So they had their lunch. And poor Matty counselled again, and helped again, and took the last stitches, and mended the last breaks, and waited and wondered, and tried to hope, till at five o'clock an office messenger came up with this message. 4.45 P.M. DEAR MATTY,--I shall not come up to dinner. There is pressing work here. Tell mamma not to sit up for me. I have my key. I have no chance to get my things for the children. Will you see to it? Here is twenty dollars, and if you need more let them send in the bill. I had only thought of that jig-saw--was it?--that Horace wants. See that the dear fellow has a good one. Love to all and ever yours, PAPA. "Poor, dear papa," said Matty aloud, shedding tears in spite of herself. "To be thinking of jig-saws and children in all this horrid hunt! As if hunting for anything was not the worst trial of all, always." And at once the brave girl took down her wraps and put on her walking-shoes, that her father's commissions might be met before their six-o'clock dinner. And she determined that first of all she would meet Tom at the station. At the station she met Tom; that was well. Matty had not been charged to secrecy; that was well. She told him all the story, not without adding her suspicions, and giving him some notion of her rage. And Tom was angry enough,--there was a crumb of comfort there. But Tom went off on another track. Tom distrusted the Navy Department. He had been long enough at Annapolis to doubt the red tape of the bureaus with which his chiefs had to do. "If the navy had the money, the navy had the vouchers," that was Tom's theory. He knew a chief clerk in the navy, and Tom was going at once round there. But Matty held him in check at least for the moment. Whatever else he did, he must come home first; he must see mamma and he must see the children, and he must have dinner. She had not told him yet how well he looked, and how handsome he was. But after Tom had seen them he slipped off, pretended he had unfinished preparations to make, and went right to the Department, forced his way in because he was Mr. Molyneux's son, and found his poor father with Zeigler, the chief clerk, still on this wretched and fruitless overhaul of the old files. Tom stated frankly, in his off-hand, business-like way, what his theory was. Neither Zeigler nor Tom's father believed in it in the least. Tom knew nothing, they said; the Navy paid the money, but the Navy was satisfied with our receipt, and should be.