ed a starving castaway?"

Yet she didn't really tell us anything. She ate and ate, and it was the
prettiest thing to see her. She was dainty and young and eager like a
child at a party.

"How good everything is!" she said, at last with a sigh. "I don't think
I was ever so hungry in my life."

Billy and I didn't eat much. You see we were too interested, and
besides we had had our dinner.

As I have said, she didn't really tell us anything. "It was an accident,
and I came up here. And the old clock that you heard strike belonged to
my grandfather. He was an admiral, and it was his clock. I used to
listen to it as a child."

"What happened to the rest--?" Billy asked, bluntly. He was more
concerned about the automobile accident than about her ancestors.

"Oh, do you mean the others in the car?" she came reluctantly back from
the admiral and his ship's clock. "I am sure I don't know. And I am very
sure that I don't care."

"But were any of them killed?"

"No--they are all alive--but you see--it was a shipwreck--and I floated
away--by myself--and this is my island, and you are the nice friendly
savages--" she touched Billy on the arm. He drew away a bit. I knew that
he was afraid she had lost her mind, but I had seen her twinkling eyes.
"Oh, it's all a joke!" I said.

She shook her head. "It isn't exactly a joke, but it might look like
that to other people."

"Are you going to stay?"

"Yes."

"I'll come up in the morning for orders," said Billy promptly. "I keep
the grocery store at Jefferson Corners."

"Oh," she said, and seemed to hesitate; "there won't be any orders."

Billy stared at her. "But there isn't any other store."

"Robinson Crusoe didn't have stores, did he? He found things and lived
on the land. And I am Lady Crusoe."

"Really?" I asked her.

"I've another name--but--if people around here question you--you won't
tell them, will you, that I am here--?"

She said it in such a pretty pleading fashion that of course we
promised. It was late when we had to go. I insisted that we should leave
what remained of the supper, and she seemed glad to get it. "You are
nice friendly savages," she said, with that twinkle in her eyes, "and I
am very grateful. Come into the house and let me show you my clock--"

She showed us more than the clock. I hadn't dreamed in those days when
Billy and I sat alone on the steps of the treasures that were shut up
behind us. The old furniture was dusty, but all the d