"Maybe," Peter hesitated and then finished, "Do you remember asking me what the matter was this morning? Well, it's this. Doc is going to Europe, and I won't let him leave me any money 'cause I know he needs it all himself, so I've got to get work, and I think I'll be starting soon." "But, Peter, I'll see you before you go," Janet exclaimed in dismay. "Maybe," Peter drawled as he had done the first time she had ever seen him. "Anyway good-by for now." Janet watched him walk down the road until the twilight shadows swallowed him up. There was something that felt like a lump in her throat. CHAPTER IX THE MYSTERIOUS OWNER "And now, you amazing child, tell me all you know about Peter." Mrs. Todd let her horse trot along unguided through the dusk and settled back in her seat, with a look of amused expectation on her face. Janet plunged into a recital of Peter's life, or at least that portion of it that she knew, and before very long the amusement changed to interest and then to pity. Mrs. Todd was a splendid listener and a very understanding woman. "What kinds of books does he like to read?" she asked, when Janet paused for breath. "Everything in the library," Janet told her. "He laughs just as hard at 'Alice in Wonderland' as he does over 'Robinhood and his Merrymen,' but of course he likes Robinhood best, especially the part about Little John. He likes the 'Idyls of the King' too, and he just eats up history. To-day I found him reading a stuffy old book about sheep. I think he would like to raise, or do whatever it is you do to, sheep, but of course he can't now because of Doc." "And who is Doc?" Mrs. Todd inquired. Again Janet explained as best she could, and this time it was Mrs. Todd's eyes that were wet. "Hum," she said after a little pause, "perhaps sheep would be a good idea, I never thought of it myself. I'll talk to Peter about it." Janet sighed a long, happy sigh. "It's the most perfect fairy tale that ever came true," she said. "Of all the people in the world that I would have chosen to be the mysterious owner of the Enchanted Kingdom, you would be the first, only I simply can't understand why I never knew or why you never lived in it." Mrs. Todd sighed too, but hers was not a happy sigh. "My dear child," she said, "that is a very long and a very disagreeable story, but perhaps I can tell you enough of it for you to understand why I left my home and Old Chester.