the fact that Edith did not seem to be turning out quite so well as the other Sunrise Camp Fire girls.

With a hurried movement she next picked up the breakfast tray, exclaiming:

"Thank heavens we are not going to have to give our lodgers anything but their rooms and that Martha is coming back to do our cooking and the cleaning. Good old soul to offer to do it without pay. She said that she could not bear living anywhere except with us and that she had enough of father's money stored away in bank not to need any more. But we could not have had her work without pay." Betty kissed her mother lightly on the forehead. "If any one else turns up today and wishes a room, just refer them to me. I'm afraid I won't leave us a bed to sleep in. I am getting so anxious to surprise Dick by really earning a lot of money."

"Well, don't rent the back room that Esther used to have, Betty. You may move into it yourself some day if you like, but I would rather not have a stranger occupy it. I——"

"What on earth is queer about that room?" Betty interrupted. "I have not time to listen now, but you must tell me. You talk as though it were a kind of Bluebeard's Chamber of Horrors. Yet I don't suppose you would put me in it if I were likely to have my head cut off in consequence. Good-bye, dear." And Betty fled out into the hall, realizing that it must be almost school time.

The door of Esther's old room happened by accident to be standing open, and still holding on to her tray, Betty paused before it for a few moments. She was not thinking of a possible mystery or secret in connection with the room, only wondering if Esther and Polly were to be at home for the Christmas holidays. They both wanted to come, she thought. But Esther was not sure of being able to afford it and Polly was uncertain of whether she wished to stay in her stepfather's house at a time when her stepbrother, Frank Wharton, whom she disliked so much, should also be at home for his holidays. The girl's face was a little wistful. She so longed to see both her friends. Without them and without Dick, this first Christmas under such changed conditions at home might be rather trying.

"Oh!" Betty exclaimed a trifle indignantly, with her arm shaking so that the dishes in her hands rattled dangerously. "What in the world are you doing in the house at this hour, Anthony Graham? You frightened me nearly to death, turning up at my elbow in such an unexpected fashion. I thought you had been gone hours!"

Anthony put down his coal scuttle and took hold of Betty's tray. "I have been away, but I came back for a moment because your mother wished me to do something for her as soon as I had the spare time." His tone was so surly that Betty smiled. Anthony had been brought up with such a different class of people that he was unable to understand sarcasm or pretense of any kind. Whatever one said he accepted in exactly the words in which it was spoken. And Betty and her friends had always been accustomed to joking with one another, to saying one thing, often meaning another. Anthony should have had the sense to realize that she was not really cross, that her indignation was partly assumed. Therefore she did not intend taking the trouble to set him right in the present instance.

"I'll carry the dishes down myself. I have plenty of time," she protested coldly.

But Anthony only held the more firmly to the tray, with his face crimsoning.

The truth was that he had been appreciating in the past few days a truth of which the girl herself was as yet unconscious. Betty's manner toward him had noticeably changed. In the excitement of their Thanksgiving day meeting and his romantic return of the money which she had completely forgotten, she had shown far more interest and friendliness than she now did. On that occasion Betty had overlooked the young fellow's roughness, his lack of education and family advantages. Really Anthony had never been taught even the common civilities of life and had to trust to a kind of instinct, even in knowing when to take off his hat, when to shake hands, how to enter or leave a room. And he understood keenly enough his own limitations. Yet the change in Betty's attitude had hurt him, even though he acknowledged to himself his failure to deserve even her original kindness. She was still kind enough of course in the things which she thought counted. She was cordial about his having his room in the house with her mother and herself and most careful of thanking him for any assistance which he rendered them. Yet the difference was there. For neither in heart nor mind had Betty yet grown big enough to feel real comradeship with a boy so beneath her in social position and opportunities.

Nevertheless she did not mean to be ungracious and something in the carriage of the young man's head as he moved off down the hall suggested that he was either hurt or angry, although exactly why Betty could not understand.

"Don't go for a second, Anthony," she called after him. "I wanted to tell you that you are living in a house with a haunted chamber. At least I don't know whether this room is exactly haunted, but there is something queer about it that my mother and brother have never confided to me. Perhaps I shall move in and find out for myself what it is. I will if there is a chance of my friends, Esther Crippen and Polly O'Neill, coming home for the holidays. For it is so big that we could stay in it together. And perhaps Mrs. O'Neill will let Polly come here and visit me for a little while. Both the girls are doing wonderful things in New York City. And I am afraid if they don't come home pretty soon they will both have outgrown me. It is so horrid to be a perfectly ordinary person."

As Betty moved off, the expression on her companion's face did not suggest that he thought of her as entirely ordinary.

CHAPTER IV

TEMPTATION

"You are perfectly absurd and I haven't the faintest intention of confiding in any one of you." And Polly O'Neill, with her cheeks flaming, rushed away from a group of girls and into her own bedroom, closing the door and locking it behind her.

This winter at boarding school in New York City had not been in the least what she had anticipated. Perhaps the character of the school she and her mother had chosen had been unfortunate. Yet they had selected it with the greatest care and it was expensive beyond Polly's wildest dreams. For, apart from her own small inheritance, her stepfather, Mr. Wharton, had insisted on being allowed to contribute to her support, and not to appear too ungracious both to her mother and to him, his offer had been accepted. Yet Polly did not consider herself any greater success in thus masquerading as a rich girl than she had been as a poor one. Was she never to be satisfied? Her school companions were all wealthy and few of them had any ideas beyond clothes and society. To them Polly had seemed a kind of curiosity. She was so impetuous, so brilliant, so full of a thousand moods. Betty Ashton had once said that to know Polly O'Neill was a liberal education, and yet in order to know her one ought to have had a liberal education beforehand.

Today during the recreation hour at "Miss Elkins' Finishing School," which was Polly's present abode, there had been a sudden discussion of plans for the future. And Polly, partly because she was in a contradictory mood and partly because she really wished it to be known, had boldly announced herself as poor as a church mouse with no chance of not starving to death in the future unless she could learn to make her own living.

And this had started the onslaught of questions from which she had just torn herself away.

For Polly had absolutely determined not to confide in any one of her new companions her ambition to go upon the stage. They would not understand and would only be stupid and inquisitive. Why, had they not worried her nearly to death simply because of her acquaintance with