THE STRANGE LETTER “Oh, Helen, mother received the strangest letter last night,” cried Nathalie suddenly the following day, as she stood with her friend and Nita in the Red Cross booth at the Liberty Sale. “And I am afraid it means,” the girl’s eyes shadowed, “that I shall have to resign as president of the club.” “Resign?” exclaimed Helen and Nita simultaneously. “Oh, Nathalie, you must not do that.” “Well, I fear it will be necessary,” sighed the girl dolefully, “for the home duties come first, especially the duties to mother, and she wants to go—she really needs the change—and—” “Go where?” questioned Helen sharply. “Oh, Nathalie, you are talking Dutch to us, and—” “Sure she is,” voiced Nita quickly, “jumbling letters and resignations all together in a very queer way. Now suppose, young lady,” she commanded imperiously, seizing her friend by the arm impulsively, “that you unravel our tangled brains and tell us what you are aiming at.” “Well, I guess I shall have to, from the stew you two girls have sizzled into,” replied Blue Robin laughingly. “Well, as I said,” she continued more soberly, “mother received a letter last night. But I shall have to tell you a bit of family history, if you want to understand,” she added hesitatingly. As the two girls laughingly assured her that that would only make her explanation more interesting, Nathalie gathered up her threads and went on with her story. “Father had an older half-sister, whose mother—who came of very wealthy people in Boston—left her all of her money, so that she was quite wealthy, and in due time became very eccentric. Father said she was spoiled with her pot of gold. “She married when quite young and had one son, who, shortly after the death of his father,—as soon as he was graduated from college,—went to Europe, fell in love with a pretty girl, and married her. I have never heard the details of this marriage, but I believe the girl was French. No, she may have been English; anyway it was quite a romance, and the young couple were quite happy. “My aunt, however, was deeply wounded to think that her only son, her idol, had spoiled all her plans and married some one whom she considered beneath him. So when Philip came to America with his young wife, my aunt refused to see her. This angered him so deeply that they quarreled, and Philip rushed from his mother’s presence, declaring that she should never see his face again. “And she never did,” asserted Nathalie with grave emphasis. “Presumably he immediately returned to Europe with his young wife, for although Mrs. Renwick soon repented of her folly, as father called it, and wrote her son again and again, she heard nothing from him. After employing detectives by the score with no result, she finally went abroad and endeavored herself to find some trace of him, but was not successful. She finally returned to America and started to seek him here, but found no clew to his whereabouts.