o know a
man like that--a real, wide-awake college fellow--and now he's walked
right out of our lives as everything else worth while has done. Now
that 'Carrington' has failed and sister lost hope--"

She did not finish the sentence, but sat there on the attic floor in a
disconsolate little heap, staring out the tiny window while the rain
beat a dirge on the leaky roof. Suddenly she was startled by Claribel
scrambling to her feet.

"You hear me, Wilma Mason," she cried. "I'll never be mortified again
in this way! I don't care what sister says, I am going to work for the
honour of the family latch-string. I swear this shall never happen
again." Her tragic manner was in such comical contrast to her
befeathered appearance that Wilma laughed, for the first time since
the return of the manuscript. Then they went down to rekindle the
kitchen fire, and plan for the repairing of their family fortunes.

"I don't know what practical shape your fine resolutions will take,"
said Wilma, as they took their bread and tea at lunch, "but for my
part, no one shall ever again look at that poor old broken-hinged gate
with the quizzical glance Tom gave it. His very eyebrows seemed to say
'Lor', how shiftless!' I shall put on a new hinge myself as soon as it
stops raining. There's a big box of screws and locks and things down
in the granary, and the remains of a tool-chest."

Once started on her round of repairs, Wilma found herself viewing the
entire premises from the standpoint of the sharp gray eyes that had
looked so reprovingly at the broken-hinged gate.

"If Tom ever comes here again," she vowed to herself, "he shall not
see this grand old place in such a pitiful state of dilapidation. I
can at least see that the porch floor has paint, and the garden chairs
more than three legs apiece. I feel that I have the making in me of a
first-class carpenter." So here and there she went, hammering, and
screwing, and puttying, and painting, finding an outlet for much
latent energy, and a use for her long repressed, although long
suspected mechanical ability.

Claribel's plans did not put themselves into practical shape so
readily. For days she went about with a preoccupied air. There was
some mysterious correspondence that Agnes wondered over, many hours
spent in her room with locked doors. Then one day she stole down the
stately stairway with a little valise in her hands.

"You needn't look at me in that way," she whispered, defiantly, as