her smoking and
reading his paper, while her mother was temporarily out of the room, she
began diplomatically:

[Illustration: "Do you know any real elderly people, Father?"]

"Do you know any real elderly people, Father?" He looked up with a
quizzical expression.

"Well, a few. Most people do, don't they? What do you inquire for,
Duckie? Thinking of founding an old people's home?" he asked teasingly.

"Oh, no! But who are they, Father? Do you mind telling me?"

"Mercy, Joyce! I can't think just now of all of them!" He was deep in a
preelection article in his paper, and wanted to return to it.

"But can't you think of just a _few_?" she implored.

"Well, you are the queerest child! There's Grandfather Lambert, and your
Great-aunt Lucia, and old Mr. Selby, and--oh, I can't think, Joyce!
What's all this foolishness anyway?" Joyce saw at once that she was
getting at nothing very definite along this line and determined on a
bold move.

"Well, who is the old lady that you spoke of once, who, you said, knew
something about that queer old boarded-up house next door?"

"Now, why in the world didn't you say so at once, without first making
me go through the whole list of my elderly acquaintances?" he laughed.
"That was your Great-aunt Lucia."

"_What!_" Joyce almost shouted in her astonishment.

"Why, certainly! What's queer about that? She used to live in New York
City, and knew all the best families for miles around. When we first
moved here, next to that ramshackle old place, I remember her telling me
she'd known the people who used to live there."

"Who were they?" demanded Joyce, eagerly.

"Oh, I don't remember their name! I don't know that she ever mentioned
it. She only said she knew them, and they'd gone away rather suddenly
and left their house all furnished and never came back. Now _do_ let me
finish my paper in peace, Duckie dear!"

Joyce said no more, and turned again to her studies; but her brain was
in a whirl, and she could not concentrate her thoughts on her work.
_Great-aunt Lucia!_--of all people! And here she had been wondering how
she could ever get to know some stranger well enough to put her
questions. But, for that matter, there were difficulties in the way of
questioning even Great-aunt Lucia. She was a very old lady, a confirmed
invalid, who lived in Poughkeepsie. For many years she had not left her
home, and the family seldom saw her; but her father paid a visit to the
old lady once in