The Phantom Treasure

thrills. The teacher already had her roll book open and was marking it. She looked impatiently at the girls as they entered and took their regular seats,

hich they were to commit. What a poky day it was, to be sur

the "irony of fate", as Lina told her later, she must, of course be called on first for the verses. Called back in her thoughts to

omething even bigger than making a perfect recitation was looming in Janet's foreground. When at last the recitation was over, she ran upstairs to the box. Of course the "je" was a sort of affectionate additi

itate the matter. White tissue paper met her eye, and a little note lay on top,

Miss J

Pieter Van Meter, is in communication with your attorney and you may

your mother's things, because I feel sure that you will be interested in seeing something of hers right away that was in the old home place. In one of them I have tucked a note evid

you in this odd but beautiful old

rely

na

ke carefully packed. Packages in oiled paper or light pasteboard containers obviously held a variety of good things, from fried chicken to pickles and fruit. Ordinarily Janet would have exclaimed over the

well in paper and pasteboard. Truly Mis

Tennyson's poems, bound in green and gilt. At once she turned to the le

We have named the baby for her, because I begged for the name. I will have more time to write to-morrow. Jannet wants me to write ever

his letters to her grandmother. "And I suppose that I never got there at all. How did

d lost all track of her. The wonder was that her uncle had found trace of her after so long. Her uncle Pieter! How i

inscription upon the fly-leaf interested Janet even more than the other. It was to "my

t who her mother was. The last doubt in Janet's heart was satisfied. Knowing one or two sad stories in the lives of a few girls at the school, she had wondered if, possibly, there had been any separation, some unhappy ending to the marriage of her father and mothe

arded feast packing its units back into the box with some satisfaction. Janet Eldon had had feasts before, but the materials had a

to unlock her door. Could it be possible that she had spent all Lina's

Loring, walking in ahead of

of my mother's. Just think, girls, I was named for her and everything. I'd rather you would not speak about it to the other girls, though. It always embarrassed me a little, you know, that I did not know a

out the only home that I have kn

to speak. "I never would have thought anything about your not knowing abou

? I'm

reserved, with all the girls, than some of us," said Lin

know," smiled Janet. "I can remember yet crying for 'Gramma' and having h

ie told me all about the 'darling child with the golden hair' that took piano lessons of her and practiced away so hard with fat litt

see Janet?" asked Al

s Hilliard used to look after her the first two or three vacatio

r was sick, and we'd go to the seashore, or somewhere in the mountains. But Miss H

family is enough. But won't it be wonderful to

ted in the surprising facts which she had to tell than in the good things in the box, though when she showed them the cake with its white frosting and unwrapped the pieces of chicken from the oiled paper, offering the

u going to i

nk it would be very piggy just to have this by ourselves? Some way, I don't want a

" laughed

t," asserted Lina. "I know how you m

know when, after I talk to Miss Hil

she had ever attended a late feast in the school. To this qu

scarcely think that you knew it, Janet, and I shall not ask you now. No, to-morrow is Saturday, fortunately. It is cool and your box cam

much disappointment. She did have one thought, though, expressed to Lina later. "Won't i

at even there, late refres

ay that a woman of some intelligence wrote that kind note," she said. "It must be a satisfaction to you, too, Janet, that you are

anet exclaimed. "I had

y small girls were day scholars, she said that your mother was of a fine family in the east and that your father, her son, was ill when he brou

l dreams to me. This makes them a little more real,-that is al

n you first came, we were expecting nothing like your grandmother's sudden death. I u

, except the fact that I did

s Marcy, who wrote about you to your grandmother, I think, what she k

you, how I have been so glad for you

ve always been more

d it was almost as much fun as a late feast. As it happened, it was well that they had their fun early in the