"You caught me at just the right moment, little lady. I was slandering you," went on Mr. Curtis. "I was saying to Giusippe that I never again can get on without you two young persons. Why, this old house was quiet as the grave before you came into it. I cannot imagine how I ever existed here alone all these years. The piano wasn't opened from one end of the year to the other, and when I unlocked the door and came in there wasn't a single sound anywhere. As I look back on it I guess I spent about all my time at the Club. But since you came it has been different. I've liked it a whole lot better, too. Now I feel as if I really had a home."
Jean bent down and kissed him.
"When I get older," she said, "I mean that you shall have even a nicer home. Fräulein will be an old lady soon, Uncle Tom, and will not be able to take care of things as she does now. Then I'm going to ask her to teach me to market and to keep house. If you are to make Giusippe your secretary it is only fair that you should give me a position, too. I'll be your housekeeper. You'll see what a good one I shall make after I've learned how. I should love to do it. A girl—a really, truly girl, Uncle Tom, can't help wanting to keep house for somebody."
"No more she can, dear, and she ought to want to, too. It is her work in the world to be a homemaker—the one who touches with comfort and with beauty the lives of those about her. You shall be housekeeper for Giusippe and me, little girl, and shall make out of these four walls a real home. That is what your new Aunt Ethel is to do for your Uncle Bob."
"I know it," answered Jean softly. "Even Uncle Bob couldn't get on without some one to look after him, could he?"
"No," answered Mr. Curtis, "and it is fortunate he has found some one if you are to be my housekeeper. If he makes any trouble we'll just remind him that it was only your summers that you were to spend with him. Your winters belong to me."
"I don't believe he will quarrel about it," was Jean's answer. "He won't need me now, and he will understand that you do."
"I sure do," replied Uncle Tom, drawing the girl to his side. "I need both of you—my boy and my girl."
The stories in this series are: