"If the doctor had no epidermis he'd be a rare lookin' object," said the housekeeper, "for that's his skin, just as your sister says."

"He said 'epidemic,'" Tess declared, with disgust. "Dot! you do make the greatest mistakes."

"Well, has Sammy got _that_ too?" cried Dot, horrified by the possibility of such a complication of diseases. "Has he got scarlet fever, and quarantine, and ep-epic-well, that other thing, too?"

Ruth came through the kitchen dressed to go out. Her face was very grave and her eyes suspiciously red; but she pulled her veil down over her face and so hid the traces of her emotion from the family.

"Where are you going, Ruthie?" asked Dot, eagerly.

"Sister's going out on an errand," replied Ruth.

"Oh! let me go?" cried the smallest Corner House girl.

"Not this time," said Ruth, quietly. "I can't take you to-day, Dot."

Dot began to pout. "Oh, come along, Dot," said Tess, who never could bear to see her little sister with a frown. "Let us go upstairs and dress all the dolls in their best clothes, and have a party."

"No," said Dot. "I can't. Muriel has spoiled her party dress. She spilled tea on it, you know. Bonnie-Betty's broken her arm and it's in splints. And you know Ann Eliza and Eliza Ann, the twins, are all spotted up, and I don't know yet whether it's measles or smallpox."

"For goodness' sake!" gasped Mrs. MacCall. "If they need a quarantine anywhere I should think 'twould be in that nursery."

Ruth went out, leaving them all laughing at Dorothy. She was in no mood for laughter herself. Since she and her sisters had come to live at the old Corner House, Ruth had never felt more troubled.

She said nothing further to Agnes either about the absence of Neale O'Neil, or the disappearance of the old alb.u.m. The next to the oldest Corner House girl had noted nothing strange in Ruth's manner or speech.

Agnes Kenway was not very observant.

Ruth went out the side gate and along Willow Street. Beyond Mrs. Adam's little cottage there was a narrow lane called Willow Wythe, which ran back, in a sort of L-shaped pa.s.sage to the rear street on which Mr. Con Murphy had his tiny house and shop.

Neale always came to the Corner House by a 'short cut'-over the fence into the back premises from Mr. Murphy's yard; and Agnes had been known to come and go by the same route. It was several minutes' walk by way of Willow Street and Willow Wythe to the door of the cobbler's little shop.

Neale O'Neil had lived here with Mr. Murphy, occupying an upstairs room, almost ever since he had come to Milton to go to school. Mr. Murphy's pig had served as an introduction between Neale and the cobbler. Mr.

Murphy always thought a good deal of his pig. Later he thought so much of Neale that he offered to buy the boy's services from his Uncle Bill Sorber, when that gentleman had tried to take Neale back to the circus.

"Shure," Mr. Murphy had said, "there's more to a bye than to a pig, afther all-though there's much to be said in favor of the pig, by the same token!"

However, either the cobbler's generosity, or something else, had shamed Mr. Sorber into agreeing to let Neale have his chance for an education; and he was willing to pay the boy's expenses while he went to school, too. But Neale worked hard to help support himself, for he disliked being a burden on his uncle.

The old cobbler was a queer character, but with a heart of gold. He tapped away all day at the broken footgear of all the neighbors, ever ready for a bit of gossip, yet exuding a kindly philosophy all his own in dealing with neighborhood topics, or human frailties in general.

"There's so little good in the best of us, and so little bad in the worst of us, that it behooves the most of us to take care how we speak ill of the rest of us," was the sum and substance of Mr. Con Murphy's creed.

"Happy the day when yer shadder falls across the threshold, Miss Ruth,"

was the Irishman's greeting as she pushed inward the door of his shop which was in what had been the parlor of the tiny house. "Bless yer swate face! what's needed?"

"We want to know what's become of Neale, Mr. Murphy," said Ruth, sitting down in the customer's chair.

"Shure, miss, as I told ye, I'd like to l'arn that same meself."

"You have no idea where he's gone?"

"Not the laist. He give me no warnin' that he was thinkin' of goin' till he walked downstairs, wid the travelin' bag in his hand, and bade me good-bye."

"And he said nothing about where he was going?"

"Not a wor-rd."

"Nor how long he would stay?"

"Not a wor-rd."

"Well!" cried Ruth, with some vigor, "it is the strangest thing! How could he act so? And you have been so kind to him!"

"He was troubled in his mind, Miss Ruth. I kin see you are troubled in yours. Kin old Con help ye?" asked the cobbler, shrewdly.

"I don't know," Ruth said, all of a flutter. "I am dreadfully anxious about Neale O'Neil's going away so abruptly."

"He's a smart boy for his age. He'll get into no trouble, I belave."

"I'm not so much disturbed by that thought," admitted Ruth. "I am really selfish. I want to see him. Agnes let Neale take something we found in our garret, on Christmas Eve, and-and-well, it's something valuable, I believe, and I must show it to Mr. Howbridge as soon as possible."

"Something vallible, is ut?" observed Mr. Murphy, with his head on one side.

"I-I have reason to believe so," replied Ruth, with hesitation.

"What is it?" was the cobbler's direct question.

"A-a sort of sc.r.a.p-book. An old alb.u.m. A big, heavy book, Mr. Murphy.

Oh! it doesn't seem possible that Neale would have taken it away. Have you seen it anywhere about, sir?"

"He brought it home Christmas Eve, ye say?" was the noncommittal reply.

"That is when Agnes let him have it-yes," said the girl, earnestly.

"I did not see him when he came home that night. I was abed. I told ye he got a letter. I left it on his bureau when I went to me own bed.

Shure, he might have brought in an elephant for all I'd knowed about it afther I got to sleep," declared the cobbler, shaking his head. "Old Murphy-us himself, him as was the G.o.d of sleep, niver slept sounder nor me, Miss Ruth. He must have been the father of all us Murphies, for we were all sound sleepers, praise the pigs!"

"Perhaps the book is in his room," Ruth said, with final desperation.

"A big book, is ut?"

"Oh, yes, sir. Have you seen it?"

"I have not. But I'll go up and look for ut this instant," Mr. Murphy said, rising briskly.

Ruth told him carefully what to look for-as far as the outside of the volume appeared. She devoutly hoped he would not be curious enough to open it.

For no matter who really owned the old alb.u.m-and to whom its wonderful contents would be finally awarded-the oldest Corner House girl felt herself to be responsible for the safety of the book and its contents.

How it came in the garret, why it was hidden there, and who now had the first right to it, she did not know; but Ruth was sure that the odd find was of great value and that it would be a temptation to almost anybody.