For about half an hour the child slept peacefully. Once or twice Emma stole softly in to find her with hand under a cheek, now rather pale, and with red lips half-smiling as if in a pleasant dream. "Bless the child, it's nothin' but a sick-headache," whispered Emma. "She'll be all the better for the sleep." At the end of the half hour Edna stirred, sighed, opened her eyes and then sat up. The dizzy feeling was nearly gone.  
Emma came to the door. "Well," she said, "and how are you feeling?"
 
"A good deal better," said Edna cheerfully. "I think I'll get up and go down to the living-room, Emma."
 
"Do you feel equal to it?" asked Emma.
 
"Oh, yes I think I do. Besides the sun is coming in here now, and I've been here all day, so I'd like a change."
 
"Then I'll tell you there's someone down there waiting for you. He wouldn't have you disturbed, but said I was to bring him word when you waked up. He's been there about a quarter of an hour, I should say, but he said he would amuse himself 115with the papers and magazines, and you were not to hurry on his account."
 
This didn't sound as if it could be Louis, as Edna at first supposed it might be. He had not been asked to go on the sailing party, and could easily have come over. "It isn't my cousin Louis Morrison, is it?" she asked.
 
"No, it's the owld gintleman with the . I don't just remember the name."
 
"Why, it must be Uncle Justus," cried Edna getting up with . "He was to have gone sailing with the others. I wonder why he didn't go. Is it the gentleman who was here to lunch yesterday, Emma?"
 
"That very same."
 
"Oh, then I'll go right down."
 
She slowly the stairs. After all her head did still feel a little queer, and she was rather faint from eating nothing since breakfast, so she did not enter the room with her usual , and Uncle Justus did not see her till she had nearly reached his side. Then he looked up over his spectacles. "Well, well, well," he cried, "how is my little girl feeling?"
 
He held out his arms and Edna went to him. "I'm feeling a little better," she said, as he took her on his knee and settled her comfortably with her head against his shoulder.
 
116"Poor little lamb," he murmured, "poor little lamb. I am so sorry—we were all sorry to hear about the headache."
 
"But, Uncle Justus, I thought you were going on the sailing party."
 
"So I was, my dear, but I couldn't have enjoyed it knowing you were here without your mother or any of your family. I know little folks like their mothers when they are not feeling well, and though I couldn't in any way take the place of your mother, I wanted to come and look after you a little."
 
Edna put up a hand and softly stroked the cheek above the curled grey whisker, and even a part of the whisker itself. "I think it was dear of you to do that, but Uncle Justus, I am afraid Mr. Ramsey was disappointed not to have you go, and I did not mind so very much being alone. I did want mother , when I was feeling the sickest, but I tried to think how lovely everyone was to me, and of how nice it was to be in this lovely cool place by the sea, instead of in the hot city, and I didn't feel so."
 
Uncle Justus murmured something which Edna couldn't quite make out, something about babes and sucklings which really did not appear to have much to do with the subject.
 
"Aren't you really disappointed about not going on the sailing party?" she asked presently.
 
"No, my dear. I prefer to be here. Besides, do you remember a little girl who gave up having her 117Thanksgiving at home that she might share a lonely dinner with her old uncle? If you have forgotten, I have not."
 
"Oh, but," returned Edna, quite embarrassed, for the little girl was none other than herself, "you see you were quite well, and didn't have a headache." Just what this had to do with it was rather puzzling and Uncle Justus smiled at the attempted argument.
 
Then they fell into talking about various things, and in the course of the conversation Edna told of her adventure in the fog, of how scared she had been, and how fearful lest Louis were drowned. Uncle Justus listened , and asked such questions that though Edna tried to shield Louis, she knew that Uncle Justus was aware of everything that had happened. He was Louis's Uncle Justus as well as Edna's.
 
When the story was ended Uncle Justus was silent for a time, but he stroked Edna's hair thoughtfully. At last he said half to himself, "I shall have to have a talk with the boy's mother. He will be ruined if something is not done." And then Emma came in to know if Mr. Horner would have tea, and then since he declined this, she asked if he would dine with Miss Edna.
 
"Oh, you will, Uncle Justus, won't you," begged Edna.
 
"I will if you would like me to," he said simply.
 
So Edna sat up straight and said, "He will stay, Emma, but you must give him more than I am to 118have, for Mrs. Ramsey said I'd better not eat anything very ."
 
"You were to have some and toast, Miss Edna," Emma told her, "and if you wanted more before bedtime I was to give you some hot milk."
 
"But they will be back by bedtime, Emma, I am sure."
 
"Very well, miss. I will see that the gentleman has something proper."
 
She went out and Edna, feeling that she had been coddled long enough, took a seat on a low chair, and pretty soon dinner was announced, the two eating it very happily together. Edna had her chicken broth and toast for which she was quite ready by this time, declaring that she was actually hungry and that her head was getting better.
 
As she had predicted, it was not bedtime when the sailing party returned, full of their doings. Edna was ready with plenty of questions and was told how Miss Eloise proved to be a good sailor, and had enjoyed the trip immensely, of how Ben and Mr. Ramsey had carried her bodily, of how they had made a fire and cooked their supper, and last of all, how they had all missed her.
 
It was after Ben and Uncle Justus had departed for the yacht that Edna watching the lights in the harbor, heard Mr. Ramsey say, "We saw Mr. Horner in a new light to-day. Who could ever imagine him so tenderly anxious about his little 119niece? He always seemed rather a cold undemonstrative person to me. I was certainly surprised when he insisted upon returning that he might be with Edna in our absence."
 
"I was rather surprised myself," responded Mrs. Ramsey, "though now I remember it, Jennie has told me that he is to Edna, and though all his other pupils stand in of him, that she alone seems to have no fear. He must have a tender heart, for all his bushy eyebrows and stern ."
 
The twinkling lights in the harbor were still shining when the little girls went to bed, but before morning a wilder light was blazing from the point where old Cap'n Si's little house stood, and, the next morning when the children looked across to where yesterday they had seen the old man sitting on the bench outside his door, the smoke curling from the chimney and the flowers in his little garden making a brave showing, they but a heap of blackened ruins.
 
Jennie was the first to see it and ran to her father who had just come down. "Oh, Papa," she cried, "just come here. There isn't any Cap'n Si's house any more."
 
"What's that?" said her father joining her at the window where she stood.
 
"Just look."
 
Mr. Ramsey did look but he saw only the bits of wood from which a slight smoke was rising. 120"That's bad, very bad," he said shaking his head. "Why it was only last night that he was telling us that he was born in that house and hoped to die in it. I wonder how it could have happened. I hope no one was hurt. Who lives with him, daughter? Do you remember?"
 
"His daughter and her family, Bert is the oldest; he is off fishing in Captain Eli Brown's boat, then there is Louberta, but she's married. Amelia comes next, and then there's little Si, and Kitty is the youngest. They haven't any father, for he was lost at sea two years ago."
 
"I remember, I remember. It is all very sad. I must go over as soon as I have had some breakfast and we will see what is to be done."
 
As one after another came down the news of the fire was told, and Mrs. Ramsey declared she must go with her husband to find out all about it. So they started off in the as soon as breakfast was over, leaving three deeply interested little girls. There was no talk of calling Cap'n Si that morning, for he would not be looking for the flag to be run up, instead he was lying helpless on a cot, his hands swathed in cotton, and his stubbly beard by the fire he had vainly tried to put out.
 
It was two hours before Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey returned, and then it was to tell a sorrowful tale. A lamp burning in one of the two little upper rooms had been overturned by one of the children very 121early in the morning, and before the full danger was realized the house was in flames. Fortunately no one was very seriously hurt, Cap'n Si was badly , and his hands showed............