“Miss Jane—thank Heaven you’re alive and back again!” Jasper’s exclamation was fervent beyond all rules of butlership. “Mr. Pape, good morning, sir. Your arrival is timely, too. They have been telephoning in all directions to locate you. Such excitement, Miss Jane, as we’ve been suffering!” “_They_, Jasper?” The girl faced about in the vestibule. “The madame, Mrs. Sturgis, and Judge Allen. He has had a fall and broken his shoulder, we fear. Mr. Harford, also, was in some sort of accident. An automobile struck him, I believe.” “Accidents all round, eh?” Pape enquired. “Ain’t that odd?” “Indeed, yes, sir—odd and unfortunate.” Distressed as he looked, Jasper might have joined in the exchanged smile of the younger pair, had he known how fortuitous, if odd, was this gathering of those persons concerned in the pending crock’s-bottom settlement. Indeed, since the lid had been lifted from the bean pot of fabulous store, circumstances had worked with them. Their exit from the block-house and the park had been shared with that of the many young couples driven from Eden at the strokes of midnight. With the crock between them wrapped in Pape’s coat, they had sauntered out Pioneers Gate unmolested by the law so lately hot at their heels. Straight to the yellow brick on East Sixty-third they had whirred themselves and their find; had seen triumph complete in a pair of outward-blinded eyes which could reflect glad sights from within. Only an hour off after breakfast did Pape ask for the rescue of his equine pal from the granite-spiked corral that flanks the mid-park stables. This was effected by a ransom payment insignificant as compared with the paint-pony’s joy. He was then ready for the business of this first day of real togethership with his self-selected—she who admittedly herself had selected him. Of the quartette in the luxurious living-room upstairs, Irene Sturgis was the first to exclaim their unannounced entry. “Jane—and still with _him_—the impossible person!” The histrionic horror in her voice brought Mills Harford to his feet; contrary-wise, sank Mrs. Sturgis into the depths of a wing-chair; broke up the council of war under way beside the couch on which lay the wounded little judge. “Good morning, one and all!” The cheer of Jane’s greeting was not reflected in the faces of those addressed. “We hardly hoped to find you bunched up and waiting for us like this,” Pape added with something of a flourish. “Saves sending for you.” The matron straightened on the edge of her chair and, with a precise expression, inspected first him, then her niece. “You two spent the night together, I assume?” “Most of it, auntie, at a spiritualistic seance in Central Park.” Pape chuckled. “The most inspiring I ever attended.”