"Fond of!" exclaimed Mrs. Canterby. "Far be it from me to say anything about a neighbor lady, but if Petunia Scroggs ain't crazy over love and marriage I don't know what. She'd do anything in the world to get a husband. I recall about Tim Wentworth--Furnaces Put In and Repaired--and how hungry Petunia used to look after him when he went by in his wagon, but she couldn't get after him because she hasn't a furnace in her house, but the minute he hung up the sign 'Chimneys Cleaned,' she was down to his shop and had him up to the place, and I know it for a fact, for I took some of the soot out of her eye myself, that she courted him so hard when he got to her house that even when he went to the roof to clean the chimney she stuck her head in the fireplace and talked up the flue at him." "Goodness!" said Mr. Gubb again. "I guess I'll go on my way and look at your wall-paper some other day." Mrs. Canterby laughed. "Just as you wish," she said, "but if Petunia has set out after you, you won't get away from her that easy." But Mr. Gubb was already moving to the door. He heard Miss Petunia's voice calling Mrs. Canterby, and coming nearer and nearer, and he fled. At Higgins's book-store he stopped and asked to see a copy of "Weldon Shirmer," and turned to page fourteen. "'Fate,'" ran the first full sentence, "'has decreed that you wed a solver of mysteries.'" Mr. Gubb shivered. This was the mysterious passage Miss Scroggs had meant to bring to his eyes in an impressive manner. He was sure of one thing: whatever Fate had decreed in the case of the heroine of "Weldon Shirmer," Philo Gubb had no intention of allowing Fate to decree that one particular Correspondence School solver of mysteries should marry Miss Petunia Scroggs. He hurried to his office. At the office door he paused to take his key from his pocket, but when he tried it in the lock he found the door had been left unlocked and he opened the door hastily and hurried inside. Miss Petunia Scroggs was sitting in his desk-chair, a winning smile on her lips and "Myra's Lover, or The Hidden Secret," in her lap. "Dear, wonderful Mr. Gubb!" she said sweetly. "It was just as you said it would be. Here is the book Mrs. Canterby loaned me." For a moment Mr. Gubb stood like a flamingo fascinated by a serpent. "You detectives are such wonderful men!" cooed Miss Petunia. "You live such thrilling lives! Ah, me!" she sighed. "When I think of how noble and how strong and how protective such as you are--" Mr. Gubb kept his bird-like eyes fixed on Miss Petunia's face, but he pawed behind himself for the door. He felt his hand touch the knob. "And when I think of how helpless and alone I am," said Miss Petunia, rising from her chair, "although I have ample money in the bank--"