Highland the next Wednesday, and Laurie accompanied Kewpie on his mysterious pilgrimage to the home of Brose Wilkins. Those pilgrimages had been made daily, excepting Sunday for about a month now, and never once, rain or shine, had Kewpie sought to avoid them. Whatever it was that kept the two boys on the dilapidated Wilkins premises for more than an hour this Wednesday afternoon, it must have been something important, for the rain never ceased for a moment during that time, and, knowing Kewpie as we do, it seems fair to assume that only an important mission could have kept him from the snug window-seat of No. 15 East Hall on such a day.
Returning, their way took them within a few yards of the Pequot Queen. The river beyond looked gray and sullen; the rain was falling steadily and remorselessly; the new paint of the transformed ferry boat gleamed with moisture. But from the smoke-pipe in the roof a cheerful trail of gray ascended, and at the windows the blue and white curtains shone cozily. Once they saw the small, erect form of Miss Comfort, white-aproned, pass a casement and, or so Kewpie solemnly
