keeping journals. Later I discovered that it was because Carol had carelessly left hers on the desk in our den, and had forgotten to padlock the door. Carol is so thoughtless at times, because she gets to going about with "her head in the clouds," as her Aunt Agatha says, and doesn't remember half the things she ought to do. It's generally when she's thinking up some verses. Carol does compose very pretty verses. Miss Cullingford has praised them highly. But she's always awfully absent-minded when she's thinking about them.

Well, the way we learned that the Imp had discovered our journals was by a large sheet of paper pinned to Carol's barn-door. This was written on it:

November 29. How these precious autumn days fly by! Each one is like a polished jewel. I made my bed and dusted my room at eight A. M. Then I composed a sweet little poem on "Feeding the Pigs." After that I slept in the hammock on the porch till lunchtime. The days are all too short for these many duties!

Of course we were furious. Carol confessed to me that she had left her journal open on the desk in the den, and the last entry was awfully like what that little wretch had written, only Carol had spoken of composing a poem on "Feeding the Pigeons." She had slept on the porch all morning, because it was a lovely mild day and I was away with Mother at a luncheon in Bridgeton. But she hadn't mentioned this in her journal.

It is perfectly useless to argue with the Imp, or to scold or reason with her. She can go you one better every single time. We concluded that the best thing to do was ignore the incident entirely. So we left the paper hanging on the barn-door till the wind blew it away. A course of action like that makes the Imp madder than if you got purple in the face with fury. I've advised Carol not to leave her journal in the den any more, but to keep it in her room, and she says she will.

All this, however, isn't telling what happened to Louis. He told us about it this afternoon while we were resting on our veranda after a hot session of pitching the basketball about. After a while we just had to sit down and get our breath, and the Imp strolled off by herself somewhere. It was then that Louis told us the strange thing that happened yesterday.

It seems that his Aunt Yvonne has gone to New York on a visit for a few days, and he has been alone with his Uncle John and the servant. Yesterday afternoon, about five o'clock, a boy rode up from the village on a bicycle with a telegram for his uncle. The old gentleman opened it, but 

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