"Why, Hippy Wingate, what are you doing here so early?" demanded Nora, from the porch swing. "You can't have your dinner yet. It's only four o'clock. When you're invited to six o'clock dinner you mustn't arrive two hours beforehand. Didn't you know that?" This wifely counsel was accompanied by a teasing smile that belied its harshness.
"Don't pay any attention to her, Hippy," called Grace mischievously. "Come up on the veranda where it's nice and cool. I give you permission to sit in the porch swing beside the haughty Mrs. Wingate. Better still, I'll bring you some fruit lemonade and a whole plate of those fat little chocolate cakes you like so much."
"Now I hope you understand at last how much other people appreciate me," rebuked Hippy, as he plumped himself down in the swing with an energy that set it swaying wildly. "I shan't give you a single cake."
"I don't want any. I've had four already. I hope you understand that you've made me prick my finger," retorted Nora, dropping her embroidery to hold up the injured member for inspection.
"Too bad," mourned Hippy, applying the familiar remedy of the devoted. "Did you really lacerate your itty bitty finger? I don't see any signs of it."
"Only the blind can't see," flung back Nora. "All joking aside, what brought you here so early?"
Hippy cast an uneasy glance toward the doorway through which Grace had just vanished. "This," he returned soberly. Unfolding a New York City newspaper, he pointed to a black headline which read, "Young Man Mysteriously Disappears."
Nora drew a sharp breath of dismay as her startled glance traveled down the column. "Where—how—" she stammered.
"I don't know." Hippy glared savagely at the offending newspaper. "I've got to show it to Grace," he deplored. "I'd rather be shot. Some one broke a confidence. It's outrageous in who ever broke it."
"I should say so," agreed Nora. "You'd better—Here she comes now."