oing to freeze my
stomach and then thaw it out like a drain pipe. Tell Heppie to put my
ice-cream on the stove."

So we waited until Miss Letitia's had been heated, and was brought in,
sicklied over with pale hues, not of thought, but of confectioners'
dyes. Miss Letitia ate it resignedly. "Like as not I'll break out, I
did the last time," she said gloomily. "I only hope I don't break out in
colors."

The meal was over finally, but if I had hoped for another word alone
with Margery Fleming that evening, I was foredoomed to disappointment.
Letitia sent the girl, not ungently, to bed, and ordered Jane out of the
room with a single curt gesture toward the door.

"You'd better wash those cups yourself, Jane," she said. "I don't see
any sense anyhow in getting out the best china unless there's real
company. Besides, I'm going to talk business."

Poor, meek, spiritless Miss Jane! The situation was absurd in spite of
its pathos. She confided to me once that never in her sixty-five years
of life had she bought herself a gown, or chosen the dinner. She was
snubbed with painstaking perseverance, and sent out of the room when
subjects requiring frank handling were under discussion. She was as
unsophisticated as a child of ten, as unworldly as a baby, as--well,
poor Miss Jane, again.

When the door had closed behind her, Miss Letitia listened for a moment,
got up suddenly and crossing the room with amazing swiftness for her
years, pounced on the knob and threw it open again. But the passage was
empty; Miss Jane's slim little figure was disappearing into the kitchen.
The older sister watched her out of sight, and then returned to her sofa
without deigning explanation.

"I didn't want to see you about the will, Mr. Knox," she began without
prelude. "The will can wait. I ain't going to die just yet--not if I
know anything. But although I think you'd look a heap better and more
responsible if you wore some hair on your face, still in most things I
think you're a man of sense. And you're not too young. That's why I
didn't send for Harry Wardrop; he's too young."

I winced at that. Miss Letitia leaned forward and put her bony hand on
my knee.

"I've been robbed," she announced in a half whisper, and straightened to
watch the effect of her words.

"Indeed!" I said, properly thunderstruck. I _was_ surprised. I had
always believed that only the use of the fourth dimension in space would
enable any one, not desired, to gain acces