None."

"Why don't you go along and pay those bills, as I bade you?"

"Have been."

"Then, why didn't you settle the bills?"

"Couldn't."

"If you don't tell me what's the matter--Why couldn't you?"

"No money!"

"No money? Where's the purse?"

"Here 'tis;" and he handed it to her.

She opened it and found it empty. "Where's the money?" she demanded in
great alarm.

"Dunno."

"What did you do with it?"

"Nothin'."

By dint of a few dozen more questions she arrived at the information
that when he had opened the purse to pay the first bill he found it
empty.

"Why didn't you look on the floor?"

"Did look."

"And feel in your pocket?"

"Did."

"I suppose you couldn't be satisfied till you'd opened the purse
to count the money. You're a perfect Charity Cockloft with your
curiosity. And then you went off into one of your dreams, and forgot
to clasp the purse. Go look for it right at the spot where you counted
the money."

"Didn't count it."

"Well, where you opened the purse in the street."

"Didn't open it in the street."

"The money just crawled out of the purse, did it?"

"Dunno."

The house was searched, the store, the street, but all in vain. Dr.
Lively was questioned: Did he take the money from the purse when it
was under her pillow? He didn't even know before that the purse had
been found. The house had been everywhere securely fastened, and the
bed-room door locked.

"Well, it's very mysterious," said Mrs. Lively. "That money went just
as the other did in Chicago. We must be haunted by the spirit of some
burglar or miser."

Cards were posted in the stores and post-office, offering five dollars
reward for the lost money.

"A pretty affair," said Mrs. Lively, "to payout five dollars just for
somebody's shiftlessness!"

"To recover sixty we can afford to pay five," said the doctor.

Shortly after this an express package from Chicago was delivered for
the doctor at his door. Mrs. Lively was quite excited, hoping she
scarce knew what from this arrival. The half hour till the doctor came
home to tea seemed interminable. She sat by watching eagerly as the
doctor cut the cords and broke the seals and unwrapped--what? Some
things very beautiful, but nothing that could answer that ceaseless,
persistent cry of the human, "What shall we eat, what shall we drink,
and wherewithal shall we be clothed?"

"Nothing but some more of those miserable sea-weeds!" exclaimed Mrs.
Lively, "and t