cottage. But whatever she did, she was always the same quiet, lady-like
woman, who commanded the respect of all, and who, poor as she was, was
held in high esteem by the better class in Shannondale. Grace Atherton's
carriage and that of Edith St. Claire stood oftener before her door
than that at Tracy Park; and though the ladies came mostly on business,
they found themselves lingering after the business was over to talk with
one who, in everything save money, was their equal.

Harold was his grandmother's idol. For him she toiled and worked,
feeling more than repaid for all she did by his love and devotion to
her. And Harold was a noble little fellow, full of manly instincts, and
always ready to deny himself for the sake of others. That he and his
grandmother were poor he knew, but he had never felt the effects of
their poverty, save when Tom Tracy had jeered at him for it, and called
him a pauper. There had been one square fight between the two boys, in
which Harold had been the victor, with only a torn jacket, while Tom's
eye had been black for a week, and Mrs. Tracy had gone to the cottage to
complain and insist that Harold should be punished. But when she heard
that Dick St. Claire had assisted in the fray, taking Harold's part, and
himself dealing Tom the blow which blackened his eye, she changed her
tactics, for she did not care to quarrel with Mrs. Arthur St. Claire, of
Grassy Spring.

Harold and Richard St. Claire, or Dick, as he was familiarly called,
were great friends, and if the latter knew there was a difference
between himself and the child of poverty he never manifested it, and
played far oftener with Harold than with Tom, whose domineering
disposition and rough manners were distasteful to him. That Harold would
one day be obliged to earn his living, Mrs. Crawford knew, but he was
still too young for anything of that kind; and when Grace Atherton, or