, and said he
would make us all rich."

"Ah," chimed in Thomas suddenly, "in what way, Susan?"

"He had a scheme to make our fortunes. What it was, I don't know. But
he said he would soon be worth plenty of money. Mother thought someone
must have poisoned him, but she could not find out. As we had a lot of
trouble then, it was thought father had killed himself to escape it,
but I know better. If he had lived, we should have been rich. He was
on an extra job down here," she ended.

"What was the extra job?" asked Thomas curiously.

Susan shook her head. "Mother never found out. She went to the house
he worked on, which is near the station. They said father always went
away for three hours every afternoon by an arrangement with the
foreman. Where he went, no one knew. He came straight from this extra
job home and died of poison. Mother thought," added Susan, looking
round cautiously, "that someone must have had a wish to get rid of
father, he knowing too much."

"Too much of what, my gal?" asked Mrs. Pill, with open mouth.

"Ah! That's what I'd like to find out," said Susan garrulously, "but
nothing was ever known, and father was buried as a suicide. Then
mother, having me and my four brothers, married again, and I took the
name of her new husband."

"Then your name ain't really Grant?" asked Geraldine.

"No! It's Maxwell, father being Scotch and a clever workman. Susan
Maxwell is my name, but after the suicide--if it was one--mother felt
the disgrace so, that she made us all call ourselves Grant. So Susan
Grant I am, and my brothers of the old family are Grant also."

"What do you mean by the old family?"

"Mother has three children by her second husband, and that's the new
family," explained Susan, "but we are all Grants, though me and my four
brothers are really Maxwells. But there," she said, looking round
quietly and rather pleased at the interest with which she was regarded,
"I've told you a lot. Tell me something!"

Mrs. Pill was unwilling to leave the fascinating subject of suicide,
but her desire to talk got the better of her, and she launched into a
long account of her married life. It seemed she had buried the late
Mr. Pill ten years before, and since that time had been with Miss Loach
as cook. She had saved money and could leave service at once, if she
so chose. "But I should never be happy out of my kitchen, my love,"
said Mrs. Pill, biting a piece of darning-cotton, "so here I