"And hobble skirts," added Billie with an inward laugh, remembering Nancy's. "It's very interesting," said Richard, "a good deal like missing the middle act of a drama." "Don't you imagine that Phoebe's father belonged to a noble family? Perhaps he was a younger son, and fell in love with a pretty English girl named Phoebe Jones. They eloped to America and hid themselves in the mountains, and the old Archduke or Prince or Baron who was the father perhaps gave it out that his son was insane. They always do that, you know." "Very romantic," said Richard, "but why has he been speaking only English all these years?" "Don't ask me anything so scientific, please." "It would go hard with me," pursued Richard, "if I got a blow on the head over my English-language bump, because I wouldn't have any other to take its place." Having arranged the history of the sick man to their own satisfaction, and as a matter of fact, to the doctor's and Mr. Campbell's also, they returned to Sunrise Camp, leaving Alberdina and Phoebe behind them. Poor Phoebe had watched Billie and Richard together from the doorstep of the cabin. Then she had folded her hands with a gesture of resignation and closed her eyes. Something had hurt her. She still felt the pain and not all her faith nor prayers could ease it. That night the campers gathered around the fire and discussed the mystery of the "Prince in Exile," as they had named Phoebe's father. They told stories of similar cases, of men with double identities who had been lost for years, of men who had made new lives for themselves and even earned fortunes. "I knew he was a prince the first time I saw him," Mary exclaimed. "And now Phoebe will be a princess and perhaps very rich," observed Elinor. "Think of stepping from a cabin to a palace," went on Amy Swinnerton. "From being a barefooted girl selling blackberries on the mountain to being a noble lady with a retinue of servants." And so they all talked and discussed and enjoyed themselves immensely until a motor horn interrupted them. A car had evidently stopped in front and someone now hurried over to the group around the fire. "Well, children," called Dr. Hume, "I daresay you'll be interested in the news I am bringing you." "Wasn't I right?" cried Billie. "He was a prince?" "Or a duke, perhaps?" "Even a baron is pretty good." There was a long pause. "You are wonderful guessers," said the doctor. "He lived in a palace." "I knew it," cried Mary. "Would it disappoint you very much if I were to tell you that the gentleman without a memory who lived in a palace was not a prince, nor a duke, nor a baron, but at one time a clergyman?" "Oh!" they exclaimed in varying tones of surprise and disappointment. "Then how the palace?" asked Maggie Hook. "The Rev. Archibald Jones, a highly educated English gentleman of no means to speak of, was tutor in a noble family in Germany." "But his wife? She was a princess?" cried Mary, almost weeping.