d shrewdly.

"I cannot tell you exactly what you are to do for me, Loretta. The
gentleman whom you are to meet to-morrow morning will give you all the
details." Anita Lawton approached the girl and laid her hand on her
shoulder. "I can surely trust you? You will not fail me?"

The quick tears sprang to the Irish girl's eyes, and for a moment
softened their rather hard brilliance.

"You know that you can trust me, Miss Lawton! I'd do anything in the
world for you!"

Anita Lawton held a similar conversation with each of the three girls,
with a like result. To Fifine Dechaussee, a tall, refined girl, with
the colorless, devout face of a religieuse, the probability of
entering a minister's home, as governess for his children, was most
welcome. The young French girl, homesick and alone in a strange land,
had found in Anita Lawton her one friend, and her gratitude for this
first opportunity given her, seemed overwhelming. Margaret Hefferman
rejoiced at the possible opportunity of becoming a stenographer to the
great promoter, Mr. Rockamore; and demure, fair-haired little Agnes
Olson was equally pleased with the prospect of operating a switchboard
in the office of Timothy Carlis, the politician.

Meantime, back in his office, Henry Blaine was receiving the personal
report of Guy Morrow.

"The old man seems to be strictly on the level," he was saying. "He
attends to his own affairs and seems to be running a legitimate
business in his little shop, where he prints and sells maps. I went
there, of course, to look it over, but I couldn't see anything crooked
about it. However, when I left, I took a wax impression of the lock,
in case you wanted me to have a key made and institute a more thorough
investigation, at a time when I would not be disturbed."

"That's good, Morrow. We may need to do that later. At present I want
you merely to keep an eye on them, and note who their visitors are.
You've been talking with the girl you say--the daughter?"

"Yes, sir--" The young man paused in sudden confusion. "She's a very
quiet, respectable, proud sort of young woman, Mr. Blaine--not at all
the kind you would expect to find the daughter of an old crook like
Jimmy Brunell. And by the way, here's a funny coincidence! She's a
protegee of Miss Lawton's, employed in some philanthropic home or
club, as she calls it, which Pennington Lawton's daughter runs."

"By Jove!" Blaine exclaimed, "I might have known it! I thought there
was somet