CHAPTER XVII.
IN THE ARBOR.
BACK of the Kossuth House was a good-sized garden, reaching through to a partially built-up street in the rear. Kitchen vegetables monopolized one half of it. In the other beds of phlox and petunias and hollyhocks gayly inclosed a broad, open grass-plot. A path divided it, and at the lower end of this, not far from the back street, was a roomy grape-arbor. It was a remote, quiet nook.
It was especially quiet about two hours after breakfast that sunny morning. Gerald sat alone in it, waiting for Touchtone to return from an errand in the town. It was decided. They would leave Knoxport for New York and Ossokosee at four o'clock, unless news came to them that explained their predicament and altered their plans. This seemed unlikely. Nothing had yet been heard. Touchtone was confounded and desperate.
A conversation with Mr. Banger added a new
