ve here."

"I'm glad you feel that way, Miss Summers," I said. "I've gone through a
lot; I'm an old woman in the last two weeks. My hair's falling from its
having to stand up on end half the time."

She leaned over and put her cigarette on the back of my celluloid
mirror, and then suddenly she threw back her head and laughed.

"Minnie!" she said, between fits, "Minnie! As long as I live I'll never
forget that wretched boy's face! And the sand boxes! And the blankets
over the windows! And the tarpaulin over the rafters! And Mr. Van
Alstyne sitting on the lawnmower! I'd rather have had my minute in that
doorway than fifty thousand dollars!"

"If you had had to carry out all those things--" I began, but she
checked me.

"Listen!" she said. "Somebody with brains has got to take you young
people in hand. You're not able to look after yourselves. I'm fond of
Alan Pierce, for one thing, and I don't care to see a sanatorium that
might have been the child of my solicitude kidnaped and reared as a
summer hotel by Papa Thoburn. A good fat man is very, very good, Minnie,
but when he is bad he is horrid."

"It's too late," I objected feebly. "He can't get it now."

"Can't he!" She got up and yawned, stretching. "Well, I'll lay you
ten to one that if we don't get busy he'll have the house empty in
thirty-six hours, and a bill of sale on it in as many days."

The celluloid mirror blazed up at that minute, and she poured the
contents of my water-pitcher over the dresser. For the next hour, while
I was emptying water out of the bureau drawers and hanging up my clothes
to dry, she told me what she knew of Thoburn's scheme, and it turned me
cold.

But I went to bed finally. Just as I was dozing off, somebody opened my
door, and I heard a curious scraping along the floor. I turned on the
light, and there was Arabella, half-dragging and half-carrying a solid
silver hand-mirror with a card on it: "To Minnie, to replace the one
that blew up. J. S."

CHAPTER XXVII

A CUPBOARD FULL OF RYE

Doctor Barnes came to me at the news stand the next morning before
gymnasium.

"Well," he said, "you look as busy as a dog with fleas. Have you heard
the glad tidings?"

"What?" I asked without much spirit. "I've heard considerable tidings
lately, and not much of it has cheered me up any."

He leaned over and ran his fingers up through his hair.

"You know, Miss Minnie," he said, "somebody ought kindly to kill our
friend Thoburn,