cook
about the meals, and Sally came tagging after her; of course, with a
cookie in one hand and a rag doll in the other.

"This Sally is nothing but a yawning cavity walking on hollow stilts,"
declared Nell, who "fussed" good-naturedly, just as her father did.
"She is constantly begging from the cook between meals, and her eyes
are the biggest things about her when she comes to the table."

"Ain't," said Sally, shaking her curls in denial.

"Ain't what?" asked Jessie.

"Ain't--ain't _if you please_," declared the little girl, revealing
the fact that her sister had tried to train her in politeness.

When the girls stopped laughing--and Sally had finished the
cookie--Nell added:

"Aunt Freda came last night to dinner and we had strawberry fool. Cook
makes a delicious one. And Sally could eat her weight of that
delicacy. When I came to serve the dessert Sally was watching me with
her eagle eye and her mouth watering. I spooned out an ordinary
dishful, and Sally whispered:

"'Oh, sister! is _that_ all I get?'

"So I told her it was for Aunt Freda, and she gasped:

"'What! All _that_?'"

The boys got the thing they wanted soldered completed about this time,
and Bob ran down the back way with the fire-pot. The rain began to
lift. As Nell cheerfully said, a patch of blue sky soon appeared in
the west big enough to make a Scotchman a kilt, so they could be sure
that it would clear.

Jessie and Amy walked home after seeing the Stanley boys' radio set
completed. Their minds then naturally reverted to the adventures of
the morning and what they had heard so mysteriously out of the ether
the evening before. Jessie had warned her chum to say nothing to
anybody about the mysterious prisoner and the stock farm over by
Harrimay or of their suspicions until she had talked again with Mr.
Norwood.

Momsy came home that afternoon from Aunt Ann's, but Mr. Norwood did
not appear. The Court was sitting, and he had several cases which
needed his entire attention. He often remained away from home several
days in succession at such times.

"And one of the most important cases is that one he told us about,"
Momsy explained. "He is greatly worried about that. If he cannot find
that girl who lived with Mrs. Poole----"

"Oh, Momsy!" exclaimed Jessie, "let us find Daddy and tell him about
what Amy and I heard over the radio. I believe we learned something
about Bertha Blair, only we could not find her this morning."

She proceed