stayed THIS long, I'm goin'
to wait and see what they got to eat. And you look here!" He turned upon
her angrily. "Don't you ever do that again!"

"Do what?"

"Send somebody after me that pokes his nose into every corner of the
house till he finds me! 'Are you Mr. Walter Adams?' he says. I guess he
must asked everybody in the place if they were Mr. Walter Adams! Well,
I'll bet a few iron men you wouldn't send anybody to hunt for me again
if you knew where he found me!"

"Where was it?"

Walter decided that her fit punishment was to know. "I was shootin' dice
with those coons in the cloak-room."

"And he saw you?"

"Unless he was blind!" said Walter. "Come on, I'll dance this one more
dance with you. Supper comes after that, and THEN we'll go home."

Mrs. Adams heard Alice's key turning in the front door and hurried down
the stairs to meet her.

"Did you get wet coming in, darling?" she asked. "Did you have a good
time?"

"Just lovely!" Alice said, cheerily, and after she had arranged the
latch for Walter, who had gone to return the little car, she followed
her mother upstairs and hummed a dance-tune on the way.

"Oh, I'm so glad you had a nice time," Mrs. Adams said, as they reached
the door of her daughter's room together. "You DESERVED to, and it's
lovely to think----"

But at this, without warning, Alice threw herself into her mother's
arms, sobbing so loudly that in his room, close by, her father, half
drowsing through the night, started to full wakefulness.

CHAPTER IX

On a morning, a week after this collapse of festal hopes, Mrs. Adams
and her daughter were concluding a three-days' disturbance, the "Spring
house-cleaning"--postponed until now by Adams's long illness--and Alice,
on her knees before a chest of drawers, in her mother's room, paused
thoughtfully after dusting a packet of letters wrapped in worn muslin.
She called to her mother, who was scrubbing the floor of the hallway
just beyond the open door,

"These old letters you had in the bottom drawer, weren't they some papa
wrote you before you were married?"

Mrs. Adams laughed and said, "Yes. Just put 'em back where they were--or
else up in the attic--anywhere you want to."

"Do you mind if I read one, mama?"

Mrs. Adams laughed again. "Oh, I guess you can if you want to. I expect
they're pretty funny!"

Alice laughed in response, and chose the topmost letter of the packet.
"My dear, beautiful girl," it began; and she stare