e see--the moon will be
beating me to bed, and 'twas a poor tale, after all. How is your
foot?"

"Better--much better."

"Would ye be able to travel on it to-morrow?"

The tinker shook his head. "The day after, perhaps."

"Well, keep on coaxing it. Good night." And she had picked up her
basket and was gone before the tinker could stumble to his feet.

* * * * *

When the tinker woke the next morning the basket stood just inside
the stable door, linked through the pilgrim's staff. On investigation
it proved to contain his breakfast and an envelope, and the envelope
contained a ten-dollar bill and a letter, which read:

DEAR LAD,--I'll be well on the road when you get this; and
with a tongue in my head and luck at my heels, please God,
I'll reach Arden this time. You need not be afraid to use
the money--or too proud, either. It was honestly earned and
the charity of no one; you can take it as a loan or a
gift--whichever you choose. Anyhow, it will bring you after
me faster--which was your own promise.

Yours in advance,

P. O'CONNELL

Surprise, disappointment, indignation, amusement, all battled for the
upper hand; but it was a very different emotion from any of these
which finally mastered the tinker. He smoothed the bill very tenderly
between his hands before he returned it to the envelope; but he did
something more than smooth the envelope.

And meanwhile Patsy tramped the road to Arden.

XIII

A MESSAGE AND A MAP

This time there was no mistaking the right road; it ran straight past
Quality House to Arden--unbroken but for graveled driveways leading
into private estates. Patsy traveled it at a snail's pace. Now that
Arden had become a definitely unavoidable goal, she was more loath to
reach it than she had been on any of the seven days since the
beginning of her quest. However the quest ended--whether she found
Billy Burgeman or not, or whether there was any need now of finding
him--this much she knew: for her the road ended at Arden. What lay
beyond she neither tried nor cared to prophesy. Was it not enough
that her days of vagabondage would be over--along with the company of
tinkers and such like? There might be an answer awaiting her to the
letter sent from Lebanon to George Travis; in that case she could in
all probability count on some dependable income for the rest of the
sum