it possible that you don't
see,--that you don't understand?"

"Understand what? We don't know these Smithsons."

"But we do know these--Smiths."

"Agnes, you don't mean--"

"Yes, I do mean that I believe--that I am sure that these Smiths are
those very identical Smithsons."

"Oh, Agnes, what makes you think so? Smith is such a very common name,
you know."

"Yes, I know it; but here is a girl whose name is Smith, and she is with
a Mrs. Smith, her aunt, and they are staying at a summer resort near
Boston. How does that fit?"

"Oh, Agnes, it does look like--as if it must be, doesn't it?" cried
Dora, in a sort of shuddering enjoyment of the sensational situation.

"Of course it does. I knew I was right about those people. I knew there
was something queer and mysterious about them. And what do you
think,--only yesterday I happened to go into the little parlor, where
there are writing-materials, and there sat this very Peggy Smith
directing a letter; and when she went out, I happened to cast my eyes at
the blotting-pad she had used, and I couldn't help reading--for it was
just as plain as print--the last part of the address, and it was--'South
America'!"

CHAPTER IV.

"I don't believe it! I don't believe it!" said Tilly Morris,
indignantly, as Dora wound up her recital of the Smithson-Smith story.

"Well, you can believe it or not; but I don't see how you can help
believing, when you remember that their name is Smith, and that they are
aunt and niece, and that the niece is fourteen or fifteen,--just as the
paper said,--and that they are staying at a summer resort not far from
Boston, and--that the niece writes to some one in South America,--think
of that!"

Tilly thought, and, flushing scarlet as she thought, she burst out,--

"Well, I don't care, I don't care. I'm not going to talk about it,
either. How many people have you--has Amy--has Agnes told?"

"I haven't told anybody but you yet. I've just come from Agnes."

"Yet! Now, look here, let me tell you something, Dora. My father, you
know, is a lawyer, and I've heard him talk a great deal when we've had
company at dinner about queer things that people did and said,--queer
things, I mean, that got them into lawsuits. One of the things that I
particularly remember was a case where a woman told things that she had
heard and things that she had fancied against a neighbor, and the
neighbor went to law about it, prosecuted the woman for slander, and
th