"Oh, I don't know—maybe forty or fifty. She's been Mr. Mason's housekeeper for three or four years. If you call on her, you want to look out. She don't buy from agents.
"Why?" asked Dick, innocently. He did not mind that the little girl took him to be an agent.
"Oh, she is too sharp and miserly, I guess. She used to get me to do her errands for her—but she never paid me even a cent for it."
"Anybody else in the house?"
"Not regular. Once in a while a young man comes to see Mrs. Sobber. He ain't her son, but he's some kind of a relation. I think she's his aunt, or great aunt."
"Haven't you seen anybody else coming lately?"
"I've been away lately—down to my grandfather's farm. I came back last night. I wish I was back on the farm," added the little girl, wistfully.
"Never mind, maybe you'll get back some day," said Dick, cheerily. "Here's something for you," And he dropped a silver dime in her lap, some thing that pleased her greatly.
"It's the place!" cried the eldest Rover boy, on rejoining his brothers. "An old man lives here, and a Mrs. Sobber is his housekeeper. She
