The beautiful child is now a beautiful girl of seventeen. Her education is finished, and she has not disappointed the expectations of her friends. At home and abroad she is not only known as the Chetwynd heiress, but also for her many accomplishments, as well as for her beauty and charitableness. And her wonderful voice, which time has enriched and strengthened, is a constant delight to those who hear it, although it is never heard in public, save in the service of God, or for some work of charity. The poor and the lowly, the sick and the dying have often been carried to the very gates of heaven on its melodious strains, and the good sisters and grateful little orphans in Margaret’s Home count it a day long to be remembered when Lady Jane sits down among them and sings some of the hymns that she loved so well in those old days when she herself was a homeless little orphan.

Mr. Chetwynd still likes to spend part of the year in Paris; but he has purchased a beautiful winter home in one of the lovely streets in the garden district, not far from Mrs. Lanier, and Lady Jane and Mam’selle Diane spend several months every spring in its delightful seclusion.

And here Madelon comes to bring her delicious cakes, which she now sells to private customers instead of having a stand on the Rue Bourbon; and Tante Modeste often rattles up in her milk cart, a little older, a little stouter, but with the same bright face; and on the same seat where Lady Jane used to sit is one of Marie’s little ones, instead of one of her own. “Only think, my dear,” she says proudly, “Tiburce has graduated, and now he is studying law with Marie’s husband, who is rising fast in his profession.”

But among all her happy hours there are none pleasanter than those she spends with Pepsie in the pretty cottage at Carrollton, when the bright-faced little cripple, who seems hardly a day older, spreads out her beautiful needlework and expatiates eloquently on the fine results she obtains from the Paris patterns and exquisite material with which she is constantly supplied. She is a natural little artist with the needle, her dainty work sells readily and profitably, and she is in a fair way to become rich. “Just think,” she says with one of her broad smiles, “I could buy a piano now myself, if I wanted to, and perhaps I shall, so that you can play to me when you come.”

During sunny mornings, on a certain lawn in the garden district, there is nearly always a merry party playing tennis, while a gentle-faced woman sits near holding a book, which she seldom reads, so interested is she in watching a golden-haired girl and a handsome young man, who frequently interrupt the game to point out the grave antics of a stately blue heron, that stalks majestically about the lawn or poses picturesquely on one leg under a glossy palm.

But we must not approach the border-land of romance. Lady Jane is no longer a child, and Arthur Maynard is years older than the boy who gave her the blue heron.

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes