estions and calling for her ransomed spirit
and the ruler of Israel; they could hear her do so even through the
door. The exclamations died away in the direction of the kitchen. Miss
Phipps, who had done escort duty, turned toward Galusha and ruefully
shook her head.

"I GUESS there isn't anybody I'd rather should not have been here just
now than Primmie Cash," she observed. "If there is I can't think of
their names. Mr. Bangs, I know you meant well, because you couldn't mean
any other way, but would you mind tellin' me WHY you called for her?"

Galusha blinked in bewildered fashion behind his spectacles.

"Why--why," he stammered, "you--you see--why, I spoke to you several
times and you did not answer--and you were so pale, I thought--I
thought--"

"You thought I was sick and so you sung out for Primmie. Humph! that's a
good deal like jumpin' into the well to get out of the rain. But there,
never mind. So I looked pale and didn't answer when you spoke? Do
you wonder? Mr. Bangs," she moved to the table and laid a hand, which
trembled a good deal, upon the pile of bills, "is this money really
mine?"

"Yes--oh, yes, indeed. It is yours, of course."

"All of it? It doesn't seem possible. How much is there here?"

He told her. She lifted the topmost bills from the heap and reverently
laid them down again.

"Five thousand dollars!" she repeated. "It's like--it's like somethin'
in a dream, or a book, isn't it? I can hardly believe I am Martha
Phipps. So they did think Wellmouth Development was worth somethin',
after all. And they paid--why, Mr. Bangs, they paid the full price,
didn't they! Twenty dollars a share; as much as father paid in the first
place."

"Yes--ah--yes, of course. Yes, indeed. Are you sure you feel quite well
again, Miss Martha?"

"I'm sure. But what did they say when they bought it, Mr. Bangs?"

"Say? Ah, say?... Why, they said--ah--um--they said there was the money
and--and I counted it, you know, and--"

"Yes, yes. But didn't they say anything about the stock; about why they
bought it, and like that?"

"Why, no... no, I think nothing was--ah--so to speak--ah--said.
They--ah--Won't you sit down again, Miss Martha? I think you had
better."

"Sit down! Mr. Bangs, I'm too excited to sit down. I could fly, I think,
a good deal easier than I could sit; at least, I feel as if I could.
And so they just bought that stock and said nothing more than that? Just
bought it?"

"Yes--ah--yes, that's