"Ten, last August," was the reply; and Mr. Tracy continued:
"You do not remember your mother?"
"No, sir; only a great crowd, and grandma crying so hard," was Harold's reply.
"You look like her," Mr. Tracy said.
"Yes, sir," Harold answered; while into his frank, open face there came an expression of regret for the mother who had died when he was three years old, and whose life had been so short and sad.
"Now, hurry off with the telegram, and mind you don't lose it. It is from my brother. He is coming to night."
"Mr. Arthur Tracy, who sent the monument for my mother—is he coming home? Oh, I am so glad!" Harold exclaimed, his face lighting up with joy, as he put the telegram in his pocket and started for Tracy Park, wondering if he should encounter Tom, and thinking that if he did, and Tom gave him any chaff, he should thresh him, or try to.
"Darn him!" he said to himself, as he recalled the many times when Tom Tracy, a boy about his own age, had laughed at him for his poverty and coarse clothes. "He ain't any better than I am, if he does wear velvet trousers and live in a big house. 'Tain't his'n; it's Mr. Arthur's, and I'm glad he is coming home. I wonder if he will bring grandma anything. I wish he'd bring me a pyramid. He's seen 'em, they say."
Meantime, Mr. Frank Tracy had resumed his seat, and, with his hands clasped over his head, was wondering what effect his brother's return would have upon him. Would he be obliged to leave the park, and the luxury he had enjoyed so long, and go back to the old life which he hated so much?
"No; Arthur will never be so mean," he said. "He has always shown himself generous, and will continue to do so. Besides that, he will want somebody to keep the house for him, unless——" And here the perspiration started from every pore as Frank Tracy thought: "What if he is married, and the us in his telegram means a wife, instead of a friend or servant as I imagined!"