ousness.

Was it not strange and terrible to take up the thread of one's life
where it had been so ruthlessly snapped off some two decades ago?

Richard and Billie, seated on a rock out of hearing distance of the
cabin, discussed the anomaly together.

"It's like Rip Van Winkle," Billie observed, "only worse because there
have been so many inventions."

"Yes, there are motor cars, for instance. They were only on trial then;
and flying machines."

"And hobble skirts," added Billie with an inward laugh, remembering
Nancy's.

"It's very interesting," said Richard, "a good deal like missing the
middle act of a drama."

"Don't you imagine that Phoebe's father belonged to a noble family?
Perhaps he was a younger son, and fell in love with a pretty English
girl named Phoebe Jones. They eloped to America and hid themselves in
the mountains, and the old Archduke or Prince or Baron who was the
father perhaps gave it out that his son was insane. They always do that,
you know."

"Very romantic," said Richard, "but why has he been speaking only
English all these years?"

"Don't ask me anything so scientific, please."

"It would go hard with me," pursued Richard, "if I got a blow on the
head over my English-language bump, because I wouldn't have any other to
take its place."

Having arranged the history of the sick man to their own satisfaction,
and as a matter of fact, to the doctor's and Mr. Campbell's also, they
returned to Sunrise Camp, leaving Alberdina and Phoebe behind them.

Poor Phoebe had watched Billie and Richard together from the doorstep of
the cabin. Then she had folded her hands with a gesture of resignation
and closed her eyes. Something had hurt her. She still felt the pain and
not all her faith nor prayers could ease it.

That night the campers gathered around the fire and discussed the
mystery of the "Prince in Exile," as they had named Phoebe's father.
They told stories of similar cases, of men with double identities who
had been lost for years, of men who had made new lives for themselves
and even earned fortunes.

"I knew he was a prince the first time I saw him," Mary exclaimed.

"And now Phoebe will be a princess and perhaps very rich," observed
Elinor.

"Think of stepping from a cabin to a palace," went on Amy Swinnerton.
"From being a barefooted girl selling blackberries on the mountain to
being a noble lady with a retinue of servants."

And so they all talked and discussed and enjoye