V


Miss Apperthwaite was at home the following Saturday. I found her in the
library with Les Miserables on her knee when I came down from my room a
little before lunch-time; and she looked up and gave me a smile that
made me feel sorry for any one she had ceased to smile upon.

"I wanted to tell you," I said, with a little awkwardness but plenty of
truth, "I've found out that I'm an awful fool."

"But that's something," she returned, encouragingly--"at least the
beginning of wisdom."

"I mean about Mr. Beasley--the mystery I was absurd enough to find in
'Simpledoria.' I want to tell you--"

"Oh, _I_ know," she said; and although she laughed with an effect of
carelessness, that look which I had thought "far away" returned to her
eyes as she spoke. There was a certain inscrutability about Miss
Apperthwaite sometimes, it should be added, as if she did not like to be
too easily read. "I've heard all about it. Mr. Beasley's been appointed
trustee or something for poor Hamilton Swift's son, a pitiful little
invalid boy who invents all sorts of characters. The old darky from over
there told our cook about Bill Hammersley and Simpledoria. So, you see,
I understand."

"I'm glad you do," I said.