ointed by her good
fortune. Mrs. Rushmore read the message three times, and then went out
under the trees to consider her answer, carrying the bit of paper in
her hand as if she did not know by heart the words written on it. For
once, she had no guests, and for the first time she was glad of it. She
walked slowly up and down, and as it was a warm morning, still and
overcast, she fanned herself with the telegram in a very futile way,
and watched the flies skimming over the water of the little pond, and
repeated her inward question to herself many times.

Mrs. Rushmore never thought anything out. When she was in doubt, she
asked herself the same question, 'What had I better do?' or, 'What will
he or she do next?' over and over again, with a frantic determination
to be logical. And suddenly, sooner or later, the answer flashed upon
her in a sort of accidental way as if it were not looking for her, and
so completely outran all power of expression that she could not put it
into words at all, though she could act upon it well enough. The odd
part of it all was that these accidental revelations rarely misled her.
They were like fragments of a former world of excellent common-sense
that had gone to pieces, which she now and then encountered like
meteors in her own orbit.

When she had walked up and down for a quarter of an hour one of these
aeroliths of reason shot across the field of her mental sight, and she
understood that one of two things must have occurred. Either Alvah Moon
had lost confidence in his chances and had sold the invention to some
greenhorn for anything he could get; or else some one else had been so
deeply interested in the affair as to risk a great deal of money in it.
Mrs. Rushmore's gleam of intelligence was a comet; but her comet had
two tails, which was very confusing.

Her meditations were disturbed by the noise of a big motor car,
approaching the house from a distance, and heralding its advance with a
steadily rising whizz and a series of most unearthly toots. Motor cars
often passed the house and ran down the Boulevard St. Antoine at
frightful speed, for the beautiful road is generally clear; but
something, perhaps a small meteor again, warned her that this one was
going to stop at the gate and demand admittance for itself.

Thereupon Mrs. Rushmore looked at her fingers; for she kept up an
extensive correspondence, in the course of which she often inked them.
For forty years she had asked herself