"Hello! Is that you, Gyp? I want Centre 2115, please. Is this Mr. Westley's house? Is that you, Gyp?.... This is Pat Everett. Listen----" came excitedly over the wire, though Gyp was listening as hard as she could. "Peg and I've found the black-and-white man!"

Gyp declared, afterwards, that the announcement had made her tingle to her toes! Immediately she corralled Jerry, whom she found translating Latin with a dictionary on her lap and a terrible frown on her brow, and together they hurried to Pat's house. It was a soft May evening--the air was filled with the throaty twitter of robins, the trees arched feathery green against the twilight sky. Pat and Peggy sat bareheaded on the steps of the Everett house, waiting for them. A great fragrant flowering honeysuckle brushed their shoulders. A more perfect setting could not have been found for the finish of their conspiracy.

Pat plunged straight into her story.

"Peg and I were coming back from Dalton's book store and we ran bang into the man--he'd taken his hat off 'cause it was so warm and was fanning himself with it. We both saw it at exactly the same moment and we just turned and clutched each other and almost yelled."

"And then, what? Why didn't you grab him?"

"As if we could lay our hands on a perfect stranger! Anyway, we've got to be tactful. But I'm sure it's the one--there was a white streak that ran right back from the front of his face. And he was very handsome, too--at least we decided he would be if we were as old as Miss Gray. I thought he was a little--oh, biggish."

"And to think how we've hunted for him and he was right here----" Then Gyp realized that Pat did not have the gentleman in her pocket.

"But how will we find him again?"

"We followed him--and he went into the Morse Building and got into the elevator and we were going right in after him when who pops out but Dr. Caton, and he looked so surprised to see us that we hesitated, and the old elevator boy shut the door in our faces. But we asked a man who was standing there in a uniform, like a head janitor or something, if that gentleman in a black coat and hat and lavender tie had an office in the building, and he said, "Yes, seventh floor, 796." He leered at us, but we looked real dignified, and Peg wrote it down on a piece of paper and we walked away. So now all we've got to do is to just go and see him," and Pat hugged her slim knees in an ecstasy of satisfaction.

The girls stared meditatively at a fat robin pecking into the grass in search of a late dinner. To "just go and see him" was not as simple to the conspirators as it sounded, slipping from Pat's lips.

"Who'll go?" Gyp put the question that was in each mind.

"Perhaps it would be too many if all four of us went--so let's draw lots which two----"

"Oh, no!" cried Jerry, aghast.

The others laughed. "It'd be fairest to leave Jerry out of the draw."

"I'll go," cried Gyp grandly, "if Pat or Peggy will go with me and do the talking."

"What'll we say?" Now that the Ravens faced the fulfillment of their plans they felt a little nervous.

"I know----" Gyp's puzzled frown cleared magically. "Mother has five tickets for the Philadelphia Symphony to-morrow night--I'll ask her to let us go and invite Miss Gray to chaperone us. Then we'll write a note and tell this man that if he'll go to the concert and look at the third box on the left side he'll see the lady of his heart who has been faithful to him for years in spite of her many other suitors--we'll put that in to make him appreciate what he's getting. It'll be much easier writing it than saying it."

"Gyp--you're a wonder," cried the others, inspired to action. "Let's go in and write the note now."

The Ravens, who met now at Pat Everett's house, had neglected Miss Gray of late. Carnations had succeeded the violets, then a single rose. Pat had even experimented with a nosegay of everlastings which she had found in one of the department stores. It had been weeks since they had sent anything. For that reason a little feeling of remorse added enthusiasm now to their plotting.

Mrs. Westley was delighted at Gyp's desire to hear the concert and to include Miss Gray in the party. And Miss Gray's face had flushed with genuine pleasure when Gyp invited her.

"Everything's all ready," Gyp tapped across to Pat Everett, and Pat, nodding mysteriously, pulled from her pocket the corner of a pale blue envelope.

Directly after the close of school Gyp and Pat, with Jerry and Peggy Lee close at their heels, to bolster their courage, walked briskly downtown to the Morse Building. If any doubts as to the propriety of their action crept into any one of the four minds, they were quickly dispelled--for the sake of sentiment. It, of course, would not be pleasant, facing this stranger, but any momentary discomfort was as nothing, considering that their act might mean many years of happiness for poor, starved, little Miss Gray!

To avoid the leering elevator man the two girls climbed the six flights to the seventh floor. Pat carried the letter. Gyp agreed to go in first.

"746--748----" read Pat.

"It's the other corridor." They retraced their steps to the other side of the building. "784-788-792----" Gyp repeated the office numbers aloud. "7-9-6! Wilbur Stratman, Undertaker!"

"Pat Everett!" Gyp clutched her chum's arm. "A--undertaker! I won't go in--for all the Miss Grays in the world!"

Pat was seized with such a fit of giggling that she had difficulty in speaking, even in a whisper. "Isn't that funny? We've got to go in. The girls are waiting--we'd never hear the last of it! He can't bury us alive. Oh, d-dear----" She wadded her handkerchief to her lips and leaned against the wall.

"If Miss Gray wants an undertaker she can have him! For my part I should think she'd rather have a policeman or--or the iceman! Come on----" Gyp's face was comical in its disgust. She turned the knob of the door.

A thin, sad-faced woman told them that Mr. Stratman was in his office. She eyed them curiously as, with a jerk of her head, she motioned them through a little gate. As Gyp with trembling fingers opened the door of the inner office, a man with a noticeable white streak in his hair pulled his feet down from his desk, dropped a cigar on his pen tray and reached for a coat that lay across another chair.

"Is--is this Mr. Stratman?" asked Gyp, wishing her tongue would not cling to the roof of her mouth.

He nodded and waited. These young girls were not like his usual customers, probably they had some sort of a subscription blank with them. He watched warily.

"Our errand is--is private," stumbled Gyp, who could see that Pat was beyond the power of speech. "It's--it's personal. We've come, in fact, of--our own accord--she doesn't know a thing about it----"

"She? Who?"

"Miss--Miss Gray." Gyp glanced wildly around. Oh, she was making a dreadful mess of it! Why didn't Pat produce the letter instead of standing there like a wooden image?

Being an undertaker, Mr. Wilbur Stratman met a great m............