"I may," replied Cora vaguely. "But I fancy I may have a seaman's table made. I would not be particular about an original." "Wait, wait!" exclaimed the man. "If you do not care for an original I could make a copy. The one I am to get is something very, very original, and I will have it here. There is no law against making one like it." "Well," said Cora, "I will be in Breakwater for a few days, and I may call in again. There," as he handed in her blue plates, "these are splendid. Mother has a collection of Baronials." Then they started off. Bess drove up to the Whirlwind. "Why in the world didn't you ask who had ordered the table?" she almost gasped. "If you knew that you could easily have traced it." "Wait, wait!" exclaimed Cora, in tones so like those of the shop proprietor that the girls all laughed heartily. "I will go to the shop again, and then I will see. Perhaps I will get the original--and then--well, wait--just wait." "You are a natural born clue hunter!" declared Daisy, "and I am just dying to get back to Aunt May's to tell Duncan." "Now see here, girls," called Cora very seriously, so that all in-the different machines might hear her, "this is a matter that must not be mentioned to any one. It would spoil all my plans if the merest hint leaked out. Now remember!" and Cora spoke with unusual firmness; "I must have absolute secrecy." Every girl of them promised. What is dearer to the real girl than a real secret--when the keeping of it involves further delights in its development? Once back at Bennet Blade the girls whispered and whispered, until Cora declared they would all, forsooth, be attacked with laryngitis, if they did not cease "hissing," and she called upon Doctor Bennet to bear out her statement. Duncan was going to Chelton, and of course he took the trouble to ask what he might do there for the Chelton girls. What he might do? Was there anything he might not do? The Robinson girls declared that their mail had not been forwarded, and they could not trust to mails, anyhow, since their father's papers had been lost. Would it be too much trouble for him just to call? To tell their mother what a perfectly delightful time they were having, and so on. And Maud Morris hated to bother him, but could he just stop at Clearman's and get her magazine? She was reading a serial, and simply could not sleep nights waiting for the last instalment. Of course he would go to see his uncle, Dr. Bennet, Sr. In fact, it was with Dr. Bennet he had the appointment; and when Daisy started to entrust him with her messages to her father, he insisted that she write them down--no normal brain could hold such a list, he declared. Ray was what Bess termed "foxy." She did not ask him to do a single thing. "She thinks he will fetch her a box of candy, or a bottle of perfume. That's Ray," declared Bess to Belle.