Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER m A Sacred Trust THAT had been a happy time for Dick; and his mother, in spite of her recent sorrow and the great change in her life, found a deep joy in the companionship of this son, of whom she had seen so little since his boyhood, and she learned to love Mary as only grandmothers can. In the spring Dick completed his work, and they went back to Germantown for that year in which John's acquaintance with his future ward began and ended. The following spring Mrs. Farnham followed her husband to that other world which had been so much with her in this, and the happy household was broken up. Some months previously an event had occurred which was to mean much to little Mary and to big John Brown. Dick had had a fall from a bridge pier, which caused great anxiety to his mother and John; but after two or three days of lameness, he seemed entirely recovered, and the doctor could find no permanent injury. It was not till after his mother's death that he began to suffer from headache and lassitude, both unprecedented with him. They were attributed, partly at least, to nervous strain and all the consequences of his bereavement; forthe loss of his mother was a heavy blow,—the more so that little Mary missed her grandmother sorely. The doctor recommended a sea voyage, and Dick had gone abroad, with the child and Catharine. He meant to spend the summer in easy traveling to the great engineering wonders of Germany and Switzerland, combining pleasure with physical and mental profit. Mary was old enough to be interested in many things, and her father was an inexhaustible mine of amusement. It was a summer of delight, in spite of stubborn recurrences of the headache, which turned, in the autumn, to backache, and induced Dick to plan a speedy return home. But just as they w... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.