"I know where there is a copy," said the youngest and wisest of the force, "but it won't do you any good. Mr. Knight, the man the children call the Miser, has one." 

 "I'll go and ask him to let me see it. I'd like to know a real live miser." Margaret Elizabeth closed the book she had in hand and rose. 

 The force gasped at her temerity. They had heard he was a horrid old man; but the youngest observed wisely that probably he wouldn't bite. 

 Miss Bentley, however, having recently developed a bump of discretion, did first consult Dr. Prue in the matter, who responded, "Why certainly, I see no objection to your asking to see the book. Mr. Knight is a harmless, studious man. I have met him on two occasions when I was called in to attend his housekeeper, Mrs. Sampson, and he was courtesy itself. I will go with you and introduce you, if you like." 

 Virginia, hanging around and overhearing, begged to be allowed to go too. "I'd love to see the inside of his house," she urged. 

 She was assured she would find it stupid, but this was as nothing compared with the glory of entering the abode of the Miser in company with her ladyship, and the other pigeons looking enviously on outside. 

 Dr. Prue, of course, had no time to waste, so Margaret Elizabeth hastened to find her pad and pencil, and across the street they went forthwith. The Miser was discovered in his library, a spacious, shabby room, yet not too shabby for dignity, full of valuable and even rare things, such as old prints and engravings, and most of all of books, which overflowed their shelves in a scholarly disorder not unfamiliar to Margaret Elizabeth. 

 With businesslike brevity Dr. Vandegrift presented her cousin and her credentials to Mr. Knight, who, with a quaint and formal courtesy, was happy to oblige the daughter of an author so distinguished in his chosen field. 

 Miss Bentley in her turn presented, with suitable gravity, Miss Virginia Brooks, who promised to be quiet as a mouse, and whose eyes betrayed her disappointment on discovering the inside of the Miser's house to be so much like any other. 

 After the necessary stir attending upon the finding of the desired volume, and getting settled to work, profound quiet again rested upon the library. Margaret Elizabeth wrote busily, her book propped upon a small stand before her, while across the room Virginia softly 

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