t in the world; and when it comes
lagging along after everything's over, she won't care a pin for it! How
did it happen?"

Gaites mutely referred her, with a shrug, to the man in the silk cap,
and he again hazarded his dreamy conjecture.

"Well, it doesn't matter!" she said, with a bitterness that was a great
comfort to Gaites. "What are you going to do about it?" she asked him.

"I don't know what _can_ be done about it," he answered, referring
himself to the man in the silk cap.

The man said, "No freight out, now, till Monday."

Mrs. Maze burst forth again: "If I had the least confidence in the world
in any human express company, I would send it by express and pay the
expressage myself."

"Oh, I couldn't let you do that, Mrs. Maze," Gaites protested. "Besides,
I don't suppose they'd allow us to take it out of the freight, here,
unless we had the bill of lading."

"Well," cried Mrs. Maze, passionately, "I can't bear to think of that
child's suspense. It's perfectly heart-sickening. Why shouldn't they
telegraph? They ought to telegraph! If they let things go wandering
round the earth at this rate, the least they can do is to telegraph and
relieve people's minds. We'll go and make the station-master telegraph!"

But even when the station-master was found, and made to understand the
case, and to feel its hardship, he had his scruples. "I don't think I've
got any right to do that," he said.

"Of coarse I'll pay for the telegram," Mrs. Maze interpolated.

"It ain't that exactly," said the station-master. "It might look as if I
was meddling myself. I rather not, Mrs. Maze."

She took fire. "Then _I'll_ meddle myself!" she blazed. "There's nothing
to hinder my telegraphing, I suppose!"

"_I_ can't hinder you," the station-master admitted.

"Well, then!" She pulled a bunch of yellow telegraph blanks toward her,
and consumed three of them in her comprehensive despatch:

_Miss Phyllis Desmond,

Lower Merritt, N. H.

Piano left Boston Monday P. M. Broke down on way to Burymouth,
where delayed four days. Sent by mistake to Kent Harbor from Mewers
Junction. Forwarded to Lower Merritt Monday._

"There! How will that do?" she asked Gaites, submitting the telegram to
him.

"That seems to cover the ground," he said, not so wholly hiding the
misgiving he began to feel but that she demanded,

"It explains everything, doesn't it?"

"Yes--"

"Very well; sign it, then!"

"I?"

"Certai