Teresa of the Sunshine Islands!" And he grinned. It made a pleasant break in the day's work to tell a big-eyed girl that she was a queen. It turned law into melodrama—very nice melodrama.

[Pg 8]

"What—what!" stammered Tessie. She put her hand on the table behind her for support, and she looked at the messenger suspiciously. Was he making fun of her? She had studied geography, but she had never heard of any Sunshine Islands. Have you? No wonder Tessie looked at Gilbert Douglas with suspicion.

But there was no fun in Bert's face. There was pleasure and importance and satisfaction and possibly just a wee bit of envy, but there was not a bit of fun as he went on to explain that the death of Tessie's Uncle Pete had removed her from the ranks of the proletariat and elevated her to a throne. Her Uncle Pete had run away to sea when he was sixteen years old. For several years letters came to Granny with strange stamps on the upper right-hand corner of the envelopes and then communication ceased. For twenty-five years there had been no word from Uncle Pete. And he had been King of the Sunshine Islands! Now he had died and left his kingdom to the eldest child of his only brother, John Gilfooly. The oldest child of John Gilfooly was Tessie Gilfooly.[Pg 9] A queen! With a throne and a crown and everything! Tessie's brain reeled. She felt faint.

[Pg 9]

"You come over to the office—Marvin, Phelps and Stokes," suggested Bert, who had come from the office of Marvin, Phelps and Stokes to carry the good news to Tessie and who had never had an errand he liked any better. "Mr. Marvin will tell you all about it."

"Oh, I couldn't come now," faltered Tessie, pinching herself to make sure that she was in the hardware department of the Evergreen and not dreaming in her bed. "I don't get away until half-past five."

"I guess you could get away all right," laughed Bert. But when Tessie shook her yellow head and solemnly assured him that Mr. Walker was awfully strict and never let the girls go a minute before half-past five he laughed again and said all right. He would tell Mr. Marvin that she would be over at half-past five. "Queen Teresa," he said in a voice quite full of admiration and approval, as he went away.

For some time Tessie had been conscious that Mr. Walker had been casting disapproving glances in her direction. Tessie knew—all the girls in the Evergreen had been told—that they were 

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