place, it ain't a he at all, but a lady," the other explained,
looking a little serious for once.

"Oh! excuse the mistake, will you?" chuckled Thad, highly amused at
the airs the disreputable looking grizzled old chap put on when he
made this statement. "Well, we have some acquaintance among the
ladies of the town also. They're nearly all deeply interested just
now in helping Madame Pangborn do Red Cross work for her beloved
poilus over in brave France. I suppose now you've traveled through
that country in your time, Lu?"

"Up and down and across it for hundreds of miles, afoot, and in
trains," quickly replied the old fellow, "and say, there ain't any
country under the sun that appeals more to me than France did. If I
was twenty years younger, hang me if I wouldn't find a way to cross
over there now, and take my place in the trenches along with them
bully fighters, the French frog-eaters. But I'm too old; and
besides, this awful cough grips me every once in so often."

Even the mention of it set him going again, although this time the
spasm was of shorter duration, Hugh noticed; just as though he had
shown them what he could do along such lines, and did not want to
exhaust himself further.

"But about this lady friend of yours, Lu, would you mind mentioning
her name, and then we could tell you if we happen to know any such
person in Scranton?" and Thad gave the other a confiding nod as
if to invite further confidence.

"Let's see, it was so long back I almost forget that her name was
changed after she got hitched to a man. Do you happen to know a
chap who goes by the name of Andrew Hosmer?"

The boys exchanged looks.

"That must be the sick husband of Mrs. Hosmer, who sews for my mother,"
remarked Thad, presently. "Yes, I remember now that his first name
is Andrew."

"Tell me," the tramp went on, now eagerly, "is his wife living, do
you mean, younker, this Mrs. Hosmer, and is her name Matilda?"

"Just what it happens to be," Thad admitted. "So she is the lady
you want to see, is she, Lu? What can poor old Mrs. Hosmer, who
has seen so much trouble of late years, be to you, I'd like to know?"

The man allowed a droll look to come across his sun-burned face with
its stubbly growth of gray beard. There was also a twinkle in his
blue eyes as he replied to this query on the part of Thad Stevens.

"What relation, you ought to say, younker, because Matilda, she's
my long-lost sister, and the one I'm a