fellow needs all the money there is in the world to buy even one girl a
decent present. But I assure you I haven't taken to nicking papa's cash
drawer."

"I don't know but mother is right," Laura sighed. "Your language is
becoming something to listen to with fear and trembling. And I am not
accusing you, Chetwood. I'm only asking you!"

"And I'm only answering you--emphatically," chuckled her brother.

"It is no laughing matter when you cannot find fifty dollars," she told
him.

"You'd better stir your wits a little, then, Sis," he advised. "You know
Jess and Lance will be along soon and we were all going shopping together,
and skating afterward. Lance and I want to practice our grapevine whirl."

But being advised to hurry did not help. For half an hour since Chet had
last spoken the girl had sat in a web of mystery that fairly made her head
spin! Her ledger figures were proved over and over again. But the cash!
Then once more she bent to her task.

The piles of coin were all right she finally decided. She counted them over
and over again, and they came to the same penny exactly. So she pushed the
coin aside.

Then she slowly and carefully counted again the bank-notes, turning them
one by one face down from left to right. The amount, added to the sum of
the coins, was equal to the figures on the ledger. Then she did what she
had already done ten or a dozen times. She recounted the bills, turning