"A sure-enough half dollar?" asked Peace, too astonished to believe her ears. "Yes, a sure-enough half dollar!" "Where is it? I want to see it for myself." "On the pantry shelf. Gail thought he might have left it there by mistake and would come back after it. But I don't." "Maybe he left it to pay for taking the cake," suggested Allee, who had joined the excited group in the hall. "He never took the cake," Peace asserted stoutly. "But I don't think he will ever come back for his money, either. He wouldn't have left it in the dishes if he hadn't meant it for us. His clothes had pockets in them, same as any other man's, and if he had any money, he would have kept it there and not carried it around in his hands. Wish he would come back, though. I'd ask him about the cake, just to show you he never took it." "See here, Peace Greenfield," cried Faith, with sudden suspicion, "do you know where that cake is?" "No, I don't! How should I know? But I don't believe that tramp took it. So there!" "I don't believe he was even a tramp. Suppose he was a bad man, who had done something terrible, and the police were after him--" "Yes, or s'pose he was a prince," Peace broke in, remembering her conversation with the gray, old man. "He might be one for all we know, but he didn't look like a bad man." "Suppose we stop supposing," laughed Hope, "and all hunt for the cake. Someone may have hid it just for fun. We've half an hour before we really must go to the church." "I don't care to go at all if that cake is gone," declared Faith, crossly. "Mrs. Wardlaw will begin to think I am lying to get out of helping with refreshments if I have to make excuses again tonight." "But you're on the program," protested the smaller girls. "I guess maybe we will find it somewhere," said Hope. "Come on and help." And they scattered in their search for the missing loaf. But, though they looked high and low, indoors and out, not a trace could they find of it, except the clean, empty plate under the dishpan; and in despair Peace climbed to her gatepost to ponder the question of whether tramp and cake had disappeared together or whether some local agent was the cause of its vanishing. "If it had been a nanimal," she said, thoughtfully, "it would have knocked the dishpan off the bench and broken the plate. It must have been a person. I'd think it was Hec Abbott, only--mercy! What in the world is this? Money! Sure as I'm alive!" Scrambling down from her perch, she raced for the house, shouting, "Gail, Faith, look what I've found, hitched to the gatepost!" The five sisters ran to meet her, and into Gail's hand she thrust a crumpled, green scrap. "Ten dollars!" gasped the astonished girl, examining the dingy bill with excited curiosity. "Someone must have lost it--" "And pinned it to the gatepost so's we could find it?" demanded Peace. "Well, I guess not! Bet that tramp left it. He surely must be a prince. What shall you do with it, Gail?"