o go back to the school without one.

"Just wait till Monday, and we'll do wonders; see if we don't," said Jean,
as she bade her farewell, little dreaming what wonders she was destined to
do with her magical box ere the sun set Monday night.

"I'll ask Miss Preston to let me come over at four o'clock on Monday, and
then we'll go out in the little dell and get a lovely picture. You know
the place I mean: where that old clump of fir-trees stands by the ruined
wall," said artistic Helen.

But when Monday arrived unforeseen difficulties arose for Jean. The day
was the sunniest ever known, and, while waiting for Helen to come, she got
out the precious camera to set the plates.

"Why, mamma, there isn't a dark closet in the whole house; not a single
one," cried Jean, coming into her mother's room as she was dressing to go
out on Monday afternoon. "Now, where in this world am I to open my
plate-box, I'd like to know?"

Mrs. Rockwood laughed as she turned toward Jean, whose face was the
picture of dismay. "True enough, there isn't. Now, who would have supposed
that the architect who designed this house, and put a window in every
closet, could have been so short-sighted as not to anticipate such a need
as the present one?"

"But what am I to do?" desperately.

"Try putting a dark covering over the windows."

"I have, but it's just no use, for I can't get it pitch dark to save me."

"And to think that barely forty-eight hours ago I was congratulating
myself that every closet in the house could be properly aired. Alas! how
do our recent acquisitions alter our views?"

"Now, moddie, don't laugh, but stop teasing me, and just think as hard as
ever you can _how_ I am to find a dark place."

Mrs. Rockwood thought for a few moments, and then said:

"I have it! Mary's pot-closet, under the back stairs; that is as dark as a
pocket, I'm sure."

"There! I knew you'd find a way; you always do. Just the very place, and
now I'm going straight down to fix it. Good-bye," and, kissing her mother,
away she flew.

CHAPTER XXIII

A CAMERA'S CAPERS.

"Mary!" cried Jean, as she bounced into the kitchen, where the maid, a
typical "child of Erin," who worshipped the very ground Jean trod upon,
stood at the sink paring her "taties" for the evening meal, "see my new
camera; I'm going to take a picture with it, and I've got to go into your
pot-closet to fix the plates."

"A picter, is it? And will ye be afther takin' a picter