ght her to her feet; the next
moment the machine careened into sight and Patsy flagged it from the
middle of the road, the lines of her face set in grim determination.

"Would you kindly tell me--" she was beginning when a girl in the
tonneau cut her short:

"Why, it's Patsy O'Connell! How in the name of your blessed Saint
Patrick did you ever get so far from home?"

The car was full of young people, but the girl who had spoken was the
only one who looked at all familiar. Patsy's mind groped out of the
present into the past; it was all a blind alley, however, and led
nowhere.

The girl, seeing her bewilderment, helped her out. "Don't you
remember, I was with Marjorie Schuyler in Dublin when you were all so
jolly kind to us? I'm Janet Payne--those awful 'Spitsburger
Paynes'"--and the girl's laugh rang out contagiously.

The laugh swept Patsy's mind out into the open. She reached out and
gripped the girl's hand. "Sure, I remember. But it's a long way from
Dublin, and my memory is slower at hearkening back than my heart. A
brave day to all of you." And her smile greeted the carful
indiscriminately.

"Oh!"--the girl was apologetic--"how beastly rude I am! I'm
forgetting that you don't know everybody as well as everybody knows
you. Jean Lewis, Mrs. Dempsy Carter, Dempsy Carter, Gregory Jessup,
and Jay Clinton--Miss Patricia O'Connell, of the Irish National
Players. We are all very much at your service--including the car,
which is not mine, but the Dempsy Carters'."

"Shall we kidnap Miss O'Connell?" suggested the owner. "She appears
an easy victim."

Janet Payne clapped her hands, but Patsy shook a decided negative.
"That's the genius of the Irish," she laughed; "they look easy till
you hold them up. I'm bound for Arden, and must make it by the
quickest road if you'll point it out to me."

"Why, of course--Arden; that accounts for you perfectly. Stupid that
I didn't think of it at once. What part are you playing?" Janet Payne
accompanied the question with unmistakable eagerness.

Patsy shot a shrewd glance at the girl. Was she indulging in
good-natured banter, or had she learned through Marjorie Schuyler of
Patsy's self-imposed quest, and was seeking information in figurative
speech? Patsy decided in favor of the former and answered it in kind:
"Faith! I'm not sure whether I've been cast for the duke's
daughter--or the fool. I can tell ye better after I reach Arden." And
she turned abruptly as if she would be g