along, that we young folks were the only ones who seemed interested in Louis's affair and the new visitor. I wondered why. But something that was said at table last night made me realize that we are, after all, the only ones who know much of the _inside_ of that affair. For instance, Mother said to Father:

"Who is that queer old gentleman visiting across the Green? He seems like a foreigner."

"Monsieur something-or-other," Father answered. "I didn't catch his name, though Louis tried to introduce us the other day, when they were passing where I was working in the north pasture. I've never quite understood the Meadows' household, anyway. They seem queer and foreign--all but Louis. He is a true American boy. I've often wondered where John Meadows hailed from. He brought Louis here as a small baby, and I never knew where he came from. He would never say much about it. By the way, Simpson wrote that we could have that new fertilizer next month."

And that's all they thought or cared about it. But, at any rate, their conversation had given me one bit of news--about Louis having been brought here as a little baby, and that folks didn't know the Meadows' people before. I'd always supposed that they had lived here all along, too. I wonder if Louis knows this? I wonder if I had better tell him? I don't know. Somehow that, and the news the Imp brought to-day, has made me feel about as mixed up as possible. I can't make head or tail of anything. I wish Carol were here.

I've just been looking over this journal from the beginning, noticing all the queer things that have come up about Louis since I began it. I think I'll put them down in order and see if it will help me to make anything out of the strange situation.

First, the queer way that Louis's folks have always treated him and the fact that he isn't any real relation. That looks to me very much as if his antecedents or his forefathers or whatever you call them must have been of some different station of life from the Meadows people. And yet Louis says their families have always been old friends. At any rate, they must feel, for some reason, responsible for him to some one, or they wouldn't be so careful about him. By the way, that some one must be "Monsieur"; who else _could_ it be?

Next there were those mysterious cablegrams. Of course they were from "Monsieur," but what did he mean by saying, "The time is ripe"? Sounds as if some sort of plot was being hatched. And then about those papers. _What_ are they, and _where_ are 

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