Jewel obeyed, but not without some misgivings when her guardian so coolly pocketed the check.

“Yes, it’s for my trunk,” she replied when her grandfather was beside her and they began rattling over the stones.  “I have a checked silk dress,” she added softly, after a pause.  It were well to let him know the value of her baggage.

“Have you indeed?  How old are you, Julia?  Your name is Julia, I believe?”

“Yes, sir, my name’s Julia, but so is mother’s, and they call me Jewel.  I’m nearly nine, grandpa.”

“H’m.  Time flies,” was the brief response.

Jewel looked out of the cab window in the noisy silence that followed.  At last her voice was raised to sound through the clatter.  “I suppose my trunk is somewhere else,” she said suggestively.

“Yes, your trunk will reach home all right, plaid silk and all.”

Jewel smiled, and lifting the doll she let her look out the window upon the uninviting prospect.  “Anna Belle’s clothes are in the trunk, too,” she added, turning and speaking confidentially.

“Whose?” asked Mr. Evringham, startled.  “There’s no one else coming, I suppose?”

“Why, this is Anna Belle,” returned the child, laughing and lifting the bisque beauty so that the full radiance of her smile beamed upon her companion.  “That’s your great-grandfather, dearie, that I’ve told you about,” she said patronizingly.  “We’ve been so excited the last few days since we knew we were coming,” looking again at Mr. Evringham.  “I’ve told Anna Belle all about beautiful Bel-Air Park, and the big house, and the big trees, and the ravine, and the brook.  Isn’t it nice,” joyfully, “that it doesn’t rain to-day, and we shall see it in the sunshine?”

“Rain would have made it more disagreeable certainly,” returned Mr. Evringham, congratulating himself that he was escaping that further rain of tears which he had dreaded.  “It is a good day for your father and mother to set out on their trip,” he added.

“Yes, and they’re only to be gone six little weeks,” returned Jewel, smoothing her doll’s boa; “and I’m to have this lovely visit, and I’m to write them very often, and they’ll write to me, and we shall all be so happy!” Jewel trotted Anna Belle on her short-skirted knee and hummed a tune, which was lost in the rattle of wheels.

“You can read and write, eh?”

“Oh ye—­es!” replied the child with amused scorn.  “How would I get my lessons if I couldn’t read?  Of course—­big words,” she added conscientiously.

“Precisely,” agreed Mr. Evringham dryly.  “Big words, I dare say.”

A sudden thought occurring to his companion, she looked up again.

“You pretty nearly didn’t come,” she said, “and just think, if you hadn’t I was going to England.  Father said so.”

At the sweet inflections of the child’s voice Mr. Evringham’s brows contracted with remembrance of his wrongs.  “I should have come.  Your father might have known that!”