't feel that I require any further information," said father.
"You see, I happen to be fairly well acquainted with Mr. Pryor."

"Pryor?"

"He made us use that name here," explained the Princess.

"WELL, HIS NAME IS PAGET!" said Robert angrily.

Laddie told me long ago he didn't believe it was Pryor.

"Then, if you are acquainted with my father, what would you counsel?
Unless I'm prepahed to furnish the central figyah of interest in a
funeral, I dare not meet him, until he has seen this evidence, had time
to digest it, and calm himself."

Shelley caught him by the arm. No wonder! She hadn't been proposed
to, or even had a kiss on her lips. She pulled him.

"You come straight to the house," she said. "Thomas may tell your
father he thought he saw you."

That was about as serious as anything could be, but nothing ever
stopped Leon. He sidled away from father, repeating in a low voice:

"'For sore dismayed, through storm and shade
His child he did discover;
One lovely hand she stretched for aid,
And one was round her lover--'"

Shelley just looked daggers at him, but she was too anxious to waste
any time.

"Would Thomas tell your father?" she asked the Princess.

"The instant he saw him alone, yes. He wouldn't before mother."

"Hold one minute!" cried father. "We must think of our mother, just a
little. Shelley, you and the girls run up and explain how this is.
Better all of you go to the house, except Mr. Paget. He'll be safe
here as anywhere. Mr. Pryor will stop there, if he comes. So it would
be best for you to keep out of sight, Robert, until I have had a little
talk with him."

"I'll stay here," I offered. "We'll talk until you get Mr. Pryor
cooled off. He can be awful ragesome when he's excited, and it doesn't
take much to start him."

"You're right about that!" agreed Robert.

So we sat under the greening and were having a fine visit while the
others went to break the news gently to mother that the Pryor mystery
had gone up higher than Gilderoy's kite. My! but she'd be glad! It
would save her many a powerful prayer. I was telling Robert all about
the time his father visited us, and what my mother said to him, and he
said: "She'd be the one to talk with him now. Possibly he'd listen to
her, until he got it through his head that his own son is not a common
thief."

"Maybe he'll have to be held, like taking quinine, and made to listen,"
I said.

"That would be eas