"Have you found out about the sherry she stole from the kitchen?"

"Yes. She told me that for weeks she had kept it hidden and soaked a
lump of sugar in it every night.... She is absolutely truthful, colonel.
I've tried to make her understand the danger."

"All right. Good-bye." Kathleen Severn hung up the receiver with a deep
indrawn breath.

From the nursery above came a joyous clamour and trampling and shouting.

Suddenly she covered her face with her black-gloved hands.




CHAPTER II

IN TRUST


The enfranchisement of the Seagrave twins proceeded too slowly to
satisfy their increasing desire for personal liberty and their
fast-growing impatience of restraint.

Occasionally, a few carefully selected and assorted children were
permitted to visit them in relays, and play in the nursery for limited
periods without the personal supervision of Kathleen or the nurses; but
no serious innovation was attempted, no radical step taken without
authority from old Remsen Tappan, the trust officer of the great Half