully, "you may pierce your way to that yet." "No!" she said. "If I had a clean name I would try to do it. As it is, I will not hold up my head only to be pointed at. But I will not spend my life at Hillsbro', moping. I will go away and work, teach, or write, if I can." I saw her eyes beginning to flash, and I did not like these fierce moods for Jane. I was turning over a book at the time, and, to divert her attention, I read aloud the name written on the title-page. "Mary Hollingford," I said. "Was not she your elder sister?" Jane started. "Yes," she said. "Who mentioned her to you?" "Your mother," I said, "used to tell me of her little Mary, who was at school in France. I cannot recollect who told me of her death. Do you remember her?" "Oh yes," said Jane, "perfectly. We did not lose her till after--my father went away." "I suppose she took the trouble to heart," I said, reflectively; and then was sorry I had said it. But Jane answered, "Yes," readily; then dropped her face between her hands, and remained plunged in one of her motionless fits of abstraction for half an hour. I never alluded to this subject again to Jane, but one evening when Mopsie and I were alone together, the child spoke of it herself. "Margery," she said, "you are holding me now just as sister Mary used to hold me with both her arms round my waist, when I was a tiny little thing, and she used to play with me in our nursery in London." "You remember her, then?" I said. "Yes," said Mopsie. "I remember her like a dream. She used to come home for the holidays, and a handsome French lady with her, who used to throw up her hands if we had not ribbons in our sleeves and smart rosettes on our shoes. I remember sister Mary in a pretty white frock trimmed with lace, and her hair curled down to her waist. I used to think her like one of the angels. But we never speak of her now, nor of papa, because it pains mother and John. I used to speak of her to Jane sometimes in the night, just to ask her did she think sister Mary was thinking of us in heaven; but Jane used to get into such dreadful fits of crying that I grew afraid. I wish some one would talk of her. I think it is cruel of us all to forget her because she is dead." And tears stood in Mopsie's blue eyes. But the next half hour she was singing like a skylark over some household task. CHAPTER IV.