“But not very soon?”

“No, I—think I’d like to live a little longer; we do have such good times nowadays—in our own home with papa. But—Max, who could have called me like that?” she queried, with a look of anxious perplexity. “You heard it, too, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“But why do you laugh, and look so pleased and amused? I should think you’d be troubled by the mysteriousness of it, same as I am.”

“No, I’m not,” he answered, “because it isn’t really very mysterious to me. Lu, to save you from worrying, I’ll explain.”

She looked at him in wide-eyed surprise.

“Then you know who it was?”

“Yes; it was I—myself.”

“You? why how—what do you mean, Max?”

“That I’ve found out that I’m a ventriloquist, like Cousin Ronald.”