proving them, and thence at the packet of bills and piles of coin on the
desk at her right hand.

"It is the oddest thing that ever happened," she affirmed, as though in
answer to her own first declaration.

It was Saturday evening, and it was always Laura's duty to straighten out
her father's books for him on that day, for although she was a high school
girl, she was usually so well prepared in her studies that she could give
the books proper attention weekly. Laura had taken a course in bookkeeping
and she was quite familiar with the business of keeping a simple set of
books like these.

She never let the day ledger and the cash get far apart. It was her custom
to strike a balance weekly, and this she was doing at this time. Or she was
trying to! But there seemed to be something entirely wrong with the cash
itself.

She knew that the figures on the ledger were correct. She had asked her
father, and even Chet, her brother, who was helping in the store this
evening, if either of them had taken out any cash without setting the sum
down in the proper record.

"It is an even fifty dollars--neither more nor less," she had told them,
with a puzzled little frown corrugating her pretty forehead.

They had both denied any such act--Chet, of course, vigorously.

"What kind of hardware are you trying to hang on me, Mother Wit?" he
demanded of his sister. "I know Christmas will soon be on top of us, and a