For those who have not read the first volume of this series, “Witch Winnie, the Story of a King’s Daughter.”

(Let it here be explained that although my name is Nellie, I am never called anything but Tib by my friends.)

We occupied a little suite of apartments in the tower, consisting of a small study parlor from which opened two double bedrooms and one single one. Our family was called the Amen Corner, because our initials, arranged as an acrostic, spelled the word Amen, and because we were a set of little Pharisees, prigs, and “digs,” not particularly admired by the rest of the school, but exceedingly virtuous and preternaturally perfect in our own estimation.

This was our status at the beginning of our first school year together, and the change that came over us, owing to the introduction into our circle of Witch Winnie, the greatest scape-grace in the most mischief-making set of the school, the “Queen of the Hornets,” has already been told. A quieting, earnest influence acted upon Winnie, and a natural, merry-hearted love of fun reacted on us, and we were all the better for the companionship.

The greatest practical result outside the change in our own characters was the formation, by the uniting of the “Amen Corner” and the “Hornets,” of a Ten of King’s Daughters, who founded the Home of the Elder Brother, for little children. This institution was adopted by our parents, who formed themselves into a board of managers, but left much of the working of the enterprise in our hands.[1] The Home prospered during the first year of its existence in a truly wonderful manner. It was undenominational and unendowed. No rich church or wealthy man stood behind it. It was entirely dependent on the efforts of a few young girls, and on the voluntary subscriptions of benevolent people. But it grew day by day. Little ripples of influence widened out from our circle to others. During the vacation our ten separated, and at each of their homes they formed other tens, who worked for the same object. Every one who visited the Home was interested in its plan of work, which was to help the poor without pauperizing them; to aid struggling women whose husbands had died, or were in hospitals or prisons, and who could have no homes of their own, by providing them with a substitute for the baby farming, so extensively carried on in the tenement districts, by offering them, on the same low terms, a sweet and wholesome shelter for their little ones. Some wondered why we charged these poor women anything; why the half charity was not made a free gift. But wiser philanthropists saw the superior kindness of this demand. The women whom we wished to aid were not beggars, but that worthy, struggling class who, overburdened, but still desperately striving, must sink in the conflict unless helped, but who still wished to do all in their power for their children, and brought the small sum asked for their board with a proud and happy self-respect.

One of our own members, Emma Jane Anton, on graduating at Madame’s, became matron of the Home, assisted by dear Miss Prillwitz, formerly our teacher of botany, from whose heart this beautiful thought had blossomed.

The Home was just across the park from the school building and we frequently visited it; but though we were all deeply interested in this sweet charity, it did not interfere with our studies or with a great deal of girlish, innocent fun. Since Winnie had become my room-mate we had lost much of the prestige which was formerly the boast of the Amen Corner, and after Emma Jane left the little single room, Madame, feeling that our influence had done much for Winnie, sent another of the “Hornets” into our midst.

We had accepted and adopted Winnie with all our hearts, for her many lovable qualities, and above all for her genuine good fellowship and affectionate nature, but Cynthia Vaughn was a very different character. There was nothing but enjoyable fun in any of Winnie’s tricks; Cynthia’s were mean and malicious. We never liked her, and she openly showed her scorn of Winnie and of me, while she fawned in a hypocritical manner, striving to ingratiate herself with aristocratic Adelaide and with gentle Milly, who was the wealthiest girl at Madame’s.

We were no longer the best behaved set in school, and an acrostic formed from our initials could not now be made to spell anything; but the name “Amen Corner” clung to the little apartment, and Madame still looked upon us with favor. She knew that Adelaide and Milly, Winnie and I, were all, beneath our mischief, true-hearted, earnest girls, and she charitably hoped for great improvement in Cynthia.

There was one person who did not believe in us—Miss Noakes, our corridor teacher. She believed that Winnie was filled with all iniquity and that Adelaide was far too attractive to be allowed the confidence which Madame reposed in her. It was Miss Noakes’s great grievance that she could never discover the least approach to a flirtation in Adelaide’s conduct. I believe that she fairly gloated with anticipated triumph when Madame engaged a handsome young artist to take charge of our art department, and that from this time she watched and peeped and listened with an industry which would have done credit to a better cause. She seemed to argue that as no lover of the beautiful could fail to appreciate Adelaide’s beauty, therefore our artist must admire Adelaide, and in this deduction she was not far from the truth, but she ought not to have taken it for granted that Adelaide must be equally pleased with her admirer. How her espionage tracked us through several innocent tricks and capers, and was finally foiled by our beloved Winnie; how the great mystery of the robbery for a time brought doubt and suspicion between four dear friends who would, and did, go through fire and water for one another; and how, in spite of doubt and jealousy and trouble, our love and devotion for one another: burned brightly and steadily on to the end of the school year, and into the life beyond—this little book will tell.

That the events which I am about to relate may be better understood, I subjoin a plan of the “Amen Corner.”

WITCH WINNIE’S MYSTERY.