stead.

"That's easy," answered Dick, not without evident feeling. "It's whatever
Mr. Perkins happens to be doing, or trying to do. He fixes it for the rest
of us."

"I think," suggested Dorothy, after a momentary silence, "that the Ideal
consists in minding your own business and gently, but firmly, assisting
others to mind theirs."

All unknowingly, Dorothy had expressed the dominant idea of the dead
master of the house. She fancied that the pictured face over the mantel
was about to smile at her. Dorothy and Uncle Ebeneezer understood each
other now, and she no longer wished to have the portrait moved.

Before they separated for the night, Dick told them all about the midnight
gathering in the orchard, which he had witnessed from afar, and which the
others enjoyed beyond his expectations.

"That's what uncle meant," said Elaine, "by 'fixing a surprise for
relations.'" "I don't blame him," observed Harlan, "not a blooming bit. I
wish the poor old duck could have been here to see it. Why wasn't I in on
it?" he demanded of Dick, somewhat resentfully. "When anything like that
was going on, why didn't you take me in?"

"It wasn't for me to interfere with his doings," protested Dick, "but I do
wish you could have seen Uncle Israel."

At the recollection he went off into a spasm of merriment which bid fair
to prove fatal. The rest laughed with him, not knowing just what it was
about, such was the infectious quality of Dick's mirth.

"They've all gone," laughed Elaine, happily, taking her bedroom candle
from Dorothy's hand, "they've all gone, every single one, and now we're
going to have some good times."

Dick watched her as she went upstairs, the candlelight shining tenderly
upon her sweet face, and thus betrayed himself to Dorothy, who had
suspected for some time that he loved Elaine.

"Oh Lord!" grumbled Dick to himself, when he was safely in his own room.
"Everybody knows it now, except her. I'll bet even Sis Smithers and the
cat are dead next to me. I might as well tell her to-morrow as any time,
the result will be just the same. Better do it and have it over with. The
cat'll tell her if nobody else does."

But that night, strangely enough, Claudius Tiberius disappeared, to be
seen or heard of no more.

XX

The Love of Another Elaine

When Dick and Harlan ventured up to the sanitarium, they were confronted
by the astonishing fact that Uncle Israel was, indeed, ill. Later
developements proved th