age, so they tell me, a widower, who is interested in our sex and
particularly in Annabel Sellimer. Mr. Edgerton Compton isn't
invited. You see, he's a sort of rival--a poor rival. This
middle-aged man has known the Sellimers a long time, and he has been
trying to win Annabel for a year or two. If it hadn't been for Mr.
Compton she'd have married HIS HOUSE before now, I gather. The
house is said to be immense, in a splendid estate near the river.
I am all excitement when I think of going there for ten days. There
are to be fifty guests and the other forty-nine are invited as a
means of getting Annabel under his roof. Won't I feel like a little
girl in an old English novel! The best of it is that nobody will
bother ME--I'm too poor to be looked at a second time, I mean, what
THEY call poor. Sometimes I laugh when I'm alone, for I feel like
I'm a gold mine filled with rich ore that nobody has discovered.
Remember the 'fool's gold' we used to see among the granite
mountains? I think the gold that lies on the surface must always
be fool's gold. The name of the country-house we are to visit is
the same as that of the man who owns it--"

Wilfred Compton held the letter closer to the light.

Brick Willock spoke impatiently: "No use to stare at that there
word--we couldn't make it out. I guess she got it wrong, first,
then wrote it over. Just go ahead."

Bill suggested, "I think the first letter is an 'S.'"

Wilfred scrutinized the name closely.

"Besides," said Willock, "we knows none of them high people, the