To see her grow into womanhood, admired and sought after by everyone, was the desire of his heart, and as he believed that money was necessary to the perfect fulfilment of his desire, for her sake he would carry his secret to the grave.
'Are you sick, papa ?' Maude asked, looking into his pale face, on which the moon shone brightly.
'No, pet,' he answered, 'only tired.

I am thinking of little Jerry Crawford.

She was here this afternoon,' 'Yes, I saw her in the park with Harold.

Isn't he handsome, papa?
and such a nice boy! so different from Tom,' said Maude, and then she went on: 'Jerry is pretty too; prettier than I am; her hair curls and mine doesn't, but her dress is so ugly--that old high apron and calico gown.
What makes her so poor and me so rich ?' Mr.Tracy groaned inwardly, as he replied: 'You are not rich, my child.' 'Oh, yes, I am,' Maude said, 'I heard mamma tell Mrs.Brinsmade so.

She said Uncle Arthur was worth a million, and when he died we should have it all, because he could not make a will if he wanted to, and he had no children of his own,' Although little more than seven years old, Maude Tracy was very knowing and precocious in some respects, and, like her brother Tom, had heard so much from her mother and others of their prospective wealth, that she understood the situation far better than she ought, and was already counting on the thousands waiting for her when her uncle died.