It was many a week before the young people of the Pell family ceased to talk among themselves over their singular experience with Mr. Charles Keeler.  He left on the nine o’clock express the next morning, and everybody had been pleasant to him at the breakfast table except Jess, who did not come down.

Roy told the true state of the case before he went to bed that night, and the explanation was very gladly received by both Rex and Eva.

“It may be so,” Jess replied; “but I’ll take my breakfast after he is gone.”

Roy told Sydney about the occurrence, and thought at first, from his brother’s looks, that he was going to give him a severe rating for what he had done.  A sort of convulsive tremor shook his frame, and he hastily took out his handkerchief to wipe away the beads of perspiration that had gathered on his forehead.

But he uttered no word of reproof; merely said that the boys should be careful about the friends they made.

“Don’t you think Mr. Keeler is all right, Syd?” asked Roy.

“Yes, as it turned out, certainly I do,” was the reply.  “But it might have been otherwise.”

For his part, Roy was very glad of the meeting.  Since he had had that interview down by the creek he had been much more reconciled to leaving Marley.

“What if I had the burden to carry about with me that Mr. Keeler has!” he often told himself.  “The consciousness that my brother was a scoundrel, a jailbird!”

CHAPTER XV

 Dudley Harrington

The family moved into their city home early in September.  And a beautiful one it was, with enough ground about it to give windows on all sides.

Of course a small army of servants was necessary to the running of such a dwelling, and Roy, Eva and Jess had many laughable experiences at first in accustoming themselves to being waited on.  But Rex took to luxury as naturally as a duck to water.

He seemed to be growing up terribly fast since a fortune had come into the family.  He insisted on having a latch key as soon as they moved to town, and felt very much aggrieved because his mother would not buy him a dog cart.

“But you are too young, my son,” Mrs. Pell said in response to this request.  “Remember you are not yet sixteen.”

“Well, I shall be next month,” he replied, “and I know perfectly well how to manage a horse, I’ve been out with Scott so much.”

He had had Scott and Charlie Minturn to visit him just as soon as they were settled and took solid satisfaction in entertaining them in the style to which he had been accustomed at their homes.  But they did not seem to have any better time than they used to do down at “the Pellery” at Marley.

In fact they had enjoyed it there because things were different.  Now it was Rex who was different They could not state in just what the difference lay, but they felt it.  And when they had gone Rex realized that he had not enjoyed their visit as much as he had expected to.