very beautiful Mrs. Kirby, who is quite prominent in--"

"Oh, yes, indeed!" said Mrs. Kippam, lowering her voice and growing
confidential. "That's the same one. Her husband failed, and all but
killed himself, you know--you've read about it in the papers? She
sold everything she had, you know, to help out the firm, and then
she came here--"

"Bought out an interest in this?" said John, very quietly, in his
winning voice.

"Well, she just came here as a regular guest at first," said Mrs.
Kippam, with a cautious glance at the door. "I was running it then;
but I'd got into awful debt, and my little boy was sick, and I got
to telling her my worries. Well, she was looking for something to
do--a companion or private secretary position--but she didn't find
it, and she had so many good ideas about this house, and helped me
out so, just talking things over, that finally I asked her if she
wouldn't be my partner. And she was glad to; she was just about
worried to death by that time."

"I thought Mrs. Kirby had property--investments in her own name?"
John said.

"Oh, she did, but she put everything right back into the firm," said
Mrs. Kippam. "Lots of her old friends went back on her for doing
it," the little woman went on, in a burst of loyal anger. "However,"
she added, very much enjoying her listener's close attention, "I
declare my luck seemed to change the day she took hold! First thing
was that her friends, and a lot that weren't her friends, came here