ipps owns several tenements where poor people
live. I have heard things from those people that--Oh, I can't tell you!
I ran away because I had learned what they really were."

Hephzy nodded. "What I can't understand," she said, "is why they offered
you a home in the first place. It was because they thought you had money
comin' to you, that's plain enough now; but how did they know?"

Frances colored. "I'm afraid--I'm afraid Father must have written them,"
she said. "He needed money very much in his later years and he may have
written them asking--asking for loans and offering my 'inheritance' as
security. I think now that that was it. But I did not think so then.
And--and, Oh, Auntie, you mustn't think too harshly of Father. He was
very good to me, he really was. And DON'T you think he believed--he had
made himself believe--that there was money of his there in America? I
can't believe he--he would lie to me."

"Of course he didn't lie," said Hephzy, promptly. I could have hugged
her for saying it. "He was sick and--and sort of out of his head, poor
man, and I don't doubt he made himself believe all sorts of things. Of
course he didn't lie--to his own daughter. But why," she added, quickly,
before Frances could ask another question, "did you go back to those
precious Cripps critters after you left Paris?"

Frances looked at me. "I thought it would please you," she said, simply.
"I knew you didn't want me to sing in public. Kent had said he would be
happier if he knew I had given up that life and was among friends. And
they--they had called themselves my friends. When I went back to them
they welcomed me. Mr. Cripps called me his 'prodigal daughter,' and
Mrs. Cripps prayed over me. It wasn't until I told them I had no
'inheritance,' except one of debt, that they began to show me what they
really were. They wouldn't believe it. They said you were trying to
defraud me. It was dreadful. I--I think I should have run away again
if--if you had not come."

"Well, we did come," said Hephzy, cheerfully, "and I thank the good Lord
for it. Now we won't talk any more about THAT."

She left us alone soon afterward, going to my room--we were in hers,
hers and Frances'--to unpack my trunk once more. She wouldn't hear of my
unpacking it. When she was gone Frances turned to me.

"You--you haven't told her," she faltered.

"No," said I, "not yet. I wanted to speak with you first. I can't
believe it is true. Or, if it is, that it is