e rest of the
housekeeping to her daughters Bertha and Sue; the management of the Inn
to Tom and Tim. "Silent as an owl. Seems to like his food--nothing
strange about that. He doesn't act sick, exactly, but tired, or bored,
or used up, somehow. Eyes like coals and sharper than a ferret's. I
can't make him out. He won't talk to anybody, except now and then a word
or two to Mr. Griffith. Never looks at the ladies, but I tell you they
look at him. Every one of 'em has a different notion about him. Anyhow,
he's taken the bridal suit for two weeks. Goes down to the post-office
for his mail--gave particular orders not to have it sent up here. That's
kind of funny, isn't it? Oh, I meant to tell you before: he's paid for
his rooms a week in advance."

"It helps a little," said his sister Bertha. She was twenty-five years
old, and if any one of this family had the responsibility of the success
of Boswell's Inn heavily and anxiously at heart, it was Bertha. "But it
can't make up the difference. Here's July half over, and not a dozen
people in the house. What can be the matter? Isn't everything all
right?"

"Sure it's all right," insisted Tom. "We just haven't got known,
that's all."

"But how are we going to get known, if nobody comes? Our advertisement
in the city papers costs dreadfully, and it doesn't seem to bring
anybody."

"Now see here," said Tom firmly, "don't you go to getting discouraged.
This is our first season. We can't expect to do much the first season.
We're prepared for that."

But he realized, quite as clearly as his sister, that they had not been
prepared for so complete a failure as they were making. Boswell's Inn
stood only sixteen miles away from a large city, a great Western
railroad centre, into which, early and late, thousands of tourists were
pouring. The road out into the mountains was a good one, the trip easy
enough for the owners of motor cars, of whom the city held enough to
make a continuous procession all the way if only they could be headed in
the right direction. But how to head them? That was what Tom couldn't
figure out.

On the third evening after Mr. Perkins's arrival, Tom, strolling
gloomily out upon the porch to see if any one was lingering there to
prevent his closing up, discovered Perkins sitting alone, smoking. There
had not been a new arrival that day; worse, one of the elderly ladies
had gone away. She had departed reluctantly, but her absence counted
just the same, and Tom