yly
gathered the rough little head to her bosom. The child met his gaze as
he did so.

"We weren't quite up to scratch," he said gravely.

Beulah's eyes filled. "Peter," she said, "Peter, I didn't mean to
be--not to be--"

But Peter seemed not to know she was speaking. The child's eyes still
held him, and he stood gazing down at her, his handsome head thrown
slightly back; his face deeply intent; his eyes softened.

"I'm your Uncle Peter, Eleanor," he said, and bent down till his lips
touched her forehead.

CHAPTER III

THE EXPERIMENT BEGINS

Eleanor walked over to the steam pipes, and examined them carefully.
The terrible rattling noise had stopped, as had also the choking and
gurgling that had kept her awake because it was so like the noise that
Mrs. O'Farrel's aunt, the sick lady she had helped to take care of,
made constantly for the last two weeks of her life. Whenever there was
a sound that was anything like that, Eleanor could not help shivering.
She had never seen steam pipes before. When Beulah had shown her the
room where she was to sleep--a room all in blue, baby blue, and pink
roses--Eleanor thought that the silver pipes standing upright in the
corner were a part of some musical instrument, like a pipe organ. When
the rattling sound had begun she thought that some one had come into
the room with her, and was tuning it. She had drawn the pink silk puff
closely about her ears, and tried not to be frightened. Trying not to
be frightened was the way she had spent a good deal of her time since
her Uncle Amos died, and she had had to look out for her
grandparents.

Now that it was morning, and the bright sun was streaming into the
windows, she ventured to climb out of bed and approach the uncanny
instrument. She tripped on the trailing folds of that nightgown her
Aunt Beulah--it was funny that all these ladies should call themselves
her aunts, when they were really no relation to her--had insisted on
her wearing. Her own nightdress had been left in the time-worn
carpetbag that Uncle David had forgotten to take out of the "handsome
cab." She stumbled against the silver pipes. They were _hot_; so hot
that the flesh of her arm nearly blistered, but she did not cry out.
Here was another mysterious problem of the kind that New York
presented at every turn, to be silently accepted, and dealt with.

Her mother and father had once lived in New York. Her father had been
born here, in a house with a bro