early in the evening, and had even taken the trouble to light a candle and hold it high, so that Nan could see the handsome, boyish face, in which she recognized quickly the likeness to her own.  “He was only thirteen then,” said Miss Prince, “but he looks several years older.  We all thought that the artist had made a great mistake when it was painted, but poor Jack grew to look like it.  Yes, you are wonderfully like him,” and she held the light near Nan’s face and studied it again as she had just studied the picture.  Nan’s eyes filled with tears as she looked up at her father’s face.  The other portraits in the room were all of older people, her grandfather and grandmother and two or three ancestors, and Miss Prince repeated proudly some anecdotes of the most distinguished.  “I suppose you never heard of them,” she added sadly at the close, but Nan made no answer; it was certainly no fault of her own that she was ignorant of many things, and she would not confess that during the last few years she had found out everything that was possible about her father’s people.  She was so thankful to have grown up in Oldfields that she could not find it in her heart to rail at the fate that had kept her away from Dunport; but the years of silence had been very unlovely in her aunt.

She wondered, before she went to sleep that night, where her father’s room had been, and thought she would ask Miss Prince in the morning.  The windows were open, and the June air blew softly in, and sometimes swayed the curtains of the bed.  There was a scent of the sea and of roses, and presently up the quiet street came the sound of footsteps and young voices.  Nan said to herself that some party had been late in breaking up, and felt her heart thrill with sympathy.  She had been dwelling altogether in the past that evening, and she liked to hear the revelers go by.  But as they came under the windows she heard one say, “I should be afraid of ghosts in that best room of Miss Prince’s,” and then they suddenly became quiet, as if they had seen that the windows were open, and Nan first felt like a stranger, but next as if this were all part of the evening’s strange experiences, and as if these might be her father’s young companions, and she must call to them as they went by.

The next morning both the hostess and her guest waked early, and were eager for the time when they should see each other again.  The beauty and quiet of the Sunday morning were very pleasant, and Nan stood for some minutes at the dining-room windows, looking out on the small paved courtyard, and the flowers and green leaves beyond the garden gate.  Miss Prince’s was one of the fine old houses which kept its garden behind it, well-defended from the street, for the family’s own pleasure.