nd found G. G.'s mother alone, and said:

"Oh, my dear! If anybody ever finds out _you_ will catch it!"

G. G.'s mother knew there was a joke of some kind preparing at her
expense, but she couldn't help looking a little puzzled and anxious.

"It's bad enough to do what you have done," continued Cynthia; "but on
top of it to be going to lie up and down--that does seem a little too
awful!"

"What are you going to tell me?" cried G. G.'s mother. "I know you've
got some good news up your sleeve!"

"Gambler!" cried Cynthia--"cold-blooded, reckless Wall Street
speculator!" And the laughter that was pent up in her face burst its
bonds, accompanied by hugs and kisses.

"Now listen!" said Cynthia, as soon as she could. "On such and such a
day, you took five hundred dollars to a Wall Street broker named
Jarrocks Bell--you thought that conditions were right for turning into a
Bear. You went short of the market. You kept it up for weeks and months.
Do you know what you did? You pyramided on the way down!"

"Mercy!" exclaimed G. G.'s mother, her eyes shining with wonder and
excitement.

"First thing you knew," continued Cynthia, "you were worth four hundred
thousand dollars!"

G. G.'s mother gave a little scream, as if she had seen a mouse.

"And you invested it," went on Cynthia, relenting, "so that now you
stand to double your capital; and your annual income is between thirty
and forty thousand dollars!"

After this Cynthia really did some explaining, until G. G.'s mother
really understood what had really happened. It must be recorded that, at
first, she was completely flabbergasted.

"And you've gone and put it in my name!" she said. "But why?"

"Don't you see," said Cynthia, "that if I came offering money to G. G.
and G. G.'s father they wouldn't even sniff at it? But if you've got
it--why, they've just got to share with you. Isn't that so?"

"Y-e-e-s," admitted G. G.'s mother; "but, my dear, I can't take it.
Even if I could, they would want to know where I'd gotten it and I'd
have nothing to say."

"Not if you're the one woman in a million that I think you are," said
Cynthia. "Tell me, isn't your husband at his wit's end to think how to
meet the bills for his illness and all and all? And wouldn't you raise
your finger to bring all his miserable worries to an end? Just look at
the matter from a business point of view! You must tell your husband and
G. G. that what has really happened to me happened to you; that