ing out of the room.

She was gone for some time. When she came back again she bore in her
arms a bundle, large, knobby and misshapen. It was wrapped in
newspapers which had cracked away here and there over the end of a rib;
but it was enclosed in a network of strings that crossed and
crisscrossed like a hammock.

"I thought you might just as well take it right along with you," she
said. "You can send me the money in a letter, if it's all right, but
land knows when you will be here again, and I hain't got anybody to
send it by."

Phebe looked appalled. In a long experience of bicycling, she had scorned
a carrier, and she stood firmly opposed to the idea of converting her
wheel into a luggage van.

"I can't carry that," she said.

"Yes, you can. Just string it over your forepiece and it will go all
right. It ain't heavy for anything so bulky. I'll help you tie it on."
And she prepared to execute her offer.

"Oh, don't! At least, I'm much obliged; but--Oh, dear, if I must take
it, I suppose I must; but I think I'd better tie it on, myself."

"Just as you like. You'd better hurry up a little, though, for I
shouldn't wonder if it rained before sundown."

"Rain? Then I can't take this thing." Phebe paused, with the string
half tied.

"Oh, I'll risk it. Besides if you don't take it, there's a man in
Greenway that will."

Phebe looked at her hostess, shut her teeth, jerked the knot tight, and
was silent; but there was a dangerous gleam in her eyes, as she mounted
and rode away, with her three-dollar skeleton clattering on the
handle-bars before her.

CHAPTER EIGHT

There is a certain inconvenience coupled with being called upon to pose
as a genius at the comparatively early age of twenty-six. Popular theory
to the contrary, notwithstanding, it is easier to plod slowly along on
the path to fame. Greatness does not repeat itself, every day in the
week. But fate had overtaken Gifford Barrett, and had hung a wreath of
tender young laurels about his boyish brow. He deserved the wreath, if
ever a boy did. Two years before, fresh from the inspiration of his years
in Germany and of his German master, he had composed his _Alan Breck
Overture_. It would have been well done, even for a man many years his
senior, and it quickly won a place on the programmes of the leading
orchestra's of the country. He had known what it was to be called out
from his box at the Auditorium or Carnegie Hall to bow to the audience,
wh