trod the
streets of Milan, the boards of the Scala.

"It can't be much different in Patagonia," replied this lady, who, to
save her life, could not have told whether the land was Asiatic or
African, nor who, to save her soul--if the latter were still
salvable--could not have told that it was neither. "Besides," she added,
"I was only thinking of your poor, dear papa."

Cassy said nothing. She stood up. She was making for the door and the
charm of the scented streets.

Ma Tamby sighed, rose and followed. It was the devil's own job.
Housebreaking must be easier!

XIV

Cassy's department-store investments reached her the next day. Her
father, who opened the door to them, fell back before the sum total of
the C. O. D. With an arm in a sling, he could not hold the packages,
much less pay for them, and he gasped as he called for aid.

The money that Cassy then produced seemed to him darkly mysterious and
although he believed as firmly in her virtue, as, before the break, he
had believed in the maestria of his own right hand, none the less, in
addition to aid, he exacted light.

Cassy, dumping the packages on her bed, occupied herself in verifying
the change which amounted to one cent. Then she sketched it.

His surprise fell away. The mythical catamount, the imaginary concert,
the ponderable subsidy--two hundred and fifty, less ten per
cent.--seemed to him natural and an unnatural world.

"And there's about ten dollars remaining," Cassy resumed. "Ten dollars
and a penny. You can have the penny and I will keep the ten, or I'll
keep the ten and you can have the penny."

That also seemed natural. But the addition or subtraction disclosed a
deficit and he exclaimed at it. "You said two hundred and fifty!"

Cassy too saw the hole, but she could not lie out of it. "Well, I owed
the difference."

In speaking she turned. Before her was a mirror in which she glanced
at her hair that had been superiorly tralala'd. She turned again,
reflecting that Lennox must have already received the postal-order,
which she had mailed the night before, and wondering whether he had
liked her little scrawl of indignant thanks.

"I'll tell you about it later," she added. "Now I must get your dinner.
How would you like a tenderloin, a salad, and a box of Camembert?"

He shuffled. "There is no Camembert any more." The tragedy of that
seemed to overwhelm him. "I wish I were dead."

Cassy laughed. "Now it's the cheese. On Saturday