rked impatiently, forgetting her
resolution to speak only "English, pure and undefiled." "He would rather
die than to let us learn anything of his past. I do declare, Jack, that
if he were anybody in the world except Jim, I should think he had
something in his life he wished to conceal. I wonder if he ever had a
tragic love affair?"

"Oh, Jean, you are a romantic goose," Jack exclaimed. "What was it you
had to show me?"

Jean and Jack were giving a thorough cleaning to the living-room; Aunt
Ellen had shaken the rugs and polished the pine floor, but the two girls
were dusting vigorously in every crack and corner and rubbing the brass
candlesticks with an unaccustomed ardor.

Through the entire Lodge there rioted a sense of preparation, as before
the approach of some great event.

Jean flung down her dust cloth, seized Jack by the hand and marched her
over to the corner lined with their book shelves.

Jack discovered an entirely unknown row of books. "Why, Jean Bruce!"
Jack exclaimed in amazement. "Where did you ever find these old things
and what do we want with them anyhow?"

Jack was staring at Congressional reports, a few ancient law books and a
treatise on medicine. But there also were eight volumes of Gibbon's
"Rome," Greene's "History of The English People," and several other
valuable old histories, arranged in a conspicuous place on the book
shelves. Jean's most cherished novels had been stuck out of sight.

Jean smiled a superior smile. "I found the books upstairs in Uncle's
trunk, of course, and I brought them down here to impress our new
chaperon or governess, which ever you choose to call her. I was
determined she should not think we were perfect dunces when she arrived
at Rainbow Lodge."

Jack appeared to reflect. "I don't see how it will do much good," she
argued, half laughing. "Cousin Ruth will soon find out that we don't
know anything in the books worth mentioning."

But Jean was not in the least discouraged. "First impressions are always
the most important, Jacqueline Ralston," she announced calmly. "My
advice to this family is to let Cousin Ruth get her shocks from our wild
behavior by degrees so that she will have time to rally in between."

"Do you think she is going to find us so very dreadful?" Jack inquired
quite seriously, without the trace of a smile. She was climbing up on a
ladder to try to straighten a beautiful golden lynx skin, which was
slipping off the wall.

"Worse than wild