"She does," Eloise replied, "and at every mention of them her brain seems to get clearer. Peter has brought me a copy of a letter which Col. Crompton received from Jake just before he went for my mother, and which he has kept all these years. It may help me to find whatever there is to be found, good or bad." She handed him the copy, and continued, "The letter was mailed in Palatka, but from what you tell me, Jakey is farther up the river. Shall I have any trouble in finding him, do you think?" "None whatever," Jack replied, a plan rapidly maturing in his mind as to what he would do if Eloise persisted in going to Florida. "Better leave your mother here," he said, when she told him of her determination to unravel the mystery. "No," she answered. "Mother must go. I expect much from a sight of her old home and Jakey." Jack shivered as he recalled the Rev. Charles Mason's picture of that home, but he would not enlighten her. She must guess something from Jakey's note to the Colonel, he thought. Evidently she did, for she asked him what a Cracker was. "I ought to know, of course, and have some idea," she said. "I asked mother, and she said she was one. What did she mean?" "If you go to Florida you will probably learn what a Cracker is," Jack replied, as he bade her good-night, pitying her for what he knew was in store for her. The next day a telegram from New York called him to the city. But before he went he had an interview with Ruby with regard to the journey which Eloise was designing to take as soon as her mother should have recovered from the shock of the Colonel's death. For a few days after his departure matters moved on quietly at the Crompton House, where Howard assumed the head unostentatiously, and without giving offence to any of the servants. The Crompton estate, as reported to him by Lawyer Ferris, was larger than he had supposed, and if it were his he would be a richer man than he had ever hoped to be. He liked money, and what it would bring him, and if he had been sure of his foothold he would have been very happy. And he was nearly sure. There was no will in the house, he was certain, for he had gone a second and third time through every place where one could possibly have been put, and found nothing. He was safe there, and as he did not know all which Mr. Mason had written to his son, he did not greatly fear the result of Eloise's trip to the South, which he thought a foolish undertaking. But she was bent upon going and the day was fixed. Grandmother Smith had returned home to await developments. Amy was ready. Eloise's lameness was nearly gone, "And to-morrow we start," she said to him one evening, when, after dinner, she joined him in the library, where he spent most of his time.