"But a year from now I prophesy," said Mr. Day, "that your little house will be worth much more than it is to-day. At least it will be worth no less. It will be easier a year from now to raise another mortgage than it is right now. Just toll Strout along a little," and he laughed.

"Do you think I can do this, Mr. Day?" asked Mrs. Carringford doubtfully.

"You can to it for your children's sake, I have no doubt. And remember, in any case, if Strout demands the entire mortgage paid at once, within three days I will try to obtain for you a new mortgagee. You shall not lose your home, or what money you have already put into it, if I can help it."

"Oh, Mr. Day! exclaimed the woman, warmly. "If I can go home with this confident feeling--"

"You may. Of course, you are in debt. It is going to be a hard struggle for you to get along. But your children are growing up and in time will be able to shoulder a part of the burden which you have a.s.sumed for their sake. Take courage, Mrs. Carringford.

Everything will turn out right in the end, I am sure."

It was plain that Mrs. Carringford was greatly comforted. When she left, Janice whispered to her father: "I'm awfully proud of you, Daddy. You do have such a way with you!"

But helping other people out of their troubles was not helping the Days out of their particular Slough of Despond. So many difficulties seemed reaching out to clutch at Janice and Daddy!

The girl thought it was like walking through a briar-patch.

Every step they took, trouble r.e.t.a.r.ded them.

First and foremost the disappearance of that strange Olga Cedarstrom, and the loss of the box of heirlooms, was continually in Janice's mind. The girls at school knew about it, although only Amy knew just how serious the loss was to the Days.

The puzzle regarding the girl named Olga who had helped in the Latham's kitchen the night of Stella's birthday party, had been noised abroad among Janice's school friends, and more or less comment was made upon it.

"Say, Janice, did you ever find out what became of that Swede who broke Mrs. Latham's dish the night we were all there?" asked one of the girls one day. "Didn't you say she might be the very girl who ran away from your house?"

"Yes! I did think so. But it was not the same. Her friends said this girl was not named Cedarstrom."

"Well, who'd want such a name, anyway?" laughed another of the party.

Stella was herself one of those present; but at this time she was not speaking to Janice. She laughed maliciously when Janice Day had gone.

"What's the matter with you, Stella?" asked Bertha Warring.

"Your 'ha, ha' is like that of the villain in the melodrama.

What is the matter?"

"Oh, never mind," returned Stella, apparently very much enjoying her own secret thoughts.

"Tell us, Stella; then we'll all laugh," urged another.

"Oh, no. You girls say I can't keep a secret. But I'll

show you--and that Janice Day--that I can. I know something about the Olga-girl that she'd like to know; but Janice shall never learn it from me," and Stella laughed again maliciously.

CHAPTER XXI. THE CLOSING OF SCHOOL

Janice heard from Gummy and Amy just how Abel Strout acted and what he said when he came to see their mother about the renewal of the mortgage and the payment of the half year's interest.

Gummy was very much excited over it.

"You strought to see that Stout man, anyway--"

"Oh, dear, me, Gummy, there you go again!" gasped Janice, with laughter, while the boy's sister giggled desperately, too.

"What's the matter now?" he demanded, in some surprise.

"Another lapsus linguae--I looked it up, and that is what they call it," said Janice.

"Say! Why don't you talk so people can understand you?" Gummy demanded. "Don't talk Latin to a fellow."

"And you sounded as though you were using 'pig-Latin,'" laughed Amy. "You said we "strought' to see Mr. 'Stout'."

"Oh! Jicksy! Did I?" exclaimed the boy. I'm always saying one thing and meaning another, aren't I? Is that a lapsus linguae?

"It is in this case, Gummy. But go on--do."

"Well, Mr. Strout looks just like a piece of that green-speckled cheese Mr. Hardman has in his showcase --in the face, I mean."

"In the face of the showcase?" giggled Amy.

"Or the face of the cheese?" asked Janice demurely.

"Now, say, you girls go too far," complained Gummy, yet good-naturedly. "I mean Strout's face. It looks like the cheese, for he's all speckled. And the cheese is called Rockyford and tastes funnier than it looks."

"Oh, oh!" cried Janice, "you've got your cheese mixed with melons this time. It is Rockyford melons and Roquefort cheese."

"Jicksy! They sound pretty near the same," grumbled Gummy.

"Anyhow, that is how Abel Strout looks in the face--speckled.

And he came in, in that yellow dust-coat of his, looking like a peeled sapling--so long and lean."

"My, what a wealth of description you have at your tongue's end,"

cried Janice, still in a gale of laughter. "A face like Roquefort cheese with a figure like a peeled sapling. Well!"

"You keep on you girls, and I won't ever get anywhere,"

complained Gummy.

"Go on, Gummy," urged Janice.

"Well, he was just as nasty-mean as he always is. The only time I ever saw him pleasant was when he was wheedling mother out of her money before she bought the house. But he started in real bossy this time."

"I should say he did," agreed Amy, feelingly.

"'Well, Mrs. Carringford,' said Strout, 'I hope you are ready to take up that mortgage right now, without no hanging back.' He knew of course that mother didn't have a whole thousand dollars left--no, sir! He knows all right just what she had in the beginning, and that we've been living off it for more than a year," said Gummy.

"So mother told him she could not take up the mortgage. That she did not dare put any more money into the place --except the interest and the taxes--until prospects were brighter.

"'Well,' he said--mean old hunks!--'money is dreadful tight right now, and I don't see how I can let you have a thousand any longer. 'Tain't in the bill of agreement.'

"Mother said: 'Mr. Strout, when you sold me the place you said I could have plenty of time to pay for it. You knew my children were small and that I could not do much toward paying the mortgage until they grew bigger and could help.'

"'You got anything like that writ into your contract?' asked Mr.

Strout.