KATE MEETS A DETECTIVE

When Kate came to luncheon that day she was surprised to see a letter lying at her place. So soon? Why, she had not been here a day yet!

“It’s not your mother’s handwriting,” Aunt Katherine said, a little curiously.

“No, it’s from the boys. Oh, I’m so glad!”

“The boys?”

“Yes, I told you about them last night, you know. The twins. The Harts. How jolly of them to write me so soon!”

“But what can they have to tell you since yesterday?”

“It will be all about Mother, and much better than a letter from her herself because she doesn’t know how to tell about herself, you know. She’s always so silent on that subject. Do you mind, Aunt, if I just open it and peek?”

“Of course, my dear, read it. Elsie and I will excuse you.”

But there was almost no letter inside. There was one paragraph in the exact centre of a big square sheet of yellow notepaper, written in a script so small and round and legible that it was almost print like. But the very wide margins were bordered with a series of pen sketches that told a story in its progressive action something in the way a moving picture does. It was the story of a picnic the Harts had arranged for yesterday afternoon with Katherine the guest of honour. Professor Hart, in an endeavour to rescue the lunch basket which had fallen into a brook, had evidently fallen in after it. That perhaps was the high mark in the artist’s work. But the picnic had been chock full of adventure one could see at a glance; and Lee’s quick humour and real art had turned even the worst mishaps into fun.

The paragraph was in Sam’s hand, and began: “Dear Kate, if you are well it is well. We also are well.” Apparently he had nothing whatsoever to say, but he said it cheerfully.

Kate crinkled up her eyes and laughed so wholeheartedly over the nonsense that she felt herself rude. She passed the paper to Aunt Katherine. “You will see that I can’t help it,” she explained.

And Aunt Katherine, after she had studied the pictures a few seconds and skimmed the paragraph, laughed, too, a light, genuinely 

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