he emeralds and the cross----"

"Did they find them?"

"Why, certainly--the stones were all listed, you know. Didn't you read
it in the papers?"

"I never see them," she said quietly. She had gathered herself
together for what must be the struggle of her life.

"Will you tell him? I can't go back. I'd die first!" she cried.

"But why should you go back?" he asked in amazement. "Surely you'll
let them know? They gave up hope long ago. You needn't go back to
them, if you're happy here, of course, and indeed, I wouldn't, Miss
Mary----"

"I don't mean go back _there_," she interrupted gently, "I mean to
the--to--Dr.----"

He stared.

"You know, of course, what's the matter," she said quietly, "but nobody
here does. They think I'm--I'm like anybody else. I don't mind any
more, since I've been so busy. I haven't had time to worry over it.
But still, I know it.--And so I told Mr. Swartout it would be
impossible. It wouldn't be right."

Stanchon seized both of her hands.

"For heaven's sake, Miss Mary, what do you think's the matter with
you?" he cried, his voice breaking in spite of himself.

"Isn't it so?" she queried wistfully. "Do you really mean it?--But who
cured me, then?"

"If you are the wonderful person I've been hearing about all this time
from Swartout," Stanchon said, trying to speak lightly, his grey eyes
firm on her anxious brown ones, "I should say that working for your
living did it, Miss Mary!"

And it may be he was right: as a diagnostician he has been widely
commended.

THE CHILDREN

It all came over me, as you might say, when I began to tell the new
housemaid about the work. Not that I hadn't known before, of course,
what a queer sort of life was led in that house; it was hard enough the
first months, goodness knows. But then, a body can get used to
anything. And there was no harm in it--I'll swear that to my dying
day! Although a lie's a lie, any way you put it, and if all I've
told--but I'll let you judge for yourself.

As I say, it was when I began to break Margaret in, that it all came
over me, and I looked about me, in a way of speaking, for how I should
put it to her. She'd been house-parlor-maid in a big establishment in
the country and knew what was expected of her well enough, and I saw
from the first she'd fit in nicely with us; a steady, quiet girl, like
the best of the Scotch, looking to save her wages, and get to be
housekeeper herself, some day, pe