up. She's a singer, too--one of those opery singers down below, she
is."

Sallie made this announcement as if she was relating a bewildering blow
of Providence for which she herself was not responsible. Aleck, who
began to fear that he might be the recipient of more confidences than
decorum dictated, hastily proffered his next question.

"Can I see the lady, Miss Redmond? Or is it Mrs. Redmond?"

Sallie gave a scornful, injured sniff.

"_Miss_ Redmond, sir, though she's old enough to be a Mrs. I wouldn't
so much mind her coming in here and using the parson's china that I
always washed with my own hands if she was a Mrs. But what can she, an
unmarried woman and an opery singer, know about Parson Thayer's ways
and keeping this house in order, when I've been with him going on
seventeen years and he took me outer the Home when I was no more than a
child?"

Aleck's heart would have been stone had he resisted this all but
passionate plea.

"You have been faithfulness itself, I am sure. But do you think Miss
Redmond would see me, at least for a few minutes?"

Sallie recovered her dignity, which had been near a collapse in tears,
and assumed her official tone. "I don't know as you can, and I don't
know _as_ you can. She's sick, too; fell overboard somehow or other,
offer one of those pesky boats, and got neuralagy and I don't know what
all. But I'll go and see how she's feeling."

"Stay, wait a minute," said Aleck, seized with a new thought. "I'll
write a message to Miss Redmond and then she'll know just what I want.
If you'll be so good as to take it to her?"

"Why, certainly, of course I will," Said Sallie Kingsbury. "Only you
needn't take all _that_ trouble. I can tell her what you want myself."
Sallie was one of those persons who regard the pen as the weapon of
last resort, not to be used until necessity compels. But Aleck
continued writing on a blank leaf of his note-book. The message was
this:

"Can you give me any information concerning my cousin, James Hambleton,
who was thought to be aboard the _Jeanne D'Arc_?"

He tore the leaf out, extracted a card from his pocketbook, and handed
leaf and card to Sallie. "Will you please give those to Miss Redmond?"

Sallie wiped her hands, which were perfectly clean, on her white apron,
took the card and bit of paper and departed, sniffing audibly. When
she returned, it was to say, with a slightly more interested air, that
Miss Redmond wished to see