out about it."

"Harriet, do please give up this foolish plan!" Ruth entreated earnestly.
"I know you are doing something wrong. Mrs. Wilson and Mr. Dillon both
know that Uncle William's papers are too valuable to be played with. Why,
they belong to the United States Government, not to him! Harriet, I
implore you, do not touch your father's papers!"

Harriet shook her head obstinately. She was absolutely adamant. Ruth
pleaded, scolded, in vain. Bab did not say a word nor enter a protest.
She was too frightened. All of a sudden a veil had been rent asunder. Now
she believed she understood what Peter Dillon and Mrs. Wilson had planned
from the beginning. They were spies in the service of some higher power.
The papers that Harriet thought were to be used for a joke on her father
were really to be sold! Was not some state secret to be betrayed? Ever
since Bab's arrival in Washington it had looked as though Peter Dillon
and Mrs. Wilson had been working toward this very end. Having failed with
her they had turned their attention to poor Harriet. But Mrs. Wilson and
Peter Dillon must be only hired tools! Shrewdly Barbara Thurston recalled
her recent conversation with innocent Wee Tu: "Mr. Dillon and my father,
they have Chinese secrets together." Could a certain distinguished and
wisely silent Oriental gentleman be responsible for the thrilling drama
about to be enacted? Bab was never to know positively, and she wisely
kept her suspicion to herself.

"I do wish, Ruth, you and Bab would go away and leave me alone," Harriet
protested. "I shall be well enough to get up for luncheon, if you will
let me take a nap. I don't see any harm in playing this joke on Father.
At any rate, I have quite made up my mind to go through with my part in
it and I won't give up my plan. You can tell Father if you choose, of
course. I cannot prevent that. I know I was foolish to have confided in
you. But, unless you are despicable tale bearers, the papers in my bureau
drawer will go out of this house in a few hours! I don't see any harm in
their disappearing for a little while. Father will have them back in a
few days. Please go!"

Yet with all Harriet's air of bravado, however, there was one point in
her story which she did not mention. In return for her delivery of
certain of her father's state papers Mrs. Wilson and Peter Dillon had
promised to advance to Harriet the five hundred dollars necessary to pay
her dressmaker. Harriet had agreed only