rds.

Professor Marshall walked home in silence with his two daughters,
explained the matter to his wife, and said that he and Sylvia would
go with Judith on her uncomfortable errand. Mrs. Marshall listened
in silence and went herself to get the little bank stuffed full of
painfully earned pennies and nickels. Then she bade them into the
kitchen and gave Judith and Sylvia each a cookie and a glass of milk.

She made no comment whatever on the story, or on her husband's
sentence for the culprit, but just as the three, were going out of the
door, she ran after them, caught Judith in her arms, and gave her a
passionate kiss.

* * * * *

The next day was Saturday, and it was suggested that Judith and Sylvia
carry on their campaign by going to see the Fingals and spending the
morning playing with them as though nothing had happened.

As they approached the house, somewhat perturbed by the prospect, they
saw with surprise that the windows were bare of the heavy yellow lace
curtains which had hung in the parlor, darkening that handsomely
furnished room to a rich twilight. They went up on the porch, and
Judith rang the bell resolutely, while Sylvia hung a little back of
her. From this position she could see into the parlor, and exclaimed,
"Why, Judy, this isn't the right house--nobody lives here!" The big
room was quite empty, the floors bare of the large soft rugs, and as
the children pressed their faces to the pane, they could see through
an open door into a bedroom also dismantled and deserted.

They ran around the house to the back door and knocked on it. There
was no answer. Judith turned the knob, the door opened, and they stood
in what had been unmistakably the Fingals' kitchen. Evidence of wild
haste and confusion was everywhere about them--the floor was littered
with excelsior, the shelves half cleared and half occupied still with
cooking supplies, a packing-box partly filled with kitchenware which
at the last moment the fugitives had evidently decided to abandon.

The little girls stood in this silent desolation, looking about them
with startled eyes. A lean mother-cat came and rubbed her thin,
pendent flanks against their legs, purring and whining. Three kittens
skirmished joyfully in the excelsior, waylaying one another in ambush
and springing out with bits of the yellow fibers clinging to their
woolly soft fur.

"They've _gone_!" breathed Sylvia. "They've gone away for good!"