“He certainly did,” said Katherine, in a tone of surrender.

“That must be why the house we lived in was shut up so long,” said Sylvia musingly. “The man that said we could live in it said that old Mrs. Phillips had moved away many years ago and had never come back, and although people knew she was dead, no one had ever come to live in the house, and nobody in Oakwood knew who owned it. The man said he had heard from older people in the town that Mrs. Phillips had had a son who was away from home all the time after he was grown up and who had gotten into some kind of trouble—he couldn’t remember what it was. This must have been it! How queer it is, that I should first come to live in Tad’s house, and then stay in the house of his friend! I never dreamed, when I heard that man telling Aunt Aggie about the almost forgotten people that used to live in the old house, that I should ever hear of them again. Things have turned out to be so interesting since I came to stay in the Winter Palace!” she finished up with sparkling eyes.

Darkness had fallen by the time Nyoda had finished reading Uncle Jasper’s Diary, and she jumped up with a little exclamation as the clock on the mantel-piece chimed six. The other hours had struck unnoticed. “Mercy!” she cried, “it’s time dinner was on the table, and here we haven’t even begun to get it! I forgot all about dinner, thinking about poor Uncle Jasper.”

All the rest had forgotten about dinner, too, and the Winnebagos could not get their minds off the tale they had just heard read. “Poor Uncle Jasper!” they all said, looking up at his picture, and to their pitying eyes his face was no longer grim and stern, but only pathetic.

CHAPTER VII
SYLVIA’S STORY

“Katherine Adams, whatever has happened to you?” asked Gladys suddenly, meeting her under the bright light in the hall that evening after dinner.

“Why?” asked Katherine, looking startled. “Is there any soot on my face?”

“No,” replied Gladys with a peal of laughter, “I didn’t mean anything like that. I meant that you look different from the way you used to look, that’s all. You’ve changed since the days when I first knew you. What have you done to yourself in the last year? You’re the same old Katherine, of course, but you’re different, somehow. I noticed it when you first came to Brownell last fall, but I’ve been too busy to give it much thought. But since we’ve been here I’ve been watching you and I can’t help noticing the difference. Now stand right there under that light and let me look at you.”

Katherine laughed good humoredly and stood still dutifully while Gladys inspected her with appraising eyes that took in all the little improvements in Katherine’s appearance. She was heavier than she used to be; some of her angles were softened into curves. She now stood erect, with her head up and her shoulders thrown back, which made her look several inches taller. Her hair no longer hung about her face in stringy wisps; the loose ends were curled becomingly around her temples and ears and held in place with invisible hairpins. She wore a trim worsted dress of an odd shade of blue, which was just the right shade to go with her dull blonde hair and with the dark brown of her neat shoes. Her knuckles were no longer red and rough; her fingernails were manicured; the sagging spectacles of the old days had given way to intellectual looking nose glasses with narrow tortoise shell rims.

“Well, what’s the verdict?” asked Katherine, smiling broadly at Gladys.