"Eh? What?" I stammered. "Look like--look like what?"

"Not what--who. Does she look like Ardelia? Like her mother? Oh, I HOPE she doesn't favor her father's side! I did so want our Little Frank to look like his--her--I CAN'T get used to it--like my poor Ardelia. Does she?"

"Goodness knows! I don't know who she looks like. I didn't notice."

"You didn't! I should have noticed that before anything else. What kind of a girl is she? Is she pretty?"

"I don't know. She isn't ugly, I should say. I wasn't particularly interested in her looks. The fact that she was at all was enough; I haven't gotten over that yet. What are we going to do with her? Or are we going to do anything? Those are the questions I should like to have answered. For heaven's sake, Hephzy, don't talk about her personal appearance. There she is and here are we. What are we going to do?"

Hephzy shook her head. "I don't know, Hosy," she admitted. "I don't know, I'm sure. This is--this is--Oh, didn't I tell you we were SENT--sent by Providence!"

I was silent. If we had been "sent," as she called it, I was far from certain that Providence was responsible. I was more inclined to place the responsibility in a totally different quarter.

"I think," she continued, "I think you'd better tell me the whole thing all over again, Hosy. Tell it slow and don't leave out a word. Tell me what sort of place she was in and what she said and how she looked, as near as you can remember. I'll try and pay attention; I'll try as hard as I can. It'll be a job. All I can think of now is that to-morrow mornin'--only to-morrow mornin'--I'm going to see Little Frank--Ardelia's Little Frank."

I complied with her request, giving every detail of my afternoon's experience. I reread the letter, and handed it to her, that she might read it herself. I described Mrs. Briggs and what I had seen of Mrs.

Briggs' lodging-house. I described Miss Morley as best I could, dark eyes, dark hair and the look of weakness and frailty. I repeated our conversation word for word; I had forgotten nothing of that. Hephzy listened in silence. When I had finished she sighed.

"The poor thing," she said. "I do pity her so."

"Pity her!" I exclaimed. "Well, perhaps I pity her, too, in a way. But my pity and yours don't alter the situation. She doesn't want pity. She doesn't want help. She flew at me like a wildcat when I asked if she was ill. Her personal affairs, she says, are not ours; she doesn't want our acquaintance or our friendship. She has gotten some crazy notion in her head that you and I and Uncle Barnabas have cheated her out of an inheritance, and she wants that! Inheritance! Good Lord! A fine inheritance hers is! Daughter of the man who robbed us of everything we had."

"I know--I know. But SHE doesn't know, does she, Hosy. Her father must have told her--"

"He told her a barrel of lies, of course. What they were I can't imagine, but that fellow was capable of anything. Know! No, she doesn't know now, but she will have to know."

"Are you goin' to tell her, Hosy?"

I stared in amazement.

"Tell her!" I repeated. "What do you mean? You don't intend letting her think that WE are the thieves, do you? That's what she thinks now. Of course I shall tell her."

"It will be awful hard to tell. She worshipped her father, I guess. He was a dreadful fascinatin' man, when he wanted to be. He could make a body believe black was white. Poor Ardelia thought he was--"

"I can't help that. I'm not Ardelia."

"I know, but she is Ardelia's child. Hosy, if you are so set on tellin'

her why didn't you tell her this afternoon? It would have been just as easy then as to-morrow."

This was a staggerer. A truthful answer would be so humiliating. I had not told Frances Morley that her father was a thief and a liar because I couldn't muster courage to do it. She had seemed so alone and friendless and ill. I lacked the pluck to face the situation. But I could not tell Hephzy this.

"Why didn't you tell her?" she repeated.

"Oh, bosh!" I exclaimed, impatiently. "This is nonsense and you know it, Hephzy. She'll have to be told and you and I must tell her. DON'T look at me like that. What else are we to do?"

Another shake of the head.

"I don't know. I can't decide any more than you can, Hosy. What do YOU think we should do?"

"I don't know."

With which unsatisfactory remark this particular conversation ended. I went to my room to dress for dinner. I had no appetite and dinner was not appealing; but I did not want to discuss Little Frank any longer. I mentally cursed Jim Campbell a good many times that evening and during the better part of a sleepless night. If it were not for him I should be in Bayport instead of London. From a distance of three thousand miles I could, without the least hesitancy, have told Strickland Morley's "heir"

what to do.

Hephzy did not come down to dinner at all. From behind the door of her room she told me, in a peculiar tone, that she could not eat. I could not eat, either, but I made the pretence of doing so. The next morning, at breakfast in the sitting-room, we were a silent pair. I don't know what George, the waiter, thought of us.

At a quarter after nine I turned away from the window through which I had been moodily regarding the donkey cart of a flower huckster in the street below.

"You'd better get on your things," I said. "It is time for us to go."

Hephzy donned her hat and wrap. Then she came over to me.

"Don't be cross, Hosy," she pleaded. "I've been thinkin' it over all night long and I've come to the conclusion that you are probably right.

She hasn't any real claim on us, of course; it's the other way around, if anything. You do just as you think best and I'll back you up."

"Then you agree that we should tell her the truth."

"Yes, if you think so. I'm goin' to leave it all in your hands. Whatever you do will be right. I'll trust you as I always have."

It was a big responsibility, it seemed to me. I did wish she had been more emphatic. However, I set my teeth and resolved upon a course of action. Pity and charity and all the rest of it I would not consider.

Right was right, and justice was justice. I would end a disagreeable business as quickly as I could.

Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, viewed from the outside, was no more inviting at ten in the morning than it had been at four in the afternoon. I expected Hephzy to make some comment upon the dirty steps and the still dirtier front door. She did neither. We stood together upon the steps and I rang the bell.

Mrs. Briggs herself opened the door. I think she had been watching from behind the curtains and had seen our cab draw up at the curb. She was in a state of great agitation, a combination of relieved anxiety, excitement and overdone politeness.

"Good mornin', sir," she said; "and good mornin', lady. I've been expectin' you, and so 'as she, poor dear. I thought one w'ile she was that hill she couldn't see you, but Lor' bless you, I've nursed 'er same as if she was my own daughter. I told you I would sir, now didn't I."

One word in this harangue caught my attention.

"Ill?" I repeated. "What do you mean? Is she worse than she was yesterday?"

Mrs. Briggs held up her hands. "Worse!" she cried. "Why, bless your 'art, sir, she was quite well yesterday. Quite 'erself, she was, when you come. But after you went away she seemed to go all to pieces like.

W'en I went hup to 'er, to carry 'er 'er tea--She always 'as 'er tea; I've been a mother to 'er, I 'ave--she'll tell you so. W'en I went hup with the tea there she was in a faint. W'ite as if she was dead. My word, sir, I was frightened. And all night she's been tossin' about, a-cryin' out and--"

"Where is she now?" put in Hephzy, sharply.

"She's in 'er room ma'am. Dressed she is; she would dress, knowin' of your comin', though I told 'er she shouldn't. She's dressed, but she's lyin' down. She would 'ave tried to sit hup, but THAT I wouldn't 'ave, ma'am. 'Now, dearie,' I told 'er--"

But I would not hear any more. As for Hephzy she was in the dingy front hall already.

"Shall we go up?" I asked, impatiently.

"Of COURSE you're to go hup. She's a-waitin' for you. But sir--sir," she caught my sleeve; "if you think she's goin' to be ill and needin' the doctor, just pass the word to me. A doctor she shall 'ave, the best there is in London. All I ask you is to pay--"

I heard no more. Hephzy was on her way up the stairs and I followed. The door of the first floor back was closed. I rapped upon it.

"Come in," said the voice I remembered, but now it sounded weaker than before.