THE CROMPTONS



stay at the Brock House with Eloise, while Jack went
to Palatka and Atlanta to see what he could find. It
was not much. Tom Hardy had been killed in the
war, and had left no family. This he was told in
Palatka. In Atlanta he learned that before the war
there had been a plantation near the city owned by
a Hardy family, all of whom were dead or had disap-
peared. There were Browns in plenty in the Direc-
tory, and Jack saw them all, but none had any con-
nection with the Harrises. At last he struck an old
negress, who had belonged to the Hardys, and who
remembered a double wedding at the plantation years
before, and who said that an Andrew Jackson Brown,
who must have been present, as he was a son of the
house, was living in Boston, and was a conductor of
a street car. With this information as the result of
his search Jack went back to Enterprise, where he
found Amy greatly improved in mind and body.
Every day Jake and Mandy Ann had been to see her,
or with Eloise she had driven to the clearing, where
her dormant faculties continued to awaken with the
familiar objects of her childhood. Many people and
much talking still bewildered her, and her memory
was treacherous on many points, but to a stranger
who knew nothing of her history she seemed a quiet,
sane woman, " not a bit quar," Eloise said to Jack as
she welcomed him back. "And I believe she will
continue to improve when we get her home, away
from the people who talk to her so much and con-
fuse her. When can we go "
  " To-morrow, if you like," Jack said, and the next
day they left Enterprise, after bidding an affectionate
good-by to Mandy Ann, with whom they left a sub-
stantial remembrance of their visit.



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