lustration: DR. PRUE]

The sun had travelled around the house and was looking in at the west
window of the Little Red Chimney Room, when Virginia discovered her
ladyship sitting on a low stool by her hearthstone deep in meditation.
"I saw the smoke," she announced, "so I thought I'd come over."

"I am glad to see you," Margaret Elizabeth said, waking up. "But what
smoke do you mean?" And now it developed that although Miss Bentley was
of course aware of the Little Red Chimney, and indeed preferred it red,
she had not understood its significance.

In amused interest she listened while Virginia explained. "That dear,
ridiculous Uncle Bob!" she cried, hugging her knees. "And what fun,
Virginia!"

Virginia nodded. "Like a fairy-tale," she said.

"So it is," Miss Bentley agreed, and became again lost in thought.

From the other side of the hearth Virginia watched her. Her ladyship
to-day wore a grey-blue gown with a broad white collar, and she
contrasted harmoniously with the soft browns and greens of her
surroundings. Uncle Bob should have been there to enjoy the glint of
the sunshine in her hair.

It was an unobtrusive room, abounding in pleasant suggestions if you sat
still and let them sink in: books around the walls, a few water colours
and bits of porcelain, an open piano, a work table, a broad divan with
many cushions, ferns in the windows, and the fire.

Virginia, however, saw nothing of this; she was looking at Margaret
Elizabeth. "The Candy Man wanted to know where you stayed when you
weren't here," she remarked at length.

Miss Bentley came out of her brown study in great surprise. Who in the
world was the Candy Man?

"Why, you know the Candy Wagon on the Y.M.C.A. corner! And don't you
remember how you fell in the mud, and the Candy Man helped you up, and
I gave you your bag, and the Miser was there too?" Virginia spoke in
patient toleration of Miss Bentley's strange lapse of memory.

"Naturally I was rather shaken and didn't notice. Was it a Candy Man who
picked me up? And a miser, you say?" Chin in hand Margaret Elizabeth
regarded her visitor. "It is all very interesting, but why should the
Candy Man wish to know about me?"

Virginia owned that she had mentioned the Little Red Chimney to him,
and that when the identity of her ladyship had come to light, he had
exclaimed, "I might have guessed!"

"Well, really," said Miss Bentley, sitting up very straight, "what
business is it of his to be guessin