the house and look up the word in our big dictionary. Maybe I can find it there."

She came flying back after a few moments, all excitement, panting: "It was there! I didn't dare hope it would be. It gave a whole lot about how the word originated. We weren't so far off the track when we thought of 'dolphin.' It did come from that! But anyhow, the principal meaning was, 'The eldest son of the King of France. The heir to the throne.' It also says that there isn't any such title in France now."

After that they just sat and stared at the picture in silent amazement. What in the world could it all mean? If they'd been confused before, they were now more muddled than ever. Suddenly an idea occurred to Sue.

"Which dauphin do you suppose it was?" she questioned. "There must have been a lot of them."

"Maybe we could find out if we read the book through," suggested Carol helplessly.

The task, indeed, appeared herculean. Neither of the girls were in the least interested in memoirs, or in any other literature of that "dull" class. Both had frequently acknowledged that only stories of adventure and mystery and excitement contained the least interest for them. There seemed, however, no other way out of this tangle.

"Well, all right! If we must, we must, I suppose," said Sue. "I'd attempt 'most anything for the sake of solving this mystery. Suppose we read it aloud, turn and turn about. But for goodness sake, don't let's try to do it up here. We'll freeze. What if people do see us with it? They'll probably only think we're reading it for study. The Imp might suspect something, but she--"

Suddenly Carol interrupted with: "See here! Why not tell the Imp? She's evidently found out a lot of things on her own hook, and she even said she might tell us about them some time, if she could. Perhaps we've got ahead of her on this. I'd just enjoy getting ahead of her for once! Let's tell her and see what happens."

It was now Sue's turn to demur. Carol was so insistent, however, that she finally gave a reluctant consent, and they went out to hunt up the Imp. A little triumphantly Sue led her younger sister up to the loft, and with just a touch of patronage she promised her the surprise of her life when she got there. But to their intense chagrin, the two girls found, as they had discovered many times before, that they had, so to speak, to get up very early in the morning to get ahead of the 

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