word. But that could hardly be, because there are so many words, one could hardly find signs enough to go round. And besides, I notice in looking through the book that there are comparatively few signs, and they are constantly repeated." She fell to gazing silently at the book again, while the others watched, still more44 fascinated by the discoveries she was making. Presently she looked up again.

44

"I've found out something else, I think. Do you see that sign of the triangle? Well, if you notice, that occurs more frequently than any of the others. In the first five lines there are more than fourteen of them, and no other sign happens as frequently as that. Now, if these signs stand for letters, that couldn't be a letter, even if it were one of the commonest, like 'a' or 'i' or 'e'—"

"What can it be then?" whispered Margaret, in a voice so tense that they all laughed.

"I think it means the space between the words!" vouchsafed Corinne. "You see, there'd have to be something to indicate spaces. You couldn't have the words all jumbled up together. It wouldn't make sense!"

"Well, you are wonderful!" sighed Jess, sitting back on her heels. "I never would have thought of it in a century!"

"Oh, no!" laughed Corinne. "There's nothing wonderful about that. It's only common45 sense and puzzling it out like a riddle. Now see! If we take it for granted that the triangle means a space between the words, this sign of the dot between two triangles must be either the letter 'a,' 'I' or 'O,' for those are the only words of just one letter. But you can't tell which it is till you've puzzled out some more. And—after all, this idea may be all wrong. It may be something quite different, for all we know!"

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"But what can it all be about?" began Jess, going off on another tack. "And how under the sun did the thing get hidden away in our old trunk under a false bottom. It's awfully mysterious!"

"Tell you what I think," volunteered Corinne. "Whatever it is, it's been in that trunk for years and years—hidden there, perhaps, when the trunk belonged to some one else. Do you know where it came from—the trunk, I mean?"

"No, I don't even know whether it was Father's or Mother's," answered Jess. "But I can ask Mother. Maybe she'd know."

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