know," was Celia's answer.

"It seems like the irony of fate," she told herself, "to have to sell it
almost before it is really mine; and yet when two hundred dollars lie
within my reach, I can't refuse to take them. Poor old spinet, it is too
bad to send you away. I shouldn't do it if I could help it; but you don't
fit in with these times. Or rather, you are helping me out; that is the
way to look at it."

So it was that the spinet did not long keep company with the portrait of
Saint Cecilia, its original owner, but was harked away to the shop of the
magician and the society of the clock case and the claw-footed sofa.

Here Allan Whittredge saw and recognized it one day, and questioned
Morgan. Allan remembered the prim little sitting room, and how Celia had
looked forward to owning the spinet, and it troubled him to think she was
compelled to part with it. When he left the shop he went over to Miss
Betty's.

After talking for a while about other things, he asked, "Betty, is it true
that Dr. Fair left his family with very little?"

"True? Of course it is. Have you just found that out? Celia is working her
fingers to the bone, and I wish I were sure those boys are worth it," was
her reply.

"How did it happen?"

"Well, I don't think Dr. Fair had the best judgment in the world when it
came to investments; at the same time, a lot of other people lost in the
West View coal mines. His death was a great shock; I loved Dr. Fair."

"I too," said Allan. "He was a good man."

"I don't know whether you know it, Allan. Perhaps I ought not to tell you;
but there was some talk of Dr. Fair's treatment having done your father
harm. I really believe your mother was out of her mind with anxiety, and
you know she disliked the doctor. He was dismissed, you remember; and this
was whispered about and exaggerated until I think it almost broke his
heart. Of course there was no truth in it--that was made clear in the
end--and his death put a stop to the talk, for everybody loved and
respected Dr. Fair; but it has been terribly hard on Celia."

Allan sat looking at Miss Betty absently. "Terribly hard on Celia,"--the
words repeated themselves over and over in his mind.

"This is the first I ever heard of it," he said at length.

Miss Betty watched him as he walked away. "As usual I have been minding
some one else's business," she said to herself; "but he ought to know it.
Allan is a fine fellow."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.

UND