They were very good friends, these two, and they had a curiously close bond in Timmy, the only child of the one and the half-brother of the other.

Betty was now twenty-eight and there were only two persons in the world whom she had loved in her life as well as she now loved her little brother.
As her step-mother came close up to her--"Janet?
What's the matter ?" she exclaimed, and as the other made no answer, a look of fear came over the girl's face.

She got up from her chair.

"Don't look like that, Janet,--you're frightening me!" The older woman tried to smile.

"To tell the truth, Betty, I've had rather a shock.