he caught the drayman who had unloaded the
furniture and hired him to take the desk at once to the Hathaway
residence. She even rode with the man, on the truck, and saw the
battered piece of furniture placed in her own room. Leaving it there,
she locked her door and went back to the Shop.

The girls were much amused when they learned they had made so important
a sale to one of themselves.

"If we had asked Mrs. Dyer to give us fifteen dollars, cold cash,"
remarked Laura, "she would have snubbed us properly; but the first
article from her attic which we sold has netted us that sum and I
really believe we will get from fifty to seventy-five dollars more out
of the rest of the stuff."

Mrs. Charleworth dropped in during the afternoon and immediately became
interested in the Dudley-Markham furniture. The family to whom it had
formerly belonged she knew had been one of the very oldest and most
important in Dorfield. The Dudley-Markhams had large interests in
Argentine and would make their future home there, but here were the
possessions of their grandmothers and great-grandmothers, rescued from
their ancient dust, and Mrs. Charleworth was a person who loved
antiques and knew their sentimental and intrinsic values.

"The Dyers were foolish to part with these things," she asserted. "Of
course, Mary Dyer isn't supposed to know antiques, but the professor
has lived abroad and is well educated."

"The professor wasn't at home," explained Edna. "Perhaps that was lucky
for us. He is in Chicago, and we pleaded so hard that Mrs. Dyer let us
go into the attic and help ourselves."

"Well, that proves she has a generous heart," said the grand lady, with
a peculiar, sphinx-like smile. "I will buy these two chairs, at your
price, when you are ready to sell them."

"We will hold them for you," replied Edna. "They're to be revarnished
and properly 'restored,' you know, and we've a man in our employ who
knows just how to do it."

When Mary Louise told Colonel Hathaway, jokingly, at dinner that
evening, of Josie's extravagant purchase, her girl friend accepted the
chaffing composedly and even with a twinkle in her baby-blue eyes. She
made no comment and led Mary Louise to discourse on other subjects.

That night Josie sat up late, locked in her own room, with only the
pedestal-desk for company. First she dropped to her knees, pushed up a
panel in the square base, and disclosed the fact that in this
inappropriate place were several