“Oh, I meant the one before the last—­”

“You meant nothing of the sort.  And, mind you, Azalea, this is a direct command,—­you must show me his next letter.”

“I won’t take commands!  How dare you?  You have no right to order me about so.  I hate you!”

“Don’t talk so, Zaly,” Patty said, gently.  “Cousin Bill isn’t asking anything out of the way.  There’s no reason you shouldn’t show him your father’s letter,—­in part, at least,—­is there now?”

“N—­no,—­but I don’t want to.”

“Of course you don’t,” put in Bill, “and for a very good reason!”

“What reason?” cried Azalea, her black eyes flashing.

“You know as well as I do.”

“I don’t!”

“Very well, say no more about it now,—­only remember I want to see the next one.”

Azalea flounced out of the room, very angry, and muttering beneath her breath.

“What in the world, Little Billee, are you getting at?” asked Patty, as she cuddled Fleurette into her shoulder.

“There’s something queer, Patty, something very queer about that girl!”

“You’ve oft repeated that assertion, Sweet William,—­just what do you mean by it?”

“What I say, Faire Ladye!  There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark,—­there is that!”

“But why are you so anxious to see her father’s letters?”

“They’re part of the queer element.  Have you ever seen her get one,—­or read one from him?”

“Not that I definitely remember; but she may easily have read them right before me, and I not have known it.”

“But wouldn’t she be likely to read a word or two,—­or deliver some polite message he might send?”

“I should think so,—­but she never has.”

“That’s the queerness.”

“Oh, do tell me, dear, what you’re getting at!  Do you think Mr. Thorpe is dead,—­and she never told us?  There’d be no sense in that!”

“Not a bit!  It’s something queerer than that.”

“Do you think he’s married again?”

“Queerer than that.”

“Will-yum Farnsworth, if you don’t tell your own wife what you mean, I’ll never speak to you again!  There!”

“At risk of that awful condition of things, I won’t tell you just yet.  But you do this.  Here’s something you can do toward solving the mystery,—­and I can’t.  Find out for sure,—­don’t ask her, but see for yourself,—­if Azalea gets a letter from Horner’s Corners addressed in a big, bold Spencerian hand.  I remember Uncle Thorpe’s handwriting perfectly, and it’s unmistakable.  I’ve not seen it since Azalea came.”

“Goodness, do you call it a mystery?”

“I do, indeed.  You’ll find out it’s a pretty startling mystery, or I miss my guess.”

“Well, Azalea is a handful, I admit, but I think she’s good at heart, and she is devoted to my booful little Fleury-floppet!  My own Dolly-winkums,—­who looks prezackly like her Daddy-winkums!”