ady to hire her on the spot. The result
of it all was that "Mary" was summoned to an interview with Mrs. Rhinehart
in the dining-room, and engaged at four dollars a week, with every other
Sunday afternoon and every other Thursday out, and her uniforms furnished.

The next morning Mr. Hart gave her a dollar-bill and told her that he
appreciated the help she had given them, and wanted to pay her something
for it.

She thanked him graciously and took the money with a kind of awe. Her
first earnings! It seemed so strange to think that she had really earned
some money, she who had always had all she wanted without lifting a
finger.

She went to a store and bought a hair-brush and a few little things that
she felt were necessities, with a fifty-cent straw telescope in which to
put them. Thus, with her modest baggage, she entered the home of Mrs.
Rhinehart, and ascended to a tiny room on the fourth floor, in which were
a cot and a washstand, a cracked mirror, one chair, and one window. Mrs.
Rhinehart had planned that the waitress should room with the cook, but the
girl had insisted that she must have a room alone, no matter how small,
and they had compromised on this unused, ill-furnished spot.

As she took off the felt hat, she wondered what its owner would think if
he could see her now, and she brushed a fleck of dust gently from the
felt, as if in apology for its humble surroundings. Then she smoothed her
hair, put on the apron Mrs. Hart had given her, and descended to her new
duties as maid in a fashionable home.

[Illustration]




VII


Three days later Tryon Dunham entered the office of Judge Blackwell by
appointment. After the business was completed the Judge said with a smile,
"Well, our mystery is solved. The little girl is all safe. She telephoned
me just after you had left the other day, and sent her maid after her hat.
It seems that while she stood by the window, looking down into the street,
she saw an automobile containing some of her friends. It stopped at the
n