Nobody knew why the train had stopped. It was several minutes before they discovered the cause, but I had found out while Stuart was climbing back to bed with me. Swinging by her hands from the bell-rope which ran down the centre of the car, was that miserable little monkey, Matches, making a fool of herself and everybody else. Who but that little imp of mischief would have done such a thing as to get up in the middle of the night and go through a lot of gymnastic exercises on the bell-rope? It was her swinging and jerking on the rope that rang the bell and brought the engine to that sudden stop. I don't know how the doctor settled it with the conductor. I know that there was a great deal said, and Matches and I were both sent back to the baggage-car. All the rest of the journey I had an aching head and a bruised shoulder to keep me in mind of that hateful little Matches, and I resolved long before we reached home that I would do something to get even with her, before we had lived together a week. CHAPTER II. WHAT DAGO SAID TO THE MIRROR-MONKEY ON TUESDAY. Ring-tail, what do you think of Miss Patricia? I'm afraid of her. The night we came home she met us in the hall, looking so tall and severe in her black gown, with those prim little bunches of gray curls on each side of her face, that I went under a chair. Then I thought I must have misjudged her, for there were tears in her eyes when she kissed the children, and I heard her whisper as she turned away, "poor little motherless lambs!" Still I have seen so many people in the course of my travels that I rarely make a mistake in reading character. As soon as she caught sight of me I knew that my first thought had been right. Her thin Roman nose went up in the air, and her sharp eyes glared at me so savagely that I could think of nothing else but an old war eagle, with arrows in its talons. You may have seen them on silver dollars. "Tom Tremont," she exclaimed, "you don't mean to say that you have brought home a _monkey_!" I wish you could have heard the disgust in her voice. "Of all the little pests in the world, they are certainly the worst!" "Yes, Aunt Patricia," he answered. "They've been a great pleasure to the boys." "_They!_" she gasped. "You don't mean to say that there are _two_!" Then she saw Matches climbing up on Phil's shoulder, and words failed her.