With these apprehensions flitting through their minds, the two girls seated themselves to listen with very languid interest. But what was that Agnes was unfolding,—a newspaper? And what was it she was saying as she pointed to a certain column? She wanted them to read that! The cousins looked at each other in a dazed, inquiring fashion; and Agnes, starting forward, impatiently thrust the paper into Dora's hand and cried sharply,—
"Read that; read that!"
Dora in a bewildered way read aloud this sentence, which in big black letters stared her in the face,—
"Smithson, alias Smith."
"Well, go on, go on; read what is underneath," urged Agnes, as Dora stopped; and Dora went on and read,—
"It seems that that arch schemer and swindler Frank Smithson, who got himself out of the country so successfully with his ill-gotten gains from the Star Mining Company, has dropped the last syllable from his too notorious name, and is now figuring in South America under the name of Smith. His wife and young son are with him, and the three are living luxuriously in the suburbs of Rio, where Smithson has rented a villa. An older child, a daughter of fourteen or fifteen, was left behind in this country with Smithson's brother's widow, who has also taken the name of Smith. They are staying at a summer resort not far from Boston."
The bewildered look on Dora's face did not disappear as she came to the end of this statement.
"What did you want me to read this for?" she asked Agnes.
"What did I want you to read it for? Is it possible that you don't see,—that you don't understand?"
"Understand what? We don't know these Smithsons."