Neale might have gone away for an entirely different reason; yet he had the treasure trove in his possession last, and Ruth would not feel relieved until she had recovered it.

In five minutes Con came downstairs again, but without the book.

"I seen nawthin' of the kind," he said. "But here's the envelope of the letter he resaved."

He handed it to Ruth. The address was written by a hand that certainly was not used to holding a pen. The scarcely decipherable address was to "Mist. Nele O. Sorber."

"Shure the postman skurce knew whether to bring it here, or no," Mr.

Murphy explained.

"I-I would like to take this," Ruth said slowly.

"Shure ye may. I brought it down ter ye," said Mr. Murphy, taking up his hammer once more.

"But where do you suppose he could have put that book of ours?" Ruth asked, faintly.

"Shure, ma'am, I dunno. Would he be takin' it away wid him to read?"

"Oh, but could he?" gasped Ruth. "It was heavy."

"So was his bag heavy. I knowed by the way he carried it. And I see it's few of his clo'es he took, by the same token, for they are all hangin'

in his closet, save the ones he's got on."

Ruth's thoughts fairly terrified her. She got up and was scarcely able to thank Mr. Murphy. She had to get out into the air and recover her self-control.

Neale! The boy whom they had befriended and helped and trusted! Under temptation, Neale had fallen!

For Ruth knew well how the ex-circus boy disliked taking money from his Uncle Bill Sorber, or being beholden to him in any way. Neale worked hard-very hard indeed for a boy of his age-in order to use as little as possible of Mr. Sorber's money.

Sorber held Neale's long-lost father in light repute, and could not understand the boy's desiring an education and wishing to be something besides a circus performer. To the mind of the old circus man it was an honor to be connected with such an aggregation as Twomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie. And Neale's father had left the company years before in search of a better fortune.

Ruth's mind was filled with suspicion regarding Neale now. Knowing his longing for independence, why should she not believe that seeing a chance to obtain a great sum of money with no effort at all he had fallen before the temptation and run away with the old alb.u.m and its wonderful contents?

Ruth knew there was a fortune in that old and shabby volume which must have lain long in the garret of the old Corner House. If one of the notes was good, why not all the others-and the bonds, too?

She opened her purse and withdrew the folded ten-dollar bill. At the same moment another banknote fell to the ground-another of the same denomination.

"Oh!" she said aloud. "That's the bill Mr. Howbridge gave me when he went away, saying I might need something extra."

She picked it up. It was folded exactly like the other one; but it never entered Ruth's mind that she might have handed Mr. Crouch the wrong bill to examine.

Ruth replaced the banknotes in her purse and walked home with a face still troubled. She could take n.o.body into her confidence-least of all Agnes-regarding the missing alb.u.m. It might be, of course, that Neale O'Neil had only hidden away the old book until his return. Possibly it was perfectly safe, and Neale O'Neil might have no more idea that the money was good than had Agnes.

But oh! if Mr. Howbridge were only at home! That was the burden of Ruth's troubled thought.

She went into the house, her return not being remarked by the younger children. Upstairs Agnes was at her dresser putting the finishing touches to her hair and her frock in readiness for dinner.

"What's that?" she asked Ruth, as the latter put down her purse and likewise the torn envelope Mr. Con Murphy had given her.

"Oh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ruth. "I must have brought it away with me."

"Brought what away with you-and from where?" demanded Agnes, picking up the paper. Then in a moment she cried: "Why! it's addressed to Neale-by his circus name, 'Neale Sorber.' Where'd you get it, Ruth?"

"I saw Mr. Murphy," the older sister confessed. "He thinks that the letter that came in this envelope was the cause of Neale's going away so suddenly."

"Goodness! it's some trouble about his uncle," said Agnes. "How Neale hates to be called 'Sorber,' too!"

"That isn't his uncle's writing," Ruth said.

"Of course it isn't," the second sister replied scornfully. "Mr. Bill Sorber doesn't write at all. Don't you remember? That's why he thinks it so foolish for Neale to want an education. But it's somebody Uncle Bill's got to write for him."

Agnes' practical explanation could not be gainsaid. She did not connect for a moment the disappearance of the old alb.u.m with Neale's sudden flight from Milton. The bonds and banknotes pasted into the big volume she had found in the garret gave Agnes not the least anxiety. But she looked closely at the envelope.

"Wish Mr. Murphy had found the letter, too," she said. "Then we could have learned what made that horrid boy run off so."

"'Tiverton,' Humph! Where's Tiverton? That's where this letter was mailed. Seems to me somebody said 'Tiverton' to me only lately,"

murmured Agnes.

Ruth did not hear her, and Agnes said no more about it. But after she had retired that night and was almost in dreamland-in that state 'twixt waking and sleeping when the happenings of the day pa.s.s through one's mind in seemingly endless procession-suddenly Agnes sat up in bed.

"Oh! I know where I've heard of Tiverton before," she whispered shrilly in the darkness. "That's where Mr. Howbridge has gone-to see his sick brother. Say, Ruth!"

Ruth was asleep. And by morning Agnes had forgotten all about the matter. So the coincidence was not called to the older sister's attention.

CHAPTER XI

SOME EXCITEMENT

As Uncle Rufus had stated, his daughter, the pleasant and unctious Petunia Blossom, was to take a week's vacation from laundry work at New Year's; but she brought the last wash home a few days after Christmas.

Petunia was very, very black, and monstrous fat! Her father often mournfully wondered "huccome she so brack," when he was only mahogany brown himself and Petunia's mother had been "light favahed," too.

"Nevah did see the lak' ob her color," declared Uncle Rufus, shaking his grizzled head. "W'en she was a baby we couldn't fin' her in de dark, 'ceptin' her eyes was open, or she was a-bellerin'."

The Corner House girls all liked Petunia Blossom, and her family of cunning piccaninnies. There was always a baby, and in naming her numerous progeny she had secured the help of her white customers, some of whom were wags, as witness a portion of the roll-call of the younger Blossoms:

"Ya'as'm, Miss Tessie. Alfredia's home takin' car' ob de baby.

Burne-Jones W'istler-he de artis' lady named-an' Jackson Montgomery Simms, done gone tuh pick up wood, where dey is buildin' dat new row ob flats. Gladiola, she's jes' big nuff now tuh mess intuh things. I tol'

Alfredia to keep an eye on Glad."

"That's a pretty name," said Agnes, who heard this; "Gladiola. I hope you'll find as pretty a name for the baby."

"I has, Miss Aggie," Petunia a.s.sured her.

"Oh! but that would be hard. He's a boy. You can't name him after a flower, as you did little Glad and Hyacinth and Pansy."