t was likely, from the
knowledge of most of the servants.

Mrs. Olstrom, of course, knew about the old lady--who she was--what she
was. It was the housekeeper who looked after the simple wants of the
mysterious occupant of the Starkweather mansion.

Helen wondered if Mr. Lawdor, the old butler, knew about the mystery? And
did the Starkweathers themselves know?

The girl from the ranch was too excited and curious to go to sleep now.
She had to remain right by her door, opened on a crack, and learn what
would happen next.

For an hour at least she heard the steady stepping of the old lady. Then
the crutch rapped out an accompaniment to her coming upstairs. She was
humming softly to herself, too. Helen, crouched behind the door,
distinguished the sweet, cracked voice humming a fragment of the old
lullaby:

"Rock-a-by, baby, on the tree-top,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
Down will come baby----"

Thus humming, and the crutch tapping--a mere whisper of sound--the old
lady rustled by Helen's door, on into the long corridor, and disappeared
through some door, which closed behind her and smothered all further
sound.

Helen went to bed; but she could not sleep--not at first. The mystery of
the little old lady and her ghostly walk kept her eyes wide open and her
brain afire for hours.

She asked question after question into the dark of the night, and only
imagination answered. Some of the answers were fairly reasonable; others
were as impossible as the story of Jack the Giant Killer.

Finally, however, Helen dropped asleep. She awoke at her usual
hour--daybreak--and her eager mind began again asking questions about the
mystery. She went down in her outdoor clothes for a morning walk, with the
little old lady uppermost in her thoughts.

As usual, Mr. Lawdor was on the lookout for her. The shaky old man loved
to have her that few minutes in his room in the early morning. Although he
always presided over the dinner, with Gregson under him, the old butler
seldom seemed to speak, or be spoken to. Helen understood that, like Mrs.
Olstrom, Lawdor was a relic of the late owner--Mr. Starkweather's
great-uncle's--household.

Cornelius Starkweather had been a bachelor. The mansion had descended to
him from a member of the family who had been a family man. But that family
had died young--wife and all--and the maste