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at last emerged, a sullen look upon her face. Her farewell to Astra was vengeful. But there was no time to say more, for the car door shut with a snap and they were on their way, Miriam calling out last-minute directions to Astra—something about the house and some mending she might attend to while they were gone.
    But Astra scarcely heard her. Her eyes were full of dismay as she watched the car disappear around the next corner and realized how alone she was in the world now.
    Slowly she went into the house, picking up as she went, things that had been scattered, her thoughts almost bitter at the look Clytie had given her. How unfair Clytie was! Somehow she didn’t believe those Pullman slippers had really been lost. She felt that Clytie had only been carrying out her promise that she would be sorry about not lending her money. Nevertheless, she went into the rooms that looked so much as if a hurricane had struck them, and quietly, carefully, put them in order, searching as she went. If she found the slippers, she would send them on after them. But no slippers came to light. If there really were any slippers, Astra thought to herself, they were probably stowed carefully in Clytie’s suitcase, whence they would conveniently turn up when they were needed.
    So at last, worn out with the last few hurried days in which she had so willingly sacrificed her own ways for the family good, she climbed to the third floor, thinking to sit down and read a little while and get rested before she did anything else. But when she opened her door, such chaos met her gaze as drove the thought of rest entirely from her mind.
    All the bureau drawers were pulled out and set about on the floor, their contents scattered hither and yon. The bed was pulled to pieces. The pillow cases were peeled off and flung in a crumpled heap. Even the pillows had been ripped at one corner and a few feathers were drifting about as Astra walked around excitedly. Her frightened eyes searched the room, seeking the contents of her lower bureau drawer. And then suddenly she saw it. The little carved box that she loved so much because it had been one of her mother’s precious treasures. Long ago when Astra’s mother had first given it to her, it had been the place in which she had kept her little string of coral beads that her grandmother had given her. Her jewel chest, she had quaintly called it. But later, when she grew older, and had put her little hoard of childish treasures all together in a larger box, this little box had been carried about with her as just a treasure in itself. Always closed and locked, with the tiny key on the little chain in the secret hiding place under her watch in her watch case.
    But now to her horror, she saw the little box wide open, upside down and yawning among clothes and stockings and hairpins and strings of beads. The hinges were bent back, and one was broken away, hanging free and loose. She felt as if someone had struck her with a sharp knife. With a little cry like the sound of a hurt bird, she dropped to her knees in the tumult of clothes and collars and dainty fineries, and took it up gently, as if it were human and could be hurt. And now she saw that the box had been forcibly opened, perhaps by flinging it to the floor, or striking it with a hairbrush or a heavy bottle. That was it! Her witch hazel bottle! It was standing on the bureau where she never left it. It belonged in her little bathroom on the shelf. And the bottle was cracked. The witch hazel was seeping out. Yes, the box had been first flung on the floor and then pounded with the bottle. She could just see the face of the determined, angry girl as she did it. She had forced the box open, and there it lay ruined, broken. But where was the money? It was gone!
    Astra searched wildly, then carefully, through everything in the room, but there was not even a single dollar left! Yes, Clytie had her revenge.
    As she searched through the wreckage with the tears drenching her