gdon is away--"

"I know--but she wrote me to come here; that she would be home very
soon."

"I am glad to hear that. Come in," he urged hospitably, as he picked up
her suitcase. "The housekeeper will make you comfortable."

She hesitated.

"Is Miss Lamont in?"

"Miss Lamont--Miss Pen Lamont?" he asked in surprise. "She is a friend of
yours?"

"Yes," she replied composedly.

"She has gone for a drive, but she will be back soon."

She followed him within and stood gazing at the pleasant interior,--books,
pictures, piano and fireplace, while he went to summon the housekeeper.

"Mrs. Merlin, this is a friend of Mrs. Kingdon's," he said on his return.
"Will you show her to one of the guest rooms?"

"Oh!" exclaimed the girl in expostulary tone, "I am _not_ a guest. My name
is--Bobbie Burr. Mrs. Kingdon hired me to do plain sewing for the children
and to care for the linen."

There was no trace of a seamstress in the plain but elegant garb and
appointments of the young girl, and Mrs. Merlin was at a loss as to the
proper establishment of the newcomer.

"Maybe," she said to Kurt hesitatingly, "the room the last nursery
governess had--"

"Any room will do," said the girl hurriedly, as she followed Mrs. Merlin.

Kurt went down the road which Jo and Pen had taken. He felt the need of a
pipe and solitude to help him figure out this puzzling problem, and soon
he was sending a jet of smoke up to the branches of the tree which he had
selected for a resting place.

Who was this girl whose belongings betokened money, and yet who said she
had come to do plain sewing? Enlightenment came with the recollection that
she had been sent by Mrs. Kingdon and was doubtless one of her protegees.
The name she had given sounded demimondish, and she was a friend of Pen's!
The thought made him wince. She had seemed to him some way isolated from
her kind, with naught in common with them save her profession. To find he
was mistaken brought him an unpleasant shock.

A sound of wheels around the curve; the clatter of hoofs. In a moment they
came into his vision--the prancing team, the merry driver and--_the
thief_. Delicate as a drop of dew, as lovely as a forest blossom, her
voice, bird-like and rippling, wafted to him from the clear aromatic air,
she inverted again all his theories and resolutions.

He walked toward them, his hand raised.

Jo reined in.

"Will you get out and walk up to the house with me?" Kurt asked her, the
qu