lt?"
she said, gravely. "I wonder whose fault it really is!"

And with that she went hurriedly into William's room and made a brief
inspection of his clothes-closet and dressing-table. Then, as Jane
watched her in awed silence, she strode to the window, and called,
loudly:

"Genesis!"

"Yes'm?" came the voice from below.

"Go to that lumber-yard where Mr. William is at work and bring him
here to me at once. If he declines to come, tell him--" Her voice broke
oddly; she choked, but Jane could not decide with what emotion. "Tell
him--tell him I ordered you to use force if necessary! Hurry!"

"YES'M!"

Jane ran to the window in time to see Genesis departing seriously
through the back gate.

"Mamma--"

"Don't talk to me now, Jane," Mrs. Baxter said, crisply. "I want you to
go down in the yard, and when Willie comes tell him I'm waiting for him
here in his own room. And don't come with him, Jane. Run!"

"Yes, mamma." Jane was pleased with this appointment; she anxiously
desired to be the first to see how Willie "looked."

... He looked flurried and flustered and breathless, and there were
blisters upon the reddened palms of his hands. "What on earth's the
matter, mother?" he asked, as he stood panting before her. "Genesis said
something was wrong, and he said you told him to hit me if I wouldn't
come."

"Oh NO!" she cried. "I only meant I thought perhaps you wouldn't obey
any ordinary message--"

"Well, well, it doesn't matter, but please hurry and say what you want
to, because I got to get back and--"

"No," Mrs. Baxter said, quietly, "you're not going back to count any
more shingles, Willie. How much have you earned?"

He swallowed, but spoke bravely. "Thirty-six cents. But I've been
getting lots faster the last two hours and there's a good deal of time
before six o'clock. Mother--"

"No," she said. "You're going over to that horrible place where you've
left your clothes and your watch and all those other things in the two
baskets, and you're going to bring them home at once."

"Mother!" he cried, aghast. "Who told you?"

"It doesn't matter. You don't want your father to find out, do you? Then
get those things back here as quickly as you can. They'll have to be
fumigated after being in that den."

"They've never been out of the baskets," he protested, hotly, "except
just to be looked at. They're MY things, mother, and I had a right to
do what I needed to with 'em, didn't I?" His utterance became di