“Hedrick!”

“Just look at her!” he cried vehemently.  “Don’t you know she’s tryin’ to make this Corliss think it’s her playin’ the piano right now?”

“Oh, no——­”

“Didn’t she do that with Ray Vilas?” he demanded quickly.  “Wasn’t that exactly what she did the first time he ever came here—­got Laura to play and made him think it was her?  Didn’t she?”

“Oh—­just in fun.”  Mrs. Madison’s tone lacked conviction; she turned, a little confusedly, from the glaring boy and fumbled among the silver on the kitchen table.  “Besides—­she told him afterward that it was Laura.”

“He walked in on her one day when she was battin’ away at the piano herself with her back to the door.  Then she pretended it had been a joke, and he was so far gone by that time he didn’t care.  He’s crazy, anyway,” added the youth, casually.  “Who is this Corliss?”

“He owns this house.  His family were early settlers and used to be very prominent, but they’re all dead except this one.  His mother was a widow; she went abroad to live and took him with her when he was about your age, and I don’t think he’s ever been back since.”

“Did he use to live in this house?”

“No; an aunt of his did.  She left it to him when she died, two years ago.  Your father was agent for her.”

“You think this Corliss wants to sell it?”

“It’s been for sale all the time he’s owned it.  That’s why we moved here; it made the rent low.”

“Is he rich?”

“They used to have money, but maybe it’s all spent.  It seemed to me he might want to raise money on the house, because I don’t see any other reason that could bring him back here.  He’s already mortgaged it pretty heavily, your father told me.  I don’t——­” Mrs. Madison paused abruptly, her eyes widening at a dismaying thought.  “Oh, I do hope your father will know better than to ask him to stay to dinner!”

Hedrick’s expression became cryptic.  “Father won’t ask him,” he said.  “But I’ll bet you a thousand dollars he stays!”

The mother followed her son’s thought and did not seek to elicit verbal explanation of the certainty which justified so large a venture.  “Oh, I hope not,” she said.  “Sarah’s threatening to leave, anyway; and she gets so cross if there’s extra cooking on wash-days.”

“Well, Sarah’ll have to get cross,” said the boy grimly; “and I’ll have to plug out and go for a quart of brick ice-cream and carry it home in all this heat; and Laura and you’ll have to stand over the stove with Sarah; and father’ll have to change his shirt; and we’ll all have to toil and moil and sweat and suffer while Cora-lee sits out on the front porch and talks toodle-do-dums to her new duke.  And then she’ll have you go out and kid him along while——­”

“Hedrick!”

“Yes, you will!—­while she gets herself all dressed and powdered up again.  After that, she’ll do her share of the work:  she’ll strain her poor back carryin’ Dick Lindley’s flowers down the back stairs and stickin’ ’em in a vase over a hole in the tablecloth that Laura hasn’t had time to sew up.  You wait and see!”