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“H-m!” said Mrs. Fox. “Yes, you’re right, Tony. This is serious!”

“All worked out, you see,” said the man, gloomily, as he drummed absently on the letter.

“Oh, Anthony, I can’t help thinking of the Page boy, and that awful woman! Anthony, shall I go? Could I do any good if I went?”

“No,” he said thoughtfully. “No, I’ll go myself. Don’t worry, Fanny, there’s still time. Isn’t it a curious thing that it’s a quiet little fellow like Bud that–well, we’ll see what can be done. I’ll talk to this woman. She may think he has money of his own, you know. I’ll buy her off if I can. Perhaps I can get him to go off somewhere with me for a trip. I’ll see. Barker can look me up a train, and things here will have to wait. You’ll see about my things, will you, Fanny–have ’em packed? Oh, and here’s the letter–pretty sick reading you’ll find it!”

“Be gentle with him!” said Mrs. Fox, deep in the boy’s letter. “Thirty-two! Why, she might be his mother–in some countries she might, anyway. Anthony!”–her voice stopped him at the door–“IS her name Sally Mix?”

“Apparently,” he said. “Can you beat it? It sounds like a drink!”

“Well,” said Mrs. Fox, firmly, as if the name clenched the matter, “it must be STOPPED, that’s all! Sally Mix! I hope she’s WHITE!”

II

Just a week later, in Palo Alto, California, Anthony Fox slammed the gate of Miss Mix’s garden loudly behind him, and eyed the Mix homestead with disapproval. The house was square and white, with doors and windows open to spring sunlight and air, and was surrounded by a garden space of flowers and trees and trim brick walks. The click of the gate brought a maid to the doorway.

“Mr. Fox won’t be here until noon,” said the maid, in answer to his question.

“Does Miss–could I see Miss Mix?” substituted Anthony, after a moment’s thought.

He took a porch chair while she departed to find out.

“If you please,” said the maid, suddenly reappearing, “Miss Mix is setting a Plymouth, and will you step right down?”

“Setting a–” scowled Anthony.

“Plymouth,” supplied the maid, mildly.

Anthony eyed her suspiciously, but there was evidently nothing concealed behind her innocence of manner. Finally he followed the path she indicated as leading to Miss Mix. He followed it past the house, past clothes drying on lines, past scattered apple trees with whitewashed trunks, and down a board walk to the chicken yard.

No one was in sight. Anthony rattled the gate tentatively. A slim, neat, black Minorca fowl made an insulting remark about him to another hen. Both chuckled.

“Come in–come in and shut it!” called a clear voice from the interior of the chicken house.

Anthony’s jaw stiffened.

“May I speak to you?” he called, with as much dignity as a person shouting at an utter stranger across an unfamiliar chicken yard may command.

“Certainly! Come right in!” called the voice, briskly.

Seeing nothing else to do, Anthony unwillingly crossed the yard, and stepped into the pleasant, whitewashed gloom of the chicken house. Loose chaff was scattered on the floor, and whitewashed boxes lined the walls. An adjoining shed held the roosts, which a few murmuring fowls were looping with heavy flights.

As he entered, a young woman in blue linen shut a gray hen into a box, and turned a pleasantly inquiring glance upon him.

“Good morning!” she said, smiling. “I knew you would want to see the thing sooner or later, so I asked Statia to show you right down here. Now, there’s the trap”–she indicated a mass of loose chains and metal teeth on the floor–“and here’s the key; but it simply WON’T work!”

Anthony was not following. He was staring at her. She was extremely pretty; that he had expected. But he had not expected that she–she–well, he was not prepared for this sort of a woman at all! He must go slow here. He–she–Bud–

“I beg your pardon,” he interrupted himself to stammer apologetically, “I didn’t catch–you were saying–“