‘Do you know, Maudie--listen--I’ve another uncle, belonging to mother.’ ‘Oh, Dolly! I thought she had no one!’ ‘He told me he was my Uncle Alfred once when he met me in the park with Fraulein, and gave me a note for mother. He is called Mr. Flinders.’ ‘But I thought your mother was daughter to Professor Hay?’ ‘But this is a half-brother; my grandmother was married before. Uncle Alfrey has an immense light beard, and I think he is very poor. He came once or twice to see mother, and they always sent me out of the room; but I am sure she gave him money--not father’s housekeeping money, but what she got for herself by writing. Once I heard father go out of the house, saying, ‘Well, it’s your own to do as you please with.’ And then mother went to her room, and I know she cried. It was the only time that ever mother cried!’ And as Maude listened, much impressed--‘Once when she had got eleven pounds, and we were going to have bought father such a binocular for a secret as a birthday present, Mr. Flinders came, and she gave him ten of it, and we could only buy just a few slides for father. And she told me she was grieved, but she could not help it, and it would be time for me to understand when I was older.’ ‘I don’t think this Uncle Alfrey can be nice,’ said Maude. ‘’Tis quite disgusting if he kisses me,’ said Dolly; ‘but you see he is poor, and all the Mohuns are stuck up, except father, and they wanted mother to despise him, and not help him. And you see, she stuck to him. I don’t like him much; but you see nobody ever was like her! Oh, Maude, if she wasn’t dead!’ And poor Dolores cried as she had not done even at the time of the accident, or in the terrible week that followed, or at the desolate home coming. CHAPTER II. -- THE MERRIFIELDS. The cool twilight of a long sunny summer’s day was freshening the pleasant garden of a country house, and three people were walking slowly along a garden path enjoying the contrast with the heat, glare, and noise of the day. The central one was a tall, slender lady, with a light shawl hung round her shoulders. On one side was a youth who had begun to overtop her, on the other a girl of shorter and sturdier mould, who only reached up to her shoulder. ‘So she is coming!’ the girl said. ‘Yes, Uncle Maurice has answered my letter very kindly.’ ‘I should think he would be very much obliged,’ observed the boy. ‘Please, mamma, do tell us all about it,’ said the girl. ‘You know I stopped directly when you made me a sign not to go on asking questions before the little ones. And you said you should have to make us your friends while papa and the grown-ups are away.’ ‘Well, Gillian, I know you can be discreet when you are warned, and perhaps it is best that you should know how things stand. Do you remember anything about it, Hal?’ ‘Only a general perception that there were tempests in the higher regions, but I think that was more from hearing Alley and Phyl talk than from my native sagacity.’