legal guardian, and he could make her work for him until she was
twenty-one. He's an old miser, and as mean as he can be. But once she is
out of that state, he can't touch her, and Mr. Jamieson has had Miss
Eleanor appointed her guardian, and mine too, for that state. The state
where Miss Eleanor and all of us live, I mean."

"Well, Mr. Holmes is trying to get hold of you, too, isn't he?"

"Yes, he is. You ought to know, Dolly, after the way he tried to get us
both to go off with him in his automobile that day, and the way he set
those gypsies on to kidnapping us. And that's the strangest thing of
all."

"Perhaps he wants to know something about Zara, and thinks you can tell
him, or perhaps he's afraid you'll tell someone else something he
doesn't want them to know."

"Yes, it may be that. But that lawyer of his, Isaac Brack, who is so
mean and crooked that no one in the city will have anything to do with
him except the criminals, Mr. Jamieson says, told me once that unless I
went with him I'd never find out the truth about my father and mother
and what became of them."

"Oh, Bessie, how exciting! You never told me that before. Have you told
Mr. Jamieson?"

"Yes, and he just looked at me queerly, and said nothing more about it."

"Bessie, do you know what I think?"

"No. I'm not a mind reader, Dolly!"

"Well, I believe Mr. Jamieson knows more than he has told you yet, or
that he guesses something, anyway. And he won't tell you what it is
because he's afraid he may be wrong, and doesn't want to raise your
hopes unless he's sure that you won't be disappointed."

"I think that would be just like him, Dolly. He's been awfully good to
me. I suppose it's because he thinks it will please Miss Eleanor, and he
knows that she likes us, and wants to do things for us."

"Oh, I know he likes you, too, Bessie. He certainly ought to, after the
way you brought him help back there in Hamilton, when we were there for
the trial of those gypsies who kidnapped us. If it hadn't been for you,
there's no telling what that thief might have done to him."

"Oh, anyone would have done the same thing, Dolly. It was for my sake
that he was in trouble, and when I had a chance to help him, it was
certainly the least that I could do. Don't you think so?"

"Well, maybe that's so, but there aren't many girls who would have known
how to do what you did or who would have had the pluck to do it, even
if they did. I'm quite sure I wouldn't, an