while I'm here, I shall tell Gran'pa Jim to have Mr. Cragg arrested and put in prison."

   "Will ye? Will ye—honest?" asked the girl eagerly. "Say! that'll help a lot. If I'm killed, I'll know I'll be revenged."

   So tragic was her manner that Mary Louise could have laughed outright had she not felt there was a really serious foundation for Ingua's fears. There was something about the silent, cold-featured, mysterious old man that led her to believe he might be guilty of any crime. But, after all, she reflected, she knew Mr. Cragg's character only from Ingua's description of it, and the child feared and hated him.

   "What does your grandfather do in his office all day?" she inquired after a long pause.

   "Writes letters an' reads the ones he gits, I guess. He don't let me go to his office."

   "Does he get many letters, then?"

   "Heaps an' heaps of 'em. You ask Jim Bennett, who brings the mail bag over from the station ev'ry day."

   "Is Jim Bennett the postman?"

   "His wife is. Jim lugs the mail 'tween the station an' his own house—that's the little white house next the church—where his wife, who's deef-'n'-dumb, runs the postoffice. I know Jim. He says there's 'bout six letters a year for the farmers 'round here, an' 'bout one a week for Sol Jerrems—which is mostly bills—an' all the rest belongs to Ol' Swallertail."

   Mary Louise was puzzled.

   "Has he a business, then?" she asked.

   "Not as anybody knows of."

   "But why does he receive and answer so many letters?"

   "Ye'll hev to guess. I've guessed, myself; but what's the use? If he was as stingy of postage stamps as he is of pork an' oatmeal, he wouldn't send a letter a year."

   Mary Louise scented a mystery. Mysteries are delightful things to discover, and fascinating to solve. But who would have thought this quiet, retired village harbored a mystery?

   "Does your grandfather ever go away from here? Does he travel much?" was her next question.

   "He 

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