"Oh, I believe I did," she replied, still only half-attentive to what he said, and apparently not particularly interested in explaining herself. She reached for a pad and made rapid calculations. He lighted a cigar and watched her gloved hand dancing over the paper. The package she had tossed on the table was much bewaxed and sealed. "When I said I was broke, I meant that I hadn't any money in my pocket. I want to open an account here so I can cash a check. I suppose you haven't any prejudices against accepting small deposits?" "No prejudices exactly, Lois; but it's so long since any member of the family came into this bank without wanting to make a touch that I'm likely to drop dead." She laughed, drew out her purse, and extracted three closely folded slips of crisp paper, took up a pen and scratched her name across the back of each. "There," she said, "consider these on deposit and give me a check-book." He ran the drafts through his fingers, reading the amounts, and from force of habit compared the indorsement with the name on the face. He smoothed them out on the table and laid a weight on them. He looked at the end of his cigar, then at her. Of the three bills of exchange on New York, one was for ten thousand dollars, issued by a Seattle bank; another was for fifteen thousand, issued by a San Francisco house, and the third was a certified check for seven thousand and some odd dollars and cents. Something over thirty-two thousand dollars! He unconsciously adopted with her something of his way with Phil. He would not express surprise at the magnitude of the sum she had so indifferently fished out of her purse, but rather treat the matter as though he had been prepared for it. The joke of it--that Lois should have come back with money, when her sisters certainly, and the rest of the community probably, assumed that her return to Montgomery meant nothing more or less than the collapse of her fortunes--this was a joke so delicious, so stupendous, that his enjoyment of it dulled the edge of his curiosity as to the history the fact concealed. She hadn't even taken off her gloves to write her name on the drafts! There were depositors who had shown more emotion over confiding one hundred dollars to his care than she had displayed in writing her name on the books as his largest individual depositor. He wanted to giggle; it was the funniest thing that had ever happened. He remarked casually,-- "Got a gold mine, Lois?" He was so full of the joy of it that he gasped at her reply. "How did you know?" she asked sharply. "I didn't." "I thought not. Nobody knows. And nobody need know. Just between ourselves--all this." He nodded. She was an amazing creature, this sister! The joke grew. He hoped she would delay and prolong her revelations, that he might miss nothing of their humor. "Nevada," she remarked sententiously. "Ground floor?" "Something like that." She pushed toward him the pad with her calculations. They read thus:--