and threaten to throw it all out of doors."

Tangles of wild morning glories crept cautiously over the steps at the
studio, where now the absence of human traffic was beginning to show in
that vague, venturesome way vegetation has of creeping in where mortals
have deserted. The grass grew so much higher on the lawn, the flowers
were having such a joyous time spreading all over and blooming as they
chose, while the trumpet vine had actually climbed down from its arch
with the ramblers, and was shamelessly romping all over the fern patch,
fairly strangling the wild maidenhairs in its reckless ramblings.

"Where shall we begin?" Cleo asked as the girls tramped into the long,
quiet hall. "Isn't it cave-like to come into an empty house? Oh, I
know; see the hall clock has stopped ticking, and when a tick goes out
it seems to leave a smoke of silence," she finished. "There, don't you
think I have an imaginative brain?"

"I'd call it a loony brain," replied Grace. "Talking about the smoke
of silence! Sounds like a new name for a cigarette!" and they all
enjoyed a good laugh at the comparison.

"At any rate," decided Cleo, "it is always more quiet after a clock
stops than it is in any other room where no clock ever ticked. So
there!"

"Let's wind the clock, start it up, and stop the argument," proposed
practical Grace. "Tell me how many winds, Mary!" She had climbed on a
wooden chair, had the door of the big clock open, and was examining the
queer mechanism.

"I don't know a thing about the clock," Mary admitted. "Grandie always
attended to it, but I suppose you just turn the key until it feels hard
to turn. I have always heard a clock must not be wound too tight----"

At the side of the grandfather's antique time-piece a long door opened,
Grace discovered, and being interested in the odd piece of furniture,
she swung this out. As she did so a package rolled out on the floor.

"Something stored away here, I suppose," said Grace. "Shall I replace
it, Mary?" picking up the newspaper package and holding it out to Mary.

"Let me see it?" Mary asked.

It was a long, slim package, wrapped in a faded and yellow newspaper.
Unfolding the wrappings, nothing but a piece of bamboo-like cane, about
as large as a flute, was revealed.

"That's queer," Mary commented. "I wonder what good that old piece of
stick is?" She held it up and saw that the ends were sealed.

"Something is bottled up in that," declared Cleo.