Boyce, who was behind the counter, posed himself at once for an unlimited order; but Mrs. Smith passed him by with a wave of the hand, and led the way up stairs to her own apartment, where Kate Gorman was busy frying ham for dinner, and James Laurence was carrying Jerusha Maria in his arms, trying to hush her into silence, by bending his head and giving her tiny hands unlimited control of his hair, which was always a resource on such occasions. “Our last,” said Mrs. Smith, taking the child into her motherly arms, and jerking down its long frock with one hand, as she presented the young lady. Jerusha Maria took a firm grip on her mother’s shawl, and being thus fortified began staring at the stranger with all her might; finally, she broke into a smile, as a watch, set thick with diamonds, went swinging to and fro before her face. “Give me a kiss now, and you shall hear it tick,” said Mrs. Carter, gathering the child to her own bosom, and throwing the watch-chain over its neck, where it fell in glittering links adown the long frock. “Give me another; there now, take it in your teanty, tointy little hands. Smith, this is splendid! Such a weight! Oh, you little rogue, biting at the diamonds, ha? If you were only mine, I’d feed you with ’em!” Here Mrs. Carter dropped into a Boston rocking-chair, and laying the child’s face close to her bosom, began to sing, and chirp, and kiss her into sleepiness. After this she still cradled her lovingly in both arms and indulging in a word of gossip, now and then, with the mother while her chair kept in motion. “That brother of yours—whatever became of him, Mrs. Carter? I remember how anxious you and Carter were. How did he turn out?” inquired the mother, when Jerusha Maria had dropped off. “Did you ever hear from him?” “That brother? Our Ross? Why, Smith, he’s back again, the most perfect gentleman that you ever set eyes on. You know I told you often how he was given to books, studying night and day; how he painted picters, and went into the country, every year, making sketches, as he called it. Never was worth a cent for business; but so handsome, and so wonderfully good! Well, he went off as you know, and, somehow or another, got beyond seas, where they think more of picters than we do, and made a wonderfully great man of him; though not under the old name. He took out a nom-de-something, as such people do, now and then, and left off the last end of his name. So, instead of Herman Ross Baker, we call him Herman Ross, which cuts him loose from the old poverty-stricken life, for that makes him shudder when you mention it.” “Proud, I suppose?” “No; that isn’t it. He’s the last man on earth to be ashamed of honest poverty. We are none of us mean enough for that, high as we hold our heads among rich people. But there is something that I don’t quite understand about Ross.” “A love-secret, I should not wonder!” said Mrs. Smith. Before Mrs. Carter could answer that, Kate Gorman put her head into the room.