“Yes, I’m Zeke.  And you just remember,” emphatically, “that I come when I’m called.  Will you?”

“Yes,” replied the child, laughing a little.  “Do you know my name?”

“It’s Julia, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but if you called me by it perhaps I shouldn’t come, for I’m used to the name of Jewel.”

“Pretty name, all right,” returned Zeke sententiously.  “Now you can see your grandpa’s house.  The one with the long porch.”

Jewel jumped up and down a little in the seat and held Anna Belle to get a good view.  The brown horse trotted with a will, and in a minute more they had passed up the driveway and paused beneath the porte-cochere.

Mrs. Forbes threw open the door and stood unsmiling.

“Where is Mr. Evringham?” she asked, addressing her son.

“Stayed in town.”

The housekeeper stepped forward and helped down the little girl, who had risen and was looking brightly expectant.

“How do you do, Julia,” she said.  “Did you come out alone on the cars?”

“No.  Dr. Ballard came with me.”

“Oh, that was the way of it.  Zeke, hitch up the brougham.  The ladies are going out to lunch.”

“Why didn’t they let me know?” grumbled Zeke.  “Could have hitched up the brougham just as well in the first place.”

“Don’t ask me,” returned his mother acidly.  “Where is your bag, Julia?  I hope you haven’t left it in the train?”

“No, I didn’t have any.  I used mother’s.  She knew I’d have my trunk to-night.”

“Then come in and I’ll show you where your room is.”

The child looked eagerly and admiringly from side to side as she followed Mrs. Forbes up two flights of broad shallow stairs and into an apartment which to her eyes seemed luxurious.

“Was this ever my father’s room?” she asked.

“Why yes, I believe it was,” returned Mrs. Forbes, to whom that circumstance had not before occurred.

“How kind of grandpa to let me have it!” said Jewel, highly pleased.

“He wasn’t in it much, your father wasn’t.  Away at school or some other place mostly.  Where’s your trunk?”

“It’s coming.  Zeke said he’d attend to it.”  Jewel looked up happily.  “I have a”—­she was intending to communicate to Mrs. Forbes the exciting detail of her wardrobe when the housekeeper interrupted her.

“My son’s name is Ezekiel,” she said impressively.

“Oh,” returned Jewel abashed.  “He told me Zeke.”  She still stood in the middle of the large white room, Anna Belle in her arms, and with the surprised look in her serious face drew upon herself an unflattering mental comment.

“The image of Harry,” thought Mrs. Forbes.

“Can I see aunt Madge and cousin Eloise?” asked the child, beginning to feel some awe of the large woman regarding her.