o make her laugh a gay
one.

"I won't--not any more so than I can help. I think it will do me good to
let you share the mystery with me."

"Then it is a mystery?" asked Ruth.

"Somewhat, yes. You may think it strange, but I can not think back more
than three years--four at the most. I am not at all certain of the time.
But go back as far as I can, all I remember is that I was on a large
steamer."

"On the ocean?" asked Alice.

"No, on the Great Lakes. I was going to Cleveland, which I learned when
I asked one of the officers."

"And didn't you know where you were going before you asked?" Ruth
questioned.

"I hadn't the least idea, my dear. I might just as well have been going
to Europe. In fact, when I first looked out and saw the water, I thought
I was on the ocean."

"But where did you come from, what were you doing there, where were your
people?" cried Ruth.

"That's it, my dear. Where were they? I didn't know. No one knew. All I
could grasp was the fact that I was there on the boat."

"Alone?"

"Yes, all alone."

"But who bought your ticket--who engaged your stateroom?" questioned
Ruth.

"That is the queer part of it. I did it myself. When I first became
conscious that I was in a strange place I was so shocked that I wanted
to scream--to cry out--to ask all sorts of questions. Then I realized if
I did that I might be taken for an insane person and be locked up. So I
just shut myself in my stateroom and did some thinking.

"The first thing I wanted to know was how I got on the steamer, but how
to find that out without asking questions that the steamship people
would think peculiar, was a puzzle to me. Finally, I decided to pretend
to want to change my room, and when I went to the purser I asked him if
that was the only room to be had.

"'Why no, Miss,' he said, 'but when you came on board and I told you
what rooms I had, you insisted on taking that one.' That was enough for
me. I realized then that I had come on board alone, and of my own
volition, though I had not any recollection of having done so, and I
knew no more of where I came from than you do now."

"How very strange!" murmured Alice. "And what did you do?"

"Well, I pretended that I had been tired and had not made a wise choice
of a room, and asked the purser to give me another.

"'I thought, when you picked it out, you wouldn't like that one,' he
said to me, 'but you looked like a young lady who was used to having her
own way, so