I'm
a failure in life, so far, young ladies; but if you'll not bear that
against me I'll try to do better in the future."
"Good!" cried the Major, approvingly, as he took the boy's left hand in
both his own and pressed it. "You're developing the right spirit,
Joseph, me lad, and we'll think no more about the sadness of the past,
but look forward to the joy of your future."
"Of course," said Patsy, nodding gravely; "Joe Wegg is bound to be a
great man, some day."
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE LOCKED CUPBOARD.
Louise and Beth returned to the farm in dismal silence. Every prop had
been knocked from beneath their carefully erected temple of mystery. Now
there was no mystery at all.
In a few words, Joe Wegg had explained everything, and explained all so
simply and naturally that Louise felt like sobbing with the bitterness
of a child deprived of its pet plaything. The band of self-constituted
girl detectives had been "put out of business," as Patsy said, because
the plain fact had developed that there was nothing to detect, and never
had been. There had been no murder, no robbery, no flight or hiding on
the part of the Weggs to escape an injured enemy; nothing even
mysterious, in the light of the story they had just heard. It was
dreadfully humiliating and thoroughly disheartening, after all their
earnest endeavor to investigate a crime that had never been committed.
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