hed.

"Yes, and they will never get him."

"Thank you!" She gave him her hand for a moment and was gone.

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE CIRCUMVENTION OF AUNTIE.

Sadie sat up with a start and rubbed her eyes.

"All right, Nanette," she said sleepily. "I'm awake."

The trim, rosy-cheeked maid smiled and swiftly left the room.

She had deposited one armful of fluffy things on a chair beside
Sadie's bed and another armful of fluffy things on a chair beside
Helen's bed. She had also performed other mysterious little offices
noiselessly before going to the side of Sadie's bed.

"And sleeping like an innocent babe," said the comely Nanette to
herself with a depth of affection in her tone. Then she bent down and
called in Sadie's ear:

"Ten o'clock, Miss Sadie."

She had to repeat the whispered call several times before Sadie's
eyelids fluttered and she stirred into life. The maid had vanished by
the time the younger of the two sleeping beauties had removed the
cobwebs from her eyes.

The twin rosewood beds lay side by side enveloped by the transparent
silken hangings of a single canopy. The room was exquisitely done in
pink and everywhere were evidences that the two lucky mortals who
slumbered therein were coddled and pampered to the limit of modern
luxury.

Sadie's robe de nuit, as the fashion magazines put it, was a creation
of laces and ribbons and mighty becoming. She had admitted this to
herself as she surveyed her reflection in the tall oval mirror only
five hours before. She admitted it again as she hopped out of bed and
confronted herself in the same mirror. Then she turned and ran quickly
to the side of Helen's bed.

She bent down and kissed her cousin.

"Get up, Helen," Sadie urged, as the blue eyes reluctantly opened.
"Get up and dress, dear--we haven't much time."

"Much time for what?" asked Helen, sitting up and going through the
ceremony of rubbing her eyes.

"Much time before Auntie wakes."

A roseate blush spread up from the ribbons at Sadie's throat to the
roots of her fair hair.

Helen's eyes were wide open now and she looked at her cousin in
frowning puzzlement.

"And Mr. Hogg is expected," said Sadie, with swift inspiration.

"Whatever are you driving at?" asked Helen.

"Are you anxious to greet Mr. Hogg?" pouted Sadie.

"No," was the vehement response.

"Then we must be out when he comes--and I have an important engagement
at eleven."

Helen shot two little pink feet out