delicious cake in a beautiful paper collar-box and sent it in all
haste to her brother and his two friends in the far-off country.
Great was Slosson's joy upon receiving this palatable boon, and great
was the joy of his two friends, who it must be confessed were on the
very brink of starvation. The messages Mary Matilda received from the
grateful young men, who owed their rescue to her, must have pleased
her, although the consciousness of a noble deed is better than words
of praise.

But one day Mary Matilda got another letter from her brother Slosson
which plunged her into profound melancholy. "Weep with me, dear
Sister," he wrote, "for one of my companions, Juan, has left me. He
was the youngest, and I fear some great misfortune has befallen him,
for he was ever brooding over the mystery of his lineage. Yesterday
he left us and we have not seen him since. He took my lavender
trousers with him."

As you may easily suppose, Mary Matilda was much cast down by this
fell intelligence. She drooped like a blighted lily and wept.

"What can ail our Mary Matilda?" queried her mother. "The roses have
vanished from her cheeks, the fire has gone out of her orbs, and her
step has lost its old-time cunning. I am much worried about her."

They all noticed her changed appearance. Even Eddie Martin, the
herculean wood-sawyer, observed the dejection with which the
sorrow-stricken maiden emerged from the house and handed him his
noontide rations of nutcakes and buttermilk. But Mary Matilda spoke
of the causes of her woe to none of them. In silence she brooded over
the mystery of Juan's disappearance.