emotions or human frailties except temper. Betsy
and I are simply eaten up with curiosity to know what sort of past he
came out of; but just let us get inside his house, and to our detective
senses it will tell its own story. So long as the portal was guarded
by a fierce McGurk, we had despaired of ever effecting an entrance; but
now, behold! The door has opened of its own accord.

To be continued.

S. McB.

Monday.

Dear Judy:

We attended the doctor's supper party last night, Betsy and Mr.
Witherspoon and I. It turned out a passably cheerful occasion, though I
will say that it began under heavy auspices.

His house on the inside is all that the outside promises. Never in my
life have I seen such an interior as that man's dining room. The walls
and carpets and lambrequins are a heavy dark green. A black marble
mantelpiece shelters a few smoking black coals. The furniture is
as nearly black as furniture comes. The decorations are two steel
engravings in shiny black frames--the "Monarch of the Glen," and the
"Stag at Bay."

We tried hard to be light and sparkling, but it was like eating supper
in the family vault. Mrs. McGurk, in black alpaca with a black silk
apron, clumped around the table, passing cold, heavy things to eat, with
a step so firm that she rattled the silver in the sideboard drawers. Her
nose was up, and her mouth was down. She clearly does not approve of the
master's entertaining, and she wishes to discourage all guests from ever
accepting again.

Sandy sort of dimly knows that there is something the matter with his
house, and in order to brighten it up a bit in honor of his guests,
he had purchased flowers,--dozens of them,--the most exquisite pink
Killarney roses and red and yellow tulips. The McGurk had wedged them
all together as tight as they would fit into a peacock-blue jardiniere,
and plumped it down in the center of the table. The thing was as big as
a bushel-basket. Betsy and I nearly forgot our manners when we saw
that centerpiece; but the doctor seemed so innocently pleased at
having obtained a bright note in his dining room that we suppressed our
amusement and complimented him warmly upon his happy color scheme.

The moment supper was over, we hastened with relief to his own part of
the house, where the McGurk's influence does not penetrate. No one in a
cleaning capacity ever enters either his library or office or laboratory
except Llewelyn, a short, wiry, bow-legged Welshman,