“Sell it at auction. Every article would bring a thundering price if you labelled it a century old, as it must be,” Charley replied, sitting down in a carved chair, the back of which gave way and sent him to the floor amid the jeers of his companions. Picking himself up, he went with the others to the chest, where Alex. was standing with a puzzled look on his face. When he saw it the day before he was sure it was close against the wall and a little under the rafters, where it would be out of the way. Now one end of it was moved five or six inches. Somebody must have been there, and who? Not one of his guests, surely, and if some one else had a curiosity with regard to its contents, it was time he opened it and saw for himself what it contained. A thought of the pretty girl who had visited the Pledgers had haunted him continually since Charley had spoken of her, and he could not shake off a feeling that if she were a Crosby or a remote connection, she had a better right to the chest than himself and the gay crowd clamoring to have it opened. “I guess I’ll have to do it,” he thought, taking hold of one end and finding it heavier than he had anticipated. “Where’s the key?” Charley asked, and Alex. replied: “Lost or stolen. I must go for something to pry off the padlock.” Sherry’s room was in the hall from which the stairs led to the attic and only three doors from it. She had gone up to bathe her throbbing head, and as her door was open she heard what Alex. said. “I have half a mind to tell him to look behind the chest. I believe the key is there, my dream was so vivid,” she thought, and stepped into the hall just as Alex. came down the stairs. “Oh, Fanny,” he said, “if you are going to the kitchen, won’t you please send Mark up with a wrench, file and screw-driver? I am going to open the chest.” Sherry’s impulse to speak of the key left her suddenly, as she thought she would probably be questioned as to how she knew it was there, and, bowing to Alex., she went to the kitchen and found the file and wrench, but not Mark, the boy of all work. “I’ll take them myself,” she said, and, returning with them, she met Amy in the hall just going to the attic and gave them to her. Her head was still aching, and she had that strange feeling or fatigue she had felt in the early morning. “I’ll rest a minute,” she thought, sitting down in her room near the open door, where she could hear distinctly what was said in the attic. Ruth Doane was saying to Amy: “I was right when I thought I heard some one up here last night dragging something on the floor. The chest has been moved from the wall.” “No!” Amy exclaimed in surprise, while Sherry felt as if a heavy blow had been struck her. Her dream was true in part.