at
8 A. M. by George coming in to open the windows.

I was by that time looking pale and thin, and my father said to me that
morning, ere departing for the office:

"Haven't anything you'd like to get off your chest, have you, Bab?"

I sighed deeply.

"Father," I said, "do you think me cold? Or lacking in afection?"

"Certainly not."

"Or one who does not know her own mind?"

"Well," he observed, "those who have a great deal of mind do not always
know it all. Just as you think you know it some new corner comes up that
you didn't suspect and upsets everything."

"Am I femanine?" I then demanded, in an anxious manner.

"Femanine! If you were any more so we couldn't bare it."

I then inquired if he prefered the clinging Vine or the independant
tipe, which follows its head and not its instincts. He said a man liked
to be engaged to a clinging Vine, but that after marriage a Vine got to
be a darned nusance and took everything while giving nothing, being
the sort to prefer chicken croquets to steak and so on, and wearing a
boudoir cap in bed in the mornings.

He then kissed me and said:

"Just a word of advise, Bab, from a parent who is, of course, extremely
old but has not forgoten his Youth entirely. Don't try to make yourself
over for each new Admirer who comes along. Be yourself. If you want to
do any making over, try it on the boys. Most of them could stand it."

That morning, after changing another tire and breaking three finger
nails, I remembered the overcoat and, putting aside my scruples, went
through the pockets. Although containing no Burglar's tools, I found a
SKETCH OF THE LOWER FLOOR OF OUR HOUSE, WITH A CROSS OUTSIDE ONE OF THE
LIBRARY WINDOWS!

I was for a time greatly excited, but calmed myself, since there was
work to do. I felt that, as I was to capture him unaided, I must make a
Plan, which I did and which I shall tell of later on.

Alas, while thinking only of securing the Reward and of getting Sis
married, so that I would be able to be engaged and enjoy it without
worry as to Money, coming out and so on, my Ship of Love was in the
hands of the wicked, and about to be utterly destroyed, or almost, the
complete finish not coming untill later. But

'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

This is the tradgic story. Tom had gone to the station, feeling
repentant probably, or perhaps wishing to drive the Arab, and finding me
not yet there, had conve