CONCLUSION



and she returned, like Jakey, to her household gods
when the family came back in the spring.

  Several years have passed since then, and Cromp-
ton Place is just as lovely as it was when we first saw
it on the day of the lawn party. Three children are
there now; two girls, Dora and Lucy, and a sturdy
boy, who was christened James Harris Crompton, but
is called Harry. The doll-house has been brought
to light, with Mandy Ann and Judy, to the great
delight of the little girls, and Amy is never brighter
than when playing with the children, and telling
them of the palms and oranges, alligators and ne-
groes in Florida, which she speaks of as home.
  Eloise is very happy, and if a fear of the Harris
taint ever creeps into her mind, it is dissipated at
once in the perfect sunshine which crowns her life.
Nearly every year Jakey comes to visit " chile Dory
an' her lil ones," and once Mandy Ann spent a sum-
mer in Crompton as cook in place of Cindy, who was
taking a vacation. But Northern ways of regularity
and promptness did not suit her.
  " 'Clar for't," she said, " I jess can't git use't to de
Yankee Doodle quickstep nohow. At Miss Per-
kinses dey wasn't partic'lar ef things was half an hour
behime."
  Her mind dwelt a good deal on what she had seen
at Miss Perkins's, more than forty years before, and
on her children and Ted, and when Cindy returned
in the autumn she went back to him and the twins,
laden with gifts from Amy and Eloise, the latter of
whom saw that her mother gave more judiciously
than she would otherwise have done. Both Amy
and Eloise are fond of driving, and nearly every day



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