lars. Uncle. He said--"

"Never mind what he said, my dear. It's all right. I wanted it to add to
my collection. So far I've got three 'Lives of the Saints'--and I'm
thankful they're not cats, or there'd be nine lives for me to
accumulate."

CHAPTER X.

THE MYSTERY DEEPENS.

Ethel Thompson came over the next day, as she had promised, and the
sweet-faced, gentle school-mistress won the hearts of Uncle John's three
nieces without an effort. She was the eldest of them all, but her
retired country life had kept her fresh and natural, and Ethel seemed no
more mature than the younger girls except in a certain gravity that
early responsibility had thrust upon her.

Together the four laughing, light-hearted maids wandered through the
pines, where the little school-ma'am showed them many pretty nooks and
mossy banks that the others had not yet discovered. By following an
unsuspected path, they cut across the wooded hills to the waterfall,
where Little Bill Creek made a plunge of twenty feet into a rocky basin
below. In spite of the bubbles, the water here showed clear as crystal,
and the girls admiringly christened it the "Champagne Cup." They shed
their shoes and stockings and waded in the pool, enjoying the sport with
shrieks of merry laughter--more because they were happy than that there
was anything to laugh at.

Afterward they traced the stream down to a lovely glade a half mile
above Millville, where Ethel informed them the annual Sunday-school
picnic was always held, and then trailed across the rocky plateau to the
farm. By the time they reached home their appetites were well sharpened
for Mary's excellent luncheon, and the afternoon was devoted to rest
under the shady pines that grew beside the house.

It was now, when they felt thoroughly acquainted and at ease in one
another's society, that the girls indulged in talks concerning events in
their past, and Ethel was greatly interested in the nieces' recital of
their recent trip abroad with Uncle John. They also spoke frankly of
their old life together at Elmhurst, where Aunt Jane, who was Uncle
John's sister, had congregated her three nieces for the purpose of
choosing from among them one to inherit her vast estates. It seemed no
source of regret to any of them that a boy, Kenneth Forbes, had finally
succeeded to Aunt Jane's property, and this may be explained by the fact
that Uncle John had at that interesting juncture appeared to take charge
of the nieces.