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“Why did we move out of that house, Mully,
to the little one on Clover Hill, not half so
nice?”

“Well, darlint, it’s a long story. There was
a paper lost that gave your father the right to
the big house and so it had to be given up,
and so—”

“Who lost the paper, Mully? ‘You’d think
any one would take good care of a paper like
that.”

Betty had never heard the story of the lost
will and now Mary Mulligan decided to tell it
to her, seeing she was a wise child, ten years old
-and sensible beyond the ordinary.

It was not her own but Mrs. Wilfer’s version
of the story that Betty heard, for Mary would
not lay any blame on the child’s father, no
matter how much in her opinion he deserved it.

She told about the Godey’s Ladies’ Book,
given to Baby Betty to cut pictures out of,
and how the important paper had been con-
cealed in its pages. She said she herself had
burned up all the scraps that were left on the
the floor afterwards, but there were only a few
bits. She told how they hunted the house over

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