r two weeks, then Mr. Nesbitt was called
East on business and said I might go home if I liked. Imagine my
ecstasy. I found the family, as well as all Methodists in general,
quite uplifted over the strange case of Kirke Connor. From a
semi-satanic, he had suddenly evoluted into a regular pillar, as became
the son of his saintly mother and his orthodox father. He attended
church, he sang in the choir, he went to Sunday-school, he was
prominent at prayer-meeting. Every one was full of pious satisfaction
and called him 'dear old Kirke,' and gave him the glad hand and invited
him to help at ice-cream socials. No one could explain it, they
thought he was a Mount Mark edition of Twice Born Men in the flesh.

"So the first afternoon when he drove around with his speedy little
brown horse and his rubber tired buggy and asked me to go for a drive,
father smiled, and Aunt Grace demurred not. Maybe I could give him a
little more light. I watched him pretty closely the first mile or so.
He had nothing to say until we were a mile out of town. He is a
good-looking fellow, Carol,--you remember, of course, because you never
forget the boys, especially the good-looking ones. His eyes were clear
and slightly humorous, as if he knew a host of funny things if he only
chose to tell. Finally in answer to my reproachful gaze, he said:

"'Well, I didn't have anything to say about it, did I? I did not ask
to be born a minister's son. It was foreordained, and now I've got to
live up to it in self-defense. There may be forgiveness for other
erring ones, but I tell you our crowd is spotted.'

"I had nothing to say.

"'Well, you might at least say, "Good for you, my boy. Here's luck?"'
he complained.

"I was still silent.

"'It is good business, too,' he continued belligerently. 'I am selling
lots of furniture. I have burned the black and white cards. I have
broken the ice-cold bottles. I have shunned the gilded youths with
mellow voices. I go to church. I sell furniture. I sleuth Matters.'

"'You what?'

"'I am trailing Matters. Turn about. Where he goeth, I goeth. Where
he lodgeth, I lodgeth. His knowledge is my knowledge, and his tricks,
my salvation.'

"'You make me sick, Kirke. Why don't you talk sense?'

"'He is crooked, Connie, and everybody knows it. But it is no cinch
catching him at it. Smithson is going to be elected and Matters knows
it. But the only way I can keep out of that trial is to get som