There was another niece, likewise dear to John Merrick’s heart, who had been Louise Merrick before she married a youth named Arthur Weldon, some two years before this story begins. A few months ago Arthur had taken his young wife to California, where he had purchased a fruit ranch, and there a baby was born to them which they named “Jane Merrick Weldon”—a rather big name for what was admitted to be a very small person.