"I am very sorry if I have fatigued you, Mrs. Clay. I trust your nurse will forgive me. But now you know me and my antecedents, you will not prohibit your little girl from speaking to me when we pass each other on the road?" [Illustration: "NOW, BECCA, DON'T BE CROSS."] "Certainly not," murmured Mrs. Clay, looking appealingly at her maid. Greta sprang up from her seat, and putting her hand coaxingly upon Rebecca's arm said softly: "Now, Becca, don't be cross. Mother and I are friends with Mr. Tracy, will you be friends too?" "I assure you I am respectable," said Rufus, the humor of the situation bringing a mischievous sparkle to his eyes. "I am not a housebreaker in disguise, nor have I any sinister designs on your mistress or her daughter. Will it ease your mind if I tell you I am the son of a clergyman, and that it is only lately I have come to this neighborhood; I am a lonely young man in want of friends. Shall I promise never to enter this house again unless I am invited to do so? I only wish to continue an acquaintance with my little friend here!" "Miss Greta is in no want of such unequal friendship," said Rebecca sternly. "May I style myself her protector then, from all the perils of that solitary walk?" "Perils! Fiddlesticks! Miss Greta must learn to take care of herself." Rufus thought discretion was the better part of valor, so he bowed himself out, quietly resolving not to be worsted by a woman. And Monday morning found the little maiden and young man walking cheerfully and contentedly into town together. "Becca is very kind, but she doesn't think like mother," said the child, shrewdly, "and as she manages us, mother tries to think like her. Becca says there are only two sorts of people in the world. Those born to be helped, and those born to help them. And Becca says I am born to help people." "I wonder which sort I am?" laughed Rufus. "You are a walking dictionary of Rebecca's wisdom. How do you remember all her sage remarks? She is bringing you up a veritable little Spartan." "What is a Spartan?" "A very unpleasantly proper child who never lets her feelings get the better of her. Do you think your mother would let you come to tea with me to-morrow night?" Greta's eyes sparkled at the thought, then fell at the remembrance of "Becca." "I'll try to let Becca make me come, but she—she doesn't like you—she says young men think they are the lords of creation, but they are slaves of self-will. I'll tell you what she says to-morrow morning." Rebecca was won over, and punctually at five o'clock the next evening, the little maiden stood on the doorstep opposite her own, and enquired in a trembling voice for Mr. Rufus Tracy. She was shown up to his room, and came into it with a radiant face. It was not a luxuriously furnished apartment, nor yet a very tidy one, but Greta was charmed with the novelty of a bachelor's den. The smell of tobacco and the row of pipes on the mantelpiece puzzled her sorely.