iosity!"

"I intended to."

"Aren't you going to tell me what it is?"

"Then it wouldn't be a surprise."

"But I can't wait."

"Just like a woman," chuckled Merry. "Give them a hint of a surprise in
store for them, and they'll badger you to death until they spoil the
surprise. Let's take flight, Bart. Let's get away before the girls coax
it out of us."

He snatched a kiss and sprang down the steps, followed by Hodge.

"I think you're real mean!" cried Inza. "You just wait and see if I
don't play it back on you! I'll have a secret some time and keep it from
you!"

"Impossible!" said Merry. "No woman ever kept a secret."

"Especially from her husband," put in Hodge.

"Oh, you'll see--you'll see!" threatened Inza.

But the two laughing young men disappeared round the corner.

"Now, I'd just give anything in the world to know what they're up to,"
said Inza. "Aren't you dying to know, Elsie?"

"I am, but still I think I'll survive," was the answer.

Proceeding to the stable, Merry called Toots, who promptly appeared,
jerking off his cap and bowing as he showed his teeth in a grin.

"How'd do, Marsa Frank--good mawnin', sah," he said. "How'd do, Mist'
Hodge? What ken Ah do fo' yo' dis lubly mawnin'?"

"Hitch the span into the surrey," said Merry. "I want you to drive us to
the station."

While the colored man was hitching up, Frank and Bart talked.

"I heard some of the things you were saying to that French nurse girl,
Merry," said Hodge. "You seem to have an idea that you've seen her
before."

"I can't get over the feeling," confessed Frank. "Still, it doesn't seem
so much as if I'd seen her as it does seem that I've seen some one like
her."

"You asked her if she had a brother?"

"Yes."

"She said no?"

"Yes."

"Do you think that she told you the truth?"

"I had no reason to think otherwise."

"You trust her?"

"She seems perfectly trustworthy to me."

"Well, you may be right. In old times I was forever suspecting some one
you trusted. In most cases I was wrong, and I suppose I am wrong this
time."

"Then you suspect Lizette?"

"I have a queer feeling about that girl. I can't give my reasons for it,
Merry. Still, after you were through talking with her a little while ago
and you started up the veranda steps, I saw her give you a queer look
behind your back."

"What sort of a look?"

"I can't describe it. She just flashed you one daggerlike glance with
those black eyes."

"Oh,