samples of water father and I brought down from the rocks to-day."

"My mercy me!" gasped 'Phemie. "You don't suppose there's gold--or
silver--held in solution in that water----"

Lyddy laughed. "How ridiculous!" she said.

"Perhaps not exactly ridiculous," returned Harris, shaking his head, and
smiling.

"Why, Harris Colesworth! who ever heard of such a thing?" cried Lyddy.
"I'm no chemist, but I know _that_ would be impossible."

"Will you let me have the key of the green door?" he demanded.

"Yes!" cried 'Phemie, who had continued to carry it tied around her neck.
"But we'll go with you and see you perform your nefarious rites, Mr.
Magician!"

Lyddy went for a lamp and brought it, lighted. "A candle won't do you much
good in there," she said to Harris.

"Verily, it is so!" admitted the young man, with an humble bow.

"Now, let me go first!" cried 'Phemie. "You'd both be scared stiff by my
friend, Mr. Boneypart."

"Your friend _who_?" cried Lyddy.

Harris began to laugh. "So you claim Napoleon as your friend; do you, Miss
'Phemie? What do you suppose old Spink thinks about him?"

'Phemie giggled as she ran ahead with the young man's candle and closed
the door of the skeleton case in the inner office.

"For the simple tests I have to make," said Harris, as Lyddy's lamp threw
a mellow light into the room, "I see no reason why those old tubes won't
do. Yes! there's about what I want on that bench."

"But, oh! the dust!" sighed Lyddy, trying to find a clean place on which
to set the lamp.

"Your grandfather must have been something of a chemist as well as a
medical sharp," observed Harris, gazing about. "I'm curious to look this
place over."

"We ought to ask Aunt Jane," said Lyddy, doubtfully. "We really haven't
any business in here."

"She's never told us we shouldn't come," 'Phemie returned, quickly.

"Now you young ladies sit down and keep still," commanded Harris,
authoritatively, removing his coat and tying an apron around his
waist--the apron being produced from his own pocket.

"Now if you had your straw cuffs you'd look just as you used to----"

"At the shop, eh?" finished Harris, when Lyddy caught herself up quick
in the middle of this audible comment.

"Ye-es."

"So you _did_ notice me a bit when you were working around the little
kitchen of that flat?" chuckled the young man.

"Well!" gasped Lyddy. "I couldn't very well help remembering how you
looked the night of the fire when y