his package, I can't make out where it
came from, either. It's a kodak! Grace, a kodak like yours!"

"You will need a detective," said Grace, dropping her own treasures to
examine the mysterious packages of her companion. "What does the tag
say?"

"Just, 'A brand from the burning'. Isn't that queer?"

Carrie paused in her excited unpacking of goodies from home, studied the
little card for a moment and then said, "What will you bet that isn't
from the hermit?"

"Why didn't I think of that before?" murmured Tabitha, dropping back on
the floor, suddenly lost in thought.

"Well, Kitty, if you aren't the craziest!" exclaimed Vera at length.
"Here you sit mooning over that camera when you haven't opened your
brother's packages, or that big box I am dying to see, or even looked at
the things Carrie has dumped into your lap from her folks."

Tabitha roused with a start and immediately tore off the coverings of
the second mysterious box, saying with a smile, "I am keeping the best
for dessert. I like to guess at what is inside each parcel before I open
it. Oh, what a pretty hat!"

"Isn't it a darling! And look at that pretty dress goods! That is all
the rage now."

"Chrystie, see Kitty's new shoes. Aren't they fine?"

"A whole outfit," murmured Grace, half enviously.

"Yes, and here is an envelope, Puss," added Carrie. "That ought to tell
who sent it."

Tabitha mechanically broke the seal of the envelope bearing her name in
the same writing as that on the outside of the box, and a twenty dollar
bill dropped into her lap. "That is all there is in it," she said,
shaking the paper again. "No, it isn't. Here is a little scrap which
reads, 'For dressmaker's bills'. Now isn't that provoking!"

"Provoking!" echoed Chrystobel. "I should call it luck!"

"Oh, I didn't mean the money and things. Those are splendid. But isn't
it a shame not to know where they came from?"

"Why, didn't your brother send them?" asked Bertha in surprise, for she
had been so deeply engrossed with her own gifts that only snatches of
her companions' conversation had reached her.

"No, that isn't a bit like his writing, you see; and besides, he
couldn't afford such things."

"Maybe Tom's letter tells," Carrie ventured. "Why don't you read it and
see?"

"I had forgotten," laughed Tabitha, looking foolish, and hastily tearing
open the letter in her lap. Then the rosy color in her cheeks paled, her
eyes grew big with amazement, and her breath ca