t just think. Not that it matters much, anyhow,
but I hate to forget things that way. Sun--sun--Sunny Slopes. That's
what the name was."

"What a pretty name!" cried Bess.

"Yes. But that's about all that was pretty about it," replied Mrs.
Bragley, with a weak smile. "My husband invested almost all his savings
in it because he thought it was going to make him rich."

"When was that?" asked Nan, who was growing deeply interested.

"Only a short time before his death," came the answer sadly.

"But haven't you heard anything about it since?" queried Bess
wonderingly. "You may really be rich, for all you know."

Mrs. Bragley smiled wanly.

"Not much chance of that, I fear," she replied. "I have written again
and again, but have never received any answer to my letters. I'm afraid
it was all a swindle."

"You must have papers of some kind," observed Nan.

"Yes," the woman assented. "They're in that bottom drawer there, if
you'll trouble to get them for me."

Nan opened the drawer indicated and took from it a packet of papers. The
documents bore marks of frequent folding and unfolding.

"May I look at them?" Nan asked, as she brought them to the bedside.

"Surely," was the ready answer. "And if one of you will just hand me my
specs, I'll look over them with you and tell you all about them."

The three girls bent eagerly over Mrs. Bragley as she opened one paper
after the other, prospectuses, several of them, highly colored
illustrated leaflets and descriptive circulars. Then came a certificate
for forty shares in the Sunny Slopes Development Company. The only
individual name on any of the papers seemed to be that of Jacob Pacomb,
who, it appeared, was the manager and the developer of the tract.

"It's extremely strange that no answer ever came to any of your
letters," remarked Rhoda, as she scanned the documents. "Did any of the
letters ever come back?"

"Not one," was the reply.

"Perhaps the man did not receive them," conjectured Nan.

"In that case," Mrs. Bragley replied, "the letters would have been
returned to me, as I put my name and address on the outside."

"This man, Pacomb," suggested Bess, "may have died and all of the
letters may have been destroyed."

"That wouldn't be very likely," objected Nan. "Some one would probably
have settled up the business or taken it over and kept on with it. In
either case, the letters would almost surely have been answered."

"I have thought of all that," the w