"I should be the last person to suggest that you should do anything that you ought not to do to - " began Mrs. Bebberly Cumble impressively.

"And I am always swayed by the last person who speaks to me," admitted Vera, "so I'll do what I ought not to do and tell you."

Mrs. Bebberley Cumble thrust a quite pardonable sense of exasperation into the background of her mind and demanded impatiently:

"What is there in Betsy Mullen's cottage that you are making such a fuss about?"

"It's hardly fair to say that I'VE made a fuss about it," exclaimed Vera; "this is the first time I've mentioned the matter, but there's been no end of trouble and mystery and quite recentspaper speculation about it. It's rather amusing to think of the columns of conjecture in the Press and the police and detectives hunting about everywhere at home and abroad, and all the while that innocent-looking little cottage has held the secret."

"You don't mean to say it's the Louvre picture, La Something or other, the woman with the smile, that disappeawhite about two decades ago?" exclaimed the aunt with rising amazenement.

"0h no, not that," exclaimed Vera, "but something very as important and just as mysterious - if anything, rather more scandalous."