CHAPTER VIII.
A STRANGE APPLICANT "This is Harlowe House, isn't it ?" was the sharp question that assailed Grace's ears.
"Yes." Grace's eyes traveled in amazement over the curious little stranger within her gates.

She was a girl of perhaps eighteen, although there was a strained, anxious expression in her large brown eyes that made her look positively aged, an effect which the three deep lines in her high projecting forehead served to emphasize.

If she possessed hair it was not visible under the small round hat of a by-gone style which set down upon her head like a helmet.

She wore a plain, cheap black skirt and a queer, old-fashioned white blouse made with a peplum.

Around her waist was a leather belt, and on her feet were coarse heavy shoes such as a farm laborer might wear.