wore the bright colored bandana wound about her head, turban-
wise, for a dust cap. Papa Sherwood beat the ashes from his
hands as he stood before the glowing kitchen range.

"What is it?" he asked calmly. "A notice of a new tax
assessment? Or a cure-all advertisement of Somebody's Pills?"

"It's from Cousin Adair," said Momsey, a little breathlessly.
"And it's been lying at our door all the time."

"All what time?" asked Mr. Sherwood curiously.

"All the time we have been so disappointed in our inquiries
elsewhere," said Momsey soberly.

"Oh!" responded her husband doubtfully, and said no more.

"It makes my knees shake," confessed Nan. "Do open it, Momsey!"

"I, I feel that it is important, too," the little lady said.

"Well, my dear," her husband finally advised, having waited in
patience, "unless it is opened we shall never know whether your
feeling is prophetic or not. 'By the itching of my thumb,' and
so forth!"

Without making any rejoinder to this, and perhaps without hearing
his gentle raillery, Mrs. Sherwood reached up to the coils of her
thick hair to secure woman's never-failing implement, a hairpin.