beg your pardon. I didn't know you were there. I almost
knocked you over. Were you going out?"

"No, I wasn't going out," replied the old lady, in some confusion, as she
turned away.

"Aunty, I shall have to go out myself this evening, so, if I am not home
by sunset, don't wait up for me."

"Why, where are you going?"

"I am going to the Calvert Hotel on some business."

"What business?"

"Well, it is business connected with the broken-off wedding."

"Seems to me you are a good deal mixed up with this rumpus. What kind of
business is it?"

"It is of a confidential nature, auntie, else I could explain it to you."

"Humph! humph! humph!" sniffed the old lady.

The young man laid the enveloped note he had received from Le on the
mantelpiece, and went upstairs to put on his best clothes, in which to
execute his important mission.

Miss Sibby went and took the note in her hand, looked at it wistfully,
then laid it down, and took her spectacles out of her pocket, wiped them,
and put them on her nose. Then she took the note up again and read the
address.

"To Col. A. Anglesea, Calvert Hotel."

Then she turned it over and examined it. The gummed edges of the envelope
had but lightly adhered. She saw that a slight touch would open them.

She sat down in her low chair, with the note in her hand, and considered.
She could hear Roland moving about overhead, and knew that he was safe to
be there for ten or fifteen minutes.

She was tempted, but not so much by curiosity as by interest and anxiety
in and on account of the boys.

"Them lads is up to somethink!" she said to herself. "I knowed they was up
to somethink as soon as I heard 'em talking together! I couldn't hear half
they said, because the wind was a-blowin' the wrong way, but I knowed they
was up to somethink! They always is! Them boys is!

"When two or three of them is gathered together, it ain't the Lord, but
the devil, as is in the midst of them. Now, I'm gwine to see what's in
this note."

She opened the envelope, and read words that made her hair fairly stand on
end.

"The Lord have mercy upon me, a miserable sinner! What is the boys
a-coming to in these times, anyhow? This mustn't go, noways!"

And then she did a very sly thing.

The challenge was written on a sheet of very thick, white note paper. It
filled only the first page. Miss Sibby tore off the written page, folded
it in its own folds, and put it in her pocket. Then she took the blan