WITCH WINNIE’S MYSTERY

Witch Winnie’s Mystery
OR
THE OLD OAK CABINET
THE STORY OF A KING’S DAUGHTER

BY
ELIZABETH W. CHAMPNEY
AUTHOR OF “WITCH WINNIE,” “VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD,” ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY C. D. GIBSON AND
J. WELLS CHAMPNEY.

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1891,
BY
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY.

All rights reserved.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

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