mantel-shelf. The carpet, which was once of the speaking
variety, had faded to the listening point. Coarse lace curtains hung
from brass rings on wooden poles, and red cotton lambrequins were
festooned at the top.

Hepsey came in to light the lamp that hung by chains over the table,
but Miss Thorne rose, saying: "You needn't mind, Hepsey, as I am going
upstairs."

"Want me to help you unpack?" she asked, doubtless wishing for a view of
"city clothes."

"No, thank you."

"I put a pitcher of water in your room, Miss Thorne. Is there anything
else you would like?"

"Nothing more, thank you."

She still lingered, irresolute, shifting from one foot to the other.
"Miss Thorne--" she began hesitatingly.

"Yes?"

"Be you--be you a lady detective?" Ruth's clear laughter rang out on the
evening air. "Why, no, you foolish girl; I'm a newspaper woman, and I've
earned a rest--that's all. You mustn't read books with yellow covers."

Hepsey withdrew, muttering vague apologies, and Ruth found her at the
head of the stairs when she went up to her room. "How long have you been
with Miss Hathaway?" she asked.

"Five years come next June."

"Good night, Hepsey."

"Good night, Miss Thorne."

From sheer force of habit, Ruth locked her door. Her trunk was not a
large one, and it did not take her long to put her simple wardrobe into
the capacious closet and the dresser drawers. As she moved the empty
trunk into the closet, she remembered the box of money that she had
left in the attic, and went up to get it. When she returned she heard
Hepsey's door close softly.

"Silly child," she said to herself. "I might just as well ask her if she
isn't a'lady detective.' They'll laugh about that in the office when I
go back."

She sat down, rocking contentedly, for it was April, and she would not
have to go back until Aunt Jane came home, probably about the first of
October. She checked off the free, health-giving months on her tired
fingers, that would know the blue pencil and the typewriter no more
until Autumn, when she would be strong again and the quivering nerves
quite steady.

She blessed the legacy which had fallen into Jane Hathaway's lap and led
her, at fifty-five, to join a "personally conducted" party to the Old
World. Ruth had always had a dim yearning for foreign travel, but just
now she felt no latent injustice, such as had often rankled in her soul
when her friends went and she remained at home.

Thinking she hear