The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery; Or, The Christmas Adventure at Carver House

om "The Diery of Jasper M. Carver, Esqwire." She held the book up that all might see the portraits of the fears

t me and hit me on the chin and I hit him with an apple core and then he dared me to come out and lick him but I couldn't go out of the house so I dared him to climb up the porch post and come in the window. He came and I licked him. He is a new boy in town and his name is

lots of fun when he was young. What crazy things boys are, anyway! To start out by fightin

proc

eat discovery this afternoon. There is

ph that went up from the Winn

bove the rest. "Please hurry and read wh

he said, holding the book up so they could all see the ragged strip o

e!" The wail ros

hopefully. "Go on, Nyoda." The dai

r chests of money there, all pieces of eight. We haven't any pieces of eight yet just some red, white and blue dollar

ntil Sherry had got done lau

her out as soon as I got home but she had fainted, being a silly girl and afraid of the dark, and she couldn't scream because we tied a handkerchief over her mouth when we kidnapped her, being pirats. So now I am in durrance vile and cannot see any of m

of the two youthful pirates, through all of which the two stood up for each other stanchly, and never, never gave each other

a while, and the spelling improved unti

es any longer. We are goi

e troubles, the triumphs and the escapades of the two friends, still so inseparable that their names have become a byword among the students and they go by the nickname of David and Jonathan. When one of them gets into trou

ere beginning to win honors with brain and brawn. Then came the record of their graduation and return to Oakwood; of "Tad the Terror" becoming a

browsing among rare old art treasures in France and Italy; of gay larks in Paris. It was always he and Tad, he an

n Carver House with his mother, and his enthusiastic adoption of literature as

i, who has lately come to New York, come and set the glass for me. It is a representation of a charming scene I came across in Italy-an arched gateway covered

ay completely by the great love of Jasper Carver

are living in!" said Sylvia exci

interest in the tale. "See if he says anything ab

he Virginia Nightingale, they call her. What a God-gifted woman she is! There never was such a voice as hers. She sang 'Hark, hark, the lark,' and the whole house

p for an instant in Katherin

him; his wild happiness, which found vent in page after page of rapturous plans for the future. Then came the announcement of Tad's return from a period of study abroad,

f with grief and disappointment, turned against his friend and hated him with the undying hate that is born of jealousy. With heavy strokes of the pen that cut the paper he wrote down his determination to have no more friends and to live to himself thereafter. Then, in a shaky hand in marked contrast to

d during the reading of the last page. "The beautiful lady, and the rival lovers, and the disappointe

e page and read

ent history as a serious pursuit.

they knew why there was nothing there but dull old books in h

had them all si

study-the one through which I can see Tad's house when I sit at

nce. "That was the reason for putting up

moving every memory of Tad from his mind! Think of covering up that beautiful pane of glass becau

ason for doing so I told him the devil would come in through that gateway some day and I was putting up the shutter to keep him

shutter off!" said Sherry. "He thought that now the devil

e house on Harrisburg Hill," said Sahwah curio

g in the same house they lived in-if they did live there," she added. "But how strange i

," said Hinpoha, with romantic curiosity. "Did they stay

There was an epidemic of typhoid and quite a few of the men were ill at once, all requiring the same kind of medicine. Through carelessness in making up a certain medicine he put in a deadly poison instead of the harmless ingredient he intended to put in, and a dozen men died of the dose. There was a tremendous stir about the matter, and the newspapers all over the country were full of it. He was court-martialed, and though he was acquitted, the mistake being entire

read! And to think we never suspected there was anything like that connected with your Uncle Jasper! There, n

said Katherine, in

t. The man said he had heard from older people in the town that Mrs. Phillips had had a son who was away from home all the time after he was grown up and who had gotten into some kind of trouble-he couldn't remember what it was. This must have been it! How queer it is, that I should first come to live in Tad's house, and the

on as the clock on the mantel-piece chimed six. The other hours had struck unnoticed. "Mercy!" she cried, "it's time dinne

ff the tale they had just heard read. "Poor Uncle Jasper!" they all said, looking up at his