His mother and father are both dead, and he has been brought up by his mother's unmarried sisters, who are half English themselves.

But he must be a nice boy, even if he has only one drop of his uncle's blood in his veins." The girls sighed and said nothing.

It was touching and beautiful to see the old lady's loyalty and devotion after all these years of loneliness; for her husband had been dead since she was a young woman.

Still Mrs.
Gray never brooded.

She was always cheerful and happy in doing kindnesses for other people.
"If ever I marry," sentimental Jessica was thinking, "I hope it will be somebody like Mrs.Gray's husband." "I should like to have a brother like Tom Gray," observed Grace aloud.
"Well," said Mrs.Gray, "we shall have to wait and see what the new Tom Gray is like.