a
vehement gesture.

"Would you be so cruel?" asked Walter.

"What else can you do with him?" demanded Belle. "He has certainly been
mean enough to warrant being sent to prison."

"'In a prison cell I sit!'" chanted Ed.

"Stop!" commanded Cora. "Nancy may be sleeping, and the doctor said it
was very important for her to sleep."

"Then we'd better clear out of here," was Norton's opinion. "She'll never
get any rest while this crowd holds forth. Come on, Eline, I'll take you
to a moving picture show."

"Not after what has happened to-day," declared Mrs. Chester. "You young
people have had your own way all day, and now I want you to quiet down.
Boys, you will have to go home soon. Girls, it's almost time you were in
bed."

"Aunt Susan is asserting herself," remarked Jack, _sotto voce_. "But don't
count on me, Aunt Susan. I am immune."

"You'll go with the rest," she told him.

They sat about for some time longer, discussing the strange tale related
by Nancy. Then came good-nights.

Cora went to see Mr. Haley, the light keeper, next day. She told him what
Nancy had related.

"Lobsters and crawfish!" he exclaimed, clapping together his brown hands.
"Begging your pardon, of course, for using that sort of language, miss,
but my feelings sure did get the best of me. And so this Nancy Ford can
clear my sister's name?"

"She can and she will. I have wired for mamma's lawyer to come down, and
he will arrange matters. There is only one difficulty."

"What is that?" and the keeper of the light looked worried. "You mean that
there is a possibility that my sister may even yet be guilty?"

"No; but where are we to find her?"

"That's so. Poor Margaret! Where can she be keeping herself? If she would
only come to me--or write, I could let her know that it was all right.
And so those men were the robbers, after all?"

"It seems so, from what Nancy says."

"Strange. I knew Margaret could not be guilty, but how to prove it was
the hard part. When can we arrange it?"

"As soon as we can find your sister."

"Oh, dear! And I haven't the least idea where to look for her."

"Don't worry," suggested Cora, gently. "We found our waif from the sea
most unexpectedly, and I am sure we will find your sister the same way."

"Not in a wreck, I hope," said the light keeper, with a smile. "We don't
want any more wrecks on this coast. Which reminds me that I must see to
the light."

"It was no fault of your light that this wrec