24578	----	None 
17666	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 17666-h.htm or 17666-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/6/6/17666/17666-h/17666-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/6/6/17666/17666-h.zip) LUCIA RUDINI Somewhere in Italy by MARTHA TRENT Illustrated by Chas. L. Wrenn [Illustration: Cover art--Lucia Rudini.] [Frontispiece: "My pet, see how you frightened the brave Austrian soldier"] New York Barse & Hopkins Publishers Copyright, 1918 by Barse & Hopkins DEDICATED TO R. J. U. CONTENTS CHAPTER I CELLINO II MARIA III BEFORE DAYBREAK IV LOST V IN THE TOOL SHED VI GARIBALDI PERFORMS VII THE BEGGAR VIII THE SURPRISE ATTACK IX THE BRIDGE X GARIBALDI, STRETCHER-BEARER XI THE AMERICAN XII A REUNION XIII AN INTERRUPTED DREAM XIV THE FAIRY GODFATHER XV EXCITING NEWS XVI THE KING XVII GOOD-BY TO CELLINO XVIII IN THE GARDEN XIX BACK TO FIGHT XX AN INTERRUPTED SAIL XXI THE END OF THE STORY ILLUSTRATIONS "'My pet, see how you frightened the brave Austrian soldier'" . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ "The Soldiers came and chattered and laughed" "Together they drove the goats before them" "Lucia and Garibaldi toiled up the hill, each one using every bit of their strength" LUCIA RUDINI CHAPTER I CELLINO Lucia Rudini folded her arms across her gaily-colored bodice, tilted her dark head to one side and laughed. "I see you, little lazy bones," she said. "Wake up!" A small body curled into a ball in the grass at her feet moved slightly, and a sleepy voice whimpered, "Oh, Lucia, go away. I was having such a nice dream about our soldiers up there, and I was just killing a whole regiment of Austrians, and now you come and spoil it." A curly black head appeared above the tops of the flowers, and two reproachful brown eyes stared up at her. Lucia laughed again. "Poor Beppino, some one is always disturbing your fine dreams, aren't they? But come now, I have something far better than dreams for you," she coaxed. "What?" Beppi was on his feet in an instant, and the sleepy look completely disappeared. "Ha, ha, now you are curious," Lucia teased, "aren't you? Well, you shan't see what I have, until you promise to do what I ask." Beppi's round eyes narrowed, and a cunning expression appeared in their velvety depth. "I suppose I am not to tell Nana that you left the house before sunrise this morning," he said. Lucia looked at him for a brief moment in startled surprise, then she replied quickly, "No, that is not it at all. What harm would it do if you told Nana? I am often up before sunrise." "Yes, but you don't go to the mountains," Beppi interrupted. "Oh, I saw you walking smack into the guns. What were you doing?" He dropped his threatening tone, so incongruous with his tiny body, and coaxed softly, "please tell me, sister mine." "Silly head!" Lucia was breathing freely again, "there is nothing to tell. I heard the guns all night, and they made me restless, so I went for a walk. Go and tell Nana if you like, I don't care." Beppi's small mind returned to the subject at hand. "Then if it isn't that, what is it you want me to do?" he inquired, and continued without giving his sister time to reply. "It's to take care of them, I suppose," he grumbled, pointing a browned berry-stained little finger at a herd of goats that were grazing contentedly a little farther down the slope. "Yes, that's it, and good care of them too," Lucia replied. "You are not to go to sleep again, remember, and be sure and watch Garibaldi, or she will stray away and get lost." "And a good riddance too," Beppi commented under his breath. He did not share in the general admiration for the "Illustrious and Gentile Señora Garibaldi," the favorite goat of his sister's herd. Perhaps the vivid recollection of Garibaldi's hard head may have accounted for his aversion. Lucia heard his remark and was quick to defend her pet. "Aren't you ashamed to speak so?" she exclaimed, "I've a good mind not to give you the candy after all." "Oh, Lucia, please, please!" Beppi begged. "I will take such good care of them, I promise, and if you like, I will pick the tenderest grass for old crosspatch," he added grudgingly. Lucia smiled in triumph, and from the pocket of her dress she pulled out a small pink paper bag. "Here you are then," she said; "and I won't be away very long. I am just going to see Maria for a few minutes." Beppi caught the bag as she tossed it, and lingered over the opening of it. He wanted to prolong his pleasure as long as possible. Candy in war times was a treat and one that the Rudinis seldom indulged in. As if to echo his thoughts, Lucia called back over her shoulder as she walked away, "Don't eat them fast, for they are the last you will get for a long time." Beppi did not bother to reply, but he acted on the advice, and selected a big lemon drop that looked hard and everlasting, and set about sucking it contentedly. Lucia walked quickly over the grass to a small white-washed cottage a little distance away. She approached it from the side and peeked through one of the tiny windows. Old Nana Rudini, her grandmother, was sitting in a low chair beside the table in the low-ceilinged room. Her head nodded drowsily, and the white lace that she was making lay neglected in her lap. Lucia smiled to herself in satisfaction and stole gently away from the window. The Rudinis lived about a mile beyond the north gate of Cellino, an old Italian town built on the summit of a hill. Cellino was not sufficiently important to appear in the guide books, but it boasted of two possessions above its neighbors,--a beautiful old church opposite the market place, and a broad stone wall that dated back to the days of Roman supremacy. It was still in perfect preservation, and completely surrounded the town giving it the appearance of a mediaeval fortress, rather than a twentieth century village. Two roads led to it, one from the south through the Porto Romano, and one from the north, up-hill and from the valley below. It was up the latter that Lucia walked. She was in a hurry and she swung along with a firm, graceful step, her head, crowned by its heavy dark hair, held high and her shoulders straight. The soldier on guard at the gate watched her as she drew nearer. She was a pleasing picture in her bright-colored gown against the glaring sun on the dusty white road. Roderigo Vicello had only arrived that morning in Cellino, and Lucia was not the familiar little figure to him that she was to the other soldiers. But she was none the less welcome for that, after the monotony of the day, and Roderigo as she came nearer straightened up self-consciously and tilted his black patent leather hat with its rakish cluster of cock feathers a little more to one side. "Good day, Señorina," he said smiling, as Lucia paused in the grateful shadow of the wall to catch her breath. "Good day to you," she replied good-naturedly. "You're new, aren't you? I never saw you before. Where is Paolo?" "Paolo and his regiment go up to the front this afternoon," Roderigo replied. "We have just come to relieve them for a short time, then we too will follow." Lucia nodded. "You come from the south, don't you?" she inquired, looking at him with frank admiration; "from near Napoli I should guess by your speech." Roderigo laughed. "You guess right, I do, and now it is my turn to ask questions. Where do you come from?" "Down there about a mile," Lucia pointed, "in the white cottage by the road." Roderigo looked at the dark hair and eyes and the gaudily colored dress before him, and shook his head. "Now perhaps," he admitted, "but you were born in the south where the sun really shines and the sky is blue and not a dull gray, or else where did you come by those eyes and those straight shoulders?" Lucia looked up at the dazzling sky above her and laughed. "And I suppose that spot is Napoli," she teased. "Well, you don't guess as well as I do, for I was born here and I have lived here all my life." "'All my life,'" Roderigo mimicked. "How very long you make that sound, Señorina, and yet you look no older than my little sister." Lucia drew herself up to her full height and did not deign a direct reply. "Fourteen years is a long time, Señor," she said gravely, "when you have many worries." "But you are too young to have many worries," Roderigo protested; "or I beg your pardon, perhaps you have some one up there?" he pointed to the north, where the high peaks of the Alps were visible at no great distance. "No, not now," Lucia replied; "for my father was killed a year ago." Roderigo was silent for a little, then he raised one shoulder in a characteristic shrug. "War," he said slowly. "We all have our turn." Lucia nodded and returned almost at once to her gay mood. "But you are still wondering how I got my black hair and eyes up here," she laughed. "Well, I will tell you. My mother came from your beautiful Napoli, and Nana, that is my grandmother, says I inherited my foolish love of gay clothes from her. Nana does not like gay clothes, but my father always liked me to wear them." "Then your mother is dead too?" Roderigo asked respectfully. "When I was a little girl, and when Beppino was a tiny baby. Beppi is my little brother," Lucia explained. Roderigo's eyes were shining with delight. There was something in Lucia's soft tones that filled his homesick heart with joy. She was so different from most of the girls from the north, with their strange high voices and unfriendly manners. If she wasn't exactly from the south she was near it. He wanted to sit down beside her and tell her all about his home and his family, for he was very young and very homesick, but Lucia decreed otherwise. "Now do see what you have done," she scolded suddenly. "You have kept me talking here until the sun is well down, and I will have to hurry if I want to see Maria and return home before Nana misses me. So much for gabbing on the high road with some one who should be watching for suspicious spies instead of asking questions," she finished with a provoking toss of her head. Which sentence, considering that she had asked the first questions herself, was unjust. Roderigo, however, did not seem to resent the blame laid upon him. He did not even offer to contradict, but watched Lucia until she disappeared around a corner a few streets beyond the gate, and then he turned resolutely about and scanned the road with searching determination, as if he really believed that the open, smiling country about him might be concealing a spy. When Lucia disappeared around the comer of the narrow street that led to the market place, she stopped long enough to laugh softly to herself. "The great silly! He took all the blame himself instead of boxing my ears for being impertinent. A fine soldier he'll make! If I can scare him, what will the guns do?" she said aloud, and then with a roguish gleam of mischief in her eyes she hurried on. The narrow side streets through which she passed were almost deserted, but when she reached the market place it was thronged with people. Every one was out to look at the new troops, and in the little square the great white umbrellas over the market stalls were surrounded by soldiers. Their picturesque uniforms added a gala note to the commonplace little scene. Lucia elbowed her way through the jostling, laughing men to a certain umbrella, a little to one side of the open space left clear before the church. CHAPTER II MARIA A neatly-dressed, dumpy little woman in a black dress and shawl sat beneath it, and behind a row of stone crocks beside her was a young girl several years older than Lucia, who ladled out cupfuls of the milk that the crocks contained, and gave them, always accompanied by a shy little smile, to the soldiers in return for their pennies. She was Maria Rudini, Lucia's cousin, a pretty, gentle-featured girl with shy, bewildered eyes. People often spoke of her quiet loveliness until they saw her younger cousin. Then their attention was apt to be diverted, for Maria's delicate charms seemed pale beside Lucia's southern beauty, and in the same manner her courage grew less. Although she was three years older, Maria never questioned Lucia's authority to lead. When Lucia's father had died, the kindly heart of Maria's mother had prompted her to offer her home to his children, but Lucia had declined the offer. She said she would undertake the support of old Nana and Beppi and herself. There was considerable disapproval over her decision, but as was generally the case, Lucia had her own way. Her method of wage-earning was a simple one. Her father had owned a herd of goats and a garden, and the two had provided ample support for the needs of the family. At his death Lucia, with characteristic selection, had given up the garden and kept the goats. Every morning she milked them and carried the bright pails to town, where her aunt sold them at her little stall along with cheese and sausage. The profits wore not great, but they wore enough. "Is that the milk I brought in this morning?" Lucia asked incredulously as she approached the stall. "No, no, my dear," her aunt replied, shaking her head. "You brought scarcely two full pails, and they were gone before you had reached the gate. We have had a great day, so many soldiers, it is a shame that you cannot bring in more, for we could sell it. Just see, we had to send to old Paolo's for this, and it is not as rich as yours of course, for his poor beasts have only the weeds between the cobblestones to eat." "That is because he is a lazy old man and won't take the trouble to lead his herd out on the slopes to graze," Lucia replied. She put her hands on her hips and swayed back and forth as she talked. It was a little trait she had inherited from her mother, and one of her most characteristic poses. "How well you look to-day!" Maria said, smiling. "I have been wishing you would come, we are so busy--see, here come a group of soldiers all together. Will you help me?" She held out a dipper with a long handle, which Lucia accepted critically. "I don't like charging full price for this milk which is more like water," she said. "Nonsense, child, it is business, the soldiers know no difference; it is only your silly pride," her aunt scolded. She was a little in awe of her determined niece, and very often she was provoked at her. "If you can't bring us more milk, we must do the best we can," she said meaningly. "You used to bring us twice this much." Lucia shrugged her shoulders and tossed her head. "I can bring no more than I bring," she said, and turned her attention to the soldiers before her. But the explanation did not satisfy her thrifty aunt. She was no authority on goats, but she had enough sense to know that the supply of milk does not dwindle to one-half the usual quantity over night. Still she did not voice her suspicions. Lucia and Maria were busy for the rest of the afternoon. Lucia's flowered dress and brilliantly-colored bandana that she wore tied over her head, were added attractions to Señora Rudini's stall, and the soldiers from the south came and chattered and laughed. [Illustration: "The soldiers came and chattered and laughed."] "What a pity we have no more," Maria said as the last crock was emptied, and they set about preparing to return home. "We could go on selling all night now that Lucia is here." "Well, it is high time to go home, I am tired," her mother replied crossly. "Hurry with what you are doing." Lucia was busy closing the big umbrella. "It is late, I will have to hurry, or Beppi will have let all my goats run away--he and his dreams. He is a lazy little one, but I can't bear to scold him," she said. "He is too little to understand." Her aunt nodded. "Let him dream, but if you are not careful, he will be badly spoiled." "No fear of that," Lucia replied, "while Nana has a word to say. She is always for bringing him up properly, but little good it does. Now we are ready, I will help you carry home your things, if you will let Maria walk with me to the gate," Lucia bargained. "Oh, she may I suppose, though she should be at home helping me prepare the dinner. I suppose you have some secrets between you that an old grayhead can't hear," she grumbled good-naturedly. "Oh, yes a fine secret!" Lucia replied laughing, as she picked up the greatest share of the burden and led the way. Maria and her mother lived in an old stone house that had once been a palace. It was hardly palatial now, but it was very picturesque. It housed five families besides the Rudinis, and in spite of the many lines of wash that floated from its windows, it still retained enough of its old grandeur to be an interesting spot to the occasional tourist who visited Cellino. Maria and her mother were very proud of this distinction. It made up somewhat for the loss of their house, which they had been forced to leave, when six months before Maria's two brothers had gone off to fight. The new quarters were not far from the market place and they soon reached them. Their rooms were on the ground floor, and Lucia and Maria made haste to drop what they were carrying and start off again at a much slower pace for the gate. The sun was low in the west. It was setting in a bank of golden clouds over the little river that ran parallel with the west wall of the town. Lucia stopped to look at it. "Rain to-morrow, I suppose, by the look of those clouds," she said, a real pucker of concern between her eyes. "And no wonder," Maria agreed, "with all this banging of guns one would think it would rain all the time out of pity for so much suffering." "Now, Maria, don't begin to cry," Lucia protested not unkindly. "It will do you no good, and it will only make things look worse than they really are." "How can they?" Maria demanded, with more show of resentment than was usual with her quiet acceptance of things. "Only this morning I sold milk to such a sweet boy from the south. He had great sad, brown eyes like yours, and he was very young and unhappy. His father and brother were both killed, and now he is going." "But perhaps he won't be killed," Lucia said practically. "Anyway, he will get a chance to do a little killing first, and surely that is enough to satisfy any one, or ought to be." "Oh, Lucia you are cruel sometimes," Maria protested. "Who wants to kill? Surely not these happy boys, and they don't want to be killed either. It is all too terrible to think about, and you are an unnatural girl to talk as you do. Why, I don't believe you have cried once since the war began, even when the poor wounded were brought here, and we saw their faces all shot away." Maria's anger rose as she talked, and Lucia listened curiously. It was something new for Maria to take her to task. Her mind flew back over the past year, and she saw herself with her face buried in the grass and her hands clenched, and remembered her furious anger and her vows of vengeance, but she had to admit that her cousin was right; she had shed no tears. "We are not made the same way, I guess," she replied ruefully to Maria's charges. "I cannot cry, I can only hate." "But hate won't do any good," Maria protested feebly. "It will do more than tears," Lucia replied shortly. They continued their walk in silence, now and then nodding to an acquaintance or bowing respectfully to the Sisters of Charity who lived at the big Convent just outside the Porto Romano, and who came to town to take care of the sick and cheer the broken-hearted. When they reached the north gate Lucia stopped. Roderigo was still on duty, but this time he did not pause in his brisk walk up and down to chat. He never even glanced in the girls' direction. Maria nodded towards him and whispered excitedly, "That is the boy I was just now speaking of. Doesn't he look sad?" "No, he looks quite cross," Lucia replied in a voice loud enough to be overheard, and her eyes sparkled with mischief as she added, "I wonder if he will let me through the gate to get home." "May I pass, sir, please? I live a little beyond the wall, but I am not a spy," she said with mock humility. Roderigo blushed. A soldier does not like to be made fun of, particularly when some one else is present. "Pass," he said gruffly. Lucia laughed provokingly. "Good night, Maria," she said as she kissed her cousin. "Sweet dreams. I may not be in very early in the morning, there is so much to do, you know, but I will bring as much milk as possible," she finished. Then without even a glance at Roderigo she walked through the gate and down the wall. When she had walked for a little distance she looked back. Maria and the soldier were in earnest conversation. Maria in her timid way was apologizing for her cousin's rudeness, and Roderigo was beginning to have doubts of the superiority of Southern beauty over the Northern, particularly when a gentle spirit was added to the charm of the latter. Lucia did not know she was the subject of their talk. She shrugged her shoulders and turned her thoughts to a more important question that was puzzling her. It was, how to slip out of the house the next morning without disturbing the already suspicious Beppi. CHAPTER III BEFORE DAYBREAK Lucia found Beppi asleep in the grass, curled up in the same position that he had been in earlier in the day. One of his little hands had tight hold of the precious pink bag, and a sticky smile of blissful content turned up the corners of his full red lips. Lucia looked at him and shook her head. There might have been twenty-seven instead of seven years between them, for there was something protective in her expression. "Little lazy bones, asleep again!" she said, shaking him gently. Beppi stirred, one eye opened, and then with a sudden rush of memory he sat up and began excitedly: "I just this minute fell asleep, just this very second, truly, Lucia! I have watched the goats, oh, so carefully, and they have not stirred,--see there they are only a little farther away than when you left. I only closed my eyes because I thought I might go on with that nice dream, but I didn't," he finished sorrowfully. Lucia laughed. "Look at the sun," she pointed. "It is late, you should have driven the goats home long ago. But I knew you would go to asleep after you ate up all the candy, such a naughty little brother that you are. What kind of a soldier would you make, I'd like to know, dreaming every few minutes? Come along, get up,--we must hurry back to Nana, or she will be worried." She took his hand and together they drove the goats before them to the cottage. [Illustration: "Together they drove the goats before them."] Nana Rudini was waiting for them at the door. She was a little, wrinkled-up, old woman with bright blue eyes and thin gray hair. She spoke very seldom and always in a high querulous voice. "So you're back at last, are you?" she greeted, when the children were within hearing. "Supper's been on the stove for too long. What kept you?" "Very busy day, Nana," Lucia spoke in much the same tone she had used towards Beppi. "I had to help Aunt and Maria at market. More troops have arrived and the streets are crowded." "Oh, sister, you never told me that!" Beppi said accusingly. "Where are they from?" "The south mostly," Lucia replied, "fine soldiers they are too, if you can judge by their looks." "Which you can't," old Nana interrupted shortly. "Stop your talking and come in to supper." "Right away," Lucia promised, and hurried off to shut up her goats in the small, half-tumbled-down shack at the back of the cottage. Supper at the Rudinis consisted of boiled spaghetti, black bread and cheese, with a cup full of milk apiece. It was not a very tempting meal, but Lucia was hungry and ate with a hearty appetite. After the three bowls had been washed and put away in the cupboard, she helped her grandmother undress, and settled her comfortably in the green enameled bed with its brass trimmings, that occupied a good part of the small room. Lucia's mother had brought it with her from Naples, and it was the most cherished and admired article of furniture that the Rudinis owned. "Are you comfortable, Nana?" Lucia inquired gently, as she smoothed the fat, hard pillows in an attempt to make a rest for the old gray head. "Yes, go to bed, child," Nana replied, and without more ado she closed her eyes and went to sleep. Lucia climbed up the ladder to the loft, and was soon cuddled down beside Beppi in a bed of fresh straw. Though she persisted in her determination that her grandmother sleep in state in the best bed, she herself preferred a simple and softer resting place. "Tell me a story," Beppi demanded; "not about fairies and silly make believes, but about soldiers." "But there are no pretty stories about soldiers, Beppino mio," Lucia protested. "Who wants pretty stories!" Beppi replied scornfully. "_I_ don't--tell me an exciting one about guns and war." "Very well I'll try, but be still," Lucia gave in, well knowing that she would not have to go very far. "Once upon a time," she began, "there was a soldier. He had very big eyes, and he came from the south where the sun is very warm and the sky and the water are very, very blue." "Was he brave?" Beppi interrupted sleepily. "Oh, yes, he was very brave," Lucia replied hurriedly, "very brave, and he loved his country more than anything else in the world." She waited but Beppi's voice commanded. "Go on, don't stop." "Well, one day he was sent to guard a gate of a city, and he walked up and down before it with his gun on his shoulders, and no one could pass him unless it was a friend." She paused again. Beppi was breathing regularly. "Old sleepy head!" Lucia whispered, and kissed him tenderly. The story was not continued and before many minutes she was fast asleep herself. It was an hour before sunrise when she awoke. The air that found its way into the little attic was damp and chill. Lucia crept out of bed, being very careful not to disturb Beppi, and slipped hurriedly into her clothes. With her shoes in her hand, she climbed gingerly down the ladder past her sleeping grandmother and out to the shed. "Good morning, Garibaldi, how are you this morning?" she said as she patted the stocky little neck of her pet. Garibaldi submitted to her caress with a condescension worthy of the position her name gave her, and the other goats crowded to the open door, eager to leave their cramped quarters. "Not yet, my dears," Lucia said softly, "it isn't time. Here, Esther, I will milk you first. You must all be good to-day, and Garibaldi, I don't want you to go running away if I have to leave you with Beppi," she continued. "You're nothing but goats, of course, but you know perfectly well that we are at war, and that you are very important, and must do your part. Stop it, Miss, none of your pranks, I'm in a hurry," she chided the refractory Esther for an attempt at playfulness. "There now, that's enough, I can't carry any more or I would. Two pails only half full aren't much, but they help, I guess. Now if it won't rain until I get there it will be all right, but I'll cover the pails to be on the safer side." She found two covers and fitted them securely over the pails. "Now children, good-by. Be good till I come back, and don't go making any noise." She paused long enough to give Garibaldi a farewell pat and then left the shed closing the door behind her. She looked up uneasily at the cottage, but everything seemed to be very still, so she picked up her pails and started off at as brisk a pace as possible. She followed the main road that looked unnaturally white and ghostly in the pale dawn of the early morning. It was down hill for about a mile, and traveling was comparatively easy at first, but when the road reached the bottom of the valley it stopped and seemed to straggle off into numerous little foot-paths. The broadest and most traveled looking path Lucia followed, picking her way carefully for fear of stumbling and thus losing some of the precious milk. The path led up the other side of the valley. It was a steep climb, and Lucia was tired when she reached the top. She sat down for a while to rest before going on the remainder of the way. The next path that she took turned abruptly to the right, and led up an even steeper hill to a tiny plateau above. From it one could look down on Cellino across the valley. When Lucia reached it she put down her pails in the shade of a big rock and looked about cautiously. Nothing seemed to stir. The guns were quiet and nothing in the peaceful, secluded little spot suggested the close proximity of battle. The only human touch in sight was a small scrap of paper, held down by a stone on the flat rock above the pails. Lucia was not surprised, for she had done the same thing every morning for a week now. She unfolded it. As she expected, she found four brightly polished copper pennies and the words, "Thanks to the little milk maid," written in heavy pencil. Lucia picked up the money and put it into her pocket, then with a pencil that she had brought especially for the purpose she wrote, "You are welcome, my friends; good luck!" below the message, and tucked the paper back under the stone. Then with another curious look around, which discovered nothing, she started back, this time running as fleet and fast as any of her sure-footed little goats. She reached home before either Nana or Beppino were awake, and hurried to finish her milking. When the scant breakfast was over, she was ready to start for town with her pails. When she entered the market-place, it was to find a very different scene from the one of the day before. The place was thronged with soldiers, but they were not laughing and jesting; instead, little groups congregated around the stalls and talked excitedly. Some of the old women had covered their faces with their black aprons, and were rocking back and forth on their chairs in an extremity of woe. There was an unnatural hush, and men and women alike lowered heir voices instinctively as they talked. Lucia had seen the same thing many times before. She guessed, and rightly too, that a battle was going on, and that news of some disaster had reached the little town. She did not go at once to her aunt's stall, but left her pails inside the big bronze door of the church, and slipped quietly inside. The place was deserted, and the lofty dome was in dark shadow. Long rays of pale yellow light from the morning sun came through the narrow windows and made queer patches on the marble floor. In the dim recesses of the little chapels tiny candles flickered like stars in the dark. Lucia looked about her to make sure that she was alone, and then walked quickly to one of the chapels and dropped four shining copper pennies into the mite box that stood on a little shelf beside the altar. She stayed only long enough to say a hasty little prayer, and then hurried out again into the sunshine. The clouds of the night before and the mist of the early morning had disappeared, and the market-place was bathed in warm golden sunshine. Lucia picked up her pails and hurried to her aunt's stall. "Well, you are late," Maria said. "We thought you had stubbed your toe and spilled all the milk." "And only two half-full pails again," Señora Rudini grumbled. "But no matter, we can get more from old Paolo. Have you heard the news?" she asked abruptly. "No," Lucia replied indifferently. "What is it?" "A big gain by the enemy. They have taken thousands of our men, and they say we may be ordered to leave Cellino at any minute." "Think of it! They are as near as that!" Maria said excitedly. "Oh if we must move, where can we go to? I am so frightened." "Nonsense," Lucia spoke shortly. There was an angry gleam in her big eyes and her cheeks flushed a dark red. "Leave Cellino, indeed! The very idea! Since when must Italians make way for Austrians, I'd like to know?" "But if the enemy are advancing as they say," Maria protested nervously, "we will either have to leave, or be shelled to death by those dreadful guns." "Or be taken prisoners, and a nice thing that would be," her mother added. "No, if the order to evacuate comes we must go at once. There will be no time to spare. Other towns have been captured, and there is only that between us." She pointed to the zigzag mountain peaks so short a distance beyond the north gate. As if to give her words weight, a heavy thunder of guns rumbled ominously. Maria shuddered. "There, that is ever so much nearer. Oh, I am frightened,--something dreadful is happening over there just out of sight." "Silly! those are our own guns. Ask any of our soldiers," Lucia said. "Here comes your guard, the handsome Roderigo Vicello, maybe he can tell us. Good morning to you!" she called gayly and beckoned the soldier to come to them. "I hope you are well this morning," Roderigo said respectfully, bowing to Señora Rudini. "Oh, we are well, but very frightened," Maria replied, trying hard to imitate her cousin's gaiety. "Maria thinks that the guns we heard just now are Austrian, and I have been trying to tell her that they are Italian. Which of us is right? You are a soldier and ought to know." "Our guns, of course. They have a different sound," Roderigo explained impressively. He had never been any nearer to the front than he was at this moment, but he spoke with the assurance of an old soldier, partly to quiet Maria's fears, but mostly to still his own nervous forebodings. It would never do to let the little black-eyed Lucia see that he was even a little afraid. "There, what did I tell you!" Lucia was triumphant. "I knew, but of course you would not believe me. Now perhaps you will tell her that we will not have to run away at a minute's notice, too?" She turned to Roderigo, but eager as he was to display his importance he could not give the assurance she asked. The little knowledge that he had, made him think that the evacuation was very likely to occur at any day. He covered his fears, however, by replying vaguely: "One can never be sure. War is war, and perhaps it may be necessary, as well as safer, for you to leave for the time being." Lucia looked at him narrowly. "What makes you say that?" she demanded. "Have you heard any of the officers talking?" "No, but this morning's news is very bad. We have our orders to be ready to start at any moment." "Oh!" Maria caught her breath sharply, and her eyes filled with tears as she looked at Roderigo shyly. He saw the tears in surprise, and a contented warmth settled around his heart. He looked half expectantly at Lucia. Surely, if this calm, shy girl of the north would shed a tear for him, she with the warm blood of the south in her veins would weep. But Lucia's eyes were dry, and the only expression he could find in them was envy. He turned away in disgust. He did not admire too much courage in girls, for he was very young and very sentimental, and he enjoyed being cried over. A bugle sounded from the other end of the street, and in an instant everything was in confusion. The soldiers hurried to answer, and the people crowded about to see what was going to happen. Lucia, eager and excited, snatched Maria's hand and pulled her into the very center of the crowd. An officer, with the bugler beside him, read an order from the steps of the town hall, an old gray stone building that had stood in silent dignity at the end of the square for many centuries. The girls were not near enough to hear the order, but they soon found Roderigo in the excited mass of soldiers, and he explained it to them. "We are to leave for the front at once," he cried excitedly. "We have not a moment to spare. Tavola has been captured by the enemy, and our troops are retreating through the Pass." "The Saints preserve us!" Señora Rudini covered her face with her apron and cried. "My sons! My sons! Where are they, dead or prisoners?" "No, no, they are safe," Lucia protested. "They are with the Army. Don't worry, when the reënforcements reach them they will go forward again." But her aunt refused to be comforted. Everywhere in the street women were calling excitedly, and a number of them besieged the officers for information. The soldiers hurried to their billets and got together their kits. The square buzzed and hummed with excitement and the guns kept up a steady bass accompaniment. The bugle sounded a different order every little while. Some of the more prudent women went home and began packing their household treasures, but for the most part every one stayed in the market-place and argued shrilly. "Come!" Lucia exclaimed, catching Maria's hand. "We can watch them march off from the top of the wall by the gate." They ran quickly through the side streets, and by taking many turns they at last reached the broad top of the wall, which they ran along until they were just above the north gate. "Here they come!" Maria exclaimed. "I can hear them." The paved streets of the town rang with the heavy tramp, tramp of men marching, and before long they appeared before the gate. The order to walk four abreast was given. The men took their places, and then at a brisk pace they marched through the old gate, a sea of bobbing black hats and cock feathers. The townspeople followed to cheer them excitedly. Lucia and Maria leaned dangerously over the edge of the wall in their attempt to recognize the familiar faces under the hats. The soldiers looked up and called out gayly at sight of Lucia. She had taken off her flowered kerchief and was waving it excitedly. The wind caught her dark hair and blew it across her face, and her bright skirts in the sunshine made a vivid spot of color against the stone wall. The men turned often to look back at her as they marched along the wide road. Maria did not lift her eyes from the sea of hats beneath her. She was waiting for one face to look up. At last she had her wish. Roderigo's place was towards the end of the column; when he walked under the gate he looked up and smiled. It was a sad smile, full of regret. Without exactly meaning to, Maria dropped the flower she was wearing in her bodice. Roderigo caught it and tucked it, Neapolitan fashion, behind his ear, then he blew a kiss to Maria and marched on. Lucia watched the little scene. She was half amused and half contemptuous. Her little heart under its gay bodice was filled with a fine hate that left no room for pretty romance. CHAPTER IV LOST When the soldiers had climbed out of sight into the mountains, Maria walked slowly back to find her mother, and Lucia after a hurried good-by ran home to tell Nana and Beppino the news. She was far more worried over the possible order to evacuate than she would admit. As their cottage was the farthest north on the road, it would be the nearest to the Austrian guns. Personally Lucia scorned the very idea of the Austrian guns, but she could not help realizing the danger to Nana and Beppino and Garibaldi. She was still undecided what to do when she reached the cottage. Nana Rudini was standing in the doorway, shading her eyes with her withered old hand, and staring intently in the direction that the soldiers had taken. "Did you see the troops, Nana?" Lucia asked cheerfully. "They were a fine lot, eh? I guess they will be able to stop the enemy from coming any nearer." "Nearer?" queried Nana, "what are you saying?" "We have had bad luck," Lucia explained. "Tavola has been captured, and our soldiers are retreating. In town they say we may have to evacuate before to-morrow." The old woman received the news without comment, but a look of despair came into her usually bright eyes, and for the moment made them tragic. Long years before, when Austria had crossed the mountains and entered Cellino, she had been a young girl. Now in her old age they were to come again, and there was no reason to hope that this time they would be less brutal in their triumph than they had been formerly. The memory of their brutality was still a vivid one. "We will leave at once," she said at last, and her decision was so unexpected, that Lucia gasped in surprise. "Leave? But, Nana, where will we go? What will become of our things?" she exclaimed. "Surely we had better wait at least until we are ordered out." "No, we will leave at once," Nana replied firmly. "The order may come too late, as it did before. What do those boys who swagger about in men's places know about the enemy? There is not one that can remember them. But I, old Nana, have known them and their ways, and I say we must go at once." Lucia looked at the new light of determination in her grandmother's eyes, and realized with a shock of surprise that to protest would be useless. "Where is Beppi?" she asked. "I will go and find him." "With the goats," Nana replied. "Call him, I will go in and start packing." Lucia ran around the house and off to the sunny slope where she had left Beppi a few hours before. She saw the flock of goats grazing, and called, "Beppino mio, where are you?" No one answered her. She hurried on, believing him to have fallen asleep. "Beppi!" she shouted, "I have something exciting to tell you. Stop hiding from me." She waited, but still no answer came. In a sudden frenzy of fear she began running aimlessly up and down the hillside, and looking down into the tall grasses, but there was no sign of Beppi. There were no trees or houses in sight, no place that he could hide behind, nearer than the mountain path at the foot of the valley. Lucia looked about her despairingly, then she went over to the goats. Garibaldi was not there. "She has strayed away, and Beppi has gone after her," she said aloud in relief, and returned to the cottage. Nana nodded when she explained. She was busy tying up the household treasures in sheets, and Lucia helped her. Every few minutes she would go to the door and call, but Beppi did not reply. The afternoon wore on slowly and a bank of rain clouds hid the sun. Lucia's confidence gave way to her first feeling of terror, and Nana was growing impatient. "Where can he be?" Lucia exclaimed. "I am frightened, he has been gone so long." Nana shook her head. "He was off after the soldiers, I suppose," she replied. "He is always disobeying--no good will come to him and his naughty ways." Lucia's eyes flashed. "He is not naughty," she protested angrily, "and he may be lost this very minute. Anyway I am going to find him and I am not coming home until I do. If you are afraid to stay here go to Maria, she and aunt will look after you, and when I find Beppi I will meet you there." Nana Rudini protested excitedly, but Lucia did not wait to hear what she said. She ran out of the house and down the road towards the footpath. She had no idea of where she was going, but fear lead her on. Beppi, her adored little brother, and Garibaldi were lost, and she was going to find them. At the end of the road she paused and looked ahead of her. The sky was dark with rain-clouds and thunder rumbled in the west, an echo of the guns. Lucia took the path that she had taken early that morning, and as she climbed up the steep ascent she called and shouted. Her own voice came back to her from the flat rocks ahead, but there was no sound of Beppi. Instead of going on to the little plateau where she left her pails, she branched off to the left. It was hard climbing, and after repeated shouts of "Beppi," she sat down and tried to think. Big drops of rain were beginning to fall, and with the sun out of sight the fall air was damp and cold. She pulled her thin shawl around her shoulders and shivered. "If Garibaldi ran away she came up here; she always does," she argued to herself. "She loves to climb, and she must have come this way in the hope of finding grass. Up above, and a little over to the left, there is a sort of sheltered spot. Perhaps--" she did not finish the thought, but jumped up and started to climb. She hunted until she discovered a way to find the spot. It was not difficult, for she knew every foot of the mountains from long association. But Beppi was not to be seen, nor was Garibaldi. Lucia stopped, discouraged. Fear and helplessness were getting the better of her, and she would most likely have given way to the tears she so despised had her eye not caught sight of a tuft of fur on the ground. She seized upon it eagerly. It was without doubt part of Garibaldi's shaggy coat. With a cry of joy she started off up the tiny trail that led higher up into the rocks. "Beppi, Beppi!" she called, and stopped. Still no answer, but she was not discouraged for the guns were making so much noise that she realized her voice could not carry any great distance. The rain was coming down in earnest now, and it was hard to keep from losing her footing on the slippery rocks. She stumbled on regardless of the danger, hoping against hope that she had chosen the right path, and that each step was bringing her nearer to Beppi. Between calling and climbing, she was tired, and she stopped for a moment to catch her breath. A sound, faint but unmistakable, reached her. "Naa, Naa!" Garibaldi was complaining about the weather, at no very great distance away from her. In her relief Lucia laughed excitedly. "Beppi, Beppi, where are you?" she shouted, and waited eagerly for a reply, but none came. She looked puzzled and then Garibaldi answered her: "Naa! Naa!" The sound came from directly over her head, and she climbed up the steep rock as fast as she could. Garibaldi was standing at the opening of a cave. Lucia ran to her. "Oh, my pet, I have found you at last. Where is Beppi?" she cried. Garibaldi did not exactly reply, but she stepped a little to one side, and Lucia saw Beppino curled up on a bed of dry leaves sheltered and snug from the storm, and sleeping quite as contentedly as he did on the mattress in the attic at home. Lucia ran to him and shook him. He opened his eyes, and a dazed look came into them, then he said: "Oh, yes, I remember, it began to rain and we were lost, your old crosspatch Garibaldi and I, so I found this nice little place, and I was going to pretend that I was a gypsy brigand, but I fell asleep." Lucia was far too happy to attempt the scolding that she knew Beppi deserved. She picked him up in her arms, and hugged and kissed him, then she encircled Garibaldi's neck and kissed her too. "My darlings, I thought you were both lost. What a terrible fright you have given me! But we are safe now, and we will wait until sunrise to-morrow, and then we will go home," she said happily. "I saw the soldiers go away," Beppi said, pushing her face from him as she tried to kiss him again, "and they looked so fine with their shiny hats. It was while I looked at them that old crosspatch ran away. I did have a chase, I can tell you, she had such a big start." "Are you very hungry, little one?" Lucia asked gently. "I should have brought bread with me, but I did not think." Beppi giggled, and from the pocket of his little tunic he produced the pink paper bag. "Two left," he announced as he opened it, "and both long ones. Here's yours and here's mine. Garibaldi's been eating grass all day, so she's not hungry." Lucia accepted the candy, and they both had a drink of milk. Then Beppi snuggled down in his sister's arms and his eyelids grew heavy. "Go on with that story," he said, "the one about the soldier at the gate." Lucia smiled in the dark and hugged him tight. The guns were silent, and only occasional peals of thunder broke the stillness. "Well, one day," she began, "a very cross girl came to the gate, and the soldier who was always on the lookout for the stolen princess stopped her and spoke to her. But the cross girl was feeling very mean indeed, and she teased the soldier and made him very unhappy. But later on in the afternoon she was ashamed, and so she found the nice girl who was really the stolen princess, and took her with her to the gate, and the soldier--" Lucia broke off and sat up suddenly to listen. A queer "rat, tat, tat," detached itself from the other night noises. Beppi was sound asleep, and she rolled him gently into the nest of leaves, then she listened again. The sound came again. "Rat, tat, tat." It was a sharp staccato hammering, muffled by the wall of rock behind her. She stood up and crept softly to the mouth of the cave. The wind and the rain made such a noise that she could hear nothing, and it was already too dark to distinguish anything but the vaguest outlines. She crept back into the shelter, believing that she had just imagined what she had heard, but she had not taken her place beside Beppi before she heard it again--a persistent "rat, tat, tat," too metallic and too regular to be accounted for by a natural cause. Lucia's mind was alert at once. She put her ear up against the rock and listened again. Muffled sounds too indistinct to recognize came to her. Whatever they were, they were not far off, and right in a line with the back of the cave. Lucia thought of several explanations, but could accept none of them. She tried to argue against her fears by saying over and over again that if it was a sound made by men, those men were surely Italian soldiers, but her arguments could not still the frightened beating of her heart, as the voice became more distinct. She was filled with terror. Rumors of underground tunnels and mines blowing off whole mountain tops, that she had heard from the soldiers, came back to her and left her cold with fear. Beppi had rolled over beside the goat for warmth, and was sleeping soundly. Lucia looked at him and then went once more to the mouth of the cave. The cold rain in her face gave her back her courage, and she felt her way around the cliff and up between the crevices of the two rocks, until she was on the roof of the cave. It was flat and the ground seemed to stretch out level for quite a distance before her. She listened for a moment, but the rain beating down made it impossible for her to distinguish any other sound. She lay down flat on the wet ground, and crawled forward for a few feet, then listened again. At first she heard only the rain and the wind, but after a little wait there was a muffled bang as if a bomb had exploded deep down in the earth, and the ground beneath her trembled. Lucia sprang to her feet and ran terrified back to the cave. It was fortunate that she was as sure-footed as her goats, for the way was steep and slippery, and she did not pause to take care. Over in the cave, with her hand on Beppi's curly head, she sat down to think. Her mind was not capable of arriving at any logical explanation. Two thoughts stood out clearly and beyond doubt. First, the enemy was doing something of which the Italians were unaware, and second, the Italians must be warned before it was too late. That she must warn them she realized at once, but the way was not easy to determine. The mountains were tricky. From one side they might look deserted, and yet a whole army could be in hiding just over the other side. The giant peaks formed formidable and wellnigh impassable barriers between one range and the next. Lucia had seen the troops disappear that morning, as if the great rocks had opened and devoured them, and she knew that at this moment they might be within a half a mile of her, but where to begin to find them she did not know. The close proximity of the Austrians frightened her, and she was afraid to go off at random, or even to call. Throughout the night she tried to think and plan as she sat up with her back against the rock listening for the rat, tat, tat, which began again after she returned to the cave, and continued at regular intervals. Before dawn the rain stopped and the wind blew the clouds away. At the first streak of light Lucia stole softly away from the sleeping Beppi and Garibaldi, and crept down the tiny path to the plateau below. Once there she was on familiar ground and even in the pale light she could tell her way. During the night she had decided to go to the rock where she took her milk in the morning, surely the mysterious hand that left the pennies for her would be there, and she was determined, to wait for him. She reached the spot without encountering any difficulties, and sat down to wait. The sun rose east of Cellino, and she watched it as it climbed over the hill and lighted the windows of the church with its yellow low rays. All the world looked as if it had just been bathed and freshly clothed to step out glistening and very clean to greet the day. The air was chilly, but so fresh and sweet that Lucia took long grateful breaths of it. She was just wondering how long she would have to wait, when a stone rolled down beside her and hit her foot. She jumped and turned around. A soldier with a broad smile that showed all his fine white teeth was climbing down towards her. Lucia put her fingers to her lip to caution silence, and his smile changed to a look of sudden anxiety. "What is it?" he demanded. "Don't make any noise," Lucia warned. "Listen to me." She told him all that she had discovered during the night. "Are you sure of what you say?" the soldier questioned her seriously. "Oh, yes, sir, I tell you I crawled out and listened. The sound was very near." "Can you show me the place?" "Yes, yes, I have just come from there, but it is a slippery climb." Lucia looked at him interrogatively. The man nodded. "Never mind that, lead the way." Lucia did not hesitate, but hurried back along the rocks, choosing the safest footholds and sometimes leaving her companion far behind. When she reached the little grassy plateau, she stopped and pointed. "It is above here, sir." She started to ascend, and the soldier followed in silence. When they reached the cave she pointed to the back wall and said: "Listen there." The soldier was so tall that he had to stoop down before he could enter, but he was very careful to be quiet and not disturb the still sleeping Beppi. He put his ear to the wall and Lucia watched him excitedly. By the expression of his face she knew he was hearing the "rat, tat, tat." "Can you show me the place where you thought you heard the explosion?" he whispered. Lucia nodded and beckoned to him to follow. In her eagerness she forgot that he could not climb as nimbly as she could, and she was on the roof of the cave before he had started to ascend. It was fortunate that she was, for not ten feet ahead of her, crawling along the ground, his helmet shining in the sun, was a soldier in the Austrian uniform. CHAPTER V IN THE TOOL SHED At sight of her he jumped to his feet. "Halt!" he commanded, unnecessarily, for Lucia was far too frightened to move. She was thinking of the soldier whose head would appear at any moment over the ledge of rock behind, and her one wish was to stop him. "I won't move, sir!" she cried loudly, "I see you have a big gun and I am all alone." She spoke in Italian, but the Austrian seemed to understand. "What are you doing prowling around here at this time of day?" he demanded angrily, speaking to her in her own language. "Oh, sir, I am lost," Lucia replied, not daring to look below her. "My goat wandered away in the storm and I came out to find her, and now I am very, very far away from home." She walked towards the man as she spoke. She was terrified for fear he would discover the cave below her. "Where did you sleep?" he demanded. "Oh, I have not slept, sir. See my dress it is wet from the rain, there is no shelter anywhere, and the wind and the rain frightened me so I did not know where I was, and I was afraid to stay still." The Austrian eyed her suspiciously. "Why didn't you go to the soldiers and ask for shelter?" he inquired harshly. "The soldiers?" Lucia's brown eyes opened wide in surprise. "But there are no soldiers near here. They are miles away with the guns. How could I reach them? My home is over there," she pointed in the opposite direction from the cave, "and I think I will go back to it, now that it is day." "Oh, no, you won't," the Austrian replied. "You'll come with me." "But why, what have I done?" Lucia inquired. "That's not the point," the soldier replied. "You're an Italian, and if I let you go you'll run home and tell all the troops in the town that I was here. Oh, no, my little lady, we can't allow that--you're coming along with me." His lordly tone and the sneer on his lips infuriated Lucia. She thought all danger of his discovering the cave was over, so she replied angrily. "And suppose I won't come? Don't think you can frighten me, for you can't. I tell you, I won't go a step with you." The Austrian was about to reply, when a sound that had been so welcome only a few hours ago struck terror to Lucia's ears. "Naa, Naa!" "What's that?" the soldier jumped nervously. He was startled and frightened. Lucia saw it and her own courage returned. "My goat," she said as Garibaldi appeared above the rock. Lucia ran to him. "My pet, here you are, I have found you at last. Where have you been? you are a bad girl. See how you frightened the brave Austrian soldier." The sarcasm and scorn in her voice were unmistakable. The soldier was indignant. "Here, that is enough from you. Come along, I will take you where they will teach you better manners." He caught her roughly by the shoulder, and Lucia went with him only too gladly. If she could get him well away from the cave, it would be time enough to think of herself. She, had no doubt that she would be able to run away from him later on. As they walked along the noise underground grew louder. Every now and then the man would turn and look at her suspiciously. He did not speak to her, however, and they walked for quite a distance in silence. When Lucia considered that they had gone far enough she stopped. "Where are you taking me?" she demanded with spirit. "Never mind, you come along," the man replied impatiently. "Time enough for you to know when we get there." "But I won't go any further." Lucia was determined. "Do you think that I will be taken prisoner by an Austrian? Never!" Her eyes blazed indignantly. She planned so many times just what she would do, if she was ever brought face to face with her hated enemy, that the feeling of helplessness that she felt under the big man's hand infuriated her. "Come along, I will not speak again," the Austrian commanded, and once more Lucia went on, unable to withstand the strength of his arm. The flat ground ended abruptly, and they had to climb down jagged rocks. Lucia thought that her chance of escape had come, but the Austrian never lessened his hold on her arm. They had traveled this far without meeting any one. The only signs of life had been the mysterious noise underground, and the click of Garibaldi's sharp hoofs as they hit the stone. When they reached a certain point the soldier stopped. "If you make any noise," he said roughly, "I will have to shoot you." Lucia opened her mouth to scream, but before the sound came she changed her mind. A new and splendid idea had just come to her. She stopped holding back and walked obediently beside her guard. They did not go very far, before he told her to lie down and crawl, and before she realized where she was going, she was in a deep trench that ran along the base of the rock and was completely hidden from sight. Garibaldi followed them, picking her way daintily, and stopping every now and then to let out a mournful "Naa!" The Austrian did not seem to hear her. If he did, he paid no attention, but led Lucia hurriedly along the dark passage. They had not gone far before a sentry stopped them. Lucia's guard said something to him that she could not understand. The sentry disappeared, to return in a few minutes with another man. From the respectful salutes that he received, Lucia decided he must be a very high officer. More talk followed which she could not understand, and then her guard turned to her. "Follow me," he directed, and led her out of the passage across a stretch of open ground, and over to a shed. Another soldier opened the door, and before Lucia quite got her breath, she heard the key turn in a lock and the thud, thud of the men's boots as they marched away. CHAPTER VI GARIBALDI PERFORMS The shed had been hastily put together, and served as a place for picks and shovels. There were so many of them, in fact, that Lucia at first had difficulty in finding a place to stand, but by rearranging them she cleared a portion of the floor and sat down to think. The shed was by no means airtight, for the boards had been nailed up so far apart that not only did the air and light enter between the cracks, but it was also possible for Lucia to see everything that was going on about her. At first it looked as if the soldiers were just hurrying about aimlessly, but by watching them closely, especially the guard that had caught her, she saw that they were preparing to leave. A bugle sounded from a dugout at the end of the passage, and all the soldiers in sight fell into marching order and waited at attention. Then the officer who had ordered Lucia shut up in the tool-house, gave them some orders that she could not understand. One soldier came over to the shed and unlocked the door. He beckoned Lucia to step outside, and as the men filed past the door he handed each one a pick and shovel. When they had all received them, and Lucia expected to return, the Captain spoke to her. His Italian was so very bad she pretended not to understand. "What is your name?" was his first question. Lucia shook her head. "Your name?" he persisted. "Marie, Louise, Josephine?" "No, Señor," Lucia replied bewildered. "Well then, what is it?" "I don't understand." "Your name?" "No, Señor." "Your name? Have you no sense--stupid!" The Captain's patience was fast giving way. Now to call an Italian stupid is the worst possible insult, and Lucia's cheeks flushed hotly. She was very angry, and she determined not to reply now at any cost. She shook her head therefore, and a very stubborn and unpromising light came into her brown eyes. The Captain looked at her in disgust. "Well, I suppose your name does not matter anyway," he said gruffly. "Where do you live?" Another shake of the small black head, and an expressive shrug. "You live in Cellino, so why not say so? Come, no more sulking. If you won't answer me of your own free will, you must be made to answer." "No, Señor," Lucia smiled provokingly. "No--what in thunder do you mean?" "No, Señor," there was not a trace of impertinence in her face. The officer looked at her in despair. "Do you, or don't you understand what I am saying?" he demanded. "No, Señor," Lucia reiterated. "Where is the soldier who found this girl?" the Captain shouted to an orderly. Lucia did not understand what he said, but she knew that her captor was well out of sight with his pick and shovel by now, and in all probability would not return and give her away, and she was beginning to enjoy the part of a "stupid." Just as the Captain turned to continue his questioning, Garibaldi, who had been grazing about unmolested at a little distance from the shed, saw Lucia and came bounding over to her. In her delight at finding her young mistress she very nearly succeeded in butting over the officer. Lucia had difficulty in repressing a smile, but she put her arms around the goat's neck and patted her. "Does that animal belong to you?" The Captain demanded, puffing a little in the effort to retain his balance. Lucia only smiled and nodded. Garibaldi kicked up her heels in an ecstasy of joy and sent the soft mud flying. The Captain's anger broke all bounds. "Take that animal and shoot her," he demanded, but before the soldier could obey, he withdrew the order. "Tie her to the tree instead, we may be able to milk her," he said. The soldier nodded and advanced towards Garibaldi with ponderous assurance, but Garibaldi was not going to be tied, she preferred her freedom. She was not, however, unwilling to play a friendly game of tag; it was her favorite sport and she was very proficient in it. When the big soldier would come within reach of her, she would lower her head and duck under his arm, and before the astonished pursuer could collect his wits and look around, she would be browsing innocently close by. This game kept up for a long time. The men who were in sight dropped what they were doing and made an admiring circle; even the Captain had to smile. Lucia wanted to laugh outright, but she managed to keep her face set in grave lines. At last the soldier gave up the chase and retired among the jeers of his comrades to the side lines. The Captain saw an opportunity to amuse his men, and perhaps end their grumbling for the time being. He offered a reward to the man that could catch the goat. First one soldier and then another attempted it, but none of them succeeded. After a while the fun of the chase wore off for Garibaldi, and she became angry. She had a little trick of butting that had won her Beppi's dislike, and she used it to the discomfiture of the Austrian army. Lucia saw them one after another rub their shins and their knees, for although Garibaldi did not have horns, her head was very, very hard indeed, and she was afraid that some one of them might grow angry and hurt her pet. She looked at the officer and pointed to the goat. "I can catch her," she said simply. "Well, do it then," the Captain replied. Lucia called softly and made a queer clicking noise. Garibaldi stopped butting, and walked soberly over to her. She smiled good-naturedly at the men, and tied the rope that one of them handed to her around the goat's neck. One of the soldiers pointed to a tree behind the shed, and she tied the rope securely around it Garibaldi protested mildly, but she patted her and left her lying contentedly in the mud. She took time to look hastily about her before returning to the shed. The tree to which the goat was tied was on the edge of a steep hill that fell away abruptly from the little clearing. Lucia looked down it, and could hardly believe her eyes; for there, far below, was a silver stream glistening in the sunshine, and she realized with a sense of thankfulness that it could be no other than the little river that flowed below the west wall of Cellino, and right under the windows of the Convent. If she could only get away, it would be an easier matter to go back that way, than over the dangerous route by which she had come. But she was not very eager to return at once, for the idea that had come to her earlier in the day still tempted her to wait and listen. When she returned to the shed the Captain was nowhere in sight, and one of the soldiers pointed to the open door. She nodded and walked in, the key grated in the lock, and she was once more a prisoner. CHAPTER VII THE BEGGAR As the sun rose higher, a quiet settled over the clearing. The men talked and smoked, and the Captain read a newspaper at the door of his dugout. No one bothered Lucia, and she kept very quiet. She had had nothing to eat since the night before and she was very hungry, but she would not for the world ask her enemies for food. She was not above accepting it, however, when a little before noon one of the soldiers brought her a hard and tasteless biscuit and a cup of water. She ate greedily, and then tired out from so much excitement she fell asleep. She awoke an hour later to a scene of activity. She could see through the peek-hole that the Captain was consulting his watch every little while, and the men were hurrying about excitedly. They all looked up at a certain mountain above with suspicious eyes, and Lucia could tell by the tone of their voices that they were angry about something. A few minutes later the arrival of a very muddy and tired soldier from the opposite direction created a diversion. He saluted the Captain and handed him a message. Whatever the message was, it pleased the Captain, for he brought his fist down on his knee and laughed. Then he gave some very long; and to Lucia, unintelligible orders, and the men lost some of their ugly rebellious look. He chose two soldiers from the group before him, and motioned them into his dugout. Lucia tried to make something out of the strange words that the other men spoke, but she could not. They were eagerly questioning the messenger and giving him food and water. He was answering them, and from the expression of their faces his replies were not cheering. At last he stood up, shrugged his shoulders and for the first time noticed Garibaldi. The other soldiers explained, and Lucia knew they were discussing her when they pointed to the shed. The messenger evidently suggested milking the goat, for after a little laughing and jesting, one of the men took a pail and approached Garibaldi. Now, no one had ever milked Garibaldi in all her life but Lucia, and from the disastrous attempts on the part of the soldiers it was evident that no one was ever going to, if that very particular animal could prevent it, and she seemed quite able to, to judge from the results. Lucia watching through the cracks in the shed laughed softly to herself. She was not surprised when, a few minutes later, one of the men opened the door and told her to come out. He could not speak Italian and he resorted to the sign language. Lucia nodded in understanding. She might have pretended blank stupidity, but she wanted some milk herself, and this was a good way to get it. Besides, she decided that she would do something to make it impossible for them to lock her up again on her return. Garibaldi stood quite still as she milked her, and submitted meekly to her affectionate pats. The messenger drank greedily from the pail, and when he had finished there seemed to be nothing else for Lucia to do but return to the shed. She walked back to the door as slowly as possible, and looked hard at the lock. It was just an ordinary padlock and it hung open on the rusty catch. She looked quickly at the men behind her. They were busy talking, and did not appear to be paying any attention to her. Very quickly, without seeming to do it, she touched the padlock; it swung on the catch, and then fell into the mud. Lucia put her foot over it and ground it in with her heel. When the soldier remembered her a few minutes later, and came over to shut the door, he grumbled at the loss of the lock, but he did not apparently connect her with its disappearance, nor did he bother much about looking for it. He shut the door and walked back to join the group that still surrounded the messenger. Lucia sat down again and watched the door of the Captain's dugout. She had wondered all day what the smiling Italian soldier and Beppi had done after she left. She knew that Beppi could easily find his way back to the cottage, and in case Nana had already gone, and Lucia knew that in spite of her threats she would not go off alone, he would go into the town and some one would take care of him. As for the soldier, he would hear the rat, tat, tat, and know what it meant, and return to his comrades for help. She listened, but there was no sound of guns near enough to mean a fight close at hand. The thought puzzled her, but she dismissed it as the Captain and the two soldiers came out of the dugout. The men looked cross and sullen, but the Captain was still smiling. He walked over to the messenger, handed him a folded paper, and the man disappeared as mysteriously as he came. Lucia did not pay any attention to him, however, for she was interested in the two soldiers. They were very busy buckling on their kit bags in preparation for a departure. When they were ready, they stood at attention before the Captain. After more orders from him, they started off down the hill just back of the shed. Lucia guessed that they were going to the river, with a cold feeling around her heart, she realized that they could go straight to the wall of Cellino. She did not stop to consider the many sentries who walked up and down the walls day and night, or the fact that two enemy soldiers would hardly walk up and attempt to enter a town in broad daylight. She only knew that the river led to Cellino, and that all she loved most in the world was there. She was sick with fear. She looked back at the Captain; he was again consulting his watch. The soldiers looked at him and fell to grumbling again. After a moment of indecision he called to them. They stood up and saluted. He gave a very peremptory order, and in a few minutes almost all of them had their guns on their shoulders, and waited his next word. The Captain himself buckled on his revolver, and the party started off at a brisk pace through the tunnel. Lucia watched them go. In a hazy way she realized that they were going out in search of the men who had left earlier in the morning. This was correct in part, but they were also going to look for another party of men, the ones who had been responsible for the rat, tat, tat, Lucia had heard. The diggers, led by her captor, had been sent out that morning to relieve their comrades already at work. When none of them returned the Captain grew anxious, and was himself leading the searching party. If Lucia had known, she would have realized that her Italian soldier was in some way responsible for their absence, and she would have been delighted. As it was, she dismissed the Captain with a shrug and turned her attention to the few soldiers who remained. They were a little distance from her, and most of them had their backs to her. Lucia determined to try to slip out unnoticed. She waited until they were all talking at once. By their angry gestures they appeared to be discussing something of great importance; none of them even glanced towards the shed. Lucia pushed open the door very gently and waited. No one noticed it, then she laid down flat and crawled out into the mud; it was slow work, but in the end it proved the best way, for she reached the tree and Garibaldi without being discovered. The shed hid her from sight. She hurriedly untied the rope and freed the goat. It had never entered her mind to escape and leave her behind. Garibaldi, free once more, ran down the steep hill her hoofs making no more than a soft, pad, pad noise in the mud. Lucia dropped to the ground again and crawled slowly after her. Below her, almost at the river's edge, she could see the two soldiers slipping and stumbling along. She wriggled on in the mud until she was well below the crest of the hill, then she got up and began to run. She jumped from one rock to the next, always keeping the two men in sight, but keeping under cover herself. The men kept to the bank of the river and moved forward cautiously. Lucia kept abreast of them, but stayed high up above their heads. It was a long walk, for the river twisted and turned many times before it reached the walls of Cellino. But it did not tire Lucia, as it did the two men. They walked slower and slower as the afternoon wore on, stopping every few minutes to rest and talk excitedly. At a little before sunset the guns grew louder and seemed to be much nearer. All day there had been a dull rumble, but now they burst out into a terrific roar. Lucia saw the men below her stop and look up. They stood still for a long time, and then hurried on. Until now the road had been deserted, but ahead at the end of a footbridge, just around a sharp turn, Lucia, from her vantage point, could see another figure. The soldiers could not have seen him, but when they reached the turn of the road they both left the open and took cover in the rocks above. Lucia watched narrowly. They did not stop as she half expected them to do, but crept on until they were abreast of the man. He was a beggar to judge by his shabby clothes, and he was apparently whiling away his afternoon by staring into the river. Lucia's first thought was that the Austrians would shoot him. She caught her breath sharply when a queer thing happened. One of the soldiers picked up a stone and threw it down into the stream. CHAPTER VIII THE SURPRISE ATTACK Without turning his head, the beggar picked up a stone and tossed it into the river. He repeated this twice. Lucia watched, fascinated. The soldiers left their hiding-place and came down to the road. The beggar took something out of the pocket of his coat, handed it to one of the soldiers, and shuffled off in the opposite direction. Lucia waited to see what the soldiers would do. She expected them to return, but instead they waited until the beggar was out of sight, and then hurried across the foot-bridge and plunged hurriedly into the mountains opposite. Lucia caught sight of their shining helmets every now and then as they climbed higher and higher, and finally disappeared. She was undecided what to do, but after a little hesitation she determined to follow the beggar. Now that the Austrians were out of sight there was no need for her to avoid the open path, and she hurried to it and ran quickly in the direction that the man had taken. She did not know where she was, or how far she would have to go before she reached Cellino. She had seen nothing of the town from the mountains, and she guessed that it was much farther away than she had at first supposed. She walked on as fast as she could, keeping a sharp lookout for the beggar, but he had apparently disappeared, for she could not find him or any trace of him. It was late in the afternoon when she reached a part of the river that was familiar to her, and with a start she realized that she was still a good three miles from Cellino. She was very tired and very hungry, but she sat down to consider the best plan to follow. She knew nothing of what had passed between the men at the bridge, but she had sense enough to realize that whatever it was, it was not for the good of the Italian forces. Some one must be warned, and soon, for the speed of the Austrian soldiers made her feel that the danger was imminent. "I will go on to town and warn them," she said aloud to Garibaldi, "that is the best plan, and then I can find something to eat." She jumped up and started off with renewed energy. At a little path that turned to the right she left the river and came out on the broad road at the foot of a valley. It was not long after that, when she saw the little white cottage ahead. The sight of it gave her courage. There, at any rate, would be a human being to talk to, and bread to eat. She ran the rest of the way, and did not pause until she was in the little room. The sight that met her eyes sent a sudden damper over her spirits. Everything was upside down. The green bed was stripped of its sheets, and all the familiar ornaments had gone. Lucia stood dumbfounded trying to realize that Nana had really gone. A feeling of loneliness and despair made the tears come to her eyes. She clenched her fists and tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but without success, the tears came in spite of her and in her disappointment she threw herself down on the bed and sobbed. Fear got the better of her, and in an agony of mind she imagined every possible harm to Beppi. But she was not allowed to stay long in that state of mind, for suddenly the guns broke into a terrible roar. The air was black with smoke and the house trembled and rocked under her. She jumped up and ran to the window. Great volumes of smoke arose to the east, and higher geysers of dirt and rock flew up into the air. "The Austrians!" Lucia did not stop to think in her fear. She dashed out of the house and down the road in the opposite direction from the town. Without realizing the personal danger to herself, she ran as fast as she could. Fear and the noise of the exploding shells sent her plunging ahead regardless of direction. Instinctively she took the path to the right at the foot of the village and climbed up to the little plateau. She was directly under the fire of her own guns, but the noise from both sides was so great that she did not know it, and she forged ahead, shouting. In all the tumult she could not even hear her own voice, but to shout relieved her nerves of the terrible strain. When she reached the plateau she climbed on up, choosing the spot where, earlier in the day, the Italian soldiers had come from, and slipping and sliding, but always goaded on by fear, and the knowledge that she must tell some one about the beggar, she kept on her way. She did not know how long she ran, or when it was that she stumbled, but suddenly everything was black before her eyes, and the noise of the guns was blotted out by the awful ringing in her ears. Then came oblivion. When she next realized anything, she was conscious of some one bending over her and holding a water bottle to her lips. She drank gratefully and opened her eyes. The Italian soldier was beside her, and another man was lying on the ground near her. "Give me something to eat," she said, trying to sit up, "or I will go away again." Going away was the only way she knew of, to express the sensation of fainting. The Italian took something out of his knapsack and gave it to her. Lucia ate ravenously, and the queer feeling at the pit of her stomach disappeared. "How did you escape?" he asked. The question brought back a sudden wave of memory, and Lucia jumped up excitedly. "By the river road--two Austrians and a beggar--they met by the foot-bridge, over there where the noise comes from; I saw them." She recalled the facts jerkily. "Go on!" the Italian's eyes flashed. "The beggar gave the Austrians a paper, and they left with it and climbed up into the mountains across the river. I could not follow without being seen, and when I tried to find the beggar he had disappeared. The river runs right under the wall." "Oh, look!" She stopped abruptly and put her hand over her eyes. A great cloud of fire followed a terrific report, and from the distance of the hill it looked as if the whole town of Cellino was in flames. The Italian snatched a field glass that lay on the ground beside the wounded man, and put it to his eyes. Then without a word he dashed off. Lucia followed him. A giant tree grew between two huge rocks a little further up the mountain, and the Italian climbed up it. Lucia watched him, and for the first time she noticed that several wires were strung along and ended high up in its branches. She heard the Italian calling some directions, and knew that a telephone must be hidden somewhere in the tree. She could make nothing of the orders; they were mostly numbers, and she waited impatiently until he returned to her. "Stay here," he said quickly, "and lie down flat--don't move. The Austrians are advancing on the other side of the river, and Cellino will fall if the bridge is not blown up." "But who can get to it?" Lucia demanded. "I can; it is mined. If I can reach it we may drive them back." He did not wait to say more. Lucia watched him impatiently as he stumbled and slid clumsily down the rough trail below her. The shells were coming nearer and nearer, and the air was filled with brilliant fire. She watched the man every second, afraid to lose track of him. At the base of the rock he fell. She caught her breath and shouted aloud when he picked himself up and stumbled on. He reached the road and was just starting across the little path that led to the river, when a shell exploded so near him that the smoke hid him completely from view. CHAPTER IX THE BRIDGE It was several minutes before Lucia saw him again; he was lying flat, a little to one side of the road, and he was very still. She waited, hoping against hope to see him move, and fighting against the horrible thought that filled her mind. "He is dead," she exclaimed, terrified, "and they are moving; and the bridge!" Without another thought she got up and very carefully started down the descent, her mind concentrated on the bridge. She did not attempt to go to the road, but kept to the shelter of the rocks, and a little to one side of the fire. The shells were bursting all around her, but she was above the range of the guns, and comparatively safe. She hurried as fast as she could, but it was hard to keep the direction, in all the noise and blinding flames. She did not dare to look towards Cellino, or think what that hideous column of smoke might mean. At last she reached the river, and the bridge was in sight a little distance ahead. It was an old stone bridge, and wide enough for men to walk four abreast. At that point the river was very wide and the bridge was made in three arches. It looked very substantial, and Lucia stopped, suddenly terrified by the thought that she did not have the slightest idea how or where to blow it up. She looked about her as if for inspiration. She found it in the moving line of men just visible far above in the mountains. The Austrians! They were advancing, and the sudden realization of it brought out all her courage and daring, and intensified the hatred in her heart. "They shall not cross our bridge," she shouted defiantly, and raced ahead regardless of the rain of shot and shell. But when she reached the bridge she stopped again, helpless and completely baffled. The wall rose above her high and impregnable. A little farther along, the window of the convent seemed to be ablaze with light. The church had been struck, and Lucia could feel the heat of the flames from where she stood. The North Gate seemed miles away, and she turned to the convent. She knew there was a door that gave on to the river bank, and she ran forward. She found it and pushed frantically against it. It was locked, the only other opening being a window higher up. Lucia looked at it in despair. It was her only chance. The glass had been smashed by the impact of the bursting shells and lay in broken bits under her feet. She could just reach the ledge with her hands, and the stone felt warm. The wall was rough and uneven, and after a struggle she managed to find a foothold and pulled herself up. The jagged glass still in the casement cut her hands, but she did not stop to think about it. Once inside she ran along the dark corridor and up the few steps that led to the first floor. The big iron doors were open, and she caught her first sight of the town. The convent was just outside, and on the road that led south a great stream of people carrying every size of bundles, was hurrying along. Lucia recognized some of them, but the faces she most longed to see were not there. She turned away, for the sight seemed to drain all her courage, and she longed to run after them, but the memory of that moving mass of soldiers made her true to her trust, and she hurried through the convent, calling for aid. At the farthest door she discovered several of the sisters hurrying about and trying to clear the big ward filled with wounded soldiers. They had been brought in that morning, and some of them were very ill indeed. The sisters were carrying them out on improvised stretchers. Those who were able to stand up staggered along as best they could by themselves. Lucia saw one boy leaning heavily against the door, and ran to him. "Roderigo Vicello!" she exclaimed, when she looked up at him. Roderigo swayed and would have fallen if she had not supported him. "I can not go," he said weakly. "I am too tired, and I want to go. I have watched her out of sight, but I am too tired to follow." Lucia looked at him intently. It seemed to her impossible that a man, and a soldier, could bother to think of a girl at such a time. She took his arm firmly and shook him. "Do you know how to blow up a bridge that is mined?" she demanded excitedly. "Yes, pull out the pin," Roderigo replied, "if it is a time fuse," he spoke slowly and painstakingly. "Pin?" Lucia exclaimed impatiently, "I don't understand, you will have to come. Listen, the Austrians are just a little way off across the river, they must not cross the bridge." Roderigo was alert at once. The light came back into his eyes and his body stiffened. "What are you saying?" he demanded. "Do you mean, they are coming from that side?" "Yes," Lucia exclaimed, "there is no time to spare; hurry, I will help you." She put her strong, young arm about his waist, and by leaning most of his weight on her shoulder he managed to crawl along. Lucia was half crazy with impatience, but she suited her step to his, and helped him all she could. At last they reached the lower door. She opened it hurriedly and the bridge was in sight, but so were the Austrians. They were so near that what had seemed one solid mass now resolved itself into individual shapes. To Lucia it seemed as if a great sea of men were rushing down upon them. The exertion from the walk made Roderigo sway, and just before they reached the bridge he fell forward. Lucia crouched down beside him, and begged and pulled until he was on the bridge. "Now where is it? Tell me what to do," she begged, "see they are almost here." With a tremendous effort Roderigo pulled himself to the edge of the bridge and located the mine. In a voice that was so weak that Lucia could hardly hear it he gave the directions. Lucia obeyed. "When will it go off?" she demanded. "Will we have time to get away?" Roderigo shrugged his shoulders. "You will," he said. "Run as fast as you can, I don't know how long it will take." Lucia did not wait to argue. She caught him under his arms and dragged him back to the convent as fast as she could. Roderigo had given up all hope, but as they drew nearer to the door of the convent, the wish to live asserted itself, and he got to his feet and ran with Lucia. They did not stop until they were safe on the road beyond. The last inhabitant of Cellino was out of sight, and it seemed as if they were alone. They waited, Lucia supporting Roderigo's head in her arms. The explosion came, there was a crash, and then a great shaking of the earth. Lucia listened, her eyes flashing. "Wait here," she said to Roderigo, "I will return at once." She ran hurriedly back to the convent and down again to the door. The old bridge was ruined. Great pieces of it were torn out and had fallen high on the banks. The center span was entirely gone, and the river, broad and impassable, ran smoothly between the jagged ends. Lucia did not stand long in contemplation of the scene before her. She hurried back to the road. A sister was beside Roderigo, and Lucia went to her. "It is not safe back in there," she said, pointing to the convent. "A shell may hit it." The sister nodded. "It hardly matters," she replied quietly. "No place is safe. We will take him there; he is too ill to be carried far." Lucia agreed, and between them they carried the unconscious Roderigo back to the ward and laid him gently on one of the beds. Sister Francesca turned back the cuffs of her robe and began doing what she could. As she worked she talked. "We were all ordered to leave," she said; "but when we were well along the road I turned back. It seemed so cowardly to go when we were most needed. The rest thought that by night the Austrians would be in possession, but I could not believe it." She was a little woman with a soft voice and big blue eyes, and she spoke with such gentle assurance that Lucia felt comforted. "They will not come to-night," she said, "for the bridge is down, and our troops will surely be able to force them back." Sister Francesca nodded. "I hope so. At any rate, there will be wounded and my place is here." At the word "wounded," the vivid picture of the smoke-choked valley, the shell explosion, and the still form of the Italian soldier flashed before Lucia's mind. "What am I doing here?" she said impatiently. "There are wounded now and perhaps we can save them." She did not offer any further explanation, but slipped out of the big room and hurried back to the road once more. The sun had set and twilight gleamed patchy through the clouds of smoke. It was still light enough to see, and Lucia hurried to the gate. The first sight that she had of Cellino made her stop and shudder. The church was in ruins, and every pane of glass was broken in the entire village. In their haste the refugees had thrown their belongings out of their windows to the street below, and then had gone off and left them. Great piles of furniture and broken china littered the way, and stalls had been tipped over in the market place. No one stopped Lucia; the town was deserted. She ran hurriedly across to the North Gate, afraid of the ghostly shadows and unnatural sights. At the gate a splendid sight met her eyes. From the convent she had only seen the Austrians, the wall had cut off her view of the west. But now she commanded a view of the whole field, and to her joy the Italians were advancing as steadily from the west as the Austrians from the east. They would meet at the river, and at the memory of the bridge Lucia threw back her head and laughed. It was not a merry laugh, but a grim triumphant one, and it held all the relief that she felt. But, splendid as the sight before her was, she did not stay long to look at it. Below, somewhere in the valley, the Italian soldier of the shining white teeth and the pennies was lying wounded, or dead, and nothing could make Lucia stop until she found him. The heavy artillery fire had let up a little, and the shells were not quite so many. Lucia started to run. She had made up her mind earlier in the day that if she moved fast enough she would escape being hurt. She unconsciously blamed the slowness of the Italian soldier for his injury. She passed her cottage half-way down the hill. It was still standing, but a shell had dropped on the little goat-shed and blown it to pieces. One of the uprights and the door, which was made of stout branches lashed together with cord, still stood. The door flapped drearily and added to the desolation of the scene. Lucia did not stop to investigate the damage, but hurried ahead. She was afraid the light would fade before she reached the wounded soldier. At the end of the road in the bottom of the valley she was just between both sides, the shells dropped all about her and she stood still, bewildered and frightened. The high mountains on either side made sounding boards for the noise, and the roar of the guns seemed to double in volume. "Lie down!" A voice almost under her foot made her jump, and she saw the Italian soldier. She did as he commanded, and he pulled her towards him. He was very weak, and when he moved one leg dragged behind him. He tried to crawl with Lucia into the shell hole close by. She saw what he was doing and did her best to help. When they finally rolled down into the shell hole, the man groaned. Lucia could feel that his forehead was wet with great drops of perspiration. She found his water bottle and gave him a drink. "What's happened?" he asked, speaking close to her ear. Lucia told him as much as she knew. "Then the bridge has gone?" There was hope in his voice. "Gone for good. They can never cross it, and our men are just over there." "How can I get you back?" she asked. "The convent is so far away." The soldier shook his head. "You can't. We are caught here between the two fires, it would be certain death to move. What made you come back?" "To find you," Lucia replied. "I could not come sooner, there was so much to do. I even forgot you, but when I remembered, I ran all the way and now I am helpless." "Don't give up," the Italian replied. "You must have courage for both of us, for I am useless. My leg has been badly injured by a piece of shell, and I cannot even crawl." "Then there is nothing to do but wait for the light," Lucia was trembling all over. "Oh, what a long day it has been!" "But the dawn will come soon," the soldier tried to cheer her, "and then perhaps the stretcher-bearers will find us. If they do not--" "If they do not, I will find a way to take you to the convent," Lucia replied with sudden spirit, and with the same determination that had resulted in her blowing up the bridge, she added to herself: "He shall not die!" CHAPTER X GARIBALDI, STRETCHER-BEARER The long night set in, and the soldier, wearied from his long wait, dropped to sleep in spite of the noise. Lucia's tired little body rested, but her eyes never relaxed their watch in the darkness. The fire kept up steadily, and at irregular intervals a star-shell would illuminate the high mountains. Towards midnight there was an extra loud explosion, and once more the terrifying flames seemed to encircle Cellino. Lucia wondered dully what had been struck. The church was gone, and she supposed this was the town hall. It looked too near, as far as she could judge, for the convent. Her ears were becoming accustomed to the sound, and she thought the fire from both sides was being concentrated towards the south. The shells near them lessened, and at last stopped. Before dawn the Italian stirred, and called out in his sleep. Lucia spoke to him, but he did not answer; he was so exhausted that he was soon unconscious again. Lucia watched the east, and tried to imagine Beppi safe and sound in a town far away from this terrible din, but she could be sure of nothing. She remembered Roderigo's words, 'She is safe,' and knew that he must have meant Maria. Surely Beppi and Nana were with her and Aunt Rudini; it could not be otherwise. With a guilty start she remembered Garibaldi. Where was she, and what had become of her in all the terrors of yesterday? Lucia could not remember having noticed her after she left the footbridge. Was she safe in the mountains, or lying dead in a shell hole? "My Garibaldi, poor little one, she would not understand, and she will think I neglected her." Tears of pity and weariness stung Lucia's cheeks. The thought of her little goat, suffering and neglected, seemed to be more than she could bear. She buried her head in her arm and cried softly. The tears were a relief to her, and long after she had stopped sobbing they trickled down her cheeks. She fell into a light doze now that her watch was so nearly ended, and did not waken until the east was streaked with gray. She might not have awakened then, had it not been for a cold, wet nose burrowing in her neck, and a plaintive, "Naa, Naa!" She sat up suddenly to discover Garibaldi, covered with mud from her ears to her tail, looking very woe-begone, standing beside her. Regardless of the mud Lucia threw her arms around her pet, and for once in her life the little goat seemed to return her caress. When Lucia lifted her head there was a smile on her lips, and the old light of determination shone in her eyes. She got to her knees slowly and looked about her. The guns were booming back and forth, but their position seemed to be changed. The Austrian guns still sounded from across the river, but their range was much farther south. Lucia looked towards the west. None of the guns that were there the night before could be heard. With a throb of joy she realized that the booming now came from the town. "Had the Italians crept up and into Cellino during the night?" The very idea was so exciting that she could not rest until she made sure. She stood up and walked over to the road. The gate had an odd appearance in the half light. She walked up the hill a little way, rubbing her eyes as she went. Something behind the wall seemed to appear suddenly, emit a puff of smoke, and then disappear. Lucia had never seen a big gun in her life, and she did not know that one was hidden securely in the cover of the wall near the ruins of the church, for so quietly had the great monster arrived, and so stealthily had the soldiers worked, that its sudden appearance seemed almost a miracle. Lucia put it down as one, and offered her prayer of thankfulness from the middle of the muddy road. Then the work at hand took the place of her surprise, and she ran back to her wounded soldier and roused him gently. He opened his eyes; they were bright with fever, and he tossed restlessly. Lucia tried to move him, but could not. He was very big, and she could not pull him as she had the slender Roderigo. As she stopped to consider, the walls of Cellino suddenly seemed to let loose a fury of smoke and flame. Nothing that had happened during the day before equalled it. The big guns boomed and the smaller ones sent out sharp, cracking noises that were even more terrifying. Poor Lucia dropped to her face again, and Garibaldi cowered beside her. Nothing seemed to happen. The shells did not fall near them as she had expected, and after her first fright had passed, she got to her feet again. Tugging at the soldier was useless, and an idea was forming in her mind. She ran as fast as she could up the hill to the cottage, calling Garibaldi to follow. At the shed she stopped and looked at the door. It was light, and she soon tore it away from its support. Then she went into the cottage and came back with a rope. She made a loop and put it over the goat's head. Then with two long pieces she contrived a harness and hitched the door to it. One end dragged on the ground, and the other was about a foot above it. The rope was crossed on the goat's back and tied firmly to the long ends of the door that did duty as shafts. Garibaldi was too disheartened to protest, and Lucia had little trouble in leading her down the hill. The soldier was delirious when she reached him, but he was so weak that it was an easy matter to roll him on to the improvised stretcher. Lucia took hold of one shaft, and with Garibaldi pulling too, they started off. It was a long and weary climb, but at last they reached the cottage. The terrible jolting had been agony for the soldier. He regained consciousness on the way, and from time to time a groan escaped him. But when he was in the house he did his best to smile, and crawled onto the mattress that Lucia had pulled to the floor. She made haste to take off his knapsack, and under his direction she dressed the ugly wound in his thigh. Her fingers, only used to rough work, moved clumsily, but she managed to make him a little more comfortable. He smiled up at her bravely. "Poor little one, you are tired. Go and eat," he whispered. And Lucia, after she saw his head sink back on the pillow, found a stale loaf of black bread and began to munch it slowly. The soldier pointed to his knapsack and told her to eat whatever she found in it. "There should be some of my emergency rations left," he said faintly. Lucia found some dried beef and offered it to him, but he shook his head and asked for a drink of water. She gave it to him, but his eyes closed and his head fell back as he drank. She ate all the beef and a cake of chocolate that she found; and then went to the door to look out. Cellino was enveloped in smoke and she could not see the gate. The guns were barking, and little spurts of white smoke seemed to punctuate each separate fire. Away to the east the enemy's guns were still booming. Lucia realized that a hard battle was under way, and that it would be useless to try to get help until there was a lull. She returned to the room and looked down at the soldier. He was moaning softly, and his eyes looked up at her beseechingly. CHAPTER XI THE AMERICAN "Are you suffering very much?" she asked softly. The man nodded, his eyes closed, and a queer pallor came over his face. Lucia was suddenly terrified. She felt very helpless in this battle with death, but her determination never left her. She ran to the door. Poor Garibaldi was still standing hitched to the stretcher. Lucia went to her and led her back to the door of the cottage. She looked half-fearfully, half-angrily at the town above her. "He shall not die!" she said between her teeth, and went back into the house. The transfer from the bed to the stretcher was very difficult to manage, for the poor soldier was beyond helping himself. But Lucia succeeded without hurting him too much, and once more the strange trio started out on their climb. They were in no great danger, for only an occasional shell burst near them. The fighting was going on below the east wall. Lucia and Garibaldi toiled up the hill, each one using every bit of their strength. [Illustration: "Lucia and Garibaldi toiled up the hill, each one using every bit of their strength."] The soldier was limp and lifeless, his head rolled with every bump. He looked like one dead, but Lucia refused even to consider such a possibility. She urged Garibaldi on and tugged with determined persistence. They were just below the wall when Lucia stopped to rest. The little goat was staggering from the exertion, and she was out of breath. She looked at the gate, it was only a little way off, but it seemed miles, and she wondered if she could go on. She looked up at the wall. A man dressed in a uniform unlike the Italian soldiers was looking down at her. Lucia called to him just as he jumped to the ground. She held her breath expecting to see him hurt, but he landed on his feet and ran to her. "For the love of Pete, what have you got there?" he asked in a language that Lucia did not understand. She looked up at him bewildered. "I do not understand what you say, but the soldier is very sick. Please help me carry him to the convent," she said hurriedly. "Hum, well you may be right," the big man laughed, "but I guess what you want is help." He leaned over the wounded Italian. "Pretty far gone, but there's hope. Steady now, I've got you." He lifted the man gently in his arms and carried him on his back. Lucia watched him with admiration shining in her eyes. She followed with the goat through the gate. Once in the town she could hardly believe her eyes. Soldiers seemed to be everywhere, shouting and calling from one to the other. She saw the little guns that were making all the sharp, clicking noises, and she knew that just below, and on the other side of the river, the Austrians were fighting desperately. They passed many wounded as they hurried along, and to each one the big man would call out cheerily. Lucia wished she could understand what he said, or even what language he spoke. It was not German, of course, and she did not think it was French. "Perhaps he was a tourist?" she asked him shyly, but he shook his head. "I don't get you, I'm sorry. I'm an American, you see." "Oh, Americano!" Lucia clapped her hands delightedly. "I am glad, I thought so, American is the name of the tourists, just as I guessed," she replied. "I have heard of Americans and I have seen some in the summer, but they were not like you." She looked up in his face and smiled. The American did not understand a word of her Italian, but he saw the smile, and answered it with a good-natured grin. "You're a funny kid," he said. "I wish I could find out what you are talking about, and where you got ahold of that queer rig and the goat." They had reached the other gate by now, and they hurried through it and to the convent. Several of the sisters had returned, and there were doctors and nurses all busy in the long room where, the night before, Lucia had left Roderigo and Sister Francesca. The American laid the soldier down on one of the beds, and hurried to one of the doctors. "Saw this youngster dragging this man on a sort of stretcher hitched to a goat," he said. "He's pretty bad. Better look at him." The doctor nodded. Lucia stood beside her soldier and waited. She was almost afraid of what the doctor would say. He leaned over him and began taking off his muddy uniform, while the American helped. When he had examined the wound, he hurried over to a table and came back with a queer looking instrument. To Lucia it looked like a small bottle attached to a very long needle. "Don't, don't, you are cruel!" she protested, as he pushed it slowly into the soldier. She put out her hand angrily, but the American pulled her back. "It's all right," he said soothingly. "It's to make him well." Lucia shook her head, and the doctor turned to her. He spoke excellent Italian. "It is to save his life, child, and it doesn't hurt him, I promise you. Now tell me, where did you find him?" Lucia explained hurriedly. The story, as it came from her excited lips, sounded like some wild, distorted dream. The doctor called to Sister Francesca. "Is this child telling me the truth?" he asked wonderingly. "As far as I know," she said; "and that boy in the third cot blew up the bridge. I know she went out to find the wounded." The doctor did not reply at once. He was hunting for the soldier's identification tag. When he found it, he read it and whistled. "Captain Riccardi!" he exclaimed. "By Jove, we can't let him die." It could not be said that the doctor redoubled his efforts, for he was working his best then, but he added perhaps a little more interest to his work. The American helped him, and Lucia, at a word from Sister Francesca, hurried to her and helped her with what she was doing. It was not until many hours later that she stopped working, for more wounded were being brought in every few minutes by the other stretcher-bearers, and there was much to do. But at last there was a lull, and Lucia ran through the long corridor and down to the door. She opened it a crack and looked out. Before her, stretched along the banks of the river, were countless Austrian soldiers, staggering and fighting in a wild attempt to run away from the guns in the wall that mowed them down pitilessly. The officers tried to drive them on, but the men were too terrified, they could not advance under such steady fire. A little farther on, there was the beginning of a rude bridge. The enemy had evidently tried to build it during the night, but had been forced to abandon it after the Italians reached their new position. As Lucia watched, the men seemed to form in some sort of order, and retreat back into the hills. Their guns stopped suddenly, and only the Italian fire continued. It was a horrible scene, and in spite of the splendid knowledge that an undisputed victory was theirs, Lucia turned away and closed the door behind her. She ran up to the big door and out on the road. There were signs of the battle all about her in the big shell holes in the road, and in the ruins still smoking inside the walls, but there was no such sight as she had just witnessed, and she took a deep breath of the warm fresh air. CHAPTER XII A REUNION She shaded her eyes and looked down the road. Garibaldi, freed from her harness, was lying down in the sunshine, and as Lucia watched her she saw a familiar figure running towards her. She saw it stop and pat the goat. With a cry of joy she recognized Maria, bedraggled and muddy, but without doubt Maria. She ran forward to meet her. "Maria, where have you come from?" she called as the older girl threw herself into her out-stretched arms and began to cry. "Oh, from miles and miles away! I have been running since late last night," she sobbed. "But what has happened? Beppi, Nana, are they safe?" Lucia demanded. "Yes, yes, they are all safe with mother," Maria replied. "Then why did you come back?" Lucia persisted. "Oh, I could not bear it!" Maria tried to stifle her sobs. "All yesterday, as we ran away from the guns, I kept thinking--back there, there is work and I am running away. I knew that you were here, and I thought you were killed. Nana was half crazy with fear and we could get nothing out of her." "But Beppi, he is safe, and aunt is taking care of him?" Lucia insisted. "Oh, he is safe, of course, and so excited over his adventure, but he was crying for you last night, and we had hard work to comfort him." Maria paused, and Lucia looked into her eyes. There was a question there and she knew that her cousin did not give voice to it. She put her arm around her and led her back towards the convent. "Come," she said, smiling with something of her old mischievousness. "There is much to be done, and I will take you to Sister Francesca. She will tell you where to begin." Maria followed her. Lucia went back to the ward and did not stop until she stood beside Roderigo's bed. He was asleep, but his brows were drawn together in a worried frown. Lucia put her finger on her lip and turned to her cousin and pointed. Maria looked; a glad light came into her eyes, and without a sound she fell on her knees beside the bed. Lucia left her and went over to Sister Francesca. She was awfully tired, and her arms were numb, but she did not dare stop for fear she would not be able to begin again. "What can I do?" she asked. Sister Francesca pointed to two empty buckets. "Go out to the well and fill those. We need more water badly," she said, without looking up. Lucia picked up the pails and walked to the end of the room, through a little side door and into a cloister. In the center of it was an old well that she worked by turning an iron wheel. Lucia drew the water and poured it into her pails, and started back with them. It had been all her tired arm could do to lift the empty ones, but now each step made sharp pains go up to her shoulders. She staggered along with them, fighting hard against the dizziness in her head, but when she was half-way down the ward everything began to swim before her. She swayed, lost her balance, and would have fallen had not a strong arm caught her. The pails fell to the floor, the water splashing over the tops. Through the singing in her ears she heard an angry voice. "Poor youngster, whoever sent her out for water? Seems to me she's earned a rest. Here, sister, help me, will you?" Then Maria's soft voice came to her. "Lucia dear, don't look like that!" she cried excitedly. "Here, senor, put her on the bed, so." She felt herself being lifted ever so gently, and then the soothing comfort of a mattress and a pillow stole over her and she fell sound asleep. She did not wake up until late in the afternoon. The sun was setting and the long ward was in deep shadow. She opened her eyes for a minute and then closed them again. She was too blissfully comfortable to make any effort. She was conscious first of all of a strange quiet. The guns seemed to have very nearly stopped, there was only a faint rumble in the distance, and an occasional sputter from the guns near by. The enemy had retreated beyond, far into the hills, and for the time being Cellino was safe. Lucia guessed as much and smiled to herself. People tiptoed about the room near her, and she could hear their voices indistinctly. She did not try to hear what they said, she was too tired to think. She snuggled closer in the soft pillows and sighed contentedly, but before long a voice near her separated itself from the rest, and she heard: "We will go to my beautiful Napoli, you and I, and I will show you the water, blue as the sky, and we will be very happy, and by and by you will forget this terrible war, as a baby forgets a bad dream." Lucia opened one eye and moved her head so that she could see the speaker. He was Roderigo, of course, and he was holding Maria's hand and talking very earnestly. Lucia eavesdropped shamelessly. She was curious to hear what her cousin would say. "But surely you will not fight again!" Maria's voice was pleading. "You are so sick, they will not send you back again." "But I must go back, my wound is not a bad one and I will be well in no time, and I must go back. Think how foolish it would be, if I was to say, 'Oh, yes, I fought for two days in the great war.' You would be ashamed of me, and that little cousin of yours, Lucia, she would think me a fine soldier." Lucia laughed aloud and the voices stopped. Maria's cheeks flushed and she jumped up. "Are you awake, dear?" she asked hurriedly, "then I will go and tell Sister Francesca and the Doctor." She hurried off. Lucia sat up and looked at Roderigo. She was a sorry sight in her muddy clothes, and her hair fell about her shoulders. "You are a fine soldier, Roderigo Vicello," she said impulsively, "and I would say so if you had only fought for one day, for I know how brave you are. But you are right to want to go back." "Yes, I am right," Roderigo replied. He stretched out his hand and Lucia slipped hers into it. "We have been comrades, you and I," he said, "and we understand why." Lucia nodded gravely. She felt suddenly very proud. The Doctor came back a minute later with Maria. "Well, are you rested enough to be moved?" he asked, smiling. "Oh, yes I am quite all right," Lucia assured him. "Well, I wouldn't brag too much," the Doctor laughed. "You'll find you are pretty shaky. Sister Francesca has a little room fixed for you and some clean clothes; how does that sound?" Lucia smiled in reply, and the American came over at the Doctor's call. "Think you can manage to carry the little lady, Lathrop?" he asked. "Guess so." Lucia felt the strong arms lift her, as if she weighed no more than a feather. He carried her down the ward and up a flight of stairs. Sister Francesca was waiting for them at the door of the little room. It had been one of the sister's cells. With her help Lucia was soon in a coarse white nightgown and tucked in between clean sheets. The Doctor came in to see her a little later. "How is my soldier of the pennies?" she asked, and then as she realized he would not understand she added, "the one I brought up the hill." "Oh, Captain Riccardi, he's still very ill, but he is going to pull through all right." Lucia smiled. "Oh, I am glad," she said. "I was so afraid, he looked so queer." "Well, don't worry any more," the Doctor replied, "and now what do you want?" Lucia sighed contentedly. "Something to eat, if you please," she said shyly, "I am very hungry." CHAPTER XIII AN INTERRUPTED DREAM A week passed, a week of lazy luxury between cool linen sheets for Lucia, and she enjoyed her rest to its fullest extent. Every one in the convent, which was now a hospital, and running smoothly with capable American nurses, made a great fuss over her, and she had so much care that sometimes she was just the least bit bored. When the week was over, and she was feeling herself again, she grew restless and clamored to get up. Even the sheets, and the delicious things she had to eat, could not keep her contented. At last the Doctor said she might go out for a few hours into the sunshine, and the whole hospital hummed with the news. Maria, in a white apron and cap, helped her dress, and went with her down the stone steps and out into the convent garden. The first thing that met her eye was Garibaldi, clean and lazy, lying contentedly in the sun. She came over and seemed delighted to see her mistress once more. "But you are so clean, my pet!" Lucia exclaimed. "And your coat looks as if it had been brushed," she added, wonderingly. Maria laughed. "It was. The big American, Señor Lathrop, makes so much fuss over her, you would think she was a fine horse." "What about Señor Lathrop?" a laughing voice demanded. "Oh, drat this language, I keep forgetting." He stopped and then said very slowly in Italian: "Good morning, how are you this morning?" "Oh, I am very well, and you," Lucia replied, "you have been very good to take such care of Garibaldi." "Garibaldi? I don't understand," Lathrop replied. Lucia pointed to the goat and said slowly. "That is her name." "Name! The goat's name Garibaldi!" Lathrop exclaimed, and added in English, "Well I'll be darned!" "Not just Garibaldi," Lucia corrected him. "Her name is 'The Illustrious and Gentile Señora Guiseppe Garibaldi,' but we call her Garibaldi for short." Lathrop understood enough of her reply to catch the name. He threw back his head and laughed uproariously. "All that for a goat! No wonder she was a good sport with a name like that to live up to!" He stood for a long time looking at the poor, shaggy animal before him, then he laughed again and went into the convent. "He is a funny man," Lucia said wonderingly. "Why should he laugh because of Garibaldi's name?" "Oh, he meant no disrespect," Maria reasoned. "Americans all laugh at everything. The nurses are the same, they are always laughing. If anything goes wrong and I want to stamp my foot, they laugh." Lucia was somewhat mollified. "What is the news?" she demanded, "I have been up there in my little room for so long, no one would tell me anything. Sister Francesca would smile and say, 'Everything is for the best, dear child,' when I asked for news of the front, and I was ashamed to ask again, but you tell me." "Oh, there is nothing but good news," Maria replied. "We are gaining everywhere. The night after the battle, some of our soldiers built a bridge over the river and crossed, and when the Austrians rallied for a counter-charge they were ready for them and took them by surprise." Maria paused, and her eyes filled with tears. "And only think, Lucia, if you had not destroyed the bridge and warned the Captain of the beggar man, we might have been taken by surprise, and Cellino would be an Austrian village. Oh, I tell you the ward rings with your praise. The men talk of nothing else." "Nonsense, I did not do it alone. How about your Roderigo? He is the one who deserves the praise. But tell me, how is my soldier of the pennies? I am never sure that the Doctor tells me truly how he is." "Why do you call him 'your soldier of the pennies'?" Maria asked. "His name is Captain Riccardi, and he is very brave. Every one knows about him, and some of the boys say he is the bravest man in the Italian army." "Perhaps he is," Lucia laughed, "but he is my soldier of the pennies, just the same, that's the name I love him by." "But I don't understand," Maria protested, "did you know him before?" "Yes and no," Lucia teased. "I did not know his name, or what he looked like, but I knew there was a soldier of the pennies somewhere." "But tell me," Maria begged. "I am so curious." Lucia laughed. "Very well, it is a queer thing. Listen. Do you remember how for a few days about a week before this battle, I only brought two pails of milk to your stall in the morning?" Maria nodded. "Well, the rest of the milk went to Captain Riccardi, but I did not know it. You see, one day Garibaldi ran away and went far up into the hills. I think the guns frightened her, and of course I went after her. I found her on a little plateau quite far up, and because I was tired I sat down to rest, keeping tight hold of her, you may be sure. I was dreaming and thinking, and oh, a long way off, when suddenly I heard a voice above me. I looked up; my, but I was frightened, I can tell you, but I could see no one. The voice said: 'Little goat herder, will you give me a drink of milk?'" Lucia stopped. "Go on!" Maria exclaimed. "What did you do?" "I am ashamed to say," Lucia replied, "I was so frightened that I ran back down the mountain as if the evil spirit were after me, and I did not stop until I was safe at home. Then I began to think. Of course, at first I had thought only of an Austrian, but when I stopped to think, I knew that Austrians don't speak such Italian--low and very soft this was, as my mother used to speak, and your Roderigo. Well, then of course, I wanted to die of shame; I had run away from one of the soldiers. I thought about it all night, and I could not sleep. Just before dawn I got up very softly and went down to the shed. I filled two pails half-full and carried them up to the same place. "I could not see or hear any one, but I left them, and that afternoon I went back to see if it had been taken away. There were the empty pails, and beside them a strip of paper with four pennies wrapped up inside. "After that, I took the milk up every day to the plateau, but I never saw or heard the soldier again. Sometimes he would write me a little note and say 'thank you,' to me, but always there was the money. So that is why I called him my soldier of the pennies; do you see?" "Oh, yes, how splendid!" Maria was delighted. "And to think it was Captain Riccardi all the time. No wonder now that he talks sometimes in his sleep of the little goat-herder and her flowered dress. He was an observer, Roderigo told me. That is a very important thing to be, and he was hidden high up in a tree. That is why you did not see him." Lucia thought of the telephone. "I know now, of course, for I saw him climb up it and talk over the wire to the soldiers miles away," she exclaimed. "But how could I think to look in a tree for a soldier?" she laughed. A bell tinkled, and Maria sprang up. "I must go, it is my time to be on duty," she said, smoothing her apron and settling her cap importantly, "I will come back when I can." Lucia looked envious. "Do not be long," she called after her. She settled back with a sigh, and the little goat came over to have her neck patted. Lucia stroked it lovingly. "Garibaldi," she said aloud, "we are in a dream, you and I, and soon we will both wake up and find ourselves back in the white cottage with Nana scolding because we are late for supper. And we'll be sorry too, won't we? For that will mean that the beautiful sheets and the soft pillow will vanish the way they do in the fairy tales, and this lovely garden will go too." "But what if there were another one to take its place?" a voice inquired from the doorway. CHAPTER XIV THE FAIRY GODFATHER Lucia turned and looked up quickly. She was startled and not a little embarrassed at having her confidence overheard. Through the door that led from the ward the American was pushing a bed on wheels. Lucia had seen that same bed many times before. It had belonged to the old Mother Superior of the convent, and many a bright morning she had seen it out in the garden as she sat at her desk in the schoolroom above. She looked at the white pillow half expecting to see the old wrinkled face of Mother Cecelia, but instead Captain Riccardi looked up at her and smiled. "See, I've found you at last," he said, as Lathrop pushed the bed beside Lucia's chair. "I was beginning to think that you were just a dream child, and that I had imagined about the milk." Lucia laughed gayly. "No, Captain, that was not a dream, or I hope it wasn't, for if the milk was not real then I dreamed about the pennies, and the sick soldiers never got them." "Sick soldiers! Did you give away the money?" "Oh yes, sir, how could I keep it? I did not know you were a Captain, I thought--" "You thought I was just a poor soldier, eh?" "Well, yes, if you will excuse me for saying so, I did, but anyway I would not have kept the money." "Why not?" "How can you ask? Why because, to accept pay for something--and such a little thing as a pail of milk--" "Two pails." "No, just one, they were only half-full, but no matter. I wanted to give away the milk, not sell it, and so I put the pennies in the box at church." "And all the time I thought you were perhaps buying pretty ribbons with it." Captain Riccardi shook his head. "But I might have known better." "Ribbons!" Lucia scorned the idea. "What do I need with such foolishness, with a war going on just under my nose! I had other things to think about, I can tell you, and other ways to spend my pennies." The Captain looked at her gravely. Then he took her hand and patted it gently. "You are a brave and true little Italian," he said, "and I can never hope to pay you for what you have done. You will have to look for your reward in your own heart. It ought to be a very happy and contented heart, I should think." Lucia's cheeks flushed with pride. "Oh, it is, Captain Riccardi," she said, "it is indeed, and I am quite content. If you heard what I said just now about the dream, you must not think that I don't want to go back to the cottage--I do, and I want so much to see my Beppino and Nana again--only--" "Tell me about that 'only' Lucia," the Captain said gently. "That is what I want to hear, and then perhaps I will have something to tell you." "Oh, it is nothing but silliness," Lucia protested, "how can it matter?" "Never mind, tell me," the Captain insisted. "But you will laugh. What do big men know of fairy stories!" "Lots, sometimes--I believe in fairies." Lucia looked into the smiling eyes incredulously, "You, a soldier!" "Of course, haven't I told you that I thought you were a fairy when I first saw you, and by the Saints, I did too. Do you know, I first discovered you way down in the valley. You were with your goats. I looked at you through my glass, and your pretty flowered dress, and the kerchief you wore over your hair, made me think of the little girls at home." "Ah, then you come from the south, too?" Lucia laughed. "I knew it." "How do you?" the Captain demanded. Lucia shook her head sadly. "No, my mother came from Napoli. When I was a little girl she used to tell me all about the sunshine and the flowers, and the blue water in the bay, and old grandfather Vesuvius always frowning and puffing in the distance. Oh, I tell you I feel sometimes as if I had been there, but, of course, that is silly," she broke off, laughing, "for I have never been away from Cellino." "Would you like to go away to the south and live there?" Captain Riccardi asked slowly. "Oh, yes, of course. I dream sometimes that I am a princess and that a wicked fairy has turned me into a goat-herder and forced me to live here where it is so very cold sometimes, and then I wish hard for a good fairy to come and set me free, and take me on a magic carpet away to a garden full of flowers. There," she smiled shyly, "that is what I was thinking of out loud when you came a minute ago." The Captain did not laugh, except with his eyes. His voice was very grave as he asked. "Wouldn't a prince or a fairy godfather do just as well?" "Oh, yes, even better," Lucia replied seriously. "Well then, what would you say if I told you that I am a fairy godfather, and that I can spirit you to a garden even nicer than this, where it is always summer?" "I would surely say you were telling me fairy tales," Lucia replied frankly. The Captain laughed delightedly. "But I'm not, Lucia," he said seriously. "I'm telling you the truth. Down in the south I have a big house set in the very heart of a beautiful garden, and I live there all by myself." "Oh!" Lucia's big eyes were full of genuine sympathy. "A long time ago, I used to have a little sister like you, but she died, and since then I have been ever and ever so lonely. How would you like to come and be my sister? I'd take awfully good care of you, and Garibaldi." For an instant Lucia's eyes danced with happiness, but it was only for an instant, then her face fell. "Oh, I would like that Captain, so very much," she said, "but I could not leave Beppino and Nana." Captain Riccardi looked at her in silence for a moment, then he said slowly, "Of course, you couldn't. I forgot them for the moment. But of course I meant to include them in the invitation. I am very fond of Beppino already. We had quite a chat that day in the cave." "Oh, but you don't mean it!" Lucia jumped up excitedly. "To live with you and Nana and Beppi and Garibaldi in a garden,--oh! but of course, it is not so, and I shall presently wake up." "Wake up in the little white cottage and milk the goats and trudge to town with the heavy pails?" the Captain said. Lucia nodded soberly. "Not it I can help it, you won't," he added with decision. "You'll never do another stroke of hard work again." "But are there no goats in your garden to milk, and no work to do?" Lucia looked bewildered. "Yes, but there's a lot of people to do it,--so many in fact, that all you will have to do is to pick flowers and tell Beppi and me fairy stories. Will you come?" "Oh!" Lucia stamped her foot. "If this is only a dream!" she exclaimed half angrily, "I shall surely die of misery when I wake up." "It's no dream, little sister, it's true, and it won't be long before you realize it. This leg is going to take a long time in healing, but as soon as it is better we will go home, then when I am well enough to go back to fight, you will stay in the garden and keep it looking beautiful for me until I return." For a full moment Lucia stared into the Captain's eyes, while the wonderful truth dawned on her, then her emotion being far beyond words, she threw her arms around him and kissed him heartily. CHAPTER XV EXCITING NEWS "Lucia, Lucia, such exciting news, come here at once!" Maria ran up the stairs excitedly. Lucia, who was busy helping Sister Francesca put away the clean sheets, dropped what she was doing and ran down the corridor. "What is it!" she demanded. "Have the Austrians surrendered?" "No," Maria stopped, breathless from her haste, "that is, not yet, though Roderigo says--" "Oh, oh, oh!" Lucia protested. "Don't start on what Roderigo says, or we will never learn the news." Maria pouted. "For that I have a good mind not to tell you," she threatened. "Then I shall go downstairs myself and find out," Lucia replied, not one whit disturbed. "Then I may as well tell you," Maria laughed, "for the ward hums with it. The King is coming--think of it--he is coming to Cellino to-morrow, and he is to go through the hospital and see all the wounded. Only fancy, our King!" "Who told you?" Lucia's eyes flashed excitedly. Her loyal little Italian heart beat with eager anticipation. "Do you suppose I can see him?" she demanded, "but of course, I must, even if I have to hide under the Captain's bed. He is sure to stop and speak to my Captain," she added with pride. "Oh, Roderigo says that he always stops and speaks to all the wounded and shakes their hands, and is very kind and so sorry always when they are badly hurt. Roderigo says he has talked to soldiers who have won decorations, and the King himself pins them on--just think of it!" Lucia gave a profound sigh. "If he ever spoke to me," she said solemnly, "I would die of joy." It was several days after Lucia and the Captain had talked in the garden, and Lucia was beginning to grow accustomed to the wonderful idea. Her dreams were coming true at last, and she had to admit to herself that she always believed that they would. Captain Riccardi was truly a fairy godfather in her eyes, and she proved her gratitude for his kindness in a hundred little ways a day. It never seemed to enter her mind that all he was offering, wonderful as it was, could not pay her for her courage in saving his life. She insisted upon laying all the credit on his shoulders, and with a smile and a shrug the Captain accepted the double share, and determined in his big heart to be worthy of it. When Lucia and Maria went down to the ward a little later, the patients were indeed humming with the news. Every face wore a smile of keen joy, and the nurses hurried about to be sure everything was in perfect order. Lucia was well enough now to go wherever she pleased, and after she had talked for a few minutes with Captain Riccardi, and made sure that Maria had not exaggerated, she went out of the convent with the intention of going into town. Some of the refugees had returned, but so far there had been no news of Señora Rudini, Nana, or Beppi, and she was growing anxious. As she walked down the broad steps, she saw Lathrop coming towards her. Lucia was particularly fond of the big American, and she smiled as she saw him. "Hello!" he greeted. Lucia returned the salutation. "Do you know that the King is coming?" she demanded. Lathrop understood the word King, and as the town was talking of nothing else he guessed what she meant. "Yes," he replied in Italian, "nice--glad--you." Lucia laughed. "Oh, but you are so funny. How I wish you could speak so that I could understand you!" she said. Lathrop shook his head. "There she goes again, I didn't get even one word this time." He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a letter. "See," he said, pointing to it. Lucia nodded. Lathrop scratched his head. "You--in--letter," he said painstakingly, "Girl, American." "Oh, you have put me in your letter? How nice!" Lucia said. "What did you say?" "I get you, but I'm blest if I can tell you, and it's a shame, too. You're such a little winner, you and your Mrs. Garibaldi, that I'd like to be able to tell you so. But I guess it's hopeless." All of which Lucia listened to politely, but without the first idea of its meaning. She nodded towards the gate and they walked towards it together. Lathrop mailed his letter, and they stopped to look at the ruins. Lucia questioned some soldiers who were clearing the streets as best they could. The town hall, at the end of the market-place, was still standing, and to-day it was draped in Italian flags. It looked older and more dignified than ever, amid the ruins, and the flag floated bravely in the crisp fall breeze. Lucia and Lathrop stopped to look at it. Lucia's eyes sparkled and she threw an impulsive kiss towards it. Lathrop saluted respectfully. As they turned to go back they noticed a crowd of soldiers and some of the townspeople gathered about the gate. "What can the matter be?" Lucia exclaimed, hurrying forward. "Perhaps it is the King." They ran to the gate and questioned some of the soldiers. "More refugees returning," one of them explained. "See there's a whole line of them, it is a good sight, and a good time that they have chosen. Now we will not look so like a deserted place when the King comes." "Oh, perhaps some of them can give me news of Beppino," Lucia exclaimed, forcing her way through the crowd. Almost the first person she saw as she ran down the road was Maria's mother. She was walking along beside several other women, and with a start Lucia realized that she looked thin and wan. "Aunt Rudini!" she called excitedly, "you are back at last. Oh, Maria will be so glad!" Señora Rudini looked up, fear and hope in her eyes. "Maria!" she exclaimed, "where is she?" "At the convent. She is helping to nurse the soldiers," Lucia replied. "Oh, and I thought she was dead or a prisoner. She lay down beside me one night, and the next morning she was gone; I have been terrified." The old woman was wringing her hands. "But she is safe, go and see," Lucia protested, "I have just left her." Maria's mother needed no urging, she ran as fast as her stiff joints would allow towards the hospital. But she had not gone very far when she returned. "I am a selfish old woman," she said, "thinking first of myself, when of course you want news of Nana. Well, look yonder in that farm wagon." Lucia did not wait to hear more. She darted off and met the wagon before it reached the turn in the road. "Beppi! Nana!" she called. The man who was driving stopped, and Nana slid down from the straw, right into Lucia's waiting arms. She was so glad to see her, that she could only babble foolishly. All during her long journey, and her stay in strange villages, she had thought of nothing but Lucia in the hands of the enemy, and she was nearly crazy with relief and joy to find her safe again. At last Lucia quieted her. "Where is Beppino?" she asked, "surely he is with you?" Something in the straw of the wagon moved, and the old driver pointed his whip at a mop of black hair, and laughed. Beppi was asleep of course. Lucia's strong young arms lifted his little body out, and hugged and kissed him. Beppi woke up, and at sight of her he shouted with joy. It was a happy and excited family that walked through the town and down to the little white cottage. Lucia had so much to say, and Nana would not listen nor believe all the wonderful things she tried to tell her, but at last, from lack of breath, she stopped exclaiming and crying, and Lucia pushed her gently onto the green bed, took Beppi on her lap, and began the recital of her wonderful news in earnest. CHAPTER XVI THE KING "The King! The King!" "Viva! Viva!" A great cry rose within the walls of Cellino, and swelled to a mighty cheer, as a gray automobile drove slowly through the Porto Romano, and stopped in the market-place opposite the town hall. The soldiers who had so bravely defended the town were lined up ready for inspection, and as the King lifted his hand to salute the colors, a silence, as profound and as moving as the cheer had been, fell over the crowd. Lucia, with Beppi held tightly by the hand, was on the edge of the crowd. She trembled with excitement as she looked at the greatest, and best-loved man in all Italy. "See!" she whispered excitedly to Beppi, "that is the King--our King! Look at him well, for we may never be lucky enough to see him again in our whole lives." Beppi's big eyes were round with wonder. He looked. His gaze fastened on the shining sword. Then the memory that he might some day be a General returned to him, and he drew himself up very straight. As the King passed on his inspection, his little hand went up in a smart salute. His Majesty stopped, smiled, and returned the salute gravely. Beppi waited until he had walked on, then he buried his face in Lucia's skirts, and wept from sheer joy. Lucia's pride knew no bounds. Her heart was beating wildly, but she stood very still until the King went into the town hall, then she picked Beppi up in her arms and ran excitedly across the town and out to the convent. "We can see him again, darling, so stand very still," she said. "He is coming to see the soldiers." They watched the gate eagerly, and before long the gray car came through it very slowly. A crowd of people surrounded it, cheering and throwing flowers. The King smiled and bowed to them all. Lucia's eyes never left his face. Suddenly she saw him lean forward excitedly as the big car stopped. Beppi tugged at her skirts. "Look at Garibaldi, she is blocking the way." Lucia looked, and to her horror she saw her pet standing in the middle of the road, her four hoofs planted firmly in the mud, and her head lowered. "Oh, the wretch," Lucia exclaimed, darting forward. "Come here at once!" she called. Garibaldi looked around and obediently trotted off. The car started, and the King waved especially to Lucia as he passed, but even so great an honor could not compensate her. She was mortified to tears that her goat should have been guilty of _lese majeste_. No entreaties on Beppi's part could make her stay to wait for the King's return. She left him with a soldier, and went around the corner of the convent, followed by the disgraced Garibaldi. She sat down on a bench and sighed. "Of course you're only a goat," she said scornfully, "but I did think you had more sense than to do anything as terrible as that. Do you know who that was that you made to stop? That was the King, do you hear?" Garibaldi walked away indifferently. "Oh, I am disgusted with you forever," Lucia exclaimed with a shrug of disdain. "You will stay here until he goes away again, and then I shall take you home and tie you up." Garibaldi paid no attention to the threat. Perhaps she knew how empty it would prove to be. "Lucia, Lucia, my child, where are you?" Sister Francesca's voice trembled as she called. "Here I am, sister," Lucia jumped up. "Do you want me?" "Oh, my dear, I have looked everywhere for you. Come with me at once." Lucia followed, wondering at the expression in the nun's usually placid face. But Sister Francesca did not stop to give any explanations. She led the way hurriedly back to the front door, of the convent, and up the steps through the ward of smiling men, and only stopped when she reached the door of Captain Riccardi's private room. "Go in, my dear," she said, giving Lucia a little push. "The Captain wants to speak to you." Lucia opened the door and found herself face to face with the King. She was too astonished, and far too thrilled to speak. She must have shown some of her feeling in her eyes, for the Captain, who was in bed, laughed. "Here she is, Your Majesty," he said. The King stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder. "So you are the brave little girl whom I must thank for saving Captain Riccardi's life, and for blowing up the bridge?" Lucia was still tongue-tied. She swallowed hard and tried to stop her heart from beating so fast. "Yes, yes, sir--Your Majesty," she said at last. "I and Garibaldi." "Garibaldi?" The King could not restrain a smile. "The goat, sir," the Captain explained. "Oh, I see, and what did you say his name was?" "Garibaldi's a her, Your Majesty, and so she had to be Señora Garibaldi." Lucia was fast forgetting her embarrassment. "'The Illustrious and Gentile Señora Guiseppi Garibaldi,' that's her real name, but of course, it's too long for every day." "Yes, I should suppose so, particularly if you were in a hurry," the King laughed softly. "Was that Señora Garibaldi that we came nearly running over?" he asked. "Oh yes, it was, but please, Your Majesty, don't be angry with her. You see, she really didn't know you were the King." "Angry, why I should say not. Before I leave, yon must introduce me to her, I couldn't leave without seeing such a really important person." Lucia clapped her hands delightedly. "Oh, she will be so proud!" she exclaimed. The King turned to the officer who stood beside him and nodded, then he shook Captain Riccardi's hand. "I congratulate you on the addition to your household," he said, smiling. "Come with me, Lucia," he continued, "I have something for you, and I want to give it to you where all the soldiers can see." Lucia followed in a dream. She stood very still at the end of the ward, and watched the men salute as the King stood before them. She did not hear what he said to them, for her head was swimming, but she saw him turn to her, and her heart missed a beat as he pinned a medal on her faded bodice. "In appreciation of your courage and loyalty," the King said, and Lucia's eyes looked into his for a brief, but never-to-be-forgotten moment. CHAPTER XVII GOOD-BY TO CELLINO It was over a month before Captain Riccardi was well enough to be moved, but at last the beautiful day for the departure for the south came. "Do you really mean we are going?" Beppi demanded. "Of course we are, darling," Lucia replied, laughing. She was so excited that she could hardly wait to dress Beppi and Nana with the patience that such an undertaking required. Nana had a new dress, Aunt Rudini made it with Maria's help, and though it was too somber for Lucia's color loving eyes, it was a new dress and she fastened it on Nana's bent shoulders with a glow of pride. "There now!" she exclaimed when it was on and Nana's stringy gray hair had been reduced to some sort of order. "Turn around and let me see you." Nana turned. She was in a flutter of excitement, although she would not have admitted it for the world. "Don't waste any more time over an old woman," she said, sharply. "I am tidy and that is enough." "You are more than tidy, Nana, you look beautiful," Lucia exclaimed. "Now do sit still and don't do anything." "There's nothing to be done that has not already been done," Nana replied as she sat on the edge of the green bed and folded her hands on her lap. Lucia nodded in satisfaction and turned her attention to Beppi. He had a new suit too, and the broad sailor collar on it was embroidered with emblems and stars. Beppi was delighted, and Lucia helped him on with it as he danced and hopped, first on one foot and then to the other. "I'm a sailor," he announced, "a real sailor! See the bands on my arm." "Fickle one," Lucia protested as she tied the flaring red tie, with loving fingers, "I thought you were going to be a soldier like our Captain." Beppi thrust his small hands in his trouser pockets. "I am when I grow up," he replied seriously, "but I can be a sailor in the meantime, can't I?" "Yes, of course," Lucia agreed, "and now put on your shoes, dear, it must be late, and it would never do to keep the Captain waiting." "Go and dress yourself then," Nana said, "and don't make yourself look too gay, it is not seemly." Lucia tossed her head and laughed. "Ah, but I will, my new bodice is so beautiful; all bright flowers, and my skirt is blue--I know the Captain will like it--and we are going to the South where all the girls wear bright colors--I expect my dress will look very somber." Nana did not reply, she grumbled a little to herself, and Lucia pulled out the drawer of the dresser and very carefully took out her new possessions. She put them on slowly as if to prolong the pleasure. "When she was ready she looked at as much of herself as she could see in the small mirror, and smiled happily. "I look very nice, I think," she said frankly. "Then we are ready," Nana exclaimed, getting up, "we had better start up the hill." "Yes, do let's go," Beppi insisted, "I know we are going to be late." "Oh, but we have plenty of time," Lucia replied. "Go along both of you, I will follow with Garibaldi." "Such foolishness," Nana grumbled, "to take a goat in a train; there are many goats in the South. Why don't you wait until you get there and leave Garibaldi to Maria with the rest?" Lucia looked at her grandmother in consternation, but she did not stop to argue with her. She left the house and went to the shed; repaired now enough to make a shelter to keep out the rain. Garibaldi was firmly tied to one of the posts. "Come, my pet," Lucia whispered, "we are going away and I have a ribbon for your neck, see?" "Now come," she coaxed, "we must go up to the convent, that nice American Mr. Lathrop is going to put you in a box. You won't like it, poor dear, but it's the only way they let goats travel." Garibaldi seemed to understand something of the importance of the occasion, for she walked along beside her little mistress with lowered head. Lucia waited until Nana and Beppi had disappeared through the gate before she started. She knew there was plenty of time and she wanted to be alone. She stood in the doorway of the cottage and looked at the poor, tumbled little room. She felt suddenly very forlorn and lonely. "Good-by, little room," she said softly, "I will never, never forget you. It isn't as if you were going very far away from me for we have given you to Maria, she and Roderigo will take good care of you, and some day perhaps I will come back for a tiny visit," she said. A plaintive "Naa" from Garibaldi made her turn. As she left the room her eyes lingered on the green bed. Captain Riccardi was sitting up, fully dressed, and waiting for them in the garden of the convent. At sight of Lucia his eyes danced with fun. "Well, little sister of mine, how are you?" he greeted. "Oh, I am so excited, Señor," Lucia replied. "Is it nearly time to go?" "No, not for a couple of hours," the Captain laughed. "Are we really going in an automobile?" Beppi demanded, "like the one the King came in?" "Yes, just like that, and then we go in a train for a long time," the Captain explained. "Do we _sleep_ in the train?" Beppi's eyes were as round as saucers. "No," the Captain shook his head, "we sleep in a lovely house that belongs to a friend of mine in Rome." Beppi tried to be polite but Captain Riccardi saw the disappointment in his eyes, and patted his small head. "Are you sorry?" he laughed. "Oh, no, he is not," Lucia contradicted hastily, "he will like sleeping in Rome, won't you, my pet?" Beppi hung his head. "I will like it," he admitted, "but it will not be as exciting as sleeping on a train." "No, of course it won't, but it will be lots more comfortable, and you see I have to think of that," the Captain explained, "but I promise you some day we will sleep in a train, and on a boat, or any old place you like, how's that?" "I will tell you afterwards," Beppi replied noncommittally. "I must go and find Maria," Lucia said, "I have not told her half the things I want to. She won't take proper care of my goats, I know, but no matter, I will do my best to tell her what to do." She went into the convent. Maria was busy in the ward, but at Lucia's beckon she left what she was doing and went to her. "Come over by Roderigo's bed," Lucia said, "we have only a little time to talk before we leave." "Oh, but you must be excited!" Maria exclaimed. "Look at her eyes," Roderigo laughed, "of course she is." "Well, and why not," Lucia demanded, "wouldn't you be?" Roderigo shivered. "If I were going this day, back to Napoli, I would die from joy," he said. "Nonsense, that's what Lucia said about the King's speaking to her," Maria reminded, "but she's still alive, and the King not only spoke to her but kissed her too." "Do you know," Lucia said quietly, "sometimes I think perhaps I am dead and this is Heaven." "Heaven!" Roderigo laughed, "never, it is much too cold, see the sick yellow sun up there." He pointed to the window, "in Heaven the sun is hot and the sky is blue, just as you will find it to-morrow. Oh, but I envy you. What wouldn't I give--" He hesitated and looked at Maria, "No, I would not go if I could; I am happy here." Maria's smile rewarded him. "But surely after the war," Lucia said, "you will both come to Napoli to live." "Perhaps," Roderigo assented, "after the war." They were silent for a moment, aware for the first time of what the coming separation would mean. Then Roderigo exclaimed gayly, "But how solemn we are! We must laugh. I tell you, Lucia, when you see my old grandfather Vesuvius you must give him my best respects, for mind if you are not respectful to him he may do you some harm." "Oh, I will be very careful," Lucia laughed, "but I will never call that cross old, smoking mountain my grandfather, I can promise you that." "Haven't you some friends that Lucia could see?" Maria inquired, "or could she perhaps take a message to your family." "No." Roderigo shook his head, "she will not be near them, but perhaps--" He turned to Lucia, "if you are ever walking along the shore below Captain Riccardi's place, you may meet a soldier, an old man with a scar on his face; if you do, he is my uncle Enrico." "But what does he do on the beach?" Maria inquired. "Oh, he watches to see that no one rows out to the boats in the bay without a passport, there are plenty of men who would like to leave without permission," Roderigo explained, "My uncle is there to keep them safe in Italy." "Are they Austrians?" Lucia inquired. Roderigo winked. "They are Italian citizens on the face of things," he replied, "but in their hearts--" An expressive gesture finished the sentence. Just as Maria was about to ask another question Beppi ran into the ward. "Lucia, Lucia, come quickly, the American is packing Garibaldi up in a box, and you are missing all the fun." Lucia jumped up. "Oh I must go and help," she exclaimed, "I will see you again for good-by." She followed Beppi to the garden and found Lathrop nailing on the top to a big wooden crate. From between the slats Garibaldi looked out reproachfully. Lucia petted and consoled her until it was time to go. Garibaldi left first in a wagon; she was going all the way by train. Lucia had many misgivings but she watched the wagon out of sight with a smile. Her thoughts were soon diverted by the arrival of a big automobile. Captain Riccardi was helped in by the doctor and Lathrop, and after repeated good-bys Lucia took her place beside him. The car started off slowly, they were going to take the train at a point several miles south. Lucia watched the walls of Cellino grow dim against their background of bare mountains. It was her first departure, and it marked a new period in her life. CHAPTER XVIII IN THE GARDEN "How does my little sister like her new home?" Captain Riccardi was sitting in a comfortable chair in the warmth and sunshine of his garden. He looked very much stronger than on his departure from Cellino. A month under the southern sky had done much to make him well again, and as he sat looking at Lucia he was turning over in his mind the possibility of returning to the front. Lucia was picking flowers near him, she had a basket over her arm and a big pair of scissors. Her cheeks, that had been so pale, were flushed and round, and an expression of happy contentment took the place of the excited sparkle in her eyes. She dropped down on the ground beside the Captain as he spoke, and looked up at him. "That is the very first time you have asked me that," she said, "and we have been here for a long time. You know I think it is very, very wonderful, what could be more beautiful than this garden, but I am getting lazy, the sun is so warm and there is so little to do." She looked puzzled. "That's quite as it should be," the Captain replied, "you are too young to work." "Oh, that is what you always say," Lucia protested, "I am too young and Nana is too old, and Beppi--" "Beppi is too lazy," the Captain laughed, "he is always asleep under the flower bushes, but tell me," he continued gravely, "are you ever homesick?" "Homesick." Lucia considered for a moment, "For Maria, yes, but for Cellino, no. I like to think of it, but I want always to live here." "Good," the Captain smiled, "then you won't mind my going away?" "Back to fight?" Lucia inquired. The Captain nodded. "My wound is healed and I am well enough; they need all the men they can get up there, you know." "I know," Lucia looked very unhappy, "what terrible times there have been since we came here; everything has gone wrong. Why I wonder, our soldiers are as brave as ever. What has made us lose so much lately?" A baffled look stole over the Captain's face and he shook his head sorrowfully. "No one knows, my dear," he said, "we have suffered terrible losses, every plan that we make is known to the enemy." "Do you remember the beggar you saw on the road the day you followed the two Austrian soldiers?" Lucia nodded. "Well, there are many men like that in Italy, some are disguised as beggars and some as just working men, but they are everywhere, and through them our plans are given to the enemy." "But surely the police could arrest them," Lucia protested, "they must all be Austrians or Germans." "They are, of course, but they have lived here among us for so long that it is hard to tell them from ourselves; they speak, act and look as we do." "But they think as our enemies," Lucia added, "I understand. What very bad men they must be, just to think that but for them we might have won this horrible war by now." "Perhaps," the Captain agreed, "but if they are here and we can't find them out then we must win the war in spite of them, and that is why I am going back." "When?" Lucia asked. She was suddenly very unhappy for the memory of the attack was still vivid, and she dreaded to think of her newly found godfather's returning to the dangers and hardships of the front, but she was too brave and too wise to say so. She kept a stiff upper lip and her eyes were dry as they discussed the plans. "I think I will leave in a day or two now that my mind is made up," the Captain said, "it will take me quite awhile to return to my Company, and I may have to wait in Rome for orders, so the sooner I am off the better." "Yes, I suppose so," Lucia replied slowly. "Oh, but how we will miss you, I cannot bear to think," she added impulsively. "Then you must write to me often," the Captain laughed, "I get so few letters and I will treasure them. I will want to know just how you and Beppi and Nana spend each day, and what tricks Garibaldi is up to." "I shall tell you everything," Lucia promised, eagerly, "every tiny little thing, and you will write back?" "Yes, as often as I can," the Captain promised. He got up from his chair and started to walk toward the house. When he was halfway up the path Beppi dashed through the garden gate and ran to him. "Oh, but I have had a fine morning," he declared, "you will never guess where I have been." "You do look excited," the Captain smiled, "it must have been a very nice place, tell us about it." "Then come back and sit down," Beppi insisted, taking his hand. The Captain returned to his chair and Beppi perched on the arm of it. "Now begin," Lucia said, "we are listening." "Well," Beppi took a long breath. "This afternoon I was tired of playing in the garden and I went out into the road. Nana was sound asleep and did not hear me, and when I had walked a little ways I met two boys; one of them was bigger than me and the other one was littler. We said hello, and one of them asked me my name, and I told him, and then the big one said he guessed I couldn't fight--" Beppi stopped and turned two accusing eyes at Lucia, "that was because I had on these old stockings. I told you, sister, that I'd be laughed at unless I went barefoot, same as always." "Never mind about that," the Captain interposed, laughing, "tell us the rest." "Well, I told him I could, and we did, of course, and I won," he continued proudly, "and after that we were friends, and they asked me if I'd ever been to the shore, and I said; not right to it, so they took me. We went down a hill and pretty soon we were right by the ocean, and the waves were coming in all frothy white on the blue water, and I took off my shoes and stockings--" "Oh, Beppi," Lucia protested. "Yes, I did," Beppi repeated, "I certainly did and we had a fine time, I can tell you, and here comes the exciting part. While we were on the beach a soldier came along; he was walking on the wall and he had a big gun. The two boys ran to him and I went with them. He asked me my name and where I lived, and I told him, and he said he had a nephew in the war, and one of the boys asked him how Roderigo Vicello was, and when I heard that name I just shouted, 'Why I know him,' and then I told them all about the bridge and the King giving Roderigo a medal, and everything. They were all glad, I can tell you, and I guess these boys won't say I can't fight again in a hurry," he added triumphantly. "Oh, that is exciting news!" Lucia exclaimed, "Roderigo told me he had an uncle here. Did he have a big scar on his face, Beppino?" "Yes," Beppi replied eagerly, "he got it in the Tripoli war. He is a very brave man, I think, but he says he'd rather fight than guard the shore, but of course he has to do as he's told, because he's a soldier." "And I suppose that means you don't have to do what you're told until you're one," the Captain laughed, "what will Nana say when she hears you ran away?" "Who's going to tell her?" Beppi inquired, "Lucia won't, and I don't think you will," he added with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "No, I suppose I won't after that," the Captain replied, laughing, "that is if you will promise to be very good and mind Lucia while I am away." "Away?" Beppi queried, "where are you going?" "Back to fight," the Captain replied, "and perhaps I shall be gone for a long, long time, and of course, while I am gone I shall expect you to take care of your sister." "Oh, Lucia can take care of herself," Beppi laughed, "she always has, and of Nana and me, too, but I'll be good if you say so, only can't I go down to the shore once in a while?" "Of course, darling," Lucia answered for the Captain, "but you must tell Nana where you are going." "No, I will tell you I think," Beppi said gravely. The Captain got up and he walked beside him to the house. There was a chance that the bright sword might be taken from its chamois case, and Beppi never missed a chance of seeing it if he could help it. Lucia, left alone in the garden, looked out over the low wall to the west. The bay of Naples stretched out blue and glistening in the last rays of the sun, and the gray of the old house took on a soft pink tint. "It is a fairy palace, I believe." Lucia buried her face in her basket and whispered to the flowers. "I wonder if it will disappear when my fairy godfather goes away, or if it will stay and be ours to keep for him until he comes back, for he must come back, he must, he must, he must," she finished almost angrily. CHAPTER XIX BACK TO FIGHT A big gray car, very like the one that had come to Cellino, drove up before the door of the Riccardi villa two days later. The Captain, once his mind was made up, did not waste any time in carrying out his plans. He was eager to rejoin his comrades in the north, but when the time came to leave he was very sorry to say good-by to Lucia. She had found a warm and secure spot in his big heart, and he knew he would miss her gay chatter and the laughing expression of her eyes. All the household were on the steps to say good-by, even Nana had been prevailed upon to leave her seat in the garden by the well, and her lace bobbins, long enough to see him off. Beppi danced about excitedly. "Oh, please hurry up and end the old war," he cried impatiently, "and come back, we will be so lonely without you. I promise to be very, very good." "That's right, and when I come home I shall bring you all the souvenirs I promised; an Austrian helmet and a piece of shell," the Captain replied. "And your sword, don't forget that," Beppi reminded him. "Oh no, of course I won't forget that," the Captain swung Beppi high in the air above his head and kissed him, then he turned to Lucia. "I will be good too," she promised, laughing. "Of course you will, but you must be happy too, that is the most important of all," the Captain said seriously. "Be sure and pick all the flowers in the garden and stay out in the sunshine all day." "And may I take the flowers to the hospital?" Lucia asked, "we have so many in the house, and the sick soldiers would love them so." "Yes, do what you like with them," the Captain replied, "but be careful, don't do anything dangerous, you are such a spunky little fire-brand, that I can't help worrying." "Oh, but you mustn't, I will be so very careful. Besides there is nothing to do down here, it is not like Cellino." "Well, you can't always be sure," the Captain said, his eyes twinkling, "if there was any danger you'd be sure to be in the heart of it." "No, I will close my eyes tight," Lucia promised, "and walk in the other direction, that is, unless it was something very, very important." "I thought so. Well, I guess you'll be safe here, safer than you've ever been before, anyway," the Captain said, "and now good-by." He kissed her low, broad forehead, very gently. "Good-by, fairy godfather, come back soon." Lucia tried not to let her voice tremble. The Captain got into the car hurriedly. He waved to the group on the steps until he was out of sight. Lucia went back into the house, but the spacious rooms and high ceilings only added to her unhappiness. She almost longed for the comfort of the tiny old cottage and the familiar sight of the green bed. She wandered about listlessly; she was quite alone. Nana had gone back to her lace making, and Beppi was in the garden. The old man and his wife--the Captain's faithful servants--were in the kitchen. In the library Lucia stopped before the rows of books and tried to read their titles. But she gave it up and looked at the pictures, that amused her for a little while, for she thought they were beautiful, but she did not understand them. She could not give anything her undivided attention for her thoughts were on the way with the Captain, and she was fighting against the unhappiness that threatened to overpower her. "Surely he will come back," she said, to a copy of Andrea del Sarto's St. John that hung above the mantel. "This cruel war has taken my real father; it cannot take my godfather too." She gave herself a little shake, "It is that I am lonely that I think such sad thoughts, I will go out to the garden and pick flowers for the soldiers." Accordingly she found her basket and scissors and spent the rest of the afternoon in the garden. When her basket was piled high she put on her hat very carefully, regarding it from every angle of the Florentin mirror. It was the first hat she had ever owned and she was very proud of it. When it was tilted to her satisfaction she took up the basket and went out by the garden gate. The hospital was a little over a mile away. Lucia had visited it with Captain Riccardi. It had formerly been a private villa and its terraced gardens went down to the water's edge. Lucia knew the way and she loitered along, enjoying the newness of the scenes about her. Everything and everybody were so different, the fishermen with their bright sashes and Roman striped stocking caps, the old women and the young girls in their bright dresses, with great gold loops hanging from their ears. Even the sound of their voices was different as they called out greetings to one another. Lucia decided that the very first thing she would do when the Captain came home would be to ask him for a pair of gold earrings. So occupied was she with her thoughts that she reached the gate to the hospital before she realized it. She lifted the heavy knocker; an old man opened the door. "This is not visiting day, little one," he said, as he looked down at Lucia. "Oh, I am not visiting," she replied, "I brought these few flowers for the sick soldiers; will you take them?" "Indeed I will." The old man held out his hand. "Do you want the basket back again?" "Oh, no, there's no hurry for that, I will get it the next time I come," Lucia replied. "I mean to bring flowers every day or two for the soldiers." "That is very kind of you," the old man smiled, "I'll take these right up." Lucia nodded and turned to go back along the road. The sun was setting over the water, and below the bay beckoned invitingly. She looked and decided to go home that way. She took a path that led to the water's edge. It was steep, for that part of the coast rose high above the water. She was tired when she reached the bottom and sat down to rest on the low stone wall. The soft lapping of the water made her drowsy, and she slipped to the sand, leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. There was not a sound but the soothing voice of nature, the ripple of the water, the sighing of the wind and the occasional cry of a sea bird. All the sounds together seemed to rock Lucia in a sort of lullaby, and it was not many minutes before she was asleep. When she awoke it was quite dark and she was conscious of a difference in the voice of the water. A heavy regular splash, splash, grew nearer and nearer as she listened. If she had been accustomed to living near the water she would have recognized it as the rhythmic stroke of oars, but she did not, and it was not until a shape loomed up in the dusk a little farther down the beach that she realized it was a boat. She got up and walked towards it. If it was a fisherman's boat she wanted to see it, even if it meant being late to supper. But it was not a fisherman's boat, it was a light, high-sided row boat and the man in it stood up and pushed forward on his stout oars. He made a landing on the sand before Lucia reached him, and he jumped out hurriedly. Whatever his business was it occupied all his thoughts, for he did not look to right or left but ran straight to the wall. Another figure came out of the shadows to meet him. They spoke in whispers, but Lucia was near enough to hear what they said. She listened out of curiosity for it struck her as being rather strange that a man dressed in beautiful dark clothes, with a hat such as she had seen the men in Rome wear, should be out on the beach whispering in the shadow of the wall to a boatman. When she had listened she was even more surprised. "It's all right, I've fixed it, you can get aboard her at midnight." The boatman's voice was husky and very mysterious. "Be sure and be here on time," the man replied, "this spot is safe, wait until the guard has passed and then land. If there is any danger, whistle." The boatman nodded. "It's a risky business," he objected. "You will be well paid for it," the man answered sharply. "Now go." Lucia watched him disappear into the dusk and waited until the boatman had rowed out of sight. Then she straightened her hat and started for home, thinking very hard as she hurried along. CHAPTER XX AN INTERRUPTED SAIL When Lucia reached the road above she ran as fast as she could. She had been so startled at what she had heard that her thoughts were confused. But as she hurried along her mind cleared. "Perhaps they are all right, and the man is just going for a row," she said to herself. But the memory of the boatman's words returned to her. "It's a risky business." She did her best to attach no importance to it, but back in her brain was the firm conviction that the man with the hat was one of the Austrians that Roderigo had spoken of. "An Italian citizen on the face of things, but in their hearts--" Lucia instinctively mimicked Roderigo's gesture. She knew too, that argue though she might, she would interfere. When she reached the garden she heard Beppi crying and saw a light in his window above. Beppi did not cry very often and by the sound she thought he was in pain. She hurried into the house and ran upstairs. Nana met her at the door of Beppi's room; she was wringing her hands. "So you are back," she cried, "well, praise the Saints for that, I thought I should lose you both on the same day." "'Lose us,' what are you talking about?" Lucia demanded, pushing past her to the bed. "Beppino mio, what has happened?" she asked, though there was little need to question for a deep cut in Beppi's cheek, from which the blood spurted freely, was answer enough. "My face, Lucia, it hurts me so, make it stop bleeding," Beppi pleaded, "I fell on a big rock in the garden." "Caro mio, how long ago?" Lucia asked excitedly, "here quick, Nana, get me some hot water, I will wash it as I saw Sister Veronica wash the soldiers. There, there, darling, it will soon be better." With trembling fingers Nana and the old servant, Amelie, brought a basin and a towel, and Lucia bathed the wound. It was a deep cut and poor Beppi winced as the water touched it. After a little the blood stopped and Lucia bound up his head in soft white cloths. "Stay by me," Beppi begged, "don't go way downstairs, I am afraid." "Poor angel," Amelie cried, "he won't be left alone; old Amelie will bring up the little sister's dinner and she can eat by his bedside," and she hurried off, crooning to herself as she went to the kitchen below. Nana, now that she knew that Beppi was not going to die, started scolding him for not looking where he was going, but Lucia sent her downstairs. "He is too tired to listen to-night, Nana, and anyway he will be careful. Do go away and rest a little, you must be tired." When Nana had left, Lucia returned to the bed and sat down. She did not have any idea what time it was, and she knew that it would be impossible to leave Beppi until he was quiet. She hardly touched the tempting tray that Amelie brought her, and her voice trembled as she asked what time it was. "Ten minutes after seven," Amelie told her after she had carefully consulted the big hall clock. "Oh!" Lucia was surprised and relieved. She thought she must have slept for hours, but now she realized that in reality she had only dozed for a few minutes. She took Beppi's hand and set about putting him to sleep. It was a difficult task. She told him story after story, but at the end of each his eyes were bright and his demand for another one as insistent as ever. Lucia kept time by the chimes of the clock, and at ten she turned out the light. "I am coming to bed beside you," she explained as Beppi protested, "I think the light will hurt your head." She took off her dress and slipped on her nightgown. Beppi snuggled contentedly into her arm, and she went on with her stories. "Sing to me," he asked at last, sleepily, "your song," and Lucia began very softly to sing. "O'er sea the silver star brightly is glowing, Rocked now the billows are. Soft winds are blowing, Come to my bark with me. Come sail across the sea. Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia." Beppi's even breathing rewarded her efforts. She slipped her arm from under his head and stole softly out of the room just as the clock chimed eleven. She put on her dress hurriedly. The house was very still as she crept downstairs and out into the garden. The stars were out and it was an easy matter to find her way. She ran until she reached the path that led to the shore, then she moved very cautiously. She hoped to reach the guard, tell him what she had heard, and then go home, but when she reached the beach she realized that she was too late. There was no guard in sight, but her ears detected the splash of oars, and she knew that the boatman was coming. She crouched down beside the wall and waited. She watched him pull his boat up on shore and then walk swiftly off in the opposite direction from her. She did not know what to do, and she was frightened--badly frightened. The broad shining water on one side and the hill on the other seemed to hem her in, and she felt lost. It was not like the mountains of Cellino, where she knew every path. She crouched down by the wall and waited. Another figure joined the boatman, and they stood still, a little farther up the beach. Lucia knew it was the man she had seen that afternoon, and she knew too that in a very few seconds they would turn around and come back to the boat. With a courage born of fear she jumped up and before she quite realized what she was doing she was tugging at the boat. It was not very high up on the beach for the boatman had left it so that it would be easily shoved off. Fortunately the tide was going out. Lucia's arms were strong and she pushed with a will. The boat found the water and drifted silently away. Her feet were wet, but she did not realize it. She crept back to the beach and flattened herself against the wall. The men returned. They too kept in the shadow of the wall. It was not until they were almost brushing against Lucia that the boatman noticed that his boat was gone. "The Saints preserve us!" he exclaimed. "It has been spirited away. I knew I should be punished for doing such a black deed." "Spirits, nonsense!" the man spoke angrily. "It is your own stupid carelessness, you did not pull it up on shore far enough. You rattlebrain idiot, I've a good mind to kill you for this. See, there is your boat out there--empty--go and get it. Do you hear?" "But how?" the boatman wrung his hands desperately. "I do not know how to swim. I will die. Santa Lucia, Saint of sailormen, spare me," he screamed as the man lifted his heavy cane to strike him. "Don't you dare strike that man!" Lucia exclaimed, "he did pull his boat up on shore, but I pushed it off. I heard you this afternoon, and I knew you wanted to go away to that big ship out there, and perhaps sail to Austria. I know what you are, you two-faced man. You speak, you laugh, you scold in Italian, and all the time your black heart is Austrian." "You shall not go away from here. I, Lucia Rudini, tell you, you shall not!" "Santa Lucia! A miracle!" The boatman trembled with fear, but the man was not so superstitious. He caught Lucia's arm and shook her roughly. "You did it, you little fiend, well, you shall get what you deserve for your meddling." He motioned to the frightened boatman. "Get me a rope, I'll make a gag of my handkerchief; hurry man, if you are found you will be shot." "But I dare not, I dare not, she is the spirit of Santa Lucia. She came when I called. The Saints have mercy!" With a growl of disgust the man turned from him and caught both of Lucia's wrists in his firm clasp. Then he lifted his cane. "She must not tell until we are well away," he said, and brought the cane down heavily. It was his intention to stun Lucia, but he had miscalculated when he expected her to stand still and receive the blow. She dodged to the right and began kicking and struggling. The boatman wrung his hands and screamed for help. It was not many minutes before the guard, attracted by the noise, came running towards them. The man's back was towards him, but Lucia saw him and stopped struggling. The man raised his cane again but this time he stopped, because the muzzle of a gun was pressing him between the shoulder blades. Lucia turned to the guard and explained hurriedly. In the starlight she could see that he had a long scar across his face, and she felt very secure. "I know your nephew, Roderigo," she ended, "he helped me blow up the bridge in Cellino." The soldier nodded. "I know about that, Señorina," he said respectfully, "and the rest of your fine deeds. You were born for the work it seems. Move an inch and off comes your head," he turned furiously on the man who had tried to edge away. Then he continued in the soft, courteous tones he had been using. "I hope some day you will do me the honor of telling me of the attack yourself," he said. "It is sometimes very lonely here while I am on guard." His gentle tone, and above all the flattering respect he showed, gave Lucia back her courage. "Of course I will come," she said, "just as soon as my little brother is better. He fell and cut his head, and, and--well, I guess I'd better be going back, he may awaken and be frightened. Good night." "Good night, Señorina," the soldier replied, "I am proud to have seen you." "Now then,--" his voice became harsh again as he turned to his prisoners, "go along, one wink of your eyelid in the wrong direction and I will shoot." He marched them off quickly, and Lucia, because the affair seemed finished, started for home. CHAPTER XXI THE END OF THE STORY "Tell me a story," Beppi demanded when she was lying beside him once more, "I'm all awake again and my face hurts." "What shall it be about?" Lucia asked, stroking his hair. She was still trembling from the reaction of her adventure, and Beppi's warm little body snuggled close in her arms was comforting. "Go on with the story about the soldier and the bad girl that teased him, and the good girl that was the fairy princess." "Very well, but shut your eyes. Let me see," Lucia began, "the soldier went off to the war, and when he came back he was wounded and the good girl took care of him, and they decided to be married and live happily ever after. And the bad girl when she saw the poor soldier wounded was sorry she had teased him, and she never did it again. And because she was good all kinds of nice things happened to her. She found her fairy godfather, and he had a magic carpet, and first thing you know she was in the middle of a beautiful garden with her little--" "Oh, bother, I knew that wasn't a real story," Beppi protested. "It's just about Roderigo and Maria and the Captain and you. And oh, Lucia, how silly you are, you called yourself the bad girl when really you're the goodest in the whole world." "Am I, Beppino mio?" Lucia laughed. "I don't think so." "Well, I say you are," Beppi replied, drowsily, "and the Captain thinks so too, so--" He dropped off to sleep. "I wonder if he would say so if he had seen me to-night," Lucia mused, "I had to do it, it was the only way, but oh, dear, I do hope I don't ever hear any more wicked men again." She yawned and looked towards the window. The first gray light of dawn streaked the sky. "I guess I'll stay in the garden with Beppi and Nana and Garibaldi, and wait for my fairy god-father's return," she said as she closed her eyes. As if to echo her words a faint "naa," came up from the stable yard below. Garibaldi was agreeing with her mistress. 
21876	----	Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls By Edith Van Dyne Author of "Mary Louise," "Mary Louise in the Country," "Mary Louise Solves a Mystery," "The Aunt Jane's Nieces Series," etc. Frontispiece by Alice Casey The Reilly & Lee Co. Chicago Copyright, 1918 by The Reilly & Britton Co. --- _Made in the U.S.A._ _Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls_ JUST A WORD The object of this little story is not especially to encourage loyalty and devotion to one's country, for these are sentiments firmly enshrined in the hearts of all true American girls. It is rather intended to show what important tasks girls may accomplish when spurred on by patriotism, and that none is too humble to substantially serve her country. Organizations of Liberty Girls are possible in every city and hamlet in America, and are effective not only in times of war but in times of peace, for always their Country needs them--always there is work for their busy hands. One other message the story hopes to carry--the message of charity towards all and malice towards none. When shadows are darkest, those who can lighten the gloom are indeed the blessed ones. EDITH VAN DYNE CONTENTS I THE MASS-MEETING II MARY LOUISE TAKES COMMAND III THE LIBERTY GIRLS IV THE TRAITOR V UNCONVINCING TESTIMONY VI TO HELP WIN THE WAR VII THE LIBERTY SHOP VIII THE DETECTIVE'S DAUGHTER IX GATHERING UP THE THREADS X THE EXPLOSION XI A FONT OF TYPE XII JOSIE BUYS A DESK XIII JOE LANGLEY, SOLDIER XIV THE PROFESSOR IS ANNOYED XV SUSPENDERS FOE SALE XVI MRS. CHARLEWORTH XVII THE BLACK SATCHEL XVIII A HINT FROM ANNIE BOYLE XIX THE PRINTING OFFICE XX ONE GIRL'S WITS XXI SUPRISES XXII A SLIGHT MISTAKE XXIII THE FLASHLIGHT XXIV AFTER THE CRISIS XXV DECORATING XXVI KEEPING BUSY Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls CHAPTER I THE MASS-MEETING One might reasonably think that "all Dorfield" had turned out to attend the much advertised meeting. The masses completely filled the big public square. The flaring torches, placed at set intervals, lighted fitfully the faces of the people--faces sober, earnest, thoughtful--all turned in the direction of the speakers' platform. Mr. Peter Conant, the Chairman, a prominent attorney of Dorfield, was introducing the orator of the evening, Colonel James Hathaway, whose slender, erect form and handsome features crowned with snow-white hair, arrested the attention of all. "You have been told," began the old colonel in a clear, ringing voice, "of our Nation's imperative needs. Money must be provided to conduct the great war on which we have embarked--money for our new army, money for ship-building, money for our allies. And the people of America are permitted to show their loyalty and patriotism by subscribing for bonds--bonds of the rich and powerful United States--that all may participate in our noble struggle for the salvation of democracy and the peace of the world. These bonds, which you are asked to buy, bear interest; you will be investing in the Corporation of Right, Justice and Freedom, with the security of the Nation as your shield. As a stockholder in this noblest of corporations you risk nothing, but you gain the distinction of personally assisting to defeat Civilization's defiant and ruthless enemy." Loud applause interrupted the speaker. On one of the rows of seats at the back of the stand sat Mary Louise Burrows, the granddaughter of Colonel Hathaway, with several of her girl friends, and her heart leaped with pride to witness the ovation accorded her dear "Gran'pa Jim." With well chosen words the old gentleman continued his discourse, stating succinctly the necessity of the Liberty Bond issue and impressing upon his hearers the righteousness of the cause for which this money was required. "The allotment of Dorfield," he added, "is one million dollars, seemingly a huge sum for our little city to raise and invest, but really insignificant when apportioned among those who can afford to subscribe. There is not a man among you who cannot without hardship purchase at least one fifty-dollar bond. Many of you can invest thousands. Yet we are approaching our time limit and, so far, less than two hundred thousand dollars' worth of these magnificent Liberty Bonds have been purchased in our community! But five days remain to us to subscribe the remaining eight hundred thousand dollars, and thereby preserve the honor of our fair city. That eight hundred thousand dollars will be subscribed! We _must_ subscribe it; else will the finger of scorn justly be pointed at us forever after." Another round of applause. Mr. Conant, and Mr. Jaswell, the banker, and other prominent members of the Liberty Loan Committee began to look encouraged and to take heart. "Of course they'll subscribe it!" whispered Mary Louise to her friend Alora Jones. "The thing has looked like a failure, lately, but I knew if Gran'pa Jim talked to the slackers, they'd see their plain duty. Gran'pa Jim knows how to stir them to action." Gradually the applause subsided. The faces of the multitude that thronged about the stand seemed to Mary Louise stern and resolved, determined to prove their loyalty and devotion to their country. And now Mr. Jaswell advanced and seated himself at a table, while Mr. Conant requested those present to come forward and enter their subscriptions for the bonds. He urged them to subscribe generously, in proportion to their means, and asked them not to crowd but to pass in line across the platform as swiftly as possible. "Let us raise that entire eight hundred thousand to-night!" shouted the Colonel, in clarion tones. Then the band struck up a popular war tune, and the banker dipped a pen in ink and held it ready for the onslaught of signers. But no one came forward. Each man looked curiously at his neighbor but stood fast in his place. The city, even to its furthermost suburbs, had already been systematically canvassed by the Committee and their efforts had resulted in a bare two hundred thousand dollars. Of this sum, Colonel Hathaway had himself subscribed twenty-five thousand. Noting the hesitation of his townsmen, the old gentleman again arose and faced them. The band had stopped playing and there was an ominous silence. "Let me encourage you," said Colonel Hathaway, "by taking another twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of these wonderful bonds. Put me down for that amount, Mr. Jaswell. Now, then, who are the patriots eager to follow my lead!" There was applause--somewhat more mild in character--but none came forward. Alora's father, Jason Jones, who had already signed for fifty thousand dollars, rose and added another twenty-five thousand to that sum. This act elicited another ripple of applause; more questioning looks were exchanged between those assembled, but there were no further offers to subscribe. The hearts of the committeemen fell. Was this meeting, on which they had so greatly depended, destined to prove a failure, after all? Jake Kasker, the owner of "Kasker's Clothing Emporium," finally made his way to the platform and mounting the steps faced his townspeople. There was a little murmur of surprise and a sudden tension. The man had been distrusted in Dorfield, of late. "You all know what I think about this war," said Kasker in a loud voice and with a slight German accent. "I don't approve of it, whatever anyone says, and I think we were wrong to get into it, anyhow." A storm of hisses and cries of "Shame!" saluted him, but he waited stolidly for the demonstration to subside. Then he continued: "But, whatever I think about the war, I want to tell you that this flag that now waves over my head is as much _my_ flag as it is _yours,_ for I'm an American citizen. Where that flag goes, Jake Kasker will follow, no matter what fools carry the standard. If they don't think I'm too old to go to France, I'll pack up and go to-morrow. That's Jake Kasker--with a Dutch name but a Yankee heart. Some of you down there got Yankee names an' hearts that make the Kaiser laugh. I wouldn't trade with you! Now, hear this: I ain't rich; you know that; but I'll take two thousand dollars' worth of Liberty Bonds." Some one laughed, jeeringly. Another shouted: "Make it three thousand, Jake!" "I will," said Kasker; "and, if there ain't enough of you war-crazy, yellow-hearted patriots in Dorfield to take what we got to take, then I'll make it five thousand. But if I have to do that--an' I can't afford it, but I'll do it!--it's me, Jake Kasker, that'll cry 'Shame!' and hiss like a goose whenever you slackers pass my door." There was more laughter, a few angry shouts, and a movement toward the platform. The German signed the paper Mr. Jaswell placed before him and withdrew. Soon there was a line extending from the banker's table to the crowd below, and the signatures for bonds were slowly but steadily secured. Colonel Hathaway faced the German clothier, who stood a few paces back, a cynical grin upon his features. "Thank you, Kasker," said the old gentleman, in a cold voice. "You have really helped us, although you should have omitted those traitorous words. They poisoned a deed you might have been proud of." "We don't agree, Colonel," replied Kasker, with a shrug. "When I talk, I'm honest; I say what I think." He turned and walked away and Colonel Hathaway looked after him with an expression of dislike. "I wonder why he did it?" whispered Mary Louise, who had overheard the exchange of words and marked Kasker's dogged opposition. "He bought the bonds as a matter of business," replied Laura Hilton. "It's a safe investment, and Kasker knows it. Besides that, he may have an idea it would disarm suspicion." "Also," added Alora Jones, "he took advantage of the opportunity to slam the war. That was worth something to a man like Kasker." CHAPTER II MARY LOUISE TAKES COMMAND When Mary Louise entered the library the next morning she found her grandfather seated at the table, his head resting on his extended arms in an attitude of great depression. The young girl was startled. "What is it, Gran'pa Jim?" she asked, going to his side and laying a hand lovingly on his shoulder. The old gentleman looked up with a face drawn and gray. "I'm nervous and restless, my dear," he said; "that's all. Go to breakfast, Mary Louise; I--I'll join you presently." She sat down on the arm of his chair. "Haven't you slept well, Gran'pa?" she asked anxiously, and then her eyes wandered through the open door to the next room and rested on the undisturbed bed. "Why, you haven't slept at all, dear!" she cried in distress. "What is wrong? Are you ill?" "No, no, Mary Louise; don't worry. I--I shall be all right presently. But--I was terribly disappointed in last night's meeting, and--" "I see. They didn't subscribe what they ought to. But you can't help that, Gran'pa Jim! You did all that was possible, and you mustn't take it so much to heart." "It is so important, child; more important, I fear, than many of them guess. This will be a desperate war, and without the money to fight--" "Oh, the money'll come, Gran'pa; I'm sure of that. If Dorfield doesn't do it's duty, the rest of the country will, so you mustn't feel badly about our failure. In fact, we haven't failed, as yet. How much did they subscribe last night?" "In all, a hundred and thirty thousand. We have now secured barely a third of our allotment, and only five days more to get the balance!" Mary Louise reflected, eyeing him seriously. "Gran'pa," said she, "you've worn yourself out with work and worry. They ought not to have put you on this Liberty Bond Committee; you're too old, and you're not well or strong enough to endure all the anxiety and hard work." "For the honor of--" "Yes, I know, dear. Our country needs you, so you mustn't break down. Now come and drink a cup of coffee and I'll talk to you. I've a secret to tell you." He smiled, rather wanly and hopelessly, but he permitted the girl to assist him to rise and to lead him to the breakfast room. There Mary Louise poured his coffee and attacked her own breakfast, although with indifferent appetite. Gran'pa Jim was the only relative she had in all the world and she loved him devotedly. Their life in the pretty little town had been peaceful and happy until recently--until the war. But the old Colonel, loyal veteran that he was, promptly made it _his_ war and was roused as Mary Louise had never seen him roused before. In his mind was no question of the justice of our country's participation in the world struggle; he was proud to be an American and gloried in America's sacrifice to the cause of humanity. Too old to fight on the battlefield, he felt honored at his appointment to the membership of the Liberty Bond Committee and threw all his energies into the task assigned him. So it is easy to understand that the coldness and reluctance to subscribe for bonds on the part of his fellow townsmen had well nigh broken his heart. This the girl, his closest companion, fully appreciated. "Gran'pa," she said, regarding him across the table after their old black mammy, Aunt Sally, had left them together, "I love my country, as you know; but I love _you_ better." "Oh, Mary Louise!" "It's true; and it's right that I should. If I had to choose between letting the Germans capture the United States, or losing you, I'd let the Germans come! That's honest, and it's the way I feel. Love for one's country is a fine sentiment, but my love for you is deeper. I wouldn't whisper this to anyone else, for no one else could understand it, but you will understand it, Gran'pa Jim, and you know my love for you doesn't prevent my still being as good an American as the average. However," continued the young girl, in a lighter tone, "I've no desire to lose you or allow the Germans to whip us, if I can help it, so I've got two battles to fight. The truth is, Gran'pa, that you're used up with the hard work of the last few weeks, and another five days of begging for subscriptions would wreck you entirely. So you're to stop short--this very minute--and rest up and take it easy and not worry." "But--my dear!" "See here, Gran'pa Jim," with assumed sternness, "you've worked hard to secure Dorfield's quota, and you've failed. Why, the biggest subscribers for bonds in the whole city are you and Jason Jones! There's plenty of wealth in Dorfield, and over at the mills and factories are thousands of workmen who can buy bonds; but you and your Committee don't know how to interest the people in your proposition. The people are loyal enough, but they don't understand, and you don't understand how to make them understand." "No," he said, shaking his head dolefully, "they're a dense lot, and we can't _make_ them understand." "Well, _I_ can," said Mary Louise, cheerfully. "You, child?" "Yes. You mustn't imagine I've tackled the problem this very morning; I've been considering it for some time, and I've talked and consulted with Alora and Irene and Laura and the other girls about the best way to redeem the situation. We knew the situation was desperate long before last night's meeting. So all our plans are made, and we believe we can sell all the bonds required. It was our policy to keep silent until we knew what the big mass-meeting last night would accomplish, but we suspected it would turn out just the way it did--a fizzle. So the job's up to us, and if you'll sit quiet, Gran'pa Jim, and let us girls do the work, we'll put Dorfield in the honor column by Saturday night." "This is nonsense!" exclaimed the Colonel, but there was an accent of hope in his voice, nevertheless. "We girls are thoroughly organized," said Mary Louise, "and we'll sell the bonds." "Girls!" "Why, just think of it, Gran'pa. Who would refuse a group of young girls--earnest and enthusiastic girls? The trouble with you men is that you accept all sorts of excuses. They tell you they're hard up and can't spare the money; there's a mortgage to pay, or taxes or notes to meet, and they can't afford it, anyway. But that kind of talk won't do when we girls get after them." "What arguments can you use that we have disregarded?" "First, we'll coax; then we'll appeal to their patriotism; then we'll threaten them with scorn and opprobrium, which they'll richly deserve if they hang on till it comes to that. If the threats don't make 'em buy, we'll cry--and every tear will sell a bond!" The Colonel stirred his coffee thoughtfully. "You might try it," he suggested. "I've read that in some cities the Boy Scouts have been successful in placing the bonds. It's an honorable undertaking, in any event, but--I hope you will meet with no insults." "If that rank pro-German, Jake Kasker, will buy bonds, there isn't a man in Dorfield who can give a logical excuse for not doing likewise," declared Mary Louise. "I'm going to use Kasker to shame the rest of them. But, before I undertake this job, I shall make a condition, Gran'pa. You must stay quietly at home while we girls do the work." "Oh, I could not do that, Mary Louise." "You're not fit to leave the house. Will you try my plan for one day--just for to-day." "I'll think it over, dear," he said, rising. She assisted him to the library and then ran down the street to the doctor's office. "Dr. McGruer," she said, "go over at once and see my grandfather. He's completely exhausted with the work of selling Liberty Bonds. Be sure you order him to keep at home and remain quiet--at least for to-day." CHAPTER III THE LIBERTY GIRLS An hour later six girls met at the home of Alora Jones, who lived with her father in a fine mansion across the street from Colonel Hathaway's residence. These girls were prepared to work, and work diligently, under the leadership of Mary Louise, for they had been planning and discussing this event for several days, patiently awaiting the word to start their campaign. "Some girls," said Mary Louise, "are knitting, and that's a good thing to do, in a way. Others are making pajamas and pillows for the Red Cross, and that's also an admirable thing to do. But our duty lies on a higher plane, for we're going to get money to enable Uncle Sam to take care of our soldier boys." "Do--do you think we can make people buy bonds?" asked little Laura Hilton, with a trace of doubt in her voice. Mary Louise gave her a severe look. "We not only can, but we _shall_ make people buy," she replied. "We shall ask them very prettily, and they cannot refuse us. We've all been loaded to the brim with arguments, if arguments are necessary, but we haven't time to gossip with folks. A whole lot of money must be raised, and there's a short time to do it in." "Seems to me," remarked Edna Barlow, earnestly, "we're wasting time just now. Let's get busy." "Well, get on your costumes, girls," suggested Alora Jones. "They are all here, in this big box, and the banners are standing in the hall. It's after nine, now, and by ten o'clock we must all be at work." They proceeded to dress themselves in the striking costumes they had secretly prepared; a blue silk waist with white stars scattered over it, a red-and-white striped skirt, the stripes running from waistband to hem, a "Godess of Liberty" cap and white canvas shoes. Attired in this fashion, the "Liberty Girls," as they had dubbed themselves, presented a most attractive and patriotic appearance, and as they filed out through the hall each seized a handsome silken banner, gold fringed, which bore the words: "Buy Bonds of Dorfield's Liberty Girls." "Now, then," said Mary Louise, "we have each been allotted a certain district in the business part of the city, for which we are individually responsible. Each one knows what she is expected to do. Let no one escape. If any man claims to have already bought bonds, make him buy more. And remember, we're all to meet at my house at one o'clock for luncheon, and to report progress." A block away they secured seats in a streetcar and a few minutes thereafter reached the "Four Corners," the intersection of the two principal streets of Dorfield. But on the way they had sold old Jonathan Dodd, who happened to be in the car and was overawed by the display of red-white-and-blue, two hundred dollars' worth of bonds. As for old man Dodd, he realized he was trapped and bought his limit with a sigh of resignation. As they separated at the Four Corners, each to follow her appointed route, many surprised, if not startled, citizens regarded the Liberty Girls with approving eyes. They were pretty girls, all of them, and their silken costumes were really becoming. The patriots gazed admiringly; the more selfish citizens gave a little shiver of dismay and scurried off to escape meeting these aggressive ones, whose gorgeous banners frankly proclaimed their errand. Mary Louise entered the bank on the corner and made inquiry for Mr. Jaswell, the president. "We're off at last, sir," she said, smiling at his bewildered looks, "and we girls are determined to make the Dorfield people do their full duty. May we depend upon your bank to fulfill your promises, and carry those bond buyers who wish to make time payments?" "To be sure, my dear," replied the banker. "I'd no idea you young ladies were to wear uniforms. But you certainly look fascinating, if you're a fair sample of the others, and I don't see how anyone can refuse to back up our girls in their patriotic 'drive.' God bless you, Mary Louise, and help you to achieve your noble object." There were many offices in the building, above the bank, and the girl visited every one of them. Her appearance, garbed in the national colors and bearing her banner, was a sign of conquest, for it seemed to these busy men as if Uncle Sam himself was backing this crusade and all their latent patriotism was stirred to the depths. So they surrendered at discretion and signed for the bonds. Mary Louise was modest and sweet in demeanor; her pleas were as pleasant as they were persuasive; there was nothing virulent or dominant in her attitude. But when she said: "Really, Mr. So-and-so, you ought to take more bonds than that; you can afford it and our country needs the money," the argument was generally effective, and when she had smilingly pinned the bond button on a man's coat and passed on to interview others, she left him wondering why he had bought more bonds than he ever had intended to, or even provoked with himself that he had subscribed at all. These were the people who had generally resisted all former pleadings of the regular committee and had resolved to ignore the bond sale altogether. But perhaps their chagrin was equalled by their satisfaction in having been won over by a pretty girl, whose manner and appearance were alike irresistible. The men of Dorfield are a fair sample of men everywhere. At this period the full meaning of the responsibilities we had assumed in this tremendous struggle was by no means fully realized. The war was too far away, and life at home was still running in its accustomed grooves. They could not take the European war to themselves, nor realize that it might sweep away their prosperity, their liberties--even their homes. Fear had not yet been aroused; pity for our suffering and hard-pressed allies was still lightly considered; the war had not struck home to the hearts of the people as it has since. I doubt if even Mary Louise fully realized the vital importance of the work she had undertaken. When the Liberty Girls met at Colonel Hathaway's for a light luncheon, their eyes were sparkling with enthusiasm and their cheeks rosy from successful effort. Their individual sales varied, of course, for some were more tactful and winning than others, but all had substantial results to report. "We've taken Dorfield by storm!" was their exultant cry. "Altogether," said Mary Louise, figuring up the amounts, "we've sold thirty-two thousand dollars' worth of bonds this morning. That's encouraging for three hours' work, but it's not enough to satisfy us. We must put in a busy afternoon and try to get a total of at least one hundred thousand by to-night. To-morrow we must do better than that. Work as late as you can, girls, and at eight o'clock we will meet again at Alora's house and compare results." The girls needed no urging to resume their work, for already they had gained confidence in their ability and were inspired to renewed effort. Mary Louise had optimistic plans for that afternoon's work. She first visited the big flour mill, where she secured an interview with Mr. Chisholme, the president and general manager. "We can't buy bonds," he said peevishly. "Our business is being ruined by the high price of wheat and the absurd activities of Hoover. We stand to operate at a loss or else shut down altogether. The government ought to pay us compensation, instead of asking us to contribute to the war." "However, if we fail to win the war," Mary Louise quietly replied, "your enormous investment here will become worthless. Isn't it better to lose a little now, for the sake of future winnings, than to sacrifice the past and future and be reduced to poverty? We are asking you to save yourself from threatened danger--the national calamity that would follow our defeat in this war." He sat back in his chair and looked at the girl in amazement. She was rather young to have conceived such ideas. "Well, there's time enough to consider all that," he said, less gruffly. "You'll have to excuse me now, Miss Burrows. I'm busy." But Mary Louise kept her seat and redoubled her arguments, which were logical and straight to the point. Mr. Chisholme's attitude might have embarrassed her had she been pleading a personal favor, but she felt she was the mouthpiece of the President, of the Nation, of worldwide democracy, and would not allow herself to feel annoyed. She devoted three-quarters of an hour to Mr. Chisholme, who gradually thawed in her genial sunshine. She finally sold him fifty thousand dollars worth of Liberty Bonds and went on her way elated. The regular Bond Committee had labored for weeks with this stubborn man, who managed one of the largest enterprises in Dorfield, yet they had signally failed to convince him or to induce him to subscribe a dollar. The girl had succeeded in less than an hour, and sold him exactly the amount he should have bought. The mill subscription was a powerful leverage with which to pry money from other reluctant ones. Stacks, Sellem & Stacks, the big department store heretofore resisting all appeals, bought from Mary Louise bonds to the amount of twenty-five thousand; the Denis Hardware Company took ten thousand. Then Mary Louise met her first serious rebuff. She went into Silas Herring's wholesale grocery establishment and told Mr. Herring she wanted to sell him bonds. "This is outrageous!" cried Herring indignantly. "When the men can't rob us, or force us to back England in her selfish schemes, they set girls on us to wheedle us out of money we have honestly earned. This hold-up game won't work, I assure you, and I advise you to get into more respectable business. My money is mine; it doesn't belong to the Allies, and they won't get a cent of it." He was getting more angry as he proceeded in his harangue. "Moreover," he continued, "our weak administration can't use me to help it out of the hole it has foolishly stumbled into, or make America the cat's-paw to pull British chestnuts out of the fire. You ought to be ashamed, Miss Burrows, to lend yourself to such unpatriotic methods of bulldozing honest citizens!" Mary Louise was distressed, but undaunted. The man was monstrously wrong, and she knew it. Sitting in Mr. Herring's private office at the time were Professor John Dyer, the superintendent of Dorfield's schools, and the Hon. Andrew Duncan, a leading politician, a former representative and now one of the county supervisors. The girl looked at Professor Dyer, whom she knew slightly, and said pleadingly: "Won't you defend our administration and our country, Mr. Dyer?" He smiled deprecatingly but did not speak. He was a tall, lean man, quite round-shouldered and of studious appearance. He wore double eyeglasses, underneath which his eyes were somewhat watery. The smile upon his thin features was a stationary one, not as if assumed, but molded with the features and lacking geniality. It was the Hon. Andrew Duncan who answered the Liberty Girl. "The difference between Mr. Herring and eighty percent of the American people," said he in stilted, pompous tones, "is that our friend Herring unwisely voices his protest, while the others merely think--and consider it the part of wisdom to say nothing." "I don't believe that!" cried Mary Louise indignantly. "The American people are loyal to their President. There may be a few traitors; we're gradually discovering them; but--" "I am busy," Herring interrupted her, scowling, and he swung his chair so that his back was toward her. "You won't be busy long, if you keep talking that way," predicted the girl. "Tut-tut!" said the Hon. Andrew, warningly. "Your threats, young lady, are as unwise as Mr. Herring's speech." "But they carry more weight," she asserted stoutly. "Do you think any grocery man in Dorfield would buy goods of Mr. Herring if he knew him to be disloyal in this, our country's greatest crisis? And they're going to know it, if I have to visit each one and tell him myself what Mr. Herring has said." A tense, if momentary silence, followed, broken by the Professor, who now said in his smooth, unctuous way: "Mr. Herring's blunt expression of his sentiments was not intended for other ears than ours, I am sure. In confidence, one may say many things to friends which he would prefer to withhold from an indiscriminating public. We are well assured, indeed, that Mr. Herring is a loyal American, with America's best interests at heart, but he does not regard our present national activities as leniently as we do. I have been endeavoring, in my humble way, to change his attitude of mind," here Herring swung around and looked at the speaker stolidly, "and though I admit he is a bit obstinate, I venture to assure you, Miss Burrows, that Silas Herring will stand by the Stars and Stripes as long as there is a shred of our banner to wave in the breeze of freedom, justice and democracy." A cynical smile gradually settled on the grocer's stern face. The Hon. Andrew was smiling with undisguised cheerfulness. "We are all loyal--thoroughly loyal," said the latter. "I've bought some Liberty Bonds already, my girl, but you can put me down for a hundred dollars more. We must support our country in every possible way, with effort, with money, with our flesh and blood. I have no children, but my two nephews and a second cousin are now in France!" "For my part," added Professor Dyer, "I have hesitated as to how much of my meagre salary I can afford to spend. But I think I can handle five hundred dollars' worth." "Thank you," said Mary Louise, somewhat puzzled by these offers. "It isn't like risking the money; it's a solid investment in the best securities in the world." "I know," returned the Professor, nodding gravely, "But I'm not thinking of that. I'm a poor man, as you probably know, but what I have is at my country's disposal, since it is evident that my country needs it." "Doesn't that shame you, sir?" asked Mary Louise brightly, as she turned to Silas Herring. "You're a business man, and they say--although I confess I doubt it--that you're a loyal American. You can convince me of the fact by purchasing a liberal share of bonds. Then I can forget your dreadful words. Then I can carry to everyone the news that you've made a splendid investment in Liberty Bonds. Even if you honestly think the administration has been at fault, it won't do any good to grumble. We are in this war, sir, and we've got to win it, that you and every other American may enjoy prosperity and freedom. How much shall I say that you have subscribed, Mr. Herring?" He studied her face, his expression never changing. Mary Louise wondered if he could read her suspicion and dislike of him, despite her efforts to smother those feelings in the cause of Liberty. Then Herring looked at Professor Dyer, who stood meekly, with downcast eyes. Next the grocer gazed at the supervisor, who smiled in a shrewd way and gave a brief nod. Mr. Herring frowned. He drummed nervously with his fingers on his mahogany desk. Then he reached for his check-book and with grim deliberation wrote a check and handed it to Mary Louise. "You've won, young lady," he admitted. "I'm too good an American to approve what has been done down at Washington, but I'll help keep our flag waving, as the Professor suggests. When we've won our war--and of course we shall win--there will be a day of reckoning for every official who is judged by our citizens to have been disloyal, however high his station. Good afternoon!" The first impulse of Mary Louise was to crumple up the check and throw it in the man's face, to show her resentment of his base insinuations. But as she glanced at the check she saw it was for ten thousand dollars, and that meant sinews of war--help for our soldiers and our allies. She couldn't thank the man, but she bowed coldly and left the private office. Professor Dyer accompanied her and at the outer door he said to the girl: "Silas Herring's heart is in the right place, as you see by his generous check. Of course, he might have bought more bonds than that, as he is very wealthy, but he is an obstinate man and it is a triumph for our sacred cause that he was induced to buy at all. You are doing a noble work, my child, and I admire you for having undertaken the task. If I can be of service to you, pray command me." "Urge everyone you meet to buy bonds," suggested Mary Louise. She did not care to discuss Silas Herring. "I'll do that, indeed," promised the school superintendent. But as he watched her depart, there was a queer expression on his lean face that it was well Mary Louise did not see. CHAPTER IV THE TRAITOR When the Liberty Girls met that evening at the home of Alora Jones, it was found that Mary Louise had sold more bonds than any of the others, although Laura Hilton had secured one subscription of fifty thousand dollars from the Dorfield National Steel Works, the manager of which industry, Mr. Colton, was a relative of the girl. Altogether, the day's work had netted them two hundred and fourteen thousand dollars, and as soon as she could escape Mary Louise rushed home to report their success to her grandfather. "In one day, Gran'pa Jim!" she cried exultantly, and the old colonel's eyes sparkled as he replied: "That makes our great mass-meeting look pretty small; doesn't it, my dear? I consider it wonderful! With four more such days our quota would be over-subscribed." "That's what we shall try for," she declared, and then told him who the biggest bond buyers had been--mostly those who had refused to listen to the regular Committee or had not been influenced by their carefully prepared arguments. "It's just because we are girls, and they are ashamed to refuse us," she acknowledged. "It seems like taking an unfair advantage of them, I know, but those who need urging and shaming, to induce them to respond loyally to the nation's needs, deserve no consideration. We're not robbing them, either," she added, "but just inducing them to make a safe investment. Isn't that true, Gran'pa Jim?" "What surprises me most," he responded, "is how you ever managed to load your little head with so much mature wisdom. I'd no idea, Mary Louise, you were so interested in the war and our national propaganda for waging it successfully." "Why, I read the newspapers, you know, and I've listened to you spout patriotism, and ever since we joined the Allies against Germany, my girl chums and I have been secretly organized as a band of Liberty Girls, determined to do our bit in winning the war. This is the first chance, though, that we've ever had to show what we can do, and we are very proud and happy to-night to realize that we're backing Uncle Sam to some purpose." "This war," remarked the old soldier, thoughtfully, "is bringing the women of all nations into marked prominence, for it is undeniable that their fervid patriotism outranks that of the men. But you are mere girls, and I marvel at your sagacity and devotion, heretofore unsuspected. If you can follow to-day's success until Saturday, and secure our quota of subscriptions to the bonds, not only Dorfield but all the nation will be proud of your achievement." "We shall do our best," replied the girl, simply, although her cheeks glowed pink under such praise. "There are enough slackers still to be interviewed to bring the quota up to the required amount and with to-day's success to hearten us, I am sure we shall end the week triumphantly." Next morning the Liberty Girls sallied forth early, all six aglow with enthusiasm. Mary Louise consulted her carefully prepared list and found that her first calf was to be at McGill's drug store. She found Mr. McGill looking over his morning's mail, but moments were precious, so she at once stated her errand. The old druggist glanced up at the girl under his spectacles, noted her patriotic attire and the eager look on her pretty face, and slowly shook his head. "I'm sorry, Miss Burrows, but I can't afford it," he said evasively. "Oh, Mr. McGill! I'm sure you are mistaken," she replied. "You can afford insurance, you know, to protect your stock, and this money for Uncle Sam is an insurance that your home and business will be protected from the ravages of a ruthless foe." He stared at her thoughtfully a moment. Then he selected a paper from his mail and handed it to her. "Read that," he said briefly. Mary Louise read it. It was a circular, printed in small, open-faced, capital type on plain white paper, and unsigned. It said: "The Treasury Department is asking us to invest billions in what are termed Liberty Bonds. It has the 'liberty' to lend these billions to irresponsible or bankrupt nations of Europe, who are fighting an unprofitable war. Some of our dollars will equip an army of Amer- ican boys to fight on Europe's battle- fields. This may be good business. Our excited politicians down at Washington may think they are acting for our best good. But what becomes of the money, finally? Will our millionaire government contractors become billionaires when the money--our money--is spent? Do you think the days of graft are past and gone? Have politicians become honest now that they are handling untold sums? Let us consider these questions when we are asked to subscribe for Liberty Bonds." "Why, this is treason!" cried Mary Louise, gasping from sheer amazement and indignation. "It's a--a--treacherous, vile, disloyal insinuation. Some German spy wrote that, and he ought to be hanged for it!" The druggist nodded. He picked up the envelope that had contained the circular and scrutinized it closely. "Really, it looks like foreign handwriting; doesn't it?" he agreed, handing her the envelope. "It is postmarked 'Dorfield' and was posted last evening. The whole town is buzzing about the wonderful work of the Liberty Girls yesterday. Perhaps your success is responsible for this-- this--opposition." Mary Louise's cheeks were burning. Her eyes flashed. "May I keep this--_thing?"_ she asked, with a shudder of disgust as she thrust the circular into its envelope. "Certainly, if you wish." "And will you let an enemy attack like that influence you, Mr. McGill?" He smiled, rather grimly. "Yes. I'll invest five hundred in the bonds. I had already decided to put in a hundred dollars, but for a moment this veiled accusation bewildered me. You're right; it's treasonable. It will be hard for me to raise five hundred, just now, but I'll do it. I want that to be my answer to the German." Mary Louise thanked him and hurried away. Next door was Lacey's Shoe Store, and Mr. Lacey was reading a duplicate of that identical circular when the Liberty Girl approached him. The man bowed low to Mary Louise, a deference she felt rendered to her red-white-and-blue uniform. "Good morning!" he said pleasantly, recognizing the girl as one of his good customers. "Glad to see you, Mary Louise, for if I give you a good fat check it may take a nasty taste out of my mouth, acquired by reading a bit of German propaganda." "I know, Mr. Lacey," she replied earnestly. "I've seen that circular before. Do you mind my having it--and the envelope?" "I wouldn't touch the filth, if I were you," he protested. "I'm going to run the traitor down," she said. "No man has the right to live in Dorfield--or in America--who could be guilty of such disloyalty." He gave her the circular and his check for Liberty Bonds, and she passed on to the next store. During the morning Mary Louise discovered several more of the traitorous circulars. Some merchants would not admit having received the warning; others, through their arguments, convinced the girl they had not only read the screed but had been influenced by it. Perhaps it did not seriously affect her sales of bonds, but she felt that it did and her indignation grew steadily. By noon she was tingling with resentment and when she joined the other Liberty Girls at luncheon, she found them all excited over the circular and demanding vengeance on the offender--whoever he might happen to be. "Isn't it dreadful!" exclaimed Lucile Neal, "and what could the person hope to gain by it?" "Why, he wanted to kill the Liberty Bond sale," explained Alora Jones. "A suspicion that this money is to be misapplied, or that officials will steal part of it, is likely to prevent a lot of foolish people from investing in the bonds. All this morning I could see that men were influenced by this circular, which has been pretty generally distributed." "Yes; one or two repeated the very words of the circular to me," said Laura Hilton; "but I just asked them if they considered the United States able to pay its bonds and they were forced to admit it was a safe investment, however the money might be used." "I'd like to know who sent that circular," exclaimed Edna Barlow. "I'm going to find out!" asserted Mary Louise. "How, my dear?" "There must be ways of tracing such a bunch of circulars as were mailed last evening. I'm going to see the Chief of Police and put him on the trail." "Do you know," said Edna, a thoughtful and rather quiet girl, "I already have a suspicion who the traitor is." "Who?" an eager chorus. "I'm not sure I ought to speak his name, for it's only a suspicion and I may be wrong. It would be an awful thing to accuse one unjustly of such a dastardly act, wouldn't it? But--think, girls!--who is known to be against the war, and pro-German? Who did we consider an enemy to the cause of liberty until--until he happened to buy some bonds the other night and indulge in some peanut patriotism to disarm a criticism he knew was becoming dangerous?" They looked at one another, half frightened at the suggestion, for all knew whom she meant. "Perhaps," said Alora, slowly, "Jake Kasker really believes in the bonds. He certainly set the example to others and led them to buy a lot of bonds. It doesn't seem reasonable, after that, to credit him with trying to prevent their sale." "Those pro-Germans," remarked little Jane Donovan, "are clever and sly. They work in the dark. Kasker said he hated the war but loved the flag." "I'm afraid of those people who think devotion to our flag can cover disloyalty to our President," said Mary Louise earnestly. "But the flag represents the President, and Kasker said he'd stand by the flag to the last." "All buncombe, my dear," said Edna decidedly. "That flag talk didn't take the curse off the statement that the war is all wrong." "He had to say something patriotic, or he'd have been mobbed," was Lucile's serious comment. "I hadn't thought of Jake Kasker, before, but he may be the culprit." "Isn't he the only German in town who has denounced our going into the European war?" demanded Edna. "No," said Mary Louise; "Gran'pa has told me of several others; but none has spoken so frankly as Kasker. Anyhow, there's no harm in suspecting him, for if he is really innocent he can blame his own disloyal speeches for the suspicion. But now let us check up the morning's work and get busy again as soon as possible. We mustn't lose a single minute." "And, as we go around," suggested Alora, "let us keep our eyes and ears open for traces of the traitor. There may be more than one pro-German in the conspiracy, for the circular was printed by somebody, and there are several kinds of handwriting on the addressed envelopes we have gathered. We've no time to do detective work, just now, but we can watch out, just the same." Mary Louise did not mention the circular to Colonel Hathaway that evening, for he was still ill and she did not wish to annoy him. The next day she found another circular had been put in the mails, printed from the same queer open-faced type as the first. Not so many had been sent out of these, but they were even more malicious in their suggestions. The girls were able to collect several of them for evidence and were 'more angry and resentful than ever, but they did not allow such outrageous antagonism to discourage them in their work. Of course the Liberty Girls were not the only ones in Dorfield trying to sell bonds. Mr. Jaswell and other bankers promoted the bond sale vigorously and the regular Committee did not flag in its endeavors to secure subscriptions. On account of Colonel Hathaway's illness, Professor Dyer was selected to fill his place on the Committee and proved himself exceedingly industrious. The only trouble with the Professor was his reluctance to argue. He seemed to work early and late, visiting the wealthier and more prosperous citizens, but he accepted too easily their refusals to buy. On several occasions the Liberty Girls succeeded in making important sales where Professor Dyer had signally failed. He seemed astonished at this and told Mary Louise, with a deprecating shrug, that he feared his talents did not lie in the direction of salesmanship. Despite the natural proportion of failures--for not all will buy bonds in any community--on the fourth day following the mass-meeting Dorfield's quota of one million was fully subscribed, and on Saturday another hundred and fifty thousand was added, creating jubilation among the loyal citizens and reflecting great credit on the Liberty Girls, the Committee, and all who had labored so well for the cause. "Really," said Professor Dyer, his voice sounding regretful when he congratulated the girls, "our success is due principally to your patriotic organization. The figures show that you secured subscriptions for over half a million. Dear me, what a remarkable fact!" "More than that," added Jason Jones, Alora's father, who was a wealthy artist and himself a member of the Committee, "our girls encouraged the faltering ones to do their duty. Many a man who coldly turned our Committee down smiled at the pretty faces and dainty costumes of our Liberty Girls and wrote their checks without a murmur." "All the credit is due Mary Louise," declared Alora. "It was she who proposed the idea, and who organized us and trained us and designed our Liberty costumes. Also, Mary Louise made the most sales." "Nonsense!" cried Mary Louise, blushing red. "I couldn't have done anything at all without the help of you girls. No one of us is entitled to more credit than the others, but all six of us may well feel proud of our success. We've done our bit to help Uncle Sam win the war." CHAPTER V UNCONVINCING TESTIMONY On Sunday "Gran'pa Jim," relieved of all worry, felt "quite himself again," as he expressed it, and the old gentleman strutted somewhat proudly as he marched to church with his lovely granddaughter beside him, although her uniform was to-day discarded for a neat tailor-suit. Mary Louise had always been a favorite in Dorfield, but the past week had made her a heroine in the eyes of all patriotic citizens. Many were the looks of admiration and approval cast at the young girl this morning as she passed along the streets beside the old colonel. In the afternoon, as they sat in the cosy study at home, the girl for the first time showed her grandfather the disloyal circulars, relating how indignant the Liberty Girls had been at encountering such dastardly opposition. Colonel Hathaway studied the circulars carefully. He compared the handwritings on the different envelopes, and when Mary Louise said positively: "That man must be discovered and arrested!" her grandfather nodded his head and replied: "He is a dangerous man. Not especially on account of these mischievous utterances, which are too foolish to be considered seriously, but because such a person is sure to attempt other venomous deeds which might prove more important. German propaganda must be dealt with sternly and all opposition to the administration thoroughly crushed. It will never do to allow a man like this to go unrebuked and unpunished." "What, then, would you suggest?" asked the girl. "The police should be notified. Chief Farnum is a clever officer and intensely patriotic, from all I have heard. I think he will have no difficulty in discovering who is responsible for these circulars." "I shall go to him to-morrow," decided Mary Louise. "I had the same idea, Gran'pa Jim; it's a matter for the police to handle." But when she had obtained an interview with Chief of Police Farnum the next morning and had silently laid one of the circulars on his desk before him, an announcement of her errand, Farnum merely glanced at it, smiled and then flashed a shrewd look into the girl's face. "Well!" said the Chief, in an interrogative tone. "Those treasonable circulars have been mailed to a lot of our citizens," said she. "I know." "They are pro-German, of course. The traitor who is responsible for them ought to be arrested immediately." "To be sure," replied Farnum, calmly. "Well, then do it!" she exclaimed, annoyed by his bland smile. "I'd like to, Miss Burrows," he rejoined, the smile changing to a sudden frown, "and only two things prevent my obeying your request. One is that the writer is unknown to me." "I suppose you could find him, sir. That's what the police are for. Criminals don't usually come here and give themselves up, I imagine, or even send you their address. But the city isn't so big that any man, however clever, could escape your dragnet." "Thank you for the compliment," said the Chief, again smiling. "I believe we could locate the fellow, were such a task not obviated by the second objection." "And that?" "If you'll read this circular--there are two others, by the way, mailed at different times--you will discover that our objectionable friend has skillfully evaded breaking our present laws. He doesn't assert anything treasonable at all; he merely questions, or suggests." "He is disloyal, however," insisted Mary Louise. "In reality, yes; legally, no. We allow a certain amount of free speech in this country, altogether too much under present conditions. The writer of this circular makes certain statements that are true and would be harmless in themselves were they not followed by a series of questions which insinuate that our trusted officials are manipulating our funds for selfish purposes. A simple denial of these insinuations draws the fangs from every question. We know very well the intent was to rouse suspicion and resentment against the government, but if we had the author of these circulars in court we could not prove that he had infringed any of the existing statutes." "And you will allow such a traitor as that to escape!" cried Mary Louise, amazed and shocked. For a moment he did not reply, but regarded the girl thoughtfully. Then he said: "The police of a city, Miss Burrows, is a local organization with limited powers. I don't mind telling you, however, that there are now in Dorfield certain government agents who are tracing this circular and will not be so particular as we must be to abide by established law in making arrests. Their authority is more elastic, in other words. Moreover, these circulars were mailed, and the postoffice department has special detectives to attend to those who use the mails for disloyal purposes." "Are any of these agents or detectives working on this case?" asked the girl, more hopefully. "Let us suppose so," he answered. "They do not confide their activities to the police, although if they call upon us, we must assist them. I personally saw that copies of these circulars were placed in the hands of a government agent, but have heard nothing more of the affair." "And you fear they will let the matter drop?" she questioned, trying to catch the drift of his cautiously expressed words. He did not answer that question at all. Instead, he quietly arranged some papers on his desk and after a pause that grew embarrassing, again turned to Mary Louise. "Whoever issued these circulars," he remarked, "is doubtless clever. He is also bitterly opposed to the administration, and we may logically suppose he will not stop in his attempts to block the government's conduct of the war. At every opportunity he will seek to poison the minds of our people and, sooner or later, he will do something that is decidedly actionable. Then we will arrest him and put an end to his career." "You think that, sir?" "I'm pretty sure of it, from long experience with criminals." "I suppose the Kaiser is paying him," said the girl, bitterly. "We've no grounds for that belief." "He is helping the Kaiser; he is pro-German!" "He is helping the Kaiser, but is not necessarily pro-German. We know he is against the government, but on the other hand he may detest the Germans. That his propaganda directly aids our enemies there is no doubt, yet his enmity may have been aroused by personal prejudice or intense opposition to the administration or to other similar cause. Such a person is an out-and-out traitor when his sentiments lead to actions which obstruct his country's interests. The traitors are not all pro-German. Let us say they are anti-American." Mary Louise was sorely disappointed. "I think I know who this traitor is, in spite of what you say," she remarked, "and I think you ought to watch him, Mr. Farnum, and try to prevent his doing more harm." The Chief studied her face. He seemed to have a theory that one may glean as much from facial expression as from words. "One ought to be absolutely certain," said he, "before accusing anyone of disloyalty. A false accusation is unwarranted. It is a crime, in fact. You have no idea, Miss Burrows, how many people come to us to slyly accuse a neighbor, whom they hate, of disloyalty. In not a single instance have they furnished proof, and we do not encourage mere telltales. I don't want you to tell me whom you suspect, but when you can lay before me a positive accusation, backed by facts that can be proven, I'll take up the case and see that the lawbreaker is vigorously prosecuted." The girl went away greatly annoyed by the Chief's reluctance to act in the matter, but when she had related the interview to Gran'pa, the old colonel said: "I like Farnum's attitude, which I believe to be as just as it is conservative. Suspicion, based on personal dislike, should not be tolerated. Why, Mary Louise, anyone might accuse you, or me, of disloyalty and cause us untold misery and humiliation in defending ourselves and proving our innocence--and even then the stigma on our good name would be difficult to remove entirely. Thousands of people have lost their lives in the countries of Europe through false accusations. But America is an enlightened nation, and let us hope no personal animosities will influence us or no passionate adherence to our country's cause deprive us of our sense of justice." "Our sense of justice," asserted Mary Louise, "should lead us to unmask traitors, and I know very well that somewhere in Dorfield lurks an enemy to my country." "We will admit that, my dear. But your country is watching out for those 'enemies within,' who are more to be feared than those without; and, if I were you, Mary Louise, I'd allow the proper officials to unmask the traitor, as they are sure to do in time. This war has placed other opportunities in your path to prove your usefulness to your country, as you have already demonstrated. Is it not so?" Mary Louise sighed. "You are always right, Gran'pa Jim," she said, kissing him fondly. "Drat that traitor, though! How I hate a snake in the grass." CHAPTER VI. TO HELP WIN THE WAR The activities of the Liberty Girls of Dorfield did not cease with their successful Liberty Bond "drive." Indeed, this success and the approbation of their fellow townspeople spurred the young girls on to further patriotic endeavor, in which they felt sure of enthusiastic encouragement. "As long as Uncle Sam needs his soldiers," said Peter Conant, the lawyer, "he'll need his Liberty Girls, for they can help win the war." When Mary Louise first conceived the idea of banding her closest companions to support the government in all possible ways, she was a bit doubtful if their efforts would prove of substantial value, although she realized that all her friends were earnestly determined to "do their bit," whatever the bit might chance to be. The local Red Cross chapter had already usurped many fields of feminine usefulness and with a thorough organization, which included many of the older women, was accomplishing a 'vast deal of good. Of course the Liberty Girls could not hope to rival the Red Cross. Mary Louise was only seventeen and the ages of the other Liberty Girls ranged from fourteen to eighteen, so they had been somewhat ignored by those who were older and more competent, through experience, to undertake important measures of war relief. The sensational bond sale, however, had made the youngsters heroines--for the moment, at least-- and greatly stimulated their confidence in themselves and their ambition to accomplish more. Mary Louise Burrows was an orphan; her only relative, indeed, was Colonel James Hathaway, her mother's father, whose love for his granddaughter was thoroughly returned by the young girl. They were good comrades, these two, and held many interests in common despite the discrepancy in their ages. The old colonel was "well-to-do," and although he could scarcely be called wealthy in these days of huge fortunes, his resources were ample beyond their needs. The Hathaway home was one of the most attractive in Dorfield, and Mary Louise and her grandfather were popular and highly respected. Their servants consisted of an aged pair of negroes named "Aunt Sally" and "Uncle Eben," who considered themselves family possessions and were devoted to "de ole mar'se an' young missy." Alora Jones, who lived in the handsomest and most imposing house in the little city, was an heiress and considered the richest girl in Dorfield, having been left several millions by her mother. Her father, Jason Jones, although he handled Alora's fortune and surrounded his motherless daughter with every luxury, was by profession an artist--a kindly man who encouraged the girl to be generous and charitable to a degree. They did not advertise their good deeds and only the poor knew how much they owed to the practical sympathy of Alora Jones and her father. Alora, however, was rather reserved and inclined to make few friends, her worst fault being a suspicion of all strangers, due to some unfortunate experiences she had formerly encountered. The little band of Liberty Girls included all of Alora's accepted chums, for they were the chums of Mary Louise, whom Alora adored. Their companionship had done much to soften the girl's distrustful nature. The other Liberty Girls were Laura Hilton, petite and pretty and bubbling with energy, whose father was a prominent real estate broker; Lucile Neal, whose father and three brothers owned and operated the Neal Automobile Factory, and whose intelligent zeal and knowledge of war conditions had been of great service to Mary Louise; Edna Barlow, a widowed dressmaker's only child, whose sweet disposition had made her a favorite with her girl friends, and Jane Donovan, the daughter of the Mayor of Dorfield and the youngest of the group here described. These were the six girls who had entered the bond campaign and assisted to complete Dorfield's quota of subscriptions, but there was one other Liberty Girl who had been unable to join them in this active work. This was Irene Macfarlane, the niece of Peter Conant. She had been a cripple since childhood and was confined to the limits of a wheeled chair. Far from being gloomy or depressed, however, Irene had the sunniest nature imaginable, and was always more bright and cheerful than the average girl of her age. "From my knees down," she would say confidentially, "I'm no good; but from my knees up I'm as good as anybody." She was an excellent musician and sang very sweetly; she was especially deft with her needle; she managed her chair so admirably that little assistance was ever required. Mrs. Conant called her "the light of the house," and to hear her merry laughter and sparkling conversation, you would speedily be tempted to forget that fate had been unkind to her and decreed that for life she must be wedded to a wheeled chair. If Irene resented this decree, she never allowed anyone to suspect it, and her glad disposition warded off the words of sympathy that might have pained her. While unable to sally forth in the Liberty Bond drive, Irene was none the less an important member of the band of Liberty Girls. "She's our inspiration," said Mary Louise with simple conviction. Teeming with patriotism and never doubting her ability to do something helpful in defeating her country's foes, Irene had many valuable suggestions to make to her companions and one of these she broached a few days after the bond sale ended so triumphantly. On this occasion the Liberty Girls had met with Irene at Peter Conant's cosy home, next door to the residence of Colonel Hathaway, for consultation as to their future endeavors. "Everyone is knitting for the soldiers and sailors," said Irene, "and while that is a noble work, I believe that we ought to do something different from the others. Such an important organization ought to render unusual and individual service on behalf of our beloved country. Is it not so?" "It's all very well, Irene, to back our beloved country," remarked Laura, "but the whole nation is doing that and I really hanker to help our soldier boys." "So do I," spoke up Lucile. "The government is equal to the country's needs, I'm sure, but the government has never taken any too good care of its soldiers and they'll lack a lot of things besides knitted goods when they get to the front." "Exactly," agreed Mary Louise. "Seems to me it's the girls' chief duty to look after the boys, and a lot of the drafted ones are marching away from Dorfield each day, looking pretty glum, even if loyally submitting to the inevitable. I tell you, girls, these young and green soldiers need encouraging, so they'll become enthusiastic and make the best sort of fighters, and we ought to bend our efforts to cheering them up." Irene laughed merrily. "Good!" she cried; "you're like a flock of sheep: all you need is a hint to trail away in the very direction I wanted to lead you. There are a lot of things we can do to add to our soldiers' comfort. They need chocolate--sweets are good for them--and 'comfort-kits' of the real sort, not those useless, dowdy ones so many well-intentioned women are wasting time and money to send them; and they'll be grateful for lots and lots of cigarettes, and--" "Oh, Irene! Do you think that would be right?" from Edna Barlow. "Of course it would. The government approves cigarettes and the French girls are supplying our boys across the pond with them even now. Surely we can do as much for our own brave laddies who are still learning the art of war. Not all smoke, of course, and some prefer pipes and tobacco, which we can also send them. Another thing, nearly every soldier needs a good pocket knife, and a razor, and they need games of all sorts, such as dominoes and checkers and cribbage-boards; and good honest trench mirrors, and--" "Goodness me, Irene," interrupted Jane Donovan, "how do you think we could supply all those things? To equip a regiment with the articles you mention would cost a mint of money, and where's the money coming from, and how are we to get it?" "There you go again, helping me out!" smiled Irene. "In your question, my dear, lies the crux of my suggestion. We Liberty Girls must raise the money." "How, Irene?" "I object to begging." "The people are tired of subscribing to all sorts of schemes." "We certainly are not female Croesuses!" "Perhaps you expect us to turn bandits and sandbag the good citizens on dark nights." Irene's smile did not fade; she simply glowed with glee at these characteristic protestations. "I can't blame you, girls, for you haven't thought the thing out, and I have," she stated. "My scheme isn't entirely original, for I read the other day of a similar plan being tried in another city, with good success. A plan similar, in some ways, but quite different in others. Yet it gave me the idea." "Shoot us the idea, then," said Jane, who was inclined to favor slang. "In order to raise money," said Irene, slowly and more seriously than she had before spoken, "it is necessary for us to go into business. The other day, when I was riding with Alora, I noticed that the store between the post-office and the Citizens' Bank is vacant, and a sign in the window said 'Apply to Peter Conant, Agent.' Peter Conant being my uncle, I applied to him that evening after dinner, on behalf of the Liberty Girls. It's one of the best locations in town and right in the heart of the business district. The store has commanded a big rental, but in these times it is not in demand and it has been vacant for the last six months, with no prospect of its being rented. Girls, Peter Conant will allow us to use this store room without charge until someone is willing to pay the proper rent for it, and so the first big problem is solved. Three cheers for Uncle Peter!" They stared at her rather suspiciously, not yet understanding her idea. "So far, so good, my dear," said Mary Louise. "We can trust dear old Peter Conant to be generous and patriotic. But what good is a store without stock, and how are we going to get a stock to sell--and sell it at a profit that will allow us to do all the things we long to do for the soldiers?" "Explain that, and I'm with you," announced Alora. "Explain that, and we're all with you!" declared Lucile Neal. "All I need is the opportunity," protested Irene. "You're such chatterboxes that you won't let me talk! Now--listen. I'm not much of an executioner, girls, but I can plan and you can execute, and in that way I get my finger in the pie. Now, I believe I've a practical idea that will work out beautifully. Dorfield is an ancient city and has been inhabited for generations. Almost every house contains a lot of articles that are not in use--are put aside and forgotten--or are not in any way necessary to the comfort and happiness of the owners, yet would be highly prized by some other family which does not possess such articles. For instance, a baby-carriage or crib, stored away in some attic, could be sold at a bargain to some young woman needing such an article; or some old brass candlesticks, considered valueless by their owner, would be eagerly bought by someone who did not possess such things and had a love for antiques. "My proposition is simply this: that you visit all the substantial homes in Dorfield and ask to be given whatever the folks care to dispense with, such items to be sold at 'The Liberty Girls' Shop' and the money applied to our War Fund to help the soldier boys. Lucile's brother, Joe Neal, will furnish us a truck to cart all the things from the houses to our store, and I'm sure we can get a whole lot of goods that will sell readily. The people will be glad to give all that they don't want to so good a cause, and what one doesn't want, another is sure to want. Whatever money we take in will be all to the good, and with it we can supply the boys with many genuine comforts. Now, then, how does my idea strike you?" Approval--even the dawn of enthusiasm--was written on every countenance. They canvassed all the pros and cons of the proposition at length, and the more they considered it the more practical it seemed. "The only doubtful thing," said Mary Louise, finally, "is whether the people will donate the goods they don't need or care for, but that can be easily determined by asking them. We ought to pair off, and each couple take a residence street and make a careful canvass, taking time to explain our plan. One day will show us whether we're to be successful or not, and the whole idea hinges on the success of our appeal." "Not entirely," objected Alora. "We may secure the goods, but be unable to sell them." "Nonsense," said little Laura Hilton; "nothing in the world sells so readily as second-hand truck. Just think how the people flock to auctions and the like. And we girls should prove good 'salesladies,' too, for we can do a lot of coaxing and get better prices than an auctioneer. All we need do is appeal to the patriotism of the prospective buyers." "Anyhow," asserted Edna, "it seems worth a trial, and we must admit the idea is attractive and unique--at least a novelty in Dorfield." So they planned their method of canvassing and agreed to put in the next day soliciting articles to sell at the Liberty Girls' Shop. CHAPTER VII THE LIBERTY SHOP Mary Louise said to her grandfather that night, after explaining Irene's novel scheme to raise money: "We haven't been housekeeping many years in Dorfield and I'm not sure I can find among our household possessions anything to give the Liberty Shop. But I've some jewelry and knickknacks that I never wear and, if you don't mind, Gran'pa Jim, I'll donate that to our shop." The Colonel was really enthusiastic over the plan and not only approved his granddaughter's proposition to give her surplus jewelry but went over the house with her and selected quite an imposing lot of odds and ends which were not in use and could readily be spared. Eager to assist the girls, the old colonel next morning went to town and ordered a big sign painted, to be placed over the store entrance, and he also induced the editors of the two newspapers to give the Liberty Girls' latest venture publicity in their columns, inviting the cooperation of the public. Peter Conant turned over the keys of the big store to the girls and the first load of goods to be delivered was that from the Hathaway residence. The Liberty Girls were astonished at the success of their solicitations. From almost every house they visited they secured donations of more or less value. It may have seemed "rubbish" to some of the donors, but the variety of goods that soon accumulated in the store room presented an interesting collection and the girls arranged their wares enticingly and polished up the brass and copper ornaments and utensils until they seemed of considerable value. They did not open their doors to the public for ten days, and Joe Neal began to grumble because one of his trucks was kept constantly running from house to house, gathering up the articles contributed to the Liberty Girls' Shop. But the girls induced other trucks to help Joe and the enthusiasm kept growing. Curiosity was spurred by the big sign over the closed doors, and every woman who donated was anxious to know what others had given to the shop. It was evident there would be a crowd at the formal "opening," for much was expected from the unique enterprise. Meantime, the girls were busily occupied. Each day one group solicited donations while another stayed at the store to arrange the goods. Many articles of furniture, more or less decrepit, were received, and a man was hired to varnish and patch and put the chairs, stands, tables, desks and whatnots into the best condition possible. Alora Jones thought the stock needed "brightening," so she induced her father to make purchases of several new articles, which she presented the girls as her share of the donations. And Peter Conant, finding many small pieces of jewelry, silverware and bric-a-brac among the accumulation, rented a big showcase for the girls, in which such wares were properly displayed. During these ten days of unflagging zeal the Liberty Girls were annoyed to discover that another traitorous circular had been issued. A large contingent of the selective draft boys had just been ordered away to the cantonment and the day before they left all their parents received a circular saying that the draft was unconstitutional and that their sons were being sacrificed by autocratic methods to further the political schemes of the administration. "Mr. Wilson," it ended, "is trying to make for himself a place in history, at the expense of the flesh and blood of his countrymen." This vile and despicable screed was printed from the same queer type as the former circulars denouncing the Liberty Bond sale and evidently emanated from the same source. Mary Louise was the first to secure one of the papers and its envelope, mailed through the local post-office, and her indignation was only equalled by her desire to punish the offender. She realized, however, her limitations, and that she had neither the time nor the talent to unmask the traitor. She could only hope that the proper authorities would investigate the matter. That afternoon, with the circular still in her handbag, she visited the clothing store of Jacob Kasker and asked the proprietor if he had any goods he would contribute to the Liberty Girls' Shop. Kasker was a stolid, florid-faced man, born in America of naturalized German parents, and therefore his citizenship could not be assailed. He had been quite successful as a merchant and was reputed to be the wealthiest clothing dealer in Dorfield. "No," said Kasker, shortly, in answer to the request. Mary Louise was annoyed by the tone. "You mean that you _won't_ help us, I suppose?" she said impatiently. He turned from his desk and regarded her with a slight frown. Usually his expression was stupidly genial. "Why should I give something for nothing?" he asked. "It isn't my war; I didn't make it, and I don't like it. Say, I got a boy--one son. Do you know they've drafted him--took him from his work without his consent, or mine, and marched him off to a war that there's no good excuse for?" "Well," returned Mary Louise, "your boy is one of those we're trying to help." "You won't help make him a free American again; you'll just help give him knickknacks so he won't rebel against his slavery." The girl's eyes flashed. "Mr. Kasker," she said sternly, "I consider that speech disloyal and traitorous. Men are being jailed every day for less!" He shrugged his shoulders. "I believe that is true, and it proves what a free country this is--does it not? Mr. Wilson's democracy is the kind that won't allow people to express their opinions, unless they agree with him. If I say I will stand by the American constitution, they will put me in jail." Mary Louise fairly gasped. She devoutly wished she had never approached this dreadful man. She felt ashamed to breathe the same air with him. But she hated to retreat without a definite display of her disgust at his perfidious utterances. Drawing the circular from her bag she spread it before him on his desk and said: "Read that!" He just glanced at it, proving he knew well its wording. Mary Louise was watching him closely. "Well, what about it?" he asked brusquely. "It expresses your sentiments, I believe." He turned upon her suspiciously. "You think I wrote it?" he demanded. "My thoughts are my own," retorted Mary Louise. Kasker's frown deepened. "Your thoughts may get you into trouble, my girl," he said slowly. "Let me tell you this: However much I hate this war, I'm not fighting it publicly. To you I have spoken in private--just a private conversation. The trouble with me is, I talk too much; I don't know enough to keep my mouth shut. I guess I'll never learn that. I ain't a hypocrite, and I ain't a pacifist. I say the United States must win this war because it has started the job, and right or wrong, must finish it. I guess we could beat the whole world, if we had to. But I ain't fool enough to say that all they do down at Washington is right, 'cause I know it ain't. But I'm standing by the flag. My boy is standing by the flag, and he'll fight as well as any in the whole army to keep the flag flying over this great republic. By and by we'll get better congressmen; the ones we got now are accidents. But in spite of all accidents--and they're mostly our own fault--I'm for America first, last and all the time. That's Jake Kasker. I don't like the Germans and I don't like the English, for Jake Kasker is a George Washington American. What are you doing, girl?" he suddenly asked with a change of tone. "I'm putting down that speech in shorthand in my notebook," said Mary Louise, "and I think I've got every word of it." She slipped the book in her bag and picked up the circular. "Good afternoon, Mr. Kasker!" The German seemed bewildered; he ran his fingers through his bushy hair as if trying to remember what he had said. "Wait!" he cried, as she turned away. "I've changed my mind about those goods; I'll send some over to your shop to be sold." "Don't do it," she replied, "for we won't accept them. Only those whose patriotism rings true are allowed to help us." Then she marched out of the big store, the proprietor at the desk staring at her fixedly until she had disappeared. "That's it, Jake," he said to himself, turning to his papers; "you talk too much. If a man prints a thing, and nobody knows who printed it, he's safe." CHAPTER VIII THE DETECTIVE'S DAUGHTER "I'm pretty sure, Gran'pa Jim," said Mary Louise that evening, "that I've trailed the traitor to his lair, and he's none other than--Jake Kasker!" This was the first time she had mentioned her suspicion of Kasker to him, and her statement was received by the colonel with moderate surprise, followed by a doubtful smile. "I know Jake," he remarked, "and while he is uneducated and his mind is unformed concerning most things outside the clothing business, I should hesitate to accuse him of downright disloyalty." "He's a German, and sympathizes with the Kaiser," asserted Mary Louise. "Did he say that?" "Well, not in so many words." "A German-American is not usually pro-German," the colonel declared, "for Germans who come to America come to escape the militarism and paternalism of the Junkers, which is proof in itself that they disapprove of what we term kaiserism. I know that Kasker talks foolishly against the war and resents the drafting of his son, but I think he is a good American at heart. He has bought Liberty Bonds more liberally than some who proclaim their patriotism from the housetops. I don't fear these outspoken objectors, my dear, as much as those who work slyly in the dark--such as the writers of those disgraceful circulars." "I practically accused Kasker of sending out those circulars," said Mary Louise, "and his defense was very lame and unconvincing. Listen, Grand'pa, to what he said. I took the speech down in shorthand, and that worried him, I'm sure." The colonel listened and shook his head gravely. "Yes, Jake Kasker talks too much," he confessed, "and much that he says is disloyal to our government and calculated to do much harm, especially if widely circulated. This is no time to criticise the men who are working hard to win the war; we should render them faithful support. The task before us is difficult and it will require a united country to defeat our enemies. I must talk to Jake Kasker." "Won't it be better to let the authorities deal with him?" suggested the girl. "They're certain to get him, in time, if he goes on this way. I believe I frightened him a bit this afternoon, but he's too dull to take warning. Anyhow, I shall relate the whole interview to Chief Farnum to-morrow morning." This she did, but the Chief gave her little satisfaction. "No one pays any attention to Kasker," he said. "He's a German, and a traitor!" she insisted. "A woman's intuition is seldom at fault, and I'm convinced he's responsible for this latest and most dreadful circular," and she laid it before him. "A girl's intuition is not as mature as a woman's intuition," the Chief answered in an impatient tone. "You force me to say, my dear young lady, that you are dabbling in affairs that do not concern you. I've plenty of those circulars on file and I'm attending to my duty and keeping an eye open for the rascal who wrote them. But there is no proof that Kasker is the man. The federal officers are also investigating the case, and I imagine they will not require your assistance." Mary Louise flushed but stood her ground. "Isn't it the duty of every patriotic person to denounce a traitor?" she inquired. "Yes, if there is proof. I think you are wrong about Kasker, but if you are able to bring me proof, I'll arrest him and turn him over to the federal agents for prosecution. But, for heaven's sake, don't bother me with mere suspicions." Mary Louise did not accept this rebuke graciously. She went away with the feeling that Chief Farnum was, for some reason, condoning a crime, and she was firmly resolved to obtain the required proof if it could be secured without subjecting herself to the annoyance of such rebuffs as the one she had just endured. "We ought not to permit such a snake in the grass to exist in dear old Dorfield," she told her girl associates. "Let us all try to discover absolute proof of Kasker's treachery." The other Liberty Girls were as indignant as Mary Louise, but were too intent on their present duties to pay much attention to Jake Kasker. For the Liberty Girls' Shop was now open to the public, and men, women and children crowded in to see what the girls had to offer. Sales were so brisk during the first week that the stock became depleted and once more they made a house to house canvass to obtain a new supply of material. This kept all six of the girls busily occupied. Irene each morning rode down to the shop in the Hathaway automobile--wheel-chair and all--and acted as cashier, so as to relieve the others of this duty. She could accomplish this work very nicely and became the Liberty Girls' treasurer and financial adviser. Each day she deposited in the bank the money received, and the amounts were so liberal that enthusiasm was easily maintained. "The soldier boys have reason to rejoice," said Irene complacently, "for we shall soon be able to provide them with numerous comforts and luxuries--all of which they are surely entitled to." So the new enterprise was progressing finely when, one evening, on reaching home from a busy day at the shop, Mary Louise found a letter that greatly pleased her. It was from an old and valued girl friend in Washington and after rambling along pleasantly on a variety of subjects the writer concluded as follows: "But we can talk all this over at our leisure, my dear, for I'm going to accept one of your many pressing invitations (the _first_ one, of course) and make you another little visit. I love Dorfield, and I love you, and the dear Colonel, and Irene and Alora, and I long to see all of you again. Moreover, Daddy is being sent abroad on a secret mission, and I should be lonely without him. So expect me at any time. In my usual erratic fashion I may follow on the heels of this letter, or I may lag behind it for a few days, but whenever I turn up at the Hathaway gate, I'll demand a kiss and a welcome for "JOSIE O'GORMAN." Now, this girl was in many ways so entirely unlike Mary Louise that one might wonder what link of sympathy drew them together, unless it was "the law of opposites." However, there was one quality in both their natures that might warrant the warm friendship existing between the two girls. Mary Louise was sweet and winning, with a charming, well-bred manner and a ready sympathy for all who were in trouble. She was attractive in person, particular as to dress, generous and considerate to a fault. The girl had been carefully reared and had well repaid the training of the gallant old colonel, her grandfather, who had surrounded her with competent instructors. Yet Mary Louise had a passion for mysteries and was never quite so happy as when engaged in studying a baffling personality or striving to explain a seeming enigma. Gran'pa Jim, who was usually her confidant when she "scented a mystery," often accused her of allowing her imagination to influence her judgment, but on several occasions the girl had triumphantly proven her intuitions to be correct. You must not think, from this statement, that Mary Louise was prone to suspect everyone she met; it was only on rare occasions she instinctively felt there was more beneath the surface of an occurrence than appeared to the casual observer, and then, if a wrong might be righted or a misunderstanding removed--but only in such event--she eagerly essayed to discover the truth. It was in this manner that she had once been of great service to her friend Alora Jones, and to others as well. It was this natural quality, combined with sincere loyalty, which made her long to discover and bring to justice the author of the pro-German circulars. Josie O'Gorman was small and "pudgy"--her own expression--red-haired and freckled-faced and snub-nosed. Her eyes redeemed much of this personal handicap, for they were big and blue as turquoises and as merry and innocent in expression as the eyes of a child. Also, the good humor which usually pervaded her sunny features led people to ignore their plainness. In dress, Josie was somewhat eccentric in her selections and careless in methods of wearing her clothes, but this might be excused by her engrossing interest in people, rather than in apparel. The girl was the daughter--the only child, indeed--of John O'Gorman, an old and trusted lieutenant of the government's secret-service. From Josie's childhood, the clever detective had trained her in all the subtle art of his craft, and allowing for her youth, which meant a limited experience of human nature and the intricacies of crime, Josie O'Gorman was now considered by her father to be more expert than the average professional detective. While the astute secret-service agent was more than proud of his daughter's talent, he would not allow her to undertake the investigation of crime as a profession until she was older and more mature. Sometimes, however, he permitted and even encouraged her to "practise" on minor or unimportant cases of a private nature, in which the United States government was not interested. Josie's talent drew Mary Louise to her magnetically. The detective's daughter was likewise a delightful companion. She was so well versed in all matters of national import, as well as in the foibles and peculiarities of the human race, that even conservative, old Colonel Hathaway admired the girl and enjoyed her society. Josie had visited Mary Louise more than once and was assured a warm welcome whenever she came to Dorfield. Most of the Liberty Girls knew Josie O'Gorman, and when they heard she was coming they straightway insisted she be made a member of their band. "She'll just _have_ to be one of us," said Mary Louise, "for I'm so busy with our wonderful Shop that I can't entertain Josie properly unless she takes a hand in our game, which I believe she will be glad to do." And Josie _was_ glad, and proclaimed herself a Liberty Girl the first hour of her arrival, the moment she learned what the patriotic band had already accomplished and was determined to accomplish further. "It's just play, you know, and play of the right sort--loyal and helpful to those who deserve the best we can give them, our brave soldiers and sailors. Count me in, girls, and you'll find me at the Liberty Shop early and late, where I promise to sell anything from an old hoopskirt to a decayed piano at the highest market price. We've had some 'rummage sales' in Washington, you know, but nothing to compare with this thorough and businesslike undertaking of yours. But I won't wear your uniform; I can't afford to allow the glorious red-white-and-blue to look dowdy, as it would on my unseemly form." CHAPTER IX GATHERING UP THE THREADS Josie O'Gorman had been in Dorfield several days before Mary Louise showed her the traitorous circulars that had been issued by some unknown obstructionist. At first she had been a little ashamed to acknowledge to her friend that a citizen of her own town could be so disloyal, but the matter had weighed heavily on her mind and so she decided to unload it upon Josie's shrewder intelligence. "I feel, dear, that the best service you can render us while here--the best you can render the nation, too--will be to try to discover this secret enemy," she said earnestly. "I'm sure he has done a lot of harm, already, and he may do much more if he is left undisturbed. Some folks are not too patriotic, even now, when we are facing the most terrible ordeal in our history, and some are often so weak as to be influenced by what I am sure is pro-German propaganda." Josie studied the various circulars. She studied the handwriting on the envelopes and the dates of the postmarks. Her attitude was tense, as that of a pointer dog who suddenly senses a trail. Finally she asked: "Do the police know?" Mary Louise related her two interviews with Chief Farnum. "How about the agents of the department of justice?" "I don't know of any," confessed Mary Louise. Josie put the circulars in her pocket. "Now, then, tell me whom you suspect, and why," she said. Until now Mary Louise had not mentioned the clothing merchant to Josie, but she related Jake Kasker's frank opposition to the war at the Liberty Bond mass-meeting and her interview with him in his store, in which he plainly showed his antagonism to the draft and to the administration generally. She read to Josie the shorthand notes she had taken and supplemented all by declaring that such a man could be guilty of any offense. "You see," she concluded, "all evidence points to Kasker as the traitor; but Chief Farnum is stubborn and independent, and we must obtain positive proof that Kasker issued those circulars. Then we can put an end to his mischief-making. I don't know how to undertake such a job, Josie, but you do; I'm busy at the Liberty Shop, and we can spare you from there better than any one else; so, if you want to 'practise,' here's an opportunity to do some splendid work." Josie was a good listener. She did not interrupt Mary Louise, but let her say all she had to say concerning this interesting matter. When her friend paused for lack of words, Josie remarked: "Every American's watchword should be: 'Swat the traitor!' War seems to breed traitors, somehow. During the Civil War they were called 'copperheads,' as the most venomous term that could be applied to the breed. We haven't yet coined an equally effective word in this war, but it will come in time. Meanwhile, every person--man or woman--who is not whole-heartedly with President Wilson and intent on helping win the war, is doing his country a vital injury. That's the flat truth, and I'd like to shake your Jake Kasker out of his suit of hand-me-down clothing. If he isn't a traitor, he's a fool, and sometimes fools are more dangerous than traitors. There! All this has got me riled, and an investigator has no business to get riled. They must be calm and collected." She slapped her forehead, settled herself in her chair and continued in a more moderate tone: "Now, tell me what other people in Dorfield have led you to suspect they are not in accord with the administration, or resent our entry into the Great War." Mary Louise gave her a puzzled look. "Oughtn't we to finish with Kasker, first?" she asked, hesitatingly, for she respected Josie's judgment. The girl detective laughed. "I've an impression we've already finished with him--unless I really give him that shaking," she replied. "I'll admit that such a person is mischievous and ought to be shut up, either by jailing him or putting a plaster over his mouth, but I can't believe Jake Kasker guilty of those circulars." "Why not?" in an aggrieved tone. "Well, in spite of his disloyal mutterings, his deeds are loyal. He's disgruntled over the loss of his son, and doesn't care who knows it, but he'll stand pat and spank the kid if he doesn't fight like a tartar. He hates the war--perhaps we all hate it, in a way--but he'll buy Liberty Bonds and help win a victory. I know that sort; they're not dangerous; just at war with themselves, with folly and honesty struggling for the mastery. Let him alone and in a few months you'll find Kasker making patriotic speeches." "Oh, Josie!" "Think of someone else." Mary Louise shook her head. "What, only one string to your bow of distrust? Fie, Mary Louise! When you were selling Liberty Bonds, did you meet with no objectors?" "Well--yes; there's a wholesale grocer here, who is named Silas Herring, a very rich man, but sour and disagreeable." "Did he kick on the bonds?" "Yes." "Then tell me all about him." "When I first entered his office, Mr. Herring made insulting remarks about the bonds and accused our government of being dominated by the English. He was very bitter in his remarks, but in his office were two other men who remonstrated with him and--" "What were the two men doing there?" "Why, they were talking about something, when I entered; I didn't hear what, for when they saw me they became silent." "Were they clerks, or grocers--customers?" "No; one was our supervisor, Andrew Duncan--" "And the other man?" asked Josie. "Our superintendent of schools, Professor Dyer." "Oh; then they were talking politics." "I suppose likely. I was obliged to argue with Mr. Herring and became so incensed that I threatened him with the loss of his trade. But Mr. Duncan at once subscribed for Liberty Bonds, and so did Professor Dyer, and that shamed Silas Herring into buying a big bunch of them also." "H-m-m," murmured Josie contentedly. "Then neither of the three had purchased any bonds until then?" "I think not. Gran'pa Jim had himself tried to sell Mr. Herring and had been refused." "I see. How much did the supervisor invest in bonds?" "One hundred dollars." "Too little. And the Professor?" "Five hundred." "Too much. He couldn't afford it, could he?" "He said it was more than his salary warranted, but he wanted to be patriotic." "Oh, well; the rich grocer took them off his hands, perhaps. No disloyal words from the Professor or the supervisor?" "No, indeed; they rebuked Mr. Herring and made him stop talking." Josie nodded, thoughtfully. "Well, who else did you find disloyal?" "No one, so far as I can recollect. Everyone I know seems genuinely patriotic--except," as an afterthought, "little Annie Boyle, and she doesn't count." "Who is little Annie Boyle?" "No one much. Her father keeps the Mansion House, one of the hotels here, but not one of the best. It's patronized by cheap traveling men and the better class of clerks, I'm told, and Mr. Boyle is said to do a good business. Annie knows some of our girls, and they say she hates the war and denounces Mr. Wilson and everybody concerned in the war. But Annie's a silly little thing, anyhow, and of course she couldn't get out those circulars." Josie wrote Annie Boyle's name on her tablets--little ivory affairs which she always carried and made notes on. "Do you know anyone else at the Mansion House?" she inquired. "Not a soul." "How old is Annie?" "Fourteen or fifteen." "She didn't conceive her unpatriotic ideas; she has heard someone else talk, and like a parrot repeats what she has heard." "Perhaps so; but--" "All right. I'm not going to the Liberty Girls' Shop to-morrow, Mary Louise. At your invitation I'll make myself scarce, and nose around. To be quite frank, I consider this matter serious; more serious than you perhaps suspect. And, since you've put this case in my hands, I'm sure you and the dear colonel won't mind if I'm a bit eccentric in my movements while I'm doing detective work. I know the town pretty well, from my former visits, so I won't get lost. I may not accomplish anything, but you'd like me to try, wouldn't you?" "Yes, indeed. That's why I've told you all this. I feel something ought to be done, and I can't do it myself." Josie slipped the tablets into her pocket. "Mary Louise, the United States is honeycombed with German spies," she gravely announced. "They're keeping Daddy and all the Department of Justice pretty busy, so I've an inkling as to their activities. German spies are encouraged by German propagandists, who are not always German but may be Americans, or even British by birth, but are none the less deadly on that account. The paid spy has no nationality; he is true to no one but the devil, and he and his abettors fatten on treachery. His abettors are those who repeat sneering and slurring remarks about our conduct of the war. You may set it down that whoever is not pro-American is pro-German; whoever does not favor the Allies--all of them, mind you--favors the Kaiser; whoever is not loyal in this hour of our country's greatest need is a traitor." "You're right, Josie!" "Now," continued Josie, reflectively, "you and I must both understand that we're undertaking a case that is none of our business. It's the business of Mr. Bielaski, of the department of justice, first of all; then it's the business of Mr. Flynn, of the secret service; then it's the business of the local police. Together, they have a thousand eyes, but enemy propagandists are more numerous and scattered throughout the nation. Your chief of police doesn't want to interfere with the federal agents here, and the federal agents are instructed not to pay attention to what is called 'spy hysteria,' and so they're letting things slide. But you believe, and I believe, that there's more treachery underlying these circulars than appears on the surface, and if we can secure evidence that is important, and present it to the proper officials, we shall be doing our country a service. So I'll start out on my own responsibility." "Doesn't your secret service badge give you authority?" asked Mary Louise. "No," replied Josie; "that badge is merely honorary. Daddy got it for me so that if ever I got into trouble it would help me out, but it doesn't make me a member of the secret service or give me a bit of authority. But that doesn't matter; when I get evidence, I know what authority to give it to, and that's all that is necessary." "Anyhow," said Mary Louise, with a relieved sigh, "I'm glad you are going to investigate the author of those awful circulars. It has worried me a good deal to think that Dorfield is harboring a German spy, and I have confidence that if anyone can discover the traitor, you can." "That's good of you," returned Josie, with a grimace, "but I lack a similar confidence in myself. Don't you remember how many times I've foozled?" "But sometimes, Josie, you've won, and I hope you'll win now." "Thank you," said Josie; "I hope so, myself." CHAPTER X THE EXPLOSION Day was just beginning to break when a terrible detonation shook all Dorfield. Houses rocked, windows rattled, a sudden wind swept over the town and then a glare that was not a presage of the coming sun lit the sky. A brief silence succeeded the shock, but immediately thereafter whistles shrieked, fire-bells clanged, a murmur of agitated voices crying aloud was heard on every side, and the people began pouring from the houses into the streets demanding the cause of the alarm. Colonel Hathaway, still weak and nervous, stood trembling in his bathrobe when Mary Louise came to him. "It's the airplane factory, Gran'pa Jim," she said. "I can see it from my windows. Something must have exploded and the buildings are on fire." The airplane works of Dorfield had been one of the city's most unique institutions, but until we entered the World War it was not deemed of prime importance. The government's vast airplane appropriations, however, had resulted in the Dorfield works securing contracts for the manufacture of war machines that straightway raised the enterprise to an important position. The original plant had been duplicated a dozen times, until now, on the big field south of the city, the cluster of buildings required for the construction of aircraft was one of the most imposing manufacturing plants in that part of the State. Skilled government aviators had been sent to Dorfield to inspect every machine turned out. Although backed by local capital, it was, in effect, a government institution because it was now devoted exclusively to government contracts; therefore the explosion and fire filled every loyal heart with a sinister suspicion that an enemy had caused the calamity. Splendid work on the part of the fire department subdued the flames after but two of the huge shed-like buildings had been destroyed. By noon the fire was controlled; a cordon of special police surrounded the entire plant and in one of the yards a hundred and fifty workmen were corralled under arrest until the federal officers had made an investigation and decided where to place the blame. Reassuring reports had somewhat quieted Colonel Hathaway and Mary Louise, but although they returned to their rooms, they could not sleep. Aunt Sally, realizing the situation, had an early breakfast prepared, but when she called Josie O'Gorman the girl was not in her room or in the house. She appeared just as the others were finishing their meal and sat down with a sigh of content. "My, but the coffee smells good!" she exclaimed. "I'm worn out with the excitement." "Did you go to the fire, Josie?" asked Mary Louise. "Yes, and got there in time to help drag some of the poor fellows out. Three men in the building where the explosion occurred were killed outright, and two others seriously injured. Fortunately the night shift had just quit work or the casualties would have been much greater." "It's dreadful, as it is," said Mary Louise with a shudder. "What was the cause of the explosion!" inquired the colonel. "Dynamite," replied Josie calmly. "Then it was not an accident?" "They don't use dynamite in making airplanes. Twenty-two machines, all complete and packed ready for shipment, were blown to smithereens. A good many others, in course of construction, were ruined. It's a pretty bad mess, I can tell you, but the machines can be replaced, and the lives can't." "I wonder who did it," said Mary Louise, staring at her friend with frightened eyes. "The Kaiser," declared Josie. "He must be in fine fettle this morning, since his propaganda of murder and arson has been so successful." "I--I don't quite understand you," faltered Mary Louise. "Josie means that this is the work of a direct emissary of the Kaiser," explained the colonel. "We know that among us are objectors and pacifists and those who from political motives are opposing the activities of our President, but these are not dynamiters, nor do they display their disloyalty except through foolish and futile protests. One who resorts to murder and arson in an attempt to block the government's plans, and so retard our victory, is doubtless a hired assassin and in close touch with the German master-spies who are known to be lurking in this country." "That's the idea, sir," approved Josie, nodding her tousled red head, "and better expressed than any answer of mine could have been." "Well, then, can't this demon be arrested and punished?" asked Mary Louise. "That remains to be seen," said Josie. "An investigation is already under way. All the outgoing night shift and some of the incoming day shift have been held under suspicion, until they can be examined and carefully questioned. I heard your Chief of Police--whom I know and knows me--assert that without doubt the bomb had been placed by one of the workmen. I wonder what makes him think that. Also the police are hunting for everyone seen loitering about the airplane plant during the past twenty-four hours. They'll spend days--perhaps weeks--in investigating, and then the affair will quiet down and be forgotten." "You fear they will not be able to apprehend the criminal?" from the colonel. "Not the way the police are going at it. They're virtually informing the criminal that they're hunting for him but don't know where to find him, and that if he isn't careful they'll get him. So he's going to be careful. It is possible, of course, that the fellow has left traces-- clues that will lead to his discovery and arrest. Still, I'm not banking much on that. Such explosions have been occurring for months, in various parts of the country, and the offenders have frequently escaped. The government suspects that German spies are responsible, but an indefinite suspicion is often as far as it gets. Evidence is lacking." "How about your boasted department of justice, and the secret service?" asked Mary Louise. "They're as good as the German spy system, and sometimes a bit better. Don't think for a minute that our enemies are not clever," said Josie earnestly. "Sometimes our agents make a grab; sometimes the German spy remains undiscovered. It's diamond cut diamond--fifty-fifty. But when we get every alien enemy sequestered in zones removed from all factories doing government work, we're going to have less trouble. A lot of these Germans and Austrians are liberty-loving Americans, loyal and true, but we must round up the innocent many, in order to squelch the guilty few." The following week was one of tense excitement for Dorfield. Federal officers poured into the city to assist in the investigation; the victims were buried with honor and ceremony, wrapped in American flags to show that these "soldiers of industry" had been slain by their country's foe; the courtrooms were filled with eager mobs hoping that evidence would be secured against some one of the many suspects. Gradually, however, the interest decreased, as Josie had predicted it would. A half dozen suspects were held for further examination and the others released. New buildings were being erected at the airplane plant, and although somewhat crippled, the business of manufacturing these necessary engines of war was soon going on much as usual. CHAPTER XI A FONT OF TYPE Mary Louise went into Josie O'Gorman's room and found the young girl bent over a table on which were spread the disloyal circulars. "You've been studying those things for nearly two weeks, Josie," she said. "Have you made any discoveries?" "I know a lot more about the circulars than I did," answered Josie. "For instance, there are nineteen printing offices in Dorfield, and only two of them have this kind of type." "Oh, that's something, indeed!" cried Mary Louise. "One of the two offices must have printed the circulars." "No; the curious fact is that neither printed them," returned Josie, regarding the circulars with a frown. "How do you know?" "It's an old style of type, not much in use at present," explained the youthful detective. "In one printing office the case that contains this type face hasn't been used for months and months. I found all the compartments covered with dust a quarter of an inch thick. There wasn't a trace of the type having been disturbed. I proved this by picking out a piece of type, which scattered the dust and brought to light the shining bodies of the other type in that compartment. So the circulars could never have been printed from that case of type." "But the other printing office?" "Well, there they had a font of the same style of type, which is occasionally used in job printing; but it's a small font and has only twenty-four small a's. I rummaged the whole shop, and found none of the type standing, out of the case. Another thing, they had only three capital G's, and one of those was jammed and damaged. In the last circular issued, no less than seven capital G's appear. In the first one sent out I find fifty-eight small a's. All this convinces me the circulars were issued from no regular printing office." "Then how did it get printed?" asked Mary Louise. "That's what puzzles me," confessed Josie. "Three of the four big manufacturing concerns here have outfits and do their own printing--or part of it, anyhow--and I don't mind saying I expected to find my clue in one of those places, rather than in a regular printing office. But I've made an exhaustive search, aided by the managers, and there's no type resembling that used in the circulars in any of the private print shops. In fact, I'm up a stump!" "But why do you attach so much importance to this matter?" queried Mary Louise. "It's the most direct route to the traitor. Find who printed the circulars and you've got your hand on the man who wrote and mailed them. But the printing baffles me, and so I've started another line of investigation." "What line is that, Josie?" "The circular envelopes were addressed by hand, with pen and ink. The ink is a sort in common use. The envelopes are an ordinary commercial kind. The circulars are printed on half a sheet of letter-size typewriting paper, sold in several stationery store in large quantities. No clue there. But the handwriting is interesting. It's disguised, of course, and the addressing was done by two different people--that's plain." "You are wonderful, Josie!" "I'm stupid as a clam, Mary Louise. See here!" she went to a closet and brought out a large card-board box, which she placed upon the table. It was filled to the brim with envelopes, addressed to many business firms in Dorfield, but all bearing the local postmark. "Now, I've been days collecting these envelopes," continued the girl, "and I've studied them night after night. I'm something of a handwriting expert, you know, for that is one of the things that Daddy has carefully taught me. These envelopes came from all sorts of people--folks making inquiries, paying bills, ordering goods, and the like. I've had an idea from the first that some prominent person--no ordinary man--is responsible for the circulars. They're well worded, grammatical, and the malicious insinuations are cleverly contrived to disconcert the loyal but weak brethren. However, these envelopes haven't helped me a bit. Neither of the two persons who addressed the envelopes of the circulars addressed any of these business envelopes. Of that I'm positive." "Dear me," said Mary Louise, surprised, "I'd no idea you'd taken so much trouble, Josie." "Well, I've undertaken a rather puzzling case, my dear, and it will mean more trouble than you can guess, before I've solved it. This pro-German scoundrel is clever; he suspected that he'd be investigated and has taken every precaution to prevent discovery. Nevertheless, the cleverest criminal always leaves some trace behind him, if one can manage to find it, so I'm not going to despair at this stage of the game." "Do you know," said Mary Louise thoughtfully, "I've had an idea that there's some connection between the explosion at the airplane works and the sender of these circulars." Josie gave her a queer look. "What connection do you suspect?" she asked quickly. "Why, the man who wrote those circulars would not stop at any crime to harass the government and interfere with the promotion of the war." "Is that as far as you've gone?" "Have you gone any farther, Josie?" "A step, Mary Louise. It looks to me as if there is an organized band of traitors in Dorfield. No one person is responsible for it all. Didn't I say two different people addressed the circulars in disguised handwriting? Now, a bomb has to be constructed, and placed, and timed, and I don't credit any one person with handling such a job and at the same time being aware that the utmost damage to the War Department's plans would be accomplished by blowing up the airplane works. That argues intelligent knowledge of national and local affairs. There may be but two conspirators, and there may be more, but the more there are, the easier it will be for me to discover them." "Naturally," agreed Mary Louise. "But, really, Josie, I don't see how you're going to locate a clue that will guide you. Have you attended the trial of those suspected of the bomb outrage?" "I've seen all the testimony. There isn't a culprit in the whole bunch. The real criminal is not even suspected, as yet," declared Josie. "The federal officers know this, and are just taking things easy and making the trials string out, to show they're wide awake. Also I've met two secret service men here--Norman Addison and old Jim Crissey. I know nearly all of the boys. But they haven't learned anything important, either." "Are these men experienced detectives?" "They've done some pretty good work, but nothing remarkable. In these times the government is forced to employ every man with any experience at all, and Crissey and Addison are just ordinary boys, honest and hard-working, but not especially talented. Daddy would have discovered something in twenty-four hours; but Daddy has been sent abroad, for some reason, and there are many cases of espionage and sabotage fully as important as this, in this spy-infested land. That's why poor Josie O'Gorman is trying to help the government, without assignment or authority. If I succeed, however, I'll feel that I have done my bit." "Don't you get discouraged, dear, at times?" "Never! Why, Mary Louise, discouragement would prove me a dub. I'm puzzled, though, just now, and feeling around blindly in the dark to grab a thread that may lead me to success. If I have luck, presently I'll find it." She put away the envelopes, as she spoke, and resuming her seat drew out her tablets and examined the notes she had made thereon. Josie used strange characters in her memoranda, a sort of shorthand she had herself originated and which could be deciphered only by her father or by herself. "Here's a list of suspects," she said. "Not that they're necessarily connected with our case, but are known to indulge in disloyal sentiments. Hal Grober, the butcher, insists on selling meat on meatless days and won't defer to the wishes of Mr. Hoover, whom he condemns as a born American but a naturalized Englishmen. He's another Jake Kasker, too noisy to be guilty of clever plotting." "They're both un-American!" exclaimed Mary Louise. "There ought to be a law to silence such people, Josie." "Don't worry, my dear; they'll soon be silenced," predicted her friend. "Either better judgment will come to their aid or the federal courts will get after them. We shouldn't allow anyone to throw stones at the government activities, just at this crisis. They may _think_ what they please, but must keep their mouths shut." "I'm sorry they can even think disloyalty," said Mary Louise. "Well, even that will be remedied in time," was the cheerful response. "No war more just and righteous was ever waged than this upon which our country has embarked, and gradually that fact will take possession of those minds, which, through prejudice, obstinacy or ignorance, have not yet grasped it. I'm mighty proud of my country, Mary Louise, and I believe this war is going to give us Americans a distinction that will set us up in our own opinion and in the eyes of the world. But always there is a willful objection, on the part of some, toward any good and noble action, and we must deal charitably with these deluded ones and strive to win them to an appreciation of the truth." "Isn't that carrying consideration too far?" asked Mary Louise. "No. Our ministers are after the unregenerates, not after the godly. The noblest act of humanity is to uplift a fellow creature. Even in our prisons we try to reform criminals, to make honest men of them rather than condemn them to a future of crime. It would be dreadful to say: 'You're _all_ yellow; go to thunder!'" "Yes; I believe you're right," approved the other girl. "That is, your theory is correct, but the wicked sometimes refuse to reform." "Usually the fault of the reformers, my dear. But suppose we redeem a few of them, isn't it worth while? Now, let me see. Here's a washwoman who says the Kaiser is a gentleman, and a street-car driver who says it's a rich man's war. No use bothering with such people in our present state of blind groping. And here's the list that you, yourself, gave to me: One Silas Herring, a wholesale grocer. I'm going to see him. He's a big, successful man, and being opposed to the administration is dangerous. Herring is worth investigating, and with him is associated Professor John Dyer, superintendent of schools." "Oh, Professor Dyer is all right," said Mary Louise hastily. "It was he who helped bring Mr. Herring to time, and afterward he took Gran'pa Jim's place on the Bond Committee and solicited subscriptions." "Did he get any?" "Any what?" "Subscriptions." "--I believe so. Really, I don't know." "Well, _I_ know," said Josie, "for I've inspected the records. Your professor--who, by the way, is only a professor by courtesy and a politician by profession--worked four days on the bond sale and didn't turn in a single subscription. He had a lot of wealthy men on his list and approached them in such a manner that they all positively declined to buy bonds. Dyer's activities kept these men from investing in bonds when, had they been properly approached, they would doubtless have responded freely." "Good gracious! Are you sure, Josie?" "I'm positive. I've got a cross opposite the name of Professor John Dyer, and I'm going to know more about him--presently. His bosom chum is the Honorable Andrew Duncan, a man with an honest Scotch name but only a thirty-second or so of Scotch blood in his veins. His mother was a German and his grandmother Irish and his greatgrandmother a Spanish gipsy." "How did you learn all that, Josie?" "By making inquiries. Duncan was born in Dorfield and his father was born in the county. He's a typical American--a product of the great national melting-pot--but no patriot because he has no sympathy for any of the European nations at war, or even with the war aims of his native land. He's a selfish, scheming, unprincipled politician; an office-holder ever since he could vote; a man who would sacrifice all America to further his own personal ends." "Then, you think Mr. Duncan may--might be--is--" "No," said Josie, "I don't. The man might instigate a crime and encourage it, in a subtle and elusive way, but he's too shrewd to perpetrate a crime himself. I wouldn't be surprised if Duncan could name the man--or the band of traitors--we're looking for, if he chose to, but you may rest assured he has not involved his own personality in any scheme to balk the government." "I can't understand that sort of person," said Mary. Louise, plaintively. "It's because you haven't studied the professional politician. He has been given too much leeway heretofore, but his days, I firmly believe, are now numbered," Josie answered. "Now, here's my excuse for investigating Silas Herring and his two cronies, Dyer and Duncan. All three of them happen to be political bosses in this section. It is pretty generally known that they are not in sympathy with President Wilson and the administration. They are shrewd enough to know that the popularity of the war and the President's eloquent messages have carried the country by storm. So they cannot come right out into the open with their feelings. At the same time, they can feel themselves losing control of the situation. In fact, the Herring gang is fearful that at the coming elections they will be swept aside and replaced with out-and-out loyal supporters of the President. So they're going to try to arouse sentiment against the administration and against the war, in order to head off the threatened landslide. Dyer hoped to block the sale of Liberty Bonds, blinding folks to his intent by subscribing for them himself; but you girls foiled that scheme by your enthusiastic 'drive.' What the other conspirators have done, I don't know, but I imagine their energies will not be squelched by one small defeat. I don't expect to land any of the three in jail, but I think they all ought to be behind the bars, and if I shadow them successfully, one or the other may lead me to their tools or confederates--the ones directly guilty of issuing the disloyal circulars and perhaps of placing the bomb that damaged the airplane works and murdered some of its employes." Mary Louise was pale with horror when Josie finished her earnest and convincing statement. She regarded her friend's talent with profound admiration. Nevertheless, the whole matter was becoming so deep, so involved that she could only think of it with a shudder. "I'm almost sorry," said the girl, regretfully, "that I ever mixed up in this dreadful thing." "I'm not sorry," returned Josie. "Chasing traitors isn't the pleasantest thing in the world, even for a regular detective, but it's a duty I owe my country and I'm sufficiently interested to probe the affair to the extent of my ability. If I fail, nothing is lost, and if I win I'll have done something worth while. Here's another name on the list of suspects you gave me--Annie Boyle, the hotel-keeper's daughter." "Don't bother about Annie, for goodness' sake," exclaimed Mary Louise. "She hasn't the brains or an opportunity to do any harm, so you'd better class her with Kasker and the butcher." But Josie shook her head. "There's a cross opposite her name," said she. "I don't intend to shuffle Annie Boyle into the discard until I know more about her." CHAPTER XII JOSIE BUYS A DESK The "Liberty Girls' Shop" was proving a veritable mint. Expenses were practically nothing, so all the money received could be considered clear profit. It was amusing to observe the people who frequented the shop, critically examining the jumble of wares displayed, wondering who had donated this or that and meantime searching for something that could be secured at a "bargain." Most of the shrewd women had an idea that these young girls would be quite ignorant of values and might mark the articles at prices far below their worth, but the "values" of such goods could only be conjectural, and therefore the judgment of the older women was no more reliable than that of the girls. They might think they were getting bargains, and perhaps were, but that was problematic. The one outstanding fact was that people were buying a lot of things they had no use for, merely because they felt they were getting them cheaply and that their money would be devoted to a good cause. Mrs. Brown, who had given the Shop a lot of discarded articles, purchased several discarded articles donated by Mrs. Smith, her neighbor, while Mrs. Smith eagerly bought the cast-off wares of Mrs. Brown. Either would have sneered at the bare idea of taking "truck" which the other had abandoned, had the medium of exchange not been the popular Liberty Girls' Shop. For it was a popular shop; the "best families" patronized it; society women met there to chat and exchange gossip; it was considered a mark of distinction and highly patriotic to say: "Oh, yes; I've given the dear girls many really valuable things to sell. They're doing such noble work, you know." Even the eminent Mrs. Charleworth, premier aristocrat of Dorfield, condescended to visit the Shop, not once but many times. She would sit in one of the chairs in the rear of the long room and hold open court, while her sycophants grouped around her, hanging on her words. For Mrs. Charleworth's status was that of social leader; she was a middle-aged widow, very handsome, wore wonderful creations in dress, was of charming personality, was exceedingly wealthy and much traveled. When she visited New York the metropolitan journals took care to relate the interesting fact. Mrs. Charleworth was quite at home in London, Paris, Berlin and Vienna; she was visiting friends in Dresden when the European war began, and by advice of Herr Zimmerman, of the German Foreign Office, who was in some way a relative, had come straight home to avoid embarrassment. This much was generally known. It had been a matter of public information in the little town for a generation that Dick Charleworth had met the lady in Paris, when she was at the height of her social glory, and had won the hand of the beautiful girl and brought her to Dorfield as his wife. But the wealthy young manufacturer did not long survive his marriage. On his death, his widow inherited his fortune and continued to reside in the handsome residence he had built, although, until the war disrupted European society, she passed much time abroad. The slight taint of German blood in Mrs. Charleworth's veins was not regarded seriously in Dorfield. Her mother had been a Russian court beauty; she spoke several languages fluently; she was discreet in speech and negative in sympathy concerning the merits of the war. This lasted, however, only while the United States preserved neutrality. As soon as we cast our fortunes with the Allies, Mrs. Charleworth organized the "Daughters of Helpfulness," an organization designed to aid our national aims, but a society cult as well. Under its auspices two private theatrical entertainments had been given at the Opera House and the proceeds turned over to the Red Cross. A grand charity ball had been announced for a future date. It may easily be understood that when Mrs. Charleworth became a patroness of the Liberty Girls' Shop, and was known to have made sundry purchases there, the high standing of that unique enterprise was assured. Some folks perhaps frequented the place to obtain a glimpse of the great Mrs. Charleworth herself, but of course these were without the pale of her aristocratic circle. Their social triumph, however, was but one reason for the girls' success; the youngsters were enticing in themselves, and they proved to be clever in making sales. The first stock soon melted away and was replaced by new contributions, which the girls took turns in soliciting. The best residences in Dorfield were first canvassed, then those of people in moderate circumstances. The merchants were not overlooked and Mary Louise took the regular stores personally in charge. "Anything you have that you can't sell, we will take," was her slogan, and most of the merchants found such articles and good-naturedly contributed them to the Shop. "Sooner or later we shall come to the end of our resources," predicted Alora Jones. "We've ransacked about every house in town for contributions." "Let's make a second canvas then," suggested Lucile. "And especially, let us make a second appeal to those who did not give us anything on our first round. Our scheme wasn't thoroughly understood at first, you know, but now folks regard it an honor to contribute to our stock." "Yes," said Jane Donovan, "I had to laugh when Mrs. Charleworth asked Mrs. Dyer yesterday what she had given us, and Mrs. Dyer stammered and flushed and said that when we called on her the Dyers were only renting the house and furniture, which belonged to the Dudley-Markhams, who are in South America; but, Mrs. Dyer added, they have now bought the place--old furniture and all--and perhaps she would yet find some items she can spare." "Very good," said Edna Barlow; "the Dyers are in my district and I'll call upon them at once." "Have the Dyers really bought the Dudley-Markham place?" asked Mary Louise. "So it seems," replied Jane. "But--'it must have cost a lot of money." "Isn't the Professor rich?" inquired Josie O'Gorman, who was present and had listened quietly to the conversation. "I-don't-know," answered Mary Louise, and the other girls forbore to answer more definitely. That evening, however, Josie approached the subject when she and Mary Louise were sitting quietly at home and the conversation more confidential. "The Dyers," explained her friend, "were not very prosperous until the Professor got the appointment as superintendent of schools. He was a teacher in a boys' school for years, on a small salary, and everyone was surprised when he secured the appointment." "How did it happen?" asked Josie. Mary Louise looked across at her grandfather. "How did it happen, Gran'pa Jim?" she repeated. The old colonel lowered his book. "We haven't been residents of Dorfield many years," said he, "so I am not well acquainted with the town's former history. But I remember to have heard that the Herring political ring, which elected our Board of Education, proposed John Dyer for the position of school superintendent--and the Board promptly gave him the appointment." "Was he properly qualified?" Josie asked. "I think so. A superintendent is a sort of business manager. He doesn't teach, you know. But I understand the Professor received his education abroad--at Heidelburg--and is well versed in modern educational methods. Our schools seem to be conducted very well." Josie was thoughtful for a time, and after the colonel had resumed his book, she asked Mary Louise: "Who was Mrs. Dyer, before her marriage?" "That is ancient history, as far as I am concerned, but I heard the girls talking about her, just the other day. Her family, it seems, was respectable but unimportant; yet Mrs. Dyer is very well liked. She's not brilliant, but kindly. When we first came here, the Dyers lived in a little cottage on Juniper street, and it is only lately that they moved to the big house they've just bought. Mrs. Dyer is now trying hard for social recognition, but seems to meet with little encouragement. Mrs. Charleworth speaks to her, you know, but doesn't invite Mrs. Dyer to her affairs." Next day Edna Barlow, after a morning's quest of contributions, returned to the Shop in triumph. "There's almost a truck-load of stuff outside, to be unloaded," she announced, "and a good half of it is from Mrs. Dyer--a lot of the old Dudley-Markham rubbish, you know. It has class to it, girls, and when it has been freshened up, we're sure to get good prices for the lot." "I'm surprised that Mrs. Dyer was so liberal," said Mary Louise. "Well, at first she said the Professor had gone to Chicago on business, and so she couldn't do anything for us," replied Edna; "but I insisted that we needed goods right now, so she finally said we could go up in the attic, and rummage around, and take whatever we could find. My, what a lot of useless stuff there was! That attic has more smashed and battered and broken-legged furniture in it than would furnish six houses--provided it was in shape. The accumulation of ages. But a lot of it is antique, girls, and worth fixing up. I've made the best haul of our career, I verily believe." Then Laura Hilton, who had accompanied Edna, added: "When Mrs. Dyer saw our men carrying all that stuff down, she looked as if she regretted her act and would like to stop us. But she didn't--was ashamed to, probably--so we lugged it off. Never having been used to antique furniture, the poor woman couldn't realize the value of it." "This seems to me almost like robbery," remarked Lucile, doubtfully. "Do you think it right for us to take advantage of the woman's ignorance?" "Remember the Cause for which we fight!" admonished Irene, from her chair. "If the things people are not using, and do not want, can provide comforts for our soldier boys, we ought to secure them--if we have to take them by force." The attic of the old house had really turned out a number of interesting articles. There were tables, stands, settees, chairs, and a quaint old desk, set on a square pedestal with a base of carved lions' feet. This last interested Josie as soon as it was carried into the shop. The top part was somewhat dilapidated, the cover of the desk being broken off and some of the "pigeonhole" compartments smashed. But there was an odd lot of tiny drawers, located in every conceivable place, all pretty well preserved, and the square pedestal and the base were in excellent condition. Josie open drawer after drawer and looked the old cabinet-desk over thoroughly, quite unobserved because the others in the shop were admiring a Chippendale chair or waiting upon their customers. Presently Josie approached Mary Louise and asked: "What will you take for the pedestal-desk--just as it stands?" "Why, I'll let Irene put a price on it," was the reply. "She knows values better than the rest of us." "If it's fixed up, it will be worth twenty dollars," said Irene, after wheeling her chair to the desk for a critical examination of it. "Well, what will it cost to fix it up?" demanded Josie. "Perhaps five dollars." "Then I'll give you fifteen for it, just as it stands," proposed Josie. "You? What could you do with the clumsy thing?" "Ship it home to Washington," was the prompt reply. "It would tickle Daddy immensely to own such an unusual article, so I want to make him a present of it on his birthday." "Hand over the fifteen dollars, please," decided Irene. Josie paid the money. She caught the drayman who had unloaded the furniture and hired him to take the desk at once to the Hathaway residence. She even rode with the man, on the truck, and saw the battered piece of furniture placed in her own room. Leaving it there, she locked her door and went back to the Shop. The girls were much amused when they learned they had made so important a sale to one of themselves. "If we had asked Mrs. Dyer to give us fifteen dollars, cold cash," remarked Laura, "she would have snubbed us properly; but the first article from her attic which we sold has netted us that sum and I really believe we will get from fifty to seventy-five dollars more out of the rest of the stuff." Mrs. Charleworth dropped in during the afternoon and immediately became interested in the Dudley-Markham furniture. The family to whom it had formerly belonged she knew had been one of the very oldest and most important in Dorfield. The Dudley-Markhams had large interests in Argentine and would make their future home there, but here were the possessions of their grandmothers and great-grandmothers, rescued from their ancient dust, and Mrs. Charleworth was a person who loved antiques and knew their sentimental and intrinsic values. "The Dyers were foolish to part with these things," she asserted. "Of course, Mary Dyer isn't supposed to know antiques, but the professor has lived abroad and is well educated." "The professor wasn't at home," explained Edna. "Perhaps that was lucky for us. He is in Chicago, and we pleaded so hard that Mrs. Dyer let us go into the attic and help ourselves." "Well, that proves she has a generous heart," said the grand lady, with a peculiar, sphinx-like smile. "I will buy these two chairs, at your price, when you are ready to sell them." "We will hold them for you," replied Edna. "They're to be revarnished and properly 'restored,' you know, and we've a man in our employ who knows just how to do it." When Mary Louise told Colonel Hathaway, jokingly, at dinner that evening, of Josie's extravagant purchase, her girl friend accepted the chaffing composedly and even with a twinkle in her baby-blue eyes. She made no comment and led Mary Louise to discourse on other subjects. That night Josie sat up late, locked in her own room, with only the pedestal-desk for company. First she dropped to her knees, pushed up a panel in the square base, and disclosed the fact that in this inappropriate place were several cleverly constructed secret compartments, two of which were well filled with papers. The papers were not those of the Dudley-Markhams; they were not yellowed with age; they were quite fresh. "There!" whispered the girl, triumphantly; "the traitor is in my toils. Is it just luck, I wonder, or has fate taken a hand in the game? How the Kaiser would frown, if he knew what I am doing to-night; and how Daddy would laugh! But--let's see!--perhaps this is just a wedge, and I'll need a sledge-hammer to crack open the whole conspiracy." The reason Josie stayed up so late was because she carefully examined every paper and copied most of those she had found. But toward morning she finished her self-imposed task, replaced the papers, slid the secret panel into place and then dragged the rather heavy piece of furniture into the far end of the deep closet that opened off her bedroom. Before the desk she hung several dresses, quite masking it from observation. Then she went to bed and was asleep in two minutes. CHAPTER XIII JOE LANGLEY, SOLDIER Strange as it may seem, Mary Louise and her Liberty Girls were regarded with envy by many of the earnest women of Dorfield, who were themselves working along different lines to promote the interests of the government in the Great War. Every good woman was anxious to do her duty in this national emergency, but every good woman loves to have her efforts appreciated, and since the advent of the bevy of pretty young girls in the ranks of female patriotism, they easily became the favorites in public comment and appreciation. Young men and old cheerfully backed the Liberty Girls in every activity they undertook. The Dorfield Red Cross was a branch of the wonderful national organization; the "Hoover Conservation Club" was also national in its scope; the "Navy League Knitting Knot" sent its work to Washington headquarters; all were respectfully admired and financially assisted on occasion. But the "Liberty Girls of Dorfield" were distinctly local and a credit to the city. Their pretty uniforms were gloriously emblematic, their fresh young faces glowed with enthusiasm, their specialty of "helping our soldier boys" appealed directly to the hearts of the people. Many a man, cold and unemotional heretofore in his attitude toward the war, was won to a recognition of its menace, its necessities, and his personal duty to his country, by the arguments and example of the Liberty Girls. If there was a spark of manhood in him, he would not allow a young girl to out-do him in patriotism. Mary Louise gradually added to her ranks, as girl after girl begged to be enrolled in the organization. After consulting the others, it was decided to admit all desirable girls between the ages of 14 and 18, and six companies were formed during the following weeks, each company consisting of twenty girls. The captains were the original six--Alora, Laura, Edna, Lucile, Jane and Mary Louise. Irene Macfarlane was made adjutant and quartermaster, because she was unable to participate actively in the regimental drills. Mary Louise wanted Josie to be their general, but Josie declined. She even resigned, temporarily, from membership, saying she had other duties to attend to that would require all her time. Then the girls wanted Mary Louise to be general of the Dorfield Liberty Girls, but she would not consent. "We will just have the six companies and no general at all," she said. "Nor do we need a colonel, or any officers other than our captains. Each and every girl in our ranks is just as important and worthy of honor as every other girl, so the fewer officers the better." About this time Joe Langley came back from France with one arm gone. He was Sergeant Joe Langley, now, and wore a decoration for bravery that excited boundless admiration and pride throughout all Dorfield. Joe had driven a milk wagon before he left home and went to Canada to join the first contingent sent abroad, but no one remembered his former humble occupation. A hero has no past beyond his heroism. The young man's empty sleeve and his decoration admitted him to intercourse with the "best society" of Dorfield, which promptly placed him on a pedestal. "You know," said Joe, rather shamefacedly deprecating the desire to lionize him, "there wasn't much credit in what I did. I'm even sorry I did it, for my foolishness sent me to the hospital an' put me out o' the war. But there was Tom McChesney, lyin' out there in No Man's Land, with a bullet in his chest an' moanin' for water. Tom was a good chum o' mine, an' I was mad when I saw him fall--jest as the Boches was drivin' us back to our trenches. I know'd the poor cuss was in misery, an' I know'd what I'd expect a chum o' mine to do if I was in Tom's place. So out I goes, with my Cap'n yellin' at me to stop, an' I got to Tom an' give him a good, honest swig. The bullets pinged around us, although I saw a German officer--a decent young fellow--try to keep his men from shootin'. But he couldn't hold 'em in, so I hoisted Tom on my back an' started for our trenches. Got there, too, you know, jest as a machine-gun over to the right started spoutin'. It didn't matter my droppin' Tom in the trench an' tumblin' after him. The boys buried him decent while the sawbones was cuttin' what was left of my arm away, an' puttin' me to sleep with dope. It was a fool trick, after all, 'though God knows I'll never forget the look in Tom's eyes as he swallered that swig o' cool water. That's all, folks. I'm out o' the game, an' I s'pose the Gen'ral jus' pinned this thing on my coat so I wouldn't take my discharge too much to heart." That was Joe Langley. Do you wonder they forgot he was once a milk-man, or that every resident of Dorfield swelled with pride at the very sight of him? Just one of "our soldier boys," just one of the boys the Liberty Girls were trying to assist. "They're all alike," said Mary Louise. "I believe every American soldier would be a Joe Langley if he had the chance." Joe took a mighty interest in the Liberty Girls. He volunteered to drill and make soldiers of them, and so well did he perform this task-- perhaps because they admired him and were proud of their drill-master-- that when the last big lot of selected draft men marched away, the entire six companies of Liberty Girls marched with them to the train-- bands playing and banners flying--and it was conceded to be one of the greatest days Dorfield had ever known, because everyone cheered until hoarse. CHAPTER XIV THE PROFESSOR IS ANNOYED Josie O'Gorman, after resigning from the Liberty Girls, became--so she calmly stated--a "loafer." She wandered around the streets of Dorfield in a seemingly aimless manner, shopped at the stores without buying, visited the houses of all sorts of people, on all sorts of gossipy errands, interviewed lawyers, bankers and others in an inconsequential way that amused some and annoyed others, and conducted herself so singularly that even Mary Louise was puzzled by her actions. But Josie said to Mary Louise: "My, what a lot I'm learning! There's nothing more interesting--or more startling--or, sometimes, more repulsive--than human nature." "Have you learned anything about the German spy plot?" questioned Mary Louise eagerly. "Not yet. My quest resembles a cart-wheel. I go all around the outer rim first, and mark the spokes when I come to them. Then I follow each spoke toward the center. They'll all converge to the hub, you know, and when I've reached the hub, with all my spokes of knowledge radiating from it, I'm in perfect control of the whole situation." "Oh. How far are you from the hub, Josie?" "I'm still marking the spokes, Mary Louise." "Are there many of them?" "More than I suspected." "Well, I realize, dear, that you'll tell me nothing until you are ready to confide in me; but please remember, Josie, how impatient I am and how I long to bring the traitors to justice." "I won't forget, Mary Louise. We're partners in this case and perhaps I shall ask your help, before long. Some of my spokes may be blinds and until I know something positive there's no use in worrying you with confidences which are merely surmises." Soon after this conversation Mary Louise found herself, as head of the Liberty Girls, in an embarrassing position. Professor Dyer returned from Chicago on an evening train and early next morning was at the Shop even before its doors were opened, impatiently awaiting the arrival of Mary Louise. "There has been a mistake," he said to her, hastily, as she smilingly greeted him; "in my absence Mrs. Dyer has thoughtlessly given you some old furniture, which I value highly. It was wife's blunder, of course, but I want back two of the articles and I'm willing to pay your Shop as much for them as you could get elsewhere." "Oh, I'm awfully sorry, Professor," said the girl, really distressed, as she unlocked the Shop door. "Come in, please. Mrs. Dyer told our girls to go into the attic and help themselves to anything they wanted. We've done splendidly with the old furniture, and fenders, and brassware, but I hope the two articles you prize are still unsold. If so, you shall not pay us for them, but we will deliver them to your house immediately." He did not reply, for already he was searching through the accumulation of odds and ends with which the store-room was stocked. "Perhaps I can help you," suggested Mary Louise. He turned to her, seeming to hesitate. "One was a chair; a chair with spindle legs and a high back, richly carved. It is made of black oak, I believe." "Oh, I remember that well," said the girl. "Mrs. Charleworth bought it from us." "Mrs. Charleworth? Well, perhaps she will return it to me. I know the lady slightly and will explain that I did not wish to part with it." Still his eyes were roving around the room, and his interest in the chair seemed somewhat perfunctory. "The other piece of furniture was a sort of escritoire, set on a square pedestal that had a carved base of lions' feet." His voice had grown eager now, although he strove to render it calm, and there was a ring of anxiety in his words. Mary Louise felt relieved as she said assuringly: "That, at least, I can promise you will be returned. My friend, Josie O'Gorman, bought it and had it sent to our house, where she is visiting. As soon as some of the girls come here to relieve me, I'll take you home with me and have Uncle Eben carry the desk to your house in our motor car. It isn't so very big, and Uncle Eben can manage it easily." The tense look on the man's face relaxed. It evident that Professor Dyer was greatly relieved. "Thank you," he said; "I'd like to get it back as soon as possible." But when, half an hour later, they arrived at the Hathaway residence, and met Josie just preparing to go out, the latter said with a bewildered look in her blue eyes: "The old desk? Why, I sent that home to Washington days ago!" "You did?" Mary Louise was quite surprised. "Why, you said nothing to me about that, Josie." "I didn't mention it because I'd no idea you were interested. Daddy loves old things, and I sent it home so he would have it on his return. By freight. You are away at the Shop all day, you know, so I asked Uncle Eben to get me a big box, which he brought to my room. The desk fitted it nicely. I nailed on the cover myself, and Uncle Eben took it to the freight office for me. See; here's the receipt, in my pocket-book." She unfolded a paper and held it out to Professor Dyer, who read it with a queer look on his face. It was, indeed, a freight receipt for "one piece of furniture, boxed," to be shipped to John O'Gorman, Washington, D. C, The sender was described as "Miss J. O'Gorman, Dorfield." There was no questioning Josie's veracity, but she called the black servant to substantiate her story. "Yes, Miss Josie," said Uncle Eben, "I done took de box to de freight office an' got de receipt, lak yo' tol' me. Tuesday, it were; las' Tuesday." Professor Dyer was thoughtful. "You say your father is away from home at present?" he asked. "Yes; he's abroad." "Do you suppose the freight office in Washington would deliver the box to me, on your order?" "I'm afraid not," said Josie, "It's consigned to John O'Gorman, and only John O'Gorman can sign for its receipt." Again the Professor reflected. He seemed considerably disturbed. "What is the business of John O'Gorman, your father?" he presently inquired. "He's a member of the government's secret service," Josie replied, watching his face. The professor's eyes widened; he stood a moment as if turned to stone. Then he gave a little, forced laugh and said: "I'm obliged to make a trip to Washington, on business, and I thought perhaps I'd pick up the--ah--the box, there, and ship to Dorfield. The old desk isn't valuable, except--except that it's--ah--antique and--unusual. I'd like to get it back and I'll return to you the money you paid for it, and the freight charges. If you'll write a note to the railway company, saying the box was wrongly addressed and asking that it be delivered to my order, I think I can get it." Josie agreed to this at once. She wrote the note and also gave Professor Dyer the freight receipt. But she refused to take his money. "There might be some hitch," she explained. "If you get the box, and it reaches Dorfield safely, then I'll accept the return of my money; but railroads are unreliable affairs and have queer rules, so let's wait and see what happens." The Professor assured her, however, that there was no doubt of his getting the box, but he Would wait to pay her, if she preferred to let the matter rest. When he had gone away--seeming far more cheerful than when he came--Mary Louise said to Josie: "This is a very unfortunate and embarrassing affair, all around. I'm so sorry we took that furniture from Mrs. Dyer before her husband came home and gave his consent. It is very embarrassing." "I'm glad, for my part," was the reply. Josie's blue eyes were shining innocently and her smile was very sweet. Mary Louise regarded her suspiciously. "What is it, Josie!" she demanded. "What has that old desk to do with--with--" "The German spy plot? Just wait and see, Mary Louise." "You won't tell me?" "Not now, dear." "But why did you ship the thing to Washington, if it is likely to prove a valuable clue?" "Why ask questions that I can't answer? See here, Mary Louise: it isn't wise, or even safe, for me to tell you anything just yet. What I know frightens me--even _me!_ Can't you wait and--trust me?" "Oh, of course," responded Mary Louise in a disappointed voice. "But I fail to understand what Professor Dyer's old desk can possibly have to do with our quest." Josie laughed. "It used to belong to the Dudley-Markhams." "The Dudley-Markhams! Great heavens, But--see here--they left Dorfield long before this war started, and so--" "I'm going out," was Josie's inconsequent remark. "Do you think those are rain clouds, Mary Louise? I hate to drag around an umbrella if it's not needed." CHAPTER XV SUSPENDERS FOR SALE The two girls parted at the Liberty Shop. Mary Louise went in "to attend to business," while Josie O'Gorman strolled up the street and paused thoughtfully before the windows of Kasker's Clothing Emporium. At first she didn't notice that it was Kasker's; she looked in the windows at the array of men's wear just so she could think quietly, without attracting attention, for she was undecided as to her next move. But presently, realizing this was Kasker's place, she gave a little laugh and said to herself: "This is the fellow poor little Mary Louise suspected of being the arch traitor. I wonder if he knows anything at all, or if I could pump it out of him if he does? Guess I'll interview old Jake, if only to satisfy myself that he's the harmless fool I take him to be." With this in mind she walked into the store. A clerk met her; other clerks were attending to a few scattered customers. "Is Mr. Kasker in?" she asked the young man. "In his office, miss; to the right, half way down." He left her to greet another who entered and Josie walked down the aisle, as directed. The office was raised a step above the main floor and was railed in, with a small swinging gate to allow entrance. This was not the main business office but the proprietor's special den and his desk was placed so he could overlook the entire establishment, with one glance. Just at present Kasker was engaged in writing, or figuring, for his bushy head was bent low. Josie opened the gate, walked in and took a chair that stood beside the desk. "Good morning, Mr. Kasker," she said sweetly. He looked up, swept her with a glance and replied: "What's the matter? Can't one of the clerks attend to you? I'm busy." "I'll wait," was Josie's quiet reply. "I'd rather deal with you than a clerk." He hesitated, laid down his pen and turned his chair toward her. She knew the man, by sight, but if he had ever seen the girl he did not recall the fact. His tone was now direct and businesslike. "Very well, miss; tell me what I can do for you." It had only taken her an instant to formulate her speech. "I'm interested in the poor children of Dorfield," she began, "having been sent here as the agent of an organization devoted to clothing our needy little ones. I find, since I have been soliciting subscriptions in Dorfield and investigating the requirements of the poor, that there are a lot of boys, especially, in this city who are in rags, and I want to purchase for them as many outfits as my money will allow. But on account of the war, and its demands on people formerly charitably inclined, I realize my subscription money is altogether too little to do what I wish. That's too bad, but it's true. Everywhere they talk war--war---war and its hardships. The war demands money for taxes, bonds, mess funds, the Red Cross and all sorts of things, and in consequence our poor are being sadly neglected." He nodded, somewhat absently, but said nothing. Josie felt her clever bait had not been taken, as she had expected, so she resolved to be more audacious in her remarks. "It seems a shame," she said with assumed indignation, "that the poor of the country must starve and be in want, while the money is all devoted to raising an army for the Germans to shoot and mangle." He saw the point and answered with a broad smile: "Is that the alternative, young lady? Must one or the other happen? Well--yes; the soldiers must be killed, God help 'em! But _himmel!_ We don't let our kiddies freeze for lack of clothes, do we? See here; they're taking everything away from us merchants--our profits, our goods, everything!--but the little we got left the kiddies can have. The war is a robber; it destroys; it puts its hand in an honest man's pocket without asking his consent; all wars do that. The men who make wars have no souls--no mercy. But they make wars. Wars are desperate things and require desperate methods. There is always the price to pay, and the people always pay it. The autocrats of war do not say 'Please!' to us; they say 'Hold up your hands!' and so--what is there to do but hold up our hands?" Josie was delighted; she was exultant; Jake Kasker was falling into her trap very swiftly. "But the little ones," he continued, suddenly checking himself in his tirade, "must not be made to suffer like the grown-up folks. They, at least, are innocent of it all. Young lady, I'd do more for the kids than I'd do for the war--and I'll do it willingly, of my own accord. Tell me, then, how much money you got and I'll give you the boys' suits at cost price. I'll do more; for every five suits you buy from me at cost, I'll throw an extra one in, free--Jake Kasker's own contribution." This offer startled and somewhat dismayed Josie. She had not expected the interview to take such a turn, and Kasker's generosity seriously involved her, while, at the same time, it proved to her without a doubt that the man was a man. He was loud mouthed and foolish; that was all. While she gathered her wits to escape from an unpleasant situation, a quick step sounded on the aisle and a man brusquely entered the office and exclaimed: "Hello, Jake; I'm here again. How's the suspender stock?" Kasker gave him a surly look. "You come pretty often, Abe Kauffman," he muttered. "Suspenders? Bah! I only buy 'em once a year, and you come around ev'ry month or so. I don't think it pays you to keep pesterin' merchants." Abe Kauffman laughed--a big laugh--and sat down in a chair. "One time you buy, Jake, and other times I come to Dorfield somebody else buys. How do I know you don't get a run on suspenders some time? And if I don't visit all my customers, whether they buy or not, they think I neglect 'em. Who's this, Jake? Your daughter?" He turned his bland smile on Josie. He was a short, thickset man with a German cast of countenance. He spoke with a stronger German accent than did Kasker. Though his face persistently smiled, his eyes were half closed and shrewd. When he looked at her, Josie gave a little shudder and slightly drew back. "Ah, that's a wrong guess," said Mr. Kauffman quickly. "I must beg your pardon, my girl. But I meant a compliment to you both. Accept my card, please," and he drew it from his pocket and handed it to her with a bow. Josie glanced at it: "KAUFFMAN SUSPENDER COMPANY, Chicago. Abe Kauffman, President." "My business does not interest ladies," he went on in a light tone meant to be jovial. "But with the men--ah!--with the men it's a hold-up game. Ha, ha, hee! One of our trade jokes. It's an elastic business; Kauffman's suspenders keep their wearers in suspense. Ha, ha; pretty good, eh?" "Do you ever sell any?" asked Josie curiously. "Do I? Do I, Jake? Ha, ha! But not so many now; the war has ruined the suspender business, like everything else. Kasker can tell you that, miss." "Kasker won't, though," asserted Jake in a surly tone. The girl, however, was now on another scent. "Don't you like the war, then?" Josie asked the salesman. "Like it?" the eyes half opened with a flash. "Who likes war, then? Does humanity, which bears the burden? For me--myself--I'll say war is a good thing, but I won't tell you why or how I profit by it; I'll only say war is a curse to humanity and if I had the power I'd stop it tomorrow--to-day--this very hour! And, at that, I'd lose by it." His voice shook with a passion almost uncontrollable. He half rose from his chair, with clinched fists. But, suddenly remembering himself, or reading the expression on the girl's face, he sank back again, passed his hand over his face and forced another bland, unmirthful smile. "I'd hate to be the man who commits his country to war," he said in mild, regretful tones. But here, Kasker, who had been frowning darkly on the suspender man, broke in. "See here, Abe; I don't allow that kind of talk in my store," he growled. "You? You're like me; you hate the war, Jake." "I did once, Abe, but I don't now. I ain't got time to hate it. It's here, and I can't help it. We're in the war and we're going ahead to win it, 'cause there ain't no hope in backing down. Stop it? Why, man, we _can't_ stop it. It's like a man who is pushed off a high bank into a river; he's got to swim to a landing on the other side, or else--sink. We Americans ain't goin' to sink, Abe Kauffman; we'll swim over, and land safe. It's got to be; so it will be." "All right. I said, didn't I, that it won't hurt my pocket? But it hurts my heart." (Josie was amazed that he claimed a heart.) "But it's funny to hear _you_ talk for the war, Jake, when you always hated it." "Well, I've quit kickin' till we're out of the woods. I'm an American, Abe, and the American flag is flying in France. If our boys can't hold it in the face of the enemy, Jake Kasker will go do it himself!" Kauffman stood up, casting a glance of scorn on his customer. "You talk like a fool, Jake; you talk like you was talking for the papers--not honest, but as if someone had scared you." "Yes; it's the fellows like you that scare me," retorted the clothing merchant. "Ev'ry time you curse the war you're keeping us from winning the war as quick as we ought to; you're tripping the soldiers, the government, the President--the whole machine. I'll admit I don't _like_ the war, but I'm _for_ it, just the same. Can you figure that out, Abe Kauffman? Once I had more sense than you have, but now I got a better way of thinking. It ain't for me to say whether the war's right or not; my country's honor is at stake, so I'll back my country to the last ditch." Kauffman turned away. "I guess you don't need any suspenders," he said, and walked out of the store. Kasker gave a sigh of relief and sat down again. "Now, young lady," he began, "we'll talk about--" "Excuse me," said Josie hastily. "I'm going, now; but I'll be back. I want to see you again, Mr. Kasker." She ran down the aisle to the door, looked up and down the street and saw the thick-set form of the suspender salesman just disappearing around the corner to the south. Instantly she stepped out. Josie was an expert in the art of shadowing. CHAPTER XVI MRS. CHARLEWORTH When Mary Louise reached home that evening she was surprised to find a note from Josie which said: "I've decided to change my boarding place for a week or so, although I shall miss Aunt Sally's cooking and a lot of other comforts. But this is business. If you meet me in the street, don't recognize me unless I'm quite alone. We've quarrelled, if anyone asks you. Pretty soon we'll make up again and be friends. Of course, you'll realize I'm working on our case, which grows interesting. So keep mum and behave." "I wish I knew where she's gone," was Mary Louise's anxious comment, as she showed the note to Gran'pa Jim. "Don't worry, my dear," advised the colonel. "Josie possesses the rare faculty of being able to take care of herself under all circumstances. Had she not been so peculiarly trained by her detective father I would feel it a duty to search for her, but she is not like other girls and wouldn't thank us for interfering, I'm sure." "I can't see the necessity of her being so mysterious about it," declared the girl. "Josie ought to know I'm worthy of her confidence. And she said, just the other day, that we're partners." "You must be the silent partner, then," said her grandfather, smiling at her vexed expression. "Josie is also worthy of confidence. She may blunder, but if so, she'll blunder cleverly. I advise you to be patient with her." "Well, I'll try, Gran'pa. When we see her again she will probably know something important," said Mary Louise resignedly. As for little, red-headed Josie O'Gorman, she walked into the office of the Mansion House that afternoon, lugging a battered suit-case borrowed from Aunt Sally, and asked the clerk at the desk for weekly rates for room and board. The clerk spoke to Mr. Boyle, the proprietor, who examined the girl critically. "Where are you from?" he asked. "New York," answered Josie. "I'm a newspaper woman, but the war cost me my job, because the papers are all obliged to cut down their forces. So I came here to get work." "The war affects Dorfield, too, and we've only two papers," said the man. "But your business isn't my business, in any event. I suppose you can pay in advance?" "For a week, anyhow," she returned; "perhaps two weeks: If the papers can't use me, I'll try for some other work." "Know anybody here?" "I know Colonel Hathaway, but I'm not on good terms with his granddaughter, Mary Louise. We had a fight over the war. Give me a quiet room, not too high up. This place looks like a fire-trap." As she spoke, she signed her name on the register and opened her purse. Boyle looked over his keyboard. "Give me 47, if you can," said Josie carelessly. She had swiftly run her eye over the hotel register. "Forty-seven is always my lucky number." "It's taken," said the clerk. "Well, 43 is the next best," asserted Josie. "I made forty-three dollars the last week I was in New York. Is 43 taken, also?" "No," said Boyle, "but I can do better by you. Forty-three is a small room and has only one window." "Just the thing!" declared Josie. "I hate big rooms." He assigned her to room 43 and after she had paid a week in advance a bellboy showed her to the tiny apartment and carried her suitcase. "Number 45'll be vacant in a day or two," remarked the boy, as he unlocked her door. "Kauffman has it now, but he won't stay long. He's a suspender drummer and comes about every month--sometimes oftener--and always has 45. When he goes, I'll let you know, so you can speak for it. Forty-five is one of our best rooms." "Thank you," said Josie, and tipped him a quarter. As she opened her suitcase and settled herself in the room, she reflected on the meeting in Kasker's store which had led her to make this queer move. "A fool for luck, they say," she muttered. "I wonder what intuition induced me to interview Jake Kasker. The clothing merchant isn't a bad fellow," she continued to herself, looking over the notes she had made on her tablets. "He didn't make a single disloyal speech. Hates the war, and I can't blame him for that, but wants to fight it to a finish. Now, the other man--Kauffman--hates the war, too, but he did not make any remark that was especially objectionable; but that man's face betrayed more than his words, and some of his words puzzled me. Kauffman said, at two different times, that the war would make him money. There's only one way a man like him can make money out of the war, and that is--by serving the Kaiser. I suppose he thought we wouldn't catch that idea, or he'd been more careful what he said. All criminals are reckless in little ways; that's how they betray themselves and give us a chance to catch them. However, I haven't caught this fellow yet, and he's tricky enough to give me a long chase unless I act boldly and get my evidence before he suspects I'm on his trail. That must be my programme--to act quickly and lose no time." Kauffman saw her when she entered the hotel dining room for dinner that evening, and he walked straight over to her table and sat down opposite her. "Met again!" he said with his broad smile. "You selling something?" "Brains," returned Josie composedly. "Good! Did Jake Kasker buy any of you?" "I've all my stock on hand, sir. I'm a newspaper woman--special writer or advertising expert. Quit New York last week and came on here." "Wasn't New York good enough for you?" he asked, after ordering his dinner of the waitress. "I'm too independent to suit the metropolitan journals. I couldn't endorse their gumshoe policies. For instance, they wanted me to eulogize President Wilson and his cabinet, rave over the beauties of the war and denounce any congressman or private individual who dares think for himself," explained Josie, eating her soup the while. "So--I'm looking for another job." Kauffman maintained silence, studying the bill-of-fare. When he was served he busied himself eating, but between the slits of his half-closed eyes he regarded the girl furtively from, time to time. His talkative mood had curiously evaporated. He was thoughtful. Only when Josie was preparing to leave the table did he resume the conversation. "What did you think of Jake Kasker's kind of patriotism?" he asked. "Oh; the clothing man? I didn't pay much attention. Never met Kasker before, you know. Isn't he like most of the rabble, thinking what he's told to think and saying what he's told to say?" She waited for a reply, but none was forthcoming. Even this clever lead did not get a rise out of Abe Kauffman. Indeed, he seemed to suspect a trap, for when she rose and walked out of the dining room she noticed that his smile had grown ironical. On reaching her room through the dimly lighted passage, Josie refrained from turning on her own lights, but she threw open her one little window and leaned out. The window faced a narrow, unlighted alley at the rear of the hotel. One window of Room 45, next to her, opened on an iron fire-escape that reached to within a few feet of the ground. Josie smiled, withdrew her head and sat in the dark of her room for hours, with a patience possible only through long training. At ten o'clock Kauffman entered his room. She could distinctly hear him moving about. A little later he went away, walking boldly down the corridor to the elevator. Josie rose and slipped on her hat and coat. Leaving the hotel, Kauffman made his way down the street to Broadway, Dorfield's main thoroughfare. He wore a soft hat and carried a cane. The few people he passed paid no attention to him. Steadily proceeding, he left the business district and after a while turned abruptly to the right. This was one of the principal residence sections of the city. Kauffman turned the various corners with a confidence that denoted his perfect acquaintance with the route. But presently his pace slowed and he came to a halt opposite an imposing mansion set far back in ample grounds, beautifully cared for and filled with rare shrubbery. Only for a moment, however, did the man hesitate--just long enough to cast a glance up and down the deserted street, which was fairly well lighted. No one being in sight, he stepped from the sidewalk to the lawn, and keeping the grass under his feet, noiselessly made his way through the shrubbery to the south side of the residence. Here a conservatory formed a wing which jutted into the grounds. The German softly approached, mounted the three steps leading to a glass door, and rapped upon the sash in a peculiar manner. Almost immediately the door was opened by a woman, who beckoned him in. The conservatory was unlighted save by a mellow drift that filtered through the plants from a doorway beyond, leading to the main house. From behind the concealment of a thick bush Josie O'Gorman had noted the woman's form but was unable to see her face. The girl happened to know the house, however. It was the residence of Dorfield's social leader, Mrs. Charleworth. Josie squatted behind that bush for nearly half an hour. Then the glass door opened and Kauffman stepped out. "By the way," he said in a low voice, "it's just as well we didn't take Kasker in with us. He's a loud-mouthed fool. I've tested him and find he blats out everything he knows." "We do not need him, since I've decided to finance the affair," returned the woman, and Josie recognized her voice. It was the great Mrs. Charleworth herself. Mrs. Charleworth, in secret conference with Abe Kauffman, the suspender salesman! Then Josie experienced another surprise. A second man stepped through the shadowy doorway, joining Kauffman on the steps. "It seems to me," said this last person, "that there is danger in numbers. Of course, that's your affair, Kauffman, and none of my business, but if I'm to help you pull it off, I'd rather there wouldn't be too many of us. It's a ticklish thing, at the best, and--" "Shut up!" growled Kauffman, suspiciously peering around him into the darkness. "The less we talk in the open, the better." "That is true. Good night," said the woman, and went in, closing the door behind her. "I think I will light a cigar," said Kauffman. "Wait until you are in the street," cautioned the other. They walked on the grass, avoiding the paths and keeping in the darkest places. Finally they emerged upon the sidewalk, and finding the coast clear, traveled on side by side. At times they conversed in low tones, so low that the little red-headed girl, dodging through the parkings in their wake, could not overhear the words they spoke. But as they approached the more frequented part of the town, they separated, Kauffman turning into Broadway and the other continuing along a side street. Josie O'Gorman followed the latter person. He was tall and thin and stooped a trifle. She had been unable, so far, to see his face. He seemed, from the turnings he made, to be skirting the business section rather than pass directly through it. So the girl took a chance, darted down one street and around the corner of another, and then slipped into a dim doorway near which hung an electric street-light. She listened eagerly and soon was rewarded by a sound of footsteps. The man she was shadowing leisurely approached, passed under the light and continued on his way, failing to note the motionless form of the girl in the doorway. Josie gave a little laugh. "You're a puzzling proposition, Professor," she whispered to herself, "and you came near fooling me very properly. For I imagined you were on your way to Washington, and here you've mixed up with another important job!" CHAPTER XVII THE BLACK SATCHEL When Josie reached the hotel it was nearly midnight. Half the lights in the office had been extinguished and behind the desk, reading a novel, the night clerk sprawled in an easy chair. She hadn't seen the night clerk before. He was a sallow-faced boy, scarcely twenty years old, attired in a very striking suit of clothes and wearing a gorgeous jewelled scarf-pin in his cravat. As he read, he smoked a cigarette. "Hello," said this brilliant individual, as Josie leaned over the counter and regarded him with a faint smile. "You're No. 43, I guess, and it's lucky old Boyle ain't here to read you a lecture--or to turn you out. He won't stand for unmarried lady guests bein' out till this hour, an' you may as well know it first as last." "He's quite right," was Josie's calm reply. "I'll not do it again. My key, please!" He rose reluctantly and gave her the key. "Do you sit up all night?" she asked sweetly. "I'm s'posed to," he answered in a tone less gruff, "but towards mornin' I snooze a little. Only way to pass the time, with noth'n' to do an' nobody to talk to. It's a beastly job, at the best, an' I'm goin' to quit it." "Why don't you start a hotel of your own?" she suggested. "You think you're kiddin' me, don't you? But I might even do that, if I wanted to," he asserted, glaring at her as if he challenged contradiction. "It ain't money that stops me, but hotel keepin' is a dog's life. I've made a bid for a cigar-store down the street, an' if they take me up, somebody can have this job." "I see you're ambitious," said Josie. "Well, I hope you get the cigar-store. Good night, Mr.--" "My name's Tom Linnet. I won't tell the ol' boy you was out so late. So long." The elevator had stopped running, so Josie climbed the stairs and went thoughtfully to her room. Kauffman had preceded her. She heard him drop his shoes heavily upon the floor as he undressed. She turned on the light and made some notes on her tablets, using the same queer characters that she always employed. The last note read: "Tom Linnet, night clerk at the Mansion House. New clothes; new jewelry. Has money. Recently acquired, for no one with money would be a night clerk. Wants to quit his job and buy a cigar store. Query: Who staked Tom? And why?" As she crawled into bed Josie reflected: "Mary Louise would be astonished if she knew what I have learned to-night. But then, I'm astonished myself. I feel like the boy who went fishing for sunfish and caught a whale." Next morning she was up early, alert to continue her investigations. When she heard Mr. Kauffman go down to breakfast she took a bunch of pass-keys from her bag, went boldly through the hall to the door of 45, unlocked it with ease and walked in. A hurried glance showed her a large suitcase lying open upon a table. She examined its contents. One side was filled with samples of suspenders, the other with miscellaneous articles of male apparel. Josie was not satisfied. She peered under the bed, softly opened all the drawers in the dresser and finally entered the closet. Here, on the rear shelf, a newspaper was placed in such manner as to hide from observation anything behind it. To an ordinary person, glancing toward it, the newspaper meant nothing; to Josie's practised eye it was plainly a shield. Being short of stature, the girl had to drag in a chair in order to reach the high shelf. She removed the newspaper, took down a black hand-satchel--it was dreadfully heavy and she almost dropped it--and then replaced the paper as it had been before. Josie was jubilant. She removed the chair, again closed the closet door, and leaving the room practically as she had found it stole back to her own apartment, the heavy satchel concealed in the folds of her frock. But no one saw her, the hall being vacant, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she locked her own door against possible intruders. Then she placed the black satchel on a stand and bent over it. The lock was an unusual one. She tried all the slender keys upon her bunch without effect--they were either too large or did not fit the keyhole. Next she took a thin hairpin, bent and twisted it this way and that and tried to pry the lock open. Failure. However, she was beginning to understand the mechanism of the lock by this time. From that all-containing handbag which was her inseparable companion she drew out a file, and taking one of the master-keys, began to file it to fit the lock of the black satchel. This operation consumed more time than she was aware, so interesting was the intricate work. She was presently startled by a sound in the corridor. Mr. Kauffman was coming back to his room, whistling an aria from "Die Walkure." Josie paused, motionless; her heart almost stopped beating. The man unlocked his door and entered, still whistling. Sometimes the whistle was soft and low, again it was louder and more cheerful. Josie listened in suspense. As long as the whistling continued she realized that the theft of the black satchel remained undiscovered. Kauffman remained in his room but a few moments. When he departed, carefully locking his door after him, he was still whistling. Josie ran to her own door and when he had passed it opened it just a crack, to enable her to gaze after him. Underneath his arm he carried a bundle of the sample suspenders. "Good!" she whispered softly, retreating to bend over the satchel again. "Mr. Abe Kauffman will sell suspenders this morning as a blind to his more important industries, so I needn't hurry." Sooner than she expected the lock clicked and sprang open. Her eyes at first fell upon some crumpled, soiled shirts, but these she hurriedly removed. The remainder of the satchel contained something enclosed in a green flannel bag. It was heavy, as she found when she tried to lift it out, and a sudden suspicion led her to handle the thing very gingerly. She put it on the table beside the satchel and cautiously untied the drawstring at the mouth of the bag. A moment later she had uncovered a round ball of polished blue steel, to which was attached a tube covered with woven white cotton. Josie fell back on a chair, fairly gasping, and stared with big eyes at the ball. In her desire to investigate the possessions of the suspender salesman she had scarcely expected to find anything like this. The most she had hoped to discover were incriminating papers. "It's a bomb!" she stammered, regarding the thing fearfully; "a real, honest-for-true bomb. And it is meant to carry death and destruction to loyal supporters of our government. There's no doubt of that. But--" The thoughts that followed so amazing an assertion were too bewildering to be readily classified. They involved a long string of conjectures, implicating in their wide ramifications several persons of important standing in the community. The mere suggestion of what she had uncovered sufficed to fill Josie's heart and brain with terror. "Here! I mustn't try to think it out just yet," she told herself, trying with a little shiver of repulsion for the thing to collect her wits. "One idea at a time, Josie, my girl, or you'll go nutty and spoil everything! Now, here's a bomb--a live, death-dealing bomb--and that's the first and only thing to be considered at present." Controlling her aversion and fear, the girl turned the bomb over and over, giving it a thorough examination. She had never seen such a thing before, but they had often been explained to her and she had an inkling as to the general method of their construction. This one before her was of beautiful workmanship, its surface as carefully turned and polished as if it had been intended for public exhibition. Grooves had been cut in the outer surface and within these grooves lay the coils of the time fuse, which was marked with black ink into regular sections. The first section from the end of the fuse was marked "6;" the next section "5" and so on down to the section nearest the bomb, which was divided by the marks "1"--"1/2"--"1/4." "I see," said Josie, nodding her head with intelligent perception. "Each section, when lighted, will burn for one hour, running along its groove but harmless until the end of the fuse is reached. If the entire fuse is lighted, it will require just six hours to explode the bomb, while if it is cut off to the last mark and then lighted, the bomb will explode in fifteen minutes. The operator can set it to suit himself, as circumstances require." The manner in which the fuse was attached to the bomb was simple. The hole made in the bomb was exactly the size of the fuse inserted into it. There were two little knobs, one on each side the hole. After pushing the fuse into the hole a fine wire was wound around it and attached to the tiny knobs, thus holding it firmly in place. Josie took a pair of small pincers, unwound the wire and cautiously withdrew the fuse from the hole. Examining the end of the fuse she saw it was filled with a powdery substance which, when ignited, would explode the bomb. She had recourse to her hairpin again and carefully picked the powder out of the fuse for the distance of the entire first section. This proved difficult and painstaking work, but when completed not a grain of the powder remained in the woven cotton casing for the distance of six inches from the end. Having accomplished that much, Josie sat looking at the thing in a speculative way. She could not have told you, at the moment, why her first act had been to render the bomb impotent in so queer a manner when she could have simply destroyed the entire fuse. But, of course, no one would try to use the fiendish contrivance unless it was supplied with a fuse. After a period of thought the girl decided what to do next. She removed the bomb, fuse, green bag--even the satchel--to the big lower drawer of her bureau, and turned the lock. "No one is likely to come in but the chambermaid, and she will be too busy to disturb anything," Josie decided; and then she locked her room door and went down stairs to breakfast. CHAPTER XVIII A HINT FEOM ANNIE BOYLE Josie was late. In the breakfast room she found but one guest besides herself, an old lady with a putty face. But there was also a young girl seated at a near-by table who was grumbling and complaining to the maid who waited upon her. "It ain't my fault, Miss Annie," protested the maid. "The cook says you ordered your breakfast half an hour ago, an' then went away. We tried to keep it hot for you, and if it's cold it's your own fault." "I was talking with Mr. Kauffman," pouted the girl, who seemed a mere child. "I've a good notion to order another breakfast." "If you do, cook will tell your father." This threat seemed effective. The girl, with a sour face, began eating, and the maid came over to take Josie's order. The tables were near enough for conversation, so when the maid had gone to the kitchen Josie said sweetly: "That Mr. Kauffman's a nice man, isn't he? I don't wonder you forgot your breakfast. Isn't this Miss Annie Boyle?" "Yes," was the answer. "Do you know Abe Kauffman?" "I've met him," said Josie. "He an' Pa used to be good friends," said Annie Boyle, who did not seem at all shy in conversing with strangers, "but Pa's soured on him lately. I don't know why. P'raps because Abe is a German, an' everybody's tryin' to fling mud at the Germans. But Abe says the German-Americans are the back-bone of this country, and as good citizens as any." "He don't seem to like the war, though," remarked Josie carelessly. "Well, do you know why? Abe's had two brothers and five cousins in the German army, and all of 'em's been killed. That's why he's sore on the war. Says his brothers deserved what they got for not comin' to America an' bein' American citizens, like Abe is. But I know he's dreadful sorry 'bout their bein' killed just the same. German folks seem to think a good, deal of their families, an' so jest to mention the war makes Abe rave an' swear." "That's foolish," said Josie. "He'll get himself into trouble." "Abe's no fool; he knows how far he can go, an' when to stop talkin'. He'll cuss the war, but you never hear him cuss'n' the United States. He told me, just a while ago, that the war'll make him rich, 'cause he's smart enough to use it for his own good. But he said I mustn't talk about that," she added, with a sudden realization that Josie was regarding her curiously. "Abe an' me's chums, an' what he says is between us. P'raps he was only jokin', 'bout gettin' rich. Abe's a great joker, anyhow." That this was a rather lame retraction was apparent even to Annie Boyle. She gave Josie a suspicious look, but Josie's face was absolutely expressionless. The maid was placing her order before her and she calmly began her breakfast. A moment later, the old lady rose and tottered out of the room. "Gee! I wish I had her money," remarked Annie Boyle, looking after her. "She's got a wad of stocks an' just has to cut coupons off 'em. Lives here easy an' don't worry. If I had her dough I'd--" She stopped suddenly. "Money's a good thing to have," said Josie. "There's Tom Linnet, now; he's going to buy a cigar store." "How'd you know?" asked Annie quickly. "Why, he told me." "Oh; are you an' Tom friends?" "We're not enemies. Tom's in luck to have so much money." "Wall," said Annie, "he's a fool to flash it all of a sudden. Pa took him for night clerk when he didn't have a cent--and it wasn't so long ago, either. He gets his board an' five dollars a week. Folks are goin' to wonder where he got all his fine clothes, an' them di'monds, an' how he can afford to buy Barker's cigar store. I asked Abe about it an' Abe says he guesses Tom got the money from an aunt that jus' died." "Perhaps he did." "Well, where'd he get the aunt? Tom's got two brothers that are peddlers an' a father who's a track-walker, an' he's got a mother what takes in washin'. If there's an aunt, she's some relation to the rest of the family, so why didn't she leave them some money, as well as Tom?" "I don't know, but I'm glad Tom is so well fixed," answered Josie, rather absently, for her eye had fallen on the menu card beside her plate, and the menu card had somehow conveyed a new thought to her mind. She picked it up and examined it critically. Part of it was printed in a queer, open-faced type--all capitals--while the balance of the list of dishes had been written in with pen and ink. These printed bills would do for a good many breakfasts, for they mentioned only the staples, while the supplementary dishes were day by day added in writing. "I wonder who prints your bills-of-fare?" she said to Annie Boyle. "Why do you wonder that?" demanded Annie. "I like the type, and I want to get some cards printed from it." "We print our own bills," said the child. "There's a press an' type an' the fixings in a room in the basement, an' Tom Linnet used to print a new card every day for all the three meals. He did it at night, you know, between two an' six o'clock, when nobody's ever around the hotel. They was swell bills-of-fare, but Tom claimed he couldn't do so much printin', although that's part o' the night clerk's duty, an' Pa thought it used up too much good cardboard at war-time prices. So now we jus' get out a new bill once a week, an' write the extry dishes on it." "That does very well," said Josie. "Does Tom still do the printing?" "Yes. Pa hired him as night clerk 'cause he'd worked in a printin' office an' could do printin'. But since Tom got rich he don't like to work, an the bills ain't printed as good as they used to be." "This looks pretty good to me," said Josie, eyeing it approvingly. "I guess, if Tom wasn't goin' to leave, Pa would fire him," asserted Annie, rising from the table. "Good mornin', miss; I'll see you again, if you're stoppin' here." After she had gone, Josie finished her breakfast thoughtfully. Three distinct facts she had gleaned from Annie Boyle's careless remarks. First, Tom Linnet had acquired sudden riches. Second, the type used on the hotel menu cards was identically the same that the disloyal circulars had been printed from. Third, between the hours of two and five in the mornings, the night clerk's duties permitted him to be absent from the hotel office. Josie decided that Annie Boyle had not been admitted to the inner confidences of the conspirators, and that Tom Linnet was their tool and had been richly paid for whatever services he had performed. She was now gathering "clues" so fast that it made her head swim. "That chance meeting with Kauffman, at Kasker's," she told herself, "led me directly into the nest of traitors. I'm in luck. Not that I'm especially clever, but because they're so astonishingly reckless. That's usually the way with criminals; they close every loop-hole but the easiest one to peep through--and then imagine they're safe from discovery!" CHAPTER XIX THE PRINTING OFFICE After breakfast Josie sallied out upon the street and found a hardware store. There, after some exploration, she purchased an asbestos table-mat. With this she returned to her room and locked herself in. The chambermaid had "been and gone," but Josie's drawer was still locked and its precious contents intact. The girl scraped the surface of the table-mat with her pen-knife until she had secured enough loose fibre to serve her purpose and then she proceeded to restuff the fuse with the asbestos fibre the entire length of the section from which she had removed the powder. Then she pushed the end of the fuse into the hole in the bomb, wired it as before, and replaced the long fuse in its grooves. "Now," said Josie, surveying her work with satisfaction, "if they light that fuse, and expect it to explode the bomb in an hour or more, they'll be badly fooled. Also, I shall have prevented another catastrophe like the explosion at the airplane factory." She replaced the bomb in its bag, placed the bag in the black satchel, tucked in the soiled shirts to cover it and with her improvised key managed to relock the satchel. Watching for a time when the corridor was vacant, she went to 45, entered the room and replaced the satchel on its shelf, taking care to arrange the newspaper before it as a mask. She had taken the chair from the closet and was about to leave the room when she heard footsteps coming down the hallway, accompanied by a whistle which she promptly recognized. "Caught!" she exclaimed, and gave a hurried glance around her. To hide within the room was impossible, but the window was open and the iron fire-escape within easy reach. In an instant she had mounted it and seizing the rounds of the iron ladder climbed upward until she had nearly reached the next window directly above, on the third floor. Then she paused, clinging, to get her breath. Kauffman was annoyed to find the door of his room unlocked. He paused a moment in the middle of the room and looked around him. "Confound that chambermaid!" Josie heard him mutter, and then he opened the closet door and looked in. Apparently reassured, he approached the open window, stuck out his head and looked _down_ the fire-escape. Josie's heart gave a bound; but Kauffman didn't look upward. He drew in his head, resumed his whistling and busied himself repacking the sample suspenders in his suitcase. Josie hoped he would soon go out again, but he seemed to have no intention of doing so. So she climbed her ladder until she could look into the window above, which was also open. The old lady she had seen at breakfast was lying upon the bed, her eyes closed. Josie wondered if she was asleep. The door leading from the room to the hallway also stood open. The weather was warm, and the old lady evidently wanted plenty of air. While Josie hesitated what to do a boy came up the alley, noticed her on the fire-escape and paused to look at her in astonishment. The girl couldn't blame him for being interested, for her attitude was certainly extraordinary. Others were likely to discover her, too, and might suspect her of burglary and raise a hue and cry. So she deliberately entered the room, tiptoed across to the hall and escaped without arousing the old lady. But it was a desperate chance and she breathed easier when she had found the stairs and descended to her own floor. Safe in her own room she gave a little laugh at her recent predicament and then sat down to note her latest discoveries on her tablets. Josie O'Gorman was very particular in this regard. Details seemingly of trifling moment but which may prove important are likely to escape one's memory. Her habit was to note every point of progress in a case and often review every point from the beginning, fitting them into their proper places and giving each its due importance. A digest of such information enabled her to proceed to the next logical step in her investigation. "These items all dovetail very nicely," she decided, with a satisfied nod at the quaint characters on the tablets--which all the world might read and be no wiser. "I must, however, satisfy myself that Tom Linnet actually printed those circulars. The evidence at hand indicates that he did, but I want positive proof. Also, I'd like to know which one of the gang employed him--and paid him so liberally. However, that suggestion opens up a new line of conjecture; I don't believe Tom Linnet got all his wealth merely for printing a few circulars, helping to address them, and keeping his mouth shut. But--what else has he been paid for?" She brooded on this for a while and then determined to take one thing at a time and follow it to a conclusion. So she once more quitted her room and descended by the elevator--openly, this time--to the office. It was now noon and the hotel office was filled with guests, and the clerks and bellboys were all busily occupied. Josie wandered carelessly around until she found the stairway leading to the basement. Watching her opportunity she slipped down the stairs. The basement was not as barren as she expected to find it. There was an open central space, on one side of which were rooms for the barber shop, baths, and a pool room, all more or less occupied by guests and attendants. On the opposite side, at the rear, were baggage and storerooms. Just beside her she noted a boot-black's stand, where a colored boy listlessly waited for customers. "Shine, miss?" he inquired. "No," said Josie in a businesslike tone; "I'm looking for the printing office." "Secon' door, miss," indicating it with a gesture; "but dey ain't nobody dere. De room's mos'ly kep' locked." "I know," said Josie, and advancing to the door drew out her keys. Her very boldness disarmed suspicion; the boy was not sufficiently interested to watch her, for a man came out of the barber-shop and seated himself in the boot-black's chair. This sort of lock didn't phase Josie at all. At the second trial she opened the door, walked in and closed the door behind her. It was a small room, dimly lighted and very disorderly. Scraps of paper were strewn around the floor. Dust had settled on the ink-rollers of the foot-press. A single case of type stood on a rack and the form of a bill-of-fare--partly "pied"--was on a marble slab which formed the top of a small table. On an upturned soap-box was a pile of unprinted menu cards. Josie noted a few cans of ink, a bottle of benzine, and a few printing tools lying carelessly about, but the room contained nothing more. Having "sized up" Tom Linnet's printing room with one swift glance, the girl stooped down and began searching among the scraps that littered the floor. They were mostly torn bits of cardboard or crumpled papers on which trial impressions had been made. Josie expected momentarily to be interrupted, so she conducted her search as rapidly as was consistent with thoroughness. She paid no attention to the card scraps but all papers she smoothed out, one by one. Finally, with a little cry of triumph, she thrust one of these into her handbag. She made this discovery just back of the press, and glancing up, she noted a hook that had formerly been hidden from her view, on which were impaled a number of papers--the chef's "copy" from which various bills had been printed. Running through these papers she suddenly paused, pulled one away from the hook and tucked it into her bag. She was fairly satisfied, now, but still continued her search amongst the litter. It was not easy to decipher writing or printing in that dim light, but her eyes were good and the longer she remained in the room the more distinctly she saw. There was an electric globe suspended over the press, but she dared not turn on the light for fear of attracting attention. Several scraps on which writing appeared she secured without trying to read them, but presently she decided she had made as thorough an examination of the place as was necessary. She left the room, locked the door again and boldly mounted the stairs to the office, meeting and passing several men who scarcely noticed her. Then she took the elevator to her room and washed her grimy hands and prepared for luncheon. At the table she slipped another of the printed bills into her bag, to use for comparison, and afterward ate her lunch as calmly as if she were not inwardly elated at the success of her morning's work. Josie felt, indeed, that she had secured the proof necessary to confound the traitors and bring them to the bar of justice. But there might be other interesting developments; her trap was still set. "There's no hurry," she told herself. "Let's see this thing through--to the end." Indeed, on reflection, she realized that several threads of evidence had not yet been followed to their source. Some points of mystification still remained to be cleared up. Her facts were mingled with theories, and she had been taught that theories are mighty uncertain things. On leaving the dining room, Josie got on her hat and jacket, went out to the street and caught an Oak Avenue car. "Oh, Josie!" cried a well-known voice, and there sat Mary Louise, on her way home from the Shop. Josie gave her a haughty look, walked straight to the far end of the car and sat down in a vacant seat. The car was half filled with passengers. Mary Louise pushed forward and sat beside her friend. Josie stared straight ahead, stolidly. "No one here knows you," whispered Mary Louise, "won't you speak to me, Josie?" No reply. "Where are you stopping? What are you doing? How are you getting along on the case?" pleaded Mary Louise, so softly that no one else could overhear. Josie maintained silence. Her features were expressionless. "I know you told me, in case we met, not to recognize you," continued Mary Louise, "but I'm so anxious for news, dear! Can't you come home, to-night, and have a good talk with me? You owe me that much consideration. Josie." The car stopped at a street intersection. Josie stood up. "Not to-night," she replied, and alighted from the car just as it started to move again. "Bother Mary Louise!" she muttered, "she has made me walk three whole blocks." Mary Louise was human and she was provoked. There was really no need for Josie O'Gorman to be so absurdly mysterious. Had she not known her so well, Mary Louise would have felt that Josie had deliberately insulted her. As it was, she blamed her friend for inexcusable affectation. "I'm not sure," she reflected, "that a girl can be a detective--a regular detective--without spoiling her disposition or losing to some an extent her maidenly modesty. Of course, Josie has been brought up in an atmosphere of mystery and can't be blamed for her peculiarities, but---I'm glad _I'm_ not a detective's daughter." Josie, however, wasn't worrying over any resentment her friend might feel at the necessary snub. She was on a keen scent and already had forgotten her meeting with Mary Louise. Three blocks farther on she turned into the walk leading to an old but picturesque residence, at one time a "show place" of Dorfield and the pride of the Dudley-Markhams, but now overshadowed by modern and more imposing mansions. Josie rang the door-bell and presently the door was opened by a young and rather untidy maid. "I'd like to see Professor Dyer," said Josie. "He's gone to Washington," was the reply. "Indeed! Are you quite sure?" "Yes," said the maid; and then Mrs. Dyer's head appeared in the opening and she gave Josie a curious if comprehensive examination. Then: "If you're from one of the schools, I'm sorry to tell you that Professor Dyer went to Washington by the early train this morning. I don't know how soon he will be back. Professor Harrington of the High School is in charge. But perhaps it is something I can do?" "No, thank you; I can wait," said Josie, and went away. "So," she said to herself, as she made her way back to town in a street car, "if Dyer has really gone to Washington, he hopes to get possession of the old desk and its hidden papers. Pretty important to him, those papers are, and I wouldn't blame him for chasing them up. But--has he really gone? Mrs. Dyer thinks so; but all evidence points to the fact that she's not in her husband's confidence. Now, if Dyer is on his way to Washington, what did last night's secret meeting mean? His absence will complicate matters, I fear. Anyhow, I must revise my conclusions a bit." CHAPTER XX ONE GIRL'S WITS As she entered the hotel Josie encountered Joe Langley, the one-armed soldier back from the war. She had taken a great interest in this young fellow and admired his simple, manly nature, having had several interesting conversations with him at the Liberty Girls' Shop and at the drills. Josie felt she needed an ally at this juncture, and here was one who could be trusted. "Joe," she said earnestly, drawing him aside, "are you going to be busy this evening?" "Yes, Miss O'Gorman, I'm busy every evening now," he replied. "I've taken a job, you know, and my loafing days and social stunts are over. There wasn't any bread-an'-butter in telling the society dames about my war experiences, so I had to go to work. I'm night watchman at the steel works, and go on duty at seven o'clock." Josie was disappointed. Looking at him musingly, she asked: "Are they making munitions now, at the steel works?" "Of course; it's practically under government control, they say, but is still operated by the old company. They make shells for the big guns, you know, and they've ten car-loads on hand, just now, ready to be shipped to-morrow." Josie drew a long breath. This was real news and her active mind jumped to a quick conclusion. "Are the shells loaded, Joe?" she inquired. "All ready for war," replied the soldier. "You see, a night watchman in such a place has an important position. I guard those shells by night, and another man does nothing but guard them by day." "Where are they stored?" was Josie's next question. "In the room just back of Mr. Colton's office--the big main building." "So Mr. Colton is still the head of the company?" "He's Vice-President and General Manager, and he knows the steel and ammunition business from A to Z," asserted Joe Langley. "Mr. Colton represents the government as well as the steel works. The President is Mr. Jaswell, the banker, but he doesn't do anything but attend the Board meetings." "Joe," said Josie impressively, "you know who I am, don't you?" "Why, you're one of the Liberty Girls, I guess." "I'm from Washington," she said. "My father, John O'Gorman, is one of the government's secret service officers; I'm working on a case here in the interests of our government, and I may want you to help me foil a German spy plot." "Count on me!" said Sergeant Joe, emphatically. And then he added: "I'd like to make sure, though, that you're really what you claim to be." Josie opened her hand bag and from a side pocket drew a silver badge engraved "U. S. Secret Service. No. L2O1." That was her father's number and a complimentary badge, but Joe was satisfied. He had to glance inside the handbag to see it, for the girl dared not exhibit it more openly. "If you want to know more about me, ask Colonel Hathaway," continued Josie. "No," said Joe; "I believe you're on the square. But I'd never have suspected it of you. Tell me what I'm to do." "Nothing, at present. But should a crisis arrive, stand by me and obey my instructions." "I'll do that," promised the man. When the girl had regained her room in the hotel, she sat down with a businesslike air and wrote upon a sheet of paper, in her peculiar cypher, the story of her discoveries and the conclusions they justified up to the present hour. This was to fix all facts firmly in her mind and to enable her to judge their merits. The story was concise enough, and perhaps Josie was quite unaware how much she had drawn upon her imagination. It read this way: "Disloyal circulars have been issued from time to time in Dorfield, designed to interfere with sales' of Liberty Bonds, to cause resentment at conscription and to arouse antipathy for our stalwart allies, the English. These circulars were written by John Dyer, superintendent of schools, who poses as a patriot. The circulars were printed in the basement of the Mansion House by Tom Linnet, a night clerk, who was well paid for his work. Papers found secreted in an old desk from the attic of Dyer's house prove that Dyer is in the pay of German agents in this country and has received fabulous sums for his 'services,' said services not being specified in the documents. In addition to these payments, there were found in the desk notes of the Imperial German Government, for large amounts, such notes to be paid 'after the war.' "Dyer is clearly the head of the German spy plot in Dorfield, but the person who acts as medium between Dyer and the Master Spy is an alleged suspender salesman calling himself Abe Kauffman. This Kauffman makes frequent trips to Dorfield, giving orders to Dyer, and on one occasion Kauffman, who stops at the Mansion House while in town, hired Tom Linnet to place a bomb in the Airplane Factory, causing an explosion which destroyed many government airplanes and killed several employees. The sum paid Linnet for this dastardly act has made him rich and he has bought or is about to buy a cigar store. Kauffman now has another bomb in his possession, doubtless brought here to be placed, when opportunity arrives, to do the most possible damage. Indications are that he may attempt to blow up the steel works, where a large amount of shells are now completed and ready for shipment to-morrow--meaning that the job must be done to-night, if at all. Perhaps Linnet will place the bomb; perhaps Kauffman will do it himself. Dyer has lost his incriminating papers and notes and is on his way to Washington in an endeavor to recover them. "Associated with Dyer in his horrible activities is Mrs. Augusta Charleworth, occupying a high social position, but of German birth and therefore a German sympathizer. She is clever, and her brains supplement those of Dyer, who seems more shrewd than initiative, being content to execute the orders of others. Dyer was educated at Heidelburg, in Germany, which accounts, perhaps, for his being pro-German, although I suspect he is pro-anything that will pay him money. Dyer and the Hon. Andrew Duncan, while political pals, are not connected in this spy plot, but I suspect that Peter Boyle, the proprietor of the Mansion House may be one of the gang. I've no evidence yet that implicates Boyle, but he harbors Kauffman as a guest and ought to know that his night clerk is printing traitorous propaganda. So far, the evidence incriminates Kauffman, Mrs. Charleworth, Dyer and Tom Linnet. I believe Mrs. Dyer to be innocent of any knowledge of her husband's crimes; otherwise, she would never have parted with that important desk--the desk that will prove his ruin and ought to cost him his life. "My plan is this," concluded the notation, "to catch Kauffman or Linnet in the act of placing the bomb to-night, make the arrest, round up the other guilty ones and jail them, and then turn the case over to the federal officers for prosecution. A telegram to Washington will secure Professor Dyer's arrest on his arrival there." Josie read this through twice and nodded her red head with intense satisfaction. "All clear as crystal," she asserted gleefully. "I have proof of every statement, and the finale can't go very wrong with such knowledge in my possession. To-night, unless all signs fail, will prove a warm night-- warm enough to scorch these dreadful, murderous tools of the Kaiser!" And now Josie skipped over to the police station and had a somewhat lengthy conference with Chief Farnum, who knew her father and treated the girl detective with professional consideration. After this she hunted up the two government agents--old Jim Crissey and young Norman Addison--who knew her well as "John O'Gorman's clever kid, the pride of her doting Daddy." They listened to her with interest and genuine respect for her talent and not only promised their assistance whenever it might be needed but congratulated her warmly on her good work. This concluded Josie's afternoon labors, and it was with a sense of triumphant elation that she returned to her hotel to rest and prepare for the expected crisis. CHAPTER XXI SURPRISES Josie went to dinner as soon as the dining room opened. When she came out she met Abe Kauffman going in. He stopped and spoke to her. "Sell any brains yet?" in a jocular way. "Not to-day," she replied, with her innocent, baby-like stare. "Well, I didn't sell any suspenders, either. There are no spenders for _sus_penders. Ha, ha, ha!" "That doesn't seem to worry you much," asserted Josie, pointedly. He gave a shrug. "Well, to-morrow morning I leave by the 5:30 train east, so if I don't see you any more, I hope the brains will find a market." "Thank you." She went on, glad to escape the man. "He told me about leaving on the 5:30, and is probably giving everyone else the same information, so he can't be connected with the explosion," she reflected. "Clever Mr. Kauffman! But not clever enough to realize he is near the end of his infamous career." Josie's plans, perfected during that afternoon, primarily involved the shadowing of Abe Kauffman every moment, from now on. Abe Kauffman and his black satchel. For it grew dark early at this time of year, and already the brief twilight was fading. So the girl hastened to her room and exchanged her gray walking suit for a darker one that was inconspicuous and allowed free movement. Then she slipped her little pearl-mounted revolver--her father's gift--into her handbag and decided she was ready for any emergency. Having extinguished the light in her room, she glanced from the window into the alley below, where the shadows were now gathering deeply. "I think Kauffman will go down the fire-escape and drop into the alley," she mused; "but he must first come to his room for the black satchel, in any event, and from that instant I must never lose sight of him." Suddenly she discovered a form pacing slowly up and down the otherwise deserted alley. Fearful that other detectives were on the watch, and might disrupt her plans, she strained her eyes to discover this person's identity. There was but one light to relieve the gloom, and that was far down the alley, a spot the prowler for some time avoided. Finally, however, he came to a point where the light touched his face and Josie instantly recognized Tom Linnet. "He is waiting for someone," she decided, "and Kauffman is still at dinner--killing time because it's yet too early to undertake his nefarious task. Tom Linnet may be the tool he has selected, and I ought to get in touch with the boy, somehow, before he meets the arch conspirator. Kauffman is the one I prefer to land." With this in mind, she hurried down, passed out at the front office doorway and turned into a narrow drive at the south of the hotel, which led to the rear alley. A great business block, now dark and deserted, loomed on the other side of the driveway, which was used by the baggage and supply wagons in the daytime. When the girl reached the corner of the alley she found herself in very deep shadow; so she ventured to protrude her head far enough to look after Tom Linnet. To her surprise the party he had been waiting for had already joined him, for she discovered two dusky forms pacing the alley. It could not be Kauffman. While she hesitated whether to steal closer or maintain her position, the two advanced almost to her corner and paused there--in the blackest spot they could find. "I tell you I won't do it!" said Tom, in a hard, dogged tone that was tense with excitement. "I'm through, and that's all there is to it." "That's a mistaken notion," was the quiet reply. "You're too deep in the plot to draw back, and the pay is well worth while." "I don't want any more money," growled Tom. "You'll get two thousand for this night's work. Cash. And there is no risk; you know that." "Risk? God, man! Can't you guess how I dream of those poor devils I sent to their death in the airplane job? I hate the money I got! I--I--" "See here," said the other voice impatiently, "that was a mistake, and you know it. We didn't intend murder, but the explosion was delayed. No one will get hurt to-night." "Not through me," declared Tom. "If you fail us, you'll come to grief." "If I come to grief, so will you. Peach on me, and I'll blow the whole deal." There was a moment's silence. "Would three thousand satisfy you?" demanded the tempter. "No," asserted Tom stoutly; "I'm goin' to quit. What's done can't be undone, but I'm through with you. It--it's too blamed terrible, that's what it is! Leave me alone an' let me turn honest. Why don't you do the job yourself?" "I think I will," said the other calmly. "If you intend to turn down a good thing, I'll do my own work and save the money. But remember, Linnet, silence is your only salvation. Don't talk at all; if you do, you're liable to say the wrong thing--and you can't afford to do that." "I'm no fool," responded the night clerk, a shade of relief in his tone. "But don't come to me again, Professor. I'm done with you." Professor! Josie felt a distinct shock. She had to flatten herself against the wall, too, and remain rigid, for the man abruptly turned the corner and marched down the driveway. Half way to the brilliantly lighted street he dodged behind the building opposite the hotel, threading his way through narrow back yards. Josie followed, swift and silent. Finally they reached a place where the man was forced to pass beneath the rays of a lamp and Josie was near enough to see his face. It was, in reality, Professor John Dyer. That assurance was all the girl wanted, just now. She let him go his way and turned to regain the hotel. It was not quite eight o'clock, yet she felt it important to keep an eye on Kauffman and the bomb. The bomb, especially, for until Dyer took possession of the infernal contrivance he could do no mischief. In the hotel lobby she entered a public telephone booth and called up Jim Crissey; then she went straight to her room. She could hear a low whistling in 45, which informed her that Kauffman had not yet gone out and that he was in a cheerful mood. "I'm beginning to understand their method of work," Josie reflected. "Kauffman prepares the bombs, or brings them here under the guise of a suspender salesman; Dyer arranges for their being placed, having secured information as to where an explosion will do the most damage to the government, and Tom Linnet is used as the tool to do the actual work. Mrs. Charleworth probably assists Dyer in getting special information, and advises the gang, but doesn't take an active part in the perpetration of the crimes. Her brains and position would naturally place her at the head of the conspirators in Dorfield, although I'm pretty sure Kauffman, as the agent of the Master Spy, can dictate what they must do." Kauffman slammed his door and locked it. He was going out. Josie opened her own door a crack to look after him. He was walking deliberately down the corridor, openly carrying in his left hand the black satchel. To Josie this seemed the essence of effrontery. He had no intention of using the fire-escape, after all. He trusted in bravado, as so many careless criminals do. As she stealthily followed him, she observed the man stop in the office and exchange commonplaces with one or two guests whom he knew. In reality, this was his safest plan. The black bag did not look suspicious. Presently the bomb would be turned over to Dyer and Kauffman's responsibility would then end. His very boldness was calculated to prevent suspicion. Leaving the hotel, Kauffman walked leisurely up the lighted street. Only when he turned a corner did Josie momentarily lose sight of him. There were many pedestrians at this hour and they masked the girl's form and for a while enabled her to keep near to the man she was shadowing. The only thing that puzzled Josie was the fact that Kauffman was proceeding in a direction exactly opposite that taken by Dyer a short time before. Dyer went south and Kauffman was going north. When the business section of Dorfield was passed, the streets became more deserted. They were not well lighted either, which favored Josie the more. Kauffman kept steadily on, and as the houses along the way thinned, Josie decided he was headed directly for the steel works. That upset her calculations a bit, for she knew he had not seen Dyer since the latter's interview with Tom Linnet, nor had he seen Linnet; therefore he could not know that any arrangements he had previously made with them had fallen through. The German's present actions, however, indicated that he had decided to place the bomb himself, without the assistance of his fellow conspirators. Had he been warned of Linnet's defection? Had he means of communicating with Dyer unknown to Josie? Dyer was a mystery; even his wife believed he was now on his way to Washington. Surprises, in Josie's line of work were not uncommon, and this was no time to consider whys and wherefores. The one thing she was sure of was that the bomb was in the black satchel and the black satchel in Kauffman's hand. No matter where the other conspirators might be or how they were implicated in tonight's plot, as long as she kept her eye on the bomb, she would be able to control the situation. CHAPTER XXII A SLIGHT MISTAKE From the edge of the town to the steel works the road led through a common, overgrown with brush and weeds. There was no moon and although the distance was not great it was a lonely, dark and "creepy" place. As soon as the girl saw Kauffman take the road to the works she decided to get there before he could do so. Knowing well she could not be seen, she branched off through the brush, and finding her way by instinct rather than sight, ran swiftly in a half circle over the fields and struck the road again considerably in advance of the more deliberate Kauffman. She now set off at her swiftest run and on reaching the manager's office, in the front of the main building, perceived that it was lighted. Josie rapped upon the door and it was opened by one-armed Joe Langley, the night watchman. "Quick!" she said, "let me in and hide me somewhere, where I can't be seen." Joe pulled her in, closed the outer door and locked it, and then faced her. "What's up?" he demanded. "There's a man coming here with a bomb in a black satchel," she panted. "He intends to blow up this building, in which all the shells axe stored. I want to catch him in the act, Joe, and you must hide me somewhere." Joe glanced around with a puzzled look. "Where?" he asked helplessly. So Josie looked around her, too. This end of the long building was partitioned off for offices, as it fronted the town. The central section was a big space containing a table, benches, etc., while on either side were little glass rooms with partitions between them reaching about seven feet in height, the ceiling being some twelve feet from the floor. The first room to the left of the entrance was marked "Manager" on its glass door; the next office "Purchasing Agent," and the third "Chief Engineer." On the right hand side, the corresponding offices were marked "Secretary," "Examiner," and "Superintendent." All the office doors were locked except that of the Purchasing Agent, which stood ajar. Josie sprang into that office and cast a hurried glance around. The glass division between that and the manager's office was "frosted" with white paint, but so carelessly done that she found places where she could see through into the office of the manager. Also she could see into the main, or reception room, even with her door closed. While she examined this place a knock came on the outer door--a loud, imperative knock. "This will do," whispered Josie to Joe. "Go an let him in, but don't let him suspect I'm here." Joe was not quick-witted, but on the battlefields of France he had learned prompt obedience to orders. Josie, as a government agent, was now his commander, so he merely nodded to her as he walked over to unlock the outer door. Kauffman stepped in, satchel in hand. "You're the watchman, I suppose," he said cheerfully. "Is Mr. Colton here?" "No," answered Joe. "I was to meet him here at this time," said Kauffman. "He said he'd be back this evening," returned Joe, just recalling that fact, "but he isn't here yet." "All right," said the man, "I'll wait." He carefully placed the satchel on the table and sat down on a bench. Joe regarded him suspiciously, remembering the girl's warning, but said nothing more. Josie was watching Kauffman from her retreat, but as her little office was dark and the German sat under a bright light it was impossible for him to know that his every movement was under observation. The minutes dragged. A big clock on the wall ticked with an ominous sound. Kauffman drew out his watch and compared it with the clock. He appeared to grow restless. Josie's quick ears caught the distant sound of a motor car coming down the road. Perhaps Kauffman heard it also. He rose from his seat and going to the table unlocked the black satchel, pressed the top open and looked inside it. Still bending over the satchel he placed a cigarette in his mouth, lighted a match and applied the flame to his cigarette. His back was toward Josie but she comprehended instantly the action. "He has lighted the fuse!" she murmured, triumphantly. The motor car came to a sudden halt outside the door, which Joe had left unlocked; but while the German turned expectantly toward the door the maimed soldier, hearing Josie's whisper, approached her little room and slightly opened her door. "He has lighted the fuse of the bomb," she said to him excitedly. "The bomb is in the satchel!" Joe turned quickly to the table. He dived into the bag with his one good hand, drew out the heavy ball of steel and rushed with it to the door just as the manager, Mr. Colton, opened it and stepped in. So swift were Joe's actions that Kauffman had no time to interfere. Both he and the manager stared in amazement as Joe Langley rushed outside and with all his might hurled the bomb far out upon the common. "Confound you!" cried Kauffman. "What did you do that for?" "What is it?" inquired the astonished manager. "A bomb!" cried Josie, stepping from her retreat and confronting them. "A bomb with the fuse lighted, and timed to blow up this building after you had gone away, Mr. Colton. That man before you is a German spy, and I arrest him in the name of the law. Put up your hands, Abe Kauffman!" The little revolver was in her hand, steadily covering him. Kauffman gave an amused laugh, but he slowly raised his arms, as commanded. "I don't quite understand," said the puzzled manager, looking from one to the other. "Well, I brought the new projectile, Colton, as I had agreed," answered the German, coolly, "but your quaint watchman has thrown it away. As for the girl," he added, with a broad grin, "she has fooled me. She said she had brains, and I find she was mistaken." The manager turned to Josie. "May I ask who you are, Miss, and how you came to be in my office?" "I am Josie O'Gorman, an agent of the government secret service," she replied, not quite truthfully. "I've been shadowing this man for some time. I tell you, sir, he brought a bomb here, to destroy this building, and under pretense of lighting, a cigarette he has just lighted the time fuse. The bomb was in that satchel, but--" she added impressively, "as a matter of fact the thing was harmless, as I had already removed the powder from the fuse." Kauffman gave a low whistle. "How did you manage that?" he asked curiously. "Never mind how," she retorted; "I did it." Kauffman turned to the manager. "Will you please order your man to get the projectile?" he asked. "It is lucky for us all that the thing isn't loaded, or there really would have been an explosion." He now turned to Josie, with his hands still in the air, and explained: "It is meant to explode through impact, and ordering it tossed out there was the most dangerous thing you could have done." At the manager's command Joe took an electric searchlight and went out to find the steel ball. "If you please, miss," said Kauffman, "may I put down my arms? They are tired, and I assure you I will not try to escape." Josie lowered the revolver. Her face was red. She was beginning to wonder if she had bungled the case. A second thought, however--a thought of the papers she had found in the old desk--reassured her. She might have been wrong in some respects, but surely she was right in the main. "This man," said Mr. Colton, pointing to Kauffman, "is known to me as a munition expert. He bears the endorsement of the Secretary of War and is the inventor of the most effective shells we now manufacture. What you have mistaken for a bomb is his latest design of projectile for an eight-inch gun. He had arranged to bring it here and explain to me its mechanism to-night, and also to submit a proposition giving our company the control of its manufacture. If you are a government agent, you surely understand that these arrangements must be conducted with great secrecy. If we purchase the right to make this projectile, we must first induce the government to use it, by demonstrating its effectiveness, and then secure our contracts. So your interference, at this time, is---ahem!--annoying." Josie's face was a little more red than before. A second motor car drew up at the door and to her astonishment Mrs. Charleworth entered and greeted both the manager and Kauffman in her usual charming manner. Then she looked inquiringly at the girl. "Pardon me, madam," said Mr. Colton. "There has been a singular misunderstanding, it seems, and our friend here has been accused of being a German spy by this young lady, who is a government detective-- or--or claims to be such. The precious projectile, in which you are so deeply interested, has just been tossed out upon the common, but Joe Langley is searching for it." Mrs. Charleworth's face wore an amused smile. "We are so beset with spies, on every hand, that such an error is quite likely to occur," said she. "I recognize this young lady as a friend of the Hathaway family, and I have met her at the Liberty Girls' Shop, so she is doubtless sincere--if misled. Let us hope we can convince her-- Miss O'Gorman, isn't it?--that we are wholly innocent of attempting to promote the Kaiser's interests." Joe came in with the steel ball, which he deposited upon the table. Then, at a nod from the manager, the soldier took his searchlight and departed through the door leading to the big room in the rear. It was time to make his regular rounds of the works, and perhaps Mr. Colton preferred no listeners to the conversation that might follow. CHAPTER XXIII THE FLASHLIGHT "Perhaps," said Josie, her voice trembling a little, "I have assumed too much, and accused this man," pointing to Kauffman, "unjustly. I was trying to serve my country. But I am somewhat confused, even yet, in regard to this affair. Will you please tell me, Mrs. Charleworth, what connection you have with Mr. Kauffman, or with his--projectile?" "Very gladly," said the lady, graciously. "I am a stockholder in this steel company--a rather important stockholder, I believe--and while I am not a member of the board of directors, Mr. Colton represents my interests. Two years ago we bought the Kauffman shell, and paid liberally for it, but Mr. Kauffman unfortunately invested his money in a transatlantic merchant ship which was sunk, with its entire cargo, by a German submarine. Again penniless, he began the manufacture of suspenders, in a small way, with money I loaned him, but was not very successful. Then he conceived the idea of a new projectile, very effective and quite different from others. He asked our company to finance him while he was experimenting and perfecting the new projectile. The company couldn't undertake to do that, but I personally financed Mr. Kauffman, having confidence in his ability. He has been six months getting the invention made, tested and ready to submit to government experts, and up to the present it has cost a lot of money. However, it is now considered perfect and Mr. Kauffman has brought it here to-night to exhibit and explain it to Mr. Colton. If Mr. Colton approves it from a manufacturing standpoint, our company will secure an option for the sole right to manufacture it." "Mr. Kauffman has been in Dorfield several days," said Josie. "Why did he not show you the projectile before?" "I have been out of town," explained the manager. "I returned this afternoon, especially for this interview, and made the appointment for this evening. I am a busy man--these are war times, you know--and I must make my evenings count as well as my days." Josie scented ignominous defeat, but she had one more shot to fire. "Mrs. Charleworth," she stated, with a severe look, "John Dyer, the school superintendent, was at your house last night, in secret conference with Mr. Kauffman and yourself." "Oh, so you are aware of that interview?" "Clever!" said Kauffman, "I'd no idea I was being shadowed." Then the two exchanged glances and smiled. "It seems impossible," continued the man, "to keep any little matter of business dark, these days, although the war office insists on secrecy in regard to all munitions affairs and publicity would surely ruin our chances of getting the new projectile accepted for government use." "I am awaiting an explanation of that meeting," declared Josie sternly. "Perhaps you do not realize how important it may be." "Well," answered Mrs. Charleworth, a thoughtful expression crossing her pleasant face, "I see no objection to acquainting you with the object of that mysterious meeting, although it involves confiding to you a bit of necessary diplomacy. Mr. Colton will tell you that the Dorfield Steel Works will under no circumstances purchase the right to manufacture the Kauffman projectile--or any other article of munition-- until it is approved and adopted by the War Department. That approval is not easily obtained, because the officials are crowded with business and a certain amount of red tape must be encountered. Experience has proved that the inventor is not the proper person to secure government endorsement; he labors under a natural disadvantage. Neither is Mr. Colton, as the prospective manufacturer, free from suspicion of selfish interest. Therefore it seemed best to have the matter taken up with the proper authorities and experts by someone not financially interested in the projectile. "Now, Professor Dyer has a brother-in-law who is an important member of the munitions board, under General Crozier, and we have induced the professor, after much urging, to take our projectile to Washington, have it tested, and secure contracts for its manufacture. If he succeeds, we are to pay liberally for his services. That was how he came to be at our house last evening, when arrangements were finally made." "Was such secrecy necessary?" asked Josie suspiciously. It was Kauffman who answered this question, speaking with apparent good humor but with a tinge of sarcasm in his voice: "My dear young lady, your own disposition to secrecy--a quality quite necessary in a detective--should show you the absurdity of your question. Can we be too careful in these days of espionage? No emissary of the Kaiser must know the construction of this wonderful projectile; none should even know that it exists. Even should our government refuse to adopt it; we must not let the Central Powers know of it. My own negotiations with Mr. Colton and Mrs. Charleworth have been camouflaged by my disguise as a suspender merchant. It was equally important that Mr. Dyer's connection with us be wholly unsuspected. When the projectile is adopted, and these works are manufacturing it in quantities to help win the war, still no information concerning it must be made public. You must realize that." "That is all true," agreed Mr. Colton. "These frank statements, miss, have only been made to you because of your claim to being a government agent. If you fail to substantiate that claim, we shall place you under arrest and turn you over to the authorities, for our own protection." "To be sure," said Josie; "that will be your duty. I am the daughter of John O'Gorman, one of the high officers of the United States Secret Service, who is now in Europe in the interests of the government. I came to Dorfield to visit my friend, Mary Louise Burrows, as Mrs. Charleworth is aware, and while here my suspicions were aroused of the existence of a German spy plot. Therefore I set to work to bring the criminals to justice." "And, like the regulation detective, you have followed a false trail," commented Kauffman, with his provoking smile. "Not altogether," retorted Josie. "I have already secured proof that will convict two persons, at least. And I am amazed that you have intrusted your secrets to that arch-traitor, Professor Dyer. Will you tell me, Mrs. Charleworth, what you know about that man?" Mrs. Charleworth seemed astounded. "Professor John Dyer is one of Dorfield's old residents, I believe," she answered slowly, as if carefully considering her words. "He is also the superintendent of schools, and in that capacity seems highly respected. I have never heard anything against the man, until now. His important public position should vouch for his integrity." "Isn't his position a political appointment?" inquired Josie. The lady looked at Mr. Colton. "Yes," said the manager. "It is true that John Dyer was active in politics long before he was made superintendent of schools. However, he was an educator, as well as a politician, so it seems his appointment was merited." "How well do you know him personally, madam?" asked the girl. "Not very well," she admitted. "We do not meet socially, so our acquaintance until very recently was casual. But I have looked upon him as a man of importance in the community. On learning that he had a relative on the munitions board, I asked him to come, to my house, where I made him the proposition to take our projectile to Washington and secure its adoption. I offered liberal terms for such service, but at first the professor seemed not interested. I arranged a second meeting, last evening, at which Mr. Kauffman was present to explain technical details, and we soon persuaded Mr. Dyer to undertake the commission. We felt that we could trust him implicity." "When did he intend to go to Washington?" was Josie's next question. "On the 5:30, to-morrow morning. After exhibiting the projectile to Mr. Colton and securing the firm's option to manufacture it on a royalty basis, we are to take it to my house, where Mr. Dyer will receive it and obtain our final instructions." "One question more, if you please," said Josie. "What connection with your enterprise has Tom Linnet?" "Linnet? I do not know such a person," declared Mrs. Charleworth. "Who is he?" asked the manager. "I know him," said Kauffman. "He's the night clerk at the Mansion House where I stop. Sometimes I see him when I come in late. He's not of special account; he's weak, ignorant, and--" A sharp report interrupted him and alarmed them all. Josie swung around quickly, for the sound--she knew it was a revolver shot--came from the rear. As Colton and Kauffman sprang to their feet and Mrs. Charleworth shrank back in a fright, the girl ran to the back door, opened it and started to make her way through the huge, dark building beyond the partition. The manager followed in her wake and as he passed through the door he turned a switch which flooded the big store-room with light. In the center of the building were long, broad tables, used for packing. A few shells still remained grouped here and there upon the boards. On either side the walls were lined with tiers of boxes bound with steel bands and ready for shipment. No person was visible in this room, but at the farther end an outer door stood ajar and just outside it a motionless form was outlined. Josie and Mr. Colton, approaching this outer door nearly at the same time, controlled their haste and came to an abrupt halt. The upright figure was that of Sergeant Joe Langley and the light from the room just reached a human form huddled upon the ground a few feet distant. Joe had dropped his flashlight and in his one hand held a revolver. Josie drew a long, shuddering breath. The manager took a step forward, hesitated, and returned to his former position, his face deathly white. "What is it? What's the matter?" called Kauffman, coming upon the scene panting for he was too short and fat to run easily. Joe turned and looked at them as if waking from a trance. His stolid face took on a shamed expression. "Couldn't help it, sir," he said to the manager. "I caught him in the act. It was the flashlight that saved us. When it struck him he looked up and the bullet hit him fair." "Who is it, and what was he doing?" asked Mr. Colton hoarsely. "It's under him, sir, and he was a-lighting of it." As he spoke, Sergeant Joe approached the form and with a shove of his foot pushed it over. It rolled slightly, unbent, and now lay at full length, facing them. Josie picked up the flashlight and turned it upon the face. "Oh!" she cried aloud, and shivered anew, but was not surprised. "I guess," said Joe slowly, "they'll have to get another school superintendent." "But what's it all about? What did he do?" demanded Kauffman excitedly. Joe took the light from Josie's hand and turned it upon a curious object that until now had been hidden by the dead man's body. "It's a infernal machine, sir, an' I ain't sure, even yet, that it won't go off an' blow us all up. He was leanin' down an' bendin' over it, twisting that dial you see, when on a sudden I spotted him. I didn't stop to think. My Cap'n used to say 'Act first an' think afterwards,' an' that's what I did. I didn't know till now it was the school boss, but it wouldn't have made any difference. I done my duty as I saw it, an' I hope I did it right, Mr. Colton." Kauffman was already stooping over the machine, examining it with a skilled mechanical eye. "It's ticking!" he said, and began turning the dial backward to zero. The ticking stopped. Then the inventor stood, up and with his handkerchief wiped the perspiration from his face. "Gott!" he exclaimed, "this is no joke. We've all been too near death to feel comfortable." "This is horrible!" said Mr. Colton, "I can't yet believe that Dyer could be guilty of so fiendish an act." "I can," asserted Josie grimly, "and it isn't the first time he has planned murder, either. Dyer was responsible for the explosion at the airplane factory." Footsteps were heard. Out of the darkness between the group of buildings appeared two men, Crissey and Addison. "Are we too late, Miss O'Gorman?" asked Crissey. "Yes," she replied. "How did you lose track of Dyer?" "He's a slippery fellow," said Addison, "and threw us off the scent. But finally we traced him here and--" "And there he is," concluded Josie in a reproachful tone. Crissey caught sight of the machine. "Great Caesar!" he exclaimed, "who saved you?" "I did," answered Joe, putting the revolver in his hip pocket, "but I wish you'd had the job, stranger." CHAPTER XXIV AFTER THE CRISIS Mrs. Charleworth drove Josie, who was sobbing nervously and quite bereft of her usual self-command, to Colonel Hathaway's residence. The woman was unnerved, too, and had little to say on the journey. The old colonel had retired, but Mary Louise was still up, reading a book, and she was shocked when Josie came running in and threw herself into her friend's arms, crying and laughing by turns, hysterically. "What's the matter, dear?" asked Mary Louise in an anxious voice. "I've b-b-bungled that whole miserable G-Ger-man spy plot!" wailed Josie. "Wasn't there any plot, then?" "Of course; but I g-grabbed the wrong end of it. Oh, I'm so glad Daddy wasn't here to see my humiliation! I'm a dub, Mary Louise--a miserable, ignorant, foozle-brained dub!" "Never mind, dear," said Mary Louise consolingly. "No one can know everything, Josie, even at our age. Now sit down and wipe that wet off your face and tell me all about it." Josie complied. She snivelled a little as she began her story, but soon became more calm. Indeed, in her relation she tried to place the facts in such order that she might herself find excuse for her erroneous theories, as well as prove to Mary Louise that her suspicions of Abe Kauffman and Mrs. Charleworth were well founded. "No girl is supposed to know the difference between a bomb and a cannon-ball--or projectile--or whatever it is," was her friend's comment, when Josie had reached the scene in the manager's office, "and any man who is a German and acts queerly is surely open to suspicion. Go on, Josie; what happened next?" Even Mary Louise was startled and horrified at the terrible retribution that had overtaken Professor Dyer, although Josie's story had aroused her indignation toward him and prepared her for the man's final infamous attempt to wreck the steel plant. "And what about Tom Linnet?" she asked. "Chief Farnum is to arrest him to-night," said Josie. "He will confess everything, of course, and then the whole plot will be made public." "Poor Mrs. Dyer!" sighed Mary Louise. But fate decreed a different ending to the night's tragedy. When the police tried to arrest Tom Linnet the young man was not to be found. He had not bought the cigar store, but with what funds remained to him, he had absconded to parts unknown. Chief Farnum wired his description to all parts of the country. Meantime, on the morning after the affair at the steel works, an earnest conference was held between Mr. Colton, Colonel Hathaway, Josie O'Gorman, Mrs. Charleworth, the Chief of Police and the two secret service agents. At this conference it was deemed inadvisable to acquaint the public with the truth about John Dyer's villainy. The government would be fully informed, of course, but it seemed best not to tell the people of Dorfield that a supposedly respectable citizen had been in the pay of the Kaiser's agents. It would be likely to make them suspicious of one another and have a bad influence generally. The criminal had paid the penalty of his crimes. The murders he had committed and attempted to commit were avenged. So it was announced that the school superintendent had been killed by an accidental explosion at the munition works, and the newspapers stated that Mrs. Dyer did not desire a public funeral. Indeed, she was too overwhelmed by the tragedy to express any desire regarding the funeral but left it all to Colonel Hathaway and Mr. Colton, who volunteered to attend to the arrangements. The burial was very unostentatious and the widow received much sympathy and did not suffer in the esteem of the community. Mrs. Dyer, in fact, was never told of her husband's dishonor and so mourned him sincerely. Immediately following the conference referred to, Josie brought the Chief of Police and the secret service men to her room and in their presence dragged the old pedestal-desk from her closet. Mary Louise, who had been admitted, exclaimed in surprise: "Why, Josie! I thought you sent the desk to Washington." "No," answered Josie, "I merely shipped an empty box. I knew very well that Dyer would try to get back the desk, hoping I had not discovered its secret, so I deceived him and gained time by proving that I had sent a box home by freight." "That explains his decision to take the projectile to Washington," commented Detective Crissey, "he believed he could kill two birds with one stone--get back his papers and earn a big fee from Mrs. Charleworth." "Also," added Josie, "he would be able to give the German Master Spy full information concerning the projectile, and so reap another reward. But all his diabolical schemes were frustrated by Joe Langley's bullet." "Well, here's the desk," said Chief Farnum, "but where are those important papers, Miss O'Gorman?" "And what do they prove?" added Crissey. Josie slid back the panel in the square pedestal, disclosing the two compartments filled with papers. These she allowed the police and the detectives to read, arid they not only proved that John Dyer was in the pay of an organized band of German spies having agents in Washington, New York and Chicago, but Crissey was confident the notes, contracts and agreements would furnish clues leading to the discovery and apprehension of the entire band. So the papers were placed in his charge to take to Washington, and their importance was a further argument for secrecy concerning John Dyer's death. "So far as I am concerned," Josie said afterward to Colonel Hathaway and Mary Louise, "the spy case is ended. When they arrest Tom Linnet they will be able to prove, from the scraps of paper I found in the printing room of the hotel, that Linnet printed the circulars from copy furnished by Dyer, and that Dyer and Linnet together directed the envelopes, probably in the still hours of the morning at the hotel desk, where they were not likely to be disturbed. The circulars may not be considered legally treasonable, but the fact that Linnet personally placed the bomb that destroyed the airplane works will surely send him to the scaffold." "I suppose you will be called as a witness," suggested Mary Louise, "because you are the only one who overheard his verbal confession of the crime." "It wont take much to make Linnet confess," predicted Josie. "He is yellow all through, or he wouldn't have undertaken such dastardly work for the sake of money. His refusal to undertake the second job was mere cowardice, not repentance. I understand that sort of criminal pretty well, and I assure you he will confess as soon as he is captured." But, somewhat to the astonishment of the officers, Tom Linnet managed to evade capture. They found his trail once or twice, and lost it again. After a time they discovered he had escaped into Mexico; afterward they heard of a young man of his description in Argentine; finally he disappeared altogether. The arms of the law are long and strong, far-reaching and mercilessly persistent. They may embrace Tom Linnet yet, but until now he has miraculously avoided them. CHAPTER XXV DECORATING Colonel Hathaway and Mary Louise were walking down the street one day when they noticed that the front of Jake Kasker's Clothing Emporium was fairly covered with American flags. Even the signs were hidden by a fluttering display of the Stars and Stripes. "I wonder what this means?" said the colonel. "Let's go in and inquire," proposed Mary Louise. "I don't suppose the man has forgiven me yet for suspecting his loyalty, but you've always defended him, Gran'pa Jim, so he will probably tell you why he is celebrating." They entered the store and Kasker came forward to meet them. "What's the meaning of all the flags, Jake?" asked the colonel. "Didn't you hear?" said Kasker. "My boy's been shot--my little Jakie!" Tears came to his eyes. "Dear me!" exclaimed Mary Louise, with ready sympathy; "I hope he--he isn't dead?" "No," said Kasker, wiping his eyes, "not that, thank God. A shell splinter took out a piece of his leg--my little Jakie's leg!--and he's in a hospital at Soissons. His letter says in a few weeks he can go back to his company. I got a letter from his captain, too. The captain says Jakie is a good soldier and fights like wild-cats. That's what he says of Jakie!" "Still," said Colonel Hathaway, with a puzzled look, "I do not quite understand why you should decorate so profusely on account of so sad an event." "Sad!" exclaimed the clothing man, "not a bit. That's glory, the way _I_ look at it, Colonel. If my Jakie's blood is spilled for his country, and he can go back and spill it again, it makes great honor for the name of Kasker. Say, once they called me pro-German, 'cause I said I hated the war. Don't my Jakie's blood put my name on America's honor roll? I'm pretty proud of Jakie," he wiped his eyes again; "I'll give him an interest in the business, if he comes back. And if he don't--if those cursed Germans put an end to him--then folks will say, 'See Jake Kasker over there? Well, he gave his son for his country--his only son.' Seems to me, Colonel, that evens the score. America gives us Germans protection and prosperity, and we give our blood to defend America's honor. I'm sorry I couldn't find a place for any more flags." The colonel and Mary Louise were both a little awed, but as Kasker accompanied them to the door, they strove to express their sympathy and approval. As they parted, however, the man leaned over and whispered: "Just the same, I hate the war. But, if it _has_ to be, let's stand together to fight and win it!" * * * * * * * * "Gran'pa Jim," said Mary Louise, when they were on the street again, "I'm ashamed. I once told you I loved you better than my country, but Jake Kasker loves his country better than his son." CHAPTER XXVI KEEPING BUSY The Liberty Girls were forced to abandon their Shop when a substantial offer was made by a business firm to rent the store they had occupied. However, they were then, near the end of their resources, with depleted stock, for they had begged about all the odds and ends people would consent to part with. What goods remained to them were of inferior worth and slow to dispose of, so they concluded their enterprise with a "grand auction," Peter Conant acting as auctioneer, and cleaned up the entire stock "in a blaze of glory," as Mary Louise enthusiastically described the event. The venture had been remarkably successful and many a soldier had cause to bless the Liberty Girls' Shop for substantial comforts provided from its funds. "But what can we do now," inquired Mary Louise anxiously as the six captains met with Irene one afternoon following the closing of the shop. "We must keep busy, of course. Can't someone think of something?" One and all had been thinking on that subject, it seemed. Various proposals were advanced, none of which, however, seemed entirely practical until Irene said: "We mustn't lose our reputation for originality, you know, nor must we interfere with those who are doing war relief work as well, if not much better, than we could. I've pondered the case some, during the past few days, and in reading of the progress of events I find that quite the most important thing on the government programme, at present, is the conservation of foods. 'Food will win the war' is the latest slogan, and anyone who can help Mr. Hoover will be doing the utmost for our final victory." "That's all very well, Irene," said Alora, "but I'm sure we are all as careful as possible to conserve food." "Don't ask us to eat any less," pleaded Edna, "for my appetite rebels as it is." "I don't see how we Liberty Girls can possibly help Mr. Hoover more than everyone else is doing," remarked Laura. "Well, I've an idea we can," replied Irene. "But this is just another case where I can only plan, and you girls must execute. Now, listen to my proposition. The most necessary thing to conserve, it seems, is wheat." "So it seems, dear." "People are eating large quantities of wheat flour simply because they don't know what else to eat," Irene continued. "Now, corn, properly prepared, is far more delicious and equally as nourishing as wheat. The trouble is that people don't know how to use corn-meal and corn-flour to the best advantage." "That is true; and they're not likely to learn in time to apply the knowledge usefully," commented Mary Louise. "Not unless you girls get busy and teach them," admitted Irene, while a smile went round the circle. "Don't laugh, girls. You are all very fair cooks, and if properly trained in the methods of preparing corn for food, you could easily teach others, and soon all Dorfield would be eating corn and conserving wheat. That would be worth while, wouldn't it?" "But who's to train us, and how could we manage to train others?" asked Mary Louise. "The proposition sounds interesting, Irene, and if carried through would doubtless be valuable, but is it practical?" "Let us see," was the reply. "Some time ago I read of the wonderful success of Mrs. Manton in preparing corn for food. She's one of the most famous professional cooks in America and her name is already a household word. We use her cook-book every day. Now, Mrs. Manton has been teaching classes in Cleveland, and I wrote her and asked what she would charge to come here and teach the Liberty Girls the practical methods of preparing her numerous corn recipes. Here's her answer, girls. She wants her expenses and one hundred dollars for two weeks' work, and she will come next week if we telegraph her at once." They considered and discussed this proposition very seriously. "At the Masonic Temple," said Mary Louise, "there is a large and fully equipped kitchen, adjoining the lodge room, and it is not in use except on special occasions. Gran'pa Jim is a high Mason, and so is Alora's father. Perhaps they could secure permission for us to use the lodge kitchen for our class in cookery." The colonel and Jason Jones, being consulted, promised the use of the kitchen and highly approved the plan of the Liberty Girls. Mrs. Manton was telegraphed to come to Dorfield and the cookery class was soon formed. Alora confessed she had no talent whatever for cooking, but all the other five were ready to undertake the work and a selection was made from among the other Liberty Girls--of the rank and file--which brought the total number of culinary endeavorers up to fifteen--as large a class as Mrs. Manton was able to handle efficiently. While these fifteen were being trained, by means of practical daily demonstration, in the many appetizing preparations for the table from corn-meal and corn-flour, Alora and one or two others daily visited the homes of Dorfield and left samples of bread, buns, cookies, cakes, desserts and other things that had come fresh from the ovens and range of the cooking-school. At the same time an offer was made to teach the family cook--whether mistress or servant--in this patriotic branch of culinary art, and such offers were usually accepted with eagerness, especially after tasting the delicious corn dainties. When Mrs. Manton left Dorfield, after two weeks of successful work, she left fifteen Liberty Girls fully competent to teach others how to prepare every one of her famous corn recipes. And these fifteen, divided into "shifts" and with several large kitchens at their disposal, immediately found themselves besieged by applicants for instruction. Before winter set in, all Dorfield, as predicted by Irene, was eating corn, and liking it better than wheat, and in proof of their success, the Liberty Girls received a highly complimentary letter from Mr. Hoover, thanking them for their help in the time of the nation's greatest need. A fee, sufficient to cover the cost of the material used, had been exacted from all those willing and able to pay for instruction, so no expense was involved in this work aside from the charges of Mrs. Manton, which were cared for by voluntary subscription on the part of a few who were interested in the girls' patriotic project. Another thing the Liberty Girls did was to start "Community Concerts" one evening each week, which were held in various churches and attended by throngs of men, women and children who joined lustily in the singing of patriotic and popular songs. This community singing became immensely popular and did much to promote patriotic fervor as well as to entertain those in attendance. And so Mary Louise's Liberty Girls, at the time this story ends, are still active workers in the cause of liberty, justice and democracy, and will continue to support their country's welfare as long as they can be of use. "We're a real part of the war," Mary Louise has often told her co-workers, "and I'm sure that in the final day of glorious victory our girls will be found to have played no unimportant part." THE END 
33375	----	Copyright (C) 2010 by Robert J. Sawyer This eBook is available in RTF format, please see the accompanying files. Note that it is an extract only, provided by the author. 
36258	----	[Illustration: The Procedure for Becoming Beautiful] [Illustration: The Main Characters ] _Mary was a misfit. She didn't want to be beautiful. And she wasted time doing mad things--like eating and sleeping._ THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE By Charles Beaumont Mary sat quietly and watched the handsome man's legs blown off; watched further as the great ship began to crumple and break into small pieces in the middle of the blazing night. She fidgeted slightly as the men and the parts of the men came floating dreamily through the wreckage out into the awful silence. And when the meteorite shower came upon the men, gouging holes through everything, tearing flesh and ripping bones, Mary closed her eyes. "Mother." Mrs. Cuberle glanced up from her magazine. "Hmm?" "Do we have to wait much longer?" "I don't think so. Why?" Mary said nothing but looked at the moving wall. "Oh, that." Mrs. Cuberle laughed and shook her head. "That tired old thing. Read a magazine, Mary, like I'm doing. We've all seen _that_ a million times." "Does it have to be on, Mother?" "Well, nobody seems to be watching. I don't think the doctor would mind if I switched it off." Mrs. Cuberle rose from the couch and walked to the wall. She depressed a little button and the life went from the wall, flickering and glowing. Mary opened her eyes. "Honestly," Mrs. Cuberle said to a woman sitting beside her, "you'd think they'd try to get something else. We might as well go to the museum and watch the first landing on Mars. The Mayoraka Disaster--really!" The woman replied without distracting her eyes from the magazine page. "It's the doctor's idea. Psychological." Mrs. Cuberle opened her mouth and moved her head up and down knowingly. "Ohhh. I should have known there was _some_ reason. Still, who watches it?" "The children do. Makes them think, makes them grateful or something." "Ohhh." "Psychological." Mary picked up a magazine and leafed through the pages. All photographs, of women and men. Women like Mother and like the others in the room; slender, tanned, shapely, beautiful women; and men with large muscles and shiny hair. Women and men, all looking alike, all perfect and beautiful. She folded the magazine and wondered how to answer the questions that would be asked. "Mother--" "Gracious, what is it now! Can't you sit still for a minute?" "But we've been here three hours." Mrs. Cuberle sniffed. "Do--do I really have to?" "Now don't be silly, Mary. After those terrible things you told me, of _course_ you do." An olive-skinned woman in a transparent white uniform came into the reception room. "Cuberle. Mrs. Zena Cuberle?" "Yes." "Doctor will see you now." Mrs. Cuberle took Mary's hand and they walked behind the nurse down a long corridor. A man who seemed in his middle twenties looked up from a desk. He smiled and gestured toward two adjoining chairs. "Well--well." "Doctor Hortel, I--" The doctor snapped his fingers. "Of course, I know. Your daughter. Ha ha, I certainly do know your trouble. Get so many of them nowadays--takes up most of my time." "You do?" asked Mrs. Cuberle. "Frankly, it had begun to upset me." "Upset? Hmm. Not good. Not good at all. Ah, but then--if people did not get upset, we psychiatrists would be out of a job, eh? Go the way of the early M. D. But, I assure you, I need hear no more." He turned his handsome face to Mary. "Little girl, how old are you?" "Eighteen, sir." "Oh, a real bit of impatience. It's just about time, of course. What might your name be?" "Mary." "Charming! And so unusual. Well now, Mary, may I say that I understand your problem--understand it thoroughly?" Mrs. Cuberle smiled and smoothed the sequins on her blouse. "Madam, you have no idea how many there are these days. Sometimes it preys on their minds so that it affects them physically, even mentally. Makes them act strange, say peculiar, unexpected things. One little girl I recall was so distraught she did nothing but brood all day long. Can you imagine!" "That's what Mary does. When she finally told me, doctor, I thought she had gone--_you_ know." "That bad, eh? Afraid we'll have to start a re-education program, very soon, or they'll all be like this. I believe I'll suggest it to the senator day after tomorrow." "I don't quite understand, doctor." "Simply, Mrs. Cuberle, that the children have got to be thoroughly instructed. Thoroughly. Too much is taken for granted and childish minds somehow refuse to accept things without definite reason. Children have become far too intellectual, which, as I trust I needn't remind you, is a dangerous thing." "Yes, but what has this to do with--" "With Mary? Everything, of course. Mary, like half the sixteen, seventeen and eighteen year olds today, has begun to feel acutely self-conscious. She feels that her body has developed sufficiently for the Transformation--which of course it has not, not quite yet--and she cannot understand the complex reasons that compel her to wait until some future date. Mary looks at you, at the women all about her, at the pictures, and then she looks into a mirror. From pure perfection of body, face, limbs, pigmentation, carriage, stance, from simon-pure perfection, if I may be allowed the expression, she sees herself and is horrified. Isn't that so, my dear child? Of course--of course. She asks herself, why must I be hideous, unbalanced, oversize, undersize, full of revolting skin eruptions, badly schemed organically? In short, Mary is tired of being a monster and is overly anxious to achieve what almost everyone else has already achieved." "But--" said Mrs. Cuberle. "This much you understand, doubtless. Now, Mary, what you object to is that our society offers you, and the others like you, no convincing logic on the side of waiting until age nineteen. It is all taken for granted, and you want to know why! It is that simple. A non-technical explanation will not suffice--mercy no! The modern child wants facts, solid technical data, to satisfy her every question. And that, as you can both see, will take a good deal of reorganizing." "But--" said Mary. "The child is upset, nervous, tense; she acts strange, peculiar, odd, worries you and makes herself ill because it is beyond our meagre powers to put it across. I tell you, what we need is a whole new basis for learning. And, that will take doing. It will take _doing_, Mrs. Cuberle. Now, don't you worry about Mary, and don't _you_ worry, child. I'll prescribe some pills and--" "No, no, doctor! You're all mixed up," cried Mrs. Cuberle. "I beg your pardon, Madam?" "What I mean is, you've got it wrong. Tell him, Mary, tell the doctor what you told me." Mary shifted uneasily in the chair. "It's that--I don't want it." The doctor's well-proportioned jaw dropped. "Would you please repeat that?" "I said, I don't want the Transformation." "D--Don't want it?" "You see? She told me. That's why I came to you." The doctor looked at Mary suspiciously. "But that's impossible! I have never heard of such a thing. Little girl, you are playing a joke!" Mary nodded negatively. "See, doctor. What can it be?" Mrs. Cuberle rose and began to pace. The doctor clucked his tongue and took from a small cupboard a black box covered with buttons and dials and wire. "Oh no, you don't think--I mean, could it?" "We shall soon see." The doctor revolved a number of dials and studied the single bulb in the center of the box. It did not flicker. He removed handles from Mary's head. "Dear me," the doctor said, "dear me. Your daughter is perfectly sane, Mrs. Cuberle." "Well, then what is it?" "Perhaps she is lying. We haven't completely eliminated that factor as yet; it slips into certain organisms." More tests. More machines and more negative results. Mary pushed her foot in a circle on the floor. When the doctor put his hands to her shoulders, she looked up pleasantly. "Little girl," said the handsome man, "do you actually mean to tell us that you _prefer_ that body?" "Yes sir." "May I ask why." "I like it. It's--hard to explain, but it's me and that's what I like. Not the looks, maybe, but the _me_." "You can look in the mirror and see yourself, then look at--well, at your mother and be content?" "Yes, sir." Mary thought of her reasons; fuzzy, vague, but very definitely there. Maybe she had said the reason. No. Only a part of it. "Mrs. Cuberle," the doctor said, "I suggest that your husband have a long talk with Mary." "My husband is dead. That affair near Ganymede, I believe. Something like that." "Oh, splendid. Rocket man, eh? Very interesting organisms. Something always seems to happen to rocket men, in one way or another. But--I suppose we should do something." The doctor scratched his jaw. "When did she first start talking this way," he asked. "Oh, for quite some time. I used to think it was because she was such a baby. But lately, the time getting so close and all, I thought I'd better see you." "Of course, yes, very wise. Er--does she also do odd things?" "Well, I found her on the second level one night. She was lying on the floor and when I asked her what she was doing, she said she was trying to sleep." Mary flinched. She was sorry, in a way, that Mother had found that out. "To--did you say 'sleep'?" "That's right." "Now where could she have picked that up?" "No idea." "Mary, don't you know that nobody sleeps anymore? That we have an infinitely greater life-span than our poor ancestors now that the wasteful state of unconsciousness has been conquered? Child, have you actually _slept_? No one knows how anymore." "No sir, but I almost did." The doctor sighed. "But, it's unheard of! How could you begin to try to do something people have forgotten entirely about?" "The way it was described in the book, it sounded nice, that's all." Mary was feeling very uncomfortable now. Home and no talking man in a foolish white gown.... "Book, book? Are there _books_ at your Unit, Madam?" "There could be--I haven't cleaned up in a while." "That is certainly peculiar. I haven't seen a book for years. Not since '17." Mary began to fidget and stare nervously about. "But with the tapes, why should you try and read books--where did you get them?" "Daddy did. He got them from his father and so did Grandpa. He said they're better than the tapes and he was right." Mrs. Cuberle flushed. "My husband was a little strange, Doctor Hortel. He kept those things despite everything I said. "Dear me, I--excuse me." The muscular, black-haired doctor walked to another cabinet and selected from the shelf a bottle. From the bottle he took two large pills and swallowed them. "Sleep--books--doesn't want the Transformation--Mrs. Cuberle, my _dear_ good woman, this is grave. Doesn't want the Transformation. I would appreciate it if you would change psychiatrists: I am very busy and, uh, this is somewhat specialized. I suggest Centraldome. Many fine doctors there. Goodbye." The doctor turned and sat down in a large chair and folded his hands. Mary watched him and wondered why the simple statements should have so changed things. But the doctor did not move from the chair. "Well!" said Mrs. Cuberle and walked quickly from the room. The man's legs were being blown off again as they left the reception room. Mary considered the reflection in the mirrored wall. She sat on the floor and looked at different angles of herself: profile, full-face, full length, naked, clothed. Then she took up the magazine and studied it. She sighed. "Mirror, mirror on the wall--" The words came haltingly to her mind and from her lips. She hadn't read them, she recalled. Daddy had said them, quoted them as he put it. But they too were lines from a book--"who is the fairest of--" A picture of Mother sat upon the dresser and Mary considered this now. Looked for a long time at the slender, feminine neck. The golden skin, smooth and without blemish, without wrinkles and without age. The dark brown eyes and the thin tapers of eyebrows, the long black lashes, set evenly, so that each half of the face corresponded precisely. The half-parted-mouth, a violet tint against the gold, the white, white teeth, even, sparkling. Mother. Beautiful, Transformed Mother. And back again to the mirror. "--of them all...." The image of a rather chubby girl, without lines of rhythm or grace, without perfection. Splotchy skin full of little holes, puffs in the cheeks, red eruptions on the forehead. Perspiration, shapeless hair flowing onto shapeless shoulders down a shapeless body. Like all of them, before the Transformation. Did they _all_ look like this, before? Did Mother, even? Mary thought hard, trying to remember exactly what Daddy and Grandpa had said, why they said the Transformation was a bad thing, and why she believed and agreed with them so strongly. It made little sense, but they were right. They _were_ right! And one day, she would understand completely. Mrs. Cuberle slammed the door angrily and Mary jumped to her feet. She hadn't forgotten about it. "The way you upset Dr. Hortel. He won't even see me anymore, and these traumas are getting horrible. I'll have to get that awful Dr. Wagoner." "Sorry--" Mrs. Cuberle sat on the couch and crossed her legs carefully. "What in the world were you doing on the floor?" "Trying to sleep." "Now, I won't hear of it! You've got to stop it! You _know_ you're not insane. Why should you want to do such a silly thing?" "The books. And Daddy told me about it." "And you mustn't read those terrible things." "Why--is there a law against them?" "Well, no, but people tired of books when the tapes came in. You know that. The house is full of tapes; anything you want." Mary stuck out her lower lip. "They're no fun. All about the Wars and the colonizations." "And I suppose books are fun?" "Yes. They are." "And that's where you got this idiotic notion that you don't want the Transformation, isn't it? Of course it is. Well, we'll see to that!" Mrs. Cuberle rose quickly and took the books from the corner and from the closet and filled her arms with them. She looked everywhere in the room and gathered the old rotten volumes. These she carried from the room and threw into the elevator. A button guided the doors shut. "I thought you'd do that," Mary said. "That's why I hid most of the good ones. Where you'll never find them." Mrs. Cuberle put a satin handkerchief to her eyes and began to weep. "Just look at you. Look. I don't know what I ever did to deserve this!" "Deserve what, Mother? What am I doing that's so wrong?" Mary's mind rippled in a confused stream. "What!" Mrs. Cuberle screamed, _"What!_ Do you think I want people to point to you and say I'm the mother of an idiot? That's what they'll say, you'll see. Or," she looked up hopefully, "have you changed your mind?" "No." The vague reasons, longing to be put into words. "It doesn't hurt. They just take off a little skin and put some on and give you pills and electronic treatments and things like that. It doesn't take more than a week." "No." The reason. "Don't you want to be beautiful, like other people--like me? Look at your friend Shala, she's getting her Transformation next month. And _she's_ almost pretty now." "Mother, I don't care--" "If it's the bones you're worried about, well, that doesn't hurt. They give you a shot and when you wake up, everything's moulded right. Everything, to suit the personality." "I don't care, I don't care." "But _why_?" "I like me the way I am." Almost--almost exactly. But not quite. Part of it, however. Part of what Daddy and Grandpa meant. "But you're so ugly, dear! Like Dr. Hortel said. And Mr. Willmes, at the factory. He told some people he thought you were the ugliest girl he'd ever seen. Says he'll be thankful when you have your Transformation. And what if he hears of all this, what'll happen then?" "Daddy said I was beautiful." "Well really, dear. You _do_ have eyes." "Daddy said that real beauty is only skin deep. He said a lot of things like that and when I read the books I felt the same way. I guess I don't want to look like everybody else, that's all." No, that's not it. Not at all it. "That man had too much to do with you. You'll notice that he had _his_ Transformation, though!" "But he was sorry. He told me that if he had it to do over again, he'd never do it. He said for me to be stronger than he was." "Well, I won't have it. You're not going to get away with this, young lady. After all, I _am_ your mother." A bulb flickered in the bathroom and Mrs. Cuberle walked uncertainly to the cabinet. She took out a little cardboard box. "Time for lunch." Mary nodded. That was another thing the books talked about, which the tapes did not. Lunch seemed to be something special long ago, or at least different. The books talked of strange ways of putting a load of things into the mouth and chewing these things. Enjoying them. Strange and somehow wonderful. "And you'd better get ready for work." "Yes, Mother." The office was quiet and without shadows. The walls gave off a steady luminescence, distributed the light evenly upon all the desks and tables. And it was neither hot nor cold. Mary held the ruler firmly and allowed the pen to travel down the metal edge effortlessly. The new black lines were small and accurate. She tipped her head, compared the notes beside her to the plan she was working on. She noticed the beautiful people looking at her more furtively than before, and she wondered about this as she made her lines. A tall man rose from his desk in the rear of the office and walked down the aisle to Mary's table. He surveyed her work, allowing his eyes to travel cautiously from her face to the draft. Mary looked around. "Nice job," said the man. "Thank you, Mr. Willmes." "Dralich shouldn't have anything to complain about. That crane should hold the whole damn city." "It's very good alloy, sir." "Yeah. Say, kid, you got a minute?" "Yes sir." "Let's go into Mullinson's office." The big handsome man led the way into a small cubby-hole of a room. He motioned to a chair and sat on the edge of one desk. "Kid, I never was one to beat around the bush. Somebody called in little while ago, gave me some crazy story about you not wanting the Transformation." Mary said "Oh." Daddy had said it would have to happen, some day. This must be what he meant. "I would've told them they were way off the beam, but I wanted to talk to you first, get it straight." "Well, sir, it's true. I don't. I want to stay this way." The man looked at Mary and then coughed, embarrassedly. "What the hell--excuse me, kid, but--I don't exactly get it. You, uh, you saw the psychiatrist?" "Yes sir. I'm not insane. Dr. Hortel can tell you." "I didn't mean anything like that. Well--" the man laughed nervously. "I don't know what to say. You're still a cub, but you do swell work. Lot of good results, lots of comments from the stations. But, Mr. Poole won't like it." "I know. I know what you mean, Mr. Willmes. But nothing can change my mind. I want to stay this way and that's all there is to it." "But--you'll get old before you're half through life." Yes, she would. Old, like the Elders, wrinkled and brittle, unable to move right. Old. "It's hard to make you understand. But I don't see why it should make any difference." "Don't go getting me wrong, now. It's not me, but, you know, I don't own Interplan. I just work here. Mr. Poole likes things running smooth and it's my job to carry it out. And soon as everybody finds out, things wouldn't run smooth. There'll be a big stink. The dames will start asking questions and talk." "Will you accept my resignation, then, Mr. Willmes?" "Sure you won't change your mind?" "No sir. I decided that a long time ago. And I'm sorry now that I told Mother or anyone else. No sir, I won't change my mind." "Well, I'm sorry, Mary. You been doing awful swell work. Couple of years you could be centralled on one of the asteroids, the way you been working. But if you should change your mind, there'll always be a job for you here." "Thank you, sir." "No hard feelings?" "No hard feelings." "Okay then. You've got till March. And between you and me, I hope by then you've decided the other way." Mary walked back down the aisle, past the rows of desks. Past the men and women. The handsome, model men and the beautiful, perfect women, perfect, all perfect, all looking alike. Looking exactly alike. She sat down again and took up her ruler and pen. Mary stepped into the elevator and descended several hundred feet. At the Second Level she pressed a button and the elevator stopped. The doors opened with another button and the doors to her Unit with still another. Mrs. Cuberle sat on the floor by the T-V, disconsolate and red-eyed. Her blond hair had come slightly askew and a few strands hung over her forehead. "You don't need to tell me. No one will hire you." Mary sat beside her mother. "If you only hadn't told Mr. Willmes in the first place--" "Well, I thought _he_ could beat a little sense into you." The sounds from the T-V grew louder. Mrs. Cuberle changed channels and finally turned it off. "What did you do today, Mother?" Mary smiled. "Do? What can I do, now? Nobody will even come over! I told you what would happen." "Mother!" "They say you should be in the Circuses." Mary went into another room. Mrs. Cuberle followed. "How are we going to live? Where does the money come from now? Just because you're stubborn on this crazy idea. Crazy crazy crazy! Can I support both of us? They'll be firing _me_, next!" "Why is this happening?" "Because of you, that's why. Nobody else on this planet has ever refused the Transformation. But you turn it down. You _want_ to be ugly!" Mary put her arms about her mother's shoulders. "I wish I could explain, I've tried so hard to. It isn't that I want to bother anyone, or that Daddy wanted me to. I just don't want the Transformation." Mrs. Cuberle reached into the pockets of her blouse and got a purple pill. She swallowed the pill. When the letter dropped from the chute, Mrs. Cuberle ran to snatch it up. She read it once, silently, then smiled. "Oh, I was afraid they wouldn't answer. But we'll see about this _now_!" She gave the letter to Mary. _Mrs. Zena Cuberle Unit 451 D Levels II & III City Dear Madam:_ _In re your letter of Dec 3 36. We have carefully examined your complaint and consider that it requires stringent measures. Quite frankly, the possibility of such a complaint has never occurred to this Dept. and we therefore cannot make positive directives at the moment._ _However, due to the unusual qualities of the matter, we have arranged an audience at Centraldome, Eighth Level, Sixteenth Unit, Jan 3 37, 23 sharp. Dr. Elph Hortel has been instructed to attend. You will bring the subject in question._ _Yrs, DEPT F_ Mary let the paper flutter to the floor. She walked quietly to the elevator and set it for Level III. When the elevator stopped, she ran from it, crying, into her room. She thought and remembered and tried to sort out and put together. Daddy had said it, Grandpa had, the books did. Yes, the books did. She read until her eyes burned and her eyes burned until she could read no more. Then Mary went to sleep, softly and without realizing it, for the first time. But the sleep was not peaceful. "Ladies and gentlemen," said the young-looking, well groomed man, "this problem does not resolve easily. Dr. Hortel here, testifies that Mary Cuberle is definitely not insane. Drs. Monagh, Prinn and Fedders all verify this judgment. Dr. Prinn asserts that the human organism is no longer so constructed as to create and sustain such an attitude through deliberate falsehood. Further, there is positively nothing in the structure of Mary Cuberle which might suggest difficulties in Transformation. There is evidence for all these statements. And yet we are faced with this refusal. What, may I ask, is to be done?" Mary looked at a metal table. "We have been in session far too long, holding up far too many other pressing contingencies. The trouble on Mercury, for example. We'll _have_ to straighten that out, somehow." Throughout the rows of beautiful people, the mumbling increased. Mrs. Cuberle sat nervously, tapping her shoe and running a comb through her hair. "Mary Cuberle, you have been given innumerable chances to reconsider, you know." Mary said, "I know. But I don't want to." The beautiful people looked at Mary and laughed. Some shook their heads. The man threw up his hands. "Little girl, can you realize what an issue you have caused? The unrest, the wasted time? Do you fully understand what you have done? Intergalactic questions hang fire while you sit there saying the same thing over and over. Doesn't the happiness of your Mother mean anything to you?" A slender, supple woman in a back row cried, "We want action. _Do_ something!" The man in the high stool raised his hand. "None of that, now. We must conform, even though the question is out of the ordinary." He leafed through a number of papers on his desk, leaned down and whispered into the ear of a strong blond man. Then he turned to Mary again. "Child, for the last time. Do you reconsider? Will you accept the Transformation?" "No." The man shrugged his shoulders. "Very well, then. I have here a petition, signed by two thousand individuals and representing all the Stations of Earth. They have been made aware of all the facts and have submitted the petition voluntarily. It's all so unusual and I'd hoped we wouldn't have to--but the petition urges drastic measures." The mumbling rose. "The petition urges that you shall, upon final refusal, be forced by law to accept the Transformation. And that an act of legislature shall make this universal and binding in the future." Mary's eyes were open, wide. She stood and paused before speaking. "Why?" she asked, loudly. The man passed a hand through his hair. Another voice from the crowd, "Seems to be a lot of questions unanswered here." And another, "Sign the petition, Senator!" All the voices, "Sign it, sign it!" "But why?" Mary began to cry. The voices stilled for a moment. "Because--Because--" "If you'd only tell me that. Tell me!" "Why, it simply isn't being done, that's all. The greatest gift of all, and what if others should get the same idea? What would happen to us then, little girl? We'd be right back to the ugly, thin, fat, unhealthy-looking race we were ages ago! There can't be any exceptions." "Maybe they didn't consider themselves so ugly." The mumbling began anew. "That isn't the point," cried the man. "You _must_ conform!" And the voices cried "Yes" loudly until the man took up a pen and signed the papers on his desk. Cheers, applause, shouts. Mrs. Cuberle patted Mary on the top of her head. "There, now!" she said, happily, "Everything will be all right now. You'll see, Mary." The Transformation Parlor Covered the entire Level, sprawling with its departments. It was always filled and there was nothing to sign and no money to pay and people were always waiting in line. But today the people stood aside. And there were still more, looking in through doors, TV cameras placed throughout the tape machines in every corner. It was filled, but not bustling as usual. Mary walked past the people, Mother and the men in back of her, following. She looked at the people. The people were beautiful, perfect, without a single flaw. All the beautiful people. All the ugly people, staring out from bodies that were not theirs. Walking on legs that had been made for them, laughing with manufactured voices, gesturing with shaped and fashioned arms. Mary walked slowly, despite the prodding. In her eyes, in _her_ eyes, was a mounting confusion; a wide, wide wonderment. The reason was becoming less vague; the fuzzed edges were falling away now. Through all the horrible months and all the horrible moments, the edges fell away. Now it was almost clear. She looked down at her own body, then at the walls which reflected it. Flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone, all hers, made by no one, built by herself or someone she did not know. Uneven kneecaps, making two grinning cherubs when they bent, and the old familiar rubbing together of fat inner thighs. Fat, unshapely, unsystematic Mary. But _Mary_. Of course. Of course! This _was_ what Daddy meant, what Grandpa and the books meant. What _they_ would know if they would read the books or hear the words, the good, reasonable words, the words that signified more, much more, than any of this. The understanding heaped up with each step. "Where _are_ these people?" Mary asked half to herself. "What has happened to _them_ and don't they miss _themselves_, these manufactured things?" She stopped, suddenly. "Yes! That _is_ the reason. They have all forgotten themselves!" A curvacious woman stepped forward and took Mary's hand. The woman's skin was tinted dark. Chipped and sculptured bone into slender rhythmic lines, electrically created carriage, stance, made, turned out. "All right, young lady. We will begin." They guided Mary to a large, curved leather seat. From the top of a long silver pole a machine lowered itself. Tiny bulbs glowed to life and cells began to click. The people stared. Slowly a picture formed upon the screen in the machine. Bulbs directed at Mary, then redirected into the machine. Wheels turning, buttons ticking. The picture was completed. "Would you like to see it?" Mary closed her eyes, tight. "It's really very nice." The woman turned to the crowd. "Oh yes, there's a great deal to be salvaged; you'd be surprised. A great deal. We'll keep the nose and I don't believe the elbows will have to be altered at all." Mrs. Cuberle looked at Mary and smiled. "Now, it isn't so bad as you thought, is it?" she said. The beautiful people looked. Cameras turned, tapes wound. "You'll have to excuse us now. Only the machines allowed." _Only the machines._ The people filed out. Mary saw the rooms in the mirror. Saw things in the rooms, the faces and bodies that had been left; the woman and the machines and the old young men standing about, adjusting, readying. Then she looked at the picture in the screen. And screamed. A woman of medium height stared back at her. A woman with a curved body and thin legs; silver hair, pompadoured, cut short; full sensuous lips, small breasts, flat stomach, unblemished skin. A strange, strange woman no one had ever seen before. The nurse began to take Mary's clothes off. "Geoff," the woman said, "come look at this, will you. Not one so bad in years. Amazing that we can keep anything at all." The handsome man put his hands in his pockets. "Pretty bad, all right." "Be still, child, stop making those noises. You know perfectly well nothing is going to hurt." "But--what will you do with me?" "That was all explained to you." "No, no, with _me_, _me_!" "Oh, you mean the castoffs. The usual. I don't know exactly. Somebody takes care of it." "I want me!" Mary cried. "Not that!" She pointed at the screen. Her chair was wheeled into a semi-dark room. She was naked now, and the men lifted her to a table. The surface was like glass, black, filmed. A big machine hung above. Straps. Clamps pulling, stretching limbs apart. The screen with the picture brought in. The men and the woman, more women now. Dr. Hortel in a corner, sitting with his legs crossed, shaking his head. Mary began to cry above the hum of the mechanical things. "Shhh. My gracious, such a racket! Just think about your job waiting for you, and all the friends you'll have and how nice everything will be. No more trouble now." The big machine hurtling downward. "Where will I find _me_?" Mary screamed, "when it's all over?" A long needle slid into rough flesh and the beautiful people gathered around the table. They turned on the big machine. THE END * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Page 11: quote mark removed: original text: Dr. Hortel said. "And Mr. Willmes, corrected test: Dr. Hortel said. And Mr. Willmes, 
27643	----	LUCILE TRIUMPHANT BY ELIZABETH M. DUFFIELD AUTHOR OF "LUCILE ON THE HEIGHTS," "LUCILE, BRINGER OF JOY," "LUCILE, THE TORCH BEARER" WHITMAN PUBLISHING CO. RACINE, WISCONSIN Copyright, 1916 By SULLY & KLEINTEICH All Rights Reserved Printed and Published By Western Printing & Lithographing Company Racine, Wisconsin Printed in U. S. A. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. "GREETINGS, FELLOW-TRAVELERS" 7 II. ECHOES OF THE CAMP-FIRE 12 III. A LATTER-DAY MIRACLE 19 IV. COUNTING THE HOURS 25 V. AS THOUGH ON WINGS 31 VI. "OH, FIRE, LONG YEARS AGO----" 35 VII. THE MAGIC CITY 42 VIII. ENTER JACK 50 IX. HURRAH, FOR EUROPE! 59 X. WHIRLED THROUGH THE NIGHT 65 XI. "ALL ASHORE WHO ARE GOING ASHORE!" 72 XII. MONSIEUR CHARLOIX 79 XIII. ROMANCE 86 XIV. A VAIN QUEST 93 XV. "LAND, HO!" 102 XVI. THE RED-LETTER DAY 111 XVII. THE GLORY OF THE PAST 119 XVIII. GREAT EXPECTATIONS 125 XIX. THE BREATH OF THE WAR GOD 132 XX. CROSSING THE CHANNEL 141 XXI. THE OLD CHATEAU 146 XXII. THE HEART OF THE MYSTERY 152 XXIII. LUCILE TRIUMPHS 161 XXIV. "TWO'S COMPANY" 167 XXV. THE THUNDERBOLT 175 XXVI. THROUGH SHROUDING MISTS 183 XXVII. HOME 186 [Transcriber's Note: Table of Contents was not present in the original publication.] CHAPTER I "GREETINGS, FELLOW-TRAVELERS" The great news was out! Two girls regarded their companion in open-mouthed astonishment. "Europe!" cried Jessie. "Lucy, will you please say that all over again and say it slowly," she begged leaning forward tensely. Lucile's eyes danced as she repeated slowly and with great emphasis, "I said just this--Dad is going to Europe and he intends to take me with him." The girls were incredulous. "But, wh-when are you going?" stammered Evelyn, dazedly. "In three weeks at the outside, maybe sooner," Lucile answered, then added, with feigned reproach, "you don't, either of you, seem a bit glad." "Oh, we are, we are," they protested, and Evelyn added, "It just took our breath away, that's all." "Lucile, it's the finest thing that ever happened to you," said Jessie, impulsively throwing her arms about her friend. The latter returned the embrace with equal fervor, but her eyes were retrospective as she answered, "Oh, it's wonderful, of course, and I haven't even begun to get used to it yet, but I don't think it's any greater than----" "Oh, I know what you mean," Evelyn broke in. "You mean Mayaro River and Aloea and ranks and things like that----" "Exactly," laughed Lucile, her face flushing with the memory, "and honors and guardians and races and----" "Oh, stop her, someone, quick," begged Jessie gayly. "If you don't she'll keep it up all day," then more gravely, "It was wonderful and none of us will ever forget it--but, Lucy, do, oh, do tell us more about Europe before I die of curiosity!" "Oh, yes, please go on," urged Evelyn; "we want to hear all about how it happened, and just when you're going to start and how long you expect to stay and----" "Slow up a little," begged Lucile, in dismay. "I'll tell you everything in time, but I must have time!" "Come out, time, you're wanted," cried Evelyn, pushing aside the bushes as though in search of the runaway. "I suppose you think you're funny," sniffed Jessie, disdainfully. "But I feel obliged to tell you as a friend----" "Cease!" commanded Lucile, sternly. "If you don't stop at once and listen respectfully and attentively to what I have to say, I'll----" "Well, what will you do," Evelyn challenged, with an heroic air of braving the worst. "Tell us, now--what will you do?" Lucile paused to consider for a moment, then announced, gravely, "There is only one punishment great enough for such a crime----" "And that----" they breathed. "That," repeated Lucile, sternly, "would be to remove the light of my presence----" "Oh if that's all you needn't mind about us," said Jessie, evidently relieved. "Go on, Lucy," urged Evelyn, virtuously. "I won't interrupt again." "Better get started before she repents," advised Jessie. "Sound advice," Lucile agreed, ironically, though her eyes snapped with fun. "I don't see why two people can't get along without throwing hatchets at each other's heads all the time. But never mind that," she added, hastily, seeing signs of more "hatchets." "All I have to say is, it isn't my fault," murmured Jessie. "The only way to treat the lower classes is to ignore them absolutely," Evelyn retorted, turning her back on Jessie. "Now, Lucy, what were you saying?" "I was _trying_ to say something about my trip----" she began. "Oh, yes, how long are you going to stay?" "All summer." "Oh, you lucky, lucky girl," cried Jessie. "You do certainly have the most wonderful luck. Not but what you deserve every bit of it and more," she added, warmly. "There's just one thing in the world on which we both agree," laughed Evelyn, "and that's it!" They looked with fond and justified pride upon the laughing recipient of their praise. From anybody's point of view, Lucile was good to look upon. Mischief sparkled in her eyes and bubbled over from lips always curved in a merry smile. "Just to look at Lucile is enough to chase away the blues," Jessie had once declared in a loving eulogy on her friend. "But when you need sympathy, there is no one quicker to give it than Lucy." From her mass of wind-blown curls to the tips of her neat little tennis shoes she was the spirit incarnate of the sport-loving, fun-seeking summer girl. Then there was their summer at camp the year before, when Lucile had led them undauntedly and as a matter of course through experiences and dangers that would have dazed the other girls. And then had come the crowning glory, the climax of their wonderful summer--the race! They felt again the straining of that moment when, with half a length to make up and scant twenty yards from the goal, she had led them in the glorious, madcap dash to victory! From that day on she had reigned supreme in the girls' warm hearts, and there was not one of them but felt "that nothing was too good for her." "Let's be thankful for small blessings," laughed Lucile, referring to Evelyn's last remark. "By the way, girls, have you heard about Margaret?" "No; what is it?" They were all eager interest at once. "Why, Judge Stillman called a consultation yesterday and the doctors pronounced Margaret absolutely cured!" "Hurrah!" cried Jessie, springing up from the rock she had been using as a seat. "We knew she was better, but--oh, say, isn't it great?" "Rather; but that isn't all," said Lucile. "The Judge insists that we have done it all--and the camp-fire, too, of course." "Oh, nonsense," Evelyn exclaimed. "It was the woods and the air and the water that did it. That was all she needed." "Humph, speak for yourself," Jessie interposed. "I admit she could have done without you very well; I could myself, but----" "Do I hear a gentle murmur as of buzz-saws buzzing?" quoth Evelyn, dreamy eyes fixed on space. "Methinks it grows more rasping of late----" "For goodness sake, girls, stop it," begged Lucile, despairingly. "If you are going to be like this all summer, how on earth can I take you with me? I don't want to live in a hive of hornets." "Take us with you?" they cried, bewildered. "What do you mean?" and Jessie added, tragically, "Tell me quickly or I die!" "Oh, I just thought I might." It was Lucile's turn to regard the heavens fixedly. "Lucile, I'd like to shake you. You can be the most exasperating thing at times!" cried Jessie excitedly, and Evelyn, with an inelegance that was none the less forceful, "If you have anything up your sleeve, let's have it!" Lucile's gaze came down to earth abruptly. "You seem to be in a great hurry," she protested. "You haven't given me time yet, you know." "Oh, we'll hunt him up for you some other time," Evelyn wheedled, and Jessie added, sagely, "We're only losing him this way, you know;" then added, in desperation, "If you don't explain right away, you'll have a corpse on your hands, Lucy." "Why, there's nothing to explain; you are just going, that's all," said Lucile, as if the matter were definitely settled. "Lucy, are you fooling? If you are, I'll never, never forgive you." It was Evelyn who spoke, her whole body quivering with excitement. "No, she's in earnest; can't you see? She means, she means----" and Jessie paused before the fateful word. It was more than Lucile could stand. She jumped up, danced a few joyous and absurd little steps, then turning, made the girls a low bow. "Greetings, fellow-travelers," she said. CHAPTER II ECHOES OF THE CAMP-FIRE "But whatever put it into your head to take us along?" Jessie asked, after the first wild excitement had abated a trifle. "Well, you see, it was this way," began Lucile, with the air of one imparting a grave secret. "When Dad came home last night, the first thing he did was to begin asking me a lot of foolish questions--or, at least, they seemed so to me. He started something like this: 'If you had your choice, what would you want most in the world----'" "If he had asked me that, I wouldn't be through yet," Jessie broke in. "Never mind her, Lucy," said Evelyn. "Go on, please." "I felt very much that way myself, Jessie," and Lucile nodded understandingly at the ruffled Jessie. "Well," she went on, "I began naming over several things, and when I'd finished Dad looked so sad I thought I must have done something terrible, but when I asked him what was the matter he simply shook his head despairingly and sighed, 'Not there, not there.'" The girls laughed merrily. "Oh, I can just see him," chuckled Evelyn. "Well, what then?" Jessie urged. "Oh, I didn't know what to do," Lucile continued. "The more I asked him to explain, the more disconsolate he looked. When I couldn't stand it any longer I left the room, saying if he didn't want to tell me, he needn't. Then, when I got outside the door I could hear him chuckling to himself." "Just like him," again interposed Jessie. "Well, all the time I knew something was coming. At dinner it came when Dad calmly announced that he was going to Europe on business and that if his family wished--imagine that, _wished_--he might let us go along." "Oh, my--wished!" murmured Evelyn. "You should have seen Phil," Lucile went on with her story. "I never saw anyone so dumbfounded. He stopped with a piece of fish halfway to his mouth and gaped at Dad as if he were some curiosity. I must have looked funny, too, for suddenly Dad began to laugh, and he laughed and he laughed till we thought he'd die." "'You couldn't look more dumbfounded if I had ordered your execution,' he gasped when he could get his breath. 'Of course, I can always make arrangements for you to stay behind.'" "Oh," breathed the girls in unison, "what did you say?" "Say? You had better ask what didn't we say. We talked and talked and talked as fast as our tongues would go till after midnight, and we wouldn't have stopped then if mother hadn't shooed us off to bed. Oh, I don't think I was ever so happy in all my life!" "But where do we come in?" insisted Jessie. "Right here. You see, I had been so excited and everything, I hadn't realized what it would mean to leave you girls for the whole summer. I guess Dad saw there was something the matter, for, when I started upstairs, he drew me back and asked me to tell him what was wrong. When I told him I wished you girls were going, too, he surprised me by saying, 'Why not?' For a moment I thought he was joking--he's always doing that, you know--but when I saw he was in sober earnest I could have danced for joy." "Don't blame you. I'd not only have felt like it; I'd have done it, too," said Evelyn. "Yes, and scandalized the neighbors," Jessie sniffed. "I fail to see how the neighbors would have known anything about it," retorted Evelyn, with dignity, "since they can't see through the walls." "Oh, they don't have to see," said Jessie, witheringly. "Anybody within a mile of you can _hear_ you dance." "See here, Jessie Sanderson, that's not fair," Lucile broke in. "Evelyn's one of the best little dancers I know, and I won't have her maligned." "Have her what? I wish you'd speak United States, Lucy," said Jessie, plaintively. "Don't talk and you won't show your ignorance." It was Evelyn's turn to be scornful. "Well, what does it mean?" Jessie returned. "_You_ tell us." "Some other time," said Evelyn, calmly. "You will have to excuse me now. I am so excited now that I really can't bring my mind down to trivial matters." "I knew it," Jessie was declaiming tragically, when a clear whistle sounded from the foot of the hill and Lucile exclaimed: "There's Phil; I wonder what he wants now." The three girls made a pretty picture as they stood there gazing eagerly down the slope, Lucile with her vivid gypsy coloring and fair-haired, blue-eyed Jessie, exactly her opposite, yet, withal, her dearest and most loyal friend; and last, but not least, Evelyn, short and round and polly, with a happy disposition that won her friends wherever she went. Although it is generally conceded that "three make a crowd," the rule was certainly wide of the mark in this case. The girls were bound by a tie even stronger than friendship, and that tie was the law of the camp-fire. The latter had taught them many brave lessons in the game of life, lessons in self-denial, in sympathy and loyalty, and they were ever anxious to prove that they had learned their lessons well. Though, once in a while, besetting sins would crop out and Lucile would cry, despairingly, "Oh, why did I do it; I knew I shouldn't," and Jessie would stop, when plunging nobly through a box of candies, to cry penitently, "Oh, I've eaten too many," and Evelyn would often be tempted to read too long and neglect her work, still, on the whole, they were infinitely helped by the wholesome teaching and precepts of the campfire. "Oh, he's got a letter," cried Lucile, as Phil took a flying leap into their midst. "Say," said Phil, eyeing them pityingly, "don't you fellows know it's time to eat?" "It's never dinner-time yet," said Jessie in dismay. "Yes it is, too," Evelyn contradicted. "Just look where the sun is." "Where is it?" cried Phil, and then, as his gaze wandered to the sky, he added, with an air of relief, "Oh, it's still there; how you frightened me!" "Goose!" his sister commented, and then, looking at the envelope he still held in his hand, she added, "Who's the letter from? Be sensible and tell us about it." "Oh, that?" said Phil. "That's a letter from Jim. Seems to be getting along first rate." "What does he say?" asked Jessie, all interest. Phil eyed her speculatively. "I tell you what I'll do," he said. "I'll tell you about it on the way home." The girls laughed and Lucile explained, "You see, he's never happy far from home and dinner." "You seemed to get away with a mighty generous supply of oysters yourself the other night," Phil grumbled good-naturedly. "Well, if I did, I was only obeying the camp-fire law, 'Be healthy,'" Lucile defended warmly. The girls laughed and Jessie murmured something about, "That's right; keep 'em under." "What's that?" Phil demanded, but Jessie evaded with another question: "When are you going to tell us about Jim?" "Here we are, half the way home, and you haven't even begun," Evelyn added. "Well, he seems more than satisfied with his engineering, and most of his letter is taken up with praises of Mr. Wescott and his wife and how good they are to him. He says the luck he's had almost makes him believe in fate." "Well, there certainly did seem to be a fate in the way young Mr. Wescott just happened up to camp in the nick of time to find our guardian and fall in love with her, worse luck," and Lucile vindictively kicked a stone from the path as though it were the meddling Mr. Wescott himself. "And then to think he should like Jim, a poor little country boy, well enough to take him along with him to the city, where he could make something of himself." "Well, all I have to say is that there's no one I'd rather see get along than Jim. I liked him the first minute I saw him, and he sure does improve on acquaintance--the longer you know him, the more you like him. He deserves everything he gets," and Phil's face glowed with boyish enthusiasm. "That's the way we all felt," said Lucile with equal earnestness, while Evelyn could not repress a chuckle at the memory of their first meeting with Jim. "Has he anything else to say?" "Only one thing," answered Phil, mysteriously. "What is it?" the girls demanded in chorus. "Hurry up, please, Phil," Jessie pleaded. "Certainly, anything for you," Phil returned gallantly. "Why, he just states that Mr. and Mrs. Wescott----" "Miss Howland!" cried Evelyn. "Miss Howland that was," corrected Phil; "Mrs. Wescott that is." "What difference does it make?" cried Lucile, impatiently. "What about her--is she sick?" At the suggestion the girls grew pale. "Not quite as bad as that," teased Phil, enjoying the sensation his news was making and bent on prolonging it to the last extreme. "Not quite? Oh, Phil, what do you mean?" cried Jessie, imploringly. Anxiety and alarm showed so plainly on the girls' white faces that Phil suddenly relented. "Don't get scared," he continued, elegantly. "Your guardian isn't sick. If she were, I guess she wouldn't be making plans for visiting Burleigh." "Is that the truth?" Lucile demanded, seizing her brother's arm. "Don't play any more tricks, Phil," she pleaded. "It means an awful lot to us, you know, if Miss--Mrs. Wescott is coming." "Oh, that's on the level all right," Phil answered with evident sincerity. "She just made up her mind a little while ago and Jim thinks she will probably write to you girls about it." "Oh, just think, we are really going to see her again after six months," Jessie exclaimed, joyfully. "And we'll give her a reception she will never forget," Lucile decided. "All right; I'm with you," Phil shouted, and was off to join a crowd of the fellows on the other side of the street. "Don't forget we eat soon," Lucile called after him. "Such a chance," he flung back. "Bet I'll be there before you will." "He thinks we're going to talk for another couple of hours," Jessie interpreted. "No, we'd better do our talking to-morrow. Tell you what we'll do--I have--an idea," cried Lucile. "Bright child, tell us about it," said Evelyn. "Suppose we call a special camp-fire meeting to-morrow morning to talk over plans for Miss Howland's--I mean Mrs. Wescott's reception." "Fine--but who will let them know?" "Come over to-night, both of you, and we can 'phone them from here." "All right, we'll do that, Lucy," agreed Evelyn. "We'll see you about eight o'clock, then." "Better run, Lucy," warned Jessie, with a backward glance over her shoulder. "Phil will beat you in if you don't hurry--he's coming full tilt." "All right, I'll see you to-night," said Lucile, as she made a dash for the house. She stopped for a moment on the doorstep to flash them a merry glance and cry triumphantly, "I won!" "But not by much," claimed Phil, taking the steps two at a time. As they turned away, Jessie sent one parting shot over her shoulder: "A miss is as good as a mile," she gibed. CHAPTER III A LATTER-DAY MIRACLE Saturday dawned gloriously. The warm rain that had fallen over night had dissolved the last frail bond of winter and had set the spring world free. Trees and bushes and shrubs were frosted with clinging, glistening diamonds that shimmered and gleamed in the sun, while the moist, warm earth sent up a pungent sweetness found only in the early spring. "Smell it, just smell it!" said Jessie, sniffling rapturously, as she and Evelyn started on their way to Lucile's. "Isn't it great?" Evelyn agreed. "That rain was just what we needed." "It reminds me of last spring----" "That's strange." "What?" said Jessie, puzzled. "Why, that this spring should remind you of last." "Don't get flippant, young lady," said Jessie, severely, "or I shall be obliged to give you a ducking," the river being very convenient just there, as the girls had to walk alongside its shores for some distance before turning into Lucile's avenue. "Please don't; I had enough of a ducking last year in camp when I fell off the rock. Don't you remember?" said Evelyn, with a rueful smile. "I should say I do, rather," laughed Jessie. "No one who was there and saw you could ever possibly forget it." "Oh, I know I always make an impression," said Evelyn, wilfully misunderstanding. For once Jessie could find no suitable retort. "You hate yourself, don't you?" was all she could say. "Not so you could notice it," said Evelyn, enjoying her victory. "It seems to me that you were saying something when I----" "When you so rudely interrupted," said Jessie, sweetly. "I'm not so sure that I will tell you now. It was nothing of any importance." "Oh, I knew that," said Evelyn quickly--it was certainly her lucky day. "You win!" cried Jessie, good-naturedly, throwing up her hands in mock despair. Evelyn laughed merrily. "I'll have to look out after this," she said. "There'll be back-fire, I'm afraid. But, seriously, Jessie, what were you going to say?" "Oh, only that this wonderful weather reminds me of this time last year when we were just making our plans for camp." "Yes and even then we hadn't begun to realize how great it was going to be." "I never knew what real fun was till we got way off there in the woods with the river before us and the woods all about us. And the very best thing of all was that we had only ourselves to depend on for everything." "And we seemed to get along pretty well, too, considering," said Evelyn. "Of course we did," Jessie agreed, and then added with a laugh, "I think we would be a valuable aid to suffrage. Tell everybody we managed to get along without any man's help." "Oh, but we didn't," Evelyn objected. "How about Mr. Wescott?" "It seems to me we could have gotten along very well without any of his help," retorted Jessie, vindictively. "Perhaps we could, but--our guardian would tell a different story," said Evelyn, meaningly. As she spoke the door of Lucile's house opened violently and Lucile herself came flying to meet them. She was dressed all in white and she seemed to the girls the very spirit of spring. "Oh, girls, I'm so glad you came early," she cried, joyfully. "I was hoping you would, so we could talk things over by ourselves before the others came." She threw an arm about each of the girls and ran them up on the porch. "We are the first, then?" said Jessie, perching on the railing. "I told Jessie you would think we had come to breakfast," remarked Evelyn, flinging her hat carelessly into a chair. "That's the way to do it," said Lucile, sarcastically. "It would serve you right if somebody should sit on it." "Put it on, Lucy, and let's see how you look in it," Jessie suggested. Lucile laughingly obliged, and the girls gave an involuntary gasp of delight. "Oh, you darling," cried Evelyn, hugging Lucile so ecstatically that in her enthusiasm she almost lost her balance and nearly fell to the ground beneath. Lucile clutched her and brought her back to safety. "A chair is the safest place for you," said her rescuer, laughingly. "Take off the hat and everything will be all right," said Jessie. "That was what nearly caused your undoing." "Oh, very well," Lucile agreed. "For such a little thing why quarrel?" and disappeared within the house. "Remember," said Evelyn, warningly, "remember, that hat is mine, and if you dare to put a slur upon it I'll----" "Lucy, Lucy," cried Jessie in a frightened voice, "come quick; she is threatening me!" "All right; wait a minute," came the voice from inside. "But I can't wait a minute," wailed Jessie; "she may have killed me by that time." "Well, what----" began Jessie, and Evelyn, glancing at her astonished face, broke into a shout of laughter. "Oh, Lucy, come and see what you've done," she gasped. "Oh, Jessie, I never saw you look so funny, and that's saying a good deal." "I'm glad you enjoyed it," said Jessie, icily, though there was a twinkle in her eye. "Not having a mirror, I'm afraid I can't join in the joke." "No, you are the joke," countered Evelyn. Jessie's natural sweet temper was fast becoming ruffled by this rapid fire and she had opened her mouth for a sharp retort when Lucile came running out. "What's the matter?" she cried, gaily, and then, at sight of Jessie's face, she stopped. "Overdose of hammers," she diagnosed, then wisely changed the subject. "If we don't hurry up, the girls will be here before we have a chance to say anything at all about Mrs. Wescott." She perched herself upon the railing beside Jessie and soon they had forgotten all momentary animosity in an animated discussion. Five minutes later Lucile exclaimed, "Here come Marj., Ruth and Margaret now. I wonder where the rest of them are." "Welcome to our city," said Jessie. "We have great news for you strangers." "So we imagined." It was Marjorie Hanlan, a tall, dark, good-looking girl, who answered. "I couldn't sleep, wondering what you wanted," chimed in Margaret, the little girl who had been lame, but now was just like other girls. "And we have all been so happy about you, Margaret, since Lucy told us the specialist said you were cured," broke in Evelyn. "Isn't it great?" said Marjorie. "Margaret was telling us about it on the way up. It seems almost miraculous." Margaret flushed happily. "Oh, the doctors say there is nothing miraculous about it. They say all I wanted was the exercise and healthy outdoor life. But I know who really did it," she added, putting her arm about Lucile. "It was you girls--yes it was," she insisted, as they started to protest. "You were the first I can remember--except father, of course--who treated me like a human being and not a curiosity. And, oh I'm so grateful and happy," she ended. Lucile patted the brown head on her shoulder. "You give us altogether too much credit, Margaret, dear," she said, unsteadily. "It was Miss Howland that thought of it in the first place, and after we knew you we just couldn't help loving you for yourself and wanting to help." "That's right," cried the girls, heartily. Margaret glanced around at the sober faces of her friends and, although her eyes were still wet, there was a little hint of raillery in her voice: "Well, I did think you girls had something to do with it, but since you say you didn't, we'll have to call it a miracle, after all." The girls laughed a trifle shakily and Evelyn added, "But there's our guardian, you know." "Oh, yes," said Margaret, and her voice was very tender. "Of course, there's our guardian. I don't know what we'd ever do without her." "Well, we've had to get along without her for almost six months," Ruth broke in, a trifle pettishly. "Yes; I wonder if we'll ever see her again," said Marjorie. "We were getting along so splendidly when that Mr. Wescott----" "Oh, don't be too hard on him," cautioned Lucile. "If we loved her so much, we couldn't blame him for doing the same thing." "I know, but if he'd only waited two or three years," mourned Marjorie. "He came a good deal too soon, and now I don't suppose we'll ever see her again." The three conspirators exchanged significant glances and Lucile cried, merrily, "Perhaps you'll change your tune in a little while," and just as the girls were about to demand the meaning of this strange remark, she added, "Here come the rest of them now," and flew down to welcome them. "What on earth----" began Marjorie, and then stopped as the remaining girls of the camp-fire Aloea, six in all, for they had added two to their number since the spring before, ran up on the porch, all talking at once and making such a noise that her voice was drowned. It was quite some time before order was restored and Marjorie could again demand an explanation. "Now that we are all here, Lucy," she said, "suppose you tell us what you meant by that speech of yours." "What speech?" said Lucile, for she had forgotten it in the excitement of welcoming the new arrivals. "I'll explain anything, but I have to know what it is first." "Naturally," Marjorie agreed. "Perhaps you will remember that just before the girls came you spoke of our changing our tune, or something to that effect, in regard to Miss Howland." "Mrs. Wescott, I suppose you mean?" Lucile inquired, blandly, "It seems to me I did say something like that. What would you like to know?" "What you meant by it," shouted Marjorie, and Margaret added, "Go ahead, give it to us, Lucy. I have an idea that's what you called us here for." "Smart child," approved Jessie, with an approving pat and nod of the head. "You're coming right along." Margaret thrilled with a pleasure that was almost pain. "She never would have dared say that to me before," she cried to herself, exultantly. "She would have been too afraid of hurting me. Now I know I'm just like all the rest!" CHAPTER IV COUNTING THE HOURS "You're right, Margaret," Lucile was saying. "I did call you all together just to speak of our guardian." The girls leaned forward eagerly. "What about her?" they demanded. "Oh, Lucy, don't keep us waiting," begged Marjorie. "Is she coming to Burleigh?" "Not so fast," cried Lucile. "Give me half a chance. I haven't heard from our guardian personally, but Phil got a letter from Jim the other day and he said----" Lucile paused dramatically. "Yes, yes; go on," they demanded, excitedly. "And she said that Mr. and Mrs. Wescott were going to visit Burleigh very soon." "Soon," cried Margaret. "That sounds good. Always before it's been something that was going to happen in the dim future." "Did she say any special time, Lucy?" Ruth broke in, impatiently. "No, there was nothing definite about it," said Lucile, "but I expect to hear from her almost any minute now." "There comes the postman--perhaps he will bring you a letter," suggested Evelyn. "Oh, what's the use of raising our hopes?" admonished Jessie. "There's just about one chance in a thousand that the letter will come when we want it." "All we can do is wait," said Lucile, philosophically. "In the meantime, suppose we all suggest something that we can do to welcome her--make her feel how truly glad we are to see her. Somebody suggest something." "For goodness' sake, Lucy," Marjorie exclaimed, "you might better have left me out of this. I'm no good at all when it comes to using any imagination." "You have probably as much as any of us, and you can't get out of helping that way," said Lucile, decidedly. "From things she has said, I should give her credit for a good deal of imagination," quoth Jessie, slyly. "Oh, I'll get even for all those awful things you have said to me and about me, Jessie Sanderson," Marjorie threatened, good-naturedly. "I'd do it now, only I'm too busy trying to think up a plan." "Good girl; keep it up," commended Lucile, and then, as she caught a murmured "That's just an excuse" from Jessie's direction, she cried, with a scarcely suppressed laugh, "Perhaps you would be doing a little more good in the world, Jessie, if you would follow her example." "Bravo!" cried Evelyn. "That's one for you, Jessie," and promptly received a withering glance from that young lady, which said as plainly as words, "You just wait; there'll be a day of reckoning, and then----" "Here comes the postman," cried Margaret. "Shall I take the mail, Lucy?" "Please," she answered, and a moment later Margaret handed her half a dozen envelopes, while the girls looked on in eager silence. "Is it there?" cried one of the girls, at last. "Not yet," said Lucile, but as she turned over the last letter, she uttered a cry of amazement and delight that sent all the girls crowding about her. "That is her handwriting," exclaimed Evelyn, and then there ensued such a babble of wonder and delight and excited speculation as to its contents that Lucile was finally obliged to shout, "If you will only sit down, girls. I'll see what's inside, and please stop making such an unearthly noise--we'll have the reserves out to quell the riot before we know it." The girls laughed and distributed themselves about the porch, as many as could possibly get there crowding the rail on either side of Lucile, while they all listened with bated breath to what their guardian had to say. "To Lucile and all my dear camp-fire girls," read Lucile. "I planned to come to Burleigh long ago, as you all know, and was bitterly disappointed when I was forced at the last minute to change my plans." "So were we," said Evelyn, and was greeted by a chorus of impatient "sh-sh" as Lucile went on: "But this time I am as sure as I can ever be of anything that my plans won't fall through. I expect to be in Burleigh by the twenty-fifth." "Oh, think of it! That's day after to-morrow!" Margaret exclaimed, rapturously. "That's what it is," Jessie agreed. "Go on, Lucy; what more has she to say?" demanded another of the girls, and Lucile went on with her reading. The rest of the letter contained descriptions of her travels and all she had seen, ending up with: "When I see my girls, I will tell you all I have been writing now, and a great deal more, and will expect to hear more fully than they have been able to write me all that has happened to them during the last six months. I am counting the hours till I see you all again. Good-by till then, dear girls. Your own loving guardian." "That's all," Lucile finished. "Now we know when she's coming." "Isn't she dear, and didn't the whole thing sound just like her?" cried Jessie. "Exactly," agreed Evelyn, and then added, "If she is counting the hours till she sees us, I wonder what we'll be doing." "We'll be making the hours count," said Lucile. "Good for you, Lucy; that's what I call efficiency," cried Marjorie. "Make time work for us." "Yes, but how are we going to do it?" said Ruth, distrustfully. "I'll tell you," Lucile answered. "I thought that we ought to give our guardian a surprise when she comes. She hasn't been here for so long, and we ought to make it something she will remember." "You've thought of something, Lucy; I can tell that," cried Jessie. "Suppose you let us know about it." "Go ahead, Lucy--we'll let you think for all the rest of us," Marjorie suggested. "You can do it better, anyway." "How very kind of you!" mocked Lucile. "I appreciate your generosity immensely." "Go on; tell us your idea, Lucy," urged Margaret. "Never mind her." "Well, it was only this, and if any one has anything better to offer, I'm only too glad to hear about it. I thought that you girls could all dress up in your ceremonial costumes. In the meantime, I'll have a fire made in the living-room fireplace and then I'll go to meet her." "And leave us home?" Evelyn interrupted. "Exactly," said Lucile, firmly. "As I said before, I'll go to meet her and bring her here. Then I'll take her upstairs to get her things off and tell her you girls will be here right away." "And we're to be hidden in some other room, I suppose," Marjorie ventured. "Uh-huh. Then I'll get her down into the living-room and make her comfortable in front of the fire----" "Let us hope it's a cool day," Margaret interjected. "We'll hope so," agreed Lucile. "We will have plenty of cool days yet, anyway, before spring sets in in earnest, and maybe the day after to-morrow will be one of them. I'll get her to sit there, even if it is warm." "What then, Lucile?" asked one of the girls. "I have a feeling that the most interesting part is yet to come." "It is," said Lucile. "You see, I'll be talking to her so hard that she won't notice what's going on around her much--that is, if you are careful. Then you come in, one by one, on your tip-toes and sit in a semicircle behind her." "Oh, that will be a lark," cried Evelyn. "And are we to wait till she finds us out?" "That's what I was going to tell you," said Lucile. "When you all get settled, I'll put my hand up to my hair like this, and then you begin to sing, very softly, 'Oh, fire----'" "That will be splendid, Lucy; it will seem almost like old times," cried Margaret. "How did you manage to think it all out so beautifully?" "Oh, it was simple enough," said Lucile. "The only thing is, do you all like it?" Lucile was very well satisfied with the reception of her plan a moment later. The girls were enthusiastic and overwhelmed her with questions until she was obliged for the second time that morning, to say, "One at a time, please." When, finally, all the arrangements were complete and satisfactory, one of the girls discovered it was after noon. "Girls," exclaimed Evelyn, dismayed, "we've used up the whole morning just talking." "Why, what time is it?" asked Margaret, feeling for her watch. "It's twelve fifteen," announced Evelyn, impressively. "Time I was going home," Marjorie declared, jumping up. "Where's my hat?" "It's inside with Evelyn's," Lucile answered. "If I hadn't taken care of them there would have been nothing left resembling a hat. I'll get them," she added, and ran into the house. In a moment she returned with a hat in each hand. "What did you want to wear them for, anyway?" she said, as they started off. "You didn't really need them, and just think of all the work you made me." "Oh, they just wanted to show them off," laughed Gertrude Church. "Humph, we know why they pretend to criticize us, don't we Marjorie?" queried Evelyn, with a knowing wink. "Sure; they're jealous," was the laconic reply, at which all the girls laughed scornfully. "We'd have to have something better than that to be jealous of," scoffed one. "Then we'll see you Monday, Lucy," called Jessie, as they started off down the street. "Maybe before," she added. "I can stand it," laughed Lucile. "Come early Monday, anyway, all of you, and don't forget what I told you." "We won't," they called; "don't worry!" And, indeed, she had no need for anxiety, for the thought that filled the girls' minds to the exclusion of everything else was: "Our guardian is coming Monday--oh, why is it so far away?" CHAPTER V AS THOUGH ON WINGS The eventful day had come at last over a wait that seemed an eternity to the impatient girls. The long school-day was endless and, in spite of all good resolutions, they could not keep their thoughts from wandering to the alluring picture they had conjured up. A picture wherein figured an open-grate fire, Miss Howland--for so they had thought of her even after her marriage--their own dear guardian, turning suddenly to see her camp-fire girls in their old familiar costume waiting to welcome her. How would she look? What would she say? These were the thoughts that persisted in haunting them through the long school-day and refused to be shaken off. At last it was three o'clock and the girls gathered on the campus, books in hand, eagerly anxious to be off. "Are we all here?" said Jessie, looking about. "All but Grace; she'll be here any minute, I guess." The prophecy proved correct, and soon the whole of camp-fire Aloea, except the one who was to play the most important part, was swinging at a great rate down the road to their meeting-place. Lucile had been excused a few minutes earlier on the plea that she was to meet her guardian. The few minutes' grace would give her time to see that the fire was lighted and attend to the hundred and one minor details that would set things running smoothly. Rain had been threatening all day, but now the welcome sun burst through the clouds so suddenly that the girls were surprised. "Say, that came in a hurry, didn't it?" remarked Marjorie. "Oh, I'm so glad." "Who isn't?" Jessie rejoined. "The rain would have made everything so gloomy, just when we wanted it brightest." "It seems as if the sun knew Miss Howland was coming and just couldn't help shining," said Margaret, with a face so like the sun itself in its radiant brightness that Marjorie, who was near her, threw her arm about the slight form, saying, lovingly, "Even if the sun hadn't come out, Margaret, I don't think we'd have missed it much with you around." "Don't you remember what Miss Howland always used to say about there being a great deal more credit in being happy and sunny on a gloomy day than a bright one?" put in Eleanor. "Yes; but, though I've tried very hard to look cheerful when the rain has spoiled all my chances for a good time, I'm very much afraid I don't often succeed," said Evelyn, with a rueful smile. "I can't imagine you in the doleful dumps for very long, Evelyn," said Ruth. "I've never seen you anything but happy yet." "Oh, you don't have to live with her, Ruth," said Jessie. "If you did, and I'm glad for your sake you don't, you would soon change your opinion." "I'd like to know what you know about it, anyway," Evelyn retorted, gaily. "You've never lived with me--that I know of, at any rate." "To change the subject," Marjorie broke in, "there's Lucile waving to us to hurry. I guess she has something to tell us before she goes to the station." They broke into a run and in another minute had surrounded Lucile. "I'm glad you came just as you did," she was saying. "It seemed as if you would never get here, and I was afraid I would have to go without seeing you." "We hurried just as fast as we could, Lucy, as you see," said Jessie, panting from the quick run. "Of course you did, but it seemed an age to me. Listen, girls," she went on, "everything's all ready. Your dresses are laid out on the bed in my room, and you'd better get them on as soon as you possibly can." "You're going to the station now, Lucy, aren't you?" asked one of the girls. "Yes, right away. I suppose we'll be back again in about half an hour. Good-by; I'm off!" and she ran down the steps, only to turn at the bottom to add, "Don't forget any of the directions, girls, and don't make the least noise when you come into the room, or it will spoil everything. Good-by; I'm off now for good." "We'll do everything just right," Jessie promised. "Good luck!" they called after her as she hurried along. "She almost seems to be walking on air, doesn't she?" one of them remarked, as she turned for a last wave. "No wonder," said Evelyn, gloomily. "She's going to our guardian." "Lucy said they would be back in half an hour," sighed Marjorie. "How can we wait that long?" "Nobody knows," Jessie answered, cheerily; "but as long as we have to get ready, we might as well begin now. Come on; let's see who'll be dressed first girls----" which precipitated a general stampede for the door. As Lucile hurried along toward the station it really seemed as though her feet had wings. The thought of meeting her guardian again, of talking to her in the old familiar way of the old familiar things--all this made her say to herself over and over again, "Oh, I don't believe anybody was ever so happy before." She could see in her mind's eye that old bright, cheery smile of her guardian flash out as she said, as she had said so many times before, "Well, how are my girls to-day?" To-ot! The shrill wail of the locomotive whistle broke rudely through her revery and brought her to a sudden realization that if she didn't bestir herself, Mrs. Wescott would be at the station with no one to meet her. "Oh," cried Lucile to herself, "and I thought I was hurrying just as fast as I could. Well, I'm in for a race with the train, it seems. I wonder what the girls would say," she chuckled as she ran. "This is almost as good as a canoe race." Either the train had been farther off than she thought when Lucile heard the whistle or she had run faster than she had ever run in her life; the result was the same--Lucile won! Just as she breathlessly reached the station, the great locomotive came thundering around the last curve. CHAPTER VI "OH, FIRE, LONG YEARS AGO----" Lucile's heart beat fast as the train came to a standstill and a crowd of people began to pour out. "Where is she, where is she?" she cried, scanning one after another, speaking to those she knew, while, at the same time, looking past them with such an intent gaze that more than one turned to look back at her and remark with the shake of a head, "There's something up." Lucile was just about in despair when, at the far end of the platform, she descried her. With a cry she ran forward and, throwing her arms about her guardian's neck with a little hysterical sob, she exclaimed, "Oh, I thought you weren't coming." For a moment she was held close while the voice she loved said, gently, "You don't suppose I could stay away when I had made up my mind to come, do you?" "Oh, no; I knew in my heart you would be here," drawing herself away and looking at her guardian with such happiness written on her face that Mrs. Wescott's bright eyes were dimmed as she said, "It's good to have a welcome like this!!" "Oh, it isn't anything to what you're going to get," Lucile wanted to say, but she only answered, ruefully, "I'm afraid all Burleigh will be talking about how boisterous Lucile Payton is becoming. Can't you hear?" she added, gaily: "'I declare, that child's terribly rude; she almost knocked me down!'" "A very good imitation of Miss Peabody, Lucile," laughed Mrs. Wescott. "I wonder how many times I've heard her talk just that way." Miss Peabody was one of the old maids that authors love to picture--straight, prim, opinionated, with a sharp tongue that wrought discord wherever it went. She dealt in other people's shortcomings, and if Burleigh had not known her too well to give her false tales credence, she might have worked some serious mischief. As it was, everyone took her gossip with a grain of salt, remarking, with a smile and a shrug after she had gone away, "Of course, that may be true, but remember, Angela Peabody said it!" When Lucile chose, she could mimic anyone from the young Italian at "Correlli's" to pompous Mrs. Belmont Nevill, who owned millions that she didn't know how to use. So now she had brought Miss Peabody before her guardian so vividly that the latter added, in surprise, "That must be a recent accomplishment, Lucy. You never did that at camp." "At camp I never remembered anybody at Burleigh except Mother and Dad and Phil," said Lucile. "It seemed like a different world." "A rather nice kind of world it was, too, wasn't it?" said her guardian, with a reminiscent smile. "Nice?" cried Lucile. "It was glorious! I only wish we could do it all over again. It does seem as if one good thing comes crowding right on the heels of another ever since we decided to form a camp-fire." "It has meant happiness for all of us," said Mrs. Wescott, with a far-away look that Lucile knew how to interpret. "I know," she said. "Here we are," she added, a moment later. "Oh, it's good to have you here at last." For answer, her guardian put her arm about Lucile and ran lightly up the steps, saying, joyfully, "And it's good to be here, Lucy, dear; but where are the girls?" "Oh, they're coming," Lucile answered, vaguely. "Come on upstairs and get your things off," she added, guiding her guest past the living-room adroitly. When Lucile ushered her into the great, airy, upstairs sitting-room, she dropped into an easy chair with a sigh of content. "Oh, Lucy, it is good to be here," she added. Then, for the first time, Lucile had a chance to get "a really good look at her," as she expressed it. The wind had loosened her guardian's dark hair and it clung in little ringlets about her face. Her eyes, those deep, comprehending, gray eyes, sparkled with delight as she took in the familiar objects about her. The merry dimples that had always fascinated the girls, and others besides, were ever in evidence as she talked and laughed happily. "I suppose," she went on, as Lucile took her hat and coat. "I suppose you girls had just about made up your minds I was never coming to Burleigh; six months is such a long time; but it seemed as if I could never get started." "Well, you're here now," said Lucile, gaily, "and that makes the six months seem like nothing at all." "How are your mother and father and Phil and everybody?" asked Mrs. Wescott, with a comprehensive sweep of her hand. "I want to know all about everybody." "Oh, they're all right," Lucile assured her, and then added, as an afterthought, "except, of course, Jim Keller's dog, Bull." "What's happened to Bull?" inquired young Mrs. Wescott, with smiling interest. Indeed, everyone in Burleigh knew and feared Bull. His ferocity was famous through the countryside, or at least, had been until he had met his downfall a few days before. "Come downstairs and I'll tell you about it. It is still a little chilly upstairs." "All right," agreed Mrs. Wescott. "Wait a minute; I must get my handkerchief first." A moment longer and they were in the spacious living-room, with its big library table and leather-covered chairs, and, best of all, glowing fire in the grate. Mrs. Wescott looked toward the latter in pleased surprise. "Isn't it snug here?" she said, slipping into one of the chairs before the fire. "A fire always giving the room a cheerful, homey look." "Oh, I love it!!" said Lucile, impulsively. "Ever since we came back from camp I've been wanting to make a great big camp-fire. This seems such a poor imitation." "I imagine it's just enough to make you camp-sick," laughed her guardian. "But tell me about Bull. I'm interested." "Oh, it's been the talk of Burleigh for days," said the girl. "If you will just turn your chair around so you will get a full view of the fire, I'll tell you about it." Her guest did as she was bid and settled back comfortably to enjoy the story. "Well," began Lucile, "the other day Bull and his master were walking down Main Street. You know, Jim Keller absolutely refuses to keep Bull tied up and the only wonder is he--the dog, I mean--hasn't been poisoned long ago, he has so many enemies. Well, Bull broke loose from Jim some way and when he tried to find him he had disappeared. Jim went raving around like a wild man, declaring that, 'if the dog wasn't found soon, he'd sure get into some mischief.'" "He showed rare perception." "That's what we all thought--at least, you would have judged so by the way everybody called their children in, and any one that had a pet cat or dog went almost crazy till it was out of harm's way. Oh, there was excitement in Burleigh that day!" "I can imagine," interjected Mrs. Wescott, in huge enjoyment of the picture. "Did Jim find him?" "Not for over an hour. He ran over half the town, looking everywhere for his Bull. At last a small boy came running and told him the dog was over yonder and he was gettin' a 'turrible lickin'.'" "Licking?" exclaimed Mrs. Wescott, sitting up straight in her surprise. "Bull?" "That was the funny part of it," Lucile went on. "Of course, Jim wouldn't believe it was his Bull the boy was talking about, but he went with him just the same. "When he turned the corner he came upon a spectacle that dazed him. He stood with his eyes and mouth wide open, gazing at Bull--it was his Bull, but oh, disgraced forever! There he was on his back in the dust, with a great collie making flying leaps over him. Each time he jumped those terrible nails ripped a piece of flesh from poor Bull----" "But I never thought a collie had half a chance against a bull dog," Mrs. Wescott interrupted, incredulously. "And such a dog as Bull, at that!" "Well, you see, the collie's owner explained all that afterward. He said that Bull couldn't get at his dog's throat because of his unusually long, thick hair--and, as a rule, that's Bull's first move, you know." "Catch him by the throat and hang on--yes, I know," her guardian supplemented. "Then what did Jim do?" "He wanted to go to the rescue. I believe he would have tried to pull the collie off with his own hands, but a man held him off, crying, 'Haven't you any sense, man, to try to separate dogs when they're fighting?' "'Fighting?' roared Jim. 'It isn't a fight--it's slaughter. If he's your mutt, call him off. Don't ye see he's killin' 'im?' "'He is punishing him pretty badly, I'll admit,' said the stranger, so calmly that Jim nearly exploded. "'If you don't call that dog o' yourn off,' he yelled, purple with rage, 'by all that's holy, I will, and 'twill be with a shot-gun.' "The man saw he meant it, so he whistled softly." "And all this time Bull was being punished?" said Mrs. Wescott. "Yes; he was simply down and out. He didn't seem to have the power to move a muscle. When his master whistled, the big collie stood still, cocked one ear, and then trotted over, as if what he had done to poor Bull were just in the day's work. "'You brute!' Jim raged. 'I don't know which is worse, you or your dog!' "The man only patted his dog, and said, 'You've done a good day's work, old man.' "This last shot was lost on Jim, for he was already bending over Bull, patting his poor old mangled head and calling him all the endearing names he could think of. Finally, seeing that Bull was either too weak or too ashamed to get up and could only wag his stub of a tail, he picked him up very tenderly and started for home. "That was anything but a triumphal journey. An army returning after overwhelming defeat could not have attracted more attention than those two old warriors. Heads popped out of every door and window, and before he was halfway home he had a train of small boys following him. I declare, when I saw the old man, he was almost crying. When I went up to him and patted the dog's head, he said, brokenly, 'He's all I've got, and now they've even gone and done him up!'" "Poor old Jim," said Mrs. Wescott. "Everyone hated Bull, but you can't help feeling sorry for him and his master when they're down and out." "Oh, it was really pitiful," said Lucile, "and it made me so desperate to see all those thoughtless cruel boys following him, hooting at him, and laughing at him and calling poor old battered Bull all sorts of names. So I turned around and looked at them. I saw that little Bob Fletcher was one of the crowd. "'Bob,' I said, 'suppose your Rover had been hurt--would you like to be laughed at?' "'I'd like to see anybody that'd try,' said he, manfully. "'Then why do you turn round and make fun of Bull when he's in trouble? It seems to me you're acting mighty like cowards!' "The words had a magical effect. I don't suppose it had struck the boys in that light before, but it was more than their manhood could stand to be called cowards. "'We ain't cowards,' said one, belligerently, 'and I'll fight anybody that says we are,' after which they all looked sheepish and started off in twos and threes, calling to each other that they'd better hurry and finish that game in the field--it would be getting dark soon!" "You always did have a way with the young folks, Lucy," smiled her guardian; "but that was a real act of kindness. What did old Jim do?" "Oh, he gave me a sort of wintry smile and said, 'Thank'ee little gal. I couldn't lick the lot of 'em myself, 'count of Bull here!' Then he stumbled on, muttering to the dog. "Poor old Bull," Lucile concluded. "His glory had departed forever and ever----" "Oh, Fire, long years ago----" the words came from ten girls' hearts, low, sweet, and vibrant with feeling. Their guardian sat as if turned to stone. CHAPTER VII THE MAGIC CITY The last sweet note hesitated, sighed, and softly merged in the crackling of the fire, and still their guardian did not move. For a long moment she sat upright and still, her hands clutching the arms of her chair, her gaze fixed steadily on the tiny, darting flames. Perhaps she saw there even more than the girls sensed, for when she turned to them, her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "Girls, dear girls," she cried, unsteadily, "what a welcome you have given me! And I had begun to think you had forgotten all about your guardian," and as she spoke she held out her arms so that the girls came rushing. Then such a hugging and kissing and asking of foolish questions and answering of them in like, but delightful manner, until Mrs. Wescott was forced to say, laughingly and in the same old tone they had heard so often in camp: "Girls, don't you think it would be better to hear one at a time?" The girls laughed gaily and settled themselves so near their guardian that "they couldn't possibly miss a word," as Jessie explained afterward when describing the scene to her mother. "Oh, it's a sight for sore eyes to see all my camp-fire girls again," said Mrs. Wescott, as her eyes traveled happily over the little group about her. Some threw themselves on the floor at her feet, while others were curled up on the huge divan, and Marjorie and Jessie perched on the arms of her chair. But all the bright faces were turned toward her with such happy and expectant interest that a lump seemed to rise in her throat, and she had much ado to speak at all. "It is wonderful to have you here after all this time," cried Jessie, snuggling close to her guardian as she spoke. "I feel as if any minute you're likely to fade away just as the ghosts and visions do in the moving pictures." There was a general laugh, and then Evelyn broke in, gallantly. "I protest," she said, stoutly. "I deny that our guardian is a ghost." "No; but she is a vision," said a voice behind them, and Lucile slipped noiselessly into the circle. "Goodness, Lucile, anybody would think you were the redskin you look like," commented Dorothy, a trifle sharply, for she had started in a most undignified manner. "See, you frightened the child, Lucile," said Marjorie, aggravatingly. "You should be more careful with one so young." "What do you call yourself?" retorted Dorothy, and Lucile saw it was high time she took a hand in the argument. "Don't tease, Marj," she admonished. "And don't get mad about nothing, Dotty--I mean Dot," she corrected quickly, as Dorothy eyed her menacingly. "I don't wonder she draws the line at Dotty," laughed Jessie. "I haven't called you that for two weeks, Dot; I've kept track." "When you haven't called me that for two years," said Dorothy, graciously, "I'll begin to think you're improving." "That's right, Dot," cried one of the girls, with a merry laugh. "Never refuse a helping hand to the wicked!" "Encourage them once in a while and some time, soon or late, you will be rewarded," chanted Marjorie in a solemn tone that brought a laugh from every one. "Lucy was right, just the same," said Margaret, with apparent irrelevance, and the girls turned inquiring eyes on the speaker as she sat, chin in hand, gazing into the fire. Somehow the girls' faces always sobered when they looked at Margaret, and when they spoke to her their voices softened to an undernote of tenderness never used among themselves. She had won her way steadily to every girl's heart. They had marveled at her invariable sweetness of temper; they had laughed at her quaint, naive sayings, and, most of all, they had loved her for the warm, grateful heart that found room and to spare for them all. So now Evelyn, merry, irresponsible Evelyn, said, with a gentleness that caused Mrs. Wescott to look at her in surprise: "What do you mean, Margaret? Pictures in the fire again?" "No; I was just thinking of what Lucy said when she first came in, before Dorothy jumped all over her," said Margaret, with a twinkle in her eye that had only found its way there of late. "Jumped all over her? What kind of language do you call that, Margaret Pratt Stillman?" reproved Marjorie, with her best grandmother air. "If you are not careful, the habit of using slang will grow upon you." "Oh, do keep still, Marj, for half a minute, can't you?" cried Jessie. "I suppose you can't," she added, "but you might try, anyway. A great many impossible things come with time." "Speak with yourself, Johnette," retorted Marjorie. "Why the Johnette?" inquired Lucile, with interest. "Feminine for John, of course," Marjorie explained, patiently. Jessie broke in upon the laugh that followed. "But we haven't come to the point yet," she complained. "Speak up, Margaret, before some other rude person interrupts." "That's right," said Lucile, ignoring the irony in her tone. "Now is your chance, Peggy." "Why, you said that our guardian was a vision," said Margaret, dreamily. "I quite agree with you." "Come, come, I can't allow this," cried the vision, gaily, as the girls turned adoring eyes upon her. "I've been thinking sundry little thoughts on my own account since I've seen my girls again." "Oh, doesn't it seem great to be back?" cried Dorothy. "I know I should be terribly homesick if I stayed away six weeks, let alone six months." "Indeed it did. Just the same, New York is fascinating, with its great buildings, its busy, absorbed throng of people, each intent on getting ahead of the next one. There is something about it all that draws one irresistibly. The very air seems charged with electricity, and just to walk down Broadway gave me more real excitement and enjoyment than the most thrilling play could have done." Helen Wescott's face flushed and her eyes sparkled as she talked. "Go on," cried Evelyn breathlessly. "Do tell us all about it. Oh, I can't even imagine it!" "I don't believe I could tell you everything if I should talk for a month," she went on. "But I do remember a conversation Jack and I had soon after our arrival. We were walking up Fifth Avenue one exceptionally busy day--I don't know why I should say that, for every day over there seems busier than the last--when Jack asked why I was so quiet. 'Because everything else is making so much noise,' I answered. Which, indeed, was almost reason enough. But when he insisted, I said what had been in my thoughts for the past two days: "'I've been wondering, as I looked at all these people rushing along as if their lives depended on their getting to a certain place on a certain second--these people with set faces and eyes that seem to see a long way off--I've just been wondering what they all find to do.' "'My dear,' said Jack, and he laughed in a way I could not understand, 'It's easy to see you have lived a long way from little old New York, and I'm mighty glad you have. I'd rather you would face all these people for the first time with me along.' "'But you haven't answered my question,' I insisted, for I was still filled with wonder at the great throng surging past us, whose purpose never seemed to change or falter. "'You asked what they were all doing,' said Jack. 'Well, for the most part, they are busily and congenially engaged in doing to the best advantage the next poor victim that comes to their net.' "Somehow, that little remark put a different aspect on everything and Fifth Avenue didn't hold quite the same charm for me that it had. Just the same," she added, brightly, "I like New York mighty well. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it didn't hold my girls, and I did miss you all so much!" "Oh, I don't see how you would ever find time to miss anybody with all those wonderful new sights and sounds around you all the time," said Evelyn, naively. Marjorie sniffed. "Of course, we know you wouldn't," she said. "I wouldn't," said Evelyn, unabashed. "I'd be too awfully excited all the time." "Oh, Evelyn, Evelyn!" said Lucile, laughing. "Won't you ever learn to cover up your faults?" "I'll have to get some first," she retorted, impishly; and the girls, who were in a mood when everything strikes them funny, began to laugh. The more they laughed, the more they tried to stop, the more impossible it became, until the whole house rang with merriment. Lucile was the first to recover herself. "That's quite enough for some time to come, Evelyn," she cried, choking back her laughter. "We all know you are wonderful, but please remember that no human being is perfect." Gradually they quieted down, with only an occasional explosion, and Lucile returned to her guardian again. "I suppose you have gone to all the theaters and restaurants and things in the city," she asked. "Are they just as wonderful as people make them out to be?" "More," said Mrs. Wescott, emphatically, dimpling happily at her memories. Indeed, she was very young and very enthusiastic, and the girls, looking at her, thought they had never seen her so entrancingly lovely. "It is almost impossible to describe," she went on. "At first you have only a confused impression that the world is on fire with electric lights. To ride through the crowded theater district at night, with the great electric signs blinking at you from all sides--with the honking of the motor horns making a very Babel--with the crowds on the sidewalk, still hurrying, but for such a different reason--men and women in evening dress, all bound for one or other of the gay restaurants or theaters close by. And then the theater itself! To walk from the street to the gaily lighted lobby, its walls paneled from floor to ceiling with great mirrors that reflect lovely women and distinguished men. Then in the theater where the rich carpet deadens every footfall and you feel rather than hear the murmur of many voices speaking softly--the subtle rustle of a crowded place--the lights--the music--oh, girls, it was wonderful, wonderful! I can't describe it!" "Oh, but you have described it--beautifully!" cried Lucile. "I feel as if I had been there!" "Oh, just to go there once!" breathed Jessie, rapturously. "If I could only see those things once, I think I'd be willing to die!" The girls raised laughing protests, and Lucile cried, "For goodness' sake, don't speak of dying yet awhile, Jessie. I'm going to see lots before my end comes. Oh, if we could only go back with you, Miss How--I mean Mrs. Wescott," she stammered, blushing furiously at her mistake. The lovely guardian of the fire looked down upon Lucile, a quizzical smile curling the corners of her mouth. "I don't wonder you make that mistake once in a while," she said. "It took me a long while to get used to it." "I should think it would seem strange just at first," ventured Margaret, amazed at her own temerity and looking up at her guardian shyly. "I mean not being Miss Howland any longer." The girls laughed and Margaret flushed confusedly. "You shouldn't say such things, Margaret; it ill befits your age," said Jessie patronizingly. There followed another burst of laughter, out of which Margaret's voice rose defiantly. "I don't care," she cried. "It seemed mighty funny to me to call our guardian Mrs. Wescott, and if it seemed strange to me, what must it have seemed to her? I was almost afraid----" her voice trailed off into silence, and Mrs. Wescott prompted, gently, "Afraid of what, dear?" "Oh, just afraid that you might be--different." It was the vague, half-formed fear that all the girls had felt, yet none had dared express, and the silence that followed was pregnant with meaning. "Different, Margaret?" their guardian's voice was low and tremulous. "Never! Happier, oh, so very much happier, girls; but never changed in my love for you except as it grows stronger. Do I seem different?" she asked, turning swimming eyes upon them. "Oh, no--except that you are twice as dear," cried Lucile, and the cry found an echo in each girl's heart. "I'm so happy I'm afraid I'm going to have hysterics or something," cried Jessie, dabbing her eyes with a square inch or so of handkerchief. "I want to laugh and cry, and you can't do both at once." The girls laughed shakily and Mrs. Wescott said, with a gay little laugh, "Here, this will never do. Now that that question is settled forever and ever, I want to hear what you girls have been doing all this time, and what you expect to do this summer. Come, who's first?" "Lucile," cried Dorothy. "You just ask her what she intends to do this summer. All our plans are tame beside hers." The girls had completely forgotten the wonderful topic that had seemed all absorbing before this guardian's arrival, but now it took on an added importance, and the girls waited eagerly for Lucile's disclosure. "What great plans have you been making now, Lucile?" said Mrs. Wescott, with that ever-ready interest that had won the girls completely. "I can see there is something great in the wind. Tell me about it." "I'd never have thought of it if Dorothy hadn't reminded me," said Lucile, amazed that it should have slipped her mind for two minutes, let alone two hours. "Why, it's only that Mother and Dad are going to Europe this summer and they have decided to take Phil and me along with them; and then Dad said I might ask Jessie and Evelyn to go with us if they'd like to, and so they are coming--to make trouble," she added, slyly. "Oh, no doubt of that last," said Mrs. Wescott, laughing, and then added, with enthusiasm, "It certainly is splendid for you to have the chance. I know your pet hobby has always been to visit Switzerland, Lucy, and now you will, provided you get that far. Do you suppose you will?" "I really don't know," said Lucile. "I've been too stunned by the mere fact of going to Europe to think of asking for details. If I have anything to say about it, we'll go to Switzerland, if we don't go anywhere else." "Just hear her talk of Switzerland, as if it were just around the corner," marveled Ruth. "It has always seemed to me like some myth or fable." "And you feel as it you ought to speak of it in whispers," agreed Marjorie. "That's the way I feel about it." "Oh, I almost forgot about tea," Lucile interrupted, springing to her feet and making a dash for the door. "It's getting late, and everybody must be starved. Come on, Jessie, and help me, for goodness' sake!" "Coming," said Jessie, stopping at the door to make a low bow and declaim, "Ladies and gentlemen, we crave your indulgence----" "You'd better come out here, or I'll use force," cried Lucile's voice from somewhere in the rear, and the orator fled precipitately. CHAPTER VIII ENTER JACK It was the last day Lucile and Evelyn and Jessie would spend in Burleigh for some time. Since early morning they had been so busy they had scarcely found time to breathe, and it was not till five o'clock in the afternoon that Lucile slammed down the cover of her last trunk with a triumphant, "There, that's done! Now, I wonder if I've thought of everything." Tired and happy, she flung herself upon the bed, a little meditative frown puckering her forehead, and began a mental checking up of all the hundred and one things she would need. "I guess I have all the dresses I'll want," she ruminated. "Shoes and combs and brushes and ribbons and handkerchiefs--oh, I wonder if I put in my little flowered scarf; I mustn't forget that----" Then began a frantic searching through bureau drawers, during which the scarf failed to come to light. Finally she gave it up in despair and turned upon the two trunks so fierce a look that the only wonder is they didn't fade then and there and vanish into thin air. "You disgusting old things!" she cried, hotly. "I suppose you think it's fun to go all through you again and take out all your horrid old trays and everything, just to make sure I put that scarf in. I suppose I'll find it way down at the bottom, too." She was on her knees before the smaller of the two trunks and had taken out a good deal of the contents, still grumbling good-naturedly, when her mother came in. "What are you talking to yourself about, Lucile? I could hear you way down the hall; and what _are_ you doing? I thought you had your trunks nearly packed." Mrs. Payton's voice was irritably impatient. Lucile sat back on her heels with a joyful, "I've got it, I've got it--and I didn't have to unpack the whole trunk, either!" "Got what?" cried Mrs. Payton, sharply. "I asked you a question." Lucile sobered instantly. "My scarf," she answered. "I had the trunk all packed, and then I thought of it. I guess I have everything else, though." "Let us hope so. As soon as you put the things back, you had better get ready for to-night. It's pretty late." "All right; I guess I will have to hurry," Lucile agreed, and finished the repacking in silence. Five minutes later she flew to the 'phone and called up Jessie. "Hello!" she cried. "That you, Jessie? I've just finished packing, and I've got to get dressed in a hurry. How about you?" "I'm not quite through yet," came the answer. "But I will be pretty soon. Mother came to my rescue a few minutes ago, and together we're making things fly." "That's good; be sure and get there in time. I haven't any idea who will be there, but I guess there'll be quite a crowd. You know, I'm all shaky from excitement," she confessed. "So am I," said Jessie. "My hand trembles so I can hardly hold the receiver." "I guess it runs in the family," said Lucile, laughing. "Well, you'd better get back to your packing--and do hurry, Jess!" "Don't worry! I never knew the meaning of the word till this afternoon. Good-by--oh, wait a minute! What dress are you going to wear?" "My new white one, I guess," said Lucile. "I've been undecided all afternoon whether to wear that or the pale green, but Mother thinks the white is prettier." "Oh, for goodness' sake, wear the white one, Lucy. I want to wear my blue dress, and I was afraid we might clash." "Oh, all right; anything for friendship's sake," laughed Lucile. "Good-by, Jess--hustle!" "I'm glad that's settled, anyway," Lucile murmured, as she hung up the receiver. "Now I will have to rush," and away she flew to her room, hair rumpled and eyes shining, to prepare for the dance. The great affair had been originated by their guardian a few days before in honor of the prospective voyagers, and the girls hardly knew what they had looked forward to more, their trip to Europe or the dance. "Oh, you look like the wild man of Borneo," cried Lucile as she caught a glimpse in her mirror of tumbled curls and sadly rumpled dress. "It's good you don't have to go to the dance looking that way. They'd put you out, sure as fate. Well, here goes; let's see how long it will take the wild man to take the form of Lucile Floyd Payton." Half an hour later Lucile lifted the dainty mass of lace and chiffon from her bed with a sigh of satisfaction. "When you're on, then we'll be all ready. Guess I'll have to get Jane to do it up, though. I don't know just how it goes yet." Jane did the work satisfactorily; so well, in fact, that when she gave the girl a little finishing pat and announced admiringly that "You surely will be queen of the ball to-night, Miss Lucy," that young lady gave an involuntary gasp of delight. "Oh, it's pretty, it's pretty!" she cried. "Indade, an' it's not the only thing that has a claim to beauty," said Jane, with an admiring glance at her young mistress. "Now, you'd better come down an' get a bite to ate, Miss Lucy, before iverything gets cold. Ye needn't be worryin' 'bout yer looks the night," she prophesied. "Thanks, Jane," cried Lucile, gaily. "I got ready in pretty good time, after all, didn't I? Oh, there's the dinner gong and I am not a bit hungry!" "Excitement's no good on an empty stomach," said Jane sagely. "Take my advice an' ate yer fill--ye'll be all the better for it." "I'll do my best," she promised, and ran lightly down the stairs and into the dining-room, where the family were already assembled. "How do you like it?" she cried, dropping them a low curtsey and smiling like a little witch. "It's the first time I've had it on, Mother and Dad and Phil--how do you like it? Isn't it becoming?" and she executed several little toe-dances which brought her so near Phil that he hugged her impulsively. "It's a peach, and so are you, Lucy. I didn't know you could look like that," said he, eyeing her approvingly. "It's a beauty," said her father, but his eyes were more for the rosy cheeks and dancing eyes of his little girl than they were for the beloved new dress. Once, while Lucy and Phil were in the midst of an animated discussion about some baseball game or other that they had seen recently, Mr. Payton managed a sly wink in his wife's direction that said more plainly than any words, "Aren't you proud of them? And they are all ours!" At quarter past eight the first of Mrs. Wescott's young guests began to arrive. They came in relays of three and four, all very excited and happy and eager for a good time. Promptly at eight thirty Lucile and Phil, with Jessie and a cousin of hers, Jack Turnbull by name, started up the drive to Mrs. Wescott's beautiful home. "Doesn't it look lovely with the lights all over the place?" said Jessie. "Yes; especially because it has looked so forsaken for the last six months," Lucile answered. A few moments later they reached the door and were ushered into the brilliantly lighted hall. "Lucy, stay near me, will you?" Jessie urged in a nervous whisper. "I don't know half these people." "Cheer up; we're all in the same fix," whispered Phil over her shoulder. "We four can stick together, anyway." "You have the right idea," said Jack Turnbull, with perhaps a trifle more emphasis than was necessary, and with a glance toward Lucile, who had gone forward to meet her hostess. "Oh, he always has the right idea," Jessie chaffed, with a merry glance at Phil, and then she followed Lucile to her guardian's side. She greeted her guardian and then looked reproachfully at Lucile. "Here, just the minute after I ask you not to go away, you desert me," she said. "Well, I didn't go very far," Lucile consoled. Mrs. Wescott laughed. "Go up in my room and get your things off, girls," she directed. "You'll find Margaret and Evelyn up there. Come down as soon as you can," she added, as they started upstairs. "I want to introduce you all around." "All right, we'll hurry," said Lucile, and then squeezed her friend's hand. "Oh, Jessie, what a lark!" she whispered. "We're in for a good time to-night." "You have the right idea, as Jack says," answered Jessie. "Did you see him look at you, Lucy?" "Hush! they're right behind us," cautioned Lucile. "Hello, girls," she cried, as she entered the room. "I don't see how you managed to get here before us." "Oh, that's easy," laughed Evelyn. "How lovely you look! Oh, I love your dresses--both of them! Are they new?" "Of course they are, or we would have seen them before," said Margaret. "Well, we're not the only ones, anyway," said Lucile. "I know yours are new. They're awfully pretty." "We're all satisfied then," said Jessie, briskly. "Lucy, will you _please_ put this pin in where it will do the most good. I never can keep this lock of hair in place." "You poor infant!" said Lucile. "Come here and let me fix you." Then some strange girls came in and, after a few admonitory pats of stubborn bows and ruffles, the girls started downstairs. They made a pretty picture as they descended the wide staircase together, and as they reached the last step their guardian disengaged herself from a laughing group of young folks and came forward to meet them with an approving smile. "You didn't stay up there as long as I expected," she laughed. "Now come in and meet everybody." The introductions were soon over, much to everybody's relief, and the girls were surprised to find how many of the boys and girls they knew. "Why, I know most all of them," Lucile confided to Jack in a lull. "Those I don't know to speak to, I've seen over and over again on the street." "That's not strange," said Jack. "There's a great big crowd and it's growing every minute. Here are some new arrivals!" "Oh, it's Marjorie and Dot, with the boys," she cried, jumping up. "Will you excuse me a minute? I'll be right back," and she threw him a glance so full of sparkling mischief that his heart leaped suddenly and unaccountably, and Phil had to speak to him twice before he could make himself heard. In half an hour the dancing began. The floor of the two great rooms that had been thrown open for the use of the guests had been polished till they shone, and at the far end of the room a platform had been erected, upon which sat the musicians, partly screened by magnificent palms. The rooms were decorated from end to end with flowers and the air was heavy with their perfume. At an appointed signal the orchestra struck up a one-step and at that irresistible summons the boys began a mad rush to secure partners. "Oh, I didn't know it would be like this," murmured Jessie. "Isn't it wonderful?" cried Lucile, and the next instant a voice at her elbow pleaded, "Give me this dance, will you, Lucy?" and she looked up into Jack's smiling face. An answering smile flashed out. "Will I?" she cried, and led the way, Phil and Jessie following. Another instant and she was being whirled away on Jack's arm, and Jack, who had won renown for his dancing among his New York associates, thought he had never danced with anyone so lovely and so exquisitely graceful as this friend of Jessie's. "You dance wonderfully," was Jack's comment. "Anybody could tell you love it." "Oh, I do," said Lucile, fervently. "There's nothing like it." "Nor you," said Jack, and he believed it. The girls never forgot that night. A new world seemed to open before them--a world they never knew existed. A world filled with bright lights and music, where every one danced and laughed and was thrillingly and unbelievably joyful. And Lucile, who had never dreamed of anything like this, suddenly found herself the very center of attraction. The crowd was always thickest about her and Jessie and Evelyn, and she was so deluged with requests for the next dance that her order was filled in no time and Jack had all he could do to squeeze in two numbers at the very end. Some of the boys, to be perfectly frank, quite a few, were awkward and stepped on the toes of her dainty little white pumps until they were very nearly black, but she was so happy as to be absolutely oblivious of such trifles, while the awkward youths fell entirely under the spell of her sparkling, fun-filled eyes and the merry, bubbling laugh that seemed to overflow from sheer joy. Once Jessie managed to whisper to her, "Miss--Mrs. Wescott didn't say she was going to have such a wonderful affair as this. Were you in the secret, Lucy?" "No; there wasn't any secret. Our guardian just did it as a splendid surprise, the dear," said Lucile, and her eyes traveled to where her guardian and her husband were standing with a group of older people who had come later in the evening to enjoy the fun and to help the young Wescotts do the chaperoning. "She is all right," agreed Jessie. "And doesn't Jack Wescott look splendid? I believe he's handsomer now than he was in the country." "He is fine looking," Lucile admitted, grudgingly. "Just the same, I'll never quite forgive him." Jack took Lucile into dinner. It required skillful manoeuvering on his part and he never could tell afterward how it happened, but the fact remains that he finally succeeded in extricating her from the mob and started with her toward the dining-room. "Where's Jessie? I promised to wait for her," said Lucile, half turning round. "She's lost in the crowd, I guess." "Probably," said Jack, perfectly satisfied with this solution. "You needn't worry about her. Phil will see that she finds her way to the dining-room all right." "I shouldn't wonder," laughed Lucile, and so the matter was settled, to their satisfaction at least. After dinner the last few dances passed rapidly--far too quickly for the happy young folks. As the last notes of "Home, Sweet Home" died away, Jack turned to his radiant little partner. "It seems to me they cut that dance mighty short," said he. "I wish they would give us an encore." "Yes, aren't they stingy?" Lucile agreed, as the frantic applause brought no response from the bored musicians, who were already putting away their music. "It must be pretty hard for them," she added, as Jack started to pilot her toward the door. "They have to do all the work while we have the fun." "Yes, but they have the fun of getting paid for it," Jack suggested, practically. Lucile laughed. "I never thought of it in that light before," she said, and then added, with a sigh, "Well, I suppose it's all over now." "Sorry?" whispered Jack. "Of course; aren't you?" she countered, with a quick upward glance, that fell before his steady gaze. Jack answered softly, as several of the girls and boys approached "More sorry than I can make you understand--now." Lucile thrilled with a new, strange emotion that she could not analyze; she only knew it was absurdly hard to look at Jack, and that she was immensely relieved when Evelyn greeted her with a merry, "Don't you wish it were beginning all over again, Lucy? I don't feel a bit like going home." "That seems to be the general cry," broke in Marjorie. "And to think that you girls are going away to-morrow!" she added. "You'll be tired out after to-night." "Oh, we're not going till late in the afternoon, so we can sleep all we want to in the morning. All the packing is done," said Jessie, reassuringly. "But who speaks of sleep?" broke in Lucile, gaily. "I never felt so far from it in all my life." "No, but you'll feel mighty near it about two o'clock to-morrow afternoon, if I'm any judge," Phil prophesied, grimly. "Well, everybody knows you're not," said Lucile, running lightly up the stairs and stopping to make a laughing face at her brother over the banister. "Come on, girls," she cried. "Everybody's going and we haven't even started yet." The girls followed her, laughing merrily, and Phil grinned at the fellows. "You can't get the best of Lucy," he said. An hour later Lucile put out the light and crept into bed with a sigh. "Such a wonderful time," she breathed, "and he _is_ good looking. Jack----" Then she smiled whimsically into the dark. "It must run in the name," she said. CHAPTER IX HURRAH, FOR EUROPE! Lucile opened one sleepy eye upon the busily ticking little clock on the table. As she looked, her gaze became fixed and she sat up in bed with a startled exclamation. "Eleven o'clock!" she cried. "Oh, it can't be!" she added, with sudden inspiration, which was clouded with disappointment the next minute as the steady ticking continued. "How silly!" she said, laughing at herself. "Since it's still going, it's certain that it hasn't stopped." With which profound remark she slipped out of bed and into her dressing gown. "Oh, how could I waste so much time on sleep," she marveled, "when to-day means--Europe? Oh, I can never wait to get dressed!" She did wait, however, and when she had donned her dress and tucked her unruly curls into place, she looked as fresh and sweet as a flower. She finished her toilet in breathless haste, and as she flung open the door of her room she nearly ran into Phil, who was tearing down the hall toward her. "Hello, Sis; it's about time you were up," was his greeting. "Mother said to call you if you weren't. Do you know what time it is?" he queried, regarding her severely. "Yes, I know what time it is, Grandad," she mimicked, and, catching him about the neck, she began to do a series of steps not standardized in the Vernon Castle repertoire. "Come on, old sobersides," she laughed; "dance for your life. I'll be the orchestra." Phil was nothing if not a "sport," so he grasped his sister around the waist and away they went down the hall at a great rate, Lucile singing like mad, until the sounds of merriment reached Mr. Payton in the library and out he came, paper in hand, to have his share of the fun. He was greeted by a peal of laughter, and Lucile cried, "Stop stepping on my toes, Phil, for goodness' sakes! See, it goes like this." "What's all the rumpus about?" thundered Mr. Payton, in his hearty voice, and Lucile poked her bright face over the banister to smile impishly and threw him a kiss. "Dancing, Dad; don't you want to try?" she challenged. "Sure," was the unexpected reply, "only leave a little of the stairs, please," as they came down two steps at a time and landed right side up with care. Then Mr. Payton was hugged and kissed and called a "dear" and dragged into the library, where the rugs were rolled up and full preparations made for the first dancing lesson. They were in full swing, with the Victrola going and Lucile counting "One-two-three, one-two-three," when Mrs. Payton came in. She looked her disapproval of the disorderly room, but when her glance rested on her husband, who proved surprisingly light on his feet for so heavy a man, her eyes filled with interest and she sat down to watch. When the record stopped, Lucile turned shining eyes on her mother. "Wasn't that fine, Mother?" while Phil burst out with, "Bravo, Dad! I had no idea you could do it." "All due to my very able teacher," said Mr. Payton, modestly. "Don't you want to try it, Nell?" he asked. "It's more fun than you can imagine. I remember that when I first met you there was no better dancer on the floor, dear. Come on and try." "I always used to love to dance," Mrs. Payton admitted, and that admission was enough for Lucile. "I tell you what we'll do," she said. "You take Mother, Phil, and I'll take Dad. Oh, what a lark!" It was half an hour before the Paytons could bring themselves down to a consideration of the sober and substantial things of life, and then it took Mrs. Payton to do it. "Lucile," she cried, stopping in the middle of a dance to gaze upon her daughter, "I don't believe you've had a mouthful of anything to eat since you got up, and it's after twelve o'clock." "Oh, I forgot," said Lucy, and then added naively, "Now I come to think of it, though, I am hungry." "Of course you are. Run along and tell Mary to make you some toast. That will last you till we all have lunch, which will be pretty soon now." "I hope so," said Phil, who was always ready for his three good meals a day. "I begin to feel the ravages of famine," he groaned. "If you are real good, I may give you a piece of my toast," Lucile promised. "No, don't, Lucy; it will only spoil his dinner," said Mrs. Payton. "Dancing does give you an appetite, though, doesn't it?" she added, at which Lucile smiled to herself, for it was very, very long since she had seen her mother unbend so far. "If dancing will do it," she decided, on her way to the kitchen, "we'll dance from here to Jericho," and the firm lines of her mouth showed that she meant it. At half past four Phil put on his hat and announced his intention of going round for the girls. "You needn't stop for Jessie," Lucile called after him; "nor for Evelyn either, for that matter. All their folks are coming along to see us off." "I'm going anyway," he replied, briefly, and Lucile called gaily after him, "There's a reason," and shut the door before he could retort. Mrs. Payton met her in the hall. "Better get your hat and coat on, Lucy. It's almost time to start." As Lucile ran lightly up the stairs and into her room, her heart beat fast and her face flamed with excitement. "We're going, we're going!" she sang, as she slipped into her coat and pulled her hat--a perky little affair with a blue bow at the side, that held in place a black wing set at an aggravating angle--down over one eye and then surveyed herself critically. "Guess I'm all right," she said, pushing a stray lock into place with experienced fingers. "Now for my gloves and bag and I'll be ready. Coming, Mother!" This last to an impatient command from the lower regions. "Will you ask Dad if he took my Gladstone bag downstairs?" Mr. Payton replied in person that he had, and Lucile stepped out in the hall and closed the door softly. She paused at the head of the stairs to still the tumultuous beating of her heart, for it seemed to her that it could be heard a mile away. It was all so new and strange and wonderful--and now that their great dream was to be realized so soon, she felt more than ever that it must be a dream and nothing more. She wondered if Jessie and Evelyn were feeling that way, too, and then she heard the clamor of voices on the porch and knew that they had come. Then a sort of panic seized her, as she realized that Jack Turnbull would be with them. She knew he would, for that had been the last thing he had said to her last night--oh, how very far away it seemed! Half unconsciously, she straightened her little hat and ran downstairs, just in time to answer Phil's urgent, "Where's Lucy?" with a merry, "Here, Phil; bag and baggage!" Everybody turned to greet the radiant little figure, and Lucile included them all in her bright, "How's everybody?" "Rather shaky," Evelyn answered, in an awe-struck voice, and everybody laughed good-naturedly. "Well, what do you say if we start?" suggested Mr. Payton. "We are all here and we might as well have plenty of time. We don't want to have to hurry." They all agreed, and so, with a great deal of noise and laughter, the party started out. Lucile ran back to say a word of good-by to Mary and Jane, who, good souls, were weeping heartily at the thought of parting with the family for so long. With difficulty she managed to break away from them, and on her way back came face to face with--Jack! "Oh," she stammered, "I thought they--everybody--had gone!" "So they have, but I came back to get you and--tell you to hurry," he replied, with a laugh. It was a very frank, nice laugh, Lucile decided, and she was very glad he had come back, so she answered him gaily and they started out to overtake the others. At least, Lucile did, but, after covering a half-block at a fast walk, that was almost a run, Jack protested. "What's your awful hurry?" he queried, reproachfully. "You have an hour to catch the train, so why rush?" Lucile opened her eyes wide in feigned astonishment. "Why, I'm only following instructions," she teased. "You told me to hurry, and so I'm trying to." "With great success," he added, with a smile of understanding. "Just the same, you know I didn't mean it that way. I had to see you and I needed some excuse. I won't have a chance to see you for a long, long time, you know." Lucile looked up quickly, this time in real surprise. "But I thought you were going back to New York to-day, anyway," she said. "So I am, but there isn't the width of the Atlantic between New York and Burleigh," he answered meaningly. Just then Evelyn turned around and, making a megaphone of her hand, shouted, "Better hurry up; we'll miss the train." "Plenty of time," Jack threw back, pleasantly. "Got half an hour yet." "Aw, there's something wrong with your watch," Phil retorted. "Next time you buy an Ingersoll, see that you get your money's worth." "Thanks!" drawled Jack, but Lucile looked anxious. "Perhaps we would better catch up with the rest of them," she suggested. "The front ranks have quite a start on us, and we don't want to keep them waiting." "Oh, all right," agreed Jack cheerfully. "Give me your hand and we'll do a hundred-yard dash in record time." Lucile took the proffered hand and away they went like two happy children, reaching the rest of the party a moment later, out of breath but triumphant. "Didn't I tell you we'd break the record?" laughed Jack, forgetting for the moment to release her hand. "You're some little runner, too," he added, admiringly. "Speak for yourself," she threw back gaily. "That was a good run, though. I guess we won't miss the train now." "Not an unmixed blessing," Jack grumbled, at which they all laughed with such infectious mirth that more than one passer-by turned to smile after them. They arrived at the station in plenty of time, after all, for it was fully fifteen minutes before a distant toot announced the coming of the train that was to carry them to New York. It had been Mr. Payton's intention in the first place to take passage on one of the smaller steamers, but the girls had been so evidently disappointed, although, to do them credit, they had tried their very best not to let him see it, that he had changed his plans at the last minute and had decided to take passage from New York on the great steamer "Mauretania." In talking things over, the girls' parents and one or two of their relatives had decided to take the trip with them as far as New York, and from there give them a glorious send-off. The girls' desire and curiosity to see the great metropolis had been heightened by their guardian's vivid recitals of her experiences, and they were on edge with expectancy. "I wish we were going to spend some time in New York," Phil was saying. "We just shoot in and then right out again." "You ungrateful heathen!" Lucile chided. "What do you expect? I'd like to spend a year in New York, too, but we can't do everything at once." What Jack might have replied will never be known for just then they heard the whistle of the train. The journey had begun. CHAPTER X WHIRLED THROUGH THE NIGHT Mile after mile, the long train rumbled on over shining rails that fell away behind and merged in the far-distant sky-line. The first rays of the morning sun struck on the brilliant metal and gathered up the dazzled sunbeams to scatter them broadcast over hills and fields and flying houses. Now and then the hoarse whistle of the engine broke the early morning quiet, only to be flung back on itself by wood and cave and mountainside in a scornful shout of mockery. And still the girls slept on in the dreamless, heavy sleep of tired girlhood. Of course, not one of the three had had the least intention of doing anything so commonplace as going to sleep; in fact, the very idea had been vaguely irritating. Had they not looked forward to this very thing for months--at least, so it seemed to them--and it was almost impossible for them to have patience with the idiocy of any one who could calmly suggest slumber at such a time. And Phil--for it was at him that this Parthian shot had been aimed--had evinced remarkable self-control, in that he had refused to argue, but had continued to smile in an aggravatingly superior manner, which had said more plainly than words: "You think you mean it, no doubt, but I, who am wise, know what simpletons you are." Of course, Phil was right, as they had known in their hearts he would be, in spite of all their resolution, and it was not until the sun struck through the little window and dashed upon Lucile's sleeping face in a golden shower that she stirred impatiently and brushed her hand across her eyes. Fifteen minutes later, in dressing gown and cap, she pushed aside the curtain into the aisle and crept out, meaning to steal a march on the others. She let the curtain fall with a little gasp of astonishment, for as she looked, two other curtains moved stealthily, animated by unseen hands, and two heads popped simultaneously into the aisle. Jessie and Evelyn looked at each other, then at Lucile, vacantly at first, and then, as the truth dawned upon them, they began to laugh. "Oh," gasped Lucile, "I thought I was the only one awake, and here you two come along and spoil my well-laid plans." "The well-laid plans of mice and men Aft gang agley," quoted Jessie. "Stop spouting poetry before breakfast," commanded Evelyn. "You might wait until I get strength to bear it." "There she goes! First thing in the morning, too," said Jessie, despairingly. Lucile laughed, and, taking each disputant by an arm, hurried them along the aisle. "May I ask our destination?" queried Jessie, with the utmost politeness. "Certainly," Lucile agreed, cheerfully, and then, as no further explanation seemed forthcoming, Jessie added, with an air of indefinite patience, "Well?" "Go ahead, ask all the questions you like," said Lucile, with a twinkle in her eye. "I'm not going to answer them, though," and, with a little laugh, she pushed her before her into a little room at the farther end of the car. "A-ha, a mirror!" cried Jessie. "Lucile, I forgive all." "Thanks," replied Lucile, laconically. "Even at that, you needn't take up the whole mirror, you know." "Oh, you can look on both sides," said Jessie, serenely. The girls laughed. "The only wonder is that we showed almost human intelligence in bringing our combs along," Lucile remarked, after a moment. "Not at all," observed Jessie, grandly. "We only followed a very obvious line of reasoning." "A very which?" asked Evelyn, turning round with her comb poised in mid-air. "If you must talk, kindly speak United States, Jessie." Jessie turned upon her friend a look in which was more of pity than of anger. "It is evident," she remarked sadly, "that there is one among us who has never grasped the opportunity for learning afforded by our present-day civilization----" "Jessie, darling," broke in Lucile, sweetly, "if you don't come down from your soap box pretty soon, I'm afraid we'll have to resort to force. Much as we would hate to," she added, apologetically. Evelyn threw up her hands in desperation. "You're just as bad as Jessie, Lucy," she accused. "I'm going in and see if I can't find peace. The boys ought to be up by this time," she added, slyly. The girls laughed as the door slammed behind her, and Lucile exclaimed, with a little flourish of her comb, "Come on, Jess; I'm ready for the fray." And, with arms about each other, girl fashion, they followed Evelyn into the aisle. How could they know on that morning, when their hearts were full and their heads light with the heady wine of Spring, that before three months had sped, they would feel the strands of the mighty web of nations tighten about them; that they would see the beginning of the greatest war the world has ever known? Perhaps it was just as well that they were not gifted with prophecy, for the grim shadow of war that hung menacingly over all Europe would have darkened this bright morning and would have tinted all the hills and countryside with the grayish hue of impending disaster. As it was, there was no cloud to darken the horizon of their exuberant happiness and they gave full rein to their high spirits. As Evelyn had said, the boys were up when they returned, and they were not the only ones, for the train seemed suddenly to have come to life. Voices called merrily to each other from different points in the car, and everywhere was the stir and bustle of awakened and refreshed humanity. As Lucile and Jessie made their way through the car, they encountered several women, apparently bound for the dressing-room. "It's good we got there early," said Lucile. "If we hadn't, we never would have gotten a chance at the mirror." "You're just right," laughed Jessie. "There wasn't room enough for three of us, let alone a half a dozen." A moment later they joined a group of their own folks at the other end of the car. They flung a merry greeting. "Well, well, girls," observed Mr. Payton, catching sight of the girls out of the corner of his eye, "we thought you were lost." "I didn't think so," said Phil. "Evelyn said you might be in there half an hour if you had good luck, so we didn't expect you so soon." The girls threw a reproachful look at the traitress, who made a defiant little mouth at them. "Well, I had to get even with you some way," she cried. Just then Jack, who had been trapped into a discussion with some of the men and had been anxiously watching for a chance to escape, suddenly finding it, excused himself and joined the young folks. "What's the row?" he asked casually. "Nothing, save that we have a traitress in our midst," declaimed Jessie, dramatically. "How exciting!" drawled her cousin. Then, turning to Lucile, he inquired, lightly: "Did you get any sleep last night, or were the bumps too much for you?" "The bumps didn't worry me at all," she confessed, as she smiled whimsically. "In fact, I didn't know there were any." "How about something to eat?" It was Mr. Payton who voiced the welcome suggestion, and there was a prompt shout of approval from all hands. "You have said it, Dad," commended Phil. "If we start now, we'll get there before the crowd." So off went the merry company to the dining-car, where the tempting odors made them more ravenous than before, if such a thing were possible, and Phil kept on ordering until it seemed as though the rest of the passengers would have to go on short commons. The early morning passed quickly and it was no time at all before Jack announced to Lucile--for he was never very far from her side--that they would reach New York within the next hour. Then, as Jack had said, at exactly five minutes of nine--the authority for the time being Phil's beloved chronometer, which he declared, and devoutly believed as well, varied hardly a second during the year--the train glided smoothly into the station and they reached--New York! The girls stood with shining eyes and breath that came and went quickly through parted lips. Then, as the porter shouted in stentorian tones, "New Yawk--all out!" they moved half dazedly through the crowd and out on the great platform, where the din half fascinated, half frightened them. "Stick close together, everybody," Mr. Payton directed. "It wouldn't be any joke if we got separated!" Lucile had faced many situations and never turned a hair, but now the roar of the great metropolis, the rumble of the hand-cars on the platform as the heavy baggage was carted to and from the trains, the shrieking of engine whistles, the hoarse cries of the train-hands, all combined in such a menacing roar that for a moment she had a wild desire to run and hide somewhere, anywhere to get away from the thunderous din. It was only for a second, however, for, as Jack slipped a reassuring arm through hers, she looked up at him with her old, confident smile. "I'll see that you don't get lost or run over," he said, comfortingly, with that air of protection that all men, even very young ones like Jack, love to assume toward girls and women, especially pretty ones. And it must be noted that from that instant Jack Turnbull rose forty good points in Lucile's estimation. It gave her a feeling of grateful security to be piloted through the crowd in this masterly fashion. Soon they had covered the length of the platform and had reached the curb, which was lined with cabs and taxis. "Here, pile in, all of you," Mr. Payton commanded, as he looked around to see if they were all there. "I guess you five young people can manage to squeeze into one car. Come, Nellie," to his wife, "you get right in here," and he proceeded, with the other men, to help the ladies into the two waiting cabs. "Pretty close quarters," said Jack, as he slipped into the square inch of space between Jessie and Evelyn. "I suppose I might have walked," he was adding, doubtfully, when Lucile broke in with a decided, "Indeed, you shouldn't have thought of such a thing! What difference does it make if we are a little crowded?" "That's all very well for you, Lucy; you're not having the breath squeezed out of you," Jessie began, when Phil interrupted, mischievously: "Why don't you change places? Lucy doesn't mind and you do, Jess." "You have it!" exclaimed Jack, enthusiastically. "The first minute I saw you, I said to myself, 'That fellow has brains.' Come on Jess; vacate," and he slipped his arm about his cousin, gently lifting her from the seat. "Go ahead, Lucy," urged Evelyn from her corner. So, with a great deal of merriment, the exchange was made, much to the satisfaction of everyone concerned. The rest of the journey through the traffic-laden streets to the hotel was so vivid a panorama of shifting scenes that, to the unaccustomed eyes of the girls, it seemed like one confused blur. "Oh, are we there already?" Lucile exclaimed, regretfully, as the taxi stopped abruptly before the great white pile of the Hotel McAlpin. "The ride has seemed so short!" "I wish you were going to stay in New York," Jack whispered, as he helped her to alight. "We'd get my car and whiz all around this old city until you'd know it better than Burleigh." "Oh, if I only could!" she cried, her eyes alight with the very thought. "Wouldn't it be fun?" "You just bet it would," he agreed, with a warmth that brought even a brighter color to her face. An instant later they were joined by the others and they passed through the imposing entrance. In the hotel office the girls drew close together, and Lucile said, in a voice scarcely above a whisper, "So this is New York!" "Do you like it as much as you thought you would?" asked Phil, overhearing. The girls turned wonder-filled eyes upon him. "Oh, much more!" they chorused, with a vehemence that left no room for doubt. CHAPTER XI "ALL ASHORE WHO ARE GOING ASHORE!" Three hours later, refreshed and invigorated by a most delectable lunch, eaten in the beautiful dining-room of the hotel, our travelers were ready for the last stage of the preparatory journey. Nothing remained now but the short ride to the wharf and then--the rapture of embarking on the wonderful "Mauretania," which had hitherto been but a magic name to them, breathing of romance and wonder. Then a final farewell to their friends, and before them stretched the great European continent, holding the unfathomed mysteries of thousands of years. There was England, upon whose soil, in ancient times the savage Britons fought against great Caesar--and lost. There was France, scene of the bloodiest revolution that has ever dyed red the pages of history--a revolution that proved supreme the tremendous, onrushing power of the masses. And there was Rome itself, where every inch of soil, where every nook and cranny of the famous catacombs marked some great historic drama played in the days when "to be a Roman were better than a king!" With all the romance of the Old War about to unfold itself to their enchanted eyes, is it any wonder that our girls were eager for the start? "All ready?" said Jack. "Oh, I've been ready and waiting for half an hour or more," laughed Lucile. "I do wish the folks would hurry!" "I'm afraid you don't like our great city, you seem so anxious to leave it--and me," he said, with a reproachful side glance. "Oh, I do, I do! I love it--the city, I mean!" she added, in some confusion, as he glanced at her inquiringly. "It's all wonderful, and I could spend a year here without getting tired; but as long as we do have to leave it, I wish we would hurry," she added, naively. "Well, here come your brother and Jessie now, so you won't have much longer to wait--worse luck!" said Jack, with a wry smile. "I suppose I may at least be allowed the privilege of seeing you safely on board?" Lucile threw him a merry glance as the rest came up. "I suppose you may," she mimicked. A few minutes later they stepped out of the cab and onto a sun-flooded wharf, where confusion reigned supreme. An immense crowd of people stood upon the dock, talking, laughing and gesticulating excitedly, and every one seemed in the highest of spirits. And, indeed, how could they be anything else, thought Lucile, as she looked about her with dancing eyes; the world had never seemed so essentially a place to laugh in as it did on this glorious morning. "Well, we haven't very much further to go," said Mr. Payton, beaming genially down upon them. "There's the good ship, 'Mauretania,' mates. Neat little craft, eh?" And following the direction of his glance, they gazed for a second at the towering bulk of the steamer, scarcely daring to believe the evidence of their eyes. "Say, that's class!" breathed Phil, reverently, and Jessie added, "You could put all of Burleigh in one corner and never miss it!" They all laughed, and Lucile started forward. "We can go on board now, can't we, Dad?" she inquired. "Sure we can go on board. We'll have just about time to look at our staterooms, if we hurry." Since that was just the very thing everybody was most anxious to do, they wasted very little time in following his suggestion. Jack kept close to Lucile's side as they threaded their way through the crowd, and Phil took charge of the other two girls. As Lucile watched the three, she suddenly broke into a little ripple of laughter, and, upon being questioned severely as to the reason of such unseemly mirth, she said, gaily, "I was just wondering what poor Phil will do with three girls, and one his sister, at that." Jack laughed amusedly. "It will be pretty hard on the poor fellow," he admitted. "I think I ought to go along. I could at least relieve him of his sister." "For which he would be devoutly thankful," she added. "No more than I," said Jack, from which we may gather that our friend was much accomplished in the gentle art of flattery. However, to do him justice, he meant it, and even the most confirmed old bachelor, looking at Lucile, must have admitted that he had just and sufficient cause. In fact, there were not many who did not look at Lucile, who, with flushed cheeks and shining eyes, was the very image of radiant happiness. At last their party had wormed its way through the crowd and were waiting at the foot of the gangplank for them to come up. "Goodness! I had no idea it was so enormous!" Evelyn was saying. "I'm almost afraid of it." "You'd better stick close to me," Jessie advised. "Then if we get lost, we'll at least have company." "Don't let's stand here, at any rate," Mrs. Payton broke in, impatiently. "Our friends won't have a minute to look at our staterooms." "We had to wait for the young folks, my dear," suggested Mr. Payton, mildly, and then, as Lucile and Jack joined them, he hurried them before him with scant ceremony. "We don't want to lose you," he explained, when they laughingly protested. And then, at last, they were on deck, where a steward relieved them of their light luggage. The girls tried to take in everything at once as they followed their guide along the deck and down the cabin stairs, but they had at last to give it up as a bad job. "I feel as if I must be home in Burleigh, dreaming all this," said Jessie. "I'm getting dizzy trying to take in all the new impressions." "Stick close to me, then," Phil invited. "I'll be on deck when you faint." "Much good that will do Jessie when she is in the cabin," remarked Evelyn, with scathing sarcasm. "Oh-h!" groaned the boys in unison, and Jessie clapped her hands delightedly, crying, "That's right, Evelyn; give it to them whenever you can." And then all nonsense stopped suddenly as the steward paused and, fitting the key in the lock, disclosed the stateroom engaged for Mr. and Mrs. Payton. They crowded into the room and the girls set about examining everything without more ado. "Oh, isn't it splendid?" cried Lucile. "You would never dream from the looks of this room that we were on board ship. Why, it's just as complete and comfortable as our rooms at home!" "Pretty nifty," Phil agreed, as his glance traveled from the neat brass bed to the dresser and the large, inviting chair. "I hate to hurry you," said Mr. Payton, as he pulled out his watch, "but as time waits for no man, we will have to hustle considerably if we expect to see the other two rooms." So, reluctant to leave secrets still to be discovered, yet anxious to see their own room, the girls filed out, talking and laughing all at once, till they reached a door a little further down the corridor, which Mr. Payton designated as belonging to their stateroom. While they waited it seemed to them that never before had simple tasks, such as fitting a key into the lock, been performed with such exasperating slowness, and the girls fairly danced with impatience. The older folks smiled indulgently, and Mr. Sanderson chuckled as he pulled Evelyn's ear and inquired inanely, "if she were having a good time." He was crushed a moment later by the withering scorn from three pairs of merry eyes, and Mrs. Payton exclaimed, laughingly, "Such a question! All you have to do is just look at them." Then, at last, the door flew open and they gazed on what was to be their own domain for five days at least; and it is safe to say that, in her heart, each of the girls wished it were to be twice as long. "Oh, isn't it perfectly, beautiful, wonderfully lovely?" cried Jessie, getting more excited with each adjective, and when the others laughed merrily at the extravagance of her description, she added, defiantly, "I don't care; it is! I'll leave it to any one." "You are right as far as you went, Jessie," Lucile backed her up, "only you didn't say half enough." "And there's a full bed and a cot, just as we thought," Evelyn went on with the inventory, "and a bea-utiful dresser, and three darling chairs, and--and----" she finished incoherently. "I'm sorry you all seem so dissatisfied," said Mr. Payton, with so droll an attempt to look gloomy that Lucile then and there threw her arms about his neck and gave him an ecstatic kiss, crying joyfully, "Oh, you are the most wonderful father in all the world!" "Lucile!" exclaimed her mother warningly, whereupon Lucile, who was far too happy to consider consequences, promptly kissed the astonished lady. "To say nothing of Mother!" she cried. Much to every one's surprise, far from being displeased, Mrs. Payton seemed rather to enjoy her daughter's impulsive outburst, merely cautioning her not to overheat and overexcite herself too much, as the day gave promise of being a very hot one. "The big portholes make it so nice and light, too," said Jessie, again referring to the stateroom. "Why, one wouldn't even mind being seasick here!" "Oh, Jessie!" cried Lucile and Evelyn, in dismay, and Lucile added, "I guess it doesn't make much difference where you are when you're seasick. From all I have heard, you just about wish you could die." Mr. Payton laughed, and said, reassuringly, "The probability is that none of us will be sick, but we needn't worry about it till the time comes, anyway. And now," he added, "I guess, if you young people can tear yourselves away, we had better go on deck." "But we haven't seen Phil's room yet." Lucile began, when that young gentleman, interrupted with a superior, "Don't let that worry you. I wouldn't have a lot of girls making a fuss over my quarters." "We probably wouldn't anyway," said Jessie, and passed out with her nose in the air. "I've heard that lemons and salt herring are good for seasickness," Jack teased, as they stepped on deck. "Oh, don't!" Lucile pleaded, puckering her mouth at the thought of the lemon. "There is only one comfort," she added, triumphantly, "and that is, if I am seasick, you won't be here to know it." "That's cruel," he laughed back; then added, quickly, "But you are going to write to me, any way, and tell me all about your experiences, aren't you?" "I don't--know," she answered, doubtfully. "You see, even if Mother were willing, I wouldn't stay in one place very long--and----" They were standing near the rail, Jack bending toward her very earnestly and she, gazing out over the crowded wharf, a little confused and very uncertain what to do; and yet, in her girl's heart, she knew what she _wanted_ to do! "If you don't want to get left, Turnbull, you'd better hustle," sang out Phil. "Everybody's off that's going." Jack leaned forward and took Lucile's hand. "Please," he urged. "Just a little short letter--anything, as long as you write. Won't you please?" Then Lucile's last little barrier gave way and, with a quick, half-whispered "All right," she ran to join her father and mother, who had caught the little inter-change and had regarded each other with troubled eyes. "Perhaps it's just as well we are going to Europe," Mrs. Payton had said, and Mr. Payton had nodded an unusually grave consent. Jessie and Evelyn were engrossed in taking leave of their folks, who were half laughing, half crying at the thought of parting with them for so long. Again the warning cry, "All ashore that are going ashore!" and, with a last hug and kiss and cry of "Take care of yourselves and be good," the ladies, assisted by their impatient escorts, hurried down the gangplank and were instantly lost to sight among the jostling mob down below. "Phil, run and get the spy-glasses--quick!" directed Mrs. Payton. "They are in the grip in my stateroom. Here's the key--hurry!" So Phil raced off as directed and the rest were pushed up against the rail by the crowd that pressed four deep behind them, all striving eagerly for a last sight of the dear ones on the wharf. "Where are they?" cried Jessie, frantically. "I can't see a soul----Oh, yes; there's Dad's hat, I know--look, he's waving it----" "And there's your mother, too, Evelyn," Lucile broke in. "See, she's waving her handkerchief----" "Oh, I can see them all now," said Evelyn, dancing up and down excitedly. "They're all there, oh--oh-h----" "Here's Phil," said Lucile, making room for him, as he wormed his way through. "He didn't waste much time." "Bet your life I didn't," said Phil. "How I found the place I don't know--must have been a sort of instinct, I guess. Here you are, Mother." Then there was a great noise and rattle as the gangplank was pulled up, and a moment later the great ship began to draw away ever so slowly and majestically, and the great whistle shrieked a blatant blast of farewell to the shouting, cheering, handkerchief-waving crowd on the wharf. "Lucy," whispered Evelyn, squeezing her friend's arm so tightly that it hurt, "did you ever see anything like it?" CHAPTER XII MONSIEUR CHARLOIX "What's the matter, Lucy? You look so--funny----" It was the morning of the second day out and the three girls were leaning against the rail, gazing dreamily out over the boundless expanse of ocean. They wore natty white middy suits and, with floppy little sailor hats shading flushed cheeks and laughing eyes, they made an alluringly picturesque little group that had attracted much attention from their fellow-passengers. "I'm glad you think so," said Lucile, dryly, in response to Jessie's question. "If I look the way I feel I must be a very laughable object!" A quick glance of consternation passed between Jessie and Evelyn, and the latter turned to Lucile with dismay in her uplifted eyebrows. "Seasick?" she inquired in a still, small voice. Lucile nodded grimly. "Rather," she answered. "Guess I'm going to die." "Don't say that," begged the girls, stifling a desire to laugh and cry at once. "Oh, Lucy, dear, what can we do?" said Jessie, putting a comforting arm about her friend, whose complexion had grown a peculiar, greenish-gray color in the last few moments. "Don't you think you had better go below? Maybe if you lie flat on your back you will feel better. Come, dear." "I knew I'd go and spoil everything by getting seasick," moaned Lucile, in the same toneless voice, and then, as a flash of her old saving humor came to the front, she turned to the girls with a suggestion of a smile. "I suppose I'll have to come to the lemon and herring," she said. She was deathly sick all the rest of that day and most of the next, and it was not till near nightfall of the second day that she began to feel the first faint desire to live. Jessie and Evelyn had wandered about aimlessly all the time, looking, as Phil said, as if some one had just pronounced a death sentence upon them. Though they had become acquainted with a great many of the passengers, no one of them had been able to coax a smile to the girls' long faces. In spite of Phil's uncivil remarks, it must be noted that even the wondrous engine-room had lost much of its charm for him and he had cut his visit short, merely to ask if they, meaning his father and mother, thought it would not help some to get Lucile on deck--fresh air--etc., etc. Toward evening the cause of all this unrest opened heavy eyes upon a tossing gray world and turned her head languidly toward the porthole. At the slight sound, Evelyn, who had been sitting, chin in hand, gazing gloomingly out to sea, rose quickly and ran to the side of the bed. "Are you better, dear?" she said, softly stroking Lucile's dark hair back from her forehead with gentle fingers. "You went to sleep and I was so afraid of disturbing you that I didn't dare move." Lucile caught her friend's hand and pressed it to her cheek. "You and Jessie have been darling to me--both of you," she cried, warmly, and Evelyn dropped to her knees beside the bed. "Oh, that sounds like our old Lucy," she exulted. "You are feeling better aren't you, dear?" "Lots," said Lucile, smiling up at her friend. Then Jessie came running in and they hugged each other and laughed and cried after the dear and foolish manner of all girls, until a gentle knock disturbed them and brought Jessie to her feet with a start. "Oh, I promised Phil I'd come right back and tell him if you were awake, and I never did," she cried, in consternation. But, upon opening the door, the visitors proved not to be a wrathful and avenging young god, but Mr. and Mrs. Payton, coming to inquire after the patient's health. "Hello!" said Mr. Payton, as Jessie gave a relieved sigh. "We came down to see a sick girl and we find a rank imposter in her place." "Aren't you disappointed?" gibed his daughter. "Is that you, Mother? It's so dark in that corner I can hardly see." Her mother's answer was a very comforting one, for she took Lucile in her arms and kissed her gently. "I'm glad you are feeling better, my dear," she said. "It will do you good to get on deck as soon as possible. The salt air works wonders." So it was decided that Lucile should have a light supper brought her in the cabin, for she was beginning to develop an appetite, after which she was to go on deck and test the revivifying power of salt sea air, mixed with a little soft moonlight, for Phil had laughingly prophesied that there would be "a peach of a moon to-night." When Lucile, pale of face and lips and a trifle shaky and trembly on her feet, stepped from her cabin into the full beauty of a cloudless night, she turned to her friends with the first smile they had seen for ages--or so it seemed to them. "Girls, it's good to be alive again!" she stated, fervently. "Huh, you haven't been dead yet," grunted Phil. "Well, I thought I was going to die, which is as bad," she retorted, with spirit. "But I'm going to live now, my brother, if only to disappoint you," she added. "My, what a disposition!" said Evelyn, with a sad shake of her head, and Jessie murmured, with an encouraging pat, "Cheer up, Lucy; you are far from being a dead one yet." Lucile sank into the chair they had so carefully prepared for her with a low laugh. "They are all pickin' on me," she said, plaintively. "But what do we care, on such a night? Just look at that sky," and, leaning forward, with her hand on the rail, she let her gaze wander hungrily out over the water, where the long, graceful combers caught the reflected, starry light and passed it on till it merged in the silvery pathway of the moon, which, as Phil had prophesied, was at its height. She sat quite still, realizing as she had never done before the utter grandeur, the awe-inspiring majesty of the ocean. "It's enough to make one sentimental, isn't it?" said Jessie, at her elbow. "Wouldn't it be nice if Jack were here?" she added, innocently. "Oh, bother!" said Lucile, leaning back with a contented sigh. "He would spoil everything. He would probably want to talk, and I can't." "Oh," said Jessie, silenced, but unconvinced. However, they were not destined to enjoy the beauty of the night in peace, for it was not long before the after-dinner crowd began to pour out on deck and the girls were surrounded by friendly, interested fellow-passengers, who inquired solicitously after Lucile's health. Lucile was surprised and touched by these demonstrations, and it was not long before she was chatting naturally and merrily with a jolly little group to whom her father had laughingly introduced her as "the convalescent." "Do you see that young man coming toward us?" said Evelyn, nodding in the direction of a tall, spare young fellow, who, with his shock of black hair, long, aquiline nose, and sensitive, thin-lipped mouth, looked decidedly temperamental, even to the most casual observer. Lucile nodded. "What about him?" she asked. "He's a Frenchman," adding, with a mysterious shake of her head, "Thereby hangs a tale." Much to Lucile's secret annoyance, the young man at her right claimed her attention at that important moment, asking her, inanely, or so she thought, if she could swim. It was not until an hour later, when most of the passengers had drifted off to different, and often more secluded, parts of the deck, and only three or four remained with them, that Lucile had an opportunity to question her friend. "I hate mysteries, Evelyn," she whispered. "What did you mean by 'thereby hangs a tale'? Explain yourself." "I can't just now," answered Evelyn. "He might hear us. Anyway, I don't know very much to tell. He would probably explain for himself if only those old stick-plasters would go away and tend to their own affairs," and she glared belligerently at the three unconscious gentlemen and young Monsieur Charloix, the Frenchman. "No chance--they're glued!" said Jessie, gloomily, and Lucile looked from one to the other of them despairingly. "I wish I knew what you were getting at," she sighed. "Mademoiselle has been very seek?" the voice was low, caressing, with the slightest suggestion of a foreign accent. Lucile turned her head and found herself looking into the bright, restless eyes of the mysterious stranger. For the first moment she was startled and a little confused, but the next instant, recovering herself, she answered, gravely, "Yes, I have been rather under the weather for a couple of days," and she added, with her bright smile, "The thing that bothers me most is the thought of what I have missed during that time." "Mademoiselle is brave," he smiled back. "Most would think only of their sufferings. However, there are still two good days in which to see everything." "Two days?" sighed Lucile. "It seems to me as if it would take two years to see all I'd like to." "Ah, but it is Mademoiselle's first voyage." There was an undertone of sadness in the low voice that made Lucile steal a quick glance at him. There was something about the man, perhaps in the tired droop of his shoulders, perhaps something in the wistful way he had of looking far out to sea, as if seeking the solution of his problem there; perhaps it was only the pathos in his low, Southern voice. Be that as it may, Lucile's heart went out to him then and there. "When one has been back and forth, back and forth, many times," he went on, "he is bound to lose that so fresh enthusiasm and long only for the shore where something may be done. At such times the days, they seem to have no end. But I transgress," he interrupted himself, with a little deprecatory laugh. "Mademoiselle should have reminded me." "You speak of having crossed the ocean many times," said Mr. Payton, who, with his wife, had approached the absorbed little group unknown to them. Monsieur Charloix arose from his chair quickly and offered it, with a Frenchman's elaborate courtesy, to Mrs. Payton. When they were again seated, this time in a cozy little semicircle, Mr. Payton repeated his question and the girls listened eagerly for the reply. "Didn't I tell you?" Jessie managed to whisper. "Now we are going to have the story." "Yes," came, in the gentle, modulated tones, "Monsieur is right; I am not a stranger to America." "And you like our country?" said Mrs. Payton, adding, with a laugh, "Do not be afraid to tell the truth; we shall not be offended." "Ah, but that is where Madam does me great injustice," said the stranger, with a smile. "There is no country in the world for which I have so great respect and admiration as I have for your great America. It has been my misfortune that, in my flying visits, I have had so little time and opportunity to make the acquaintance of so great a nation." "Hip-hip-hooray!" cried Phil, the irrepressible, taking possession of the chair next to Jessie. "It's good to have the old country boosted when you're so far away." "Phil," protested his mother, "I do wish you could get along without so much slang." "He'll be engaging an interpreter next," murmured Jessie, at which the culprit looked his reproach. "I hope you will pardon the interruption, Monsieur Charloix," said Mrs. Payton, apologetically, and her husband added, "Our excuse for Phil is that he is young and still has much to learn, although it is mighty hard to convince him of the truth of that last fact," at which scathing remark, delivered with a twinkle that was lost in the dark, Phil looked almost cast down, until Jessie declared in a whisper "that she loved slang," accompanying the declaration with a comforting little pat that cheered him immensely. "No apologies, Madame and Monsieur," the Frenchman was saying. "I was once a boy myself. The slang has many advantages which the more flowery language has not; it is, at least, much to the point." "If he would only use it, he might reach the point sooner," complained Jessie, in an aside. "I'd be happy if I only knew what point you wanted him to get to," sighed Lucile. "You see, I am completely in the dark." "'Listen, my children, and you shall hear,'" Jessie broke in, still in an undertone. "Methinks the story is about to unfold itself----" "Sh-h!" said Lucile, warningly. "Listen!" Mr. Payton was speaking. "You say the will cannot be found?" Four pairs of bright young eyes centered upon the stranger with eager intensity as they waited for his reply. CHAPTER XIII ROMANCE The moist, salt-laden breeze fanned their hot faces gratefully. The musical tap-tap of the waves against the side of the ship came to them as from a great distance, and even the voices and laughter of the passengers seemed, somehow, strangely remote. The stranger brought his gaze back to them with an effort, as he said, wearily, "Monsieur, I am tired--you cannot know how much. But I had not meant to bore you with my so selfish perplexities----" "Sometimes to tell our troubles is half the cure," Mrs. Payton suggested, gently. "You are very--good," murmured the stranger, gratefully. "If you are sure it will not tire----" Then at their vigorous denials, he proceeded, in his low, even voice: "Sometimes I have felt the great necessity of telling all to some one--some one who would understand. If I did not, I felt I should go mad." He passed his hand over his eyes with an infinitely weary gesture. "You see, my father and I, we had long been estranged. Not even in my earliest childhood have I the memory of a gentle word, a fatherly pressure of the hand. So I grew to young manhood with no knowledge of a mother's or father's love--for my mother," here his voice lowered, reverently, "died when I was born. My childhood was of the utmost loneliness, for my father thought the children with whom I wished to associate were too far beneath me in social station. My sole companion was the old dame who took care of the house--the one person in the world of whom my father seemed to have fear. So the miserable years dragged by. When I had just begun to make some plans by which I might escape from this dungeon they so falsely called my home--just at the time I was most despairing--like a joyful, radiant rift of sunlight in a clouded sky, came--my Jeanette. Oh, if you could but see her!" Under cover of the dark the girls' hands sought and clasped convulsively, but no one spoke. "I cannot attempt to describe one so gay, so beautiful, so lovely. She seemed like a spirit from another world--a far dearer, happier world than I had ever thought to exist. Ah, how I loved her, and she--ah, she loved me, and for a while we were, oh, Monsieur, so divinely, so unthinkably happy----" His voice broke and again his gaze wandered dreamily out into the night. "And who was the girl?" Lucile prompted, eagerly. "Ah, Mademoiselle, that was the rock upon which all our dreams were wrecked. My father would but reply sourly to any question I might venture that my fair Jeanette was the ward of a friend who, on his death-bed, had bequeathed her to his clemency--the fool!" "As for my Jeanette herself, she told me all she knew about herself, which, in fact, was little enough. She had lived with her guardian and his faithful old servant for ever since she could remember, and had been very happy. The chateau where she lived was a pretty, open place, with gardens all about and beautiful woods on either side, where one could roam for hours, becoming acquainted with the little folk of the wood--this my little Jeanette did, not feeling the need of human companionship as had I. When, upon rare occasions, she had questioned her guardian as to the identity of her parents, he had answered with a most strange reticence that she must not bother her head about such matters, but to wait till she was twenty-one, when she would know all. Naturally, the child believed and did as she was bid, but the maiden wondered and began to brood in secret. In time she began to form great plans wherein she might discover her identity, and perhaps, who knows, she might find herself to be a duke's daughter--such things happened with the utmost frequency in the books which she read. "So spoke my little Jeanette, and I encouraged her in this fancy and became, if anything, more eager than herself to solve the mystery of her parentage. "So the days and weeks fled by so happy, till once again those plans began to take form and shape that had so long laid dormant after the arrival of Jeanette. The voice of my manhood urged me insistently to throw off the fetters that bound me and advance bravely into the seething world of men and from it wrest the so well-earned fruit of my endeavor--for I was ambitious and rebelled at being shut within four walls, where each detail of my life was arranged for me as if I had still been a child. "Yet I liked little the thought of leaving my sweet Jeanette alone in that gloomy house. But, on the other hand, how could I aspire to help if I remained at home?" "That night Jeanette and I talked long--ah, I shall never forget it!--and it was then she urged, with tears of earnestness in her dear eyes, not to think of her, but to do as I judged best. I have seen her as she looked that night so many, many weary days!" Here there was a long pause in the narrative, and it was not till Mr. Payton prompted, softly, "And then----" "Well, then, Monsieur, events flowed along easily enough till it was about a week to the time we had set for my departure. Then, one night, I came upon Jeanette suddenly and, to my great alarm and dismay, I discovered her in tears. "'Jeanne!' I cried. 'My little Jeanne, tell me what is wrong!' "But she would not answer me, only sobbing out in a way that broke my heart that 'I must go away, and never, never see her again!' "Then it was, while I was still stunned and stupefied by the change in her, that a servant brought me a message from my father. He wished to see me on the instant. "I made one last, agonized appeal to Jeanette, but she kept her face averted and answered me nothing, and I, stricken, bewildered, hardly knowing what I did, followed the servant to my father's rooms. "I found him pacing the room with an angry scowl upon his face and an air that augured ill for me. Far from being taken aback, I welcomed this attitude of my father. I felt, somehow, that he was to blame for the tears of my Jeanette. I could have fallen upon him, doing him bodily injury, so great and terrible was my anger. With an effort, I conquered this first mad impulse and waited, with hands so tightly clenched that the nails bit deep into the flesh. "I had not long to wait. At the sound of the opening door my father whirled and, with an imperious gesture, ordered the servant to retire. When the door was closed behind the man, my father burst out, furiously, 'So you have been deceiving me, lying to me in my own house. You need not start and look surprised, for what I have not seen with my own eyes has been faithfully retailed to me through one I can trust.' "I fear I must have appeared stupid, for suddenly my brain refused to act naturally. How was it for my father to find out this--my so great secret? Surely, I had taken every precaution. But my father's voice broke in rudely upon my bewilderment. "'Have you nothing to say?' said he, furiously. 'Must you stand there like a dog, a monkey, a piece of wood, and make no attempt to defend yourself? Ah, to have reared such a son?' "Suddenly, in a flash, came my wits again. In an instant I had drawn myself to my full height and stood regarding calmly my enraged father. Ah, that I have not one kind thought--one gentle memory----" Again the stranger paused, and the girls felt the undernote of tragedy in his voice. Instinctively, Lucile glanced at her own father where he sat, knees crossed, cigar in hand, listening attentively, and her heart gave a great, warm throb as she whispered, "Dear old Dad!" "Well," said the Frenchman, with a shrug of his shoulders, "there is not much more to tell, though it may mean the wrecking of two lives, mine and that of Jeanette. My father and I had many words, calm on my part, enraged on his, and during the interview I learned that our great secret had been discovered by that old witch, the housekeeper, the week before, when Jeanette and I had had our never-to-be-forgotten conversation. For some unknown reason she had kept the discovery to herself till the day before. "'So you meant to marry Jeanette?' my father flung at me. "'Oui, Monsieur, mon pere,' I answered, still calmly, 'and if Jeanette will do me the great honor to become my wife, I have not in the least altered my determination.' "'Ah!' cried my father, stung by my calm. 'But she will not have you--Jeanette. She has too much pride!' "'What do you mean?' I cried, shaken out of my composure for the first time. 'Explain quickly; my patience is almost at an end.' "'Ah, if that is all, my impatient son,' said my father, lowering his voice, craftily, 'you will soon know far too much for your peace of mind!' "'Explain!' I cried, my wrath rising to fever heat. I towered above him, white with rage, and he, seeming to realize for the first time I was no longer a child, retreated nervously. "'You have often asked about the parents of Jeanette, and now I think it is but right you should know all.' "'Ah!' I cried, joyfully. 'At last!' "'But there is little cause for rejoicing,' said my father, lowering his voice till it was scarce above a whisper. 'What would you say, my son, if I were to tell you that the father of your fair Jeanette was--a _thief_?' Ah, the evilness of that smile! How I hated him at that moment! "'Sir,' said I, 'no such statement will I give belief till it has been proven to me beyond all doubt, and----' I leaned forward, speaking with intensity, 'you have yet to understand that were Jeanette's father doubly a thief, still would Jeanette be Jeanette, and the more obstacles you set in our path, only the more determined shall I become to wed her--if she will have me.' "'Ah, but that is the question,' sneered my father. 'It seems you know not your Jeanette so well, after all, for you have left her natural pride outside your fine calculations. Suppose she will not have you, what then, eh?' "'Ah, then you have told her!' I cried, choking with rage at my father--with pity and a great longing to hold my love in my arms and dry away her tears. 'Why could you have not have spared the child that knowledge? Oh, Jeanette!' I cried, and flung myself against the door; then, turning, met my father's sneering look with one of bitter defiance. 'I will see Jeanette first,' I said, tensely. 'And then, my father, we will have a short reckoning,' and going out, I slammed the door upon his sneering face and flung myself down the stairs in search of my love. "'Jeanette,' I cried, implored, 'Come to me!' and ran from room to room, when, not finding her, I became frantic and knocked wildly upon the door of her own room, calling to her aloud. But she was not there, nor could I find her anywhere. Her room showed evidence of a hurried packing--small things strewn here and there; but her sweet presence, that had filled the gloomy house with sunshine, had fled, where, where, I could not tell!" Here the speaker's voice trailed off and came to a stop. Then he turned to the group about him, saying, half questioningly, half apologetically, "I fear to tire you with this so long tale. After all, I suppose it is interesting only when applied to one's self." "Oh, no!" cried Lucile, impulsively, while her eyes shone with eagerness. "Please go on!" "You are good, Mademoiselle," murmured the Frenchman, and went on with his story: "Well, I sat down outside her door and wept like a child, for to me the world seemed ended; but then, drawing myself together, and angry at what I termed my miserable weakness, I set to work earnestly, doggedly, to find some way out of this great chain of circumstances that bound me. Where to find Jeanette? My brain reeled with the schemes and plans that came crowding upon me, only to be rejected one by one as improbable, fantastic, children of an overwrought imagination. "At last, one idea became fixed in my mind. The thought came to me and stayed persistently that, in her great extremity, she would naturally fly to the one place of refuge which she knew--the old chateau where she had spent her so happy childhood. "I knew the place to be still occupied by the old servant and his wife--this scrap of information my father had thrown to me--but, alas! I knew not the location, and there were so many chateaux of the kind in the province! How could I hope to find it? "I sprang to my feet, while a new determination and resolve took possession of me, and I uttered a solemn oath, swearing that I would leave the house that night, _not_ returning till I should bring Jeanette with me--my wife!" Little chills of excitement chased themselves all over the girls in a highly disconcerting manner, and even scoffing Phil leaned forward in his chair to miss not one word of this remarkable story. CHAPTER XIV A VAIN QUEST "So I packed what few belongings I had and took the money which I had managed to save from my father's so meager allowance," the low voice continued; "and when night came and all was still in the house, I stole quietly away and turned my back upon what was the only refuge I have ever known. "I will not dwell upon the days and weeks that followed. Suffice it to say that they were very, very hard, and I was dangerously near giving up all hope, when, one day, I chanced to come across an old, old man, full three score ten he must have been, perhaps more, who seemed to know something of the people I sought. When I had described them to the best of my ability, he nodded sagely and directed me up a side road near by. Three miles of steady travel would bring Monsieur to the chateau where lived the old caretaker and his wife. Aye, he remembered the old gentleman, who was now dead, and the little, fairy-like creature, his ward, whom all had loved. "I thanked him with great warmth, for he had brought a little spark of hope to a heart that before had lain heavy as lead. "Wearily I trudged along till I was rewarded by the vision of a small chateau, almost surrounded by dense woodland. My unruly heart throbbed violently at the thought that in these very woods my sweet Jeanette had played when a child and earned the name throughout the countryside of the fairy child, whom every one loved. My heart yearned toward the little home which I was convinced must shelter my love, and, weary as I was, in my impatience I began to run, covering the remaining distance with feet as light as air and a heart that sang with dawning hope and joy. "As I neared the door of my heart's desire, it opened and out stepped a plump, middle-aged little person, looking very trim and neat in her spotless white attire. "To her I appealed. 'Madame,' said I, 'will you be so kind as to allow me the privilege of a few words of conversation? You have it in your power either to raise me to the heights of joy or to sink me in the very depths of despair.' "She gazed upon me as she would upon a madman, and perhaps, after all, it was not so strange that she should do so, I being footsore and weary and all covered with the stains and dust of travel--or perhaps it was merely my so strange form of address which startled her. However, she retreated several steps toward the house and stood with her hand clasping the latch, as though making ready to fly should I attempt any violence. "'May I ask sir,' she said, with great primness, not unmixed with fear, 'who comes so early in the morning with so strange, so unusual, requests?' "'Aye, Madame,' said I, with most reassuring manner, 'if you will but allow me, I will soon make all clear. Give me but a hearing,' I cried, frantically, as I saw she was about to retire. "To my great surprise, when she spoke it was in so much different and more gentle a tone that I could have gone on my knees to her, so great was my gratitude for a little kindness! "'Oh, Monsieur, I believe you are honest,' she said, gently. 'I will listen to what you have to say.' "'Ah, Madame, you are good!' I cried from my heart. 'I am sure your good opinion will be strengthened when you hear all.' "Then did I pour out my story, while the good soul listened attentively, nodding now and then or uttering little exclamations of surprise or sympathy. 'And, oh, Madame,' I finished, 'if you have seen her; if, as I believe, she is here, I beg you, take me to her. Let me but see her, and all, I am convinced, will be well.' "Then, what was my great horror, my boundless despair, when the good woman slowly and sadly shook her head, saying, in a voice full of sympathy and commiseration, 'How loath I am to shatter your hopes and add more trouble to your already much overheavy sorrows, you cannot know, Monsieur, but I fear I can give you little encouragement.' "'Ah, Madame,' I cried, wildly, beseechingly, 'surely, you cannot be so cruel; surely, you must give me some hope! If Jeanette is not here now, surely, you have heard from her, seen her, can give me some clue to her present whereabouts!' "It seemed to me as though she hesitated for the fraction of a second, but when her answer came, though gentle and sympathetic as before, it contained decision and finality which I could not but respect. "'Monsieur, she is not here, and neither have I seen her.' "'Merci, Madame,' I murmured, wearily, and was turning away with sinking heart and feet that seemed weighted with lead, when she called to me softly: "'Monsieur is weary. Will he not rest and partake of some refreshment before continuing his journey?' "Apathetically, scarce knowing where I went, nor caring, I followed her into a great, homelike, airy room, with flowers all about, even in the broad-silled, open windows. In the fragrance of the flowers it seemed that I could see Jeanette, and I had a strange impression she was near me. But I pushed it aside, thinking it but one of the many fancies that had beset me unceasingly of late. "It was not long before the good dame set before me a steaming dish, and I, who, a few minutes before, had thought I could never eat again, fell upon it ravenously and never stopped until the last delicious morsel had disappeared. Thus refreshed and strengthened, my courage returned as by magic and I began again to make my plans for the future. "An hour later, leaving the house upon which I had based such high hopes, I again turned my steps toward the city. Of course, I was now--what you call it?--more in the dark than ever about Jeanette, but in my heart was a great and dogged determination to find her somehow, somewhere, if I had to search the city through. "Five days later I found myself again before the city, infinitely more dusty, infinitely more hungry, infinitely more footsore and more weary than when I had encountered Madame Vidaud at the chateau. "As I turned a corner, a great, whirling streak rushed by me, so close as to make me jump quickly to the side of the road. To my great surprise, the automobile stopped a few yards from where I was standing and two men, one tall, one short, jumped out and hurried toward me. "'Hello!' cried the tall one, in a big, rumbling voice. 'Aren't you the son of Charloix?' he said. 'I thought I recognized you, even through the dust. Just the man I'm looking for!' "'I would be pleased, sir, if you would name your business with me,' I replied, not being in the best of humors to bandy words with this stranger who seemed so familiar with my name and ancestry. "'Certainly, certainly,' said the big man, with a heartiness that made me ashamed of my bad humor. 'That's exactly what I stopped for. I am your father's solicitor.' "I started and drew back. 'You come from my father?' "'Yes; and you must prepare yourself for a great shock, my son,' said he, laying a great hand upon my shoulder. 'Your father is very ill.' "'Dead!' I gasped, feeling myself turn white. 'When?' "'Four days ago,' said the little man, who had not yet spoken. 'Apoplexy.' "'Ah, I had forgotten! My friend M. Abbott, M. Charloix.' "I bowed, scarcely acknowledging the introduction, for my mind was a whirling turmoil of hopes and fears. 'You say,' I began, still much dazed, 'that my father died four days ago. And have you been looking for me since then, Monsieur?' "'Yes, Monsieur, we have scoured the country and, before this fortunate meeting to-day, had almost given up hope of finding you.' "'But why did you take this so much trouble to find me Monsieur?' I had asked. 'I had not thought myself of such importance.' "'There were many good reasons for our search, Monsieur,' said my big friend, a trifle stiffly, for I doubt not he was amazed at my lack of emotion, not knowing my father as I had known him. 'In the first place, we thought you might possibly wish to know of your father's death. Also, there are several important matters relative to his decease that we thought might interest you.' "'Pardon, Monsieur,' said I. 'I had not meant to be abrupt. As you may see, I have had a long and wearisome journey and am--what you call--fagged. I must rest, Monsieur; then I can talk.' "'Quite right, quite right!' he agreed, in his hearty manner. 'If I had had any brains instead of being a great empty-headed fool of an attorney, I should have seen to that before,' and, linking his arm in mine, he led me in spite of all protests on my part, to his great touring car and bade me enter. "'But, Monsieur,' I protested, gazing despairingly down upon my torn and dusty clothing, 'I am not fit----' "'But me no buts, young man. As your attorney and rightful executor of your estate, I have the right to demand an interview, and I am going to take advantage of that right.' "There being nothing more to say, and it seeming only natural and right to obey the commands of this great, blustering attorney, I submitted, and lounged back against the soft, upholstered seat with a great sigh of relaxation. "My father's attorney talked incessantly until we reached our destination, giving me no time to think. At his home he directed me to a large room, saying that in an hour's time he would meet me in his study, where, over a good dinner and a bottle or two of choice Madeira, we could talk in comfort. "Ah, the luxury of that bath and the subsequent putting on of a clean, whole suit of clothes placed upon the bed by the so obsequious man servant, who said his master had sent these clothes with his compliments and the hope that they would fit. The clothes I accepted thankfully enough, for I had decided to ask M. Cartier the address of a shop in the city in which I might purchase myself a cheap but respectable suit, for I had still a little money left. "In Monsieur Cartier's study again that night I learned many things. I learned, among other things, that my father had long been suspected of being somewhat of a miser--that he was thought to possess a great deal more money than he cared to let people know about. Also, I learned that, several days before his death, he had made a flying visit to a little chateau which had been owned by a friend of his--I must have started, for the lawyer asked if I had heard of the place. 'Yes, I had heard of it--but please go on.' "'Well, he stayed over night that night,' the lawyer continued, 'saying that he had come in search of his ward, who had run away from home.' "'Yes, yes,' I cried; 'go on! What then?' "'Well it seems that in the night the good dame heard a noise, and, rising to investigate, came upon your father in the attic, bending over something, the nature of which she could not make out.' "'But, Monsieur, you mean to say my father----' I began, but he interrupted me with an admonitory wave of the hand. "'If you will but wait till I have finished, Monsieur Charloix,' he said, 'I will be glad to answer any and all of your questions. As I have said, your father was bending over some object and was so absorbed that he did not hear our good friend till she ventured a gentle cough by way of introduction. At the slight sound, your father sprang forward with an oath, leveling the pistol at the good dame's head----'" "Oh!" breathed Jessie, and Lucile's hand went out instinctively to silence the interruption. "Sh-h!" she warned, but the Frenchman seemed not to have heard and continued his narrative, while his hand beat a nervous tattoo on the arm of the chair. "I sat fascinated, my eyes fixed strainingly on the face of the lawyer, while he continued to speak, calmly, nonchalantly, as though that of which he spoke were of every-day occurrence. 'Of course, the good dame screamed, but the next instant her fear turned to terror when the weapon fell from your father's hand and he reeled, falling upon the ground with a strangling, choking cry, and lay motionless. She thought him dead, but ran for assistance nevertheless. It was some hours before the doctor arrived, and not long afterward your father passed away, quietly and painlessly, for he had lain in a coma since the stroke.' "'But, Monsieur,' I cried, forgetful of his admonition, 'you say this was a week ago?' He nodded consent. 'But I myself but left the chateau three days ago, and Madame Vidaud made no mention of the tragedy to me, who am most concerned.' "Then it was Cartier's turn to have surprise. 'You mean,' said he, leaning his arm on the table and eyeing me steadily. 'You mean that you were actually at the chateau three days ago and that the Vidaud woman said nothing to you of your father's death? Are you sure that it was the right chateau?' "'Oui, Monsieur, I am sure,' said I. "Then ensued a silence, during which the lawyer seemed to ponder, and I, impatient though I was, must needs respect his silence and await his pleasure. "'Aye, it is strange--very strange,' said he at last, with a thoughtful frown. 'However, it is only one more snarl in the tangled thread of circumstances, and, with good luck, we ought to be able to get at the root of all this mystery soon. But, my young friend,' said he, bringing his gaze back from the wall and long line of books and centering it once more upon me, 'there is one more very important matter which requires our careful consideration.' "'And that?' I cried. "'That,' he continued, 'is the matter of the will,' and then, seeing that I was about to interrupt, he continued, quickly, 'Just a moment, if you please, and you will know everything; then I will be in a position to discuss whys and wherefores. Your father's last will, the will which I myself drew up about a year ago, is strangely missing. One has been found, however, dating back two years, and in the event of the first will not being found, will, of course, become valid.' "'Well?' said I. "'Well,' he continued, calmly launching his thunderbolt, 'in that case, you, Monsieur, will be left penniless.' "'Ah!' I cried, aghast, and the lawyer nodded, 'I trust that you now see the seriousness of the situation, Monsieur.' "'Ah, but there is one point of far greater importance than you have mentioned,' I cried, with such earnestness that he leaned back in his chair with a sigh of resignation, saying, 'Great heavens! What could be more important than that?' "'Many things, Monsieur, which, when you have heard of them, will cause you to agree with me.' "My manner may have impressed him, perhaps my earnestness; for he bade me speak out freely, leaving nothing untold. This I did, to the most minute details, save, of course, those things sacred only to Jeanne and me. When I had finished, we had a long talk, during which I came to know the value of this new ally of mine. "So it was finally decided that I was to travel to America for the purpose of hunting up one of the chief witnesses of my father's will and beg him to return to France with me. Meanwhile, my father's attorney assured me he would not be idle." "And did you find him--the witness, I mean?" said Mr. Payton. "No, Monsieur, I did not; but, after a long and exhaustive search, I learned that the one I sought had sailed a week ago on the steamer 'Baltic,' so all my journey has been for nothing." "What difference does it make? At least, you accomplished your purpose." "That is true, Madame, but he would have sailed without aid of mine, and it maddens me to think that all this time I have been wasting in a fruitless search, my Jeanette is still unfound. Where may she not be? Dead--perhaps----" His voice trailed off into silence and they sat motionless, fascinated by the spell of romance, tragedy and mystery he had woven. CHAPTER XV "LAND, HO!" Lucile opened her eyes slowly, lazily, and let them rove aimlessly about the bright cabin; then, chancing to come upon Jessie and Evelyn sleeping sweetly and peacefully, they stopped and focused resentfully. "Nothing to do but sleep," she murmured, pushing back her rumpled curls and yawning prodigiously. "I wonder why it is I always have to wake up first," and then, her eyes happening to fall on Evelyn at this precise moment, she cried, "Oh, I saw you wink, Evelyn; you can't fool me! You're playing possum," and, springing quickly out of bed, she gave that young lady a vigorous shake, which caused her to open her eyes rather suddenly. "Wh-what's the matter? Can't you let a fellow sleep?" she began, but the laughter in her eyes belied the sleepy tone, and Lucile hugged her and pulled her out of bed. "I'll admit you're a dabster, Evelyn, dear," she cried, "but you will have to get up early in the morning to get the best of your little friend." Evelyn laughed merrily. "You whirlwind!" she cried. "Nobody has a chance to sleep when you're around." "Don't be too sure of that; look at Jessie. She is still sleeping the sleep of the just." "All right; let's make her get up, then. Even if she does want to sleep, why should we worry?" "Evelyn," cried Lucy, shocked, "you're getting most horribly slangy." "Oh, Lucy, you look so funny, trying to be severe in that rig! It can't be done!" And, with a laugh, she plumped down on something hard and lumpy, which proved to be Jessie's feet. The outraged owner objected promptly and emphatically. "Oh, Jessie, I'm so sorry! Are those your feet?" cried Evelyn, in concern. "No; they are Lucy's," said Jessie, coldly, rubbing the injured members gingerly. Lucile laughed merrily. "Don't you go slandering my poor feet," she cried. "Anyway, it serves you right for being so lazy, Jess." "Oh, does it? Well, I'll just prove you wrong by beating you all on deck, One, two, three--we're off!" Then ensued a great amount of talk and laughter and wild scrambling for clothing that would get out of sight, until at the end of half an hour, our girls made a dash for the door at precisely the same instant. "Oh, that's not fair," cried Evelyn, as Lucile wrenched open the door and ran straight into the arms of the rather stout, middle-aged matron who happened to be passing. "Oh," she gasped, "I--I beg your pardon! I----" "Look first, and you will save your apologies," said the sweet-tempered lady, who, to do her justice, was considerably shaken by the impact. Lucile flushed scarlet, but walked on with her head in the air, thankful she had not expressed the thought that had rushed to her lips. "Cranky old curmudgeon!" murmured Evelyn, vindictively. "It's lucky there aren't so many of them in the world." To their surprise, Lucile began to laugh with great enjoyment. "Girls," she said, "did you hear her say 'woof' when we clashed?" Two hours later they sighted the harbor, and on board pandemonium broke loose. Questions and answers were fired back and forth like bullets from a Gatling gun, and everywhere field glasses were glued to eager eyes. "So that's England?" said Lucile. "Oh, Jessie, pinch me!" "Won't. Love you too much," said Jessie, gazing intently toward the harbor, which became more and more distinct with every passing moment. "Don't let any such soft scruples stand in your way," said Phil, administering the desired pinch with such good effect that Lucile jumped almost a foot and lowered her glasses to gaze reproachfully at him. "Phil, that will be black and blue for a month," she said, with conviction. "You needn't have done it so hard." "You didn't say not to," said Phil, with the air of injured innocence that sat so comically upon him. "Here comes old Charlie," he added, a minute later. "Wonder if he's found anything since last night." "Who in the world is old Charlie?" inquired Jessie, mystified. "Old Charlie? Why, old Charlie is short for Monsieur Charloix, of course," elucidated Phil, with the patronizing air of one speaking to a peculiarly stupid child. Instantly the girls' interest in Liverpool harbor waned, as they turned smilingly to greet the historian of last night. "I see Mademoiselle is entirely recovered from the seasickness," said he, turning to Lucile. "It is good to see you looking so well." "Thank you, Monsieur. I suppose you will be glad to get back to France?" "Oh, very glad, for, though I admire your America, it is not to me like my own country," said he, smiling. It was not long before they were joined by other excited fellow-passengers, all talking at once about what they intended to do upon reaching land, and in the babble it was impossible to carry on any but a disjointed conversation, so the girls wisely gave up trying. Nevertheless, Lucile had been more deeply impressed than any of the rest by the recital of Monsieur's tragic romance. It seemed, somehow, like the plays their guardian had described to them. Phil, the skeptical, had seemed inclined to think the story over-drawn, but the girls had emphatically disagreed with him, overwhelming him by sheer force of numbers. And way down in Lucile's heart was the hope that she would, sooner or later, hear the finishing chapter of the romance. Whether this premonition was inspired partly by her own desire or partly by the fact that, sooner or later, they would be in France itself, where they would have the opportunity of following the fortunes of the disconsolate Frenchman, cannot be determined, but certain it was, the premonition was there. As she had said to Jessie at the end of a long and excited discussion the night before, "Stranger things have happened." And so, in the girl's eyes, and, in fact, in the eyes of all who had heard his story, even Phil, the stranger had taken on an added importance, the importance of the chief actor in a romantic drama. "I would like to help," Lucile murmured, as the Frenchman excused himself and moved off down the deck. "I never saw any one look so wistful in all my life." "No wonder," said Jessie, in the same tone. "If I had been through all he has, I'd never have lived to tell about it." "And poor Jeanette!" Lucile mused on. "I'd give almost anything if I could bring them together again." Jessie glanced at her friend curiously. "Perhaps you will tell me now that my dear old novels always exaggerate," she challenged. "A little more of this sort of thing and I'll be able to believe anything," Lucile answered, with a rueful smile. "It surely is wonderful!" "Oh, Lucy, dear, I may convert you yet," Jessie was crying gleefully, when she was interrupted by another crowd of fellow-voyagers, who, for the time being at least, cut her triumph short. Later came the call to luncheon, and everybody hurried down to the dining-room, where the atmosphere of excitement and unrest prevailed to such a degree that people almost forgot to eat, or else bolted their meals in half the ordinary time, anxious not to miss a moment above decks. Then, toward one o'clock in the afternoon, Mrs. Payton advised the girls to get everything ready, and see that nothing was left in the stateroom. "We will dock in a few minutes," she explained, "and we don't want to leave everything until the last instant." Down rushed the girls to the stateroom obediently, treading on each other's heels and not even bothering to apologize, for what was so everyday a thing as politeness at such a time? Jessie and Evelyn waited in undisguised impatience while Lucile fumblingly fitted the key into the lock with fingers that trembled rebelliously. "Oh, for goodness' sake, let me have it!" said Jessie, in desperation. "Hold on a minute; there it is!" And as the door swung open, they tumbled rather than walked into the room. "Oh, bother! Where did I put my comb?" moaned Evelyn, searching wildly under the dresser for the missing article. "You might know it would disappear just when I haven't any time to look for it. Are you sure you're not sitting on it, Lucy?" "Of course not," denied Lucile; "but if you don't get off my suitcase this minute, Jessie Sanderson, I'll know the reason why." "Here's your comb, Evelyn! Catch!" said Jessie, throwing the missing article toward her friend. "If you would only keep it over on your side instead----" "Oh, if you talk so much you will never be ready, Jessie! Do hurry!" And so on in this fashion until, finally, the last thing was ready and they tumbled up on deck again, only to be swallowed up by a jostling, gesticulating throng intent, apparently, on getting nowhere in particular, and doing it, withal, with a perseverance that was truly admirable. "Hello!" said Phil, elbowing his way through the crowd. "We dock in ten minutes. Just look at the harbor now;" and he was off again. With difficulty they made their way to the rail and stood gazing at the scene with wondering eyes and parted lips. Craft of all sizes and descriptions plowed and snorted through the ruffled water, and everywhere was life and bustle and activity. And further back, past the lines of docks and warehouses, the girls could discern the spires and steeples of--England! "Well," came Mr. Payton's gruff, hearty voice from just behind them, "how do you like your first glimpse of the Old World, eh? It won't be any time at all before you set foot upon it." "Oh, Daddy, isn't it magnificent?" said Lucile, drawing a long breath. "It all looks just exactly the way I dreamed it would, though. Oh, I can't wait!" and she leaned far over the rail, as if by that means to bring it so much the nearer. Her father's strong hand drew her back to safety, and he said, reprovingly, "Don't do that again, Lucy. Accidents will happen, you know." "Even in the best-regulated families," finished Lucile, gaily. Her father laughed, and pinched the tip of one pink ear fondly. "I suppose there is no use trying to make any of you serious at such a time," he said, with the resigned air of one giving up all hope; "but there is one little phrase that it will be well for you to remember, and that is, 'Safety first.'" And with that fatherly admonition he left them, bidding them wait where they were until he could rejoin them. In a few minutes he returned, bringing his wife and Phil, declaring that nothing now remained to be done but walk off the ship when the time came. The great "Mauretania" was very near her destination now, and was nosing her way carefully through the traffic, convoyed by two snorting and puffing tugs. The raucous shouts and cries of sailors and watermen came to their ears, with now and then a snatch of song from the decks of some tall, four-masted freighter. There were shouts of "aye, aye, sir" and "ship, ahoy," mingled with the rasping of cables and the clatter of cargo cranes--and behind all this noise and confusion lay the quaint, historic streets of Liverpool, and later, London, filled with the glory of ancient times. The girls' eyes were large and dark with wonder and excitement as they lowered their glasses and looked at each other. "Yes, you are awake," said Mrs. Payton, with a laugh, interpreting the look. "Jessie looks as though she had just seen a ghost," said Phil. A few minutes later the great liner was warped securely alongside the great landing stage, while the whistle shrieked a noisy greeting. Passengers hurried from one group to another, shaking hands in a final farewell with shipboard acquaintances whom they had come to know so well in so short a time. Porters hurried past, laden with luggage, and groups of eager passengers formed about the entrance to the gangways. "I feel as though my hand had been shaken off," said Evelyn, regarding that very necessary appendage ruefully. "Oh, there's Mrs. Applegate and Puss," said Lucile, and darted off through the crowd so suddenly that the girls could only follow her with their eyes. "Lucile," cried Mrs. Payton, and then, as her voice would not carry above all the noise, "Go after her, Phil," she said. "If she gets separated from us now, we will have a hard time finding her." Phil hurried off and was soon lost to sight in the swaying crowd. "Oh, what did she do that for?" wailed Jessie. "If Lucy goes and gets lost now in all this crowd----" "Don't worry; Phil will have her back in a jiffy," said Mr. Payton, soothingly, but the frown on his forehead betrayed his own anxiety. The gangplanks were lowered, and the people had already begun to surge forward, and still no sign of either Lucile or Phil. They eagerly searched the faces of the passers-by, nodding to some, yet scarcely seeing them, while Mr. Payton began to mutter something about "tying a string to that cyclonic young flyaway" when he got her back again. Five minutes passed. The deck was beginning to be emptied of people, and they had begun to make their way slowly toward the gangplank, when Phil came rushing up to them, very red and very much out of breath. "Well?" they cried together, and Mr. Payton took him by the shoulder, demanding, sternly, "Where is she?" "Wouldn't it make you sick?" panted Phil, disgustedly. "Here I rush all over the boat trying to locate her, and get everybody scared to death, thinking she's fallen overboard or something, and then I find her down on the float there, talking to the----" "What?" interrupted Mr. Payton, incredulously. "Yes. Isn't it the limit?" said Phil, fanning himself with his hat. "Said she couldn't find her way back to you, so thought she'd wait with the Applegates at the foot of the gangplank; said she knew you would find her there." The girls laughed hysterically, and even Mr. Payton's stern face relaxed; the action was so truly "Lucilian." "Well, I suppose all we can do is to follow," said Mr. Payton, and Mrs. Payton added, pathetically, "I do wish Lucile would be a trifle less impulsive now and then; it might save us a good deal of trouble." Mr. Payton had felt inclined to read his "cyclonic" young daughter a lecture, but the sight of her bright young face completely disarmed him, and he could only breathe a prayer of thankfulness that she was safe. They said good-by to Mr. and Mrs. Applegate and their very diminutive daughter--whom somebody had fondly nicknamed "Puss"--and turned to follow the crowd. A short time later they set foot for the first time on the soil of the Old World. "Where are we going, Dad, now that we're here?" asked Phil. "To London, as fast as we can, by the train that connects with our steamer," said his father. "Stick together, everybody--here we are," and he hustled them before him into the long coach--for in England, you must remember, trains are not made up of cars, but of "coaches." By this time it was getting late, and after vainly trying to distinguish objects through streaked and misty glass, the girls gave up and leaned back with a sigh of tired but absolute content. "Well, we're here, and still going," said Lucile, happily, feeling for her friend's hands. "We jolly well know that, my de-ar," came in sweet, falsetto tones from Phil. "We ought to have no end of sport, you know; rippin', what-what!" "Bally goose!" murmured Jessie. The reproof that rose to Mrs. Payton's lips was drowned in a shout of laughter. CHAPTER XVI THE RED-LETTER DAY "Hang the luck!" ejaculated Phil, flinging aside his book in disgust. "Here it is, our first day over, and look at it!" And, drawing aside the light chintz curtains, he disclosed a view that was, to say the least, very discouraging. The rain came down in torrents, rebounding from the shining pavement and the no less shining umbrellas of passing pedestrians, with vicious little pops and hisses that sounded more like a storm of tiny daggers than of raindrops. As time went on, instead of lightening, the sky had grown murkier and murkier and darker and darker, until, in many parts of the hotel, people had been forced to turn on the lights. Over and about everything hung that moist, indefinably depressing atmosphere that makes one rail at fate and long for the blessing of the sun and a clear day. Such was Phil's enviable state of mind as he dropped the curtain and slumped back into his chair with an impatient grunt. "'Tis rather mean, isn't it?" drawled Jessie, dropping her book and looking at the disconsolate Phil lazily. "You don't happen to have any more of those candies around you anywhere, do you, Evelyn?" she queried. "Hardly. How long do you think they last when you're around?" answered Evelyn, without raising her eyes from the magazine she was reading. With a quick movement, Jessie reached over and pulled the candy box toward her before Evelyn could interfere. "A-ha, I thought so!" she cried. "I was sure they couldn't all have vanished so quickly, you unscrupulous--" "Beg pardon!" interrupted Evelyn, blandly. "Well, you are, anyway," Jessie maintained. "What do you mean, no more left? Here are half a dozen at least." "Well, you know you've eaten half a box already, Jessie," Evelyn was beginning, severely, when Jessie interrupted. "But, Evelyn, what else is there to do on a day like this?" she pleaded plaintively. "We can't make any noise, for fear that we'll annoy the other people, and we can't go out----" This was more than Phil could stand. "Eat all the candy you want, Jessie, and when you've finished what you have, I'll buy you some more," and he sauntered out, hands in pocket, despite all his mother's training, and whistling mournfully. "Seems to me you have him very well tamed, Jessie," gibed Evelyn. "Just the same, I'm going to pray for clear weather." "Why the sudden fervor?" asked Jessie, munching away happily. "Because if you take Phil's advice and eat all the chocolates that you want to while it rains, and it doesn't clear up soon--well, all I have to say is----" Jessie laughed, but added, more seriously, "I guess maybe you're right, after all. There was a time when I'd nearly given up the habit, but now I'm just about as bad as ever. I'm afraid our guardian might not like it." "Of course she wouldn't," said Evelyn, seizing upon the opportunity eagerly. "Do you know, Jessie, there's been so much going on and so much excitement that we have--well, rather lost sight of the camp-fire idea, don't you think?" "I was thinking just that very thing the other day," replied Jessie, slowly, putting down a half-finished candy. "It ought to mean just as much to us now, and more, for that matter, than it ever did before----" "Girls, girls, girls!" sang out Lucile, bursting in upon them, with cheeks like two red roses, and waving something white aloft in the air. "We've got some letters, some beautiful, thick, booky letters, and you'll never guess whom they're from." The girls ran to the sofa, where Lucile had flung herself with a pile of letters in her lap, and hung over the back of it excitedly. "Oh, go on, Lucy; show them to us!" cried Evelyn, as Lucile put both her hands teasingly over the letters, inviting them to "guess." "If you don't hand over my property before I count five," threatened Jessie, "I shall be compelled to use force." "Well, in that case," laughed the threatened one, "I suppose I'll have to----" "Oh, Lucy, you know you always were my favorite che-ild," begged Evelyn, melodramatically. "I'll destroy the old will and make a new one, leaving everything----" "To me," finished Jessie, at the same time making a lunge at the tempting little pile of paper. "Oh, go on!" cried Lucile, and, dodging out-stretched arms, made a dash for the door, only to be captured and brought back by two indignant and protesting girls to the sofa. "Oh, we will be put out of the hotel," gasped Lucile, between laughs. "We're making no end of noise. Now, if you two girls will only sit down and behave like sensible--" "Huh!" broke in Evelyn. "We were only demanding our just rights." "You would better hasten, Lucile Payton," said Jessie, with her best heavy-villain scowl. "My patience is dangerously near an end." "All right," Lucile capitulated, patting the sofa on either side of her invitingly. "Sit down here and I'll hand them out just as they come." "And we'll read each one aloud before we open the next one," Jessie suggested, eagerly. "That's right," assented Evelyn. "Whom is the first one from, Lucy?" "The first one," drawled Lucile, turning it up with aggravating deliberation, "is for Evelyn, from----" "Miss--er--our guardian," cried Evelyn, snatching the envelope unceremoniously. "Oh, oh, oh! Got a letter opener, Lucy? Oh, all right; anything. Hairpin? Thanks! Oh, girls, what has she got to say?" "I might suggest that the best way to find out is to read it," said Jessie, and immediately became the recipient of a withering stare from Evelyn, who was opening the letter with trembling, clumsy fingers. "My dear little girl," she read and then stopped and looked from one to the other pleadingly. "I can't do it; I can't read it out loud----" "Don't try," said Lucile, putting an arm around her. "I know exactly how you feel. We would better read them first and compare notes afterward." "That's right," agreed Jessie. "I didn't think how hard it would be to read them out loud when I suggested it. Better give them all out together, Lucy." "Well, here's one to you from your mother, I guess, Jessie, and another from your father, and one for you from your mother, Evelyn, and one for me----" "From whom?" interrupted Jessie. "Our guardian," answered Lucile, touching it lovingly. "And here is yours, Jessie," she added, handing her a letter in the well-known and well-loved handwriting. "Isn't she dear to remember each one of us like that? And oh, here are whole stacks of letters from the girls--one from Margaret--here, Jess----" And so on until each had a little pile of her own. "And whom is that from, Lucy?" asked Evelyn, as Lucile picked up the last letter, looked at the unfamiliar handwriting curiously, then looked again more closely, while the tips of her ears became very pink. "I--I don't know," she stammered. "It's for me, and--oh, well, I'll open it later on," and she tucked it among the others, just to gain time, as she explained it to herself. "No, you don't! No, you don't!" cried Evelyn. "We have stumbled upon a deep, dark mystery and it must be cleared up at once, at once. Come on, Lucy; who wrote that letter?" "I tell you I don't know myself, so how can I tell you?" cried Lucile, angry at herself for being so confused. "If you don't know whom it's from, why do you get all red and snappy and try to hide it?" asked Evelyn, triumphantly. "'Fess up, Lucy. You might as well, first as last, for you can't fool us." "Methinks," began Jessie, in deep, stentorian tones, "that this writing seems strangely familiar. Where can I have seen it before? Ah, I have it!" Then, suddenly throwing her arms about Lucile in a strangling hug, she cried, "Oh, I knew it, I knew it! I knew he would just go crazy about you, like all the rest of us. He couldn't help himself! And you never, never would believe anything could happen the way it does in novels--oh--oh----" "Oh, I see it all! I see it all!" shouted Evelyn, suddenly springing up and whirling about the room, using her letters as a tambourine. "It's Jessie's cousin! He's gone--he's gone----" "Girls, you are crazy, both of you!" cried Lucile, extricating herself with difficulty from Jessie's strangle hold and smoothing back the hair that was tumbling down in the most becoming disorder--or so her two friends would have told you--while her laughing eyes tried hard to look severe. "Probably it isn't from him at all, and if it is, why--why--well, it is," she ended, desperately. "Why, of course it is," soothed Jessie; "but I don't think you need worry about it not being from him----" "Aren't you going to read it over now?" broke in Evelyn. "Then you can tell us----" "I wouldn't tell you a thing," said Lucile, driven to her last entrenchment; "and what's more, I'm not going to read it till I get good and ready, and not then if I don't want to," and she slipped her letter into her pocketbook, which she closed with a defiant little snap. "Now, what are you going to do about it?" she challenged, gaily. "We might use force," mused Jessie, meditatively. "But you're not going to, because you can't," Lucile declared, raising a round little arm not yet wholly free from last summer's tan, for inspection. "Just look at that muscle," she invited. "Terrific!" cried Evelyn, in mock terror. "Guess we'd better think twice before we tackle that, Jessie." "Mere nothing!" sniffed Jessie, scornfully. "Now, if you want to see real muscle----" "Oh, yes; we know all about that," said Lucile, and, throwing an arm about each of the girls, she dragged them over to the settee, saying gaily, "What's the use of having all this fuss about one old letter, when we have all the really good ones to read?" The girls exchanged significant glances, but, never-the-less, followed Lucile's example, opening one letter after another amid a shower of exclamations, comments, questions and quotations from this or that letter, till the other disturbing document was all but forgotten--except by Lucile. After half an hour of delightful reveling in the news from Burleigh, which seemed so terribly far away, and in tender little messages from mothers and fathers and friends, Lucile looked up from her guardian's letter, which she had just read for the third time. "Girls," she said, seriously, "I'm glad the letters came just as they did this morning. I've been thinking----" "So were we," broke in Evelyn, "just before you came in----" "Wonderful!" murmured Jessie. "A red-letter day!" The girls laughed, but Lucile went on: "Just because we're over here, so far away from home, is no reason for our forgetting or neglecting the least little bit the rules of our camp-fire. In fact, I don't think we deserve any credit for being good where Mrs. Wescott is; you simply can't help yourself when our guardian is around." "That's true enough," agreed Jessie, and for a few minutes they sat silent, while the dreary, sodden, steaming streets of London, as, in their short experience, they had already begun to think of them, faded before the magic power of memory and they were once more back in camp--eating, swimming, walking, canoeing--subject always to the slightest word or wish of their lovely, smiling, cheery guardian, who always knew just what to do and just the time to do it. "That's all right for me," began Jessie, heroically. "I've been eating candies and drinking sodas and reading so much that my eyes are nearly out of my head, but I don't know what under the light of the sun you two have done." "Well, in the first place, I've become horribly rude," confessed Lucile. "We haven't noticed it," said Jessie. "Well, I have," she went on. "This morning an old lady dropped her handkerchief under my very eyes and I was in such a hurry to get to you that I didn't stop to pick it up. And all my clothes need mending. That good waist is all ripped where you yanked the button off, Evelyn----" "Oh, I did not," began Evelyn, hotly. "All right. I don't care who did it; the fact remains that it is torn and I haven't mended it, and I haven't written half as much as I ought to, and--well, if I told you everything, I wouldn't get through to-day." "And I use slang from morning to night, and I chewed a piece of gum that Phil gave me right out in the street, too," began Evelyn, miserably. "Oh, Phil!" said Jessie, disdainfully. "He would ruin anybody's manners." "All the more credit, then, in being good while he's around," laughed Lucile. "But, seriously, girls, don't you think it would be a good plan to make up our minds to act just the same all the time as though our guardian were in the next room?" "Let's" said the girls. And so, with no more form or ceremony, the simple little compact was made, but it had taken firm and solid root, nevertheless, in the girls' hearts. "Hooray, people; here comes the sun!" cried Phil, bursting in upon them with a box of candy and a radiant smile. "I just waylaid Dad and asked him what was up if it cleared this afternoon, and he said, 'Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, a look at the Thames, an auto ride.' Hooray!" The girls ran to the window, and, sure enough, the sun was beginning to shine, feebly and mistily, to be sure, but yet unmistakably. They hugged each other joyfully and began to gather up their scattered belongings. "It must be nearly lunch time," sang Lucile. "We'll go up and see what we look like and change our dresses and----" "Then for the fun," finished Evelyn. "I say, Jessie, here's the candy I promised you," Phil called after her. Jessie turned at the door and eyed the tempting box longingly. "I'd love to, Phil," she said, "but I can't. Thanks just as much. I would spoil my lunch," she added, lamely, making a hasty retreat. "Well, of all the----" began Phil, at a loss to understand such insanity. Then, with a shrug of the shoulders, he voiced the eternal and oft-repeated masculine query: "Aren't girls the limit?" CHAPTER XVII THE GLORY OF THE PAST With light hearts and lighter feet the girls danced from the dark hotel to the sun-flooded street. Umbrellas had been down for half an hour and in some places the sidewalks were already partly dry. Smiles and friendly nods had once more become the fashion where before had been only grumbling discontent, with now and then a muttered, "Beastly rotten day, what?" "Oh, what a dif-fer-ence!" cried Lucile, surveying the scene with delight. "I'd begun to be rather disgusted with London this morning, everything looked so dreary and forlorn. I wonder what can be keeping Dad and Mother," she added, turning to the hotel entrance, while her foot tapped impatiently. "They said they'd be with us right away--oh, here they are! Speaking of angels----" "And they're sure to turn up," said Phil, producing himself with startling suddenness from nowhere. "Bet you can't guess where I've been." "Why work when you don't have to?" philosophized Jessie. "If we don't care where you've been, why bother to guess?" "All right; I won't let you in on the secret now, but when you do find out about it, you'll wish you had been more civil," Phil prophesied, darkly. "Here is the car; come down, all of you," commanded Mr. Payton; and, all else forgotten, they very willingly obeyed. The machine was a big touring car, hired especially for the occasion, and the girls thrilled at the thought of seeing London in this fashion. In they tumbled joyfully, the big tonneau just accommodating five, while Mr. Payton took his place beside the driver. "Where to, sir?" asked the latter. "Oh, all around," said Mr. Payton, with a wave of his hand. "You know the points of interest better than I do. Only, of course, the young folks must stop for a long look at Westminster Abbey on the way back." "All right, sir," said the man, with an understanding grin, and added, "For the whole afternoon?" "Yes," said Mr. Payton. With that the chauffeur threw in the clutch and the big machine whizzed away through the crowded traffic bearing a very happy cargo. The girls never forgot that afternoon. Impressions crowded so thick and fast upon them they had all they could do to gather them in, and Lucile more than once exclaimed, "Oh, I must come here some day when I have lots of time and just stand and look and look and look!" The last time she had made this remark was when they were proceeding slowly through the crowded traffic of London Bridge. "Do you remember what Mark Twain said about people in olden times being born on the bridge, living on it all their lives, and finally dying on it, without having been in any other part of the world?" said Phil, looking about him with lively interest. "Well, I don't blame them much," Jessie answered; "it is fascinating." "Yes; only they don't have the heads of Dukes and things on spikes the way they used to," Evelyn complained. "Goodness, Evelyn, you can't expect everything! Besides, you wouldn't actually like to _see_ those things," cried Lucile, horrified. "Well, maybe I wouldn't _like_ to look at them," Evelyn retracted, embarrassed by so many laughing eyes upon her. "But if they were there, I just couldn't help looking, could I?" she finished, lamely. There was a shout, and Jessie exclaimed, "I do believe you'd enjoy being a cannibal, Evelyn. You and the black-skins certainly have a great many views in common." At last they had left the bridge behind and were once more speeding through the historic streets of London. "The Abbey now, Dad?" Phil questioned, eagerly. "That's what I came to Europe to see, you know." "Seems to me you're getting mighty familiar," commented Jessie. "Why don't you call it by its full name?" "Are we, Dad?" said Phil, ignoring the interruption. "We are," said Mr. Payton. "I've been wanting to see it, along with other things, all my life, Phil. You see, I wasn't so lucky as you. However, I expect to make up for lost time." "Well, it's a treat just to ride along the streets," said Evelyn. "It's so very different from anything I ever saw before." "Yes; you could imagine you were reading Dickens," said Lucile, her eyes bright with the idea. "Why, that little shop might almost be the same one where----" "Uncle Sol and Cap'n Cuttle hung out," said Phil. "Yes," Jessie added, excitedly. "And you can almost see little Florence Dombey----" "And her black-eyed maid, Susan," said Evelyn, eagerly, and they all laughed delightedly at the picture. "Gee, it does seem to make his books lots more real," Phil chuckled. "Dear old Cap'n Cuttle and Uncle Sol's nevvy, Wal'r--you remember him, don't you?" Of course they did. So on they went, most of the time in gales of merriment, as some house or modest little shop suggested some character or happening in the books of the great writer and humorist. So happy were they in their imagining that they were almost sorry to find themselves at their destination. "Oh, so soon?" cried Lucile, trying vainly to straighten the corners of her laughing mouth into some semblance of the sobriety that befitted so great an occasion. "Oh, I never get enough of anything!" This last a protest against fate. "Greedy child!" whispered Evelyn, lovingly, as the chauffeur opened the door. "It is a great deal better than having too much of everything," she added, philosophically. Phil was standing a little apart from the rest and was gazing with rapturous awe at this object of his boyhood adoration. "Gee, Lucy, look at it!" he murmured, as his sister tucked her arm in his in mute understanding. "Think of the architect that could plan that magnificent structure!" "It is wonderful," Lucile agreed, softly, sobered by the beauty, the indefinite repose and dignity of the old, historic pile. "Phil, can you really imagine we are standing here in London, actually looking at Westminster Abbey? I can't." "It sure does seem impossible, little sister," Phil answered, understandingly. "But so it is. I guess Dad wants us now; he seems to be ready," he added, as Mr. Payton beckoned to them. "Yes," began Evelyn, the irrepressible. "I want to see all the aesoph--sarcophaguses--gae----" she floundered hopeless and looked to the others for relief. "Perhaps you mean sarcophagi," Jessie suggested, loftily, while the others laughed at her discomfiture. "Well, whatever it is, I want to see it," she persisted, doggedly. "Don't worry; you shall," Lucile promised. "If I know anything about it, you will have plenty of time to see everything, for I'm not going home till I have to." A moment more and they had stepped within the great, silent, shadow-filled cathedral. The lights and sunshine of the out-of-doors made the contrast more impressive and in the wonder of the moment the girls drew closer together. Gone was all their levity now, buried deep beneath an overwhelming reverence for this great architectural masterpiece--exalted resting place of England's noblest men. The mellow, softly-tinted light from a hundred lofty windows bathed the clustering pillars, the magnificent nave and choir in a soft, roseate glow. To the girls it seemed that all the glory, all the romance, all the pomp and splendid grandeur of the ages lay embodied there. Lucile's hand was cold as it rested on her father's. "Dad," she breathed, "it almost makes you feel the wonderful scenes it has witnessed." "Do you wish to be shown about the Abbey?" The calm voice startled them and they turned sharply. "Why, yes," said Mr. Payton to the tall, thin, aesthetic-looking young man who stood regarding them blandly. "We will be glad to have you act as guide." This the young man did, and to such good effect that the girls and Phil were soon hanging on every word. The magnificent choir held for them especial interest, for it was there had taken place the gorgeous coronations of the kings of England from the time of Harold. "It seems like a fairy tale, anyway," said Jessie, wide-eyed and pink-cheeked. "Why, to think of all the great monarchs of England--Richard the Third and Henry the Eighth and Queen Elizabeth--actually being crowned on this spot! Why, it is the next best thing to seeing the coronation itself!" From there the party passed into the north transept, where lay, for the most part, the great statesmen and warriors of England. But it was in the south transept, in the poets' corner, where were erected memorials of the great English writers, that our party was most interested. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Thackeray, Dickens--magic names, names to conjure with! Their English guide grew more eloquent and his face flushed with pride as he went into eulogies of these great men who had made England famous in the literary world. They lingered longer over Dickens' tomb, visioning the man who, by the far-reaching genius of his pen, could sway multitudes to laughter or tears at will. "And it is to Dickens, largely, that we owe the marvelous improvement in social conditions among the lower classes," the young man finished. "If it had not been for the boldness of his pen, we might still be going blithely along, blind to the miserable, unjust conditions that so prevailed among the poor of his time." And so the afternoon wore blissfully on, till Mr. Payton drew out his watch and four pairs of eager young eyes followed the action fearfully. "It can't be late, Dad," from Lucile. "After six," said Mr. Payton, and they groaned in unison. "I'm as sorry as you young folks to tear myself away, but I'm afraid we've seen all we can for to-day." Slowly, and each step a protest against a necessity that demanded their return so soon, the girls made their reluctant way to the door of the cathedral. Before they stepped into the waiting machine, our party turned for one more look at the Abbey. "Oh, Dad, did you ever see anything like it?" breathed Lucile. "There _is_ nothing like it," her father answered, slowly. "It is testimony in stone, a silent epitome of the glorious, stately, romance-filled history of England!" CHAPTER XVIII GREAT EXPECTATIONS "And to think that the Applegates own a motor boat!" It was Lucile who spoke. The girls were walking down the quaint, narrow street at the side of the hotel. Although it was very early, scarcely seven o'clock, the girls had been up and dressed for nearly an hour. There was so much to be seen and thought about and talked about that an ordinary day, begun at, say, eight o'clock, seemed to these young people wholly inadequate. So it was they happened to be taking a walk while other guests of the hotel were just beginning to wake up, talking over the events of the day before and beginning to feel a most inordinate longing for breakfast. "I'm awfully glad," Jessie was saying, in answer to Lucile's remark. "We ought to have a great old time to-day. Oh, girls, I'm so hungry!" "That's the tenth time you've said that very same thing within the last ten minutes, Jessie," said Evelyn, teasingly. "That suit is awfully becoming, Lucy," she approved. "What do you mean?" queried Lucile of Jessie, while she thanked Evelyn with a bright smile. "Oh, you don't pay any attention to me at all, and nobody throws any compliments in my direction," and Jessie contrived to look very injured and forlorn. "Why, we were listening with all our ears," declaimed Lucile; then added, naively, "What did you say?" "Humph!" grunted Jessie. "I just said I was hungry." "So are we all of us," sang Lucile, cheerily. "And if my nose does not deceive me, there issueth from the regions of various kitchens a blithe and savory odor--as of fresh muffins, golden-yellow eggs, just fried to a turn, and luscious, juicy, crisp----" "Oh, Lucy, don't! I can't bear it!" shrieked Jessie, covering her ears with her hands. "Eggs and bacon and--oh--oh----" "No; bacon and eggs," corrected Evelyn, soberly; "and cereal, with lots and oodles of rich cream--and maybe some marmalade----" "Is this a conspiracy?" cried Jessie, glowering belligerently at the two mischievous faces. "Girls, if you only had an idea how hungry I am, you wouldn't joke; it's too serious." "My goodness, don't you think we're hungry, too?" cried Lucile. "Why, I'm so hungry a piece of dried bread would taste like--like----" She hunted desperately for a comparison. "Ambrosia and nectar," began Evelyn. "And a pinch of angels' food mixed in," finished Lucile, laughing. "Why, I'd steal, murder, anything, for it!" "My, you must be worse off than I am," said Jessie, regarding her friend with awe. "I wouldn't do all that for anything less than chicken." Then they all laughed, just because they couldn't help it--the world was such a wonderful place to live in. "Just the same, I've never eaten anything since that tasted like the food we cooked in camp," sighed Lucile. "You must guard against giving wrong impressions, Lucy," Jessie admonished, gravely. "Anybody, hearing you, might actually imagine you could cook." "When I made that remark I had you in mind, Jessie, dear," purred Lucile. "In that case, of course----" "I wonder what the girls are doing this minute," Evelyn interrupted, dreamily. "I'd give the world to get just one little glimpse of them and our guardian and Jim and Jeddie----" "Don't! You make me homesick," pleaded Lucile. "It seems strange to think there's a whole ocean between us. I wonder if we'll be able to tell our guardian, when we do see her, that we have tried faithfully to live up to the camp-fire laws--even when we were so far away." "Well, there are two of them that we surely haven't broken," said Evelyn soberly, "and they are--hold on to health, and be happy." "Yes; and we've pursued knowledge so hungrily that I haven't begun to get the facts all straightened out yet," said Jessie, in funny bewilderment. "I guess we're all in the same boat there," Lucile comforted. "There is one thing I'm learning pretty well, though, and that is to count in shillings and pence. I can figure in English money almost as well as in United States now." "So can I, and I haven't eaten more than two candies in a week, and they were little ones," Jessie confided, virtuously. "And I haven't used slang for, oh, I don't know how long," cried Evelyn. "And I wasn't rude even to that old man who stepped on my foot and then looked cross--" Lucile laughed infectiously. "Goodness, we're in a fair way to become three little angels," she laughed. "Aren't you girls coming in to breakfast?" said Phil, appearing for a minute at the door as they passed. "If you are, follow me"--and they needed no second invitation. In response to Mrs. Applegate's very cordial invitation, Mrs. Payton and the girls had made their visit the day before. It was then that they had learned, to their surprise, that the former owned a beautiful motor boat, anchored farther up the Thames. What was their great delight when Mrs. Applegate voiced her hope that they had made no special plans for the morrow, as she had arranged a little party and was counting on them to make it complete. Of course, they had assured her that no plans could be so important as to stand in the way of so tempting an invitation; so it had been settled to the satisfaction of every one. It was just nine o'clock when they climbed into the automobile and Mr. Payton started to give the chauffeur his directions. He was to drive through Hyde Park, entering it through the beautiful gate at Hyde Park Corner and ending with the magnificent Marble Arch. From there they would drive straight to Henley, where they were to meet the Applegates. "It's good we started early; now we can see lots before we meet the other people," said Jessie, contentedly. "Can't we get out, Dad," begged Lucile, "and get a little closer look at Kensington Gardens--I love to say it; it sounds so very English, don't you know--just for a little while? Can't we, Mother? It looks so pretty!" "No; we'll have just time to ride through the park," Mrs. Payton answered, and Lucile must needs be satisfied. "I read somewhere that they took several hundred acres from the park to enlarge the gardens," Phil volunteered. "Is that so, Dad?" "Yes; three hundred, I think it was," his father answered. "And now here we are, before the famous Hyde Park itself!" As they entered the park through a most imposing gateway the girls uttered a little cry of admiration. "The lawns are like velvet!" cried Lucile. "And those exquisite flowering shrubs! What do you call them, Mother?" "I think they are hawthorne bushes," Mrs. Payton answered, absently. "And the flowers! Did you ever see such gorgeous tints?" said Jessie. "And the splendid old trees! Why, they look as if they might be a million years old!" "I bet some of them could tell many a tale of duels fought beneath their shade in the time when such things were the fashion," remarked Phil, and Evelyn turned to him with shining eyes. "You mean real duels, where they both fight till one of them gets killed? Oh!" "It's plain to see you were born a century too late, Evelyn," Jessie remarked, mournfully. "I don't care; it must have been fun," she maintained. "Lots," Lucile agreed, gravely. "I can't imagine anything funnier than having a couple of silked and satined gentlemen sticking spears into each other for my sweet sake." The description did not coincide in the least with that of authors and historians who love to dwell on those chivalrous days, but it accomplished its purpose, nevertheless; it sent our girls into gales of laughter. "You're jealous, that's all," Evelyn remarked, when she could make herself heard. The beauty and grandeur of the great Marble Arch sobered them a trifle and they were enthusiastic in their admiration. Then, when they could look no longer, they continued toward their rendezvous, leaving the beautiful, historic park behind and speeding along the Thames embankment toward Henley. As they advanced further out of the city and deeper into the country, they were dazzled by the beauty of the scenery. The sun struck hot and bright upon the road, while the shrubs and foliage on the outskirts of the woodland seemed outlined in molten gold against the softer background of shadowy green. The river shone and sparkled in the brilliant sun like some great, glistening jewel turned to liquid sunshine. The world was bathed in gold. "If our guardian were only here!" Lucile murmured. "And little Margaret!" Jessie turned to her, surprised. "How did you know what I was thinking about?" she demanded. "I didn't," said Lucile; "only, when I see the woods and the water, it makes me think of the camp-fire and our guardian and little Margaret----" "Isn't this where we stop, Dad?" Phil interrupted; and they had no time for further conversation. As they alighted, a man came up to them and, touching his hat, said that he was from the "Vigil" and was looking for a party bound there. Upon Mr. Payton's assuring the man that his was the party in question, they stepped into the trim little launch that was to bear them to their destination. "Say, wouldn't it be great to have a little motor boat like this down at the river?" said Lucile, trailing her hand in the warm water. "Just think of the races we could have with it--although nothing could be much more exciting than the one we had," she added, loyally. "Of course it couldn't," Jessie agreed. "I'd rather paddle any time." "You must admit you can't go quite as fast," teased Phil. "Almost, of course, but not quite." "We never admit anything," Lucile retorted. "Besides, I dare say we could go a good deal faster than some motor boats." "Sure," said Phil, encouragingly. "I've seen lots of old tubs, minus the motor, that I'm sure you could run rings around." "Phil, if you don't stop talking about things you don't understand," began Jessie. "Is there anything?" asked Phil, with interest. "We'll dump you out and make you walk ashore," she added, treating his remark with the haughty disdain it deserved. "It's a long way to shore," said Phil, with a rueful glance over his shoulder. "Give me one more chance, fair damsel, and I will promise never to offend again." "Oh, if I could only believe him!" said Jessie, prayerfully. Lucile laughed and flipped a salt drop toward the offending Phil. "You mustn't be too hard on him, Jessie," she remonstrated. "You know, he really might be worse." "Thanks, sweet sister," said Phil, gratefully. By this time the little launch had noisily chug-chugged its way among the various craft, small and large, and had finally come to a standstill beside a beautiful boat, upon whose bow and stern was engraved the name "Vigil." The Applegates, proud owners of the "Vigil," crowded eagerly to the rail to welcome their guests. "Oh, I'm so glad you could come," cried Mrs. Applegate, as Phil and Mr. Payton climbed the short ladder preparatory to helping the women folk on board. "The Dickensons and Archie Blackstone--we came over with them, you know--are on board." There was an enthusiastic meeting between the fellow-voyagers, for they had formed a sort of mutual-admiration society while on board the "Mauretania" and were only too glad to come together again. While their fathers and mothers were talking, the young folks had seized upon the opportunity to look about them. They were just at the height of this delightful process when Mrs. Applegate hailed them. "Don't you girls want to come down in the cabin and take your wraps off?" she called. "Surely; we're coming right away," Lucile answered for them. "Why do you have to fix up any?" protested Archie. "You look just fine just as you are. What's the use of wasting an hour?" "We're not going to fix up," denied Lucile; then added, "It won't take us an hour, anyway. We'll be back in five minutes." "Oh, how I'd like to believe you!" said Archie, as they disappeared down the companionway. "Get out your watch," challenged Lucile. "I'll wager a pound of my home-made fudge against a pound of Huyler's that we'll be back before the five minutes are up." "If I were you, Arch," said Phil, loudly, for the benefit of his sister, "I'd rather lose than win," which was treated with a laugh of merry derision. CHAPTER XIX THE BREATH OF THE WAR GOD The girls proved as good as their word and five minutes later tumbled breathlessly on deck, cheeks flushed and eyes shining with triumph. "Where's that pound of Huyler's?" Lucile demanded, with an "I told you so" look at Archie. "I'll pay it as soon as we get to shore," he promised. "It's worth ten boxes of candies to see you so soon," he added, gallantly, and, catching Lucile about the waist, he fox-trotted up the deck to the accompaniment of his own merry whistle. "Oh, we can do that, too," said Phil, not to be outdone in anything, and soon they were all at it with a swing and a go that made their fond parents, who had come up in the meantime and were watching them, marvel. "I can give you something better than that to dance to," said Mrs. Applegate, when they had stopped from sheer lack of breath. "There is a phonograph below, and if you boys don't mind the trouble, you might bring it on deck and start it going. Then you can dance to your hearts' content." Phil gave a whoop of joy and nearly fell down the companionway in his eagerness to find the machine, and the other two boys followed closely on his heels. "There seems to be no lack of enthusiasm," remarked Mrs. Applegate, as the ladies made themselves comfortable in the big chairs placed against the rail. "They can't seem to get tired. I never knew there was so much bottled-up energy." The boys soon returned with the phonograph and they were having the time of their lives teaching each other the newest steps when they were interrupted by the arrival of some people from the boat club, who had been invited to meet them. There were three girls and three boys somewhere about their own age and four of the club's most popular members and their wives. "There sure is going to be a crowd," said Archie, as the newcomers began to pour over the side, all talking at once. "I wish we could have finished that dance," he added, regretfully. "Oh, there will be plenty more," said Lucile, smiling roguishly in a way that made him wish all these intruders--for so he regarded them--were at least as far away as the North Pole. Soon the introductions were over and the girls found themselves liking the gay young strangers immensely. Their English accent and the way they said, "Bah Jove!" and "Beastly hot weather, what?" fascinated the uninitiated girls, and they were soon imitating their new-found friends with surprising success. "You were dancing when we arrived, weren't you?" asked Anita Derby, a dashing, fair-haired girl, who made almost as many enemies as friends with a rather sharp, unbridled tongue. "I thought I heard a phonograph. What was it you were playing?" "'Good-bye, Girls,' from 'Chin Chin,'" said Lucile. "It's a splendid fox trot." "Never heard of it," said Anita. "Peculiar name--'Chin Chin'--what?" Lucile was about to reply when Mr. Applegate interrupted. "There's a stiff breeze on the way," he said, casting his weather eye aloft. "And, from the looks of things, it's more than possible that we may run into a storm somewhere up the river. However, we'll have to take a chance on that." "Oh, I wonder if we will," cried Lucile. "Don't worry," said Gordon Ridgley, whose gaze had not wandered from Lucile's bright face, with its dancing eyes and mischievous mouth, always quirked in a smile and showing the dimples in the corners of it--he wondered how many dimples she had, anyway--since he had come on board. "If you will come with me forward," he added, "I'll show you the prettiest view of the river there is. B' Jove, it's incomparable!" Lucile consented rather hesitatingly. To tell the truth, she would much rather have stayed where she was. Nevertheless, they went off around the corner of the cabin, while Archie watched them with a gloomy frown on his face. "Nervy beggar!" he muttered. Evelyn squeezed Jessie's hand and whispered, delightedly. "Did you see the look Archie gave that 'bally Henglishman'? There will be a regular duel in Hyde Park yet." "Shouldn't wonder. I don't know how Lucy ever does it." Meanwhile, Lucile's cavalier, Gordon Ridgley, had helped her carefully along the deck and established her in a corner from which he had declared the view "incomparable." "This is rippin' luck," he cried, seizing a couple of handy chairs and dragging them to the rail. "The bally things knew we were coming!" Lucile laughed happily. She liked being taken care of; it made her think of Jack. Meanwhile, the breeze, which had been steadily rising, had grown perceptibly stronger. "Oh, this is wonderful!" breathed Lucile, leaning forward and drinking in the beautiful scene. "I've wanted a chance to sail in a real motor boat all my life." "Well, does it meet with your expectations?" "It's beginning to. You know, I was crazy about the river yesterday--it was all so different from anything I had ever seen and a thousand times more interesting; but now I can see that I had only begun to appreciate it." "Oh, it's not such a bad old river," he said, letting his gaze wander out over the water. "I suppose it appeals more to strangers than it does to us natives. For instance, I would much rather see your Hudson River than this." "I suppose so," said Lucile, dreamily, and then added, almost as though speaking to herself, "But the Hudson, though, of course, it is beautiful and much larger than this, is in a new country, while the Thames--why, the very name makes you think of those old times when there were noble knights and beautiful ladies and jousts and all sorts of interesting things. In those days the knights seemed to go around with a chip on their shoulders all the time. If you happened to step on their foot or any other little thing, they'd flare up, throw a glove or something in your face--I should think it must have hurt sometimes, too--and command you to joust for the honor of knight or lady----" She broke off with a little laugh and added, demurely, "I don't know what you must think of me--I'm not always like this, you know." "I think you're----" he began, but just what he thought was never expressed, for Mr. Payton and a friend, coming upon them unexpectedly, uttered a surprised exclamation. "Oh, here you are!" he said, amusement in the glance he gave them. "The young folks are about to start the Victrola; don't you want to join them?" As if to give proof to his words, a merry one-step reached them from the after deck and Lucile sprang to her feet, looking toward her escort invitingly. "We can't miss this," she said, with conviction. Young Ridgely looked as if he could miss it with great pleasure, but he followed her to the after deck, nevertheless. "Will you go back again after the dance?" he pleaded, as they joined the others. "We were having such a good talk." "Perhaps," she half promised, with a tantalizing little laugh, and a moment after was swept off into the dance by Archie, who had been seriously considering organizing a search party. "You were away a mighty long time," he reproached her. "What were you doing all the time with that Ridgely guy?" "I shouldn't call him a guy; he's a very nice fellow," said Lucile, demurely. "Besides, we were only admiring the view." "Huh!" grunted Archie, unconvinced. "I dare say he found the view very interesting," he added, meaningly. "Doubtless he did, since he wants to go back and look at it all over again," she said, wickedly; then, to change the subject, "Doesn't Jessie dance wonderfully? I never saw such an improvement in any one." "Yes, she dances well, but she can't touch you; nobody can." So the morning wore merrily on, the young folks stopping only long enough to get their breath between dances. Then came the ever-welcome call to lunch and they tumbled down to the roomy cabin, followed more sedately by their elders, who had enjoyed the morning as much as their offspring, though less riotously. It was a delicious luncheon and, with the added flavor of romantic surroundings and congenial company, was altogether a memorable affair. When they reached the deck again, they were surprised to find that the sun, which had been shining so brightly before, had gone under a cloud, while the smooth surface of the water was stirred into ripples and eddies by an ever-increasing wind. "Looks mighty threatening," said Phil, anxiously. "I hope we don't have a downpour." The others viewed the sudden change with equal trepidation. "Look at that bank of clouds over there, Lucile," said Archie, pointing to a gigantic cloud formation, black and threatening, and moving swiftly in their direction. "By the way, I take back all I said about your prophecies this morning; it sure looks as if we were in for it now. Wonder what Mr. Applegate thinks of it." What Mr. Applegate thought of it proved to be certain confirmation of their fears. He stood regarding the threatening sky-line with an anxious frown on his forehead. A moment later a sudden gust of wind struck the boat, heeling it so far to one side that they had to grip the rail and each other to keep from falling, while the vivid flash of lightning, followed by a low, ominous roll of thunder, made them draw closer together. The captain was roused to sudden action. Turning to his guests, he said, "If you folks don't want to get wet, you had better make your way down below. The storm is due to break any minute now." Obediently, but reluctantly, they followed directions, descending into the now almost twilight gloom of the cabin. "Goodness! Whoever would have thought it would get dark so quickly?" said Anita Derby, fearfully. "If there is one thing I detest it is a thunderstorm." "I think it's kind of exciting," said Lucile, snuggling into a corner of the great leather-cushioned settee that ran around three sides of the cabin and pushing aside a curtain that obstructed her view. "I've always wanted to be on the water in a storm. Oh, look at that flash! Did you ever see anything so vivid?" But her voice was drowned in the great crash of thunder that followed it. It struck the earth with terrific force; then retired, grumbling and muttering like some tremendous monster robbed of its prey. Then the rain began, pouring down in torrents, dashing itself upon the cabin roof and windows with such violence it seemed solid wood and glass must give way before it. It raged; it danced in frenzy; it hurled itself in stinging dagger points upon the deck, while the wind shrieked a weirdly wild accompaniment. "It's a hurricane!" shouted Jessie above the wind, and some way in the semi-darkness she found her way to Lucile's side, where Evelyn had come before her. It was strange how the three friends clung together instinctively. "Oh, Lucy, do you suppose we could possibly be swamped?" "Of course not," said Lucile, trying with difficulty to be reassuring, as a sudden lurch of the boat sent her back against the cushions. "Didn't you hear the captain say we were perfectly safe?" "How's this for a storm, eh?" yelled Phil, balancing with difficulty. "If it wasn't for Mother, I'd go on deck and watch." "And get struck by lightning," said Lucile. "Oh-h!" as another flash rent the darkness, followed by a terrific crash of thunder. "This can't last long." "Don't be alarmed, any one." It was Mr. Applegate's voice, and though they couldn't locate him in the gloom, it was a comfort just to hear him speak. "It's only a hard shower and an unusually strong wind. It will blow itself out in ten minutes." The captain was right, and in less time than he allowed the storm began to abate; the flashes of lightning became less frequent, the thunder less and less fierce, and the gloom began to lighten so they could distinguish each other. Slowly and reluctantly the wind died away until only the rolling of the boat remained to testify to its violence. As soon as Mr. Applegate thought it wise to venture on deck the whole party very willingly repaired there. The sky was still a dull, leaden color, but around the spot where the sun was hiding behind the banked-up clouds shone a misty radiance, sure prophecy of brightness to come. They were still finding it rather hard to recover their former hilarious spirits when, fifteen minutes later the sky opened as if by magic, letting forth a burst of golden sunshine that flooded the river and danced on the water so gladly and joyously that the girls and boys shouted with delight. "You wonderful old sun!" cried Lucile. "Why, it makes the world a different place to live in!" "It is all the difference between night and day," said Major Ridgely, Gordon's father, a tall, well-built man with a mass of iron-gray hair framing a strong-featured face--the face of a scholar and a gentleman. "And it's like the difference," he continued, slowly and with emphasis, "it's like the difference between peace and--war." There was silence for a full moment while the young folks regarded him with astonishment and interest, for they sensed a deeper meaning behind his words. "You mean," it was Mr. Payton that spoke, "you mean, Major, that you think there is any immediate danger of--war?" "War--is--imminent." The Major spoke slowly, pronouncing each word with exaggerated distinctness. "I am no prophet, sir, but, unless I am very much mistaken, the month of August will see part of this continent plunged in the bloodiest war the world has ever known." "War! War!" The word ran from one to the other, as the Major continued: "It has been coming for years. For years the interests and ambitions of at least two great nations--Germany and Russia--have been antagonistic. For years the countries of Europe have been looking forward to the time when the slender strand of national amity would be snapped like a thread and the nations plunged into deadly conflict. And now, it seems to me, the time is ripe!" The young folks had been drinking in the conversation eagerly. War! Why, they had read of war, of course, in their history books; but war, in their time, in their generation, under their very noses, as it were! Why, it was impossible! But the Major was speaking again. "For years the sole aim and goal of the German house of Hohenzollern has been the perfection to a marvelous degree of her policy of militarism. Why, there is not a man in the whole German Empire, who, at the command of his country, could not take his place, a trained soldier, in the tremendous, perfected military machine that is the German army." "Why, Dad, does that mean that we may have to fight?" fairly shouted Phil, who could not restrain himself a moment longer. "Now, right away----" "We won't son," said his father, kindly. "Thank Heaven, we will have the broad Atlantic between us and the horrors of war!" "War? Who talks of war?" cried little Mrs. Applegate, coming breezily up to them from the depths, where she had probably been giving some very important instructions for dinner. "I won't have the ugly word spoken on board my ship. Why, everybody looks as if they had seen a ghost. What have you been talking about?" "Why, you heard, my dear," said her husband, kindly. "We were simply discussing the possibility of----" "Stop!" shrieked the little woman, clapping her hands to her ears. "I won't have it! Somebody start the phonograph--do!" Gordon laughingly obeyed and soon they were all dancing merrily as if the great cloud of war were not hanging over all Europe. When the young folks were tired of dancing they settled themselves comfortably on the deck, talking, laughing, singing college songs, and otherwise enjoying themselves. It was not till evening, when they had bidden their hosts good-night, after thanking them heartily for "the most glorious day they had ever spent," that the topic of the afternoon was again referred to. "Do you think there is really any possibility of war?" Lucile asked of Archie, as they were nearing the hotel. "There's no telling," he answered, seriously. "It looks rather like it now. You and I needn't worry, anyhow; we won't get any of it. Unless," he added, whimsically, "unless you should decide to go as a Red Cross nurse. Then I might even desert the Red, White and Blue and volunteer my services in the war." And so they parted, with an almost imperceptible cloud shadowing their gayety. Little did Archie think, when he declared so confidently that "they wouldn't get any of it," that before the summer was over, they would experience to some infinitesimal extent the cruel, relentless, crushing power of that tremendous grinding machine men term--WAR! CHAPTER XX CROSSING THE CHANNEL Two days later our party started for France by way of Dover. They parted regretfully from their friends, who were obliged to remain in London a few days longer, and it is safe to say the others, the boys at least, were even more sorry to part from them. They had not expected any one to see them off, and so it was a complete surprise when they found, not only the Dickensons and Archie, but all the rest of the jolly yachting party, waiting to say good-by to them and speed them on their way. Our girls were showered with good wishes and pleadings from the boys not to "forget them altogether in the gay and riotous life of Paris." They promised laughingly, thankful to their friends for making the parting a so much easier one than they had anticipated. The little packet steamed away from the dock and the girls waved to the group on the wharf and the group on the wharf waved to them until they were out of sight. "Wasn't that lovely of them?" fairly beamed Lucile, as she turned from the last wave at the little dots that had been people. "I think they are the jolliest crowd I've ever met. Jessie, your bow is crooked; hold still a minute. There, it's all right now. Oh, girls, I'm so happy that, if some one doesn't hold me down, I'll go up in the air like a balloon and sit on that fluffy white cloud. No, that one over there, the one that looks like a canary bird." "Goodness! She's quite romantic!" said Jessie, squinting up at the cloud in question. "It looks more like an elephant to me." "To come down from the discussion of clouds and elephants," began Evelyn, "to every-day matters, I wonder if that Frenchman we met on the steamer--what was his name? Oh, yes, I remember; Monsieur Charloix--I wonder if he's found that girl yet." "And the fortune," added Lucile. "Don't forget to mention the most important part. I've----" "Lucy, how very mercenary!" reproved Jessie. "Don't you call my sister names," said Phil, who was always pretending surprise at Jessie's long words. "I've been wondering about that myself," said Lucile, ignoring Phil's remark. "Now that we're going to France, perhaps we will hear something about him." "France is supposed to be a respectable-sized town," said Phil, with what was meant to be biting sarcasm. "It's not like Burleigh, where Angela Peabody can tell you the history of everybody in town, and then some. We might be in Paris a year and never hear a word about him." "I realize that quite as well as you do, brother, dear," said Lucile, sweetly. "However, you must admit that there is more chance of our finding out something about the gentleman in France than there was in London." "Or in Egypt," Phil agreed, and Lucile gave up with a little shrug of her shoulders. "Well, it doesn't matter, anyway; only I would like to know the end. It's like starting to read an interesting serial story in a magazine, and just when you get to the most exciting part, you come up against a 'To be continued in our next.' Look!" she added, irrelevantly, clutching Jessie's wrist and pointing upward. "Now the cloud has changed shape again. It's the image of old Jim's dog, Bull." Phil turned away in utter disgust. "You don't have to go to Bronx Park to see the zoo," he muttered. "Not when we have you with us," Jessie retorted, at which Phil retreated in undignified haste. The girls turned laughingly to each other. "What do you say if we have an old-fashioned talk?" suggested Evelyn. "There's has been such a crowd around all the time that we haven't had a minute to talk things over." "Let's not sit in any regular, ordinary old place to-day, said Lucile. Let's find some snug little corner in the stern, where we can do just as we please and make believe we are back in camp. Oh, for one little sight of our guardian!" "If she were only here, our happiness would be complete," said Jessie, as they made their way back. "I wonder how Marjorie and Eleanor and Dot and Ruth and the whole bunch of them are, anyway. I'm crazy to see them all." "And we haven't heard from them in so long! I do wish it didn't take mail so long to travel across the----Oh, here's the very place we are looking for, girls," she interrupted herself. "It's just big enough for three of us, and I don't believe anybody ever comes this way." So saying, she pulled a chair into the corner and made herself comfortable, while Jessie and Evelyn followed her example. "You're a wonder at thinking things, Lucy," said Evelyn, as she comfortably settled herself with her head resting against the cabin. "This is ever so much better than sitting where everybody can look at us." "Of course it is," agreed Lucile. Then, after a moment, she added, dreamily, "Girls, do I look any different than I did when we started? Somehow, I feel awfully different." Jessie regarded her through lazy, half-closed eyes. "No," she drawled, "I don't see that you've changed so much. Your nose and eyes and mouth are all the same and your hair still curls. You have tanned, though, and there's a little rim of white right up close to your hair, where the curls keep the sun off, and ever since a certain morning"--here Jessie and Evelyn, companions in crime, exchanged glances, and Lucile began to burn a deeper red under the tan--"and ever since a certain morning I have noticed a very marked tendency toward dreaming, and several times when you should have answered 'no' to a question you have answered 'yes,' and we knew you hadn't heard a single word. Aside from that, you haven't changed at all, except that you're a million times dearer and sweeter than you ever were," she finished, with a sudden outburst of affection. Lucile hugged her gratefully, but her cheeks were still unduly red when she answered, "I didn't know I was being so rude, and it must have sounded frightfully foolish when I answered 'yes' instead of 'no'; but I'll try to reform." "Don't you do it," said Evelyn. "You don't know how interesting you are this way, especially to Jessie. She says it's better than reading a story any day, and she can enjoy herself without breaking any of the camp-fire rules." Lucile shot a reproachful glance at her friend, who laughed shamelessly, "I don't care, Lucy; you'd enjoy it just as much as I do if you were in my place. You used to make such fun of my McCutcheon books and everything----" "Yes; but don't forget I took it all back that day in camp when we saw--well, you know what----" "Yes, I know," said Jessie, star-eyed at the memory. "Was there ever such a summer anyway?" "You haven't told us yet what Jack said in his letter," Evelyn interrupted, irrelevantly. "Be good to us, Lucy, and throw us some more small scraps of information to satisfy our curiosity." "Well, I can't tell you everything he said," Lucile began. "We hardly expect that," murmured Jessie, and Lucile threw her a suspicious glance. "Well," she continued, after an ominous silence, during which Jessie intently studied the sky-line, "I can tell you the part that would interest you most. He says if he can persuade his uncle that he is desperately in need of a change, he may see us in Paris." "What?" cried Jessie, regarding Lucile with laughing eyes. "You mean that Jack says he may actually come to Europe? That means he will, because he can wind that wealthy old uncle of his around his little finger. Good for dear old Jack!" And so they talked on and on, reviewing past and prophesying future delights, until the position of the sun reminded them that it was time to seek the rest of the party. "So here you are," said Mrs. Payton, as they approached her from around a corner of the cabin. "We were beginning to think you had jumped overboard. Your father has just gone around the other way to look for you." "I'm sorry we didn't come back before; I can see it must be about time to land by Phil's face. He never looks sad unless he's hungry." "You're wrong this time," said Phil. "I'm looking sad because I haven't seen Jessie for two long hours." "Don't tell me that," said Jessie, the unconvincible. "You might try that with some one else, but not with me; I know you too well." "But suppose I don't want to try it with any one else," Phil objected, managing to fall behind the rest and lowering his voice to a whisper. "Suppose I wasn't fooling; suppose I really meant what I said?" Jessie turned quickly and said, in a tone in which laughter and despair were equally blended, "Oh, Phil, you're not going to begin anything like that--please----" "Why not?" said Phil, doggedly. "If you don't mind, I think I shall." Jessie regarded Phil's serious face out of the corner of her eye and gave a little hysterical gurgle. "It's no use," she thought, as Phil placed a chair for her with more than usual care; "it must be in the air. When Lucy knows----" CHAPTER XXI THE OLD CHATEAU Lucile had been awake for some time. She lay with both hands beneath her curly head, staring straight up at the ceiling and thinking, thinking, very hard. They were on the outskirts of Paris. Her father had heard from the Applegates of this wonderful little inn, where one might be as comfortable as in one's own home. This had appealed strongly to them all, for the girls were eager for a sight of the country, especially since the gratifying of their desire would not entail the loss of city delights in the least--a machine could whirl them into the heart of Paris in half an hour. Such was the pleasant trend of Lucile's thoughts as she turned her eyes toward the bright patch of window and beheld a world bathed in golden sunshine. "How pretty it all was!" she mused. "Take the clouds, for instance. How feathery and soft and fleecy and silvery-lined they looked, floating on that vast sea of brilliant turquoise; and somewhere, somewhere there was a bird singing, more exquisitely, she was sure, than bird had ever sung before. Oh, if she could only get one little peek at him!" With this in view, she stole silently from the bed and over to the window. "Time to get up?" yawned a sleepy voice from the bed. "Oh, he's stopped!" wailed Lucile. "He stopped the minute you began to talk. Oh, Jessie, why did you have to wake up just then?" Jessie gazed at her friend as at one gone suddenly and violently insane. "If it will do you any good, I will go to sleep again," said she, with much dignity. "But I should like to know what or whom it was I stopped and--" "Oh, hush!" begged Lucile, with her finger on her lips. "There he is now; listen, please!" And Jessie listened while the little songster poured out his joy in liquid cadences that rose and fell and sparkled out upon the morning air like dancing sunbeams turned to music--so light, so rippling, so joyously alive, that the girls' hearts thrilled in answer. "Oh, the darling!" cried Jessie, springing out of bed and joining Lucile at the window. "I wonder what he is; we never heard anything like that in Burleigh. Now he's stopped again----" "He won't sing when you talk, of course," said Evelyn, who had been quietly watching them. "Of course not," said Jessie, calmly. "He knows there is no use in trying to compete with the music of my voice." "Time to get up," exclaimed Evelyn, in a loud voice, and began a show of dressing in a great hurry, while Lucile gave a little despairing laugh. "I don't know what you two would do if you didn't have me to act the part of peacemaker all the time. I'm afraid they would have one or the other of you up for murder before the end of the week." "Well, we couldn't get along without you, anyway," said Jessie, affectionately. "What's the use of thinking of such awful calamities ahead of time?" "All right; we won't, if you say so," said Lucile, and, snatching a pillow from the bed, she hurled it at the unsuspecting and suddenly pensive Evelyn. The aim was good and Evelyn tumbled over on the bed, while a couple of feet waved frantically in the air. "Oh," she cried, half smothered by the pillow, "I'll get even for this, Lucile Payton! You just wait!" And, being a young person of her word, Lucile just ducked in time to escape an answering shot. Then would have ensued an old-fashioned pillow fight, had not Lucile suddenly bethought her that this was not their own home. "Girls!" she cried, half choked with laughter. "Girls, we'll have somebody in here, sure as fate, if we don't stop. They'll think there's a fire or something." "Or worse," Jessie laughed, good-naturedly, and after that they gradually quieted down. As usual, they were dressed and ready on the same instant. Lucile opened the door quietly and they stepped into the corridor. "Guess we must have roused the hotel, after all," said Evelyn, ruefully, as they heard unmistakable sounds of awakening in the neighboring rooms. "They'll be notifying us that our patronage is no longer desirable if we don't look out." "I wonder how you say that in French," said Lucile, her eyes merry. "If they did try to put us out, we could just pretend we didn't understand." "Yes, we could follow the example of Joe, the Italian who puts out our ashes," laughed Evelyn. "Just grin when they try to argue and shrug our shoulders. 'Me no speck Ang-lish.'" The girls laughed appreciatively, and Jessie added, "Nevertheless, your comparisons are odious. Joe, the ash-man, is not what you might call--in our class." "I could understand French a good deal better than I can some of Jessie's United States," said Evelyn, plaintively, and so they laughed their way out onto the broad, picturesque porch of the rambling old inn and stood gazing curiously about them. The road wound in front of the house, over a small hill, and was lost to view on the other side. The woodland, being so near the city, was not dense, but the girls thought they had never seen foliage so vividly green nor grass so soft and luxuriant. The beckoning shadows of the trees, the fragrance of the dew-drenched flowers, the trilling music of a thousand carefree, joyous little songsters, all combined in one irresistible appeal to the girls. With common and unspoken consent they ran down the steps of the porch and to the other side of the road. They plucked beautiful, long-stemmed flowers from their hiding-place and excitedly called each other's attention to the brightly colored birds, that balanced on swaying twigs, regarding them with saucy inquiry. "To see us now, anybody might think the country was new to us," exclaimed Lucile, with sparkling eyes and cheeks like twin roses. "Oh, girls, there's my bird again," she added, and stood, finger on lips, while the clear note, starting soft and sweet, swelled to a height of trilling ecstasy and abandon, when all the welled-up joy of summer poured liquidly golden from a bursting little heart; then slowly, hesitatingly, with soft, intermittent trillings and gurgles, died and faded into silence. "Oh, ah!" Jessie whispered, as though afraid to break the spell. "Did you ever hear such bird music in all your life? What can he be?" "I wish I'd paid a little more attention to my natural history now," said Lucile, smiling ruefully. "But even that wouldn't help much until we'd seen the bird, anyway. Let's see if we can get a glimpse of him." They were following eagerly, when Jessie exclaimed, "Oh, bother! There's Phil on the porch beckoning to us. What do you suppose he wants?" "I don't know; breakfast, maybe," Lucile answered. "Suppose you girls run over and tell him I'll come right away. I do want to locate that bird." "All right; only don't be long," Jessie advised, as they started, arm in arm, toward the inn. "We'll have some time after breakfast to do the locating." Lucile retorted laughingly, and was off in the direction from which the sweet notes had seemed to come. "Of course, he wouldn't sing now that I want him to in a hurry," she communed with herself. "Any one of these birds might be the one as far as looks are concerned." She was just about to despair, and had almost made up her mind to turn back, when the golden note rose again and she stopped, entranced. There, over her head and not five feet away, swaying perilously on a slender twig, balanced the little songster, pouring out his joy to a responsive world. "Oh, you darling!" cried Lucile, impulsively. "I wish I could take you home with me, which you would not like at all. I must ask Dad what you are; he would probably know." So, triumphant, she started happily along the path, anxious to tell the girls of her luck. It was a great temptation to linger along the way; it would be nice to take back with her a bunch of wild flowers. She would give them to a waiter, and see that they were put upon their table. With this in view, she hastened along, not noticing that the sun had gone under a cloud and that the path to the road was very long. Therefore, she was surprised, when she emerged from the woodland, to find the sky, formerly all blue and fleecy clouds, changed to a threatening, lowering gray. "But where is the inn?" she stammered, looking about her, bewildered. Then, as the appalling truth struck home, she grew pale with consternation. "How could I do such a thing?" she wailed. "I must have taken the wrong path, and now I am goodness knows where. And even the sun has disappeared. Now I am in a nice fix," and she gazed about her helplessly and vexedly, not knowing which way to turn. "Well, there's no use standing here; that never did anybody any good," she said, at last. "If my weather eye does not deceive me, I am in for a good wetting, if I can't find shelter anywhere. Oh, the folks will be wild!" With these and other disquieting thoughts, she started to push her way along the deserted road, with the forgotten wild flowers clutched tightly in her hand. She had walked for over half an hour, and the first drops of rain had begun to splash upon her bare head, when, to her great delight, she saw the white front of a house among the trees. With a joyful cry she broke into a run and, a moment later, came upon a pebbled drive that led up to a low, picturesque structure, built on the top of a gentle slope. Lucile had that strange sensation which we all have experienced some time in our lives, a distinct impression she was not looking upon the chateau for the first time. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar, and it was on the tip of her tongue to put her thoughts into words when she dismissed the idea as absurd. Why, she had spent all of her life, up to the last month at least, in Burleigh, so it was plainly ridiculous even to imagine she knew the place. Many and many a time she had read descriptions of French chateaux--ah, that was it! She must have read about just such a place. But, in spite of all reasoning, the illusion clung with startling persistency. In fact, the nearer she came to the house, the more and more was she impressed with its familiarity. She ran up to the porch just as the storm broke. "Pretty good time," she smiled, as she lifted the old-fashioned knocker on the big door and let it fall with a bang. "Now, if I can't make whoever comes understand my French, and I haven't very high hopes, then am I lost indeed." But she had no time for further thought. The door opened quietly and a soft voice inquired: "Que voulez vous, Mam'selle?" CHAPTER XXII THE HEART OF THE MYSTERY Lucile regarded the speaker soberly for a moment. She was a dainty, pretty, bright-eyed little person, with a repose of manner that seemed, somehow, out of keeping with her obvious youth. Lucile had understood the softly spoken French question, but when she answered it was in the native tongue. "I do not understand French," she said, slowly. "I am an American." "Ah, I, too, can speak the English," said the other, with a delightful accent. "What is it I can do for you, Mam'selle?" Lucile could have hugged her, so great was her joy at hearing her own language spoken so unexpectedly. "If you will just be good enough to let me stay here till the storm is over," she said, "and tell me how to get to my friends, I will be very much obliged." "Ah, Mam'selle has lost her way," said the little French girl, nodding her head quickly several times. "I know the country well and so will give you the aid you require." She spoke with painstaking correctness. "Enter, Mam'selle!" Lucile was very glad to avail herself of the invitation, for she was tired from the long walk and her damp clothing clung to her limbs uncomfortably. Her diminutive hostess led her into a large, low-ceiled, home-like room, whose broad window sills were abloom with fresh-cut flowers. Lucile thought that only the sun was needed to make it the cheeriest room in the world. "If Ma'm'selle will explain to me from where she comes," the girl invited, "I will the better know how to make swift her return, since she wishes it." "Thank you!" said Lucile, gratefully. "I wouldn't care so much for myself, but I'm afraid my folks will be terribly worried." Then she went on to describe the inn and her adventure of the morning. When she had finished, her hostess nodded thoughtfully. "I know the place of which you speak," she said, "and I would most gladly take you there immediately, but my servant has gone to the village with the only carriage of which we are the owner and has not yet returned. I fear he may have waited for the storm to abate," and she glanced out the window, where the rain was still pouring down in torrents. Lucile's heart sank. "Then I can't hope to get back to the folks or send word to them till the rain stops," she said. The girl nodded confirmation. "I fear that is so, Ma'm'selle," she said; then, as though realizing her duty as hostess, she rose to her feet, saying, hurriedly, "But I forget myself. You must have hunger, Ma'm'selle. I will return at once." Then, checking herself again, she added, "But I have not yet told you my name. It is Jeanette Renard." "And mine is Lucile Payton." "Now are we acquainted," said Jeanette, gaily. Lucile, left to herself, felt again, only to a greater extent, that strange sense of familiarity with her surroundings. Then, in a flash, the solution came to her. Why, how stupid she was not to have realized it before! The chateau corresponded, word for word, with M. Charloix's description. In Lucile's own words, it was it! And her name was Jeanette! Why, of course! How absurdly simple the whole thing was! Why, this was the very scene of M. Charloix's amazing story. But that she, Lucile, should stumble into the very midst of all this mystery---- At this point in her meditations Jeanette re-entered the room, smiling and serene. Lucile decided she was older than she looked. "I will send a servant with a message to your people after you have finished your repast," she said. "But the rain?" Lucile began. "Ah, that is nothing," said the girl, shrugging her shoulders, as if dismissing the subject. "She is well used to it." Although Lucile's excitement and curiosity were fast reaching fever heat, she tried to control herself and to answer Jeanette calmly and sanely. A few moments later a delicious meal was spread before her, to which she did full justice, feeling by this time on the verge of starvation. When she had finished, Lucile expressed her curiosity and admiration for the old place and Jeanette suggested that they look about--provided her guest was not too tired. Lucile replied that she felt as if the word "tired" had never been in her vocabulary--which was literally true. At the end of a fascinating tour of inspection, during which Lucile had started many times to put pointed questions to Jeanette and stopped just in time, Jeanette paused at the foot of a winding staircase. She ascended a step or two; then, looking down upon her guest, said, wistfully, "I am so glad you came! I have so little company and seeing you has been like--ah, like a cup of water to one dying of thirst," and underneath the little laugh that followed Lucile fancied she detected an infinite sadness. Her warm young heart went out to the other girl, as she said, heartily, "Then I'm very glad I mistook the path this morning, since it has given me a chance to know you. But why don't you ever see anybody?" she added. "Aren't there any girls around here?" "Oh, yes, there are some--but it is so long a story, I would not bore you with it. Come, we will go upstairs!" And, though Lucile was dying to hear more, she wisely forbore to press the point. While they were looking about them happily there was the sound of wheels on the drive and Jeanette, rushing to the window, exclaimed, "There's Pierre at this minute. Mam'selle will pardon if I speak with him a moment?" and for the second time that day Lucile was left alone in this house of romance and mystery. "She won't mind if I look around by myself," and so she began to explore in earnest. She was tremendously excited. "They say these old chateaux are full of secret passages, but I'd never have the luck to find any. Oh, I'm afraid the girls won't believe me when I tell them about it--and I won't blame them much if they don't; I'd have to see it to believe it myself." The attic was large and many cornered, with a sharply slanted roof, shading tiny, many-paned dormer windows. There were the regulation cobwebs, that hung in attractive festoons from the rafters. These, with the quantities of discarded but beautiful old furniture, scattered about in picturesque confusion, formed an effective background for Lucile's detective work. She groped her way over every inch of the wall, sometimes getting down on her knees, trying to persuade herself she really hoped to find a spring that would release something hidden--she didn't care much what it was, but it must be hidden. However, after she had convinced herself that there was not a square inch of space she had not investigated, she rose to her feet reluctantly, feeling as though she had been cheated. "Horrid old thing!" she murmured, dusting the cobwebs from her hands. "You look so nice and interesting and mysterious just on purpose to discourage promising young sleuths like me. I wish I hadn't given you the satisfaction of bothering with you," and she leaned against the wall in utter disgust. Thus does fortune, in the very hour of our despair, place in our hands the thing for which we have been so hopelessly searching. Even as her elbow touched the panel behind her there came a sharp click and before Lucile's startled gaze a small, square door opened slowly and deliberately, trembled, seemed to hesitate, and then came to a full stop, leaving its shallow interior exposed to view. It was not till then, when she stood, open-mouthed and open-eyed, staring dumbly at this apparition, that she realized how little she had really expected it to happen. "Well, I'm not dreaming, that's one sure thing," she murmured, approaching the little opening with extreme caution, while chills of alternate fear and excitement coursed all over her. "It seems so weird and ghostly to see that thing open all by itself, with nothing to help it along! Ghosts or not, I'm going to see what's there," and, strengthened by this resolve, she started to place her hand in the opening, but drew it back quickly with a frightened gasp. "You're a coward," she accused herself, angrily. "Any one would think you had touched a snake. If you don't hurry up, Jeanette will be here and spoil everything. I think she's coming now," and spurred on by the sound of approaching footsteps, she reached in and drew forth a long, rolled-up, legal-looking document, tied and sealed and covered with dust. "I know it's the will. I'm right, I'm right!" she cried, joyfully. "She is _the_ Jeanette--but, oh, how the plot thickens----" "What have you found?" said a soft voice behind her, and she turned to confront Jeanette, who was smiling and curious. "Look!" said Lucile, waving the document wildly. "The door just opened--I don't know how; my elbow must have touched a spring--and this thing was in it--the opening, I mean, not the door." "But what is it?" asked Jeanette, puzzled. "I have not the remembrance of having looked at it before." "Then you don't know?" said Lucile, wide eyed. The girl shook her head, eyeing the document with a puzzled expression. Gradually bewilderment changed to surprise, surprise to incredulity. "It's the will!" she cried. "The will of Henri Charloix! Oh, it cannot be so; it can't--you say you found it in here?" she questioned, and, without waiting for an answer, plunged her hand into the opening, while Lucile drew nearer to her. "May I look?" she asked, and the girl nodded, turning luminous eyes upon the pretty, awed face at her shoulder. "You may prove to be the best friend I have ever yet known," she said, solemnly, and drew from the secret hiding-place a very ordinary tin box, with a scrap of writing bound to it with a coarse cord. The wording was in French, but Jeanette, translating for her benefit, read: "To be opened by my little daughter Jeanette on the event of her twenty-first birthday. Signed, EDOUARD RENARD." "It is from my father!" cried Jeanette, sinking down, all white and trembling, upon a worn old couch and clasping the precious box to her as though she could not let it go. "Father! father!" she cried, and, bending her head upon her arms, sobbed as though her heart would break. Lucile turned and tiptoed from the room, thinking she had intruded long enough; but a soft call from Jeanette made her pause. She seated herself on the stairs and waited. To Lucile's tingling consciousness that short wait seemed an eternity. Her head ached with the flood of imagination that besieged it, her two hands grasped the banister to keep her rooted to the spot, while her feet tapped an impatient tattoo on the floor. At last the longed-for summons came. "Lucile," called a low, unsteady voice, "will you come to me?" Would she come? Lucile flew up the winding stairs and came to a standstill before Jeanette a trifle uncertainly, not quite sure what was expected of her. The uncertainty lasted only a moment, for, as Jeanette, shy, and dewy-eyed, held out her arms to her new-found friend, quite suddenly Lucile knew. Impulsively she threw her arms about the older girl and drew her close, whispering, softly, "Tell me all you feel you can, Jeanette; you can trust me." "Oh, I believe that," said Jeanette, between sharp little intakes of breath. "Were I not sure of it, I could not so confide in you." "Thank you," said Lucile, simply. "You see," the girl continued, "when I was very young I went to live with M. Charloix, whose will this is," indicating the document. "And M. Charloix had a son, named after him, Henri," Lucile supplemented. The girl drew back in startled wonder, while the bright color flooded her face. "You know that--but how?" she cried. "We sailed with M. Charloix from New York to Liverpool," Lucile explained, striving vainly to keep her voice calm and steady. "He was searching for you." "Then you know--he has told you everything," whispered the girl, while the document in her trembling hand rattled and shook. "Was he--did he--oh, how did he look?" And she turned pleading eyes upon Lucile. Lucile's own eyes filled suddenly and she had to choke back the tears before she could continue. "He looked very wan and sad. You see, uncertainty like that must be pretty hard to bear." "Ah, it has not been easy for me," said the girl, softly. "It is a great thing to renounce all you hold most dear in this world--to fly for refuge to a spot like this--the long, weary nights--the waiting--the longing--oh, you cannot know!" and she burst into a passion of weeping. "You--you're going to make me cry," said Lucile, while a tear rolled down her face and splashed upon Jeanette's bowed head. "Ah, I am so foolish! There is no reason for tears--not now," and over the girl's tear-stained face flashed such a look of radiant joy that Lucile could only gaze, dumbfounded, at the transformation. "Wh-what?" she stammered. "Ah, you wonder, you are amazed--but you will not be when I have told you all. Look, this is the will--the will for which I have heard Henri is hunting. But that is not everything--oh, it is nothing! See!" and she held up the little tin box for Lucile's inspection, feverishly, eagerly. "In this is a letter from my father--my father, who died when I was so young and left me to the care of my guardian. He was good to me, but M. Charloix----" She shivered slightly. "But the letter,"--she drew it forth reverently--"ah, that changes the world for Henri and me! "You see, when my father was very young, scarcely more than a boy, he ran away and married a girl of great beauty and intelligence, but one considered by the people among whom he moved as far beneath him in station. The rest is so old a story--his family were so cruel to him when it came to their knowledge, disinheriting him; and my father, not being accustomed to earn his own living, could not make enough to protect his sweet young wife--my mother----" Her voice broke, and Lucile squeezed the small, brown hand encouragingly. "Ah, imagine it!" she cried. "Most often she had not enough to eat. Then, when I was only an infant, heart-broken at the suffering she thought herself to have brought upon herself and little daughter, together with so great privation itself, she died. My father followed soon after--heart-broken. Before he died, he wrote me this--ah, see how old it is--for he could not bear that I should hear of him from other lips than his." "But you, the child?" Lucile interrupted, eagerly. "What became of you?" "Ah, he bequeathed me to the one friend whom he had not lost--and he was good; I cannot make you understand how good!" "But he never told you about your parents?" "It was my father's request that he should not--and--and----" Her voice trailed off into silence. Chin in hand, she gazed unseeingly at the opposite wall. Lucile was silent for a moment, busy patching the pieces of the story together into one connected whole. Then, leaning forward suddenly, she cried, excitedly, "Then M. Charloix deliberately made up that wicked, cruel lie that separated you and his son?" The girl nodded. "But nothing matters now, save that it was a lie," she cried, and Lucile, looking at her, marveled. The raucous toot of a motor horn brought both the girls to their feet with a startled exclamation. "Oh, it is your friends," said Jeanette, running to the window. "You must go down at once. Ah, I am sorry to part with you, _ma cherie_," holding the younger girl from her gently and looking earnestly into the flushed, eager, face. "You have come into my life like some good fairy, bringing happiness with you." Emotion choked the words Lucile wanted to say, but her silence was more eloquent than words and Jeanette was satisfied. A moment later they were descending the stairs, arm in arm, and very reluctant to part. To Lucile's surprise, Jeanette paused as they reached the lower hall and motioned her to go on. "But I want you to meet my father and mother and the girls," Lucile protested. "You've got to give them a chance to thank you." But Jeanette only shook her head. "I can see no one now," she whispered, tremulously. "Ah, I could not bear it!" Lucile nodded understandingly. Then, "Monsieur Charloix?" she questioned. "Send him to me." This last was very low. CHAPTER XXIII LUCILE TRIUMPHS Lucile sped down the steps and into the waiting arms of her assembled family. She was hugged and kissed and handed from one to the other in a very ecstasy of reunion, until Mr. Payton spoke, a trifle huskily. "Perhaps," said he, "perhaps it would be just as well to thank the young person who handed our runaway back to us," and he glanced inquiringly in the direction of the chateau. "No, no," said Lucile, hurriedly. "You see, it----" She hesitated; then, throwing secrecy to the winds, she pushed Jessie and Evelyn ahead of her into the automobile, crying excitedly, "I can't keep it in another minute; there's no use trying--I can't--I can't----" and, turning from her astonished friends to her no less astonished father, she said, "Dad, if you'll only get started for home, I'll tell you all about it----" "All about what?" Jessie started to interrupt. "I'm going to tell you, Jessie, dear, but we must get started first," and she clapped her hands impatiently while Mr. Payton gave the necessary orders and the chauffeur started the motor. "Oh, Phil, Phil, do stop staring so!" she cried, hysterically. "I know you are going to be awfully cut up when you learn that your much-abused and misunderstood sister was right, after all." "Lucile," cried Evelyn, in exasperation. "If you don't stop talking in riddles and get down to plain United States that everybody can understand----" "Oh, I will," gasped Lucile. "Did any of you see anything unusual about that chateau?" she questioned. "Didn't it look--well, rather familiar to you?" "There she goes again!" wailed Evelyn, and Jessie added, "We were too busy looking at you to notice the old house. What's that got to do with your story, anyway?" "You'd find out if you would only have a little patience. I've a good mind not to tell you, anyway," she finished, rather childishly, for, you see, in spite of the excitement, or, more probably, because of it, Lucile was very tired and a finicky audience didn't appeal to her. She wanted to tell her story her own way. "Go ahead, Lucy; forgive us!" said Jessie, all compunction at once. "You've made us so excited we can't wait, that's all." "Yes, we promise not to interrupt again," added Evelyn. "Oh, go ahead and tell your story, Lucy; cut out the sob stuff!" This from an unsympathetic brother, who should have withered next minute beneath the scathing searchlight of scorn turned his way. Then Lucile told her story, from the minute she left the girls to the present time. During the recital they forgot more than once their promise not to interrupt, but Lucile, heart and soul in her story, never noticed them. Mr. Payton was as much interested as the young folks, for he had entertained a sincere liking for the despondent young Frenchman. When Lucile, flushed and breathless, finished the recital and leaned back against the cushions, the girls and Phil overwhelmed her with a flood of questions. "So that was really the chateau old Charloix told us about. Why didn't you tell us while we were there, so we could have had a good look at the place?" Phil objected. "Let's go back, Dad," he added, eagerly. "It wouldn't take very long and it's a crime not to give the place the once over now that we have the chance." "Oh, Phil, we can't go back now," wailed his sister. "I'm a perfect mess----" "Of course we can't; there isn't time, anyway," said Jessie, sweeping the suggestion aside with a _sang-froid_ that aggravated Phil. "The thing I'm most interested in now is that will and the letters her father left her. Oh, it's too wonderful!" "And to think," said Evelyn, with shining eyes, "to think that all the time we were worrying about you and feeling sure you were lost, you were having the time of your life! Oh, if I'd only had the nerve to follow you!" "Yes, just think of that lost opportunity," wailed Jessie. "Such a chance will never come again, never. But, Lucile, dear, do tell us what Jeanette looked like," she begged, for the fiftieth time at least. Before she could reply, Mr. Payton said, slowly, "It is a very serious, a very delicate thing, to interfere in the lives of two people, Lucile. In this instance the end justifies the means, but it might easily have turned out otherwise. This isn't a lecture, dear," he added, patting the brown head tenderly, "simply a caution." "I know," said Lucile, looking up understandingly into her father's kind eyes, "and I will be more careful in the future, Dad. But oh," she offered, in extenuation, "when mystery marches right up to you and begs to be looked into, what can you do? Oh, girls, if you could only have been there--if you only could!" "Don't rub it in," cried Evelyn, clapping her hands to her ears. "You have me fairly jumping with envy now." "Do you think you could find Henri Charloix for Jeanette, Dad?" said Lucile, turning eagerly to her father and ignoring the interruption. "You see, there's nothing to stand between them now." "I think so," said Mr. Payton, his eyes kindling with an interest almost as great as his daughter's. "I'll spare no trouble to bring those poor harassed young people together. It's an outrage the way the French hand their children about like so much merchandise. I'll do my best little girl, now that you have started the ball rolling," he promised. Lucile squeezed his hand gratefully, and Jessie suddenly broke out with, "Now I know why Phil hasn't seemed to take much interest in the proceedings, and why he has been studying the sky with such concentration ever since Lucile has been talking." "Why?" cried both girls, in a single breath. "Simply because"--she paused for dramatic effect, then flung her bomb with force at the intended victim--"he's jealous!" she hissed. "Oh, is that so?" said Phil, drawing his gaze reluctantly from the far horizon and letting it rest dreamily on his accuser. "May I be allowed to ask what intricate and devious chain of reasoning leads you to make so unheard-of a charge?" "Oh, nonsense!" exclaimed Jessie, disrespectfully. "You know you're jealous, so why deny it? Seems to me I remember"--it was her turn to let her gaze wander sky-ward--"if I mistake not, that a short time ago a certain young gentleman--I mention no names, but look where I'm looking"--she threw him a mischievous glance, which he was by no means loath to intercept--"did, upon occasion, laugh and scoff----" "Same thing," Phil interrupted. "At his sister," Jessie continued, undaunted, "when she ventured to prophesy that which has really taken place." "Yes. 'Paris is a very large place, you know,'" mocked Lucile. "Take it all back, take it all back!" cried Phil, overwhelmed. "I'll admit you're the greatest sleuth outside of Sherlock, Lucy. Hands up and spare my life!" The girls laughed with the joy of the victorious and Evelyn was about to speak, when Phil called out suddenly: "Jack Turnbull, by all that's lucky! What brought you here?" And he fairly flung himself out of the stopping machine. They had come upon the inn suddenly over the rise in the ground and there, standing against the pillar and nonchalantly surveying the scenery was--Lucile had to rub her eyes to be sure of unimpaired vision. Then, the machine coming to a full stop, the two girls stepped out, while Lucile followed more slowly in their wake, conscious suddenly of dust-stained clothing and rumpled hair. "And I wanted to look my best," she wailed, in truly feminine despair. She had not much time for lamentation, for, through the handshakings of Phil and the ecstatic demonstrations of his cousin, Jack's handsome eyes sought and found hers. "It's a long way to come just to see you," he cried, gripping her hands tightly. "But it's sure worth it," he added, boyishly. Lucile never had longed so for a mirror. She knew her hair was all awry, that her dress was wrinkled and covered with dust, and that her eyes must look funny from crying over Jeanette, and---- "I'm very glad to--to see you," she stammered. "If you will--excuse me just--a minute--I'll change this awful rig--and--and----" She flashed him an uncertain little smile and was gone through the broad doorway, leaving him to gaze after her, mystified and troubled. "It's all right, Jack!" consoled Phil, with the superior knowledge of one who has a sister toward one who hasn't, and therefore knoweth not the ways of woman. "It's her clothes; but wait till she gets all dolled up; there will be a change. To talk of something else, how did you happen to strike the old inn?" and Jack, somewhat enlightened, entered upon the subject with a will, while the two girls followed in the wake of the deserter. They found Lucile standing before the mirror, surveying herself dejectedly. "What did you want to run away for?" charged Jessie. "Jack felt hurt, I know, even though Phil did try to explain." "Just look at me," Lucile began, miserably. "Well, look at you," repeated Evelyn. "What's the matter with you? Your eyes aren't red any more--the wind took that away--and your hair always looks better when it's rumpled----" "And as for your dress," Jessie took it up, "do you think Jack would notice what you had on? He wasn't looking at that----" "Well, how did I know I was beautiful with red eyes and wild hair and a dress that looks as if it were new in the seventeenth century?" cried Lucile, brought to bay. "We'd have told you if you'd asked us," said Jesse, fondly. Lucile threw an arm about each of the girls and drew them before the mirror--two fair heads with a dark one in between. "You're great comforts, both of you. But, girls, I did think I was such a--mess!" she chuckled, happily. CHAPTER XXIV "TWO'S COMPANY" Lucile was happy even before she awoke that morning. The sense of something delightful in store pervaded even her dreams. For a long time she lingered in that delightful interim between waking and sleeping, when the spirit seems to detach itself and fly on wings of golden sunshine through a dewy, scented universe. In her confused imagining she was resting on a rose-colored cloud, while all around her other clouds of varying tints swam and swirled, taking different shapes as they passed her by. "How pretty!" she murmured, and woke with a start to find Jessie regarding her sleepily. "What on earth were you muttering about, Lucy?" cried the latter, fretfully. "I guess you must have been having a bad dream." "No, it wasn't; it was beautiful," she contradicted, putting her hands behind her head and gazing up at the ceiling. "I wish you hadn't waked me up; I was having an awfully good time." "Well, I wasn't," said Jessie, so sourly that Lucile chuckled. "You know, Jessie," she said, "the only time you are ever cross is when you are sleepy--and that's most all the time," she added, wickedly. "What?" said the accused, sitting up in bed and seizing Lucile by the arm. "Unsay those words or I will have your life!" "Now, you know you don't need it half as much as I do," reasoned Lucile. "You have one of your own." Whereupon Jessie laughed, and peace was almost restored when there came a knock at the door. The girls started and looked at each other in questioning bewilderment. "Now what have you been doing?" whispered Lucile. "I knew one of these days you would have the law upon us." "Up to your old tricks again, I suppose," Jessie countered. "But you'd better answer them, Lucy." "Why don't you?" said Lucile; but, receiving no answer, called out in a small voice, as the rap was repeated, "Who is it?" "Aren't you girls ever going to get up?" whispered a gruff voice, which they, nevertheless, recognized as belonging to Phil. "It's almost eight o'clock and you said you'd be down by half-past seven. We've been waiting for half an hour." "All right; we'll be down right away, Phil," said Lucile, jumping out of bed and beginning to dress hastily. "I had no idea it was so late." "You know you won't have time for a walk before breakfast, even if you are down in half an hour--which I doubt," said Phil, pessimistically. "Jack and I are going for our walk, anyway." "Run along," sang Jessie, cheerfully, "and don't hurry back." "You just wait till I get you, Jet," he threatened--Jet being a recent nickname to which he had clung despite Jessie's vehement protestations that the name would fit a Southern mammy a good deal better than it did her, for the simple reason that a darky was jet, but she wasn't nor ever would be. "All right; only see that you pay enough," she assented. "I'm mercenary." "I have always suspected something in your life, woman," he hissed through the keyhole. "Farewell!" And they heard his retreating footsteps on the stairs. The girls laughed merrily, just as Evelyn, fully dressed, emerged from the next room--they always drew lots to see who slept together--looking very sweet and dainty in her spotless white. "Hurry up, you old slow-pokes," she greeted them, gaily. "I've been up for ever so long. It's a wonderful day." "Oh, Evelyn, dear, you look darling in that dress! I've never seen it before!" cried Lucile, enthusiastically. "Turn around in the back. Isn't it cute, Jessie? Goodness! You make me ashamed of myself!" And she began dressing with renewed vigor. "Will you get dressed for me, too, Evelyn?" begged Jessie. "With so much energy flying around loose, I ought to catch some of it, but I don't. Oh, for another hour's sleep!" "You don't have to get up," said Evelyn, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "You can sleep till noon if you want to, while Lucy and I have a look at the Capitol and dine at some nice little cafe----" "Say not another word," commanded Jessie, bouncing out of bed and winding her long braids about her head. "I'd like to see anybody leave me behind. Lucy, do get out of my way--I have to have the mirror some of the time!" Lucile laughed. "All right; I'll fix my hair in Evelyn's room, now she's through, and let you have the whole place to yourself," she said, and gathering up hairpins and ribbons, she ran into the other room to finish up. "What are you going to wear this morning, Lucy?" asked Evelyn, from the doorway, where she could see both girls at once. "The little flowered one, I guess," said Lucile, struggling with her hair. "I haven't worn it yet and Dad raves about it." "I wish you would wear the blue one," Evelyn suggested. "I think it's the prettiest thing you have." "But I've worn it so much," Lucile objected. "I don't want to be known by my dress." With apparent irrelevance, Jessie called out from the other room, "Jack loves blue." Instead of looking confused, as she knew was expected of her, Lucile answered, readily. "I'll wear it then, of course. Phil likes blue, too." Evelyn and Jessie exchanged glances and the latter laughed aggravatingly. "Evelyn, what have you done with my tan shoes?" cried Jessie, searching wildly under the bed. "I'm sure I put them in their place, and they're nowhere to be seen," and she sat back on her heels to glare menacingly about her. "Here they are," called Lucile from the other room. "You left them here last night. Hurry up! I'm all ready now." They were pictures of youthful loveliness as they began to descend the stairs--Evelyn, in her snowy white, looking for all the world like a plump and mischievous little cherub, and Jessie in the palest pink, which set off and enhanced her fairness. But it was to Lucile that all eyes instinctively clung. The soft curls framing the lovely, eager face; the color that came and went with each varying emotion; the instinctive grace with which she carried her proud little head, won her admiration wherever she went. All this, and more, Jack was thinking as he watched the trio descend. He and Phil were occupying a strategic position, from which they could see but not be seen; in fact, they had left the front door slightly ajar with that very end in view. "It seems very strange," Lucile was saying as they reached the foot of the stairs, "that we haven't heard any breakfast bell. If it's as late as the boys say it is, everybody ought to be up." Then she flung open the door and came upon the boys, seated on the railing of the veranda, apparently engrossed in conversation. The girls gasped with amazement at sight of the boys, and the boys gasped with very genuine admiration at sight of the girls. "Wh-what----" began Lucile, bewildered. "I thought you and Phil were going for a walk." "So we are," said Jack, easily. "We were only waiting for you." "Phil," Lucile turned accusingly to her brother, "this is some trick you are trying to play on us. Why isn't there any breakfast and why aren't there any people. Come on, 'fess up!" Jessie threw up her hands wearily. "We ought to know enough to suspect him by this time," she sighed. "But I guess we'll never get over being taken in." "By the position of the sun," quoth Evelyn, "it ought to be about six thirty." "Just about," Lucile corroborated. "No wonder we were sleepy." All this time the boys had been regarding the victims of their deception with an assumption of innocence, made ineffective by the suppressed laughter in their eyes. "Now I guess we're even for all the insults you've heaped upon my unoffending head in days gone by, Jet," Phil gibed. "Routing you up at six o'clock evens up for a lifetime." "You needn't take so much credit to yourself, brother, dear," Lucile countered. "We were going to get up, anyway, weren't we, girls," to which the girls agreed shamelessly. "It's a compliment, anyway," said Jessie, philosophically. "They were so eager for our society that they even had to resort to tricks." "Right you are," laughed Jack. "Now that we have some time, let's make good use of it. Come on; we'll hike," and, taking Lucile's arm, he started down the drive. "Where to?" called Phil. "Makes no difference to me where we go," Jack flung back, recklessly. "Let the girls decide." "Make Lucile take the lead," Jessie suggested. "Maybe she can unearth some more mysteries." "No, she won't; she's through," said Phil, decidedly. "If there are any more clues floating around loose, it's going to be her brother that will find them. I want that distinctly understood." Meanwhile, Lucile and Jack had swung off into a narrow and much more difficult road than the one they were on, and Phil shouted a remonstrance. "Why not stick to the road we know about?" he shouted, and they stopped and looked back. "That looks like a pretty stiff climb." "We know as much about this as we do the other," Jack shouted back, "and this is lots prettier. Come on; if it gets too steep, we can always go back." "No, I guess we'll stick to this one," Phil decided. "It looks like too much work where you are," and the trio walked on. Lucile started to follow, but Jack laid a restraining hand on her arm. "We don't have to follow them," he pleaded. "It's so long since I've seen you, and I haven't been able to talk to you yet." Lucile hesitated; then, "Well, just for a short distance," she conceded. "And then we can meet them on the way back." "Thanks," he said; then added, "I thought you weren't very glad to see me yesterday. You know, I was strongly tempted to take the next steamer across the Atlantic. Haven't you thought of me at all?" It was rather a hard question to ask, and Lucile blushed when she remembered how often she had thought of him and his letters. "Of course," she said; "and I wrote to you----" "Just twice," he finished. "I came very near sending you a box of writing paper--thought there must be a scarcity of it over here." Lucile laughed her gay little laugh. "That would have been a surprise," she chuckled; then, more seriously, "But you know, there are so many people to write to, and it was awfully hard----" "Oh, yes, I know all about it," he broke in. "Terribly busy; couldn't find time, and all that, but if you think very much of somebody, writing isn't a duty; it's a pleasure." "But I didn't say," Lucile began; then, desperately, "Oh, please, can't we talk of something else?" "Certainly," he agreed, and Lucile sensed the hurt in his voice. "We'll talk of anything you please. What plans have you made for the day?" "Why, Dad said he would take us to Paris," said Lucile, instantly sorry for her little speech, yet afraid to say so. "We simply can't wait to get there! Of course you are going with us?" "If I may. I came over with my uncle, you know, and left him in Paris to transact some important business while I hunted you up. It's a good little place--the inn, I mean--and I'm glad your father asked me to stay for the night. It's a charming spot and quite close enough to the city." "That's what Dad thought. Then, after we have lunch at some swell little restaurant--you know----" "Yes, I know," he agreed, laughingly. "Colored lights, and music, orchestra, and that," and he waved his hand expressively. "Uh-huh; and after all that, he's going to drop us at the Louvre--oh, how naturally I speak of it now, and it used to seem like something on a different planet--while he tries to look up M. Charloix--he gave Dad his card on shipboard, luckily." "And then?" he prompted, laughing eyes fixed on the lovely, animated face at his shoulder. "Well, then," she continued eagerly, "then comes the very best of all. We're going somewhere for dinner, then the theater, then dinner again, oh-h----" "Just one glorious day of gladness," he laughed; then, noticing her quickened breath, "We mustn't tire you too much this morning when you have such a long day before you. Suppose we rest a while." "And here is the very place," she agreed, indicating a great, flat rock, shaded by a huge, spreading tree. "Oh, isn't the view wonderful from here? I hadn't noticed it before." "You said it," Jack agreed, stretching his lazy length on the grass at her feet. "The hill has formed a sort of shallow precipice and the lake sure does look great down there." For a few moments they were silent, drinking in the beauty prodigal Nature lavished all about them. Furtively Lucile examined this cavalier of hers. Straight of feature, bronzed from living in the open, eyes so full of fun you had to laugh in sympathy--oh, he was handsome; there was no doubt of that. And his hair, black and wavy and soft--Lucile was sure it was soft---- "I wish you would tell me what you are thinking about," he said, looking up with a quizzical little smile. "You were quiet so long----" "That is unusual," she laughed, trying not to look confused. "Perhaps we had better be starting back," she added; "the others will be looking for us." "Just as you say," he answered for the second time that morning; then, as he helped her to her feet, "I wish we could have this day together; it's been great to be alone with you even for this short time. But I forgot that that subject was unwelcome----" "Oh, please," she begged, laying an impulsive little hand on his arm. "I--I didn't mean to be cross." He caught the little peace-making hand in both his own, laughing down into the prettiest eyes he had ever seen. "That's the best thing I have heard to-day," he exulted. CHAPTER XXV THE THUNDERBOLT Breakfast was over, and the girls had hidden their pretty evening coats under long linen dusters. For, as Mrs. Payton had explained, they would have no time to change for the evening, and they must look their best--to which, needless to say, the girls agreed with enthusiasm. "And we can wear those new motor bonnets we bought in England the day before we sailed," Lucile rejoiced. So the insistent honk of the motor horn found them all cloaked and bonneted, and ready for the day's fun. "Come on," cried Lucile, pulling Jessie away from the mirror by main force; "you look wonderful, Jessie," and down the stairs they ran and out onto the veranda, where a good many of the guests had assembled to see them off. The boys took immediate possession of them and hustled them, willy-nilly, into the car, despite their vehement protestations that they must say "good-byes" to "lots of people." "They'll be here when you get back," Phil argued, "and mother's already been waiting half an hour. Time's up!" And off they went with great noise and laughter and waving of hands to the group on the porch. "Oh, what a perfect day!" cried Lucile, settling back between Evelyn and Jessie in the tonneau. As usual, Mr. Payton was in front with the driver, the three girls were squeezed tightly in the rear seat, Mrs. Payton occupied one of the collapsible seats, and Jack and Phil--well, they were anywhere they could get. Jack had earlier proposed the use of his two-seater for Lucile and himself, but Mr. Payton had demurred, smilingly preferring "safety-first." But now, the floor of the machine being not the most comfortable place in the world, Phil objected. "Say, Dad, why don't you let Jack take Lucy in his car? He's a fine driver, and he'd stick close to us all the time." "I think it would be safe enough," Mrs. Payton added. "Mr. Turnbull says he has driven the car for years." Mr. Payton hesitated, giving the command to slow up, nevertheless. "Well, perhaps it would be better," he agreed at last, but very reluctantly; "if you will promise to stay close to us all the time." This last to Jack. Jack promised readily and happily, and they turned back. A few minutes later they were on their way again, everybody comfortable, everybody happy, especially Lucile and Jack. "I didn't dare hope for this," he whispered, as they followed in the wake of the big touring car. "The hat's class!" he added, admiringly. So the morning was spent in touring the great city. The girls were fascinated by the noise and bustle, the number and magnificence of the public buildings, and, most of all, by the gay little restaurants and cafes lining both sides of the broad boulevards. "Imagine this at night!" said Jack, hugely enjoying Lucile's unaffected delight in everything she saw. "Can't you just see the lights spring up and the theater crowds gathering?" "And we are going to see it all!" cried Lucile, clapping her hands and fairly dancing with delight. "Oh, Jack, I simply can't wait; I can't!" Noon had come and passed. They had luncheon in a wonderful little restaurant near the Rue de la Paix, where they had enjoyed to the full of music and "all that," and now the two automobiles, little and big, drew up before the magnificent piece of architecture, the Louvre. Lucile caught her breath as she and Jack joined the group already assembled on the sidewalk. "The pictures you see give you absolutely no idea of it," she breathed; "it must have been planned by an artist." "Yes; and see how big it is," said Phil. "It's going to take us a long time to explore it." "Explore is hardly the word----" Jessie was beginning, when Evelyn interrupted, "It doesn't make any difference what you call it, but I'm just going to look and look and look till I can't look any more." "Well, that's what it is here for," laughed Mr. Payton; "and now I'll tell you what I am going to do with you young people. When we get you well started on your sight-seeing, Mrs. Payton and I are going to run away to hunt up this tragic hero and reinstate him and his sweetheart, if it lies within our power. We'll be back in an hour or two, and I guess there will be plenty to interest you for that length of time. So, in with you; there's no time to lose," and he propelled his laughing flock before him up the broad stone steps. Once inside, as may be easily imagined, the girls experienced no trouble in finding things to absorb their interest, and it was hard for them to take time to say good-by to their chaperons. The latter laughingly left them to their own devices, feeling sure that they were safe for the time being, at any rate. "Talk about spending an hour here! Why, I could spend a week in just one room!" exclaimed Jessie, after half an hour of blissful wandering. "I never saw so many things all at once in my life." "I suppose you girls have never visited our great museums at home?" Jack questioned. "I have often felt that way myself; a person could spend a month just studying the things in one room, and still not know all he should about them." "By home I suppose you mean New York," said Jessie; then added, demurely, "You forget, sir, that we are simple country maids, who have hardly stepped outside of Burleigh until this summer." "Yes, I guess that's one reason why we like everything so much," said Evelyn, naively. "Oh, the mummies, the mummies! I must see the mummies!" cried Lucile, startling the others with the suddenness of her outburst. "Oh, Jack, please take me to the mummies." "There, there; she shall have her mummies if she wants them," said Jack, soothingly. "If they haven't enough, I'll head an expedition to Egypt for more right away, so don't worry; you shall have all you want." "I wonder what you'd do if I took you up," laughed Lucile, as Jack hurried her off in the direction of the Egyptian section. "Egypt is a long way from here, you know." "I came to Europe for you; Egypt isn't so much further," he teased. A few minutes later Lucile and her friends were standing before the glass cases containing the swathed forms of some of Egypt's ancient rulers, encased in their vividly painted coffins. They could not wonder enough at the miracle that had been wrought--the bodies of men who had ruled mighty Egypt four thousand years ago still in existence for twentieth-century moderns to marvel at! Besides the mummies, there were the numerous curiously wrought vases and utensils that had been placed in the tombs alongside the mummies for their use after death. The little party might easily have spent all their allotted time in the examination of these and other interesting relics, had not Jack hurried them away. "I realize we can't begin to see all there is to see on our first trip," he said, "but we can do our best, anyway." They visited the art gallery, filled with marvelous paintings and sculptures; went through the room where old-time and modern musical instruments were gathered together; and so on through a very world of wonders, of which, as Evelyn plaintively remarked, "they had only time to see enough to make them want to see more." So interested were they that it was four o'clock before they realized that it was long past the time set for Mr. and Mrs. Payton's return. But suddenly this fact dawned on Phil, and he drew Lucile aside and asked her in a whisper what she supposed could be keeping them. Lucile looked worried. "You don't think anything could have happened; an accident, perhaps?" she questioned, anxiously. "The streets were awfully crowded, you know, when we came down." "No, I don't think there has been anything like that; probably it's taken them longer than they thought to look up that Charloix fellow," he answered, trying to be reassuring. "Any way, don't let's say anything to the rest. There's no use making everybody miserable." So half an hour passed; then an hour; and the brother and sister could keep their anxiety to themselves no longer. "What do you suppose can be keeping them?" Lucile wondered, as they all gathered round in anxious conference. "They surely never would have stayed away of their own accord, and it's getting really late." "We've been here about three hours now, haven't we?" Jack added. "And they ought to have been here an hour ago at the latest. Oh, well, we can expect them any minute now." "Suppose we go outside and see if we can find any sign of them," Evelyn suggested. "It's hot in here." So out they went, making a very handsome group as they looked eagerly in all directions, vainly hoping to catch a glimpse of the big gray car. "Phil, I'm terribly worried," Lucile murmured drawing closer to her brother and slipping her hand into his for comfort. Phil squeezed the little hand reassuringly. "Half an hour from now we'll be laughing at our fears," he said, cheerfully, trying hard at the same time to convince himself. "Seems to me there's a good deal more noise than there was, Jack. Why are all those boys running around like chickens with their heads cut off? They all have papers, too." Jessie was frankly puzzled. "They are newsboys, little coz, and they wouldn't be flattered by our comparison. They are yelling what, in United States, would be 'extra!' I'll get a paper and see if I can puzzle out some of the French," and he strolled down to intercept one of the hurrying urchins. Lucile watched him as he sauntered leisurely back, wondering, in her distracted little brain, how he could be interested in anything when he ought to be as anxious as she. "But it isn't his mother and father," she explained to herself. Meanwhile, Jack's puzzled frown had turned to a look of absolute dismay and incredulity as he read. "What is it?" Phil asked. "Everybody seems to be getting more excited and worked up every minute. Look at that group of men over there. Does the paper throw any light on the subject, Jack?" "Well, I should say so!" cried Jack, in huge excitement. "Look here, all of you!" And while they gathered around him, expecting they knew not what calamity, he brokenly read the headlines: "Austria declares war on Servia. Open break with Russia apprehended. Germany sides with Austria----" "War, war?" Phil echoed, dazedly. "Why, it's just as old Major B---- prophesied, only sooner. Can you read any more, Jack?" "Oh, do, do!" urged Lucile, forgetting her anxiety in this overwhelming almost unbelievable news. "There must be more of it you can make out." The familiar honk of an automobile horn jerked their eyes from the paper to the curb, where the big gray touring car had silently drawn up. Lucile snatched the paper none too ceremoniously from Jack's hand and flew to the machine, joyfully relieved to find her father and mother safe and sound. She was closely followed by the others. "Mother, Dad, I'm so glad to see you're back all right; we were awfully worried!" she gasped. "But have you seen the paper? Oh, what does it mean?" "It means," said Mr. Payton, slowly, and with grim emphasis, "it means that the sooner we leave the country behind and set foot on good old United States soil the better it will be for all of us. Come, get in." "But, Dad, how about dinner, and the theater, and all the other things we were going to do?" Lucile wailed. "Have we got to give them all up?" "Better to lose a little pleasure than find ourselves stranded in a country at war and perhaps be unable to leave it. We haven't any time to lose." It was the first time Lucile could remember ever hearing that tone of command in her father's voice, and somehow she knew it must be obeyed without question. Silently, and as yet unable to comprehend the full extent of what had occurred, the party, which had started out so merrily and under such bright auspices in the morning, returned to their hotel. Only once did Lucile shake off her preoccupation long enough to ask for M. Charloix. "Did you find him, Dad? We thought you might have had some trouble, you were so long getting back." "Oh, it did take more time than we expected, but it was worth the trouble when we did find him." In spite of his anxiety, Mr. Payton's eyes twinkled at the memory. "But what did he do?" Phil broke in. "How did he take the news?" "Running, I guess. Before I had half finished explaining to the lawyer, he was off on a dead run for the chateau. Didn't even wait to hear about the will." "Then he doesn't know yet?" Phil cried. "Of course he does, silly," said Lucile, with the air of one who knows all there is to know of such matters. "Don't you suppose Jeanette has told him long before this?" Again Phil retreated gracefully. "Well, you know the lady," he admitted. The rest of the trip passed quickly in visioning the joyful reunion of the two young lovers, and it was not till they were fairly upon the inn that the grim specter of war again intruded itself. They found the same feverish excitement there as elsewhere, for the newspapers had arrived with the mail and the dire news spread like wildfire. As Jack took his leave, saying that he had promised his uncle to spend the night with him, but would return the first thing in the morning, uncle and all, to accompany them home, he drew Lucile aside for a moment. "Mighty hard luck, not seeing the lights, after all," he whispered, "but there may be other times." "I don't know when we will ever get to Europe again, and there was so much to see yet--Switzerland, and Rome, and--and----" She struggled bravely to choke back the tears of bitter disappointment that rose to her eyes. "I--I don't see--why they had to have an old war--anyway," she sobbed. For a moment they were alone, and very gently he took her hand in his. "Don't you worry," he soothed. "Some time, after we get home, perhaps you will come to New York, and then I'll show you Broadway. It's better than anything you can get over here, anyway! Here, I have your handkerchief," and he abstracted a filmy little square, all lace and no center, from his pocket and handed it to her. "Thank you," she said, and smiled uncertainly through her tears. "You must think I'm very childish and foolish--and--everything----" "Especially the last----" "Lucile, Lucile, Dad wants to know where you are." It was Phil's voice. "I'm coming," called Lucile; then, turning to Jack, "Good-by," she murmured, suddenly very reluctant to have him go. "Until to-morrow," he whispered, and was gone. CHAPTER XXVI THROUGH SHROUDING MISTS To the girls, the week that followed seemed like some vivid, disjointed nightmare. They were hurried from Paris to London and from London to Liverpool, along with crowds of worried, anxious Americans, who, like themselves, were fleeing from the unexpected cataclysm. After much difficulty, Mr. Payton finally succeeded in securing two staterooms, second cabin, while Jack and his Uncle were lucky enough to get one not very far removed from our party. "But how are we going to manage with only two cabins for six of us; little ones at that, from your account?" Mrs. Payton protested, in dismay. "Why, the three girls and I will have to occupy one between us!" "Can't be helped," replied Mr. Payton, and then added, with intense earnestness, "I don't believe that one of you realize yet the magnitude of this tragedy that menaces Europe. If you did, you would thank your lucky stars every minute of the day that you have the chance to leave England for our own blessed country, no matter what the cost or inconvenience. Why, within a month this whole continent will be involved in war. There are people now besieging the booking offices by the hundreds who would be glad and thankful to find room in the steerage. If we had not started when we did, we would be among them." Lucile shivered. "Oh, Dad, it does make the thought of home seem good," she said. Their ship was to sail at nine o'clock the following morning, and long before the appointed time the girls were up and ready for the voyage. "What a difference!" mused Lucile, looking wistfully out upon a dreary, leaden prospect. "Even the weather seems to be in sympathy with the country's trouble." Jessie adjusted her hat soberly and thoughtfully before she spoke. "Yes," she said, at last, "one day it's all sunshine and happiness, and the next--oh, girls, I'm absolutely miserable!" "What good does that do?" queried Evelyn, snapping her bag shut with an air of finality. "Besides, you're only breaking one of the camp-fire's strictest laws, you know." "Yes; that sounds all right, but it's pretty hard to be cheerful when everything's going wrong," said Jessie, pessimistically. "I don't notice that anybody looks particularly happy these days, anyway." "That's no reason why we shouldn't be the exception," said Lucile, shaking off the weight of depression with an effort and smiling bravely. "You never know what you can do till you try." "Miss Howland always used to say that. We'll see her and the girls soon, anyway, and that's one big consolation," said Jessie, brightening perceptibly. "Somewhere the sun is shining," began Lucile. "Somewhere the world is gay," added Jessie. Evelyn flung her arms about her friends. "Somewhere the bells are chiming----" "And that's in the U. S. A.," finished Lucile, and they went down laughing. Mr. Payton met them at the foot of the stairs, and the frown on his anxious face turned to a smile as he heard the merry laughter. "It does me good just to look at you," he said, sincerely. It was their third night out. In accordance with the strict orders of the captain, there were no lights on board, for there might be hostile warcraft lurking near. So the ship stole silently as a ghost through the mists that shrouded her. Lucile, Jack and Evelyn were leaning against the rail, talking in subdued tones, awed by the grandeur of the drama being enacted before their eyes. "Your uncle says that people farther inland are having all sorts of trouble trying to get to the coast," said Lucile, "and now I'm beginning to realize the truth of what Dad said about being lucky to get off as we did. Oh, but the cabin is awful!" she sighed, naively. Jack laughed understandingly. "I guess you must be rather crowded." "Oh, but we oughtn't to mind anything now that we're out of danger," Evelyn broke in. "Yes; but I'm not so sure we are out of danger," Jack protested. "The captain's caution seems to show that there is still something to fear." "You mean we might be captured?" Lucile questioned, eagerly. "That would be some adventure. You might almost imagine we were living in the Middle Ages----" "Lucile," Evelyn was starting to remonstrate, when an excited voice whispered, huskily, "So you're here, are you?" and two figures loomed before them out of the mist. "It's I, Phil," said one of them. "We were wondering where you and Jessie had gone," Lucile began. "Did you know we nearly ran down a hostile cruiser? At least, that's what the captain thinks it was," he interrupted, excitedly. "If we had had lights aboard, they'd have caught us sure, take it from me." "Which reminds me," said Phil, "that Mother sent me after you girls; she says it's too damp on deck." Reluctantly, they turned from the spacious deck to the close, stuffy atmosphere of the cabin. Lucile paused at the top step of the companionway to look wistfully up into Jack's sober eyes. "I--I don't want to go down there," she said. "And I don't want you to," he replied. Then, with an earnestness that left no doubt of his sincerity, "Lucile, I'd give a lot right now to have you safe on shore." CHAPTER XXVII HOME The sun rose gloriously golden, dispelling the stubborn mist with an army of riotous sunbeams, that danced and shimmered over the waves in wild defiance of threatening wind and lowering sky. The decks and railings of the steamer, still wet from the clinging mist, shone and gleamed and sparkled in the sun like one gigantic diamond. Even the sailors sang as they worked, and one of them went so far as to attempt a sailor's hornpipe on the slippery deck, to the great amusement of his mates. The girls had slept but little during the long night, and even when, from sheer exhaustion, they had dropped off into a troubled doze, weird, distorted fancies came to torment them into wakefulness, to stare, wide-eyed and fearful, into the inky blackness of the cabin. So it was that, with the first streak of dawn, Lucile, who had been able to lie still no longer, softly rose, fearing to awake the others, and began to dress. "I'm glad you are up, Lucy. I haven't slept all night," whispered Jessie, and the dark circles under her eyes bore unmistakable testimony to the truth of what she said. "I was afraid to get up for fear of waking Evelyn." "You needn't have worried," and Evelyn, who had been lying with her face to the wall, turned over wearily. "I've been afraid to sleep--oh, girls, I've had such awful dreams!" And she covered her face with her hands to keep out the memory. "We'll all feel better when we get on deck," Lucile prophesied, hopefully. "Don't let's talk so loud; Mother is asleep." "No, I'm not," said a tired, fretful voice from the lower berth. "As soon as you girls get through, I'll get up." It seemed to the girls that morning as though they would never finish dressing. Their clothes, their hairpins, even their combs and brushes, evaded them with demoniacal persistence, hiding under things, falling under the berths, rolling into corners, and otherwise misbehaving themselves, until the girls' nerves were all on edge and they were dangerously near the verge of tears. It was Lucile's undying sense of humor that finally saved the day. "I feel just like the Prince in the Prince and the Pauper, when the rat made a bed of him," she said. "Things can't be any worse, so it stands to reason they've got to get better." "Let's hope so, anyway," said Evelyn, halfway between laughter and tears. "I feel just now as though I'd like to hit somebody." "I guess it's time we left, then," laughed Lucile, and, suiting the action to the word, she opened the door and stepped outside, the others following. "If I look the way I feel, I must be a sight," moaned Jessie. "I hope the boys aren't on deck." "Girls, look!" cried Lucile, pointing dramatically to the shaft of sunlight filtering through the companionway. "The sun, the blessed old sun--it's out!" "Wonder of wonders!" cried Jessie, as they rushed up the steep steps. "Let's go look." The sunshine fell on them in a warm, life-giving flood. It brought out the luster in their hair; it gleamed in their eyes; it sent the warm color tingling to their faces; it made them want to sing, to dance, to shout with gladness. "Oh to think that we were growling! To think that we dared to be down-hearted when this was waiting for us!" cried Lucile, joyfully. "We don't deserve our blessings." "Of course you don't," said a cheerful voice behind them. "How's this for a day?" "That's just what we've been raving about," said Jessie, as she hugged her cousin ecstatically. "Hey, look out, young lady!" cautioned Jack, gaily. "Not everybody on board knows we're related, remember." "Well, what they don't know won't hurt them," she retorted. "Besides, I'd hug the ship's cook to-day if he happened to be anywhere around." "I'm flattered!" laughed Jack, just as Phil greeted him with a bang on the shoulder that Lucile declared could be heard in the galley. "Say, let's play 'ring around a rosy,'" he suggested. "We've got to do something to celebrate." "How exciting!" Jessie began, but before she could utter further protest she was jerked into the circle and was soon whirling round madly with the rest until they had to stop from exhaustion and laughter. "It's good we stopped just when we did," said Lucile, peeping around a corner of the cabin. "I see old lady Banks in the distance. 'Pray, and may I inquire the cause of all this frivolity?'" and she imitated the old lady so perfectly that they went off into gales of laughter. "You've sure missed your vocation, Lucile," said Jack, when they stopped to breathe. "That's what we all tell her," agreed Evelyn. "In Burleigh----" "Doesn't it make me homesick, just to think of it!" exclaimed Jessie. "You haven't long to wait now," cried Lucile, springing to her feet and searching the sky-line as though she hoped to see beyond it. "A few hours more, and--the harbor!" Great crowds thronged the deck of the steamer. It had been announced that fifteen minutes more would bring them in sight of land--their land. Eyes, old and young, were straining for that first glimpse of a country never so dear to them as now. "There it is! It's there, it's there!" came in excited tones from different parts of the deck, the shrill tones of women and children mingling with the deeper voices of men. "Yes, now you can see it," Mr. Payton was saying. "That tiny speck--that's America." The word sped like magic through the crowd, breaking the tension. They all went mad with joy. Men shook hands with perfect strangers; women hugged each other, murmuring incoherently, and mothers gathered their little ones to them, weeping openly. "Hello, Lucy; that you? Where did you go, anyway?" said Jessie, surreptitiously wiping her eyes. "I was looking for you all over." "Oh, just around," Lucile answered, waving her hand vaguely, "congratulating everybody. Did you ever see such a wonderful time in all your life, Jessie? One little chap over there, who is crazy to see his father, asked what the noise was all about. 'Is it because I'm going to see Daddy?' he asked, and when his mother couldn't answer him, she was crying so, he put his little face against hers and begged her not to. 'It's just because I'm happy, little lad; so happy,' she said, and--and--oh, why is it that when you're happiest, you have to go and cry?" And she dashed the tears away fiercely. Some hours later the crowd again assembled on deck, everything in readiness to land. The beautiful city towered, majestic and imposing, before them, and the lofty buildings, with the sun full upon them, stood out clear and gleaming against the gray-blue of the sky. The girls, who had been standing close together, drew a sigh and turned to each other with tear-wet eyes and bursting hearts. "Well, girls, have you got any luggage?" came in Phil's matter-of-fact voice. "If you have, hand it over." "I'll take Lucile's," said Jack, and, as she suited the action to the word, he cried joyfully, "We're home, Lucile; we're home!" And Mr. Payton, regarding the little group with loving eyes, added, very reverently, "Thank God!" Transcriber's Notes: Illustrations have been moved where necessary so that they are not in the middle of a paragraph. Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved as printed, along with the author's punctuation style, except as noted below [the correction is enclosed in brackets]. Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without note. Pg. 10: she had reigned supreme in the girl's [girls'] warm hearts Pg. 19: had set the spring world-free.[world free.] Pg. 21: cried Evelyn, hugging Lucile so esctatically [ecstatically] Pg. 21: All right; wait a minute," same [came] the voice Pg. 26: You have probably as much as any of us, and you can [can't] Pg. 42: themselves on the floor at her feet, while other [others] were Pg. 75: Why, its [it's] just as complete and comfortable Pg. 84: But I trangress, [transgress,] "he interrupted himself, Pg. 87: The chauteau [chateau] where she lived Pg. 88: while I was still stunned and stupified [stupefied] Pg. 90: know far too much for your piece [peace] of mind Pg. 93: steady travel would bring Monsieur to the chauteau [chateau] Pg. 97: reasons for our search, Monsieur,' and [said] my big friend Pg. 98: good dinner and a bottle or two of choice Maderia [Madeira] Pg. 98: he had made a flying visit to a little chauteau [chateau] Pg. 117: subject always to the slightly [slightest] word or wish of Pg. 130: "You musn't [mustn't] be too hard Pg. 133: with its dancing eyes and mischevious [mischievous] mouth, Pg. 149: from which the sweet notes had seem [seemed] to come. Pg. 149: five feet away, swaying periliously [perilously] on a slender Pg. 152: Lucille [Lucile] regarded the speaker soberly Pg. 153: It is Jeannette [Jeanette] Renard. Pg. 161: from one to the other in a very esctasy [ecstasy] of reunion Pg. 162: Yes, we promse [promise] not to interrupt Pg. 163: think you could find Henri Charloix for Jeannette [Jeanette] Pg. 170: I'm sure I put them in ther [their] place, Pg. 177: It doesn't make and [any] difference what you call it, Pg. 180: I'll get a paper and see and see [removed 2nd "and see"] Pg. 185: "Whih [Which] reminds me," said Phil, 
22225	----	MARY LOUISE IN THE COUNTRY By Edith Van Dyne Author of "Aunt Jane's Nieces Series" Frontispiece by J. Allen St. John The Reilly & Lee Co. Chicago Copyright, 1916 by The Reilly & Britton Co. _Mary Louise in the Country_ CONTENTS I THE ARRIVAL II THE KENTON PLACE III THE FOLKS ACROSS THE RIVER IV GETTING ACQUAINTED V MARY LOUISE BECOMS A PEACEMAKER VI THE AFTERNOON TEA VII MARY LOUISE CALLS FOR HELP VIII THE RED-HEADED GIRL IX JOSIE INVESTIGATES X INGUA IS CONFIDENTIAL XI THE FATE OF NED JOSELYN XII THEORIES ARE DANGEROUS XIII BLUFF AND REBUFF XIV MIDNIGHT VIGILS XV "OLD SHADOWTAIL" XVI INGUA'S NEW DRESS XVII A CLEW AT LAST XVIII DOUBTS AND SUSPICIONS XIX GOOD MONEY FOR BAD XX AN UNEXPECTED APPEARANCE XXI A CASE OF NERVES XXII INGUA'S MOTHER XXIII PECULIAR PEOPLE XXIV FACING DANGER XXV FATHER AND DAUGHTER XXVI THE PLOT XXVII NAN'S TRIUMPH XXVIII PLANNING THE FUTURE Mary Louise in the Country CHAPTER I THE ARRIVAL "Is this the station, Gran'pa Jim?" inquired a young girl, as the train began to slow up. "I think so, Mary Louise," replied the handsome old gentleman addressed. "It does look very promising, does it?" she continued, glancing eagerly out of the window. "The station? No, my dear; but the station isn't Cragg's Crossing, you know; it is merely the nearest railway point to our new home." The conductor opened their drawing-room door. "The next stop is Chargrove, Colonel," he said. "Thank you." The porter came for their hand baggage and a moment later the long train stopped and the vestibule steps were let down. If you will refer to the time-table of the D. R. & G. Railway you will find that the station of Chargrove is marked with a character dagger ([Picture: Character dagger]), meaning that trains stop there only to let off passengers or, when properly signaled, to let them on. Mary Louise, during the journey, had noted this fact with misgivings that were by no means relieved when she stepped from the sumptuous train and found before her merely a shed-like structure, open on all sides, that served as station-house. Colonel Hathaway and his granddaughter stood silently upon the platform of this shed, their luggage beside them, and watched their trunks tumbled out of the baggage car ahead and the train start, gather speed, and go rumbling on its way. Then the girl looked around her to discover that the primitive station was really the only barren spot in the landscape. For this was no Western prairie country, but one of the oldest settled and most prosperous sections of a great state that had been one of the original thirteen to be represented by a star on our national banner. Chargrove might not be much of a railway station, as it was only eleven miles from a big city, but the country around it was exceedingly beautiful. Great oaks and maples stood here and there, some in groups and some in stately solitude; the land was well fenced and carefully cultivated; roads--smooth or rutty--led in every direction; flocks and herds were abundant; half hidden by hills or splendid groves peeped the roofs of comfortable farmhouses that evidenced the general prosperity of the community. "Uncle Eben is late, isn't he, Gran'pa Jim?" asked the girl, as her eyes wandered over the pretty, peaceful scene. Colonel Hathaway consulted his watch. "Our train was exactly on time," he remarked, "which is more than can be said for old Eben. But I think, Mary Louise, I now see an automobile coming along the road. If I am right, we have not long to wait." He proved to be right, for presently a small touring car came bumping across the tracks and halted at the end of the platform on which they stood. It was driven by an old colored man whose hair was snow white but who sprang from his seat with the agility of a boy when Mary Louise rushed forward with words of greeting. "My, Uncle Ebe, but it's good to see you again!" she exclaimed, taking both his dusky hands in her own and shaking them cordially. "How is Aunt Polly, and how is your 'rheum'tics'?" "Rheum'tics done gone foh good, Ma'y Weeze," he said, his round face all smiles. "Dis shuah am one prosterous country foh health. Nobuddy sick but de invahlids, an' dey jus' 'magines dey's sick, dat's all." "Glad to see you, Uncle," said the Colonel. "A little late, eh?--as usual. But perhaps you had a tire change." "No, seh, Kun'l, no tire change. I was jus' tryin' to hurry 'long dat lazy Joe Brennan, who's done comin' foh de trunks. Niggehs is slow, Kun'l, dey ain't no argyment 'bout dat, but when a white man's a reg'leh loaf eh, seh, dey ain' no niggeh kin keep behind him." "Joe Brennan is coming, then?" "Dat's right, Kun'l; he's comin'. Done start befoh daylight, in de lumbeh-wagin. But when I done ketch up wi' dat Joe--a mile 'n' a half away--he won't lis'n to no reason. So I dodged on ahead to tell you-uns dat Joe's on de way." "How far is it from here to Cragg's Crossing, then?" inquired Mary Louise. "They call it ten miles," replied her grandfather, "but I imagine it's nearer twelve." "And this is the nearest railway station?" "Yes, the nearest. But usually the Crossing folks who own motor cars drive to the city to take the trains. We alighted here because in our own case it was more convenient and pleasant than running into the city and out again, and it will save us time." "We be home in half'n hour, mos' likely," added Uncle Eben, as he placed the suit cases and satchels in the car. Colonel Hathaway and Mary Louise followed and took their seats. "Is it safe to leave our trunks here?" asked the girl. "Undoubtedly," replied her grandfather. "Joe Brennan will doubtless arrive before long and, really, there is no person around to steal them." "I've an idea I shall like this part of the country," said Mary Louise musingly, as they drove away. "I am confident you will, my dear." "Is Cragg's Crossing as beautiful as this?" "I think it more beautiful." "And how did you happen to find it, Gran'pa Jim? It seems as isolated as can be." "A friend and I were taking a motor trip and lost our way. A farmer told us that if we went to Cragg's Crossing we would find a good road to our destination. We went there, following the man's directions, and encountered beastly roads but found a perfect gem of a tiny, antiquated town which seems to have been forgotten or overlooked by map-makers, automobile guides and tourists. My friend had difficulty in getting me away from the town, I was so charmed with it. Before I left I had discovered, by dint of patient inquiry, a furnished house to let, and you know, of course, that I promptly secured the place for the summer. That's the whole story, Mary Louise." "It is interesting," she remarked. "As a result of your famous discovery you sent down Uncle Eben and Aunt Polly, with our car and a lot of truck you thought we might need, and now--when all is ready--you and I have come to take possession." "Rather neatly arranged, I think," declared the Colonel, with satisfaction. "Do you know anything about the history of the place, Gran'pa, or of the people who live in your tiny, forgotten town?" "Nothing whatever. I imagine there are folks Cragg's Crossing who have never been a dozen miles away from it since they were born. The village boasts a 'hotel'--the funniest little inn you can imagine--where we had an excellent home-cooked meal; and there is one store and a blacksmith's shop, one church and one schoolhouse. These, with half a dozen ancient and curiously assorted residences, constitute the shy and retiring town of Cragg's Crossing. Ah, think we have found Joe Brennan." Uncle Eben drew up beside a rickety wagon drawn by two sorry nags who just now were engaged in cropping grass from the roadside. On the seat half reclined a young man who was industriously eating an apple. He wore a blue checked shirt open at the throat, overalls, suspenders and a straw hat that had weathered many seasons of sunshine and rain. His feet were encased in heavy boots and his bronzed face betokened an out-of-door life. There are a million countrymen in the United States just like Joe Brennan in outward appearance. Joe did not stop munching; he merely stared as the automobile stopped beside him. "Say, you Joe!" shouted Uncle Eben indignatly, "wha' foh yo' done sett'n' heah?" "Rest'n'," said Joe Brennan, taking another bite from his apple. "Ain't yo' gwine git dem trunks home to-day?" demanded the old darkey. Joe seemed to consider this question carefully before he ventured to commit himself. Then he looked at Colonel Hathaway and said: "What I want t' know, Boss, is whether I'm hired by the hour, er by the day?" "Didn't Uncle Eben tell you?" "Naw, he didn't. He jes' said t' go git the trunks an' he'd gimme a dollar fer the trip." "Well, that seems to settle the question, doesn't it!" "Not quite, Boss. I be'n thinkin' it over, on the way, an' a dollar's too pesky cheap fer this trip. Sometimes I gits twenty-five cents a hour fer haulin' things, an' this looks to me like a day's work." "If you made good time," said Colonel Hathaway, "you might do it easily in four hours." Joe shook his head. "Not me, sir," he replied. "I hain't got the constitution fer it. An' them hosses won't trot 'less I lick 'em, an' ef I lick 'em I'm guilty o' cru'lty ter animals--includin' myself. No, Boss, the job's too cheap, so I guess I'll give it up an' go home." "But you're nearly at the station now," protested the Colonel. "I know; but it's half a mile fu'ther an' the hosses is tired. I guess I'll go home." "Oh, Gran'pa!" whispered Mary Louise, "it'll never do to leave our trunks lying there by the railroad tracks." The Colonel eyed Joe thoughtfully. "If you were hired by the day," said he, "I suppose you would do a day's work?" "I'd hev to," admitted Joe. "That's why I 'asked ye how about it. Jes' now it looks to me like I ain't hired at all. The black man said he'd gimme a dollar fer the trunks, that's all." "How much do you charge a day?" asked the Colonel. "Dollar 'n' a quarter's my reg'lar price, an' I won't take no less," asserted Joe. Mary Louise nearly laughed outright, but the Colonel frowned and said: "Joe Brennan, you've got me at your mercy. I'm going to hire you by the day, at a dollar and a quarter, and as your time now belongs to me I request you to go at once for those trunks. You will find them just beyond the station." The man's face brightened. He tossed away the core of his apple and jerked the reins to make the horses hold up their heads. "A bargain's a bargain, Boss," he remarked cheerfully, "so I'll get them air trunks to yer house if it takes till midnight." "Very good," said the Colonel. "Drive on, Uncle." The old servant started the motor. "Dat's what I calls downright robbery, Kun'l," he exclaimed, highly incensed. "Didn't I ask de stoahkeepeh what to pay Joe Brennen foh bringin' oveh dem trunks, an' didn't he say a dolleh is big pay foh such-like a trip? If we's gwine live in dis town, where day don' un'stand city prices an' de high cost o' livin' yit, we gotta hol' 'em down an' keep 'em from speckilatin' with us, or else we'll spile 'em fer de time when we's gone away." "Very true, Uncle. Has Joe a competitor?" Uncle Eben reflected. "Ef he has, Kun'l, I ain't seen it," he presently replied; "but I guess all he's got is dat lumbeh-wagin." Mary Louise had enjoyed the controversy immensely and was relieved by the promise of the trunks by midnight. For the first time in her life the young orphaned girl was to play housekeeper for her grandfather and surely one of her duties was to see that the baggage was safely deposited in their new home. This unknown home in an unknown town had an intense fascination for her just now. Her grandfather had been rather reticent in his description of the house he had rented at Cragg's Crossing, merely asserting it was a "pretty place" and ought to make them a comfortable home for the summer. Nor had the girl questioned him very closely, for she loved to "discover things" and be surprised--whether pleasurably or not did not greatly interfere with the thrill. The motor took them speedily along a winding way to Cragg's Crossing, a toy town that caused Mary Louise to draw a long breath of delight at first sight. The "crossing" of two country roads had probably resulted, at some far-back period, in farmers' building their residences on the four corners, so as to be neighborly. Farm hands or others built little dwellings adjoining--not many of them, though--and some unambitious or misdirected merchant erected a big frame "store" and sold groceries, dry goods and other necessities of life not only to the community at the Crossing but to neighboring farmers. Then someone started the little "hotel," mainly to feed the farmers who came to the store to trade or the "drummers" who visited it to sell goods. A church and a schoolhouse naturally followed, in course of time, and then, as if its destiny were fulfilled, the sleepy little town--ten miles from the nearest railway--gradually settled into the comatose state in which Colonel Hathaway and his granddaughter now found it. CHAPTER II THE KENTON PLACE The tiny town, however, was not all that belonged to the Cragg's Crossing settlement. Barely a quarter of a mile away from the village a stream with beautifully wooded banks ran diagonally through the countryside. It was called a "river" by the natives, but it was more of a creek; halfway between a small rivulet and a brook, perhaps. But its banks afforded desirable places for summer residences, several of which had been built by well-to-do families, either retired farmers or city people who wished for a cool and quiet place in which to pass the summer months. These residences, all having ample grounds and facing the creek on either side, were sufficiently scattered to be secluded, and it was to one of the most imposing of these that Uncle Eben guided the automobile. He crossed the creek on a primitive but substantial bridge, turned to the right, and the first driveway led to the house that was to be Mary Louise's temporary home. "This is lovely!" exclaimed the girl, as they rolled up a winding drive edged by trees and shrubbery, and finally drew up before the entrance of a low and rambling but quite modern house. There was Aunt Polly, her round black face all smiles, standing on the veranda to greet them, and Mary Louise sprang from the car first to hug the old servant--Uncle Eben's spouse--and then to run in to investigate the establishment, which seemed much finer than she had dared to imagine it. The main building was of two stories, but the wings, several of which jutted out in various directions, were one story in height, somewhat on the bungalow plan. There was a good-sized stable in connection--now used as a garage--and down among the oaks toward the river an open pavilion had been built. All the open spaces were filled with flowers and ferns, in beds and borders, and graveled paths led here and there in a very enticing way. But the house was now the chief fascination and the other details Mary Louise gleaned by sundry glances from open windows as she rambled from room to room. At luncheon, which Aunt Polly served as soon as her young mistress could be coaxed from her tour of inspection, the girl said: "Gran'pa Jim, who owns this place?" "A Mrs. Joselyn," he replied. "A young woman?" "I believe so. It was built by her mother, a Mrs. Kenton, some fifteen years ago, and is still called 'the Kenton Place.' Mrs. Kenton died and her daughter, who married a city man named Joselyn, has used it as a summer home until this year. I think Mrs. Joselyn is a woman of considerable means." "The furnishings prove that," said Mary Louise. "They're not all in the best of taste, but they are plentiful and meant to be luxurious. Why doesn't Mrs. Joselyn occupy her home this summer? And why, if she is wealthy, does she rent the place?" "Those are problems I am unable to solve, my dear," replied the Colonel with a smile. "When old man Cragg, who is the nearest approach to a real estate agent in the village, told me the place was for rent, I inquired the price and contracted to lease it for the summer. That satisfied me, Mary Louise, but if you wish to inquire into the history and antecedents of the Kenton and Joselyn families, I have no doubt there are plenty of village gossips who can fill your ears full of it." "Dar's one thing I foun' out, seh," remarked Uncle Eben, who always served at table and was not too diffident to join in the conversation of his betters, at times; "dis Joselyn man done dis'pear--er run away-- er dig out, somehow--an' he missus is mos' plumb crazy 'bout it." "When did that happen?" asked Mary Louise. "'Bout Chris'mas time, de stoahkeepah say. Nobody don't like him down heah, 'cause he put on a 'strord'nary 'mount o' airs an' didn't mix wid de town people, nohow. De stoahkeepeh t'inks Marse Joselyn am crooked-like an' done squandeh a lot o' he wife's money befoh he went." "Perhaps," said Mary Louise musingly, "that is why the poor woman is glad to rent this house. I wish, however, we had gotten it for a more pleasant reason." "Don't pay attention to Eben's chatter, my dear," advised her grandfather. "His authority seems to be the ancient storekeeper, whom I saw but once and didn't fancy. He looks like an old owl, in those big, horn-rimmed spectacles." "Dat stoahkeepeh ain' no owl, Kun'l," asserted Uncle Eben earnestly. "He done know all dey is to know 'roun' dese diggin's, an' a lot moah, too. An' a owl is a mighty wise bird, Kun'l, ef I do say it, an' no disrespec'; so what dat stoahkeepeh say I's boun' to take notice of." Mary Louise spent the afternoon in examining her new possession and "getting settled." For--wonder of wonders!--Joe Brennan arrived with the trunks at three o'clock, some nine hours before the limit of midnight. The Colonel, as he paid the man, congratulated him on making such good time. "Ya-as," drawled Joe; "I done pretty well, considerin'. But if I hadn't hired out by the day I'd sure be'n a loser. I've be'n a good ten hours goin' fer them trunks, fer I started at five this mornin'; so, if I'd tooken a doller fer the job, I'd only made ten cents a hour, my price bein' twenty-five. But, as it is," he added with pride, "I git my reg'lar rate of a dollar 'n' a quarter a day." "Proving that it pays to drive a bargain," commented the Colonel. Mary Louise unpacked Gran'pa Jim's trunk first and put his room in "apple-pie order," as Aunt Polly admiringly asserted. Then she settled her own pretty room, held a conference with her servants about the meals and supplies, and found it was then time to dress for dinner. She was not yet old enough to find household duties a bore, so the afternoon had been delightfully spent. Early after breakfast the next morning, however, Mary Louise started out to explore the grounds of her domain. The day was full of sunshine and the air laden with fragrance of flowers--a typical May morning. Gran'pa Jim would, of course, read for an hour or two and smoke his pipe; he drew a chair upon the broad veranda for this very purpose; but the girl had the true pioneer spirit of discovery and wanted to know exactly what her five acres contained. The water was doubtless the prime attraction in such a neighborhood. Mary Louise made straight for the river bank and found the shallow stream--here scarce fifty feet in width--rippling along over its stony bed, which was a full fifty feet wider than the volume of water then required. When the spring freshets were on perhaps the stream reached its banks, but in the summer months it was usually subdued as now. The banks were four feet or more above the rabble of stones below, and close to the bank, facing the river on her side, Mrs. Kenton had built a pretty pavilion with ample seats and room for half a dozen wicker chairs and a table, where one could sit and overlook the water. Mary Louise fervently blessed the old lady for this idea and at once seated herself in the pavilion while she examined at leisure the scene spread out before her. Trees hid all the neighboring residences but one. Just across the river and not far from its bank stood a small, weather-beaten cottage that was in sharp contrast with the rather imposing Kenton residence opposite. It was not well kept, nor even picturesque. The grounds were unattractive. A woodpile stood in the front yard; the steps leading to the little porch had rotted away and had been replaced by a plank-- rather unsafe unless one climbed it carefully, Mary Louise thought. There were time-worn shades to the windows, but no curtains. A pane of glass had been broken in the dormer window and replaced by a folded newspaper tacked over it. Beside the porch door stood a washtub on edge; a few scraggly looking chickens wandered through the yard; if not an abode of poverty it was surely a place where careless indifference to either beauty or the comfort of orderly living prevailed. So much Mary Louise had observed, wondering why Mrs. Kenton had not bought the cottage and torn it down, since it was a blot on the surrounding landscape, when she saw the door open and a man come out. She gave a little gasp of astonishment as her eyes followed this man, who slowly took the path to the bridge, from whence the road led into the village. CHAPTER III THE FOLKS ACROSS THE RIVER Her first glance told the girl that here was a distinctly unusual personage. His very appearance was quaint enough to excite comment from a stranger. It must have been away back in the revolutionary days when men daily wore coats cut in this fashion, straight across the waist-line in front and with two long tails flapping behind. Modern "dress coats" were much like it, to be sure, but this was of a faded blue-bottle color and had brass buttons and a frayed velvet collar on it. His trousers were tight-fitting below the knee and he wore gaiters and a wide-brimmed silk hat that rivaled his own age and had doubtless seen happier days. Mary Louise couldn't see all these details from her seat in the pavilion across the river, but she was near enough to observe the general effect of the old man's antiquated costume and it amazed her. Yes, he was old, nearly as ancient as his apparel, the girl decided; but although he moved with slow deliberation his gait was not feeble, by any means. With hands clasped behind him and head slightly bowed, as if in meditation, he paced the length of the well-worn path, reached the bridge and disappeared down the road toward the village. "That," said a voice beside her, "is the Pooh-Bah of Cragg's Crossing. It is old Cragg himself." Gran'pa Jim was leaning against the outer breast of the pavilion, book in hand. "You startled me," she said, "but no more than that queer old man did. Was the village named after him, Gran'pa?" "I suppose so; or after his father, perhaps, for the place seems even older than old Cragg. He has an 'office' in a bare little room over the store, and I rented this place from him. Whatever his former fortunes may have been--and I imagine the Craggs once owned all the land about here--old Hezekiah seems reduced to a bare existence." "Perhaps," suggested Mary Louise, "he inherited those clothes with the land, from his father. Isn't it an absurd costume, Gran'pa Jim? And in these days of advanced civilization, too! Of course old Hezekiah Cragg is not strong mentally or he would refuse to make a laughingstock of himself in that way." Colonel Hathaway stared across the river for a time without answering. Then he said: "I do not think the natives here laugh at him, although I remember they called him 'Old Swallowtail' when I was directed to him as the only resident real estate agent. I found the old man quite shrewd in driving a bargain and thoroughly posted on all the affairs of the community. However, he is not a gossip, but inclined to be taciturn. There is a fathomless look in his eyes and he is cold and unresponsive. Country life breeds strange characteristics in some people. The whimsical dress and mannerisms of old Mr. Cragg would not be tolerated in the cities, while here they seem regarded with unconcern because they have become familiar. I was rather, pleased with his personality because he is the Cragg of Cragg's Crossing. How much of the original plot of land he still owns I don't know." "Why, he lives in that hovel!" said the girl. "So it seems, although he may have been merely calling there." "He fits the place," she declared. "It's old and worn and neglected, just as he and his clothes are. I'd be sorry, indeed, to discover that Mr. Cragg lives anywhere else." The Colonel, his finger between the leaves of the book he held, to mark the place where he was reading, nodded somewhat absently and started to turn away. Then he paused to ask anxiously: "Does this place please you, my dear?" "Ever so much, Gran'pa Jim!" she replied with enthusiasm, leaning from her seat inside the pavilion to press a kiss upon his bare gray head. "I've a sense of separation from all the world, yet it seems good to be hidden away in this forgotten nook. Perhaps I wouldn't like it for always, you know, but for a summer it is simply delightful. We can rest--and rest--and rest!--and be as cozy as can be." Again the old gentleman nodded, smiling at the girl this time. They were good chums, these two, and what pleased one usually pleased the other. Colonel Hathaway had endured a sad experience recently and his handsome old face still bore the marks of past mental suffering. His only daughter, Beatrice Burrows, who was the mother of Mary Louise, had been indirectly responsible for the Colonel's troubles, but her death had lifted the burden; her little orphaned girl, to whom no blame could be attached, was very dear to "Gran'pa Jim's" heart. Indeed, she was all he now had to love and care for and he continually planned to promote her happiness and to educate her to become a noble woman. Fortunately he had saved considerable money from the remains of an immense estate he had once possessed and so was able to do anything for his grandchild that he desired. In New York and elsewhere Colonel James Hathaway had a host of influential friends, but he was shy of meeting them since his late unpleasant experiences. Mary Louise, for her part, was devotedly attached to her grandfather and preferred his society to that of any other person. As the erect form of the old gentleman sauntered away through the trees she looked after him affectionately and wagged her little head with hearty approval. "This is just the place for Gran'pa Jim," she mused. "There's no one to bother him with questions or sympathy and he can live as quietly as he likes and read those stuffy old books--the very name 'classics' makes me shudder--to his heart's content. He'll grow stronger and happier here, I'm sure." Then she turned anew to revel in the constantly shifting view of river and woodland that extended panoramically from her seat in the pavilion. As her eyes fell on the old cottage opposite she was surprised to see a dishpan sail through the open window, to fall with a clatter of broken dishes on the hard ground of the yard. A couple of dish-towels followed, and then a broom and a scrubbing-brush--all tossed out in an angry, energetic way that scattered them in every direction. Then on the porch appeared the form of a small girl, poorly dressed in a shabby gingham gown, who danced up and down for a moment as if mad with rage and then, observing the washtub, gave it a kick which sent it rolling off the porch to join the other utensils on the ground. Next, the small girl looked around her as if seeking more inanimate things upon which to vent her anger, but finding none she dashed into the cottage and soon reappeared with a much-worn straw hat which she jammed on her flaxen head and then, with a determined air, walked down the plank and marched up the path toward the bridge--the same direction that old Cragg had taken a short time before. Mary Louise gave a gasp of amazement. The scene had been dramatic and exciting while it lasted and it needed no explanation whatever. The child had plainly rebelled at enforced drudgery and was going--where? Mary Louise sprang lightly from her seat and ran through the grounds to their entrance. When she got to the road she sped along until she came to the bridge, reaching one end of it just as the other girl started to cross from the opposite end. Then she stopped and in a moment the two met. "Where are you going?" asked Mary Louise, laying a hand on the child's arm as she attempted to pass her. "None o' yer business," was the curt reply. "Oh, it is, indeed," said Mary Louise, panting a little from her run. "I saw you throw things, a minute ago, so I guess you mean to run away." The girl turned and stared at her. "I don't know ye," said she. "Never saw ye before. Where'd ye come from anyway?" "Why, my grandfather and I have taken the Kenton house for the summer, so we're to be your neighbors. Of course, you know, we must get acquainted." "Ye kin be neighbors to my Gran'dad, if ye like, but not to me. Not by a ginger cookie! I've done wi' this place fer good an' all, I hev, and if ye ever see me here ag'in my name ain't Ingua Scammel!" "Here; let's sit down on the bridge and talk it over," proposed Mary Louise. "There's plenty of time for you to run away, if you think you'd better. Is Mr. Cragg your grandfather, then?" "Yes, Ol' Swallertail is. 'Ol' Humbug' is what _I_ calls him." "Not to his face, do you?" "I ain't so foolish. He's got a grip on him like a lobster, an' when he's mad at me he grips my arm an' twists it till I holler. When Gran'dad's aroun' you bet I hev to knuckle down, er I gits the worst of it." "So he's cruel, is he?" "Uh-huh. Thet is, he's cruel when I riles him, as I got a habit o' doin'. When things runs smooth, Gran'dad ain't so bad; but I ain't goin' to stand that slave life no longer, I ain't. I've quit fer good." "Wherever you go," said Mary Louise gently, "you will have to work for someone. Someone, perhaps, who treats you worse than your grandfather does. No one else is obliged to care for you in any way, so perhaps you're not making a wise change." "I ain't, eh?" "Perhaps not. Have you any other relatives to go to?" "No." "Or any money?" "Not a red cent." "Then you'll have to hire out as a servant. You're not big enough or strong enough to do much, so you'll search a long time before you find work, and that means being hungry and without shelter. I know more of the world than you do, Ingua--what an odd name you have!--and I honestly think you are making a mistake to run away from your own grandfather." The girl stared into the water in sullen silence for a time. Mary Louise got a good look at her now and saw that her freckled face might be pretty if it were not so thin and drawn. The hands lying on her lap were red and calloused with housework and the child's whole appearance indicated neglect, from the broken-down shoes to the soiled and tattered dress. She seemed to be reflecting, for after a while she gave a short, bitter laugh at the recollection of her late exhibition of temper and said: "It's too late to back, down now. I've busted the dishes an' smashed things gen'rally." "That _is_ bad," said Mary Louise; "but it might be worse. Mr. Cragg can buy more dishes." "Oh, he can, can he? Where's the money comin' from?" "Is he poor?" "He ain't got no money, if that's what ye mean. That's what he says, anyhow. Says it were a godsend you folks rented that house of him, 'cause it'll keep us in corn bread an' pork for six months, ef we're keerful. Bein' keerful means that he'll eat the pork an' I gits a chunk o' corn bread now an' then." "Dear me!" exclaimed Mary Louise in a distressed voice. "Don't you get enough to eat?" "Oh, I manages it somehow," declared Ingua, with indifference. "I be'n swipin' one egg a day fer weeks an' weeks. Gran'dad says he'll trim me good an' plenty if he catches me eatin' eggs, 'cause all that our chickens lays he takes down to the store an' sells. But he ain't home daytimes, to count what eggs is laid, an' so I watches out an' grabs one a day. He's mighty cute, I tell ye, Gran'dad is; but he ain't cute enough to catch me at the egg-swipin'." Mary Louise was greatly shocked. Really, she decided, something must be done for this poor child. Looking at the matter from Ingua's report, the smashing of the dishes might prove serious. So she said: "Come, dear, let's go together to your house and see if we can't restore the damage." But the girl shook her head. "Noth'n' can't mend them busted dishes," she said, "an' when Gran'dad sees 'em he'll hev a fit. That's why I did it; I wanted to show him I'd had revenge afore I quit him cold. He won't be home till night, but I gotta be a long way off, afore then, so's he can't ketch me." "Give it up," suggested Mary Louise. "I've come here to live all summer, Ingua, and now that we're friends I'm going to help you to get along more comfortably. We will have some splendid times together, you and I, and you will be a good deal better off than wandering among strangers who don't care for you." The girl turned and looked into Mary Louise's face long and earnestly. Her eyes wandered to her neatly arranged hair, to the white collar at her throat, then down to her blue serge dress and her dainty shoes. But mostly she looked straight into the eyes of her new friend and found there sincerity and evident good will. So she sighed deeply, cast a glance at her own bedraggled attire, and said: "We ain't much alike, us two, but I guess we kin be friends. Other girls has come here, to the rich people's houses, but they all stuck up their noses at me. You're the first that's ever give me a word." "All girls are not alike, you know," responded Mary Louise cheerfully. "So now, let's go to your house and see what damage has been done." CHAPTER IV GETTING ACQUAINTED The two girls had been sitting on the edge of the bridge, but Mary Louise now rose and took Ingua's arm in her own, leading the reluctant child gently toward the path. It wasn't far to the old cottage and when they reached the yard Ingua laughed again at the scene of disorder. "It's a'most a pity Gran'dad can't see it," she chuckled. "He'd be so crazy he'd hev them claws o' his'n 'round my throat in a jiffy." Mary Louise drew back, startled. "Did he ever do that?" she asked. "Only once; but that time near ended me. It were a long time ago, an' he was sorry, I guess, 'cause he bought me a new dress nex' day--an' new shoes! I ain't had any since," she added disconsolately, "so the other day I asked him wasn't it about time he choked me ag'in." "What did he say to that?" "Jes' growled at me. Gran'dad's got a awful temper when he's good an' riled, but usual' he's still as a mouse. Don't say a word to me fer days together, sometimes. Once I saw him--" She suddenly checked herself and cast an uneasy, sidelong glance at her companion. Mary Louise was rolling the washtub back to the stoop. "The only thing that will bother us, Ingua," she said, "is those dishes. Let us try to count the broken ones. Do you know how many there were?" "Sure I do," answered the girl, removing the battered dishpan from the heap of crockery. "Two plates, two cups-'n'-saucers, a oatmeal dish, a bread plate an' the pork platter. Gee! what a smash. One cup's whole-- an' the oatmeal dish. The rest is gone-up." "I'm going to dig a hole and bury the broken pieces," said Mary Louise. "Have you a spade?" "There's an ol' shovel. But it won't do no good to bury of 'em. Gran'dad he counts ev'ry piece ev'ry day. He counts ev'ry thing, from the grains of salt to the chickens. Say, once I tried to play a trick on him. I'd got so hungry fer meat I jes' couldn't stand it, so one day I killed a chick'n, thinkin' he wouldn't miss it. My--my! Wha' d'ye s'pose? Say, ye never told me yer name yit." "I am Mary Louise Burrows." "Highflyin' name, ain't it? Well, I killed thet chick'n, an' cut it up an' fried it, an' et jes' a leg an' a wing, an' hid the rest under my bed in the peak up there, where Ol' Swallertail never goes. All the feathers an' the head I buried, an' I cleaned up the hatchet an' the fry-in'-pan so's there wasn't a smitch of anything left to prove I'd murdered one o' them chicks. I was feelin' kinder chirky when Gran'dad come home, 'cause I thought he'd never find out. But what did the ol' vill'n do but begin to sniff aroun'; an' he sniffed an' he sniffed till he says: 'Ingua, what chick'n did ye kill, an' why did ye kill it?' "'Yer crazy,' says I. 'What're ye talkin' 'bout?' "Then he gives me one sour look an' marches out to count the chick'ns, an' when he comes back he says: 'It's the brown pullet with white on the wings. It were worth forty cents, an' forty cents'll buy ten pounds o' oatmeal. Where's the chick'n, girl?' 'Et up,' says I. 'Yer lyin',' says he. 'Go git it! Hustle!' "Well, I saw his claws beginnin' to work an' it scared me stiff. So I goes to my room an' brings down the chick'n, an' he eyes it quiet-like fer a long time an' then eats some fer his supper. The rest he locks up in the cupboard that he allus carries the key to. Say, Mary Louise, I never got another taste o' that chick'n as long as it lasted! Ol' Swallertail et it all himself, an' took a week to do it." During this recital the broom and mop and scrubbing-brush had been picked up and restored to their proper places. Then the two girls got out the old shovel and buried the broken dishes in a far corner of the yard, among high weeds. Mary Louise tried to get the dents out of the old dishpan, but succeeded only indifferently. It was so battered through long use, however, that Ingua thought the "jams" would not be noticed. "Next," said Mary Louise, "we must replace the broken pieces. I suppose they sell dishes at the village store, do they not?" "That's where these come from--long ago," replied Ingua; "but dishes cost money." "I've a little money in my purse; enough for that, I'm sure. Will you go to town with me?" Ingua stared at her as if bewildered. The proposition was wholly beyond her understanding. But she replied to her new friend's question, saying slowly: "No; I won't go. Ol' Swallertail'd skin me alive if he caught me in the village." "Then I'll go alone; and I'll soon be back, though I must run over to my own house first, to get my purse and my hat. Let me have one of the cups for a sample, Ingua." She left the child sitting on the plank runway and looking rather solemn and thoughtful. Mary Louise was somewhat fearful that she might run away in her absence, so she hurried home and from there walked into the village, a tramp easily accomplished in ten minutes. The store was the biggest building in town, but not very big at that. It was "clapboarded" and two stories in height, the upper floor being used by Sol Jerrems, the storekeeper, as a residence, except for two little front rooms which he rented, one to Miss Huckins, the dressmaker and milliner, who slept and ate in her shop, and the other to Mr. Cragg. A high platform had been built in front of the store, for the convenience of farmer customers in muddy weather, and there were steps at either end of the platform for the use of pedestrians. When Mary Louise entered the store, which was cluttered with all sorts of goods, not arranged in very orderly manner, there were several farmers present. But old Sol had his eye on her in an instant and shuffled forward to wait upon her. "I want some crockery, please," she said. He looked at the sample cup and led her to a corner of the room where a jumble of dishes crowded a single shelf. "I take it you're one o' them new folks at the Kenton Place," he remarked. "Yes," said she. "Thought ther' was plenty o' dishes in that place," continued Mr. Jerrems, in a friendly tone. "But p'r'aps ye don't want the black folks t' eat off'n the same things ye do yerselves." Mary Louise ignored this speech and selected the dishes she wanted. She had measured the broken platter and found another of the same size. Old Sol wouldn't sell a saucer without a cup, explaining that the two always went together: "the cup to hold the stuff an' the saucer to drink it out'n." Without argument, however, the girl purchased what she wanted. It was heavy, cheap ware of the commonest kind, but she dared not substitute anything better for it. Then she went to the grocery counter and after considering what Ingua might safely hide and eat in secret she bought a tin of cooked corned beef, another of chipped beef, one of deviled ham and three tins of sardines. Also she bought a basket to carry her purchases in and although old Sol constantly sought to "pump" her concerning her past life, present history and future prospects, she managed to evade successfully his thirst for information. No doubt the fellow was a great gossip, as old Eben had declared, but Mary Louise knew better than to cater to this dangerous talent. The proprietor accompanied her to the door and she drew back, hesitating, as she observed an old man in a bottle-blue swallowtail coat pace in deliberate, dignified manner along the opposite side of the street. "Who is that?" she asked, as an excuse for not going out until Ingua's grandfather had passed from sight. "That? Why, that's Ol' Swallertail, otherwise Hezekiah Cragg, one o' our most interestin' citizens," replied Sol, glad of the chance to talk. "Does he own Cragg's Crossing?" asked Mary Louise. "Mercy, no! He owned a lot of it once, though, but that were afore my time. Sold it out an' squandered the money, I guess, for he lives like a rat in a hole. Mebbe, though, he's got some hid away; that's what some o' the folks here whispers--folks that's likely to know. But, if that's a fact, he's got a streak o' miser in him, for he don't spend more'n the law allows." "He may have lost the money in speculations," suggested the girl. "Say, ye've hit the nail square on the head!" he exclaimed admiringly. "Them's my own opinions to a T. I've told the boys so a hunderd times, but they can't git it. Wasn't Ol' Swal-lertail hand-in-glove wi' that slick Mister Joselyn, who they say has run away an' left his pore wife in the lurch? That's how you got a chance to rent the Kenton house. Joselyn were slick as butter, an' high-strung. Wouldn't hobnob with any o' us but Ol' Swallertail, an' that's why I think Cragg was investin' money with him. Joselyn he came down here three year ago, havin' married Annabel Kenton in the winter, an' the way he swelled aroun' were a caution to snakes. But the pore devil run his rope an' lit out. Where he skipped to, I dunno. Nobuddy seems to know, not even his wife. But they say she didn't hev enough money left to count, an' by the glum looks o' Ol' Swallertail I'm guessin' he got nipped too." "How long ago was that?" asked Mary Louise. "Some time 'bout last Christmas, they say. Anyhow, that's when his wife missed him an' set up a hunt that didn't do no good. She came down here with red eyes an' tramped 'round in the deep snow askin' questions. But, sakes, Ned Joselyn wouldn't 'a' come to an out-o'-the-way place like this; we didn't never suit his style, ye see; so poor Ann Kenton-- whose misfortun' made her Mrs. Ned Joselyn--cried an' wailed fer a day er two an' then crep' back to the city like a whipped dog. Funny how women'll care fer a wuthless, ne'er-do-well chap that happens to be good-lookin', ain't it?" Mary Louise nodded rather absently. However distorted the story might be, it was curious what had become of Mr. Joselyn. But her thoughts reverted to another theme and she asked: "Hasn't Mr. Cragg a granddaughter?" "Oh, ye've seen little Ingua Scammel, hev ye? Or mebbe just heard tell of her. She's the cussedest little coal o' fire in seven counties! Keeps Ol' Swallertail guessin' all the time, they say, jes' like her mom, Nan Cragg, did afore her. Gosh, what a woman her mom were! She didn't stay 'round here much, but whenever she run out o' cash an' didn't hev a square meal comin' to her, she camped on Ol' Swallertail an' made him board her. Las' time she come she left her young-un-- that's Ingua, ye know--an' the kid's been here ever since; sort of a thorn in the side of ol' Hezekiah, we folks think, though he don't never complain. She ain't more'n twelve or thirteen year old, thet Ingua, but she keeps house fer her gran'dad--what they is to keep, which ain't much. I won't let the kid 'round my store, nohow, 'cause she swipes ev'rything, from dried apples to peanuts, thet she kin lay her hands on." "Perhaps she is hungry," said Mary Louise, defending her new friend. "Like enough. But I ain't feedin' starvin' kids, 'Tain't my business. If Ol' Swallertail don't feed her enough, thet's _his_ lookout. I've warned him if she sets foot in this store I'll charge him ten cents, jes' fer safety, so he keeps her out. He's slick, Ol' Swallertail is, an' silent-like an' secret in all he does an' says; but he's got to git up earlier in the mornin' to git the best o' Sol Jerrems, he er his kid, either one." As Mr. Cragg had now vanished from sight up the street, Mary Louise ventured out and after a brisk walk deposited her basket on the stoop of the Cragg cottage, where Ingua still sat, swinging her feet pensively, as if she had not stirred since Mary Louise had left her. CHAPTER V MARY LOUISE BECOMES A PEACEMAKER "Here are the dishes, exactly like the broken ones," reported Mary Louise in a jubilant tone as she set down her heavy basket. "Let us go in and wash them, Ingua, and put them away where they belong." The child followed her into the house. All her former pent-up energy seemed to have evaporated. She moved in a dull sort of way that betokened grim resignation. "I've be'n plannin' fer months to make a run fer it," she remarked as she washed the new dishes and Mary Louise wiped them dry, "an' just when I'd mustered up courage to do the trick, along comes _you_ an' queered the whole game." "You'll thank me for that, some day, Ingua. Aren't you glad, even now, that you have a home and shelter?" "I ain't tickled to death about it. Home!" with a scornful glance around the room, barren of all comforts. "A graveyard's a more cheerful place, to my notion." "We must try to make it pleasanter, dear. I'm going to get acquainted with Mr. Cragg and coax him to brighten things up some, and buy you some new clothes, and take better care of you." Ingua fell back on a stool, fairly choking twixt amazement and derision. "You! Coax Ol' Swallertail? Make him spend money on _me!_ Say, if ye wasn't a stranger here, Mary Louise, I'd jes' laugh; but bein' as how yer a poor innercent, I'll only say ther' ain't no power on earth kin coax Gran'dad to do anything better than to scowl an' box my ears. You don't know him, but _I_ do." "Meantime," said Mary Louise, refusing to argue the point, "here are some little things for you to hide away, and to eat whenever you please," and she took from the basket the canned goods she had bought and set them in an enticing row upon the table. Ingua stared at the groceries and then stared at Mary Louise. Her wan face flushed and then grew hard. "Ye bought them fer _me?_" she asked. "Yes; so you won't have to steal eggs to satisfy your natural hunger." "Well, ye kin take the truck away ag'in. An' you'd better go with it," said the girl indignantly. "We may be poor, but we ain't no beggars, an' we don't take charity from nobody." "But your grandfather--" "We'll pay our own bills an' buy our own fodder. The Craggs is jus' as good as yer folks, an' I'm a Cragg to the backbone," she cried, her eyes glinting angrily. "If we want to starve, it's none o' yer business, ner nobody else's," and springing up she seized the tins one by one and sent them flying through the window, as she had sent the dishpan and dishes earlier in the morning. "Now, then, foller yer charity an' make yerself scarce!" and she stamped her foot defiantly at Mary Louise, who was dumb with astonishment. It was hard to understand this queer girl. She had made no objection to replacing the broken dishes, yet a present of food aroused her to violent anger. Her temper was positively something terrible in so small a person and remembering her story of how Old Swallowtail had clenched his talon-like fingers and twisted Ingua's arm till she screamed with pain, Mary Louise could well believe the statement that the child was "a Cragg to the backbone." But Mary Louise, although only a few years older than Ingua, had had a good deal more experience and was, moreover, a born diplomat. Astonished though she was, she quickly comprehended the peculiar pride exhibited in a refusal to accept food from a stranger and knew she must soothe the girl's outraged spirit of independence if they were to remain friends. "I guess I'll have to beg your pardon, Ingua," she said quietly. "I was grieved that you are so often hungry, while I have so much more than I need, and the money which I spent was all my own, to do what I liked with. If I were in your place, and you in mine, and we were good chums, as I know we're going to be, I'd be glad to have you help me in any little way you could. True friends, Ingua, share and share alike and don't let any foolish pride come between them." She spoke earnestly, with a ring of sincerity in her voice that impressed the other girl. Ingua's anger had melted as quickly as it had roused and with sudden impulsiveness she seized Mary Louise's hands in her own and began to cry. "I'm as wicked as they make 'em!" she wailed. "I know I am! But I can't help it, Mary Louise; it's borned in me. I want to be friends with ye, but I won't take your charity if I starve. Not now, anyhow. Here; I'll go git the stuff an' put it back in yer basket, an' then ye kin lug it home an' do what ye please with it." They picked up the cans together, Ingua growing more calm and cheerful each moment. She even laughed at Mary Louise's disappointed expression and said: "I don't always hev tantrums. This is my bad day; but the devils'll work out o' me by termorrer and I'll be sweet as sugar. I'm sorry; but it's the Cragg blood that sets me crazy, at times." "Won't you run over and see me?" asked Mary Louise, preparing to go home. "When?" "This afternoon." Ingua shook her head. "I dastn't," she said. "I gotta hold myself in, the rest o' the day, so's I won't fight with Ol' Swallertail when he comes home. Anyhow, I ain't fit t' show up aroun' yer swell place. That black coon o' yers'd turn me out, if he saw me comin', thinkin' I was a tramp." Mary Louise had a bright idea. "I'm going to have tea to-morrow afternoon in that summer-house across the creek," said she. "I will be all alone and if you will come over and join me we'll have a nice visit together. Will you, Ingua?" "I guess so," was the careless answer. "When ye're ready, jes' wave yer han'ker'cher an if the devils ain't squeezin' my gizzard, like they is to-day, I'll be there in a jiffy." CHAPTER VI AFTERNOON TEA Mary Louise, who possessed a strong sense of humor, that evening at dinner told Gran'pa Jim of her encounter with old Mr. Cragg's granddaughter and related their interview in so whimsical a manner that Colonel Hathaway laughed aloud more than once. But he also looked serious, at times, and when the recital was ended he gravely considered the situation and said: "I believe, my dear, you have discovered a mine of human interest here that will keep you occupied all summer. It was most fortunate for the poor child that you interpreted her intent to run away from home and foiled it so cleverly. From the little girl's report, that grim and dignified grandsire of hers has another and less admirable side to his character and, unless she grossly exaggerates, has a temper so violent that he may do her a mischief some day." "I'm afraid of that, too," declared Mary Louise, "especially as the child is so provoking. Yet I'm sure Ingua has a sweeter side to her nature, if it can be developed, and perhaps old Cragg has, too. Do you think, Gran'pa Jim, it would be advisable for me to plead with him to treat his orphaned grandchild more considerately?" "Not at present, my dear. I'll make some inquiries concerning Cragg and when we know more about him we can better judge how best to help Ingua. Are you sure that is her name?" "Yes; isn't it an odd name?" "Somewhere," said the Colonel, musingly, "I have heard it before, but just now I cannot recollect where. It seems to me, however, that it was a man's name. Do you think the child's mother is dead?" "I gathered from what Ingua and the storekeeper said that she has simply disappeared." "An erratic sort of creature, from the vague reports you have heard," commented Gran'pa Jim. "But, whatever her antecedents may have been, there is no reason why Ingua may not be rescued from her dreadful environments and be made to become a quite proper young lady, if not a model one. But that can only result from changing the existing character of her environment, rather than taking her out of them." "That will be a big task, Gran'pa Jim, and it may prove beyond me, but I'll do the best I can." He smiled. "These little attempts to help our fellows," said the Colonel, "not only afford us pleasure but render us stronger and braver in facing our own tribulations, which none, however securely placed, seem able to evade." Mary Louise gave him a quick, sympathetic glance. He had surely been brave and strong during his own period of tribulation and the girl felt she could rely on his aid in whatever sensible philanthropy she might undertake. She was glad, indeed, to have discovered poor Ingua, for she was too active and of too nervous a temperament to be content simply to "rest" all summer. Rest was good for Gran'pa Jim, just now, but rest pure and simple, with no compensating interest, would soon drive Mary Louise frantic. She conferred with Aunt Polly the next day and told the faithful black servant something of her plans. So, when the old cook lugged a huge basket to the pavilion for her in the afternoon, and set a small table with snowy linen and bright silver, with an alcohol arrangement for making tea, she said with an air of mystery: "Don' yo' go open dat bastik, Ma'y 'Weeze, till de time comes fer eatin'. I jes' wants to s'prise yo'--yo' an' dat li'l' pooah girl what gits hungry so much." So, when Aunt Polly had gone back to the house, Mary Louise arranged her table and then stood up and waved a handkerchief to signal that all was ready. Soon Ingua appeared in her doorway, hesitated a moment, and then ran down the plank and advanced to the river bank instead of following the path to the bridge. Almost opposite the pavilion Mary Louise noticed that several stones protruded from the surface of the water. They were not in a line, but placed irregularly. However, Ingua knew their lie perfectly and was able to step from one to another until she had quickly passed the water. Then she ran up the dry bed of the river to the bank, where steps led to the top. "Why, this is fine!" exclaimed Mary Louise, meeting her little friend at the steps. "I'd no idea one could cross the river in that way." "Oh, we've known 'bout that always," was the reply. "Ned Joselyn used to come to our house ever so many times by the river stones, to talk with Ol' Swallertail, an' Gran'dad used to come over here, to this same summer-house, an' talk with Joselyn." Mary Louise noticed that the old gingham dress had been washed, ironed and mended--all in a clumsy manner. Ingua's blond hair had also been trained in awkward imitation of the way Mary Louise dressed her own brown locks. The child, observing her critical gaze, exclaimed with a laugh: "Yes, I've slicked up some. No one'll see me but you, will they?" she added suspiciously. "No, indeed; we're to be all alone. How do you feel to-day, Ingua?" "The devils are gone. Gran'dad didn't 'spicion anything las' night an' never said a word. He had one o' his dreamy fits an' writ letters till long after I went to bed. This mornin' he said as ol' Sol Jerrems has raised the price o' flour two cents, so I'll hev to be keerful; but that was all. No rumpus ner anything." "That's nice," said Mary Louise, leading her, arm in arm, to the pavilion. "Aren't you glad you didn't run away?" Ingua did not reply. Her eyes, big and round, were taking in every detail of the table. Then they wandered to the big basket and Mary Louise smiled and said: "The table is set, as you see, but I don't know what we're to have to eat. I asked Aunt Polly to put something in the basket, as I was going to have company, and I'm certain there'll be _enough_ for two, whatever it's like. You see, this is a sort of surprise party, for we won't know what we've got until we unpack the basket." Ingua nodded, much interested. "Ye said 'tea,'" she remarked, "an' I hain't tasted tea sence Marm left us. But I s'pose somethin' goes with tea?" "Always. Tea means a lunch, you know, and I'm very hungry because I didn't eat much luncheon at noon. I hope you are hungry, too, Ingua," she added, opening the basket and beginning to place its contents upon the table. Ingua may have considered a reply unnecessary, for she made none. Her eyes were growing bigger every moment, for here were dainty sandwiches, cakes, jelly, a pot of marmalade, an assortment of cold meats, olives, Saratoga chips, and last of all a chicken pie still warm from the oven--one of those chicken pies that Aunt Polly could make as no one else ever made them. Even Mary Louise was surprised at the array of eatables. It was a veritable feast. But without comment she made the tea, the water being already boiling, and seating Ingua opposite her at the table she served the child as liberally as she dared, bearing in mind her sensitiveness to "charity." But Ingua considered this a "party," where as a guest she was entitled to all the good things, and she ate with a ravenous haste that was pitiful, trying the while not to show how hungry she was or how good everything tasted to her. Mary Louise didn't burden her with conversation during the meal, which she prolonged until the child positively could eat no more. Then she drew their chairs to a place where they had the best view of the river and woodland--with the old Cragg cottage marring the foreground--and said: "Now we will have a good, long talk together." Ingua sighed deeply. "Don't we hev to do the dishes?" she asked. "No; Aunt Polly will come for them, by and by. All we have to do now is to enjoy your visit, which I hope you will repeat many times while I am living here." Again the child sighed contentedly. "I wish ye was goin' ter stay always," she remarked. "You folks is a sight nicer'n that Joselyn tribe. They kep' us stirred up a good deal till Ned--" She stopped abruptly. "What were the Joselyns like?" inquired Mary Louise, in a casual tone that was meant to mask her curiosity. "Well, that's hard to say," answered Ingua thoughtfully. "Ol' Mis' Kenton were a good lady, an' ev'rybody liked her; but after she died Ann Kenton come down here with a new husban', who were Ned Joselyn, an' then things began to happen. Ned was slick as a ban'box an' wouldn't hobnob with nobody, at first; but one day he got acquainted with Ol' Swallertail an' they made up somethin' wonderful. I guess other folks didn't know 'bout their bein' so close, fer they was sly 'bout it, gen'rally. They'd meet in this summer-house, or they'd meet at our house, crossin' the river on the steppin'-stones; but when Ned came over to us Gran'dad allus sent me away an' said he'd skin me if I listened. But one day--No, I mus'n't tell that," she said, checking herself quickly, as a hard look came over her face. "Why not?" softly asked Mary Louise. "'Cause if I do I'll git killed, that's why," answered the child, in a tone of conviction. Something in her manner startled her hearer. "Who would kill you, Ingua?" she asked. "Gran'dad would." "Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't do that, whatever you said." "Ye don't know Gran'dad, Mary Louise. He'd as lief kill me as look at me, if I give him cause to." "And he has asked you not to talk about Mr. Joselyn?" "He tol' me ter keep my mouth shet or he'd murder me an' stick my body in a hole in the yard. An' he'd do it in a minute, ye kin bank on that." "Then," said Mary Louise, looking troubled, "I advise you not to say anything he has forbidden you to. And, if anything ever happens to you while I'm here, I shall tell Gran'pa Jim to have Mr. Cragg arrested and put in prison." "Will ye? Will ye--honest?" asked the girl eagerly. "Say! that'll help a lot. If I'm killed, I'll know I'll be revenged." So tragic was her manner that Mary Louise could have laughed outright had she not felt there was a really serious foundation for Ingua's fears. There was something about the silent, cold-featured, mysterious old man that led her to believe he might be guilty of any crime. But, after all, she reflected, she knew Mr. Cragg's character only from Ingua's description of it, and the child feared and hated him. "What does your grandfather do in his office all day?" she inquired after a long pause. "Writes letters an' reads the ones he gits, I guess. He don't let me go to his office." "Does he get many letters, then?" "Heaps an' heaps of 'em. You ask Jim Bennett, who brings the mail bag over from the station ev'ry day." "Is Jim Bennett the postman?" "His wife is. Jim lugs the mail 'tween the station an' his own house-- that's the little white house next the church--where his wife, who's deef-'n'-dumb, runs the postoffice. I know Jim. He says there's 'bout six letters a year for the farmers 'round here, an' 'bout one a week for Sol Jerrems--which is mostly bills--an' all the rest belongs to Ol' Swallertail." Mary Louise was puzzled. "Has he a business, then?" she asked. "Not as anybody knows of." "But why does he receive and answer so many letters?" "Ye'll hev to guess. I've guessed, myself; but what's the use? If he was as stingy of postage stamps as he is of pork an' oatmeal, he wouldn't send a letter a year." Mary Louise scented a mystery. Mysteries are delightful things to discover, and fascinating to solve. But who would have thought this quiet, retired village harbored a mystery? "Does your grandfather ever go away from here? Does he travel much?" was her next question. "He ain't never been out of Cragg's Crossing sence I've knowed him." "Really," said Mary Louise, "it is perplexing." Ingua nodded. She was feeling quite happy after her lunch and already counted Mary Louise a warm friend. She had never had a friend before, yet here was a girl of nearly her own age who was interested in her and her history and sweetly sympathetic concerning her woes and worries. To such a friend Ingua might confide anything, almost; and, while she was not fully aware of that fact just now, she said impulsively: "Without tellin' what'd cost me my life, or lettin' anybody know what's become of Ned Joselyn, I'll say they was money--lots o' money!--passed atween him an' ol' Swallertail. Sometimes the heap went to one, an' sometimes to the other; I seen it with my own eyes, when Gran'dad didn't know I was spyin'. But it didn't stick to either one, for Ned was--" She stopped short, then continued more slowly: "When Ned dis'peared, he'd spent all his own an' his wife's money, an' Ol' Swallertail ain't got enough t' live decent." "Are you sure of that, Ingua?" "N-o, I ain't sure o' noth'n. But he don't spend no money, does he?" "For stamps," Mary Louise reminded her. Then the child grew silent and thoughtful again. Mary Louise, watching the changing expressions on her face, was convinced she knew more of the mystery than she dared confide to her new friend. There was no use trying to force her confidence, however; in her childish way she was both shrewd and stubborn and any such attempt would be doomed to failure. But after quite a period of silence Mary Louise asked gently: "Did you like Mr. Joselyn, Ingua?" "Sometimes. Only when--" Another self-interruption. She seemed often on the point of saying something her better judgment warned her not to. "Sometimes Ned were mighty good to me. Sometimes he brought me candy, when things was goin' good with him. Once, Mary Louise, he kissed me, an' never wiped off his mouth afterwards! Y-e-s, I liked Ned, 'ceptin' when--" Another break. "I thought Ned was a pretty decent gink." "Where did you learn all your slang, dear?" "What's slang?" "Calling a man a 'gink,' and words like that." "Oh. Marm was full o' them words," she replied with an air of pride. "They seem to suit things better than common words; don't you think so, Mary Louise?" "Sometimes," with an indulgent smile. "But ladies do not use them, Ingua, because they soil the purity of our language." "Well," said the girl, "it'll be a long time, yit, afore I'm a lady, so I guess I'll talk like Marm did. Marm weren't a _real_ lady, to my mind, though she claimed she'd show anybody that said she wasn't. Real ladies don't leave the'r kids in the clutches of Ol' Swallertails." Mary Louise did not think it wise to criticize the unknown Mrs. Scammel or to allow the woman's small daughter to do so. So she changed the subject to more pleasant and interesting topics and the afternoon wore speedily away. Finally Ingua jumped up and said: "I gotta go. If Gran'dad don't find supper ready there'll be another rumpus, an' I've been so happy to-day that I want to keep things pleasant-like." "Won't you take the rest of these cakes with you?" urged Mary Louise. "Nope. I'll eat one more, on my way home, but I ain't one o' them tramps that wants food pushed at 'em in a bundle. We ain't got much to home, but what we got's ours." A queer sort of mistaken pride, Mary Louise reflected, as she watched the girl spring lightly over the stepping-stones and run up the opposite bank. Evidently Ingua considered old Mr. Cragg her natural guardian and would accept nothing from others that he failed to provide her with. Yet, to judge from her speech, she detested her grandfather and regarded him with unspeakable aversion. CHAPTER VII MARY LOUISE CALLS FOR HELP All the queer hints dropped by the girl that afternoon, concerning the relations between Mr. Joselyn and Mr. Cragg, were confided by Mary Louise to her Gran'pa Jim that evening, while the old Colonel listened with grave interest. "I'm sure there is some mystery here," declared Mary Louise, "and maybe we are going to discover some dreadful crime." "And, on the contrary," returned Colonel Hathaway, "the two men may have been interested together in some business venture that resulted disastrously and led Mr. Joselyn to run away to escape his wife's reproaches. I consider that a more logical solution of your mystery, my dear." "In that case," was her quick reply, "why is Mr. Cragg still writing scores of letters and getting bags full of replies? I don't believe that business deal--whatever it was--is ended, by any means. I think that Ned Joselyn and Old Swallowtail are still carrying it on, one in hiding and the other here--and to be here is to be in hiding, also. And it isn't an honest business, Gran'pa Jim, or they wouldn't be so secret about it." The Colonel regarded his young granddaughter with surprise. "You seem quite logical in your reasoning, my dear," he confessed, "and, should your conjectures prove correct, these men are using the mails for illegal purposes, for which crime the law imposes a severe penalty. But consider, Mary Louise, is it our duty to trail criminals and through our investigations bring them to punishment?" Mary Louise took time to consider this question, as she had been advised to do. When she replied she had settled the matter firmly in her mind. "We are part of the Government, Gran'pa Jim," she asserted. "If we believe the Government is being wronged--which means the whole people is being wronged--I think we ought to uphold the law and bring the wrong-doer to justice." "Allowing that," said her grandfather, "let us next consider what grounds you have for your belief that wrong is being committed. Are they not confined to mere suspicions? Suspicions aroused by the chatter of a wild, ungoverned child? Often the amateur detective gets into trouble through accusing the innocent. Law-abiding citizens should not attempt to uncover all the wrongs that exist, or to right them. The United States Government employs special officers for such duties." Mary Louise was a bit nettled, failing to find at the moment any argument to refute this statement. She was still convinced, however, that the mystery was of grave importance and she believed it would be intensely exciting to try to solve it. Gran'pa Jim was not acquainted with Ingua Scammel and had not listened to the girl's unconscious exposures; so, naturally, he couldn't feel just as Mary Louise did about this matter. She tried to read, as her grandfather, considering the conversation closed, was now doing. They sat together by the lamplight in the cozy sitting room. But her thoughts constantly reverted to "Old Swallowtail" and to Ingua. At length she laid down her book and said: "Gran'pa, would you mind if I invited Josie O'Gorman to come here and make me a visit?" He gave her a curious look, which, soon melted into an amused smile. "Not at all, my dear. I like Josie. But I can see by your desire to introduce a female detective on the scene that you cannot abandon your suspicion of Mr. Cragg." "I want to save Ingua, if I can," replied the girl earnestly. "The poor little thing can't go on leading such a life without its ruining all her future, even if her grandfather's brutal threats are mere bluff. And Josie isn't a female detective, as yet; she is only training to be one, because her father has won fame in that profession." "Josie O'Gorman," said the Colonel, meditatively, "is a wonderfully clever girl. I believe she is better, even now, than a score of average male sleuths. Perhaps it will be a desirable thing for her to come here, for she will be shrewd enough to decide, in a short time, whether or not your suspicions are justified. In the latter case, you will be relieved of your worries. Will you abide by Josie's decision?" "Will you, Gran'pa Jim?" "I have considerable confidence in the girl's judgment." "Then I will write to her at once." She went to her desk and wrote the following note: Dear Josie: We are at the dropping-off-place of the world, a stagnant little village of a dozen houses set in an oasis that is surrounded by the desert of civilization. And here, where life scarcely throbs, I've scented a mystery that has powerfully impressed me and surely needs untangling. It will be good practice for you, Josie, and so I want you to pack up at once and come to us on a good long visit. We're delightfully situated and, even if the mystery dissolves into thin air under the sunshine of your eyes, I know you will enjoy the change and our dreamy, happy existence in the wilds of nowhere. Gran'pa Jim wants you, too, as he thinks your coming will do me good, and his judgment is never at fault. So drop me a postal to say when you will arrive and I will meet you at Chargrove Station with our car. Affectionately your friend, Mary Louise Burrows. Gran'pa Jim read this note and approved it, so next morning Mary Louise walked to the village and deposited it in the postoffice, which located in the front room of Jim Bennett's little residence and was delightfully primitive. Jim was "jus' makin' up the mail bag," he said, so her letter was in time to catch the daily train and would be in Washington, where Josie lived, in the quickest possible time. Josie O'Gorman was about the same age as Mary Louise and she was the only child of John O'Gorman, famed as one of the cleverest detectives in the Secret Service. Josie was supposed to have inherited some of her father's talent; at least her fond parent imagined so. After carefully training the child almost from babyhood, O'Gorman had tested Josie's ability on just one occasion, when she had amply justified her father's faith in her. This test had thrown the girl into association with Mary Louise and with Colonel Hathaway, both of whom greatly admired her cleverness, her clear head and shrewd judgment. Mary Louise, especially, had developed a friendship for the embryo girl detective and had longed to know her more intimately. So she congratulated herself on the happy thought of inviting Josie to Cragg's Crossing and was delighted that the vague mystery surrounding the Cragg family offered an adequate excuse to urge the girl to come to her. There seemed nothing in the way of such a visit, for Officer O'Gorman, however pleased he might be at his daughter's success in her first detective case, declared Josie yet too young to enter active service and insisted that she acquire further age and experience before he would allow her to enter her chosen profession in earnest. "One swallow," he said, "doesn't make a summer, and the next bird you fly might prove a buzzard, my dear. Take your time, let your wits mature, and you'll be the better for it in the end." So Mary Louise waited impatiently for Josie's reply, meantime seeing as much of Ingua as she could and trying to cement the growing friendship between them. Ingua responded eagerly to her advances and as old Mr. Cragg was away from home the greater part of the day there was much crossing of the stepping-stones by both girls and more than one "afternoon tea" in the pavilion. "Do you know," said Ingua one day, in confidential mood, "I haven't had the devils since that time I started to run away and you stopped me? P'r'aps it's because I'm not as hungry as I used to be; but, anyhow, I'm glad I stayed. Gran'dad's been good, too, 'though he's got the 'wakes' ag'in." "What are the 'wakes'?" asked Mary Louise. "Can't sleep nights. Goes t' bed on time, ye know, but gits up ag'in an' dresses himself an' walks." "In the house?" "No, walks out o' doors. Sometimes he'll come in at jes' daylight; sometimes not till break-fas' is ready." "And doesn't that make him cross, Ingua?" "Not a bit. It seems to chirk him up. Yist'day mornin', when he come in, he was feelin' so chipper he give me a cent, an' told me to buy somethin' useful. I guess that's the first cent he ever give me. I've _took_ money o' his'n, but he never _give_ me none afore." "Oh, Ingua! I hope you haven't stolen money?" "Nope. Jes' took it. It ain't easy, 'cause he knows ev'ry cent he's got, an' it ain't often he leaves it where I kin git it. P'r'aps he knows it's me, but when I lie out of it he can't do noth'n' but growl-- an' growlin' don't hurt any." Mary Louise was greatly distressed. This reckless disregard of property rights was of course the direct result of the child's environment, but must be corrected. Ingua resented direct chiding and it was necessary to point out to her the wickedness of stealing in the gentlest possible manner. "How much money have you taken from your grandfather?" she asked. "Oh, not much. A nickel, now an' then. He wouldn't stan' for losin' any more, ye see. P'r'aps, altogether, I've swiped twenty-five cents. But once Ned Joselyn give me a dollar, an' Ol' Swallertail knowed it, an' made me give it to him to save for me. That were the last I ever saw o' that dollar, Mary Louise, so I ain't even with Gran'dad yet." "Do you think," remarked Mary Louise, "there is ever any excuse for stealing?" The girl stared at her, coloring slightly. "Do ye mean Gran'dad, er _me?_" "I mean you. He didn't steal your dollar, dear; he merely took it so you wouldn't spend it foolishly." "An' I merely took them nickels so's I could, spend 'em foolish. There's no fun in spendin' money, seems to me, unless you squander it reckless. That's what I done with them nickels. Candy an' chewin' gum tastes better when you know it's swiped." Mary Louise sighed. It was so hard to show little Ingua the error of her ways. "As fer stealin'--out an' out _stealin',"_ continued the girl, with a proud toss of her head, "we Craggs ain't never took noth'n' that don't belong to us from nobody. What a Cragg takes from a Cragg is a Cragg's business, an' when we takes someth'n' from somebody else I'll ask ye to tell me 'bout it." "Where are you going, Ingua?" "Home." "You're not offended, I hope." "No, but I got work to do. I ain't done my breakfas' dishes yet." Mary Louise musingly watched the girl cross the river. On the opposite bank she turned to wave her hand and then ran into the cottage. Ingua's code of honor was a peculiar one. Her pride in the Craggs seemed unaccountable, considering she and her grandfather were the only two of the family in existence--except that wandering mother of hers. But the recent conversation had uncovered a new phase of the mystery. Old Swallowtail was nervous over something; he could not sleep at night, but roamed the roads while others with clear consciences slumbered. There must be some powerful reason to account for the old man's deserting his bed in this manner. What could it be? When she walked over to the postoffice the girl found the long-looked-for letter from Josie O'Gorman. It said: Dear Mary Louise: How good you are! I positively need a change of scene and a rest, so I'm coming. To-morrow--by the train to Chargrove. The mystery you hint at will help me to rest. Dad doesn't want me to grow rusty and he has some odd theories I'd like to work out. I haven't an idea what your "mystery" is, of course, but if it enables me to test any one of the O'Gorman theories (a theory is merely a stepping-stone to positive information) I shall bless you forever. And that reminds me: I'm coming as a sewing girl, to help you fix over some summer gowns. You're anxious to give me the work, because I need it, but as we're rather chummy I'm half servant and half companion. (I hate sewing and make the longest stitches you ever saw!) Moreover, I'm Josie Jessup. I'm never an O'Gorman while I'm working on a mystery; it wouldn't do at all. Explain this to dear old Gran'pa Jim. Between the receipt of this script and to-morrow's train jot down in regular order everything you know concerning the aforesaid mystery. Make it brief; no speculations or suspicions, just facts. Then I won't waste any time getting busy. Can you hear the rumble of my train? While you're reading this I'm on my way! Josie "Good!" murmured Mary Louise, as she folded the letter. "I feel better already. Whatever the mystery of Old Swallowtail may be, Josie is sure to solve it." CHAPTER VIII THE RED-HEADED GIRL Sol Jerrems the storekeeper, coming in from the back room where he had been drawing molasses for Farmer Higgins, found perched on top the sugar-barrel a chunky, red-haired, freckle-faced young girl whom he had never seen before. She seemed perfectly at home in his store and sat with her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms encircling her legs, eyeing soberly the two or three farmers who had come to the Crossing to "trade." "If the head o' thet bar'l busts in, you'll be a fine mess," remarked Sol. The girl nodded but did not move from her position. Sol waited on his customers, at times eyeing the strange girl curiously. When the farmers had gone with their purchases he approached the barrel and examined his visitor with speculative care. "Want anything?" "Spool o' red cotton, number thirty." "Ain't got no red." "Green'll do." "Ain't got green. Only black an' white." "All right." "Want black or white?" "No." Sol leaned against the counter. He wasn't busy; the girl seemed in no hurry; it was a good time to gossip and find out all about the strange creature perched on his sugar-barrel. "Where'd ye come from?" he inquired. "City," tossing her head toward the north. "What for?" "To do sewing for the Hathaways folks. Mary Louise, you know." Sol pricked up his ears. The Hathaways were newcomers, about whom little was known. He wanted to know more, and here was a girl who could give him inside information. "Knowed the Hathaways in the city?" "Kind o'. Sewed on Mary Louise's spring dresses. How long you been here?" "Me? Why, I come here more'n twenty years ago. What does the Colonel do in the city?" "Never asked him. Why do they call this place Cragg's Crossing?" "I didn't name it. S'pose 'cause ol' Cragg used to own all the land, an' the roads crossed in the middle o' his farm." "What Cragg was that?" "Eh? Why, father to Ol' Swallertail. Ever seen Ol' Swallertail?" "No." "Wal, he's a sight fer sore eyes. First time anybody sees him they either laughs er chokes. The movin'-pictur' folks would go crazy over him. Ever seen a movin'-pictur'?" "Yes." "I did, too, when I was in the city las' year. Ol' Swallertail 'minds me of 'em. Goes 'round dressed up like George Washington when he crossed the Delaware." "Crazy?" "That way, yes; other ways, not a bit. Pretty foxy gent, is Ol' Swallertail." "Why?" Sol hesitated, reflecting. These questions were natural, in a stranger, but to explain old Hezekiah Cragg's character was not a particularly easy task. "In the fust place, he drives a hard bargain. Don't spend money, but allus has it. Keeps busy, but keeps his business to himself." "What is his business?" "Didn't I say he kep' it to himself?" "But he owns all the land around here." "Not now. He owns jest a half-acre, so far's anybody knows, with a little ol' hut on it thet a respect'ble pig wouldn't live in. It's jes' acrost the river from the place where you're workin'." "Then what has become of his land?" "It's stayed jes' where it allus was, I guess," with a chuckle at his own wit, "but Ol' Swaller-tail sold it, long ago. Ol' Nick Cragg, his father afore him, sold a lot of it, they say, and when he died he left half his ready money an' all his land to Hezekiah--thet's Ol' Swallertail--an' the other half o' his money to his second son, Peter." "Where is Peter?" asked the girl quickly. "Went back to Ireland, years ago, and never's be'n heard of since. The Craggs was Irish afore they got to be Americans, but it seems Pete hankered fer th' Ol' Sod an' quit this country cold." "So the Craggs are Irish, eh?" mused the girl in a casual tone. And then she yawned, as if not greatly interested. But Sol was interested, so long as he was encouraged to talk. "I be'n told, by some o' the ol' settlers," he went on, "thet ol' Nick Cragg were born in Ireland, was a policeman in New York--where he made his first money--an' then come here an' bought land an' settled down. They ain't much difference 'tween a policeman an' a farmer, I guess. If the story's true, it proves Ol' Swallertail has Irish blood in him yit, though fer that matter he's lived here long enough to be jes' American, like the rest of us. After he come inter the property he gradual-like sold off all the land, piece by piece, till he ain't got noth'n left but thet half-acre. Sold most of it afore I come here, an' I be'n at the Crossing more'n twenty year." "If the land brought a fair price, Old Swallowtail ought to be rich," remarked the girl. "Then he ain't what he orter be. Folks says he specilated, years ago, an' got stung. I know him pretty well--as well as anybody knows him-- an' my opinion is he ain't got more'n enough to bury him decent." "Thought you said he drives a hard bargain?" "Young woman," said Sol earnestly, "the man don't live as kin make money specilatin'. The game's ag'in him, fust an' last, an' the more brains he's got the harder he'll git stung." "But I thought you said Mr. Cragg has a business." "An' I said nobody knows what it is. When Ned Joselyn used to come here the two was thick, an' Ned were a specilater through an' through. Some thinks it was him as got Cragg's wad, an' some says he lost it all, an' his wife's money, too. Anyhow, Joselyn lit out fer good an' when he were gone Ann Kenton cried like a baby an' ol' Swallertail 's been dumb as a clam ever since." "What makes you think Cragg has a business?" persisted the girl. "He keeps an office, over the store here, an' he has a sign on the door thet says 'Real Estate.' But he ain't got no real estate, so that ain't why he shuts himself in the office day after day--an' even Sundays. He's got some other business. Ev'ry night, afore he goes home, he takes a bunch o' letters to Mrs. Bennett's postoffice, an' ev'ry mornin' he goes there an' gits another bunch o' letters that's come to him in the mail. If that don't mean some sort o' business, I don't know what'n thunder it _does_ mean." "Nor I," said the girl, yawning again. "What about Ned Joselyn? Was he nice?" "Dressed like a dandy, looked like a fool, acted like the Emp'ror o' Rooshy an' pleased ev'rybody by runnin' away. That is, ev'rybody but his wife an' Ol' Swallertail." "I see. Who else lives over your store?" "I live there myself; me an' my fambly, in the back part. One o' the front rooms I rents to Ol' Swallertail, an' he pays the rent reg'lar. The other front room Miss Huckins, the dressmaker, lives in." "Oh. I'm a dressmaker, too. Guess I'll go up and see her. Is she in?" "When she's out, she leaves the key with me, an' the key ain't here. Say, girl, what's yer name?" "Josie." "Josie what?" "Jessup. Pa was a drayman. Ever hear of him?" "No. But about the Hathaways; what has--" "And you've got no red thread? Or green?" "Only black an' white. Does the Colonel--" "Can't use black or white," said the girl, deliberately getting off the barrel. "Guess I'll go up and ask Miss Huckins if she has any red." Out she walked, and old Sol rubbed his wrinkled forehead with a bewildered look and muttered: "Drat the gal! She's pumped me dry an' didn't tell me a word about them Hathaway folks. She worse'n ol' Eben, the nigger help. Seems like nobody wants t' talk about the Hathaways, an' that means there's somethin' queer about 'em. But this red-headed sewin'-girl is a perfec' innercent an' I'll git her talkin' yet, if she stays here long." Meantime Josie mounted the stairs, which were boarded in at one end of the building, being built on the outside to economize space, and entered the narrow upper hallway. A chatter of children's voices in the rear proclaimed that portion to be the quarters of the Jerrems family. Toward the front was a door on which, in dim letters, was the legend: "H. Cragg. Real Estate." Here the girl paused to listen. No sound came from the interior of H. Cragg's apartment. Farther along she found a similar door on which was a card reading: "Miss Huckins, Dressmaker and Milliner." Listening again, she heard the sound of a flatiron thumping an ironing board. She knocked, and the door was opened by a little middle-aged woman who held a hot flatiron in one hand. She was thin; she was bright-eyed; her hair was elaborately dressed with little ringlets across the forehead and around the ears, so Josie at once decided it was a wig. Seeing a stranger before her, Miss Huckins looked her over carefully from head to foot, while Josie smiled a vacuous, inconsequent smile and said in a perfunctory way: "Good morning." "Come in," returned Miss Huckins, with affable civility. "I don't think I know you." "I'm Josie Jessup, from the city. I'm in your line, Miss Huckins--in a way, that is. I've come here to do some sewing for Mary Louise Burrows, who is the granddaughter of Colonel Hathaway, who has rented the Kenton Place. Nice weather, isn't it?" Miss Huckins was not enthusiastic. Her face fell. She had encouraged sundry hopes that the rich little girl would employ her to do whatever sewing she might need. So she resumed the pressing of a new dress that was spread over her ironing-board and said rather shortly: "Anything I can do for you?" "I want to use some red thread and the storekeeper doesn't keep it in stock. Queer old man, that storekeeper, isn't he?" "I don't call him queer. He's honest as the day is long and makes a good landlord. Country stores don't usually keep red thread, for it is seldom used." "He has been talking to me about old Mr. Cragg, who has an office next door to you. I'm sure you'll admit that Mr. Cragg is queer, if the storekeeper isn't." "A man like Mr. Cragg has the right to be queer," snapped the dressmaker, who did not relish this criticism of the natives by a perfect stranger. "He is very quiet and respectable and makes a very satisfactory neighbor." Josie, seated in a straight, wood-bottomed chair, seemed not at all chagrined by her reception. She watched the pressing for a time silently. "That's a mighty pretty gown," she presently remarked, in a tone of admiration. "I don't suppose I shall ever be able to make anything as nice as that. I--I'm not good at planning, you know," with modest self-deprecation. "I only do plain sewing and mending." The stern features of Miss Huckins relaxed a bit. She glanced at the girl, then at her work, and said more pleasantly than she had before spoken: "This dress is for Mary Donovan, who lives two miles north of here. She's to be married next Saturday--if they get the haying over with by that time--and this is part of her trousseau. I've made her two other dresses and trimmed two hats for her--a straw shape and a felt Gainsboro. The Donovans are pretty well-to-do." Josie nodded with appreciation. "It's nice she can get such elegant things so near home, isn't it? Why, she couldn't do as well in the city--not _half_ as well!" Miss Huckins held up the gown and gazed at it with unmistakable pride. "It's the best Henrietta," said she, "and I'm to get six dollars for the making. I wanted seven, at first, and Mary only wanted to pay five, so we split the difference. With all the other things, I didn't do so badly on this trousseau." "You're in luck," declared Josie, "and so is Mary Donovan. Doesn't Mr. Cragg do any business except real estate?" "I think he must," replied the dressmaker, hanging up the gown and then seating herself opposite her visitor. "All the real estate business he's done in the last two years was to rent the Kenton Place to Colonel Hathaway and make a sale of Higgins' cow pasture to Sam Marvin. But he's so quiet, all day, in the next room, that I can't figure out what he's up to. No one goes near him, so I can't overhear any talk. One time, of course, Mr. Joselyn used to go there, and then they always whispered, as if they were up to some deviltry. But after the quarrel Joselyn never came here again." "Oh, did they quarrel?" asked Josie, with languid interest. She knew her praise of the dress had won the dressmaker's heart and also she was delighted to find Miss Huckins a more confirmed and eager gossip than even Sol Jerrems. "I should say they did quarrel!" was the emphatic reply, although she sank her voice to a whisper and glanced warningly at the thin partition. "At one time I thought there'd be murder done, for Joselyn yelled: 'Take that away--take it away!' and Old Swallowtail--that's the name we call Mr. Cragg, you know--roared out: 'You deserve to die for this cowardly act.' Well, you'd better believe my hair stood on end for a minute," Josie smiled as she thought of the wig standing on end, "but nothing happened. There was deep silence. Then the door opened and Mr. Joselyn walked out. I never interfere with other people's business, but attend strictly to my own, yet that day I was so flustered that I peeked through a crack of my door at Mr. Joselyn and he seemed cool as a cucumber. Then Mr. Cragg slammed the door of his room--which is z very unusual thing for him to do--and that was all." "When did this happen?" asked Josie. "Last fall, just before Mrs. Joselyn and her husband went back to their city home. Some time in the winter Mr. Joselyn ran away from her, they say, but I guess old Cragg had nothing do with that. Around here, Joselyn wasn't liked. He put on too many airs of superiority to please the country folks. Sol Jerrems thinks he made away with Mr. Cragg's money, in unwise speculations, but I don't believe Cragg had any money to lose. He seems as poor as I am." "What do you suppose drew those two men together, Miss Huckins?" inquired the girl. "I can't say. I've tried to figure it out, but the truth is that old Cragg don't confide in anyone--not even in me, and we're close neighbors. You couldn't find two men in all America more different than Joselyn and Cragg, and yet they had dealings of some sort together and were friendly, for a time." Josie sighed regretfully. "I like to hear about these mysterious things," said she. "It's almost as good as reading a story. Only, in this case, we will never know how the story ends." "Well, perhaps not," admitted the dressmaker. "Joselyn is gone and no one'll ever get the truth out of Cragg. But--I'd like to know, myself, not only how the story ends but what it was all about. Just now all we know is that there _was_ a story, of some sort or other, and perhaps is yet." A period of silence, while both mused. "I don't suppose you could find a bit of red thread?" said Josie. "No, I haven't used it for ages. Is it to mend with?" "Yes." "If it's a red dress, use black thread. It won't show, if you're careful; and it won't fade away and leave a white streak, like red sometimes does." "Thank you, Miss Huckins." She rose to go. "I'd like to drop in again, sometime, for a little visit." "Come as often as you like," was the cordial reply. "Cragg's Crossing people are rather interesting; they're so different from city folks," said Josie. "Yes, they really are, and I know most of them pretty well. Come in again, Josie." "Thank you; I will." CHAPTER IX JOSIE INVESTIGATES "Well, what luck?" asked Mary Louise, as she came into Josie's room while her friend was dressing for dinner. "Not much," was the reply. "I'm not at all sure, Mary Louise, that this chase will amount to anything. But it will afford me practice in judging human nature, if nothing else comes of it, so I'm not at all sorry you put me on the trail. When are we to see Ingua again?" "To-morrow afternoon. She's coming to tea in the pavilion." "That's good. Let me see all of her you can. She's an original, that child, and I'm going to like her. Our natures are a good deal alike." "Oh, Josie!" "That's a fact. We're both proud, resentful, reckless and affectionate. We hate our enemies and love our friends. We're rebellious, at times, and not afraid to defy the world." "I'm sure you are not like that, dear," protested Mary Louise. "I am. Ingua and I are both children of nature. The only difference is that I am older and have been taught diplomacy and self-control, which she still lacks. I mask my feelings, while Ingua frankly displays hers. That's why I am attracted to her." Mary Louise did not know how to combat this mood. She remained silent until Josie was dressed and the two went down to dinner. Their visitor was no longer the type of a half ignorant, half shrewd sewing-girl, such as she had appeared to be while in the village. Her auburn hair was now tastefully arranged and her attire modest and neat. She talked entertainingly during dinner, enlivening her companions thereby, and afterward played a game of dominoes with the Colonel in the living-room, permitting him to beat her at this, his favorite diversion. Both the old gentleman and his granddaughter enjoyed their evenings with Josie O'Gorman, for she proved delightful company. In the mornings, however, she would don her cheap gingham, rumple her hair, and pose throughout the day as Josie Jessup the sewing-girl. Ingua, at first shy of the visitor, soon developed a strong liking for Josie and would talk with her more freely than with Mary Louise. Josie would skip across the stepping-stones and help Ingua wash the breakfast dishes and sweep the bare little rooms of the cottage and then together they would feed the chickens, gather the eggs and attend to such daily tasks as Ingua was obliged to fulfill. With Josie's help this was soon accomplished and then the child was free for the day and could run across to join Mary Louise, while Josie sallied to the village to interview the natives. When the girl detective had been at Cragg's Crossing for a week she was a familiar figure to the villagers--every one of whom was an acquaintance--and had gleaned all the information it was possible to secure from them, which was small in amount and unsatisfactory in quality. Two or three times she had passed Old Swallowtail on the street, but he had not seemed to notice her. Always the old man stared straight ahead, walking stiffly and with a certain repellent dignity that forbade his neighbors to address him. He seemed to see no one. He lived in a world known only to himself and neither demanded nor desired association with his fellows. "An eccentric; bigoted, sullen and conceited," reflected Josie, in considering his character. "Capable of any cruelty or crime, but too cautious to render himself liable to legal punishment. The chances are that such a man would never do any great wrong, from cowardly motives. He might starve and threaten a child, indeed, but would refrain from injuring one able to resent the act. Nevertheless, he quarreled with Joselyn--and Joselyn disappeared. There was some reason for that quarrel; some reason for that disappearance; some reason why a man like Edward Joselyn made Old Swallowtail his confidential friend. A business connection, perhaps. Before daring a conjecture I must discover what business Cragg is engaged in." She soon discovered that Ingua was as ignorant of her grandfather's business life as were all others. One day, as the two girls were crossing the stepping-stones to reach the pavilion, after "doing" the morning housework, Josie remarked: "In winter one could cross here on the ice." "Oh, no," replied Ingua, "the water don't freeze. It runs too fast. But sometimes it gits over the top o' the stones, an' then you has to step keerful to keep from fallin' in." "Did you ever try to cross at such a time?" "Once I did, an' I was skeered, you kin bet. But I says to myself: 'If Ol' Swallertail kin make the crossin', I kin--dark or no dark--an' by cracky I tackled it brave as a lion." "You tried to cross in the dark, on a winter's night? What for, Ingua?" Ingua, walking beside her up the bank, paused with a startled expression and grew red. Her eyes, narrowed and shrewd, fixed themselves suspiciously on Josie's face. But the other returned the look with a bland smile that surely ought to disarm one more sophisticated than this simple child. "I mustn't talk 'bout that," said Ingua in a low voice. "Jes' fergit as I said it, Josie." "Why?" "Do ye want me choked, or killed?" "Who would do that?" "Gran'dad would, if I blabbed." "Shucks!" "Ye don't know Gran'dad--not when he's got the temper on him. If ye'd seen what I seen, ye'd know that he'd keep his word--'to, kill me if I talk too much." Josie sat down on top the bank. "What did you see, Ingua?" "Ye'll hev to guess it." "It looks that way," said Josie calmly; "but you needn't be afraid of _me,_ Ingua. You and I could know a lot of things, together, and keep 'em to ourselves. Don't you think I'm a good enough friend not to get you choked or killed by telling any secrets you confided to me? And-- look here, Ingua--this secret is worrying you a good deal." "Who says so?" "I do. You'd feel a heap better if you told me about it, for then we could talk it over together when we're alone." Ingua sat down beside her, gazing thoughtfully at the river. "You'd tell Mary Louise." "You know better than that. A secret's a secret, isn't it? I guess I can keep my mouth shut when I want to, Ingua." Josie had a way of imitating Ingua's mode of speech when they were together. It rendered their intercourse more free and friendly. But the girl did not reply at once. She sat dreamily reflecting upon the proposition and its possible consequences. Finally she said in a hesitating way: "I wisht I knew what ter do. I sometimes think I orter tell somebody that knows more'n I do, Josie, if I ever blab at all." "Try me, Ingua. I'm pretty smart, 'cause I've seen more of the big world than you have, and know what goes on in the big, busy cities, Where life is different from what it is in this little place. I've lived in more than one city, too, and that means a lot of experience for a girl of my age. I'm sure I could help you, dear. Perhaps, when I've heard your story, I will tell you never to say anything about it to anyone else; and then, on the other hand, I might think differently. Anyhow, I'd never tell, myself, any secret of yours, whatever I might think, because I'd cut off my right hand rather than get you into trouble." This dramatic speech was intended to appeal to the child's imagination and win her full confidence. In a way, it succeeded. Ingua sidled closer to Josie and finally said in a trembling whisper: "Ye wouldn't git Gran'dad inter trouble either, would ye?" "Do you like him, Ingua?" "I hate him! But he's a Cragg, an' I'm a Cragg, an' the Craggs kin stand up an' spit at the world, if they wants to." "That's right," agreed Josie, emphatically. "We've got to stick up for our own families and fight for our good name when it's necessary. Do you think I'd let anybody get the best of a Jessup? Never in a thousand years!" Ingua nodded her head as if pleased. "That's the way I look at it, Josie. Ev'rybody's down on Ol' Swallertail, an' I'm down on him myself, fer that matter; but I'll dare anybody to say anything ag'in him when I'm aroun'. An' yet, Josie--an' yet--I ain't sure but he's--but he's a _murderer!"_ She had dropped her voice until she scarcely breathed the last words and her little body trembled through and through with tense nervousness. Josie took her hand. "Never mind, dear," she said gently. "Perhaps he didn't kill Ned Joselyn, after all." Ingua sprang up with a hoarse scream and glared at Josie in absolute terror. "How'd ye know? How'd ye know it were Ned Joselyn?" she demanded, trembling more and more. Josie's reply was a smile. Josie's smile was essentially winning and sweet. It was reassuring, trustful, friendly. "This isn't a very big place, Ingua," she quietly remarked. "I can count the people of Cragg's Crossing on my fingers and toes, and the only one who has ever disappeared is Ned Joselyn. Why, you've told me so yourself. Your grandfather and Joselyn were friends. Then they quarreled. Afterward Joselyn disappeared." "Who said they quarreled?" "Miss Huckins told me. It was in the office, next door to where she lives and works." "Oh," with a sigh of relief. "But Ned Joselyn run away. Ev'rybody knows that." "Everybody but you, dear. Sit down. Why do you get so nervous? Really, Ingua, after you've told me the whole story you'll feel better. It's too big a secret for one small body to hold, isn't it? And just between ourselves we will talk it all over--many times--and then it won't seem so dreadful to you. And, after all, you're not positive your grandfather killed Ned Joselyn. Perhaps he didn't. But you're afraid he did, and that keeps you unstrung and unhappy. Who knows but I may be able to help you discover the truth? Sit down, Ingua, and let's talk it all over." CHAPTER X INGUA IS CONFIDENTIAL Ingua slowly resumed her seat on the bank beside her friend. It was hard to resist Josie's appeals. "The whole thing looks pretty black ag'in Gran'dad," she said. "I s'pose ye can't understand what I mean till I tell ye the whole story, from the beginning 'cause ye didn't live here at the time. If ye lived here," she added, "I wouldn't tell ye anything, but by-'n'-by yer goin' away. An' ye've promised to keep yer mouth shut." "Unless you give me permission to speak." "I ain't likely to do that. I'm tellin' ye this, Josie, so's we kin talk it over, at times. It has got hold o' my mind, somethin' terrible. Once I was goin' to tell Mary Louise, but--she couldn't understand it like you kin. She's--diff'rent. And if Gran'dad ever hears that I blabbed I'm as good as dead, an' I know it!" "He won't hear it from me," promised Josie. "Well, Gran'dad was allus sly. I 'member Marm tellin' him to his face he were cold as ice an' sly as sin. Mann had a way o' sayin' what she thought o' him, an' he'd jes' look at her steady an' say nuth'n back. She was allus tryin' to git money out o' him, Marm was, an' when he said he didn't hev no money she tol' him she knew he did. She ransacked the whole house--an' even tore up the floor-boards--tryin' to find where he'd hid it. Her idee was that if he'd sold his land for a lot o' money, an' hadn't spent a cent, he must hev it yit. But I guess Marm didn't find no money, an' so she lit out. The day she lit out she said to him that he was too slick for her, but she could take care o' herself. All she wanted was for him to take care o' me. Gran'dad said he would; an' so he did. He didn't take any too much care o' me, an' I'd ruther he wouldn't. If I had more to eat, I wouldn't kick, but since Mary Louise come here an' invited me to tea so often I hain't be'n hungry a bit." "Mary Louise likes company," said Josie. "Go on, dear." "Well, after Ann Kenton got married, her new husban' come here, which was Ned Joselyn. I never took a fancy to Ann. She wasn't 'specially uppish, but she wasn't noth'n else, either. Ned made me laugh when I first seen him. He had one spectacle in one eye, with a string to ketch it if it fell off. He had striped clothes an' shiny shoes an' he walked as keerful as if he was afraid the groun' would git the bottoms o' them nice shoes dirty. He used to set in that summer-house an' smoke cigarettes an' read books. One day he noticed Ol' Swallertail, an' looked so hard at him that his one-eyed spectacle fell off a dozen times. "That night he sent a letter to Gran'dad an' Gran'dad read it an' tore it up an' told the man that brung it there was no answer. That's all I knew till one night they come walkin' home together, chummy as a team o' mules. When they come to the bridge they shook hands an' Ol' Swallertail come to the house with a grin on his face--the first an' last grin I ever seen him have." "Doesn't he ever laugh?" asked Josie. "If he does, he laughs when no one is lookin'. But after that day I seen Ned Joselyn with Gran'dad a good deal. Sometimes he'd come to our house an' wait fer Ol' Swallertail to come home, an' they'd send me away an' tell me not to come back till I was called. That made me mighty curious to see what they was up to, so one day I crep' up behind the house an' peeked in the winder. They wasn't in the kitchen, so I went aroun' an' peeked through the winder o' Gran'dad's room, an' there they both sot, an' Gran'dad was countin' out money on the table. It must 'a' be'n gold money, 'cause it was yaller an' bigger ner cents er nickels. Ned put it all in his pocket, an' writ somethin' on a paper that Gran'dad put inter his big pocketbook. Then they both got up an' I made a run fer it an' hid behind the barn." "When did that happen?" asked Josie. "The first summer Ann was married. That was three summers ago, countin' this one. I was only a kid, then," said Ingua, as if realizing she was now two years older. "And after that?" said Josie. "Las' summer it was jes' the same. The two was thicker'n gumdrops, only Ned didn't go to the office no more. He allus came to our house instid. One day, when he was waitin' fer Ol' Swallertail, he says to me: 'Ingua, how'd ye like to be rollin' in money, an' Jive in a big city, an' hev yer own automobile to ride in, an' dress like a queen?' "'I'd like it,' says I. "'Well,' says he,' it's boun' to happen, if Ol' Swallertail sticks to me an' does what I say. He's got the capital,' says Ned, 'an' I got the brains; an' atween the two of us, Ingua,' says Ned, 'we'll corral half the money there is in America.' "'Will he stick?' says I. "'I dunno,' says Ned. 'He's got queer ideas 'bout duty an' honesty that ain't pop'lar these days in business. But I'm gitt'n so now thet I kin lead him by the nose, an' I'll force him to waller in money afore I've done with him.' "'I don't see how that'll make me rollin' in money, anyhow,' I told him. "'The ol' man'll die, pretty soon,' says Ned, 'an' then you'll git the money I make for him. By the time yer growed up, if not afore,' says he, 'you may be the riches' girl in the world. It all depends on how I kin bend that ol' stick of a gran'dad o' yourn.' "That was the day he gimme the dollar, an' Gran'dad come in in time to see it, an' took it away from me. It didn't set me up any, that talk o' Ned's, 'cause I didn't believe in them brains he bragged on, or his bein' able to lead Ol' Swallertail by the nose. Gran'dad begun gittin' kind o' harsh with Ned, afore the summer was over, which showed he wasn't bendin' much, and at the last--just afore Ned went away--the big quarrel come off. It wasn't the quarrel Miss Huckins knows about, but it happened right here. They'd sent me away from the house, like they always did, and I were layin' in the clover in the back yard, when there was a crash an' a yell. I jumped up an' run to the door, an' the table was tipped over an' a lot o' papers an' money scattered on the floor, an' behind the table stood Ol' Swallertail, white an' still, an' Ned point'n' a gun at him." "What sort of a gun?" questioned Josie. "One o' them hip-pocket sort. Same as Jim Bennett the mailman carries. Only Jim's ain't never loaded, 'cause he's afraid of it. I ain't sure Ned's was loaded, either, for when he seen me in the doorway he jes' slipped it in his pocket. "' Very well,' says Gran'dad, 'I knows now what sort o' a man you are, Ned Joselyn.' An' Ned he answers back: 'An' I know what sort o' a man _you_ are, ol' Cragg. Yer a hypercrit through an' through; ye preach squareness while yer as crooked as a snake, an' as p'isonous an' deadly, an' ye'd ruin yer bes' friend jes' to git a copper cent the best o' him.' "Gran'dad leaned over an' set the table on its legs ag'in. An' then he says slow an' cold: 'But I hain't offered to murder you; _not yet,_ Ned Joselyn!' "Ned looked at him an' kinder shivered. An' Gran'dad said: 'Pick up them papers an' things, Ingua.' "So I picked 'em up an' put 'em on the table an' they sent me away ag'in. I laid in the clover a whole hour, feelin' pretty nervous an' rocky, fer I didn't know what was goin' to happen. Noth'n' did happen, though, 'cept that Ned crossed the river on the steppin'-stones an' halfway over he turned an' laughed an' waved his hand at Gran'dad, who stood in the door an' watched him go. But Gran'dad didn't laugh. He says to me when I come in: "'Ingua, if ever I'm found dead, you go to Dud Berkey, the constable, an' tell him to arrest Ned Joselyn for murder. D'ye understan'?' "'I sure do,' says I. 'Guess he'd 'a' shot ye, Gran'dad, if I hadn't come in just when I did.' "'An' see here,' he went on, 'unless I'm foun' dead, you keep mum 'bout what ye seen to-day. If ye blab a word to anyone, ye'll git me in trouble, an' I'll crush ye as willin' as I'd swat a fly. Me an' Ned is friends ag'in,' says he, 'but I don't trust him.' "'Does he trust you?' I asked him; an' at first he jus' looked at me an' scowled; but after a minute he answered: 'I don't know how wise the man is. P'r'aps he isn't a fool; but even wise men is foolish sometimes.' "Well, Josie, that was all, just then. Ned went with his wife Ann to the city, nex' day, an' things here went on as usual. Only, Gran'dad begun to git wakeful nights, an' couldn't sleep. He'd git up an' dress an' go outdoors an' walk aroun' till mornin'. He didn't say noth'n' to _me_ about it, but I watched him, an' one mornin' when he come in I says: 'Why don't ye git some medicine o' Doc Jenkins to make ye sleep?' Then he busts out an' grabs me by the throat an' near choked the life out or me. "'Ye spy--ye dirty little spy!' says he, 'ye keep yer eyes shut an' yer mouth shut, or I'll skin-ye alive!' says he. "The way he looked at me, I was skeered stiff, an' I never said noth'n' more 'bout his sleepin' nights. I guess what made him mad was my sayin' he orter hev a doctor, 'cause doctors cost money an' Gran'dad's so poor he hates t' spend money unnecessary." "Did he ever again try to choke you?" "He tried once more, but I was too spry for him. It was a winter night, when it was cold in his room an' he come inter the kitchen, where there was a fire, to write. I sot behind the stove, tryin' to keep warm, an' after a time I seen him look up an' glare at the bare wall a long time. By-'n'-by he says in a low voice: 'Fer the Cause!' an' starts writin' ag'in. 'What cause are ye talkin' about, Gran'dad?' says I. "I guess he'd fergot I was there, but now he gives a yell an' jumps up an' comes for me with his fingers twistin' and workin' like I'd seen 'em afore. I didn't wait fer him to git near me, you kin bet; I made a dive out the back door an' stood aroun' in the cold tryin' to keep warm while I give him time to cool off where the fire was. When he was writin' ag'in I sneaked in an' he didn't notice me. When Marm was here she used to josh him about the 'Cause,' an' once I heard her tell him she guessed the Cause was hoardin' his money so's to starve his family. Marm wasn't afraid of him, but I am, so I never whisper the word 'Cause' while he's around." Josie sat in silent reflection for a time. Then she asked softly: "Does he still walk at night, Ingua?" "Sometimes. Not so much as he once did, though. He seems to take streaks o' bein' wakeful," explained the girl. "Have you ever seen him come out, or go in?" "Lots o' times. When it's moonlight I kin see him through my window, an' he can't see me 'cause my room is dark." "And does he carry anything with him?" "Not a thing. He jes' goes out like he does daytimes, an' comes back the same way." Josie nodded her tousled red head, as if the answers pleased her. "He's a very clever man, your grandfather," she remarked. "He can fool not only his neighbors, but his own family. But you've more to tell me, Ingua." "How d'ye know, Josie?" "Because all this is just the beginning. It is something else that has been worrying you, dear." CHAPTER XI THE FATE OF NED JOSELYN The child stared dreamily at the rushing water for several minutes. Then she looked earnestly into Josie's face. Finally, with a sigh, she said: "I may as well go on an' finish it, I s'pose." "To be sure," said Josie. "You haven't told me anything very important yet." "The important part's comin'," asserted Ingua, her tone gradually assuming its former animation. "'Twas last winter on the Thursday between Christmas an' New Year's. It was cold an' snowin' hard, an' it gits dark early them days. Gran'dad an' me was eat'n' supper by lamplight when there come a knock at the door. I jumped up an' opened it an' there stood Ned Joselyn, in a big heavy coat that was loaded with snow, an' kid gloves on, an' his one-eyed spectacle on his face. He come in an' stood while I shut the door, an' Gran'dad glared at him like he does when the devils gits him, and said: 'What--more?' "'Sure thing,' says Ned. 'Noth'n' lasts forever.' "'That's true,' says Gran'dad, holdin' himself in. Then he looks at me, an' back to Ned, an' says: 'I can't see ye here. Where ye stoppin'? At the Kenton house?' "'Jes' fer to-night,' says Ned. 'It's more private than a hotel.' "'Go home, then,' says Gran'dad. 'I'll come over, by-'n'-by.' "Ned opened the door an' went out, sayin' noth'n' more. Gran'dad finished his supper an' then sot by the stove an' smoked his pipe while I washed the dishes. I wondered why he didn't go over an' see Ned, but he sot there an' smoked till I went upstairs to bed. That was queer, for I never knew him to smoke more'n one pipe o' tobacco at a time, before, an' then mostly on Sundays. And I'd never seen his face so hard an' cruel-lookin' as it were that night, and his eyes, seemed like they were made of glass. I didn't undress, fer I knowed there'd be trouble if he went over to Ned's house, and I made up my mind to keep watch o' things. "So I set still in my room in the attic, an' Gran'dad set still in the room downstairs, an' it must 'a' be'n pretty late when I heard him get up an' go out. I slipped down right after him, meanin' to foller him, an' let myself out the back door so's he wouldn't see me. It had stopped snowin' by then, but it was so cold that the air cut like a knife and the only jacket I had wasn't any too warm fer such weather. "When I got 'round the house Ol' Swallertail was standin' on the bank, lookin' at the river. I never knew nobody to try the steppin'-stones in winter, an' I s'posed o' course Gran'dad would take the path to the bridge; but he went down the bank, wadin' through the snow, an' started to cross over. The moon an' the snow made it light enough to see easy, after you'd be'n out a few minutes. I watched him cross over an' climb the bank an' make for the house, an' then I run down to the river myself. "The water covered all the stones, but I knew where they were as well as Gran'dad did. I didn't like my job a bit, but I knew if I waited to go roun' by the bridge that I'd be too late to see anything that happened. So I screwed up courage an' started over. My legs ain't as long as a grown-up's and at the third step I missed the stone an' soused one leg in the water up to my knee. Gee! that was a cold one. But I wouldn't give up, an' kep' on until jus' in the middle, where the water were roarin' the worst, I slipped with both legs and went in to my waist. That settled it for me. I thought I'd drown, for a minute, but I went crazy with fear an' the next thing I knew I was standin' on the bank where I'd come from an' the cold wind was freezin' a sheet of ice on my legs an' body. "There wasn't no time to lose. Whatever was happenin' over to the big house didn't mean as much to me as death did, an' death was on my track if I didn't get back home afore I froze stiff. I started to run. It ain't far--look there, Josie, ye could almost make it in three jumps-- but I remember fallin' down half a dozen times in the snow, an' at the last I crawled to the door on my hands an' knees an' had jus' strength enough to rise up an' lift the latch. "Gran'dad's awful stingy about burnin' wood, but I threw the chunks into the stove till the old thing roared like a furnace an' when I'd thawed out some I got off my shoes an' stockin's an' my wet dress an' put another skirt on. Then I lay in Gran'dad's chair afore the fire an' shivered an' cried like a baby whenever I thought o' that icy river. "I guess I must 'a' went to sleep, afterwards, fer when I woke up the fire was gett'n' low an' Ol' Swallertail opened the door on a sudden an' walked in. Josie, ye orter seen him! His legs was wet an' icy, too, so he must 'a' slipped on the stones himself; an' he was shakin' all over as if he'd got the ague. His face was a dirty white an' his eyes burnt like two coals. He threw on more wood, reckless-like, an' jerked off his shoes an' socks an' set down t'other side the stove. Neither of us said noth'n' fer awhile an' then he looks at me sort o' curious an' asks: "'Did ye git across, Ingua?' "'No,' says I. 'I near got drowned, tryin' it.' "Then he set silent ag'in, lookin' at the fire. By-'n'-by says he: 'Ingua, yer old enough to hev sense, an' I want ye to think keerful on what I'm goin' ter say. Folks aroun' here don't like you an' me very much, an' if they got a chance--or even thought they had a chance-- they'd crush us under heel like they would scorpions. That's 'cause we're Craggs, for Craggs ain't never be'n poplar in this neighborhood, for some reason. Now lis'n. I've done with Ned Joselyn. It ain't nay fault as I've cast him off; it's his'n. He's got a bad heart an' he's robbed me right an' left. I could fergive him fer that, because--well, ye don't need to know why I clung to the feller when I knew he was a scoundrel. But he robbed a cause dearer to my heart than myself, an' for that I couldn't fergive him. Nobody knows Ned were here to-night, Ingua, so if anybody asks ye questions ye didn't see him at all. Fix that firm in yer mind. Ye don't know noth'n' 'bout Ned sence he went away las' October. Ye hain't seen him. Stick to that, girl, an' yer all right; but if ye blab--if ye ever tell a soul as Ned were here--I'll hev to kill yer myself, to stop yer mouth. Fix that in yer mind, too.' "I was so skeered that I jes' looked at him. Then I says in a whisper: 'What did ye do to Ned, Gran'dad?' "He turned his eyes on me so fierce that I dropped my head. "'I didn't kill him, if that's what ye mean,' says he. 'I orter strangled him, but I didn't want to swing fer no common thief like Ned Joselyn. Besides, he's--but that's none o' yer business. So I threatened him, an' that was jus' as good as killin'. He won't show up ag'in here, never; an' he ain't likely to show up anywheres else that he's known. P'raps he'll be hunted for, but he'll keep out a' the way. You an' I ain't got noth'n' to worry about, Ingua--unless you blab.' "I didn't believe a word he said, Josie. They was jus' words, an' it was nat'ral he'd lie about that night's work. When I went to bed it was near mornin', but Ol' Swallertail was still sett'n' by the fire. "Nex' day he went on jus' as usual, an' from then till now he's never spoke to me of that night. In a couple o' weeks we heard as Ned Joselyn had run away. His wife come down here askin' fer him, but nobody'd seen hide ner hair of him. That's all, Josie; that's the whole story, an' I'm glad you know it now as well as I do. Wha' d'ye think? Did Ol' Swallertail kill Ned Joselyn?" Josie woke from her meditation with a start. "I--I'm going to think it over," she said evasively. "It's a queer story, Ingua--mighty queer--and it's going to take a lot of thought before I make up my mind about it." CHAPTER XII THEORIES ARE DANGEROUS "What were you and Ingua talking about for so long?" asked Mary Louise, when she and Josie were alone. "She was telling me her story," was the reply. "All of it?" "Every bit of it, I think." "Oh, what was it all about?" questioned Mary Louise eagerly. "I've promised not to tell." "Not even me, Josie?" "Not even you. Ingua insisted; and, really, dear, it's better you should know nothing just at present." "Am I to be left out of all this thrilling mystery?" demanded Mary Louise with an aggrieved air. "There won't be a thrill in it, until the end, and perhaps not then. But you shall come in at the finish, if not before; I'll promise that." "Won't this enforced promise to Ingua tie your hands?" queried the other girl, thoughtfully. "No. I didn't promise not to act, but only to keep the child's secret. For Ingua's sake, as well as to satisfy your curiosity--and my own--I'm going to delve to the bottom of Ned Joselyn's disappearance. That will involve the attempt to discover all about Old Swallowtail, who is a mystery all by himself. I shall call on you to help me, at times, Mary Louise, but you're not to be told what is weighing so heavily on poor Ingua's mind." "Well," said Mary Louise, "if I may help, that will serve to relieve my disappointment to an extent. But I'm surprised at Ingua. I thought she loved and trusted me." "So she does," asserted Josie. "Since I've heard the story, I'm not surprised at Ingua at all. If you knew all, my dear, you would realize why she believes that one confidant is enough. Indeed, I'm rather surprised that Ingua ventured to confide in me." "Is it so serious, then?" "If her fears are justified," replied Josie gravely, "it is _very_ serious." "But _are_ they justified?" urged Mary Louise. "Ingua is a child, and very sensitive to impressions. But she is a shrewd child and, living a lonely life, has had ample time to consider the problems that confront her. Whether she is right or wrong in her conjectures, time will determine. But don't question me further, please, or you will embarrass me. To-morrow I want to go to the city, which is the county seat. Will you go with me? And can we get Uncle Eben to drive us over in the car?" "I'll ask Gran'pa Jim." Colonel Hathaway was rather amused at the efforts of the two girls to fathom the mystery of Old Swallowtail, but he was willing to assist in any practical way. So Uncle Eben drove them to the county seat next day and Josie spent several hours in the county clerk's office and paid a visit to the chief of police, who knew her father, John O'Gorman, by reputation. Mary Louise shopped leisurely while her friend was busy with her investigations and at last they started for home, where they arrived in time for dinner. On the way, Mary Louise inquired if Josie had secured any information of importance. "A little," said the girl detective. "For one thing, old Hezekiah Cragg pays taxes on just one bit of land besides that little homestead of his. It is a five-acre tract, but the assessment puts it at an astonishingly low valuation--scarcely ten per cent of the value of all surrounding property. That strikes me as queer. I've got the plat of it and to-morrow we will look it up." They found it was not easy to locate that five acres, even with a map, when the two girls made the attempt the next forenoon. But finally, at the end of a lonely lane about a mile and a half from the village, they came upon a stony tract hemmed in by low hills, which seemed to fit the location described. The place was one mass of tumbled rocks. Little herbiage of any sort grew there and its low assessment value was easily explained. The surrounding farms, all highly cultivated, backed up to the little waste valley, which was fenced out--or rather in--by the owners of the fertile lands. One faintly trodden path led from the bars of the lane the girls were in toward Mr. Cragg's five acres of stones, but amid the jumble of rocks it would be difficult to walk at all. "This is an odd freak of nature," remarked Josie, gazing at the waste with a puzzled expression. "It is easy to understand why Mr. Cragg hasn't sold this lot, as he did all his other land. No one would buy it." "Haven't the stones a value, for building or something?" asked Mary Louise. "Not in this location, so far from a railway. In my judgment the tract is absolutely worthless. I wonder that so economical a man as Mr. Cragg pays taxes on it." They went no farther than the edge of the rock-strewn field, for there was nothing more to see. Up the slope of the hill, on the far side from where they stood, were jumbled masses of huge slabs and boulders that might be picturesque but were not especially interesting. The girls turned and retraced their steps to the neglected lane and from thence reached the main road again. "I have now satisfied myself on two counts," was Josie's comment. "First, that Mr. Cragg owns no property but this stone-yard and his little home, and second, that within the last forty years he has at different times disposed of seventy thousand dollars worth of land left him by his father. The county records prove that. The last sale was made about four years ago, so he has consistently turned all his real estate into ready money." "What can he have done with so much money?" exclaimed Mary Louise. "Ah, that is part of the mystery, my dear. If he still has it, then the man is a miser. If he has lost it, he is a gambler, which is just about as bad. Either way, Hezekiah Cragg is not entitled to our admiration, to say the least. Let us admit that in a big city a man might lose seventy thousand dollars in business ventures without exciting adverse criticism except for a lack of judgment; but Old Swallowtail has never left Cragg's Crossing, according to all reports, and I'm sure there is no way for him to squander a fortune here." "I think he must be a miser," said Mary Louise with conviction. "Ingua once told me of seeing lots of money pass between him and Mr. Joselyn. And--tell me, Josie--what is all his voluminous correspondence about?" "I'm going to investigate that presently," replied her friend. "It isn't quite in line yet but will come pretty soon. To-morrow I shall call upon Old Swallowtail at his office." "Shall you, really? And may I go with, you, Josie?" "Not this time. You'd spoil my excuse, you see, for you are going to discharge your sewing-girl, and your sewing-girl is going to apply to Hezekiah Cragg for work. His granddaughter needs some sewing done, by the looks of her wardrobe." "Oh. Very well. But you will tell me what happens?" "Of course." "Once," said Mary Louise, "I proposed going myself to Mr. Cragg, to intercede for Ingua, but the girl thought I would do more harm than good. So I abandoned the idea." "I think that was wise. I don't expect to get much out of the man except an interview, with a chance to study him at close range. Also I'm anxious to see what that mysterious office looks like." Mary Louise regarded her friend admiringly. "You're very brave, Josie," she said. "Pooh! There's no danger. One of the first things father taught me about the detective business was that all men belong to one tribe, and the criminal is inevitably a coward at heart. Old Swallowtail may be afraid of _me,_ before I'm through with this case, but whether he proves guilty or innocent I shall never fear him a particle." "Have you any theory, as yet, Josie?" "No. Theories are dangerous things and never should be indulged in until backed by facts." "But do not theories often lead to facts? And how about those 'O'Gorman theories' you mentioned, which you were eager to test?" "Those are mere theories of investigation--methods to be pursued in certain situations. I believe I shall be able to test some of them in this case. My plan is to find out all I can about everyone and everything, and then marshal my facts against the question involved. If there is no answer, I've got to learn more. If I can't learn more, then the whole thing becomes mere guesswork--in other words, theory--more likely to be wrong than right." Mary Louise seldom argued with Josie's decisions. When, the next morning, her friend started for the village to call upon Old Swallowtail, she pressed her hand and wished her good luck. Josie departed in her plain gingham dress, shoes run over at the heels, hair untidy and uncovered by hat or hood--a general aspect of slovenly servitude. Mr. Cragg was never an early riser. He breakfasted at eight o'clock and at half past eight stalked with stiff dignity to town and entered his office without deigning to recognize any villagers he might meet. Josie was aware of this habit. She timed her visit for half-past ten. Unnoticed she passed through the village street and crept up the stairs at the end of the store building. Before the door marked "H. Cragg, Real Estate" she paused to listen. No sound came from within, but farther along the passage she heard the dull rumble of Miss Huckins' sewing machine. For once Josie hesitated, but realizing that hesitation meant weakness on such an errand she boldly thrust out a hand and attempted to turn the doorknob. CHAPTER XIII BLUFF AND REBUFF The door was locked. Immediately Josie pounded upon it with her knuckles and a voice demanded: "Who is there?" Instead of replying, Josie knocked again, and suddenly the door was opened and Old Swallowtail stood before her. "I--I beg your pardon," said she diffidently; "are you the real estate man?" "Yes," he replied, standing quietly in the doorway. "Then you're the man I want to see," she asserted and took a step forward. But he did not move an inch from his position and his eyes were fixed steadfastly on her face. "I have nothing to sell, at present," he remarked. "But I want to give you something to sell," she retorted impatiently, summoning her wits to meet the occasion. "Let me in, please. Or do you transact all your business in the hallway?" Somewhat to her surprise he stepped back and held the door for her to enter. Josie promptly walked in and sat down near a round table, one comprehensive glance fixing in her mind the entire contents of the small room. There was one window, dim and unwashed, facing the street. It had a thick shade, now raised. Originally the room had been square, and rather crudely plastered and wallpapered, but a wooden partition had afterward been erected to cut the room into two, so that the portion she had entered was long and narrow. Its sole furniture consisted of the round table, quite bare, two or three wooden-bottomed chairs, and against one wall a rack filled with books. During the interview she noted that these books were mostly directories of the inhabitants of various prominent cities in the United States, and such a collection astonished her and aroused her curiosity. Just at present, however, the partition proved the most interesting thing she observed, for beyond it must be another room which was doubtless the particular sanctum of Old Swallowtail and to which she scarcely expected to gain admittance. The door was closed. It was stout and solid and was fitted with both an ordinary door-lock and a hasp and padlock, the latter now hanging on a nail beside the door. This much Josie's sharp eyes saw in her first glance, but immediately her attention was demanded by Mr. Cragg, who took a seat opposite her and said in a quiet, well modulated voice: "Now, my girl, state your business." She had planned to tell him how she had come to town to sew for Mary Louise Burrows, how she had now finished her work but was so charmed with Cragg's Crossing that she did not care to leave it during the hot weather to return to the stuffy city. Therefore, she intended to add, if he would let her make some new dresses for Ingua, she would work for half her regular wages. Her dress as a sewing-girl would carry out this deception and the bait of small wages ought to interest the old man. But this clever plan had suddenly gone glimmering, for in order to gain admittance to the office and secure an interview with Old Swallowtail she had inadvertently stated that she had some real estate to dispose of. So sudden a change of base required the girl to think quickly in order to formulate a new argument that would hold his attention. To gain time she said, slowly: "My name is Josie Jessup. I'm a sewing-girl by profession." "Yes, I know," he replied. "I've been here ten days or so, working for Miss Burrows." "I have seen you here," said Mr. Cragg. She wondered how he knew so much, as he had never seemed to favor her with even a glance when by chance they met in the street. But perhaps Ingua had told him. "I like Cragg's Crossing," continued Josie, assuming a confidential tone, "and I've made up my mind I'd like to live here. There ought to be plenty of work sewing for the farmers' wives, outside of what Miss Huckins does, and it don't cost much to live in a small town. In the city I own a little house and lot left to me by my uncle on my mother's side, and I've decided to trade it for some place here. Don't you know, sir, of someone who'd like to move to the city, and will be glad to make the exchange?" "I know of no such person," he replied coldly. "But you will make inquiries?" "It would be useless. I am very busy to-day, so if you will excuse me--" He rose and bowed. Josie was disappointed. She decided to revert to her first proposition. "Doesn't your granddaughter need some sewing done, sir?" she asked, with a frank look from her innocent blue eyes. He stood still, silently studying her face. With one hand he rubbed his chin gently, as if in thought. Then he said: "We cannot afford to hire our sewing done, but I thank you for the offer. Good morning, Miss--Jessup." Walking to the door he held it open and bowed gravely as she walked out. Next moment she heard the key click as it turned in the lock. Josie, feeling a sense of failure, slowly went down the stairs, entered the store and perched herself upon the sugar-barrel. Old Sol was waiting on a farmer's wife and only gave the girl a glance. Josie reflected on her interview with Mr. Cragg while it was fresh in her mind. He was no crude, uneducated country bumpkin, despite his odd ways and peculiar dress. Indeed, the man had astonished her by his courtesy, his correct method of speech, his perfect self-assurance. Her visit was calculated to annoy him and to arouse his impatience. After Ingua's report of him she expected he would become scornful or sarcastic or even exhibit violent anger; yet there had been nothing objectionable in his manner or words. Still, he had dismissed her as abruptly as possible and was not eager to grasp an opportunity to exchange real estate. "That isn't his business at all," she told herself. "It's merely a blind, although he actually did rent the Kenton Place to Colonel Hathaway...I wonder what he does in that office all day. In the inner room, of course. That is his real workshop...He's quite gentlemanly. He has a certain amount of breeding, which Ingua wholly lacks....He must realize what a crude and uncultured little thing his granddaughter is. Then why hasn't he tried to train her differently?...Really, he quite awed me with his stately, composed manner. No one would expect that sort of man to be a murderer. But--there! haven't I been warned that the educated gentleman is the worst type of criminal, and the most difficult to detect?" Sol's customer went away and the old man approached the barrel. "Well," he said, "wanter buy anything to-day?" "No," said Josie pleasantly, "this is only a social call. I've just come from Old Swallow-tail's office and thought a word with you would cheer me up." "You! You be'n to Ol' Swallertail's office! Sakes alive, gal, I wouldn't dare do that myself." "Why not?" "He goes crazy when he gits mad." "Are you sure of that?" "Ev'rybody here knows it, from the three-year-olds up. What did ye go to him for?" "A little matter of business." "An' he slammed the door in yer face?" "No, indeed." "That's funny," said old Sol, rubbing his forehead in a perplexed way. "He was very decent to me," continued Josie. "Acted like a gentleman. Talked as if he'd been to school, you know." "School? Well, I should say he had!" exclaimed the storekeeper. "Ol' Swallertail's the most eddicated man in these 'ere parts, I guess. Ol' Nick Cragg, his daddy, wanted for him to be a preacher--or a priest, most likely--an' when he was a boy his ol' man paid good money to hev him eddicated at a the--at a theo--at a collidge. But Hezekiah wa'n't over-religious, an' 'lowed he didn't hev no call to preach; so that's all the good the eddication ever done him." "_You've_ never felt the need of an education, have you?" asked the girl, artlessly. "Me? Well, I ain't sayin' as I got no eddication, though I don't class myself in book-l'arnin' with Ol' Swallertail. Three winters I went to school, an' once I helped whip the school-teacher. Tain't ev'ry one has got _that_ record. But eddication means more'n books; it means keepin' yer eyes open an' gitt'n' onter the tricks o' yer trade. Ev'ry time I git swindled, I've l'arned somethin', an' if I'd started this store in New York instid o' Cragg's Crossin', they might be runnin' me fer president by this time." "But what could Cragg's Crossing have done without you?" inquired Josie. "It seems to me you're needed here." "Well, that's worth thinkin' on," admitted the storekeeper. "And as for Old Swallowtail, he may have learned some tricks of his trade too. But I don't know what his trade is." "Nobody knows that. I don't b'lieve that business o' his'n is a trade at all; I'll bet it's a steal, whatever its other name happens to be." "But he doesn't prosper." "No; he ain't got much t' show fer all these years. Folks used to think he'd got money saved from the sale of his land, till Ned Joselyn come here an' dallied with Ol' Swallertail's savin's an' then took to the woods. It's gener'ly b'lieved that what Cragg had once Ned's got now; but it don't matter much. Cragg hain't got long ter live an' his feed don't cost him an' his little gal much more'n it costs to feed my cat." There was no further information to be gleaned from Sol Jerrems, so Josie walked home. CHAPTER XIV MIDNIGHT VIGILS "Well, how is our girl detective progressing in her discovery of crime and criminals?" asked Colonel Hathaway that evening, as they sat in the living-room after dinner. "Don't call me a girl detective, please," pleaded Josie O'Gorman. "I'm only an apprentice at the trade, Colonel, and I have never realized more than I do at this moment the fact that I've considerable to learn before I may claim membership with the profession." "Then you're finding your present trail a difficult one to follow?" "I believe my stupidity is making it difficult," admitted Josie, with a sigh. "Father would scold me soundly if he knew how foolishly I behaved to-day. There was every opportunity of my forcing a clew by calling unexpectedly on Mr. Cragg at his office, but he defeated my purpose so easily that now I'm wondering if he suspects who I am, and why I'm here. He couldn't have been more cautious." "He could scarcely suspect that," said the Colonel, musingly. "But I've noticed that these simple country people are chary of confiding in strangers." "Ah, if Mr. Cragg were only that--a simple, unlettered countryman, as I thought him--I should know how to win his confidence. But, do you know, sir, he is well educated and intelligent. Once he studied for the priesthood or ministry, attending a theological college." "Indeed!" "My informant, the village authority--who is Sol Jerrems the storekeeper--says he objected to becoming a priest at the last because he had no leaning that way. My own opinion is that he feared his ungovernable temper would lead to his undoing. I am positive that his hysterical fury, when aroused, has gotten him into trouble many times, even in this patient community." "That's it," said Mary Louise with conviction; "his temper has often made him cruel to poor Ingua, and perhaps his temper caused unfortunate Ned Joselyn to disappear." "Have you discovered anything more than you have told me?" she asked. "Not a thing," replied Mary Louise. "I'm waiting for _you_ to make discoveries, Josie." "A puzzle that is readily solved," remarked the Colonel, picking up his book, "is of little interest. The obstacles you are meeting, Josie, incline me to believe you girls have unearthed a real mystery. It is not a mystery of the moment, however, so take your time to fathom it. The summer is young yet." Josie went to her room early, saying she was tired, but as soon as she was alone and free she slipped on a jacket and stealthily left the house. Down the driveway she crept like a shadow, out through the gates, over the bridge, and then she turned down the pathway leading to Old Swallowtail's cottage. "The stepping-stones are a nearer route," she reflected, "but I don't care to tackle them in the dark." The cottage contained but three rooms. The larger one downstairs was a combination kitchen and dining room. A small wing, built upon one side, was used by Mr. Cragg for his private apartment, but its only outlet was through the main room. At the back was a lean-to shed, in which was built a narrow flight of stairs leading to a little room in the attic, where Ingua slept. Josie knew the plan of the house perfectly, having often visited Ingua during the day when her grandfather was absent and helped her sweep and make the beds and wash the dishes. To-night Josie moved noiselessly around the building, satisfied herself that Ingua was asleep and that Mr. Cragg was still awake, and then strove to peer through the shuttered window to discover what the old man was doing. She found this impossible. Although the weather was warm the window was tightly shut and a thick curtain was drawn across it. Josie slipped over to the river bank and in the shadow of a tree sat herself down to watch and wait with such patience as she could muster. It was half past nine o'clock, and Ingua had told her that when her grandfather was wakeful, and indulged in his long walks, he usually left the house between ten o'clock and midnight--seldom earlier and never later. He would go to bed, the child said, and finding he could not sleep, would again dress and go out into the night, only to return at early morning. Josie doubted that he ever undressed on such occasions, knowing, as he no doubt did, perfectly well what his program for the night would be. She had decided that the nocturnal excursions were not due to insomnia but were carefully planned to avoid possible observation. When all the countryside was wrapped in slumber the old gentleman stole from his cottage and went--where? Doubtless to some secret place that had an important bearing on his life and occupation. It would be worth while, Josie believed, to discover the object of these midnight excursions. Ingua claimed that her grandfather's periods of wakeful walking were irregular; sometimes he would be gone night after night, and then for weeks he would remain at home and sleep like other folks. So Josie was not surprised when old Swallowtail's light was extinguished shortly after ten o'clock and from then until midnight he had not left the house. Evidently this was not one of his "wakeful" periods. The girl's eyes, during this time, never left the door of the cottage. The path to the bridge passed her scarcely five yards distant. Therefore, as Hezekiah Cragg had not appeared, he was doubtless sleeping the sleep of the just--or the unjust, for all sorts and conditions of men indulge in sleep. Josie waited until nearly one o'clock. Then she went home, let herself in by a side door to which she had taken the key, and in a few minutes was as sound asleep as Old Swallowtail ought to be. For three nights in succession the girl maintained this vigil, with no result whatever. It was wearisome work and she began to tire of it. On the fourth day, as she was "visiting" with Ingua, she asked: "Has your grandfather had any sleepless nights lately?" "I don't know," was the reply. "But he ain't walked any, as he sometimes does, for I hain't heard him go out." "Do you always hear him?" "P'r'aps not always, but most times." "And does he walk more than one night?" inquired Josie. "When he takes them fits, they lasts for a week or more," asserted Ingua. "Then, for a long time, he sleeps quiet." "Will you let me know, the next time he takes to walking?" "Why?" asked the child, suspiciously. "It's a curious habit," Josie explained, "and I'd like to know what he does during all those hours of the night." "He walks," declared Ingua; "and, if he does anything else, it's his own business." "I've wondered," said Josie impressively, "if he doesn't visit some hidden grave during those midnight rambles." Ingua shuddered. "I wish ye wouldn't talk like that," she whispered. "It gives me the creeps." "Wouldn't you like to know the truth of all this mystery, Ingua?" "Sometimes I would, an' sometimes I wouldn't. If the truth leaked out, mebbe Gran'dad would git inter a lot o' trouble. I don't want that, Josie. I ain't no cause to love Gran'dad, but he's a Cragg an' I'm a Cragg, an' no Cragg ever went back on the fambly." It seemed unwise to urge the child further to betray her grandfather, yet for Ingua's sake, if for no other reason, Josie was determined to uncover the hidden life of Hezekiah Cragg. The following night she watched again at her station by the river bank, and again the midnight hour struck and the old man had not left his cottage. His light was extinguished at eleven o'clock. At twelve-thirty Josie rose from the shadow of the tree and slowly walked to the bridge. There, instead of going home, she turned in the direction of the town. In the sky were a few stars and the slim crescent of a new moon, affording sufficient light to guide her steps. Crickets chirped and frogs in the marshes sang their hoarse love songs, but otherwise an intense stillness pervaded the countryside. You must not consider Josie O'Gorman an especially brave girl, for she had no thought of fear in such solitary wanderings. Although but seventeen years of age, she had been reared from early childhood in an atmosphere of intrigue and mystery, for her detective father had been accustomed to argue his cases and their perplexities with his only child and for hours at a time he would instruct her in all the details of his profession. It was O'Gorman's ambition that his daughter might become a highly proficient female detective. "There are so many cases where a woman is better than a man," he would say, "and there is such a lack of competent women in this important and fascinating profession, that I am promoting the interests of both my daughter and the public safety by training Josie to become a good detective." And the girl, having been her father's confidant since she was able to walk and talk, became saturated with detective lore and only needed practical experience and more mature judgment fully to justify O'Gorman's ambition for her. However, the shrewd old secret service officer well knew that the girl was not yet ready to be launched into active service. The experience she needed was only to be gained in just such odd private cases as the one on which she was now engaged, so he was glad to let her come to Cragg's Crossing, and Josie was glad to be there. She was only content when "working," and however the Cragg mystery developed or resulted, her efforts to solve it were sure to sharpen her wits and add to her practical knowledge of her future craft. When she reached the town she found it absolutely deserted. Not a light shone anywhere; no watchman was employed; the denizens of Cragg's Crossing were all in bed and reveling in dreamland. Josie sat on the bottom stair of the flight leading to the store and removed her shoes. Upstairs the family of Sol Jerrems and Miss Huckins the dressmaker were sleeping and must not be disturbed. The girl made no sound as she mounted the stairs and softly stole to the door of H. Cragg's real estate office. Here it was dark as could be, but Josie drew some skeleton keys from her pocket and slid them, one by one, into the lock. The fourth key fitted; she opened the door silently and having entered the room drew the door shut behind her. The thick shade was drawn over the window. It was as black here as it was in the hallway. Josie flashed a small searchlight on the door of the connecting room and saw that it was not only locked in the ordinary manner but that the padlock she had noted on her former visit to the room was now inserted in the hasp and formed an additional security against intrusion. While her electric spotlight played upon this padlock she bent over and examined it swiftly but with care. "A Yale lock," she muttered. "It can't be picked, but it will delay me for only a few minutes." Then from her pocket she brought out a small steel hack-saw, and as she could not work the saw and hold the flashlight at the same time she went to the window and removed the heavy shade. The light that now came into the room was dim, but sufficient for her purpose. Returning to the door of the mysterious inner room, the contents of which she had determined to investigate, she seized the padlock firmly with one hand while with the other she began to saw through the steel loop that passed through the hasp. The sound made by the saw was so slight that it did not worry her, but another sound, of an entirely different character and coming from the hallway, caused her to pause and glance over her shoulder. Slowly the outer door opened and a form appeared in the doorway. It was a mere shadow, at first, but it deliberately advanced to the table, struck a match and lighted a small kerosene lamp. She was face to face with Old Swallowtail. CHAPTER XV "OLD SWALLOWTAIL" Josie was so astonished that she still bent over the lock, motionless, saw in hand. In the instant she made a mental review of her proceedings and satisfied herself that she had been guilty of no professional blunder. The inopportune appearance of Mr. Cragg must be attributed to a blind chance--to fate. So the first wave of humiliation that swept over her receded as she gathered her wits to combat this unexpected situation. Mr. Cragg stood by the table looking at her. He was very calm. The discovery of the girl had not aroused that violence of temper for which the old man was noted. Josie straightened up, slipped the saw in her pocket and faced him unflinchingly. "Won't you sit down?" he said, pointing to a chair beside her. "I would like to know why you have undertaken to rob me." Josie sat down, her heart bounding with joy. If he mistook her for a thief all was not lost and she would not have to write "finis" as yet to this important case. But she made no answer to his remark; she merely stared at him in a dull, emotionless way that was cleverly assumed. "I suppose," he continued, "you have been told I am rich--a miser--and perhaps you imagine I keep my wealth in that little room, because I have taken pains to secure it from intrusion by prying meddlers. I suspected you, my girl, when you came to see me the other day. Your errand was palpably invented. You wanted to get the lay of the room, in preparation for this night's work. But who told you I was worthy of being robbed? Was it Ingua?" "No," came a surly reply. "She won't mention you to me." "Very good. But the neighbors--the busy-bodies around here? Perhaps old Sol Jerrems has gossiped of my supposed hoard. Is it not so?" Josie dropped her eyes as if confused but remained silent. The old man seemed to regard her as a curiosity, for his cold gray eyes examined her person with the same expression with which he might have regarded a caged monkey. "Then you do not wish to confess?" "What's the use?" she demanded with a burst of impatience. "Haven't you caught me at the job?" He continued to eye her, reflectively. "The cities breed felons," he remarked. "It is a pity so young a girl should have chosen so dangerous and disastrous a career. It is inevitably disastrous. How did it happen that Colonel Hathaway allowed you to impose on him?" "I do sewing," she said doggedly. "In order to gain entrance to a household, I suppose. But Hathaway is wealthy. Why did you not undertake to rob him, instead of me?" "One at a time," said Josie, with a short laugh. "Oh, I understand. You expected to make the small pick-ups and then land the grand coup. The answer is simple, after all. But," he added, his voice growing stern and menacing for the first time, "I do not intend to be robbed, my girl. Fleece Hathaway if you can; it is none of my business; but you must not pry into my personal affairs or rifle my poor rooms. Do you understand me?" "I--I think so, sir." "Avoid me, hereafter. Keep out of my path. The least interference from you, in any way, will oblige me to turn you over to the police." "You'll let me go, now?" He glanced at her, frowning. "I am too much occupied to prosecute you--unless you annoy me further. Perhaps you have this night learned a lesson that will induce you to abandon such desperate, criminal ventures." Josie stood up. "I wish I knew how you managed to catch me," she said, with a sigh. "You were watching my house to-night, waiting until I was safely in bed before coming here. I happened to leave my room for a little air, and going out my back door I passed around the house and stood at the corner, in deep shade. My eyes were good enough to distinguish a form lurking under the tree by the river bank. I went in, put out my light, and returned to my former position. You watched the house and I watched you. You are not very clever, for all your slyness. You will never be clever enough to become a good thief--meaning a successful thief. After a half hour I saw you rise and take the path to the village. I followed you. Do you understand now? God has protected the just and humbled the wicked." That final sentence surprised the girl. Coming from his lips, it shocked her. In his former speech he had not denounced her crime, but only her indiscretion and the folly of her attempt. Suddenly he referred to God as his protector, asserting his personal uprightness as warrant for Divine protection; and, singularly enough, his tone was sincere. Josie hesitated whether to go or not, for Old Swallowtail seemed in a talkative mood and she had already discovered a new angle to his character. By way of diversion she began to cry. "I--I know I'm wicked," she sobbed; "it's wrong to steal; I know it is. But I--I--need the money, and you've got lots of it; and--and--I thought you must be just as wicked as I am!" His expression changed to one of grim irony. "Yes," said he, "by common report I am guilty of every sin in the calendar. Do you know why?" "No; of course I don't!" she answered, softening her sobs to hear more clearly. "Years ago, when I was a young man, I stabbed a fellow-student in the neck--a dreadful wound--because he taunted me about my mode of dress. I was wearing the only clothes my eccentric father would provide me with. I am wearing the same style of costume yet, as penance for that dastardly act--caused by an ungovernable temper with which I have been cursed from my birth. I would have entered the service of God had it not been for that temper. I am unable to control it, except by avoiding undue contact with my fellow men. That is why. I am living here, a recluse, when I should be taking an active part in the world's work." He spoke musingly, as if to himself more than to the girl who hung on each word with eager interest. No one had ever told her as much of Old Swallowtail as he was now telling her of himself. She wondered why he was so confidential. Was it because she seemed dull and stupid? Because she was a stranger who was likely to decamp instantly when he let her go? Or was the retrospective mood due to the hour and the unwonted situation? She waited, scarce breathing lest she lose a word. "The poor fellow whom I stabbed lived miserably for twenty years afterward," he went on, "and I supported him and his family during that time, for his life had been ruined by my act. Later in life and here at the Crossing, people saw me kill a balky horse in a wild rage, and they have been afraid of me ever since. Even more recently I--" He suddenly paused, remembering where he was and to whom he was speaking. The girl's face was perfectly blank when he shot a shrewd glance at it. Her look seemed to relieve his embarrassment. "However," said he in a different tone, "I am not so black as I'm painted." "I don't think you treat poor Ingua quite right," remarked Josie. "Eh? Why not?" "You neglect her; you don't give her enough to eat; she hasn't a dress fit for a ragamuffin to wear. And she's your granddaughter." He drew in a long breath, staring hard. "Has she been complaining?" "Not to me," said Josie; "but she doesn't need to. Haven't I eyes? Doesn't everyone say it's a shame to treat the poor child the way you do? My personal opinion is that you're a poor excuse for a grandfather," she added, with more spirit than she had yet exhibited. He sat silent a long time, looking at the lamp. His face was hard; his long, slim fingers twitched as if longing to throttle someone; but he positively ignored Josie's presence. She believed he was struggling to subdue what Ingua called "the devils," and would not have been surprised had-he broken all bounds and tried to do her an injury. "Go!" he said at last, still without looking at her. "Go, and remember that I will not forgive twice." She thought it best to obey. Very softly she left the room, and as she passed out he was still staring at the flame of the lamp and alternately clenching and unclenching his talon-like fingers. CHAPTER XVI INGUA'S NEW DRESS "Well," said Mary Louise, when Josie had related to her friend the story next morning, "what do you think of Old Swallowtail now?" "About the same as before. I'm gradually accumulating facts to account for the old man's strange actions, but I'm not ready to submit them for criticism just yet. The plot is still a bit ragged and I want to mend the holes before I spread it out before you." "Do you think he suspects who you are?" "No; he thinks I'm a waif from the city with a penchant for burglary. He expects me to rob you, presently, and then run away. I'm so unlikely to cross his path again that he talked with unusual frankness to me--or _at_ me, if you prefer to put it that way. All I gained last night was the knowledge that he's afraid of himself, that his temper cost him a career in the world and obliged him to live in seclusion and that he has a secret which he doesn't intend any red-headed girl to stumble on accidentally." "And you think he was angry when you accused him of neglecting Ingua?" "I'm sure he was. It made him more furious than my attempt to saw his padlock. Come, let's run over and see Ingua now. I want to ask how her grandfather treated her this morning." They walked through the grounds, crossed the river on the stepping-stones and found Ingua just finishing her morning's work. The child greeted them eagerly. "I'm glad you come," she said, "for I was meanin' to run over to your place pretty soon. What d'ye think hes happened? Las' night, in the middle o' the night--or p'r'aps nearer mornin'--Gran'dad begun to slam things aroun'. The smashin' of tables an' chairs woke me up, but I didn't dare go down to see what was the matter. He tumbled ev'rything 'round in the kitchen an' then went inter his own room an' made the fur fly there. I knew he were in one o' his tantrums an' that he'd be sorry if he broke things, but it wasn't no time to interfere. When the rumpus stopped I went to sleep ag'in, but I got up early an' had his breakfas' all ready when he come from his room. I'd picked up all the stuff he'd scattered an' mended a broken chair, an' things didn't look so bad. "Well, Ol' Swallertail jes' looked aroun' the room an' then at me an' sot down to eat. 'Ingua,' he says pretty soon,' you need a new dress.' Say, girls, I near fell over backwards! 'Go down to Sol Jerrems,' says he, 'an' pick out the goods, an' I'll pay for it. I'll stop in this mornin' an' tell Sol to let ye have it. An',' says he, lookin' at me ruther queer, 'ye might ask that redheaded sewin'-girl that's stay in' at the Hathaways' to make it up fer ye. I don't think she'll ask ye a cent fer the work.' "'Gran'dad,' says I, 'would ye hev a Cragg accep' charity, even to the makin' of a dress?' "' No,' says he; 'the girl owes me somethin' an' I guess she'll be glad to square the account.' "Then he goes away to town an' I've be'n nervous an' flustered ever since. I can't make it out, I can't. Do you owe him anything, Josie?" "Yes," said Josie with a laugh, "I believe I do. You shall have the dress, Ingua--all made up--and I'll go down with you and help pick out the goods." "So will I!" exclaimed Mary Louise, highly delighted. "And we will have Miss Huckins cut and fit it," continued Josie. "I'm not much good at that thing, Ingua, so we will have a real dressmaker and I'll pay her and charge it up to what I owe your grandfather." The little girl seemed puzzled. "How'd ye happen to owe him anything, Josie?" she asked. "Didn't he tell you?" "Not a word." "Then he expects it to remain a secret, and you mustn't urge me to tell. I'm pretty good at keeping secrets, Ingua. Aren't you glad of that?" They trooped away to town, presently, all in high spirits, and purchased the dress and trimmings at the store. Old Sol was so astonished at this transaction that he assailed the three girls with a thousand questions, to none of which did he receive a satisfactory reply. "He didn't put no limit on the deal," said the storekeeper. "He jus' said: 'Whatever the gal picks out, charge it to me an' I'll pay the bill.' Looks like Ol' Swallertail hed gone plumb crazy, don't it?" Then they went upstairs to Miss Huckins, who was likewise thrilled with excitement at the startling event of Ingua's having a new dress. Mary Louise and Josie helped plan the dress, which was to be a simple and practical affair, after all, and the dressmaker measured the child carefully and promised her a fitting the very next day. "I don't quite understan'," remarked Ingua, as they walked home after this impressive ceremony, "why you don't make the dress yourself, Josie, an' save yer money. You're a dressmaker, ye say." "I'm a sewing-girl," replied Josie calmly, "but I've promised Mary Louise to sew for no one but her while I'm here, and I'm too lazy to sew much, anyway. I'm having a sort of vacation, you know." "Josie is my friend," explained Mary Louise, "and I won't let her sew at all, if I can help it. I want her to be just my companion and have a nice visit before she goes back to the city." But when the two girls were alone Josie said to Mary Louise: "Old Cragg isn't so stony-hearted, after all. Just my suggestion last night that Ingua was being neglected has resulted in the new dress." "He threw things, though, before he made up his mind to be generous," observed Mary Louise. "But this proves that the old man isn't so very poor. He must have a little money, Josie." Josie nodded her head absently. She was trying hard to understand Mr. Cragg's character, and so far it baffled her. He had frankly admitted his ungovernable temper and had deplored it. Also he had refrained from having Josie arrested for burglary because he was "too occupied to prosecute her." Occupied? Occupied with what? Surely not the real estate business. She believed the true reason for her escape was that he dreaded prominence. Old Swallowtail did not wish to become mixed up with police courts any more than he could help. This very occurrence made her doubt him more than ever. CHAPTER XVII A CLEW AT LAST That night Josie resumed her watch of Cragg's cottage. She did not trust to the shadow of the tree to conceal her but hid herself under the bank of the river, among the dry stones, allowing only her head to project above the embankment and selecting a place where she could peer through some low bushes. She suspected that the excitement of the previous night might render the old man nervous and wakeful and send him out on one of his midnight prowls. This suspicion seemed justified when, at eleven-thirty, his light went out and a few minutes later he turned the corner of the house and appeared in the path. He did not seem nervous, however. With hands clasped behind his back and head bowed, he leisurely paced the path to the bridge, without hesitation crossed the river and proceeded along the road in a direction opposite to the village. Josie was following, keeping herself concealed with utmost care. She remembered that his eyes were sharp in penetrating shadows. He kept along the main country road for a time and then turned to the right and followed an intersecting road. Half a mile in this direction brought him to a lane running between two farm tracts but which was so little used that grass and weeds had nearly obliterated all traces of wagon-wheels. By this time Josie's eyes were so accustomed to the dim moonlight that she could see distinctly some distance ahead of her. The sky was clear; there was just enough wind to rustle the leaves of the trees. Now and then in some farmyard a cock would crow or a dog bark, but no other sounds broke the stillness of the night. The girl knew now where Old Swallowtail was bound. At the end of this lane lay his five acres of stones, and he was about to visit it. The fact gave her a queer little thrill of the heart, for a dozen strange fancies crossed her mind in rapid succession. If he had really killed Ned Joselyn, it was probable he had buried the man in this neglected place, amongst the rubble of stones. Josie had inspected every foot of ground on the Kenton Place and satisfied herself no grave had been dug there. Indeed, at the time of Joselyn's "disappearance" the ground had been frozen so hard that the old man could not have dug a grave. Perhaps after a night or two he had dragged the corpse here and covered it with stones. It would be a safe hiding-place. And now regret for his act drove the murderer here night after night to watch over the secret grave. Or, granting that the supposed crime had not been committed, might not Mr. Cragg have discovered some sort of mineral wealth in his stone-yard, which would account for his paying taxes on the place and visiting it so often? Or did he simply love the solitude of the dreary waste where, safe from prying eyes, he could sit among the rocky boulders and commune with himself beneath the moonlit sky? Such conjectures as these occupied the girl's mind while she stealthily "shadowed" the old man along the lane. Never once did he look behind him, although she was prepared to dissolve from view instantly, had he done so. And at last the end of the lane was reached and he climbed the rail fence which separated it from the valley of stones. Josie saw him suddenly pause, motionless, as he clung to the rails. She guessed from his attitude that he was staring straight ahead of him at something that had surprised him. A full minute he remained thus before he let himself down on the other side and disappeared from view. The girl ran lightly forward and, crouching low, peered through the bars of the fence. Half a dozen paces distant the old man stood among the stones in a silent paroxysm of rage. He waved his long arms in the air, anon clenching his fists and shaking them at some object beyond him. His frail old body fluttered back and forth, right and left, as if he were doing a weird dance among the rocks. The violence of his emotion was something terrible to witness and fairly startled the girl. Had he screamed, or sobbed, or shrieked, or moaned, the scene would have been more bearable, but such excess of silent, intense rage, made her afraid for the first time in her life. She wanted to run away. At one time she actually turned to fly; but then common sense came to her rescue and she resolved to stay and discover what had affected Old Swallowtail so strongly. From her present position she could see nothing more than a vista of tumbled stones, but rising until her head projected above the topmost rail she presently saw, far across the valley, an automobile, standing silhouetted against the gray background. The machine was at present vacant. It had been driven in from the other side of the valley, where doubtless there were other lanes corresponding with the one she was in. However, there was no fence on that side to separate the lane from the waste tract, so the machine had been driven as close as possible to the edge of the stones. Although the automobile was deserted, that was evidently the object which had aroused old Cragg's fury, the object at which he was even yet shaking his clenched fists. Josie wondered and watched. Gradually the paroxysm of wrath diminished. Presently the old man stood as motionless as the stones about him. Five minutes, perhaps, he remained thus, controlling himself by a mighty effort, regaining his capacity to think and reason. Then, to the girl's amazement, he tottered toward a large, shelf-like slab of stone and kneeling down, as before an altar, he bared his head, raised his arms on high and began to pray. There was no mistaking this attitude. Old Swallowtail was calling on God to support him in this hour of trial. Josie felt something clutching at her heart. Nothing could be more impressive than this scene--this silent but earnest appeal to the Most High by the man whom she suspected of murder--of crimes even more terrible. She could see his eyes, pleading and sincere, turned upward; could see his gray hair flutter in the breeze; could see his lips move, though they uttered no sound. And after he had poured out his heart to his Maker he extended his arms upon the slab, rested his head upon them and again became motionless. The girl waited. She was sorely troubled, surprised, even humiliated at being the witness of this extraordinary and varied display of emotion. She felt a sense of intrusion that was almost unjustifiable, even in a detective. What right had anyone to spy upon a communion between God and man? He rose, at length, rose and walked uncertainly forward, stumbling among the ragged rocks. He made for the far hillside that was cluttered with huge fragments of stone, some weighing many tons and all tumbled helter-skelter as if aimlessly tossed there by some giant hand. And when he reached the place he threaded his way between several great boulders and suddenly disappeared. Josie hesitated a moment what to do, yet instinct urged her to follow. She had a feeling that she was on the verge of an important discovery, that events were about to happen which had been wholly unforeseen even by old Cragg himself. She was taking a serious risk by venturing on the stony ground, for under the moonlight her dark form would show distinctly against the dull gray of the stones. Yet she climbed the fence and with her eye fixed on the cluster of rocks where Old Swallowtail had disappeared she made her way as best she could toward the place. Should the old man reappear or the owner of the strange automobile emerge from the rocks Josie was sure to be discovered, and there was no telling what penalty she might be obliged to pay for spying. It was a dreary, deserted place; more than one grave might be made there without much chance of detection. In a few minutes she had reached the hillside and was among the great boulders. She passed between the same ones where Mr. Cragg had disappeared but found so many set here and there that to follow his trail was impossible unless chance led her aright. There were no paths, for a rubble of small stones covered the ground everywhere. Between some of the huge rocks the passage was so narrow she could scarcely squeeze through; between others there was ample space for two people to walk abreast. The girl paused frequently to listen, taking care the while to make no sound herself, but an intense silence pervaded the place. After wandering here and there for a time without result she had started to return to the entrance of this labyrinth when her ears for the first time caught a sound--a peculiar grinding, thumping sound that came from beneath her feet seemingly, and was of so unusual a character that she was puzzled to explain its cause. The shadows cast by the towering rocks rendered this place quite dark, so Josie crouched in the deepest shade she could find and listened carefully to the strange sound, trying to determine its origin. It was surely under ground--a little to the right of her--perhaps beneath the hillside, which slanted abruptly from this spot. She decided there must be some secret passage that led to a cave under the hill. Such a cave might be either natural or artificial; in either case she was sure old Cragg used it as a rendezvous or workshop and visited it stealthily on his "wakeful" nights. Having located the place to the best of her ability Josie began to consider what caused that regular, thumping noise, which still continued without intermission. "I think it must be some sort of an engine," she reflected; "a stamp for ore, or something of that sort. Still, it isn't likely there is any steam or electrical power to operate the motor of so big a machine. It might be a die stamp, though, operated by foot power, or--this is most likely--a foot-power printing-press. Well, if a die stamp or a printing press, I believe the mystery of Old Swallowtail's 'business' is readily explained." She sat still there, crouching between the rocks, for more than two hours before the sound of the machine finally ceased. Another hour passed in absolute silence. She ventured to flash her pocket searchlight upon the dial of her watch and found it was nearly four o'clock. Dawn would come, presently, and then her situation would be more precarious than ever. While she thus reflected the sound of footsteps reached her ears--very near to her, indeed--and a voice muttered: "Come this way. Have you forgotten?" "Forgotten? I found the place, didn't I?" was the surly reply. Then there passed her, so closely that she could have touched them, three dim forms. She watched them go and promptly followed, taking the chance of discovery if they looked behind. They were wholly unconscious of her presence, however, and soon made their way out into the open. There they paused, and Josie, hiding behind a high rock, could both see and hear them plainly. One was old Cragg; another a tall, thin man with a monocle in his left eye; the third, she found to her surprise, was none other than Jim Bennett the postman. The tall man held in his arms a heavy bundle, securely wrapped. "You'll surely get them off to-morrow?" said Cragg to him, "Of course," was the answer. "You may be certain I'll not have them on my hands longer than is necessary." "Do you mean to play square, this time?" "Don't be a fool," said the tall man impatiently. "Your infernal suspicions have caused trouble enough, during the past year. Hidden like a crab in your shell, you think everything on the outside is going wrong. Can't you realize, Cragg, that I _must_ be loyal to C. I. L.? There's no question of my playing square; I've got to." "That's right, sir," broke in Jim Bennett. "Seems to me he's explained everything in a satisfactory manner--as far as anyone _could_ explain." "Then good night," said Cragg, gruffly, "and--good luck." "Good night," growled the tall man in return and made off in the direction of the automobile, carrying the package with him. The other two stood silently watching him until he reached the car, took his seat and started the motor. Presently the machine passed out of sight and then Bennett said in a tone of deepest respect: "Good night, Chief. This meeting was a great thing for C. I. L. It brings us all nearer to final success." "I wish I could trust him," replied Cragg, doubtfully. "Good night, Jim." The postman made off in another direction and the old man waited until he had fully disappeared before he walked away over the stones himself. Josie let him go. She did not care to follow him home. Weary though she was from her long vigil she determined to examine the rocks by daylight before she left the place. The sun was just showing its rim over the hills when she quitted Hezekiah Cragg's five acres of stones and took the lane to the highway. But her step was elastic, her eyes bright, her face smiling. "I've found the entrance, though I couldn't break in," she proudly murmured. "But a little dynamite--or perhaps a few blows of an axe-- will soon remove the barrier. This affair, however, is now too big and too serious for me to handle alone. I must have help. I think it will amaze dear old Dad to know what I've stumbled on this night!" CHAPTER XVIII DOUBTS AND SUSPICIONS Mary Louise entered her friend's room at seven o'clock and exclaimed: "Not up yet?" Josie raised her head drowsily from the pillow. "Let me sleep till noon," she pleaded. "I've been out all night." "And did you learn anything?" was the eager question. "Please let me sleep!" "Shall I send you up some breakfast, Josie?" "Breakfast? Bah!" She rolled over, drawing the clothes about her, and Mary Louise softly left the darkened room and went down to breakfast. "Gran'pa Jim," said she, thoughtfully buttering her toast, "do you think it's right for Josie to be wandering around in the dead of night?" He gave her an odd look and smiled. "If I remember aright, it was one Miss Mary Louise Burrows who thrust Josie into this vortex of mystery." "You didn't answer my question, Gran'pa Jim." "I can imagine no harm, to girl or man, in being abroad in this peaceful country at night, if one has the nerve to undertake it. You and I, dear, prefer our beds. Josie is wrapped up in the science of criminal investigation and has the enthusiasm of youth to egg her on. Moreover, she is sensible enough to know what is best for her. I do not think we need worry over her nightly wanderings, which doubtless have an object. Has she made any important discovery as yet?" "I believe not," said Mary Louise. "She has learned enough to be positive that old Mr. Cragg is engaged in some secret occupation of an illegal character, but so far she is unable to determine what it is. He's a very queer old man, it seems, but shrewd and clever enough to keep his secret to himself." "And how about the disappearance of Mr. Joselyn?" "We're divided in opinion about that," said the girl. "Ingua and I both believe Mr. Cragg murdered him, but Josie isn't sure of it. If he did, however, Josie thinks we will find the poor man's grave somewhere under the stones of the river bed. There was no grave dug on our grounds, that is certain." Colonel Hathaway regarded her seriously. "I am sorry, Mary Louise," he remarked, "that we ever decided to mix in this affair. I did not realize, when first you proposed having Josie here, that the thing might become so tragic." "It has developed under investigation, you see," she replied. "But I am not very sure of Josie's ability, because she is not very sure of it herself. She dare not, even yet, advance a positive opinion. Unless she learned something last night she is still groping in the dark." "We must give her time," said the Colonel. "We have accomplished some good, however," continued the girl. "Ingua is much happier and more content. She is improving in her speech and manners and is growing ambitious to become a respectable and refined young lady. She doesn't often give way to temper, as she used to do on every occasion, and I am sure if she could be removed from her grandfather's evil influence she would soon develop in a way to surprise us all." "Does her grandfather's influence seem to be evil, then?" asked the Colonel. "He has surrounded her with privations, if not with actual want," said she. "Only the night before last he was in such a violent rage that he tried to smash everything in the house. That is surely an evil example to set before the child, who has a temper of her own, perhaps inherited from him. He has, however, bought her a new dress--the first one she has had in more than a year--so perhaps the old man at times relents toward his granddaughter and tries to atone for his shortcomings." Gran'pa Jim was thoughtful for a time. "Perhaps," he presently remarked, "Mr. Cragg has but little money to buy dresses with. I do not imagine that a man so well educated as you report him to be would prefer to live in a hovel, if he could afford anything better." "If he is now poor, what has he done with all his money?" demanded Mary Louise. "That is a part of the mystery, isn't it? Do you know, my dear, I can't help having a kindly thought for this poor man; perhaps because he is a grandfather and has a granddaughter--just as I have." "He doesn't treat her in the same way, Gran'pa Jim," said she, with a loving look toward the handsome old Colonel. "And there is a perceptible difference between Ingua and Mary Louise," he added with a smile. They were to have Ingua's dress fitted by Miss Huckins that morning, and as Josie was fast asleep Mary Louise went across to the cottage to go with the girl on her errand. To her surprise she found old Mr. Cragg sitting upon his little front porch, quite motionless and with his arms folded across his chest. He stared straight ahead and was evidently in deep thought. This was odd, because he was usually at his office an hour or more before this time. Mary Louise hesitated whether to advance or retreat. She had never as yet come into personal contact with Ingua's grandfather and, suspecting him of many crimes, she shrank from meeting him now. But she was herself in plain sight before she discovered his presence and it would be fully as embarrassing to run away as to face him boldly. Moreover, through the open doorway she could see Ingua passing back and forth in the kitchen, engaged in her customary housework. So on she came. Mr. Cragg had not seemed to observe her, at first, but as she now approached the porch he rose from his chair and bowed with a courtly grace that astonished her. In many ways his dignified manners seemed to fit his colonial costume. "You will find Ingua inside, I believe," he said. "I--I am Mary Louise Burrows." Again he bowed. "I am glad to meet you, Miss Burrows. And I am glad that you and Ingua are getting acquainted," he rejoined, in even, well modulated tones. "She has not many friends and her association with you will be sure to benefit her." Mary Louise was so amazed that she fairly gasped. "I--I like Ingua," she said. "We're going into town to have her new dress tried on this morning." He nodded and resumed his chair. His unexpected politeness gave her courage. "It's going to be a pretty dress," she continued, "and, if only she had a new hat to go with it, Ingua would have a nice outfit. She needs new shoes, though," as an afterthought, "and perhaps a few other little things--like stockings and underwear." He was silent, wholly unresponsive to her suggestion. "I--I'd like to buy them for her myself," went on the girl, in a wistful tone, "only Ingua is so proud that she won't accept gifts from me." Still he remained silent. "I wonder," she said, with obvious hesitation, "if you would allow me to give _you_ the things, sir, and then you give them to Ingua, as if they came from yourself." "No!" It was a veritable explosion, so fierce that she started back in terror. Then he rose from his chair, abruptly quitted the porch and walked down the path toward the bridge in his accustomed deliberate, dignified manner. Ingua, overhearing his ejaculation, came to the open window to see what had caused it. "Oh, it's you, Mary Louise, is it?" she exclaimed. "Thank goodness, you've drove Gran'dad off to the office. I thought he'd planted himself in that chair for the whole day." "Are you ready to go to Miss Huckins'?" asked Mary Louise. "I will be, in a few minutes. Gran'dad was late gett'n' up this mornin' and that put things back. He had the 'wakes' ag'in last night." "Oh; did he walk out, then?" "Got back at about daylight and went to bed. That's why he slep' so late." Mary Louise reflected that in such a case Josie ought to have some news to tell her. She answered Ingua's inquiries after Josie by saying she was engaged this morning and would not go to town with them, so presently the two girls set off together. Mary Louise was much better qualified to direct the making of the new dress than was Josie, and she gave Miss Huckins some hints on modern attire that somewhat astonished the country dressmaker but were gratefully received. There was no question but that Mary Louise was stylishly, if simply, dressed on all occasions, and so Miss Huckins was glad to follow the young girl's advice. They were in the dressmaker's shop a long time, fitting and planning, and when at length they came down the stairs they saw Sol Jerrems standing in his door and closely scrutinizing through his big horn spectacles something he held in his hand. As Mary Louise wished to make a slight purchase at the store she approached the proprietor, who said in a puzzled tone of voice: "I dunno what t' say to you folks, 'cause I'm up in the air. This money may be genooine, but it looks to me like a counterfeit," and he held up a new ten-dollar bill. "I want a roll of tape, please," said Mary Louise. "I hope your money is good, Mr. Jerrems, but its value cannot interest us." "I dunno 'bout that," he replied, looking hard at Ingua, "Ol' Swallertail gimme this bill, not ten minutes ago, an' said as his gran'darter was to buy whatever she liked, as fur as the money would go. That order was so queer that it made me suspicious. See here: a few days ago ol' Cragg bought Ingua a dress--an' paid for it, by gum!--an' now he wants her t' git ten dollars' wuth o' shoes an' things! Don't that look mighty strange?" "Why?" asked Mary Louise. "'Cause it's the first money he's spent on the kid since I kin remember, an' he's allus talkin' poverty an' says how he'll die in the poorhouse if prices keep goin' up, as they hev durin' the furrin war that's now hummin' acrost the water. If he's _that_ poor, an' on a sudden springs a ten-dollar bill on me for fixin's fer his kid, there's sure somethin' wrong somewhere. I got stuck on a bill jus' like this a year ago, an' I ain't goin' to let any goods go till I find out for sure whether it's real money or not." "When can you find out?" inquired Mary Louise. "To-morrer there's a drummer due here f'm the city--a feller keen as a razor--who'll know in a minute if the bill is a counterfeit. If he says it's good, then Ingua kin trade it out, but I ain't goin' to take no chances." Ingua came close to the storekeeper, her face dark with passion. "Come," said Mary Louise, taking the child's arm, "let us go home. I am sure Mr. Jerrems is over particular and that the money is all right. But we can wait until to-morrow, easily. Come, Ingua." The child went reluctantly, much preferring to vent her indignation on old Sol. Mary Louise tried to get her mind off the insult. "We'll have the things, all right, Ingua," she said. "Wasn't it splendid in your grandfather to be so generous, when he has so little money to spend? And the ten dollars will fit you up famously. I wish, though," she added, "there was another or a better store at the Crossing at which to trade." "Well, there ain't," observed Ingua, "so we hev to put up with that Sol Jerrems. When I tell Gran'dad about this business I bet he'll punch Sol Jerrems' nose." "Don't tell him," advised Mary Louise. "Why not?" "I think he gave this money to Mr. Jerrems on a sudden impulse. Perhaps, if there is any question about its being genuine, he will take it back, and you will lose the value of it. Better wait until to-morrow, when of course the drummer will pronounce it all right. My opinion is that Mr. Jerrems is so unused to new ten dollar bills that having one makes him unjustly suspicious." "I guess yer right," said Ingua more cheerfully. "It's amazin' that Gran'dad loosened up at all. An' he might repent, like you say, an' take the money back. So I'll be like ol' Sol--I'll take no chances." CHAPTER XIX GOOD MONEY FOR BAD At luncheon Josie appeared at the table, fresh as ever, and Mary Louise began to relate to her and to her grandfather the occurrences of the morning. When she came to tell how Sol Jerrems had declared the money counterfeit, Josie suddenly sprang up and swung her napkin around her head, shouting gleefully: "Glory hallelujah! I've got him. I've trapped Old Swallowtail at last." They looked at her in amazement. "What do you mean?" asked Mary Louise. Josie sobered instantly. "Forgive me," she said; "I'm ashamed of myself. Go on with the story. What became of that counterfeit bill?" "Mr. Jerrems has it yet. He is keeping it to show to a commercial traveler, who is to visit his store to-morrow. If the man declares the money is good, then Ingua may buy her things." "We won't bother the commercial traveler," said Josie, in a tone of relief. "I'm going straight down to the store to redeem that bill. I want it in my possession." Colonel Hathaway regarded her gravely. "I think our female detective, having said so much and having exhibited such remarkable elation, must now explain her discoveries to us more fully," said he. "I'd rather not, just yet," protested Josie. "But what have I said in my madness, and what did my words imply?" "From the little I know of this case," replied the Colonel, "I must judge that you believe Mr. Cragg to be a counterfeiter, and that his mysterious business is--to counterfeit. In this out-of-the-way place," he continued, thoughtfully, "such a venture might be carried on for a long time without detection. Yet there is one thing that to me forbids this theory." "What is that, sir?" "A counterfeiter must of necessity have confederates, and Mr. Cragg seems quite alone in the conduct of his mysterious business." Josie smiled quite contentedly. Confederates? Last night's discoveries had proved that Old Swallowtail had two of these, at least. "Please don't lisp a word of this suspicion at present," she warned her friends. "If I am right--and I have no doubt of that--we are about to uncover a far-reaching conspiracy to defraud the Government. But the slightest hint of danger would enable them to escape and I want the credit of putting this gang of desperadoes behind the bars. Really, I'd no idea, when I began the investigation, that it would lead to anything so important. I thought, at first, it might be a simple murder case; simple, because the commonest people commit murder, and to the detective the deed is more revolting than exciting. But we may dismiss the murder suspicion entirely." "Oh, indeed! What about Ned Joselyn's mysterious disappearance?" asked Mary Louise. "Joselyn? He disappeared for a purpose," answered Josie. "I saw him last night--monocle and all--acting as old Cragg's confederate. Ned Joselyn is one of those I hope to land in prison." Her hearers seemed quite bewildered by this positive statement. "Where were you last night?" inquired Mary Louise. "At that five acres of stones we once visited, which is Mr. Cragg's private property. Hidden somewhere in the hillside is a cavern, and in that cavern the counterfeit money is made. I have heard the printing-press turning it out in quantity; I saw Ned Joselyn come away with a package of the manufactured bills and heard Old Swallowtail implore him to 'play square' with the proceeds. There was another of the gang present, also; a man whom I had considered quite an innocent citizen of Cragg's Crossing until I discovered him with the others. I think it was he who operated the press. It has been a very pretty plot, a cleverly conducted plot; and it has been in successful operation for years. But the gang is in the toils, just now, and little redheaded Josie O'Gorman is going to score a victory that will please her detective daddy mightily." Josie was surely elated when she ventured to boast in this manner. The others were duly impressed. "You don't mean to arrest those men alone, do you, Josie?" asked the Colonel somewhat anxiously. "No, indeed. I'm not yet quite ready to spring my trap," she replied. "When the time comes, I must have assistance, but I want to get all my evidence shipshape before I call on the Secret Service to make the capture. I can't afford to bungle so important a thing, you know, and this ten dollar bill, so carelessly given the storekeeper, is going to put one powerful bit of evidence in my hands. That was a bad slip on old Cragg's part, for he has been very cautious in covering his tracks, until now. But I surmise that Mary Louise's pleading for Ingua, this morning, touched his pride, and having no real money at hand he ventured to give the storekeeper a counterfeit. And old Sol, having been caught by a counterfeit once before--I wonder if Old Swallowtail gave him that one, too?--became suspicious of the newness of the bill and so played directly into our hands. So now, if you'll excuse me, I'll run to town without further delay. I won't rest easy until that bill is in my possession." "I'll go with you," said Mary Louise eagerly. Half an hour later the two girls entered the store and found the proprietor alone. Mary Louise made a slight purchase, as an excuse, and then Josie laid ten silver dollars on the counter and said carelessly: "Will you give me a ten dollar bill for this silver, Mr. Jerrems? I want to send it away in a letter." "Sure; I'd ruther hev the change than the bill," he answered, taking out his wallet. "But I wouldn't send so much money in a letter, if I was you. Better buy a post-office order." "I know my business," she pertly replied, watching him unroll the leather wallet. "No; don't give me that old bill. I'd rather have the new one on top." "That new one," said he, "I don't b'lieve is good. Looks like a counterfeit, to me." "Let's see it," proposed Josie, taking the bill in her hand and scrutinizing it. "I can tell a counterfeit a mile away. No; this is all right; I'll take it," she decided. "Yer like to git stung, if ye do," he warned her. "I'll take my chances," said Josie, folding the bill and putting it in her purse. "You've got good money for it, anyhow, so you've no kick coming, that I can see." "Why, that must be the bill Mr. Cragg gave you," Mary Louise said to the storekeeper, as if she had just recognized it. "It is," admitted Sol. "Then Ingua can now buy her outfit?" "Any time she likes," he said. "But I want it reg'lar understood that the sewin'-girl can't bring the money back to me, if she finds it bad. I ain't sure it's bad, ye know, but I've warned her, an' now it's her look-out." "Of course it is," agreed Josie. "But don't worry. The bill is good as gold. I wish I had a hundred like it." On their way home Josie stopped to call on Ingua, while Mary Louise, at her friend's request, went on. "I've two important things to tell you," Josie announced to the child. "One is that you needn't worry any more about Ned Joselyn's being dead. A girl whom I know well has lately seen him alive and in good health, so whatever your grandfather's crimes may have been he is not a murderer." Ingua was astounded. After a moment she gasped out: "How d'ye know? Who was the girl? Are ye sure it were Ned Joselyn?" "Quite sure. He has probably been in hiding, for some reason. But you mustn't tell a soul about this, Ingua; especially your grandfather. It is part of the secret between us, and that's the reason I have told you." Ingua still stared as if bewildered. "Who was the girl?" she whispered. "I can't tell you her name, but you may depend upon the truth of her statement, just the same." "And she's _sure_ it were Ned Joselyn she saw?" "Isn't he tall and thin, with a light moustache and curly hair, and doesn't he wear a glass in one eye?" "With a string to it; yes! That's him, sure enough. Where'd she see him?" "Don't ask me questions. It's a part of the girl's secret, you know. She let me tell you this much, so that you wouldn't worry any longer over the horror of that winter night when your grandfather went to the Kenton house and Joselyn disappeared. I think, Ingua, that the man is crooked, and mixed up with a lot of scoundrels who ought to be in jail." Ingua nodded her head. "Gran'dad told him he was crooked," she affirmed. "I don't say as Gran'dad is a saint, Josie, but he ain't crooked, like Ned--ye kin bank on that--'cause he's a Cragg, an' the Craggs is square-toes even when they're chill'ins." Josie smiled at this quaint speech. She was sorry for poor Ingua, whose stalwart belief in the Cragg honesty was doomed to utter annihilation when her grandsire was proved to have defrauded the Government by making counterfeit money. But this was no time to undeceive the child, so she said: "The other bit of news is that Sol Jerrems has traded the bill which he thought was bad for good money, so you can buy your things any time you please." "Then it wasn't counterfeit?" "I saw it myself. I've lived in the city so long that no one can fool me with counterfeit money. I can tell it in two looks, Ingua. So I'd rather have a nice new bill than ten clumsy silver dollars and I made the trade myself." "Where'd ye get so much money, Josie?" "My wages. I don't do much work, but I get paid regularly once a week." She didn't explain that her father made her a weekly allowance, but Ingua was satisfied. "What do you think I orter buy with that money, Josie? I need so many things that it's hard to tell where to begin and where to leave off." "Let's make a list, then, and figure it out." This occupied them some time and proved a very fascinating occupation to the poor girl, who had never before had so much money to spend at one time. "I owe it all to Mary Louise," she said gratefully, as Josie rose to depart. "It seems like no one can refuse Mary Louise anything. When she asked me to be more careful in my speech didn't I do better? I slips, now an' then, but I'ms always tryin'. And she tackled Gran'dad. If you or me--or I--had asked Gran'dad for that money, Josie, we'd never 'a' got it in a thousan' years. Why do you s'pose Mary Louise gits into people the way she does?" "It's personality, I suppose," answered Josie, thoughtfully. And then, realizing that Ingua might not understand that remark, she added: "There's no sham about Mary Louise; she's so simple and sweet that she wins hearts without any effort. You and I have natures so positive, on the contrary, that we seem always on the aggressive, and that makes folks hold aloof from us, or even oppose us." "I wish I was like Mary Louise," said Ingua with a sigh. "I don't," declared Josie. "We can't all be alike, you know, and I'd rather push ahead, and get a few knocks on the way, then have a clear path and no opposition." CHAPTER XX AN UNEXPECTED APPEARANCE For a week it was very quiet at Cragg's Crossing. The only ripple of excitement was caused by the purchase of Ingua's new outfit. In this the child was ably assisted by Mary Louise and Josie; indeed, finding the younger girl so ignorant of prices, and even of her own needs, the two elder ones entered into a conspiracy with old Sol and slyly added another ten dollars to Ingua's credit. The result was that she carried home not only shoes and a new hat--trimmed by Miss Huckins without cost, the material being furnished from the fund--but a liberal supply of underwear, ribbons, collars and hosiery, and even a pair of silk gloves, which delighted the child's heart more than anything else. Miss Huckins' new dress proved very pretty and becoming, and with all her wealth of apparel Ingua was persuaded to dine with Mary Louise at the Kenton house on Saturday evening. The hour was set for seven o'clock, in order to allow the girl to prepare her grandfather's supper before going out, and the first intimation Old Swallowtail had of the arrangement was when he entered the house Saturday evening and found Ingua arrayed in all her finery. He made no remark at first, but looked at her more than once--whether approvingly or not his stolid expression did not betray. When the girl did not sit down to the table and he observed she had set no place for herself, he suddenly said: "Well?" "I'm goin' to eat with the Hathaways to-night," she replied. "Their dinner ain't ready till seven o'clock, so if ye hurry a little I kin wash the dishes afore I go." He offered no objection. Indeed, he said nothing at all until he had finished his simple meal. Then, as she cleared the table, he said: "It might be well, while you are in the society of Mary Louise and Colonel Hathaway, to notice their method of speech and try to imitate it." "What's wrong with my talk?" she demanded. She was annoyed at the suggestion, because she had been earnestly trying to imitate Mary Louise's speech. "I will leave you to make the discovery yourself," he said dryly. She tossed her dishes into the hot water rather recklessly. "If I orter talk diff'rent," said she, "it's your fault. Ye hain't give me no schooling ner noth'n'. Ye don't even say six words a week to me. I'm just your slave, to make yer bed an' cook yer meals an' wash yer dishes. Gee! how'd ye s'pose I'd talk? Like a lady?" "I think," he quietly responded, "you picked up your slang from your mother, who, however, had some education. The education ruined her for the quiet life here and she plunged into the world to get the excitement she craved. Hasn't she been sorry for it many times, Ingua?" "I don't know much 'bout Marm, an' I don't care whether she's sorry or not. But I do know I need an eddication. If Mary Louise hadn't had no eddication she'd 'a' been just like me: a bit o' junk on a scrap-heap, that ain't no good to itself ner anybody else." He mused silently for a while, getting up finally and walking over to the door. "Your peculiarities of expression," he then remarked, as if more to himself than to the child, "are those we notice in Sol Jerrems and Joe Brennan and Mary Ann Hopper. They are characteristic, of the rural population, which, having no spur to improve its vocabulary, naturally grows degenerate in speech." She glanced at him half defiantly, not sure whether he was "pokin' fun at her" or not. "If you mean I talks country talk," said she, "you're right. Why shouldn't I, with no one to tell me better?" Again he mused. His mood was gentle this evening. "I realize I have neglected you," he presently said. "You were thrust upon me like a stray kitten, which one does not want but cannot well reject. Your mother has not supplied me with money for your education, although she has regularly paid for your keep." "She has?" cried Ingua, astounded. "Then you've swindled her an' me both, for I pays for more'n my keep in hard work. My keep? For the love o' Mike, what does my keep amount to? A cent a year?" He winced a little at her sarcasm but soon collected himself. Strangely enough, he did not appear to be angry with her. "I've neglected you," he repeated, "but it has been an oversight. I have had so much on my mind that I scarcely realized you were here. I forgot you are Nan's child and that you--you needed attention." Ingua put on her new hat, looking into a cracked mirror. "Ye might 'a' remembered I'm a Cragg, anyhow," said she, mollified by his tone of self reproach. "An' ye might 'a' remembered as _you're_ a Cragg. The Craggs orter help each other, 'cause all the world's ag'in 'em." He gave her an odd look, in which pride, perplexity and astonishment mingled. "And you are going into the enemy's camp to-night?" "Oh, Mary Louise is all right. She ain't like them other snippy girls that sometimes comes here to the big houses. _She_ don't care if I _am_ a Cragg, or if I talks country. I like Mary Louise." When she had gone the old man sat in deep thought for a long time. The summer evening cast shadows; twilight fell; darkness gradually shrouded the bare little room. Still he sat in his chair, staring straight ahead into the gloom and thinking. Then the door opened. Shifting his eyes he discovered a dim shadow in the opening. Whoever it was stood motionless until a low, clear voice asked sharply: "Anybody home?" He got up, then, and shuffled to a shelf, where he felt for a kerosene lamp and lighted it. "Come in, Nan," he said without turning around, as he stooped over the lamp and adjusted the wick. The yellow light showed a young woman standing in the doorway, a woman of perhaps thirty-five. She was tall, erect, her features well formed, her eyes bright and searching. Her walking-suit was neat and modish and fitted well her graceful, rounded form. On her arm was a huge basket, which she placed upon a chair as she advanced into the room and closed the door behind her. "So you've come back," remarked Old Swallowtail, standing before her and regarding her critically. "A self-evident fact, Dad," she answered lightly, removing her hat. "Where's Ingua?" "At a dinner party across the river." "That's good. Is she well?" "What do you care, Nan, whether she is well or not?" "If she's at a dinner party I needn't worry. Forgive the foolish question, Dad. Brennan promised to bring my suit case over in the morning. I lugged the basket myself." "What's in the basket?" "Food. Unless you've changed your mode of living the cupboard's pretty bare, and this is Saturday night. I can sleep on that heartbreaking husk mattress with Ingua, but I'll be skinned if I eat your salt junk and corn pone. Forewarned is forearmed; I brought my own grub." As she spoke she hung her hat and coat on some pegs, turned the lamp a little higher and then, pausing with hands on hips, she looked inquisitively at her father. "You seem pretty husky, for your age," she continued, with a hard little laugh. "You've been prospering, Nan." "Yes," sitting in a chair and crossing her legs, "I've found my forte at last. For three years, nearly, I've been employed by the Secret Service Department at Washington." "Ah." "I've made good. My record as a woman sleuth is excellent. I make more money in a week--when I'm working--than you do in a year. Unless--" She paused abruptly and gave him a queer look. "Unless it's true that you're coining money in a way that's not legal." He stood motionless before her, reading her face. She returned his scrutiny with interest. Neither resumed the conversation for a time. Finally the old man sank back into his chair. "A female detective," said he, a little bitterly, "is still--a female." "And likewise a detective. I know more about you, Dad, than you think," she asserted, in an easy, composed tone that it seemed impossible to disturb. "You need looking after, just at this juncture, and as I've been granted a vacation I ran up here to look after you." "In what way, Nan?" "We'll talk that over later. There isn't much love lost between us, more's the pity. You've always thought more of your infernal 'Cause' than of your daughter. But we're Craggs, both of us, and it's the Cragg custom to stand by the family." It struck him as curious that Ingua had repeated almost those very words earlier that same evening. He had never taught them the Cragg motto, "Stand Fast," that he could remember, yet both Nan and her child were loyal to the code. Was _he_ loyal, too? Had he stood by Nan in the past, and Ingua in the present, as a Cragg should do? His face was a bit haggard as he sat in his chair and faced his frank-spoken daughter, whose clear eyes did not waver before his questioning gaze. "I know what you're thinking," said she; "that I've never been much of a daughter to you. Well, neither have you been much of a father to me. Ever since I was born and my unknown mother--lucky soul!--died, you've been obsessed by an idea which, lofty and altruistic as you may have considered it, has rendered you self-centered, cold and inconsiderate of your own flesh and blood. Then there's that devilish temper of yours to contend with. I couldn't stand the life here. I wandered away and goodness knows how I managed to live year after year in a struggle with the world, rather than endure your society and the hardships you thrust upon me. You've always had money, yet not a cent would you devote to your family. You lived like a dog and wanted me to do the same, and I wouldn't. Finally I met a good man and married him. He wasn't rich but he was generous. When he died I was thrown on my own resources again, with a child of my own to look after. Circumstances forced me to leave Ingua with you while I hunted for work. I found it. I'm a detective, well-known and respected in my profession." "I'm glad to know you are prosperous," he said gently, as she paused. He made no excuses. He did not contradict her accusations. He waited to hear her out. "So," said Nan, in a careless, offhand tone, "I've come here to save you. You're in trouble." "I am not aware of it." "Very true. If you were, the danger would be less. I've always had to guess at most of your secret life. I knew you were sly and secretive. I didn't know until now that you've been crooked." He frowned a little but made no retort. "It doesn't surprise me, however," she continued. "A good many folks are crooked, at times, and the only wonder is that a clever man like you has tripped and allowed himself to fall under suspicion. Suspicion leads to investigation--when it's followed up--and investigation, in such cases, leads to--jail." He gave a low growl that sounded like the cry of an enraged beast, and gripped the arms of his chair fiercely. Then he rose and paced the room with frantic energy. Nan watched him with a half smile on her face. When he had finally mastered his wrath and became more quiet she said: "Don't worry, Dad. I said I have come to save you. It will be fun, after working for the Government so long, to work against it. There's a certain red-headed imp in this neighborhood who is the daughter of our assistant chief, John O'Gorman. Her name is Josie O'Gorman and she's in training for the same profession of which I'm an ornament. I won't sneer at her, for she's clever, in a way, but I'd like to show O'Gorman that Nan Shelley--that's my name in Washington--is a little more clever than his pet. This Josie O'Gorman is staying with the Hathaway family. She's been probing your secret life and business enterprises and has unearthed an important clew in which the department is bound to be interested. So she sent a code telegram to O'Gorman, who left it on his desk long enough for me to decipher and read it. I don't know what the assistant chief will do about it, for I left Washington an hour later and came straight to you. What I do know is that I'm in time to spike Miss Josie's guns, which will give me a great deal of pleasure. She doesn't know I'm your daughter, any more than O'Gorman does, so if the girl sees me here she'll imagine I'm on Government business. But I want to keep out of her way for a time. Do you know the girl, Dad?" "Yes," he said. "She's rather clever." "Yes." "I think she'd have nabbed you, presently, if I hadn't taken hold of the case so promptly myself. With our start, and the exercise of a grain of intelligence, we can baffle any opposition the girl can bring to bear. Do you wish to run away?" "No," he growled. "I'm glad of that. I like the excitement of facing danger boldly. But there's ample time to talk over details. I see you've had your supper, so I'll just fry myself a beefsteak." She opened her basket and began to prepare a meal. Old Swallowtail sat and watched her. Presently he smiled grimly and Nan never noticed the expression. Perhaps, had she done so, she would have demanded an explanation. He rarely smiled, and certainly his daughter's disclosures were not calculated to excite mirth, or even to amuse. CHAPTER XXI A CASE OF NERVES The "hotel" at the Crossing was not an imposing affair. Indeed, had there not been an "office" in the front room, with a wooden desk in one corner, six chairs and two boxes of sawdust to serve as cuspidors, the building might easily have been mistaken for a private residence. But it stood on the corner opposite the store and had a worn and scarcely legible sign over the front door, calling it a hotel in capital letters. The Hoppers, who operated the establishment, did an excellent business. On week days the farmers who came to town to trade made it a point to eat one of Silas Hopper's twenty-five cent dinners, famous for at least five miles around for profusion and good cookery. On Sundays--and sometimes on other days--an automobile party, touring the country, would stop at the hotel for a meal, and Mrs. Hopper was accustomed to have a chicken dinner prepared every Sunday in the hope of attracting a stray tourist. There were two guest rooms upstairs that were religiously reserved in case some patron wished to stay overnight, but these instances were rare unless a drummer missed his train and couldn't get away from the Crossing until the next day. The Sunday following the arrival of Ingua's mother in town proved a dull day with the Hoppers, who had been compelled to eat their chicken dinner themselves in default of customers. The dishes had been washed and Mary Ann, the daughter of the house, was sitting on the front porch in her Sunday gown and a rocking-chair, when an automobile drove up to the door and a dapper little man alighted. He was very elaborately dressed, with silk hat, patent-leather shoes and a cane setting off his Prince Albert coat and lavender striped trousers. Across his white waistcoat was a heavy gold watch-guard with an enormous locket dangling from it; he had a sparkling pin in his checkered neck-scarf that might be set with diamonds but perhaps wasn't; on his fingers gleamed two or three elaborate rings. He had curly blond hair and a blond moustache and he wore gold-rimmed eyeglasses. Altogether the little man was quite a dandy and radiated prosperity. So, when the driver of the automobile handed out two heavy suit cases and received from the stranger a crisp bill for his services, Mary Ann Hopper realized with exultation that the hotel was to have a guest. As the car which had brought him rolled away the little man turned, observed Mary Ann, and removing his silt hat bowed low. "I presume," said he in precise accents, "that this town is that of Cragg's Crossing, and that this building is the hotel. Am I correct in the surmise?" "I'll call Pa," said Mary Ann, somewhat embarrassed. Drummers she could greet with unconcern, but this important individual was a man of a different sort. His brilliant personality dazzled her. Mr. Hopper came out in his shirtsleeves, gave one look at his customer and put on his coat. "Goin' to stay, sir?" he asked. "For a time, if I like the accommodations," was the reply. "I am in need of perfect quiet. My doctor says I must court tranquility to avoid a nervous breakdown. I do not know your town; I do not know your hotel; I hired a man in the city to drive me until I came to a quiet place. He assured me, on the way, that this is a quiet place." "I dunno him," said Hopper, "but he didn't put up no bluff. If ye can find a quieter place ner this, outside a graveyard, I'll board ye fer noth'n'." "I thank you for your assurance, sir. Can you show me to the best room you can place at my disposal?" "Had dinner?" "I thank you, yes. I am weary from the long ride. I will lie down for an hour. Then I will take my usual walk. When I return I would like an omelet with mushrooms--I suppose you have no truffles?--for my evening meal." The landlord grinned and picked up the suit cases. "We're jest out o' truffles an' we're out o' mushrooms," he said, "but we're long on eggs an' ye can have 'em omeletted or fried or b'iled, as it suits yer fancy. Sophie's best hold is cookin' eggs. Sophie's my wife, ye know, an' there ain't no better cook in seven counties, so the drummers say." As he spoke he entered the house and led the way up the stairs. "Thank you; thank you," said the stranger. "I am glad your good wife is an experienced cook. Kindly ask her to spare no expense in preparing my meals. I am willing to pay liberally for what I receive." "This room, with board," remarked Hopper, setting down the suit cases in the front corner bedchamber, "will cost you a dollar a day, or five dollars a week--if you eat our reg'lar meals. If ye keep callin' fer extrys, I'll hev to charge ye extry." "Very reasonable; very reasonable, indeed," declared the stranger, taking a roll of bills from his pocket. "As I am at present unknown to you, I beg you to accept this five-dollar bill in advance. And now, if you will bring me a pitcher of ice-water, I will take my needed siesta. My nerves, as you may have observed, are at somewhat of a tension to-day." "We're out o' ice," remarked the landlord, pocketing the money, "but ye'll find plenty of good cold water at the pump in the back yard. Anything else, sir?" "I thank you, no. I am not thirsty. Ice-water is not necessary to my happiness. You will pardon me if I ask to be left alone--with my nerves." Hopper went away chuckling. His wife and Mary Ann were both at the foot of the stairs, lying in wait to question him. "That feller's as good as a circus," he asserted, taking off his coat again and lighting his corncob pipe. "He's got nerves an' money, an' he's come here to git rid of 'em both." "Who is he?" demanded Mrs. Hopper. "By gum, I fergot to ask him. I got thanked fer ev'rything I did an' ev'rything I couldn't do, an' I've got five dollars o' his money in my jeans as a evidence o' good faith. The whole performance sort o' knocked me out." "No wonder," asserted, his wife sympathetically. "I'll bet he's some punkins, though," declared Mary Ann, "an' he'll be a godsend to us after a dull week. Only, remember this, if he kicks on the feed he don't git no satisfaction out o' me." "I don't think he'll kick on anything," said her father. "He wants eggs for his supper, in a omelet." "He couldn't want anything that's cheaper to make," said Mrs. Hopper. "The hens are layin' fine jus' now." "When he comes down, make him register," suggested Mary Ann. "If ye don't, we won't know what ter call him." "I'll call him an easy mark, whatever his name is," said the landlord, grinning at his own attempt at wit. The stranger kept his room until five o'clock. Then he came down, spick and span, his cane under his arm, upon his hands a pair of bright yellow kid gloves. "I will now indulge in my walk," said he, addressing the family group in the office. "My nerves are better, but still vibrant. I shall be further restored on my return." "Jest sign the register," proposed Hopper, pointing to a worn and soiled book spread upon the counter. "Hate to trouble ye, but it's one o' the rules o' my hotel." "No trouble, thank you; no trouble at all," responded the stranger, and drawing a fountain-pen from his pocket he approached the register and wrote upon the blank page. "I hope there is, nothing to see in your town," he remarked, turning away. "I don't wish to see anything. I merely desire to walk." "Yer wish'll come true, I guess," said Hopper. "I've lived here over twenty year an' I hain't seen noth'n' yet. But the walkin' is as good as it is anywhere." "Thank you. I shall return at six o'clock--for the omelet," and he walked away with short, mincing steps that seemed to them all very comical. Three heads at once bent over the register, on which the stranger had I written in clear, delicate characters: "Lysander Antonius Sinclair, B. N., Boston, Mass." "I wonder what the 'B. N.' stands for," said Mary Ann Hopper, curiously. "Bum Nerves, o' course," replied the landlord. "He's got 'em, sure enough." CHAPTER XXII INGUA'S MOTHER "And how do you like your grandfather? Is he good to you?" asked Mrs. Scammel on Sunday forenoon, as she sat on the porch beside her small daughter. Old Swallowtail did not usually go to his office on Sundays, but kept his room at the cottage and wrote letters. To-day, however, he had wandered down the path and disappeared, and Nan and Ingua were both glad to see him go. "No," answered the child to both questions. "You don't like him?" "How can I, when he jes' sets an' glares at me ev'ry time he comes into the house--'cept when he complains I ain't doin' my work proper? It were a sort o' mean trick o' yours, Marm, leavin' me here to slave fer that ol' man while you was off in the cities, havin' a good time." "Yes," said Nan, "I was frolicking with starvation until I got a job, and it was the sort of job that wouldn't allow having a child around. But since I've been making money I've sent Dad five dollars every week, for your clothes and board." "You have?" "Every week." "Ten cents a week would pay for all the grub he gives me, an' there ain't a beggar in the county that sports the rags an' tatters I does. That new dress I had on las' night was the first thing in clothes he's bought me for a year, and I guess I wouldn't have had that if Mary Louise hadn't told him he orter dress me more decent." Nan's brow grew dark. "I'll have it out with him for that," she promised. "What does he do with his money, Ingua?" "Salts it, I guess. I never see him have any. It's one o' the mysteries, Marm. Mysteries is thick aroun' Gran'dad, an' folks suspicion 'most anything about him. All I know is that he ain't no spendthrift. Once, when Ned Joselyn used to come here, there was lots of money passed between 'em. I saw it myself. I helped pick it up, once, when they quarreled an' upset the table an' spilled things. But since Ned run ayray. Gran'dad's be'n more savin' than ever." "Ingua," said Nan, thoughtfully, "I want you to tell me all you know about Ned Joselyn, from the time he first came here." Ingua regarded her mother with serious eyes. "All?" she inquired. "Everything, little or big, that you can recollect." "You'll stick to Gran'dad, won't ye?" "That's what I'm here for. There are enemies on his trail and I mean to save him." "What's he done?" "I've got to find that out. When I was here before, I knew he had some secret interest to which he was devoted, but I was too indifferent to find out what it was. Now I want to know. If I'm going to save him from the penalties of his crime I must know what the crime is. I think this man Joselyn is mixed up with it in some way, so go ahead and tell me all you know about him." Ingua obeyed. For more than an hour she earnestly related the story of Ned Joselyn, only pausing to answer an occasional question from her mother. When she came to that final meeting at Christmas week and Joselyn's mysterious disappearance, Nan asked: "Do you think he killed him?" "I was pretty sure of it till yest'day, when Josie told me a friend of hers had seen him alive an' well." "Josie O'Gorman?" "No, Josie Jessup. She's the sewin'-girl over to Mary Louise's." "I know; but that girl has more names than one. Do you know her very well, Ingua?" "She's my best chum," declared the child. "Josie's a dandy girl, an' I like her." "Have you told her anything about your gran'dad?" "A little," Ingua admitted, hesitating. "See here," said Nan, scowling, "I'll put you wise. This red-headed Josie O'Gorman is a detective. She's the daughter of the man I work for in Washington--the assistant chief of the Department--and she is here to try to land your gran'dad in jail. What's more, Ingua, she's likely to do it, unless you and I find a way to head her off." Ingua's face depicted astonishment, grief, disappointment. Finally she said: "Gran'dad didn't murder Ned, for Josie herself told me so; so I can't see what he's done to go to jail for." "He has counterfeited money," said Nan in a low voice. "Gran'dad has?" "So they say, and I believe it may be true. Josie has wired her father that she's got the goods on Old Swallowtail and has asked that somebody be sent to arrest him. I saw the telegram and made up my mind I'd get the start of the O'Gormans. Dad won't run away. I've warned him they are on his trail and he didn't make any reply. But I wouldn't be surprised if he's gone, this very day, to cover up his traces. He's bright enough to know that if he destroys all evidence they can't prove anything against him." She spoke musingly, more to herself than the child beside her, but Ingua drew a deep sigh and remarked: "Then it's all right. Gran'dad is slick. They'll hev to get up early in the mornin' to beat him at his own game. But I wonder what he does with the counterfeit money, or the real money he trades it for." "I think I know," said her mother. "He's chucked a fortune into one crazy idea, in which his life has been bound up ever since I can remember, and I suppose he tried counterfeiting to get more money to chuck away in the same foolish manner." "What crazy idea is that?" inquired Ingua. "I'll tell you, sometime. Just now I see your friend Josie coming, and that's a bit of good luck. I'm anxious to meet her, but if she sees me first she won't come on." As she spoke she rose swiftly and disappeared into the house. "Stay where you are, Ingua," she called from within in a low voice; "I don't want her to escape." Josie was even now making her way across the stepping-stones. Presently she ran up the bank, smiling, and plumped down beside Ingua. "Top o' the morning to you," said she. "How did you enjoy your first evening in society?" "They were all very good to me," replied Ingua slowly, looking at her friend with troubled eyes. "I had a nice time, but--" "You were a little shy," said Josie, "but that was only natural. When you get better acquainted with Mary Louise and the dear old Colonel, you'll--" She stopped abruptly, for looking up she saw standing in the doorway Nan Shelley--by which name she knew her--who was calmly regarding her. The shock of surprise, for shock it surely was, seemed brief, for almost instantly Josie completed her broken speech: "When you know them better you'll feel quite at home in their society. Hello, Nan." "What! Josie O'Gorman? You here?" with well-affected surprise. "You know it. But how came _you_ here, Nan? Has Daddy sent you to help me?" "Help you! In what way?" "Help me enjoy country life," said Josie, coloring at her slip. "Why, I'm on a vacation. You don't seem to understand. I'm--Ingua's mother." Josie's self-control wasn't proof against this second shock. Her blue eyes stared amazed. With a low exclamation she stood up and faced the woman. "Ingua's mother! You, Nan?" "Just so," with a quiet smile. "Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself," declared Josie with righteous indignation. "You're one of the best paid women in the Department, and you've left your poor child here to starve and slave for a wretched old--," she paused. "Well, what is he?" asked Nan with tantalizing gentleness. "An old skinflint, at the least. Shame on you, Nan! Ingua is a dear little girl, and you--you're an unnatural mother. Why, I never suspected you were even married." "I'm a widow, Josie." "And Old Swallowtail is your father? How strange. But--why did you come here just now?" with sudden suspicion. "I've just finished the Hillyard case and they gave me a vacation. So I came here to see my little girl. I didn't know she was being neglected, Josie. I shall take better care of her after this. My visit to Cragg's Crossing is perfectly natural, for I was born here. But you? What are you up to, Josie?" "I'm visiting Mary Louise Burrows." "With what object?" A detective must be quick-witted. Josie's brain was working with lightning-like rapidity. In a few brief seconds she comprehended that if Nan was Old Swallowtail's daughter, home on a vacation, she must not be allowed to know that Josie was conducting a case against her father. Otherwise she might interfere and spoil everything. She knew Nan of old and respected her keen intelligence. Once, when they had been pitted against each other, Josie had won; but she was not sure she could defeat Nan a second time. Therefore it was imperative that old Cragg's daughter remain in ignorance of the fact that Josie was awaiting reinforcements from Washington in order to arrest Nan's father as a counterfeiter. Also Josie realized instantly that Ingua was likely to tell her mother all she knew about Joselyn, including the story she had told Josie; so, without hesitation she answered Nan's question with apparent frankness: "Really, Nan, I came here on a wild-goose chase. A man named Ned Joselyn had mysteriously disappeared and his wife feared he had met with foul play. I traced him to this place and as Colonel Hathaway and Mary Louise were living here--in Mrs. Joselyn's own house, by the way-- I had myself invited as their guest. Well, the long and short of it is that Joselyn isn't murdered, after all. He simply skipped, and since I came here to worry my poor brain over the fellow he has been discovered, still in hiding but very much alive." "You suspected my father of killing him?" "I did; and so did others; but it seems he didn't. But, even with that precious bubble burst, Mary Louise insists on my staying for a visit; so here I am, and your little girl has become my friend." Ingua knew this story to be quite correct, as far as it regarded her grandfather and Ned Joselyn. Its straightforward relation renewed her confidence in Josie. But Nan knew more than Josie thought she did, having intercepted the girl's telegram to her father; so she said with a slight sneer which she took no pains to conceal: "You're a clever girl, Josie O'Gorman; a mighty clever girl. You're so clever that I wouldn't be surprised if it tripped you, some day, and landed you on your pug nose." Which proved that Nan was _not_ clever, for Josie's indulgent smile masked the thought: "She knows all and is here to defend her father. I must look out for Nan, for she has a notion I'm still on the track of Hezekiah Cragg." CHAPTER XXIII PECULIAR PEOPLE Old Swallowtail came home at about four o'clock in the afternoon. The day was hot, yet the old man seemed neither heated nor wearied. Without a word to his daughter or Ingua he drew a chair to the little shady porch and sat down in their company. Nan was mending her child's old frock; Ingua sat thinking. For half an hour, perhaps, silence was maintained by all. Then Nan turned and asked: "Have you covered your tracks?" He turned his glassy, expressionless eyes toward her. "My tracks, as you call them," said he, "have been laid for forty years or more. They are now ruts. I cannot obliterate them in a day." The woman studied his face thoughtfully. "You are not worrying over your probable arrest?" "No." "Then it's all right," said she, relieved. "You're a foxy old rascal, Dad, and you've held your own for a good many years. I guess you don't need more than a word of warning." He made no reply, his eyes wandering along the path to the bridge. Mary Louise was coming their way, walking briskly. Her steps slowed a bit as she drew nearer, but she said in an eager voice: "Oh, Mrs. Scammel, Josie has told me you are here and who you are. Isn't it queer how lives get tangled up? But I remember you with gratitude and kindliest thoughts, because you were so considerate of my dear Gran'pa Jim. And to think that you are really Ingua's mother!" Nan rose and took the girl's hands in her own. "I fear I've been a bad mother to my kid," she replied, "but I thought she was all right with her grandfather and happy here. I shall look after her better in the future." Mary Louise bowed to Mr. Cragg, who nodded his head in acknowledgment. Then she sat down beside Ingua. "Are you plannin' to take me away from here, Mama?" asked the child. "Wouldn't you rather be with me than with your grandfather?" returned Nan with a smile. "I dunno," said Ingua seriously. "You're a detective, an' I don't like detections. You ain't much like a mother to me, neither, ner I don't know much about you. I dunno yet whether I'm goin' to like you or not." A wave of color swept over Nan's face; Mary Louise was shocked; the old man turned his inscrutable gaze down the path once more. "I like it here," continued the child, musingly: "Gran'dad makes me work, but he don't bother me none 'cept when the devils get, hold o' him. I 'member that you git the devils, too, once in awhile, Marm, an' they're about as fierce as Gran'dad's is. An' I gets 'em 'cause I'm a Cragg like the rest o' you, an' devils seem to be in the Cragg blood. I've a notion it's easier to stand the devils in the country here, than in the city where you live." Nan didn't know whether to be amused or angry. "Yet you tried to run away once," she reminded Ingua, "and it was Mary Louise who stopped you. You told me of this only an hour ago. "Didn't I say the devils pick on _me_ sometimes?" demanded the girl. "An' Mary Louise was right. She fought the devils for me, and I'm glad she did, 'cause I've had a good time with her ever since," and she pressed Mary Louise's hand gratefully. Her child's frankness was indeed humiliating to Nan Scammel, who was by no means a bad woman at heart and longed to win the love and respect of her little girl. Ingua's frank speech had also disturbed Mary Louise, and made her sorry for both the child and her mother. Old Swallowtail's eyes lingered a moment on Ingua's ingenuous countenance but he exhibited no emotion whatever. "You're a simple little innocent," remarked Nan to Ingua, after a strained pause. "You know so little of the world that your judgment is wholly unformed. I've a notion to take you to Washington and buy you a nice outfit of clothes--like those of Mary Louise, you know--and put you into a first-class girls' boarding-school. Then you'll get civilized, and perhaps amount to something." "I'd like that," said Ingua, with a first display of enthusiasm; "but who'd look after Gran'dad?" "Why, we must provide for Dad in some way, of course," admitted Nan after another pause. "I can afford to hire a woman to keep house for him, if I hold my present job. I suppose he has a hoard of money hidden somewhere, but that's no reason he wouldn't neglect himself and starve if left alone. And, if he's really poor, I'm the one to help him. How does that arrangement strike you, Ingua?" "It sounds fine," replied the girl, "but any woman that'd come _here_ to work, an' would stan' Gran'dad's devils, wouldn't amount to much, nohow. If we're goin' to move to the city," she added with a sigh, "let's take Gran'dad with us." This conversation was becoming too personal for Mary Louise to endure longer. They talked of Mr. Cragg just as if he were not present, ignoring him as he ignored them. With an embarrassed air Mary Louise rose. "I must go now," said she. "I just ran over to welcome you, Mrs. Scammel, and to ask you and Ingua to dine with us to-morrow night. Will you come? Josie O'Gorman is with us, you know, and I believe you are old friends." Nan hesitated a moment. "Thank you," she replied, "we'll be glad to come. You've been mighty good to my little girl and I am grateful. Please give my regards to Colonel Hathaway." When Mary Louise had gone the three lapsed into silence again. Ingua was considering, in her childish but practical way, the proposed changes in her life. The mother was trying to conquer her annoyance at the child's lack of filial affection, tacitly admitting that the blame was not Ingua's. The old man stared at the path. Whatever his thoughts might be he displayed no hint of their nature. Presently there appeared at the head of the path, by the bridge, the form of a stranger, a little man who came on with nervous, mincing steps. He was dressed in dandified fashion, with tall silk hat, a gold-headed cane and yellow kid gloves. Almost had he reached the porch when suddenly he stopped short, looked around in surprise and ejaculated: "Bless me--bless me! I--I've made a mistake. This is a private path to your house. No thoroughfare. Dear me, what an error; an unpardonable error. I hope you will excuse me--I--I hope so!" "To be sure we will," replied Nan with a laugh, curiously eyeing the dapper little man. "The only way out, sir, is back by the bridge." "Thank you. Thank you very much," he said earnestly. "I--I am indulging in a stroll and--and my mind wandered, as did my feet. I--I am an invalid in search of rest. Thank you. Good afternoon." He turned around and with the same mincing, regular steps retreated along the path. At the bridge he halted as if undecided, but finally continued along the country road past the Kenton Place. Ingua laughed delightedly at the queer man. Nan smiled. Old Swallowtail had altered neither his position nor his blank expression. "He's a queer fish, ain't he?" remarked the girl. "He's pretty lively for an invalid what's lookin' for rest. I wonder when he landed, an' where he's stoppin'." Something in the child's remark made Nan thoughtful. Presently she laid down her work and said: "I believe I'll take a little walk, myself, before dark. Want to go along, Ingua?" Ingua was ready. She had on her new dress and hoped they might meet someone whom she knew. They wandered toward the town, where most of the inhabitants were sitting outf of doors--a Sunday afternoon custom. Jim Bennett, in his shirtsleeves, was reading a newspaper in front of the postoffice; Sol Jerrems and his entire family occupied the platform before the store, which was of course locked; Nance Milliker was playing the organ in the brown house around the corner, and in front of the hotel sat Mary Ann Hopper in her rocking-chair. Nan strolled the length of the street, startling those natives who had formerly known her, Ingua nodded and smiled at everyone. Mary Ann Hopper called, as they passed her: "Hullo, Ingua. Where'd ye git the new duds?" "Miss Huckins made 'em," answered Ingua proudly. "I guess I'll go and shake hands with Mrs. Hopper," said Nan. "Don't you remember me, Mary Ann? I'm Nan Cragg." "Gee! so y'are," exclaimed Mary Ann wonderingly. "We all 'spicioned you was dead, long ago." "I'm home for a visit. You folks seem prosperous. How's business?" "Pretty good. We got a new boarder to-day, a feller with bum nerves who come from the city. Gee! but he's togged out t' kill. Got money, too, an' ain't afraid to spend it. He paid Dad in advance." "That's nice," said Nan. "What's his name?" "It's a funny name, but I can't remember it. Ye kin see it on the register." Nan went inside, leaving Ingua with Mary Ann, and studied the name on the register long and closely. "No," she finally decided, "Lysander isn't calculated to arouse suspicion. He wears a wig, I know, but that is doubtless due to vanity and not a disguise. I at first imagined it was someone O'Gorman had sent down here to help Josie, but none of our boys would undertake such a spectacular personation, bound to attract attention. This fellow will become the laughing-stock of the whole town and every move he makes will be observed. I'm quite sure there is nothing dangerous in the appearance here of Mr. Lysander Antonius Sinclair." She chatted a few minutes with Mrs. Hopper, whom she found in the kitchen, and then she rejoined Ingua and started homeward. Scarcely were mother and child out of sight when Mr. Sinclair came mincing along from an opposite direction and entered the hotel. He went to his room but soon came down and in a querulous voice demanded his omelet, thanking the landlady again and again for promising it in ten minutes. He amused them all very much, stating that an omelet for an evening meal was "an effective corrective of tired nerves" and would enable him to sleep soundly all night. "I sleep a great deal," he announced after he had finished his supper and joined Mr. Hopper on the porch. "When I have smoked a cigar--in which luxury I hope you will join me, sir--I shall retire to my couch and rest in the arms of Morpheus until the brilliant sun of another day floods the countryside." "P'r'aps it'll rain," suggested the landlord. "Then Nature's tears will render us sweetly sympathetic." He offered his cigar case to Mr. Hopper, who recognized a high priced cigar and helped himself. "Didn't see anything to make ye nervous, durin' yer walk, did ye?" he inquired, lighting the weed. "Very little. It seems a nice, quiet place. Only once was I annoyed. I stumbled into a private path, just before I reached the river, and--and had to apologize." "Must 'a' struck Ol' Swallertail's place," remarked the landlord. "Old Swallowtail? Old Swallowtail? And who is he?" queried the stranger. Hopper was a born gossip, and if there was any one person he loved to talk of and criticize and "pick to pieces" it was Old Swallowtail. So he rambled on for a half hour, relating the Cragg history in all its details, including the story of Ingua and Ingua's mother, Nan Cragg, who had married some unknown chap named Scammel, who did not long survive the ceremony. Mr. Sinclair listened quietly, seeming to enjoy his cigar more than he did the Cragg gossip. He asked no questions, letting the landlord ramble on as he would, and finally, when Hopper had exhausted his fund of fact and fiction, which were about evenly mixed, his guest bade him good night and retired to his private room. "It ain't eight o'clock, yet," said the landlord to his wife, "but a feller with nerves is best asleep. An' when he's asleep he won't waste our kerosene." No, Mr. Sinclair didn't waste the Hopper kerosene. He had a little pocket arrangement which supplied him with light when, an hour before midnight, he silently rose, dressed himself and prepared to leave the hotel. He was not attired in what Mary Ann called his "glad rags" now, but in a dark gray suit of homespun that was nearly the color of the night. The blond wig was carefully locked in a suit case, a small black cap was drawn over his eyes, and thus--completely transformed--Mr. Hopper's guest had no difficulty in gaining the street without a particle of noise betraying him to the family of his host. He went to the postoffice, pried open a window, unlocked the mail bag that was ready for Jim Bennett to carry to the morning train at Chargrove and from it abstracted a number of letters which he unsealed and read with great care. They had all been written and posted by Hezekiah Cragg. The man spent a couple of hours here, resealing the envelopes neatly and restoring them to the mail bag, after which, he attached the padlock and replaced the bag in exactly its former position. When he had left the little front room which was devoted by the Bennetts to the mail service, the only evidence of his visit was a bruised depression beside the window-sash which was quite likely to escape detection. After this the stranger crept through the town and set off at a brisk pace toward the west, taking the road over the bridge and following it to the connecting branch and thence to the lane. A half hour later he was standing in old Cragg's stone lot and another hour was consumed among the huge stones by the hillside--the place where Josie had discovered the entrance to the underground cave. Mr. Sinclair did not discover the entrance, however, so finally he returned to town and mounted the stairs beside Sol Jerrem's store building to the upper hallway. In five minutes he was inside of Cragg's outer office; in another five minutes he had entered the inner office. There he remained until the unmistakable herald of dawn warned him to be going. However, when he left the building there was no visible evidence of his visit. He was in his own room and in bed long before Mrs. Hopper gave a final snore and wakened to light the kitchen fire and prepare for the duties of the day. CHAPTER XXIV FACING DANGER Nan's presence at Cragg's Crossing rendered Josie O'Gorman uneasy. She had the Cragg case so well in hand, now, and the evidence in her possession was so positively incriminating, in her judgment, that she did not like to be balked by a clever female detective from her father's own office. She had little doubt but Nan would do all in her power to save old Hezekiah Cragg from the penalty of his misdeeds, and her greatest fear was that he might utterly disappear before O'Gorman sent her assistance. With this fear growing in her mind, on Monday she determined to send another telegram to her father, urging haste, so she obtained permission from the Colonel to have Uncle Eben drive her and Mary Louise to the city, there being no telegraph office at Chargrove Station. But she timed the trip when no trains would stop at Chargrove during her absence and at the telegraph office she sent an imperative message to John O'Gorman at Washington demanding instant help. Since all counterfeiting cases belonged distinctly to the Secret Service Department she had little doubt her father would respond as soon as the affairs at the office would permit him to do so. But the delay was exasperating, nevertheless. Indeed, Josie was so sure that the crisis of her case was imminent that she determined to watch old Cragg's house every night until his arrest could be made. If he attempted to escape she would arrest him herself, with the aid of the little revolver she carried in her dress pocket. On their return journey they overtook Mr. Sinclair at about a mile from the Crossing. They had never seen the man before, but when he signaled them. Uncle Eben slowed up the machine and stopped beside him. "I beg a thousand pardons," said the dapper little stranger, removing his silk hat and bowing profoundly to the two girls, "but would you mind taking me to the town? I--I--fear I have turned my ankle; not seriously, you know, but it is uncomfortable; so if I may sit beside your chauffeur the favor will be greatly appreciated." "To be sure," said Mary Louise with ready. "Can you get in unaided, or do you wish Uncle Eben to assist you?" "Thank you; thank you a thousand times, young lady," said he, climbing into the front seat. "I'm stopping at the hotel," he explained, as the car again started, "for rest and quiet, because of my nervous condition. My doctor said I would suffer a nervous breakdown if I did not seek rest and quiet in the seclusion of some country village. So I came here, and--it's secluded; it really is." "I hope your ankle is not seriously injured, sir," said Mary Louise. "Take the gentleman to the hotel, Uncle Eben." "Thank you," said the little man, and fussily removing a card-case from an inner pocket he added: "My card, please," and handed it to Mary Louise. Josie glanced at the card, too. She had been regarding the stranger thoughtfully, with the same suspicions of him that Nan had formerly entertained. The card was not printed; it was engraved: one point in the man's favor. His blond hair was a wig; she had a good view of the back of it and was not to be deceived. But perhaps the moustache, which matched the hair, was genuine. Carefully considering the matter, she did not think anyone would come to Cragg's Crossing in disguise unless he were a confederate of Hezekiah Cragg, helping to circulate the counterfeit money. This odd Mr. Sinclair might be such a person and working under the direction of Ned Joselyn. Joselyn was in hiding, for some unexplained reason; Sinclair could appear openly. There might be nothing in this supposition but Josie determined to keep an eye on the nervous stranger. He was profuse in his thanks when they let him out at Hopper's Hotel and Uncle Eben chuckled all the way home. "Dat man am shuah some mighty 'stravagant punkins, in he's own mind," he remarked. "He oughteh git he's pictur' took in dat outfit, Ma'y Weeze, jes' to show how 'dic'lous a white man can look. He'll have all de kids in town a-chasin' of him, if he gits loose on de streets. All he needs is a brass ban' to be a circus parade." Nan and Ingua came over to dinner that evening and Josie was very cordial to Ingua's mother, who treated her chief's daughter with the utmost friendliness. Both Ingua and Mary Louise were surprised by their politeness and comradeship, but neither of the principals was deceived by such a display. Each was on her guard, but realized it was wise to appear friendly. Monday night Josie lurked in the shadows of the river bank until daybreak, never relaxing her espionage of the Cragg house for a moment. All was quiet, however. Tuesday passed without event. Tuesday night Josie was at her post again, her eyes fixed on the dim light that shone from Mr. Cragg's room. Had she been able to see through the walls of the cottage she would have found the old man seated in his private apartment opposite his daughter. Could she have heard their conversation--the low, continuous hum of Old Swallowtail's voice, broken only by an occasional question from Nan--she would surely have been astonished. Nan was not much astonished, save at the fact that her father had at last voluntarily confided to her the strange story of his life, a life hitherto unknown to her. She was not easily surprised, but she was greatly impressed, and when he finally rose from his chair and went out into the night Nan sat in meditation for some time before she followed him. Ingua had long been asleep. Josie, lurking outside, had not expected Old Swallowtail to leave the premises unless he planned to run away. His delivery of counterfeit money to Ned Joselyn had been of too recent a date to render it necessary that he revisit his stone-yard for some time to come, she argued; yet to-night, at a little after eleven o'clock, she saw his shadow pass from the house and take the path to the bridge. Josie followed. At the bridge Mr. Cragg turned westward and at once she surmised he was bound for his rocky five acres. The old man walked deliberately, never thinking to look behind him. He might not have observed anything suspicious had he turned, but a hundred feet behind him came Josie O'Gorman, deftly dodging from tree to bush to keep in the dark places by the wayside. And behind Josie silently moved a little man in gray homespun, whose form it would be difficult to distinguish even while he stood in the open. Josie, like the prey she stalked, was too occupied to look behind. Old Swallowtail reached the stone-yard and climbed the fence. While he paused there Josie crept close and noticed a light which suddenly flashed from the hillside. It was a momentary flash and not very brilliant, but she knew it was a signal because the old man at once started forward. She let him lead on until he disappeared among the rocks and then she boldly followed. She knew now where the secret entrance to the cavern was located. Threading her way cautiously through the maze of rocks the girl finally reached a slanting shelf beneath which she crept on hands and knees. At its farthest edge was a square door of solid oak, rather crudely constructed but thick and substantial. This door stood ajar. Josie, crouching beside the secret entrance, wondered what she ought to do. The regular thumping, as of machinery, which she had heard once before, now began and continued without interruption. Here was an opportunity to catch the counterfeiters redhanded, but she was one small girl as opposed to a gang of desperate criminals. "Oh, dear!" she whispered, half aloud, "I wish father had paid some attention to my telegram." "He did," responded a soft voice beside her. CHAPTER XXV FATHER AND DAUGHTER The girl would have screamed had not a hand been swiftly laid across her lips to stifle the sound. She tried to rise, but the shelf of rock beneath which she crouched prevented her. However, she struggled until an arm was passed firmly around her waist and a stern voice said warningly: "Josie! Control yourself." Instantly her form relaxed and became inert. She breathed hard and her heart still raced, but she was no longer afraid. "Kiss me, Daddy!" she whispered, and the man obeyed with a chuckle of delight. There was silence for a time, while she collected herself. Then she asked in a businesslike tone: "When did you get here?" "Sunday," said he. "Good gracious! You must have caught the first train after getting my wire." "I did. A certain gang of unknown counterfeiters has been puzzling me a good deal lately, and I fancied you had located the rascals." "I have," said Josie exultantly. "Where?" he asked. "The rascals are down below us this very minute, Daddy. They are at our mercy." "Old Cragg and Jim Bennett?" "Yes; and perhaps others." "M-m-m," mumbled O'Gorman, "you've a lot to learn yet, Josie. You're quick; you're persevering; you're courageous. But you lack judgment." "Do you mean that you doubt my evidence?" she asked indignantly. "I do." "I've the counterfeit bill here in my pocket, which Cragg tried to pass on the storekeeper," she said. "Let me see it." Josie searched and found the bill. O'Gorman flashed a circle of light on it and studied it attentively. "Here," he said, passing it back to her. "Don't lose it, Josie. It's worth ten dollars." "Isn't it counterfeit?" she asked, trying to swallow a big lump that rose in her throat. "It is one of the recent issues, good as gold." She sat silent, rigid with disappointment. Never had she been as miserable as at this moment. She felt like crying, and a sob really did become audible in spite of her effort to suppress it. Again O'Gorman passed his arm affectionately around her waist and held her close while she tried to think what it all meant. "Was that bill your only basis of suspicion, dear?" he presently inquired. "No, indeed. Do you hear that noise? What are they doing down there?" "I imagine they are running a printing press," he replied. "Exactly!" she said triumphantly. "And why do these men operate a printing press in a secret cavern, unless they are printing counterfeit money?" "Ah, there you have allowed your imagination to jump," returned her father. "Haven't I warned you against the danger of imagination? It leads to theory, and theory leads--nine times in ten--to failure." "Circumstantial evidence is often valuable," declared Josie. "It often convicts," he admitted, "but I am never sure of its justice. Whenever facts are obtainable, I prefer facts." "Can you explain," she said somewhat coldly, for she felt she was suffering a professional rebuke, "what those men below us are printing, if not counterfeit money?" "I can," said he. "And you have been down there, investigating?" "Not yet," he answered coolly. "Then _you_ must be theorizing, Daddy." "Not at all. If you know you have two marbles in one pocket and two more in another pocket, you may be positive there are four altogether, whether you bother to count them individually or not." She pondered this, trying to understand what he meant. "You don't know old Cragg as well as I do," she asserted. "Let us argue that point," he said quickly. "What do you know about him?" "I know him to be an eccentric old man, educated and shrewd, with a cruel and murderous temper; I know that he has secluded himself in this half-forgotten town for many years, engaged in some secret occupation which he fears to have discovered. I am sure that he is capable of any crime and therefore--even if that bill is good--I am none the less positive that counterfeiting is his business. No other supposition fits the facts in the case." "Is that all you know about old Cragg?" asked O'Gorman. "Isn't it enough to warrant his arrest?" she retorted. "Not quite. You've forgotten to mention one thing among his characteristics, Josie." "What is that?" "Cragg is an Irishman--just as I am." "What has that to do with it?" "Only this: his sympathies have always been interested in behalf of his downtrodden countrymen. I won't admit that they _are_ downtrodden, Josie, even to you; but Cragg thinks they are. His father was an emigrant and Hezekiah was himself born in Dublin and came to this country while an infant. He imagines he is Irish yet. Perhaps he is." There was a note of bewilderment in the girl's voice as she asked: "What has his sympathy for the Irish to do with this case?" "Hezekiah Cragg," explained O'Gorman, speaking slowly, "is at the head of an organization known as the 'Champions of Irish Liberty.' For many years this C. I. L. fraternity has been growing in numbers and power, fed by money largely supplied by Cragg himself. I have proof, indeed, that he has devoted his entire fortune to this cause, as well as all returns from his business enterprises. He lives in comparative poverty that the Champions of Irish Liberty may finally perfect their plans to free Ireland and allow the Irish to establish a self-governing republic." "But--why all this secrecy, Daddy?" she asked wonderingly. "His work here is a violation of neutrality; it is contrary to the treaty between our country and England. According to our laws Hezekiah Cragg and his followers, in seeking to deprive England of her Irish possession, are guilty of treason." "Could he be prosecuted for sympathizing with his own race?" "No; for sending them arms and ammunition to fight with, yes. And that is what they have been doing." "Then you can arrest him for this act?" "I can," said O'Gorman, "but I'll be hanged if I will, Josie. Cragg is an idealist; the cause to which he has devoted his life and fortune with a steadfast loyalty that is worthy of respect, is doomed to failure. The man's every thought is concentrated on his futile scheme and to oppose him at this juncture would drive him mad. He isn't doing any real harm to our country and even England won't suffer much through his conspiracy. But, allowing for the folly of his attempt to make his people free and independent, we must admire his lofty philanthropy, his self-sacrifice, his dogged perseverence in promoting the cause so near and dear to his heart. Let some other federal officer arrest him, if he dares; it's no work for an O'Gorman." Josie had encountered many surprises during her brief career as an embryo detective, but this revelation was the crowning astonishment of her life. All her carefully prepared theories concerning Hezekiah Cragg had been shattered by her father's terse disclosure and instead of hating Old Swallowtail she suddenly found sympathy for his ideals welling in her heart. Josie O 'Gorman was Irish, too. She pondered deeply the skilled detective's assertions and tried to fit them to her knowledge of old Cragg's character. The story seemed to account for much, but not all. After a time she said: "But this mysterious business of his, which causes him to write so many letters and to receive so many answers to them--what connection can it have with the Champions of Irish Liberty?" "Very little," said her father, "except that it enables Cragg to earn more money to feed into the ever-hungry maw of the Cause. Cragg's 'business' is one of the most unique things of the sort that I have ever encountered. And, while it is quite legitimate, he is obliged to keep it secret so as not to involve his many customers in adverse criticism." "What on earth can it be?" "It pertains to heaven, not earth, my dear," said O'Gorman dryly. "Cragg was educated for the ministry or the priesthood--I can't discover whether he was Catholic or Protestant--but it seems he wasn't fitted for the church. Perhaps he already had in mind the idea of devoting his life to the land that gave him birth. Anyhow, he was a well versed theologian, and exceptionally brilliant in theses, so when his money gave out he began writing sermons for others to preach, doing a mail-order business and selling his products to those preachers who are too busy or too lazy to write their own sermons. He has a sort of syndicate established and his books, which I have examined with admiration and wonder, prove he supplies sermons to preachers of all denominations throughout the United States. This involves a lot of correspondence. Every week he writes a new sermon, prints a large number of copies and sends one to each of his clients. Of course he furnishes but one man in a town or city with his products, but there are a good many towns and cities to supply." "Is he printing sermons now?" asked Josie. "Perhaps so; or it may be he is printing some circular to be distributed to the members of the C. I. L. Jim Bennett, the husband of the postmistress here, was once a practical printer, and he is a staunch member of the Irish fraternity. Cragg has known of this underground cavern for years, and at one time it was a regular meeting-place for his order of Champions. So he bought a printing press and, to avoid the prying eyes of his neighbors, established it here. That is the whole story of Cragg's 'crime,' Josie, and it is very simple when once fully explained." "Do you mean to say you've discovered all this in the two days since you've been here?" asked the girl, in amazement. "Every bit of it. I came prepared to arrest a gang of counterfeiters, and stumbled on this very interesting but quite harmless plot." "Where have you been hiding since Sunday?" she inquired. "Why, I didn't hide at all," he asserted. "Don't you remember giving me a ride yesterday in the Hathaway automobile?" Josie sat silent. She was glad it was so dark under that shelf of rock, for she would rather her father did not read her humiliation and self-reproach. "Daddy," she said, with a despairing accent, "I'm going to study to be a cook or a stenographer. I'll never make a decent detective--like Nan, for instance." O'Gorman laughed. "Poor Nan!" he exclaimed. "She's been more befuddled than you over this mysterious case. And Cragg is her own father, too. Come, Josie, it's getting late; let's go home." CHAPTER XXVI THE PLOT When they were over the stones and in the lane again, walking arm in arm toward the village, Josie's logical mind turned from her own failure to a consideration of the story her father had just told her. "I can't understand," she remarked, "how Joselyn came into this affair, what happened to him, or why he is once more the secret associate of old Cragg." "Joselyn," said the old detective, "is a clever grafter--in other words, an unmitigated scoundrel. Now do you understand?" "Not quite," confessed Josie. "He's Irish." "Isn't his name Scotch?" "Yes, but Joselyn isn't his name. If you're inclined to pick up his record and follow it through, you'll probably find him pursuing his various adventures under many aliases. He doesn't belong in this country, you know, has only been here a few years, so his adventures would probably cover two continents. The fellow always manages to keep just within our laws, although sometimes he gets dangerously near the edge. The world is full of men like Joselyn. They don't interest me." "Then he belongs to the band of Champions?" asked Josie. "Yes. In going over Cragg's books and papers in his private office the other night, I found sufficient references to Ned Joselyn to figure out his story with a fair degree of accuracy," said O'Gorman. "He was born in Ireland, got into trouble over there with the authorities, and fled to America, where he met Annabel Kenton and married her. Getting in touch with Old Swallowtail, he joined the Champions and attended to the outside business for Mr. Cragg, purchasing supplies and forwarding them, with money, to the patriots in Ireland. I suppose he made a fair rake-off in all these dealings, but that did not satisfy him. He induced Cragg to invest in some wild-cat schemes, promising him tremendous earnings which could be applied to the Cause. Whether he really invested the money turned over to him, or kept it for himself, is a subject for doubt, but it seems that the old man soon suspected him of double-dealing and they had so many quarrels that Cragg finally threatened to turn him over to the authorities for extradition. That was when our precious Ned thought it wise to disappear, but afterward another peace was patched up, owing largely to the fact that Joselyn knew so much of the workings of the secret order that it was safer to have him for a friend than an enemy." "I'm thinking of his poor wife," said Josie. "Does she know now where her husband is?" "I think not. At first, in order to win the confidence of old Cragg, Ned applied considerable of his wife's money to the Cause, and while she would probably forgive his defalcations he thinks it wiser to keep aloof from her. She foolishly trusted him to 'settle' her mother's estate, and I'm sure he managed to settle most of it on himself. His value to Cragg lay in his ability to visit the different branches of the Champions, which are pretty well scattered throughout the United States, and keep them in touch one with the other. Also he purchased arms and ammunition to be forwarded secretly to Ireland. So you see it was quite impossible for the old man to break with him wholly, rascal though he knows him to be." "I see," said Josie. "Joselyn has him in his power." "Entirely so. A hint from him to the authorities would result in an embargo on any further shipments to the rebels in Ireland and so completely ruin the usefulness of the order of Champions. The fellow seems to be a thorn deeply embedded in the side of Old Swallowtail, who will suffer anything to promote the cause of Irish liberty." "Ingua thinks her grandfather tried to kill Ned, at one time," remarked the girl. "It's a wonder, with his rabid temper, that he didn't do so," said O'Gorman. "But perhaps he realized that if he was hanged for Joselyn's murder his beloved Order would be without a head and in sorry straits. Thousands of Irishmen are feeding the funds of the Champions, aside from what Cragg himself dumps into the pot. So the old fellow is in a responsible position and mustn't commit murder, however much he may long to, because it would jeopardize the fortunes of his associates. However, the end is not yet, and unless Joselyn acts square in his future dealings he may yet meet with a tragic fate." "I wonder what was in that package he took away with him the other night?" mused Josie. "I was sure, at the time, it was counterfeit money." "It probably contained the monthly printed circular to the various branches of the order. Jim Bennett prints them in that underground cavern and Ned Joselyn sees they are distributed." "Well," said Josie with a sigh, "you've pricked my bubble, Daddy, and made me ashamed. With all my professed scorn of theories, and my endeavors to avoid them, I walked straight into the theoretic mire and stuck there." O'Gorman pressed her arm affectionately. "Never you mind, my dear," in a consoling tone; "you have learned a lesson that will be of great value to you in your future work. I dare not blame you, indeed, for I myself, on the evidence you sent me, came rushing here on a wild-goose chase. One never knows what is on the other side of a page till he turns it, and if we detectives didn't have to turn so many pages, only to find them blank, we'd soon rid the country of its malefactors. But here we are at the Kenton gateway. Go to bed, Josie dear, and pleasant dreams to you." "Will I see you again?" she asked. "No; I'm off by the early train. But you must stay here and have your visit out with Mary Louise. It won't hurt you to have a free mind for awhile." He kissed her tenderly and she went in. CHAPTER XXVII NAN'S TRIUMPH The night's events were not yet ended. An automobile left the edge of the stone-yard, followed a lane and turned into the main highway, where it encountered a woman standing in the middle of the road and waving her arms. She was distinctly visible in the moonlight. The man with the monocle slowed the car and came to a sudden stop, rather than run her down. "What's the matter?" he demanded impatiently. "Wait a minute; I want to talk to you." "Can't stop," he replied in a querulous tone. "I've got fifty miles to make before daylight. Out of my way, woman." With a dexterous motion she opened the door and sprang into the seat beside him. "Here! Get out of this," he cried. "Drive on," she said calmly. "It'll save time, since you're in a hurry." "Get out!" "I'm going to ride with you. Why bother to argue?" He turned nervously in his seat to get a look at her, then shifted the clutch and slowly started the car. The woman sat quiet. While bumping over the uneven road at a reckless speed the driver turned at times to cast stealthy glances at the person beside him. Finally he asked in exasperation: "Do you know where I'm going?" "You haven't told me." "Do you know who I am?" "How should I?" "Oh, very well," with a sigh of relief. "But isn't this rather--er-- irregular?" "Very." Again he drove for a time in silence. In the direction they were following they whirled by a village every three or four miles, but the country roads were deserted and the nearest city of any size lay a good fifty miles on. "I don't know who you are," observed the woman presently, "but I can hazard a guess. You call yourself Joselyn--Ned Joselyn--but that isn't your name. It's the name you married Annabel Kenton under, but it doesn't belong to you." He gave a roar of anger and started to slow down the car. "Go ahead!" she said imperatively. "I won't. You're going to get out of here, and lively, too, or I'll throw you out." "Do you feel anything against your side?" she asked coolly. "Yes," with a sudden start. "It's the muzzle of a revolver. I think it's about opposite your heart and my finger is on the trigger. Go ahead!" He turned the throttle and the car resumed its former speed. "Who the deuce are you?" he demanded, in a voice that trembled slightly. "Like yourself, I have many names," she said. "In Washington they call me Nan Shelley; at Cragg's Crossing I'm Mrs. Scammel, formerly Nan Cragg." "Oh--ho!" with a low whistle of astonishment. "Nan Cragg, eh! So you've returned from your wanderings, have you?" with a derisive sneer. "For a time. But in wandering around I've found my place in the world and I'm now a lady detective, not an especially high-class occupation but satisfactory as a bread-winner. I find I'm quite talented; I'm said to be a pretty fair detective." She could feel him tremble beside her. He moved away from her as far as he could but the pressure against his side followed his movements. After a time he asked defiantly: "Well, being a detective, what's your business with me? I hope you're not fool enough to think I'm a criminal." "I don't think it; I know it. You're an unusual sort of a criminal, too," she replied. "You're mixed up in a somewhat lawless international plot, but it isn't my present business to bring you to book for that." "What _is_ your present business?" "To discover what you've done with my father's money." He laughed, as if relieved. "Spent it for the cause of Ireland." "Part of it, perhaps. But the bulk of the money you've taken from the Champions of Irish Liberty, most of which came out of my father's own pocket, and practically all the money he gave you to invest for him, you have withheld for your own use." "You're crazy!" "I know the bank it's deposited in." Again he growled, like a beast at bay. "Whatever I have on deposit is to be applied to the Cause," said he. "It's reserved for future promotion." "Have you seen to-day's papers?" she inquired. "No." "The revolution in Ireland has already broken out." "Great Scott!" There was sincere anxiety in his voice now. "It is premature, and will result in the annihilation of all your plans." "Perhaps not." "You know better," said she. "Anyhow, your actions are now blocked until we see how the rebellion fares. The Irish will have no further use for American money, I'm positive, so I insist that my father receive back the funds he has advanced you, and especially his own money which he gave you to invest and you never invested." "Bah! If I offered him the money he wouldn't take it. "Then I'll take it for him," she asserted. "You'll give up that money because you know I can have you arrested for--well, let us say a breach of American neutrality. You are not a citizen of the United States. You were born in Ireland and have never been naturalized here." "You seem well posted," he sneered. "I belong to the Government Secret Service, and the Bureau knows considerable," she replied dryly. He remained silent for a time, his eyes fixed upon the road ahead. Then he said: "The Government didn't send you to get Cragg's money away from me. Nor did Cragg send you." "No, my father is afraid of you. He has been forced to trust you even when he knew you were a treacherous defaulter, because of your threats to betray the Cause. But you've been playing a dangerous game and I believe my father would have killed you, long ago, if--" "Well, if what?" "If you hadn't been his own nephew." He turned upon her with sudden fierceness. "Look out!" she called. "I've not the same objection to killing my cousin." "Your cousin!" "To be sure. You are the son of Peter Cragg, my father's brother, who returned to Ireland many years ago, when he was a young man. Ned Joselyn is an assumed name; you are Ned Cragg, condemned by the British government for high treason. You are known to be in America, but only I knew where to find you." "Oh, you knew, did you?" "Yes; all your various hiding-places are well known to me." "Confound you!" "Exactly. You'd like to murder me, Cousin Ned, to stop my mouth, but I'll not give you the chance. And, really, we ought not to kill one another, for the Cragg motto is 'a Cragg for a Cragg.' That has probably influenced my poor father more than anything else in his dealings with you. He knew you are a Cragg." "Well, if I'm a Cragg, and you're a Cragg, why don't you let me alone?" "Because the family motto was first ignored by yourself." For a long time he drove on without another word. Evidently he was in deep thought and the constant pressure of the revolver against his side gave him ample food for reflection. Nan was thinking, too, quietly exulting, the while. As a matter of fact she had hazarded guess after guess, during the interview, only to find she had hit the mark. She knew that Ned Cragg had been condemned by the British government and was supposed to have escaped to America, but not until now was she sure of his identity with Ned Joselyn. Her father had told her much, but not this. Her native shrewdness was alone responsible for the discovery. "We're almost there, aren't we?" asked Nan at last. "Where?" "At the house where you're at present hiding. We've entered the city, I see, and it's almost daybreak." "Well?" "I know the Chief of Police here. Am I to have that, money, Cousin Ned, or--" "Of course," he said hastily. CHAPTER XXVIII PLANNING THE FUTURE It was nearly a month later when Mary Louise, walking down to the river on an afternoon, discovered Ingua sitting on the opposite bank and listlessly throwing pebbles into the stream. She ran across the stepping-stones and joined her little friend. "How is your grandfather this morning?" she asked. "I guess he's better," said Ingua. "He don't mumble so much about the Lost Cause or the poor men who died for it in Ireland, but Ma says his broken heart will never mend. He's awful changed, Mary Louise. To-day, when I set beside him, he put out his hand an' stroked my hair an' said: 'poor child--poor child, you've been neglected. After all,' says he, 'one's duties begin at home.' He hasn't had any fits of the devils lately, either. Seems like he's all broke up, you know." "Can he walk yet?" inquired Mary Louise. "Yes, he's gett'n' stronger ev'ry day. This mornin' he walked to the bridge an' back, but he was ruther wobbly on his legs. Ma said she wouldn't have left him, just now, if she wasn't sure he'd pick up." "Oh. Has your mother gone away, then?" "Left last night," said Ingua, "for Washington." "Is her vacation over?" "It isn't that," replied the child. "Ma isn't going to work any more, just now. Says she's goin' to take care o' Gran'dad. She went to Washington because she got a telegram saying that Senator Ingua is dead." "Senator Ingua?" "Yes; he was my godfather, you see. I didn't know it myself till Ma told me last night. He was an uncle of Will Scammel, my father that died, but he wasn't very friendly to him an' didn't give him any money while he lived. Ma named me after the Senator, though, 'cause she knew which side her bread was buttered on, an' now he's left me ten thousand dollars in his will." "Ten thousand!" exclaimed Mary Louise, delightedly, "why, you Craggs are going to be rich, Ingua. What with all the money your mother got back from Ned Joselyn and this legacy, you will never suffer poverty again." "That's what Ma says," returned the child, simply. "But I dunno whether I'll like all the changes Ma's planned, or not. When she gets back from Washington she's goin' to take me an' Gran'dad away somewheres for the winter, an' I'm to go to a girls' school." "Oh, that will be nice." "Will it, Mary Louise? I ain't sure. And while we're gone they're goin' to tear down the old shack an' build a fine new house in its place, an' fix up the grounds so's they're just as good as the Kenton Place." "Then your mother intends to live here always?" "Yes. She says a Cragg's place is at Cragg's Crossing, and the fambly's goin' to hold up its head ag'in, an' we're to be some punkins around here. But--I sorter hate to see the old place go, Mary Louise," turning a regretful glance at the ancient cottage from over her shoulder. "I can understand that, dear," said the other girl, thoughtfully; "but I am sure the change will be for the best. Do you know what has, become of Ned Joselyn?" "Yes; he an' Annabel Kenton--that's his wife--have gone away somewheres together; somewheres out West, Ma says. He didn't squander Ann's money, it seems; not all of it, anyhow; didn't hev time, I s'pose, he was so busy robbin' Gran'dad. Ned run away from Ann, that time he disappeared, 'cause English spies was on his tracks an' he didn't want to be took pris'ner. That was why he kep' in hidin' an' didn't let Ann know where he was. He was afraid she'd git rattled an' blab." "Oh; I think I understand. But he will have to keep in hiding always, won't he?" "I s'pose so. Ma says that'll suit _her,_ all right. Am I talkin' more decent than I used to, Mary Louise?" "You're improving every day, Ingua." "I'm tryin' to be like you, you know. Ma says I've been a little Arab, but she means to make a lady of me. I hope she will. And then--" "Well, Ingua?" "You'll come to visit me, some time, in our new house; won't you?" "I sure will, dear," promised Mary Louise. 
23644	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 23644-h.htm or 23644-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/3/6/4/23644/23644-h/23644-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/3/6/4/23644/23644-h.zip) MARJORIE DEAN HIGH SCHOOL SERIES By PAULINE LESTER Cloth Bound, Cover Designs in Colors MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMAN. MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL SOPHOMORE. MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL JUNIOR. MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR. * * * * * * [Illustration: Poising herself on the bank, she cut the water in a clean, sharp dive. Page 234. Marjorie Dean, High School Freshman] * * * * * * MARJORIE DEAN HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMAN by PAULINE LESTER Author of "Marjorie Dean, High School Sophomore" "Marjorie Dean, High School Junior" "Marjorie Dean, High School Senior" A. L. Burt Company Publishers New York Copyright, 1917 by A. L. Burt Company MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMAN CHAPTER I THE PARTING OF THE WAYS "What am I going to do without you, Marjorie?" Mary Raymond's blue eyes looked suspiciously misty as she solemnly regarded her chum. "What am I going to do without _you_, you mean," corrected Marjorie Dean, with a wistful smile. "Please, please don't let's talk of it. I simply can't bear it." "One, two--only two more weeks now," sighed Mary. "You'll surely write to me, Marjorie?" "Of course, silly girl," returned Marjorie, patting her friend's arm affectionately. "I'll write at least once a week." Marjorie Dean's merry face looked unusually sober as she walked down the corridor beside Mary and into the locker room of the Franklin High School. The two friends put on their wraps almost in silence. The majority of the girl students of the big city high school had passed out some little time before. Marjorie had lingered for a last talk with Miss Fielding, who taught English and was the idol of the school, while Mary had hung about outside the classroom to wait for her chum. It seemed to Mary that the greatest sorrow of her sixteen years had come. Marjorie, her sworn ally and confidante, was going away for good and all. When, six years before, a brown-eyed little girl of nine, with long golden-brown curls, had moved into the house next door to the Raymonds, Mary had lost no time in making her acquaintance. They had begun with shy little nods and smiles, which soon developed into doorstep confidences. Within two weeks Mary, whose eyes were very blue, and whose short yellow curls reminded one of the golden petals of a daffodil, had become Marjorie's adorer and slave. She it was who had escorted Marjorie to the Lincoln Grammar School and seen her triumphantly through her first week there. She had thrilled with unselfish pride to see how quickly the other little girls of the school had succumbed to Marjorie's charm. She had felt a most delightful sense of pardonable vanity when, as the year progressed, Marjorie had preferred her above all the others. She had clung to Mary, even though Alice Lawton, who rode to school every day in a shining limousine, had tried her utmost to be best friends with the brown-eyed little girl whose pretty face and lovable personality had soon made her the pet of the school. Year after year Mary and Marjorie had lived side by side and kept their childish faith. But now, here they were, just beginning their freshman year in Franklin High School, to which they had so long looked forward, and about to be separated; for Marjorie's father had been made manager of the northern branch of his employer's business and Marjorie was going to live in the little city of Sanford. Instead of being a freshman in dear old Franklin, she was to enter the freshman class in Sanford High School, where she didn't know a solitary girl, and where she was sure she would be too unhappy for words. During the first days which had followed the dismaying news that Marjorie Dean was going to leave Franklin High School and go hundreds of miles away, the two friends had talked of little else. There was so much to be said, yet now that their parting was but two weeks off they felt the weight of the coming separation bearing heavily upon them. Both young faces wore expressions of deepest gloom as they walked slowly down the steps of the school building and traversed the short space of stone walk that led to the street. It was Marjorie who broke the silence. "No other girl can ever be as dear to me as you are. You know that, don't you, Mary?" Mary nodded mutely. Her blue eyes had filled with a sudden rush of hot tears. "But it won't do any good," continued Marjorie, slowly, "for us to mourn over being separated. We know how we feel about each other, and that's going to be a whole lot of comfort to us after--I'm gone." Her girlish treble faltered slightly. Then she threw her arm across Mary's shoulder and said with forced steadiness of tone: "I'm not going to be a silly and cry. This is one of those 'vicissitudes' of life that Professor Taylor was talking about in chapel yesterday. We must be very brave. We'll write lots of letters and visit each other during vacation, and perhaps, some day I'll come back here to live." "Of course you will. You must come back," nodded Mary, her face brightening at the prospect of a future reunion, even though remote. "Can't you come with me to dinner?" coaxed Marjorie, as they paused at the corner where they were accustomed to wait for their respective street cars. "You know, you are one of mother's exceptions. I never have to give notice before bringing you home." "Not to-night. I'm going out this evening," returned Mary, vaguely. "I must hurry home." "Where are you going?" asked Marjorie, curiously. "You never said a word about it this morning." "Oh, didn't I? Well, I'm going out with----Here comes your car, Marjorie. You'd better hurry home, too." "Why?" Marjorie's brown eyes looked their reproach. "Do you want to get rid of me, Mary? I've oceans of time before dinner. You know we never have it until half-past six. Never mind, I'll take this car. Good-bye." With a proud little nod of her head, Marjorie climbed the steps of the car which had now stopped at their corner, without giving her friend an opportunity for reply. Mary looked after the moving car with a rueful smile that changed to one of glee. Her eyes danced. "She hasn't the least idea of what's going to happen," thought the little fluffy-haired girl. "Won't she be surprised? Now that she's gone, Clark and Ethel and Seldon ought to be here." A shrill whistle farther up the street caused her to glance quickly in the direction of the sound. Two young men were hurrying toward her, their boyish faces alight with enthusiasm and good nature. "It's all O.K., Mary," called the taller of the two, his black eyes glowing. "Every last thing has been thought of. Ethel has the pin. She'll be along in a minute." "It's a peach!" shouted the smaller lad, waving his cap, then jamming it down on his thick, fair hair. "We've been waiting up the street for Marjorie to take her car. Thought she'd never start." "I am afraid I hurt her feelings," deplored Mary. "I forgot myself and told her she'd better hurry home. She looked at me in the most reproachful way." "Cheer up," laughed Clark Grayson, the black-eyed youth. "To-night'll fix things. All the fellows are coming." "So are all the girls," returned Mary, happily. "I do wish Ethel would hurry. I'm so anxious to see the pin. I know Marjorie will love it. Oh, here comes Ethel now." Ethel Duval, a tall, slender girl of sixteen, with earnest, gray-blue eyes and wavy, flaxen hair, joined the trio with: "I'm so glad we waited. I wanted you to see the pin, Mary." She was fumbling busily in her shopping bag as she spoke. "Here it is." She held up a small, square package, which, when divested of its white paper wrapping, disclosed a blue plush box. A second later Mary was exclaiming over the dainty beauty of the bit of jewelry lying securely on its white satin bed. The pin was fashioned in the form of a golden butterfly, the body of which was set with tiny pearls. "Oh-h-h!" breathed Mary. "Isn't it wonderful! But do you suppose her mother will allow her to accept such an expensive gift? It must have cost a lot of money." "Fifteen dollars," announced Clark, cheerfully, "but it was a case of only fifty cents apiece, and besides, it's for Marjorie. Fifteen times fifteen dollars wouldn't be too much for her. Every fellow and girl that was invited accepted the invitation and handed over the tax. To make things sure, Ethel went round to see Marjorie's mother about it and won her over to our side. So that's settled." "It's perfectly lovely," sighed Mary in rapture, "and you boys have worked so hard to make the whole affair a gorgeous success. I'm afraid we had better be moving on, though. It won't be long now until half-past seven. I do hope everyone will be on time." "They've all been warned," declared Seldon Ames. "Good-bye, then, until to-night." The two boys raised their caps and swung down the street, while Mary and Ethel stopped for one more look at the precious pin that in later days was to mean far more to their schoolmate, Marjorie Dean, than they had ever dreamed. CHAPTER II GOOD-BYE, MARJORIE DEAN "Whatever you do, don't laugh, or speak above a whisper, or fall up the steps, or do anything else that will give us away before we're ready," lectured Clark Grayson to the little crowd of happy-faced boys and girls who were gathered round him on the corner above Marjorie Dean's home. "We'd better advance by fives. Seldon, you go with the first lot. When I give the signal, this way," Clark puckered his lips and emitted a soft whistle, "ring the bell." "Right-o," softly retorted three or four boyish voices. Clark rapidly divided his little squad of thirty into fives, and moved toward the house with the first division. Two minutes later the next five conspirators began to move, and in an incredibly short space of time the surprise party was overflowing the Dean veranda and front steps. The boy who had been appointed bell ringer pressed his finger firmly against the electric bell. There came the sound of a quick footstep, then Marjorie herself opened the door, to be greeted with a merry shout of "Surprise! Surprise!" "Why--what--who!" she gasped. "Just exactly," agreed Clark Grayson. "'Why--what--who'--and enough others to make thirty. Of course, if you don't want us----" "Stop teasing me, Clark, until I get over my surprise, at least," begged Marjorie. "No, I never suspected a single thing," she said, in answer to Ethel Duval's question. "Here are mother and father. They know more about all this than they'll say. They made me believe they were going to a party." "And so we are," declared her father, as he and Mrs. Dean came forward to welcome their young guests, with the cordiality and graciousness for which they were noted among Marjorie's friends. "Come this way, girls," invited Marjorie's mother, who, in an evening frock of white silk, looked almost as young as the bevy of pretty girls that followed her. "Mr. Dean will look after you, boys." Once she had helped her mother usher the girls into the upstairs sleeping room set aside for their use, Marjorie lost no time in slipping over to the dressing table where Mary stood, patting her fluffy hair and lamenting because it would not stay smooth. "You dear thing," whispered Marjorie, slipping her arm about her chum. "I'll forgive you for not telling me where you were going. I was terribly hurt for a minute, though. You know we've never had secrets from each other." "And we never will," declared Mary, firmly. "Promise me, Marjorie, that you'll always tell me things; that is, when they're not someone else's secrets." "I will," promised Marjorie, solemnly. "We'll write our secrets to each other instead of telling them. Now I must leave you for a minute and see if everyone is having a good time. We'll have another comfy old talk later." To Mary Raymond fell the altogether agreeable task of keeping Marjorie away from the dining-room, where Mrs. Dean, Ethel Duval and two of her classmates busied themselves with the decorating of the two long tables. By ten o'clock all was ready for the guests. In the middle of each table, rising from a centerpiece of ferns, was a green silk pennant, bearing the figures 19-- embroidered in scarlet. The staffs of the two pennants were wound with green and scarlet ribazine which extended in long streamers to each place, and was tied to dainty hand-painted pennant-shaped cards, on which appeared the names of the guests. Laid beside the place cards were funny little favors, which had been gleefully chosen with a sly view toward exploiting every one's pet hobby, while at either end of each table were tall vases of red roses, which seemed to nod their fragrant approval of the merry-making. "It's quite perfect, isn't it?" sighed Ethel, with deep satisfaction, gently touching one of the red roses. "The very nicest part of it all is that you've been just as enthusiastic as we over the party." She turned affectionate eyes upon Mrs. Dean. "It could hardly be otherwise, my dear," returned Mrs. Dean. "Remember, it is for my little girl that you have planned all this happiness. Nothing can please me more than the thought that Marjorie has so many friends. I only hope she will be equally fortunate in her new home, though, I am sure, she will never forget her Franklin High School chums." "We won't give her that chance," nodded Ethel, emphatically. "There, I think we are ready. Clark wants to be your partner, Mrs. Dean, and Seldon is to escort Marjorie to her place. We aren't going to give her the pin until we are ready to drink the toasts. Robert Barrett is to be toastmaster. Will you go first and announce supper?" There was a buzz of delight and admiration from the guests, as headed by Marjorie and Seldon, the little procession marched into the dining-room. For a moment the very sight of the gayly decked table with its weight of goodies and wonderful red roses caused Marjorie's brown eyes to blur. Then, as Seldon bowed her to the head of one of the tables, she winked back her tears, and nodding gayly to the eager faces turned toward her and said with her prettiest smile: "It's the very nicest surprise that ever happened to me, and I hope you will all have a perfectly splendid time to-night." "Three cheers for Marjorie Dean! May we give them, Mrs. Dean?" called Robert Barrett. Mrs. Dean's smiling assent was lost in the volume of sound that went up from thirty lusty young throats. "Now, Franklin High," proposed Mary Hammond, and the Franklin yell was given by the girls. The boys, who were nearly all students at the La Fayette High School, just around the corner from Franklin, responded with their yell, and the merry little company began hunting their places and seating themselves at the tables. Marjorie was far too much excited to eat. Her glances strayed continually down the long tables to the cheery faces of her schoolmates. It seemed almost too wonderful that her friends should care so much about her. "Marjorie Dean, stop dreaming and eat your supper," commanded Mary, who had been covertly watching her friend. "Clark, you are sitting next to her. Make her eat her chicken salad. It's perfectly delicious." "Will you eat your salad or must I exercise my stern authority?" began Clark, drawing down his face until he exactly resembled a certain roundly disliked teacher of mathematics in the boys' high school. There was a laugh of recognition from the boys sitting nearest to Clark. He continued to eye Marjorie severely. "Of course, I'm going to eat my salad," declared Marjorie, stoutly. "You must give me time, though. I'm still too surprised to be hungry." But the greatest surprise was still in store for her. When everyone had finished eating, Robert Barrett began his duties as toastmaster. Ethel Duval came first with "What Friendships Mean to a Schoolgirl," and Seldon Ames followed with a ridiculously funny little toast to "The High School Fellows." Then Mr. and Mrs. Dean were toasted, and Lillian Hale, a next-door neighbor and the only upper-class girl invited, gave solemn counsel and advice to the "freshman babies." As Marjorie's dearest friend, to Mary had been accorded the honor of giving the farewell toast, "Aufwiedersehen," and the presentation of the pin. Mary's clear voice trembled slightly as she began the little speech which she had composed and learned for the occasion. Then her faltering tones gathered strength, and before she realized that she was actually making a speech, she had reached the most important part of it and was saying, "We wish you to keep and wear this remembrance of our good will throughout your school life in Sanford. We hope you will make new friends, and we ask only that you won't forget the old." "I can't begin to tell you how much I thank you all," Marjorie responded, her tones not quite steady, her face lighted with a fond pride that lay very near to tears. "I shall love my butterfly all my life, and never forget that you gave it to me. I am going to call it my talisman, and I am sure it will bring me good luck." But neither the givers nor Marjorie Dean could possibly guess that, in the days to come, the beautiful golden butterfly was to prove anything but a talisman to the popular little freshman. CHAPTER III THE GIRL WHO LOOKED LIKE MARY "It's rather nice to have so much room, but I know I shall never feel quite at home here," murmured Marjorie Dean, under her breath, as she came slowly down the steps of her new home and paused for a moment in the middle of the stone walk which led to the street. Her wistful glance strayed over the stretch of lawn, still green, then turned to rest on the house, a comfortable three-story structure of wood, painted dark green, with lighter green trimmings. Her mother's sudden appearance at the window caused Marjorie to retrace her steps. Luncheon was ready. "Everything is so different," she sighed, as she climbed the steps she had so lately descended. "I've been here a week, and I haven't met a single girl. I don't believe there are any girls in this neighborhood. I should feel a good deal worse, too, if the Franklin girls hadn't been such dears!" Marjorie's last comment, spoken half aloud, referred to the numerous letters she had received since her arrival in the town of Sanford from her Franklin High School friends, now so many miles away. Mary Raymond had not only fulfilled her promise to write one long letter every week, but had mailed Marjorie, almost daily, hurriedly-written little notes full of the news of what went on among the boys and girls she had left behind. It had been a busy, yet a very long week for Marjorie. The unpacking of the Deans' furniture, which had been shipped to Sanford a week before their arrival there, and the setting to rights of her new home had so occupied the attention of Mrs. Dean and Nora, her faithful maid-of-all-work, that Marjorie, aside from certain tasks allotted to her to perform, was left for the most part to her own devices. As they had arrived in Sanford on Monday, Marjorie's mother had decided to give her daughter an opportunity to accustom herself to her new home and surroundings before allowing her to enter the high school. So the day for Marjorie's initial appearance in "The Sanford High School for Girls" had been set for the following Monday. It was now Friday afternoon. Marjorie had spent the morning in writing a fifteen-page letter to Mary, the minor refrain of which was: "I can't tell you how much I miss you, Mary," and which contained views regarding her future high school career that were far from being optimistic. She had not finished her letter. She decided to leave it open until after luncheon and, laying it aside for the time, she had tripped down stairs and out doors. "What are you going to do this afternoon, dear?" asked her mother as Marjorie slipped into place at the luncheon table. "I don't know, Mother," was the almost doleful reply. "I thought I might take a walk up Orchard street as far as Sargent's, that cunning little confectioner's shop on the corner. Perhaps, if I go, I may see something interesting to tell Mary. I haven't finished my letter." Marjorie did not add that her walk would include a last stroll past the towering gray walls of a certain stone building on Lincoln avenue, which bore over its massive oak doors the inscription, "The Sanford High School for Girls." Almost every day since her arrival, she had visited it, viewing it speculatively and with a curious kind of apprehension. She was not afraid to plunge into her new school life, but deep down in her heart she felt some little misgiving. What if the new girls proved to be neither likable nor companionable? What if she liked them but they did not like her? She had just begun the same apprehensive train of thought that had been disturbing her peace of mind for the last four days when her mother's voice broke the spell. "If you are going that far I wish you would go on to Parke & Whitfield's for me. I should like you to match this embroidery silk. I have not enough of it to finish this collar and cuff set I am making for you." "I'll be your faithful servant and execute all your commissions, mum," declared Marjorie with a little obeisance, her spirits rising a little at the prospect of actual errands to perform. She was already tired of aimlessly wandering along the wide, well-kept streets of Sanford, feeling herself to be quite out of things. Even errands were actual blessings sometimes, she decided, as a little later, she ran upstairs to dress. "May I wear my best suit and hat, Mother?" she called anxiously down from the head of the stairs. "It's such a lovely day, I'm sure it won't rain, snow, hail or do anything else to spoil them." "Very well," answered Mrs. Dean, placidly. With a gurgle of delight Marjorie hurried into her room to put on her new brown suit, which had the mark of a well-known tailor in the coat, and her best hat, on which all the Franklin High girls had set their seal of approval. She had shoes and gloves to match her suit, too, and her dancing brown eyes and fluffy brown hair were the last touches needed to complete the dainty little study in brown. "Don't I look nice in this suit?" she asked her mother saucily, turning slowly around before the living-room mirror. "Aren't you and father perfect dears to let me have it, though?" She whirled and descended upon her mother with outstretched arms, enveloping her in an ecstatic hug that sadly disturbed the proper angle of her brown velvet hat. "Don't be gone too long," reminded her mother. "You know father has promised us tickets for the theatre to-night. We shall have an early dinner." "All right, I'll remember, Captain." With a brisk touching of her hand to her hat brim in salute Marjorie vanished through the door, to reappear a moment later at the living-room window, flash a merry smile at her mother, about face and march down the walk in true military style. Long before when Marjorie was a tiny girl she had shown an unusual preference for soldiers. She had owned enough wooden soldiers to make a regiment and was never at a loss to invent war games in which they figured. Sometimes, when she tired of her stiff, silent armies, which could only move as she willed, she inveigled her father or mother into being the hero, the enemy, the traitor or whatever her active imagination chose to suggest. Her parents, amused at her boyish love of military things, encouraged her in her play and entered into it with as much spirit as the child herself. Her father, who had once been an officer in the National Guard, taught her the manual of arms and she had learned it with a will. Marjorie's military enthusiasm had been at its height when she met Mary Raymond, who soon became equally fascinated with the stirring play. In time other interests crowded their lives. The hard-worked armies were laid peacefully on their wooden backs to enjoy a long, undisturbed rest, while Marjorie and Mary became soldiers instead, addressing Mr. Dean as "General," Mrs. Dean as "Captain," and bestowing upon themselves the rank of ordinary enlisted soldiers who must earn their promotion by loyal and faithful service. Mr. Dean had been rather chary of promotions, frequently reminding his little detachment that it is a far cry from the ranks of a private to that of a commissioned officer. So when their parting came, Mary and Marjorie had just received their commissions as second lieutenants, their awards of faithful service in the grammar school. Lieutenant Marjorie smiled, then sighed, as she started on her walk. The salute she had just given brought a flood of memories of Mary. She felt she would not mind exploring this strange, new, high school territory if Mary were with her. She was sure no girl in Sanford could understand her as Mary had. On two different afternoons she had stood across the street from the school at the time of dismissal. She had eagerly watched the great oak doors open wide and the long lines of girls file out, waking the still October air with their merry voices. She had been particularly attracted toward one tall, lithe, graceful girl whose golden hair and brown eyes made her unusually lovely. At first sight of her, lonely, imaginative Marjorie had named her "The Picture Girl," and had decided that she was a darling. She had noticed that the pretty girl was always the center of a group and she had also noted that one small, black-haired girl with an elfish face, who wore the most exquisite clothes invariably walked at the tall girl's side. There was a pink-cheeked girl, too, with laughing blue eyes and dimples, and a fair-haired, serious-faced girl, who reminded Marjorie of Alice Duval. They usually formed part of the group about the tall girl and her dark companion, and there was also a very short, stout girl who puffed along anxiously in the rear of the group as though never quite able to catch up. Marjorie had already imagined much concerning this particular knot of girls, and her desire to see them again before entering school was responsible for her walk down Lincoln avenue that sunny fall afternoon. She would do her errands first, she decided, then, returning by the way of the school, pass there just at the time that the afternoon session was dismissed. She went about her far-from-arduous commissions in leisurely fashion, now and then glancing at her châtelaine watch to make sure of the time. Three o'clock saw the daily procession of girls down the high school steps, and released from classes for the day. She did not intend to miss them. It was twenty minutes to three when Marjorie finished a remarkable concoction of nuts, chocolate syrup and ice cream, a kind of glorified nut sundae, rejoicing in the name of "Sargent Nectar," and left the smart little confectioner's shop. As she neared the school building her eyes suddenly became riveted upon a slim, blue-clad figure that hesitated for on instant at the top of the high steps then ran lightly down and came hurrying toward where she stood. "The advance guard," declared Marjorie half aloud. Then, as her eyes sought the approaching girl: "Why, she looks like Mary! And she's been crying! I'm going to speak to her." She took an impulsive step forward as the stranger came abreast of her and began: "Won't you----" Marjorie's speech ended abruptly. The weeping girl cast one startled glance toward her from a pair of wet blue eyes, lunged by her without speaking and, breaking into a run, turned the corner and disappeared from view. Marjorie surveyed the back of the rapidly vanishing yellow head with rueful surprise. Then she gave a short laugh. "I should have known better," she reflected. "Of course, she'd hardly care to tell her personal affairs to the first one who asks her. But she made me think of Mary. Oh, dear, I'm so homesick. Not even my new suit and hat can make me forget that. I wouldn't have mother know it for the world. I believe she is a wee bit homesick, too." Marjorie paused for an instant at her accustomed place on the opposite side of the street, undecided whether to loiter there and once more watch her future companions pass out of school or to go on about her business. Suddenly the school doors swung wide and the pupils began flocking out. The little stranger yielded to the temptation to linger long enough to watch the five girls pass in whom she had become interested. They were among the last to emerge and, the moment they reached the steps, their voices rose in a confused babble, each one determined to make herself heard above the others. "I knew she wouldn't do it," shrilled the stout girl, as they neared Marjorie. "She's too stingy for words. That's the third time she's refused to go into things with the rest of us." "Be still," reminded the Picture Girl; "she might have very good reasons----" "Good reasons," scornfully mimicked the little dark girl, her black eyes glittering angrily. "It was only because the plan was mine. She hates me, and you all know why. I don't think you ought to stand up for her, Muriel. You know how deceitful she is and what unkind things she said about me." "I'm not standing up for her," contradicted Muriel, but her tones lacked force. "I only felt a little bit sorry for her. She looked ready to cry all the afternoon. I think she went home early to avoid meeting us." "That proves she is a coward," was the triumphant retort. "Remember----" With a sudden swift movement she rose on tiptoe and, drawing the Picture Girl's head to the level of her mouth, whispered something to her. The fair-haired girl looked annoyed, the fat girl openly sulky and the dimpled girl disapproving. Exchanging significant glances, they walked on ahead of the other two. Without the slightest intention of being an eavesdropper, Marjorie had heard every word of the loud-spoken conversation. Her eyes were fixed in fascination upon the dark, sharp-featured face so close to the fair, beautiful one. She suddenly recalled a picture she had once seen called "The Evil Genius," in which a dark, mocking face peered over the shoulder of a young man who sat at a table as though in deep thought. This girl's vivid face bore a slight resemblance to that of the Evil Genius, and it was not until the end of Marjorie's junior year in Sanford that this sinister impression faded and disappeared forever. When the little company had passed on down the street, Marjorie turned and followed them from a distance. For several blocks her way lay in the same direction, but as she turned into her own street she swept a last glance toward the five girls. She wondered whom they had been discussing so freely. She was vaguely disappointed in the Picture Girl, who seemed to her independent mind too easily influenced by the Evil Genius. Marjorie had already begun to think of the small, dark girl as that. She was glad not to be the girl they had discussed. Then, her thought changing, a vision of two wet blue eyes and a tear-stained face set in fluffy yellow curls came to her, and Marjorie knew that she had seen the object of their discussion. A wave of sympathy for the offender swept over her. "I don't believe she could do anything deceitful or horrid," she reflected stoutly. "Her eyes are as true and as blue as Mary's. I'm going to like her and be her friend, if she'll let me, for she certainly seems to need one. I did so want to be friends with the Picture Girl, but I can't help wishing she had been just a little bit braver." While Marjorie strolled thoughtfully home, deep in her own cogitations, the five girls, having joined forces again, were discussing her. "Did you see that pretty girl standing across from the school as we came out?" asked Susan Atwell, the girl with the dimples. "Yes," returned Irma Linton. "I noticed her there the other day, too. I wonder who she can be." "I don't know," said Muriel Harding. "She is awfully sweet though, and dresses beautifully. She----" "I know all about her," interrupted Geraldine Macy. "Her father is the new manager for Preston & Haines. They only moved here from the city last week. Her name is Dean. That is, her last name. I don't know her other name." "I am surprised that you don't know that," was the sarcastic comment of Mignon La Salle, the little dark girl. "You needn't be," flung back the stout girl. "There are lots of things I don't know that I'd like to know. For instance----" "Don't be cross, Jerry," interrupted Mignon, hastily. "I was only teasing you." She cast a peculiar glance at the ruffled Jerry from under her heavy lashes which the young woman failed to catch. "Tell us some more about this new girl. I really didn't pay hardly any attention to her to-day." "There isn't anything more to tell that I know of," muttered Jerry, sulkily, her desire to distribute news quite gone. "Wait until Monday and see. I know she's going to enter Sanford High and that she's a freshman." "Then as freshmen it's our solemn duty to be nice to her and make her feel at home," stated Muriel, seriously. Mignon La Salle shrugged her thin shoulders. "Perhaps," she said, without enthusiasm. "I shall wait until I see her before I decide that." Meanwhile, Marjorie had reached home, and, seated before the library table, was writing for dear life on the letter she had begun to Mary. So far she had had nothing to tell her chum regarding the young women who were to be her classmates. To be sure, what she had seen and heard that afternoon had amounted to nothing, but the girl who looked like Mary had set her to longing all over again to be able, just for one afternoon, to sit side by side on the front steps with her childhood's friend and talk things over. "You can't imagine, Mary," she wrote, "how sorry I felt when I saw that poor girl crying with your eyes. They were just like yours. I forgot everything except that she looked like you, and asked her what the trouble was. Of course, she didn't answer me, but actually ran down the street. I should have known better, but I felt so terribly sympathetic. 'Terribly' is the only word that expresses it. Right after she had gone the others began to come out of school, and at last the five girls I told you about came out. They were all talking at once, but I heard the horrid, sharp-faced, dark girl say that someone was stingy and deceitful and a lot of other unpleasant things. I thought the Picture Girl was going to stand up for the person, but that mean little Evil Genius wouldn't let her. Then all at once it came to me that it was this Mary girl they were talking about. It was really this one dark girl who said most of the mean things. The others just listened to her. At any rate, I'm going to find out who the Mary girl is and try to be a friend to her just because she looks like you. Don't imagine I could ever like her better than you, because you know I couldn't. But it's a true soldier's duty to stand by his comrades on the firing line, you know, and I am going to be this girl's freshman comrade, and, if she's one-half as nice as you, I'll be ready to help her fight her battles. "Monday is the great day. I dread it, and yet I am looking forward to it. I like the outside of the school, but will I like the inside? Mother is going to the principal's office with me. I hope I sha'n't have to try a lot of tiresome examinations. I have forgotten everything I ever knew, and the weather has been too pleasant to study. This is such a pretty town, with plenty of nice walks. If only you were here it would be quite perfect. I do hope you can come and visit me at Easter. Must stop now, as I hear mother calling me. We are going to walk down to meet father. With my dearest love. Write soon. "Yours always, "Marjorie." Marjorie folded, addressed and stamped her letter, then catching her hat from the hallrack ran out the front door to overtake her mother who had walked on ahead. "I finished my letter to Mary," she held it up for inspection, "and I've something to report, Captain." "I am ready to hear you," smiled her mother, as they walked on arm in arm. For the second time Marjorie related her little adventure, ending with her resolve to learn to know and befriend, if necessary, the girl who looked like Mary. Nor did she have the slightest premonition of how much this readily-avowed championing of a stranger was to cost her. CHAPTER IV SANFORD'S LATEST FRESHMAN "Will you tell me the way to the principal's office, please?" A clear voice broke in upon the conversation of two girls who had paused before the broad stairway leading to the second floor of the Sanford High School for a last word before separating for their morning recitations. At the sound of the soft, interrupting voice, which contained a touch of perplexity in its tones, both girls turned quickly to regard the owner. They saw an attractive little figure, wearing a dainty blue cloth gown, which was set off by hand-embroidered cuffs and an open rolling collar of sheerest white. From under a smart blue hat escaped a wealth of soft, brown curls, while two brown eyes looked into theirs with an expression of appeal that brought forth instant reply. "Miss Archer's office is the last room on the east side of the second-floor corridor. I am going there now and shall be glad to show you the way," was the quick response of the taller of the two girls, accompanied by a cheery smile that warmed Marjorie Dean's heart and made her feel the least bit less of a stranger in this strange land which she was about to explore. "Thank you," she returned gratefully, trying to smile in an equally friendly manner. Marjorie's first day of school had begun far from propitiously. She had not reckoned on making her initial appearance in Sanford High School alone. It had been planned that her mother should accompany her, but when Monday morning came, her beloved captain had awakened with a racking headache, which meant nothing less than lying in bed for a long, pain-filled day in a darkened room. Torn between sympathy for her mother and her own disappointment, Marjorie had experienced a desire to go to her captain's room and cry her eyes out, but being fashioned of sturdier stuff, she made a desperate effort to brace up and be a good soldier. This was just another of those miserable "vicissitudes" that no one could foresee. She must face it without grumbling. Her father had already telephoned for a physician when she entered her mother's room, and Marjorie put on her sweetest smile as she kissed her mother and assured her that she didn't in the least mind going to school alone. As she followed the young woman up the stairs and down the long corridor Marjorie felt her heart beat a little faster. Her low spirits of the early morning began to rise. How good it seemed actually to be in school again! And what a beautiful school it was! Even Franklin would appear dingy beside it. She gazed appreciatively at the high ceiling and the shining oak wainscotings of the wide corridor through which she was passing. When her guide, who was tall, thin and plain of face, opened the last door on the right and ushered her into a beautiful sunshiny office which seemed more like a living-room than a place wherein business was transacted, Marjorie uttered an involuntary, "Oh, how lovely!" "Yes, isn't it though," returned the tall girl. "This is Miss Archer's own idea, and, so far, it's proving a brilliant success. That is, we all think so. Is Miss Archer in her private office?" she asked the young woman who had risen from her desk near the door and came forward to receive them. Marjorie would have liked to ask her new acquaintance what she meant, but at that moment a door at the farther end of the room opened and a stately, black-haired woman, with just a suspicion of gray at her temples, emerged. She turned a pair of grave, deep-set eyes upon the tall girl and said, pleasantly: "Well, Ellen, what can I do for you this morning?" "Oh, Miss Archer!" exclaimed the tall girl, eagerly, with an impulsive step forward, "you haven't forbidden basketball this year, have you? Stella and I couldn't believe our ears when we heard it this morning!" It was evident that the impetuous Ellen was on the best possible terms with her principal. "I don't remember having issued an order to that effect," smiled Miss Archer. "Where did you hear that bit of news?" Ellen Seymour's plain face flushed, then paled. "It was just a rumor," she replied with reluctance. "I'd rather not mention names. Still, when I heard it, I could not rest until I had asked you. The sophomores hope to do something wonderful this year. We couldn't bear to believe for a minute that there would be no basketball. We had planned to have a tryout some day this week, after school. I'm so glad," she added fervently. "Thank you, Miss Archer. Oh, pardon me," she turned to Marjorie, "this is Miss Archer, our principal. Miss Archer, this young lady wishes to see you. I met her in the corridor downstairs and volunteered my services as guide." With a courteous nod to Marjorie, the tall girl left the room and the principal turned her attention toward the prospective freshman. At the calm, kindly inquiry of the gray eyes Marjorie's feeling of shyness vanished, and she said in her most soldierly manner, as though speaking to her mother: "Miss Archer, my name is Marjorie Dean, and I wish to enter the freshman class of Sanford High School. We moved to Sanford from the city of B----. We have been here just a week. I was a freshman in Franklin High School at B----." Miss Archer took the young girl's hand in hers. Her rather stern face was lighted with a welcoming smile. Marjorie's direct speech and frank, honest eyes had pleased the older woman. "I am glad to know that we are to have a new pupil," she said cordially. "The freshman class is smaller than usual this year. So many girls leave school when their grammar school course is finished. I wish we could persuade these mothers and fathers to let their daughters have at least a year of high school. It would help them so much in whatever kind of work they elected to do later." "That is what mother says," returned Marjorie, quickly. "My mother intended to come with me to-day, but was unable to do so." She did not go into details. Young as she was, Marjorie had a horror of discussing her personal affairs with a stranger. "She will call upon you later." "I shall be pleased to meet your mother," Miss Archer made courteous answer. "The first and most important matter to be considered this morning is your class standing. Let me see. B---- is in the same state as the town of Sanford. I believe the system of credits is the same in all the high schools throughout this state, as the examinations come from the state board at the capital. What studies had you begun at B----?" "English composition, algebra, physiology, American history and French," recited Marjorie, dutifully. Miss Archer raised her eyebrows. "You are ambitious. We usually allow our pupils to carry only four subjects." "But these are quite easy subjects," pleaded Marjorie; "that is, all except algebra. I am not especially clever in mathematics. I am obliged to study very hard to make good recitations. Still, I should like to continue with the subjects I have begun. Won't you try me until the end of the first term?" she added, a coaxing note in her voice. "I will at least try you for a week or two. Then if I find that you are not overtaxing your strength you may go on with them." "Thank you." Marjorie's relieved tone caused the principal to smile again. It was not usual for a pupil to show concern over the prospect of losing a subject. Many of the students rebelled at having to carry four subjects. "Have you your grammar school certificate with you?" asked Miss Archer, the smile giving way to a businesslike expression. Marjorie handed the principal the large envelope she had been carrying. Miss Archer drew forth a square of thick white paper, ornamented with the red seal by which the state board of school commissioners had signified their approval of Marjorie Dean and her work in the grammar school. The older woman read it carefully. "Yes, this is, as I thought the same form of certificate. From this moment on you are a freshman in Sanford High School, Miss Dean. I trust that you will be happy here. Sanford has the reputation of being one of the finest schools in the state. I am going to assign you to a seat in the study hall at once. Miss Merton is in charge there. She will give you a printed form of our curriculum of study. School opens at nine o'clock in the morning. The morning session lasts until twelve o'clock. We have an hour and a quarter for luncheon, and our last recitation for the day is over at half past three o'clock. We have devotional exercises in the chapel on Monday and Friday mornings, and the course in gymnastics is optional. There are, of course, many other things regarding the regulations of the school which you will gradually come to know." "Miss Arnold," the thin-faced, sharp-eyed young woman, who had been covertly appraising Marjorie during her talk with Miss Archer, came languidly forward. "This is Miss Dean." The two girls bowed rather distantly. Marjorie had conceived an instant and violent dislike for this lynx-eyed stranger. "Take Miss Dean to the locker room, then to Miss Merton. Say to Miss Merton that Miss Dean is a freshman, and that I wish her assigned to a desk in the freshman section." With a last glance of pleasant approval, which Marjorie's pretty face, dainty attire and frank, yet modest bearing had evoked, the principal retired to her inner office, and Marjorie obediently followed her guide, who, without speaking, set off down the corridor at almost unnecessary speed. "This way," she directed curtly as they reached the main corridor. They passed down the corridor, descended a second stairway and brought up directly in front of long rows of lockers. Within five minutes Marjorie's hat had been put away, and she had received a locker key. This done, her companion hurried her upstairs and down the wide corridor through which they had first come. Then she suddenly opened a door, and Marjorie found herself in an enormous square room, which contained row upon row of shining oak desks, occupied by what seemed to her hundreds of pupils. In reality there were not more than two hundred and forty persons in the room, but in the eyes of the little stranger everything was quadrupled. How different it was from Franklin! So this was the study hall, one of the things on which the school prided itself. In front of the rows of desks was one large desk on a small raised platform, reminding Marjorie of an island in the midst of a sea. At the desk sat a small, gray-haired woman, who peered suspiciously over her glasses at Marjorie as she was lifelessly introduced by Miss Arnold. "I don't like _her_ at all," was the young girl's inward comment as she walked behind the stiff, uncompromising, black-clothed back to a desk almost in the middle of the last row of seats on the east side. But Marjorie experienced a little shiver of delight as she seated herself, for directly in front of her, and gazing at her with reassuring, smiling eyes, was the Picture Girl. CHAPTER V GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE PICTURE GIRL "Welcome to Sanford," whispered the girl, "and to the freshman class. I was sure when I saw you the other day you couldn't be anything other than a freshman." Marjorie flushed, then smiled faintly. "I didn't think any of the girls would remember me," she confessed. "Oh, I remember you perfectly. You were across the street from school on three different days, weren't you?" Marjorie nodded. "I just had to come down and get acquainted with the outside of the school. I was awfully curious about it." "Miss Harding," a cold voice at their elbows caused both girls to start. So intent had they been on their conversation that they had not noticed Miss Merton's approach, "you may answer any questions Miss Dean wishes to ask regarding our course of study here as set forth in our curriculum." She laid a closely printed sheet of paper before Marjorie. "This does not mean, however, the personal conversation in which, I am sorry to say, you appeared to be engrossed when I approached. Remember, Miss Dean, that personal conversation will neither be excused nor tolerated in the study hall. I trust I shall not have to remind you of this again." Marjorie watched with unseeing eyes the angular form of the teacher as she retreated to her platform. If Miss Merton had dealt her a blow on her upturned face, it could have hurt no more severely than had this unlooked-for reprimand. She was filled with a choking sense of shame that threatened to end in a burst of angry sobs. The deep blush that had risen to her face receded, leaving her very white. Those students sitting in her immediate vicinity had, of course, heard Miss Merton. She glanced quickly about to encounter two pairs of eyes. One pair was blue and, it seemed to the embarrassed newcomer, sympathetic. Their owner was the "Mary" girl, who sat two seats behind her in the next aisle. The other pair was cruelly mocking, and they belonged to the girl that Marjorie had mentally styled the Evil Genius. Something in their taunting depths stirred an hitherto unawakened chord in gentle Marjorie Dean. She returned the insolent gaze with one so full of steady strength and defiance that the girl's eyes dropped before it and she devoted herself assiduously to the open book which she held in her hand. "Don't mind Miss Merton," whispered Muriel, comfortingly. "She is the worst crank I ever saw. No one likes her. I don't believe even Miss Archer does. She's been here for ages, so the Board of Education thinks that Sanford High can't run without her, I guess." "I'm so mortified and ashamed," murmured Marjorie. "On my first day, too." "Don't think about it," soothed Muriel. "What studies are you going to take? I hope you will recite in some of my classes. Wait a moment. I'll come back there and sit with you; then we'll make less noise. Miss Merton told me to help you, you know," she reminded, with a soft chuckle. The fair head and the dark one bent earnestly over the printed sheet. Marjorie whispered her list of subjects to her new friend, who jotted them down on the margin of the program. "How about 9.15 English Comp?" she asked. "That's my section." Marjorie nodded her approval. "Then you can recite algebra with me at 10.05, and there's a first-year French class at 11.10. That brings three subjects in the morning. Now, let me see about your history. If you can make your history and physiology come the first two periods in the afternoon, you will be through by three o'clock and can have that last half hour for study or gym, or whatever you like. I am carrying only four subjects, so I have nothing but physical geography in the afternoon. I am through reciting every day by 2 o'clock, so I learn most of my lessons in school and hardly ever take my books home. If I were you, I'd drop one subject--American History, for instance. You can study it later. The freshman class is planning a lot of good times for this winter, and, of course, you want to be in them, too, don't you?" "I should say so," beamed Marjorie. "Still," her face sobering, "I think I won't drop history. It's easy, and I love it." "Well, I don't," emphasized Muriel. "By the way, do you play basketball?" "I played left guard on our team last year, and I had just been chosen for center on the freshman team, at Franklin High, when I left there," was the whispered reply. "That's encouraging," declared Muriel. "We haven't chosen our team yet. We are to have a tryout at four o'clock on Friday afternoon in the gymnasium. You can go to the meeting with me, although you will have met most of the freshman class before Friday. Oh, yes, did Miss Archer tell you that we report in the study hall at half-past eight o'clock on Monday and Friday mornings? We have chapel exercises, and woe be unto you if you are late. It's an unforgivable offense in Miss Merton's eyes to walk into chapel after the service has begun. If you are late, you take particular pains to linger around the corridor until the line comes out of chapel, then you slide into your section and march into the study hall as boldly as though you'd never been late in your life," ended Muriel with a giggle, which she promptly smothered. "But what if Miss Merton sees one?" Muriel made a little resigned gesture. "Try it some day and see. There's the 9.15 bell. Come along. If we hurry we'll have a minute with the girls before class begins. All of my chums recite English this first hour. You needn't stop at Miss Merton's desk. It'll be all right." Marjorie walked down the aisle behind Muriel, looking rather worried. Then she touched Muriel's arm. "I think I'd rather stop and speak to Miss Merton," she said with soft decision. "All right," the response came indifferently as Muriel, a bored look on her youthful face, walked on ahead. Marjorie walked bravely up to the teacher. "Miss Merton, I have arranged my studies and recitation hours. Miss Harding is going to show me the way to the English composition class." Miss Merton stared coldly at the girl's vivid, colorless face, framed in its soft brown curls. Her own youth had been prim and narrow, and she felt that she almost hated this girl whose expressive features gave promise of remarkable personality and abundant joy of living. "Very well." The disagreeable note of dismissal in the teacher's voice angered Marjorie. "I'll never again speak to her unless it's positively necessary," she resolved resentfully. "I wish I'd taken Miss Harding's advice." "Well, did she snap your head off?" inquired Muriel as Marjorie joined her. "No," was the brief answer. "It's a wonder. There goes the third bell. It's on to English comp for us. I won't have time to introduce you to the girls. We'll have to wait until noon. Miss Flint teaches English. She's a dear, and everyone likes her." Muriel's voice dropped on her last speech, for they were now entering the classroom. At the first flat-topped desk in one corner of the room sat a small, fair woman with a sweet, sunshiny face that quite won Marjorie to her. "Miss Flint, this is Miss Dean," began Muriel, as they stopped before the desk. "She is a freshman and has just been registered in the study hall by Miss Merton." A long, earnest glance passed between teacher and pupil, then Marjorie felt her hand taken between two small, warm palms. "I am sure Miss Dean and I are going to be friends," said a sweet, reassuring voice that amply made up for Miss Merton's stiffness. "Are you a stranger in Sanford, my dear? I am sure I have never seen you before." "We have lived here a week," smiled Marjorie. "We moved here from B----." "How interesting. Were you a student of Franklin High School? I have a dear friend who teaches English there." "Oh!" exclaimed Marjorie, her eyes sparkling, "do you mean Miss Fielding?" "Yes," returned Miss Flint. "We were best friends during our college days, too. Hampton College is our alma mater." "That is where I hope to go when I finish high school. Miss Fielding has told me so many nice things about Hampton," was Marjorie's eager reply. Then she added impetuously, "I'm going to like Sanford, too. I'm quite sure of it." "That is the right spirit in which to begin your work here," was the instant response. "I will assign you to that last seat in the third row. We do not change seats. Each girl is given her own place for the year." Marjorie thanked Miss Flint, and made her way to the seat indicated. The sound of footsteps in the corridor had ceased. A tall girl in the front row of desks slipped from her seat and closed the door. Miss Flint rose, faced her class, and the recitation began. After the class was dismissed Miss Flint detained Marjorie for a moment to ask a few questions regarding her text and note books. Muriel waited in the corridor. Her face wore an expression of extreme satisfaction. It looked as though the new freshman might be a distinct addition to the critical little company of girls who had set themselves as rulers and arbiters of the freshman class. She was pretty, wore lovely clothes, lived in a big house in a select neighborhood, had played center on a city basketball team, and was the friend of Miss Flint's friend. To be sure, Mignon La Salle might raise some objection to the newcomer. Mignon was so unreasonably jealous. But for all her money, Mignon must not be allowed always to have her own way. Muriel was sure the rest of the girls would be quite in favor of adding Marjorie Dean to their number. They needed one more girl to complete their sextette. To Marjorie should fall the honor. "I'll introduce her to the girls this noon, and let them look her over. Then I'll have a talk with them to-night and see what they think," planned Muriel as she went back to the study hall at Marjorie's side. There was a hurried exchange of books, then Marjorie was rushed off to her algebra recitation. Here she found herself at least two weeks ahead of the others, and was able to solve a problem at the blackboard that had puzzled several members of the class, thereby winning a reputation for herself as a mathematician to which it afterward proved anything but easy to live up to. While in both her English and algebra classes Marjorie had searched the room with alert eyes for the girl who looked like Mary. She felt vaguely disappointed. She had hoped to come into closer contact with her. She liked Muriel, she decided, but she did not altogether understand her half-cordial, half-joking manner. She was rather glad that she was to go to her French class alone. She had told Muriel not to bother. She could find the classroom by herself. As she clicked down the short, left-hand, third floor corridor, she saw just ahead of her a little blue-clad figure passing through the very doorway for which she was making. An instant and she too had entered the room. She stared about her, then walked to a seat directly opposite to the one now occupied by the girl that looked like Mary. For a brief moment the girl eyed Marjorie indifferently, then something in the scrutiny of the other girl evidently annoyed her. She drew her straight dark brows together in a displeased frown, and deliberately turned her face away. By this time perhaps a dozen girls had entered, and, as the clang of the third bell echoed through the school, an alert little man with a thin, sensitive face and timid brown eyes, bustled into the room and carefully closed the door. Hardly had he taken his hand from the knob when the door was flung open, this time to admit a sharp-featured girl with bright, dark eyes and a cruel, thin-lipped mouth. Smiling maliciously, she swung the door shut with an echoing bang. The meek little professor looked reproachfully at the offender, who did not even appear to see him. "The Evil Genius," recognized Marjorie. Her eyes strayed furtively toward the Mary girl, who had not paid the slightest attention to this late arrival. "What a hateful person that black-eyed girl is," ran on Marjorie's thoughts. "I know it was she who made that nice girl cry the other day. I wish she wasn't quite so distant. The nice girl, I mean. Oh, dear. I forgot to go up to the professor's desk and register. That's his fault. He came in late. He'll see me in a minute and ask who I am." To her extreme surprise, the little man paid no particular attention to her, but, opening his grammar, began the giving out of the next day's lesson. This he explained volubly and with many gestures. Marjorie's lips curved into a half smile as she compared this rather noisy instructor with Professor Rousseau, of Franklin. Later, when he called upon his pupils to recite, however, he was a different being. His politely sarcastic arraignment of those who floundered through the lessons, accompanied by certain ominous marks he placed after their names in a fat black book that lay on his desk, plainly showed that, despite his mild appearance, he was a force yet to be reckoned with. "I hope he doesn't notice me until class is over," fidgeted Marjorie. "It surely must be time for that bell to ring." She began nervously to count those who were due to recite before her turn came. It would be so embarrassing to do her explaining before this group of strange girls, particularly before the Evil Genius. Ah, she had begun to read! And how beautifully she read French! The critical professor was listening to the smooth flow of words that tripped from her tongue with approbation written on every feature. "She must have studied French before," speculated Marjorie, as the professor directed the next girl to go on with the exercise; "or else she is French. I believe she is. Oh, dear, only two more girls." Clang! sounded the bell. "Thank goodness," breathed the relieved freshman. There was a general closing of books. "To-morrow I shall geev you a wreetten test," warned Professor Fontaine. Then the second bell rang, and the class filed out of the room. "Eet ees not strange that I haf overlooked you, Mademoiselle," explained Professor Fontaine five minutes later, after listening to Marjorie's apology for not presenting herself to him before class. "The freshmen like to make so many alterations in their programs. They haf soch good excuses for changeeng classes, but, sometimes, too, they do not tell me. Eet maks exasperation." He waved his hands comprehensively. "I am pleased," he added, with true French courtesy, "to haf another pupil. Ees eet that you like the French, Mademoiselle Dean?" "It is a beautiful language, Professor Fontaine," Marjorie assured him. "I have only begun learning it, but I like it so much." "C'est vrai," murmured the delighted professor. "La Francais est une belle langue. If, then, you like it, you weel study your lessons, n'est pas?" "I'll try very hard to make good recitations. I will bring my books to-morrow. We used the same grammar at Franklin High School." Marjorie hastened back to the study hall to find it empty. The clock on the north wall pointed significant hands to ten minutes past twelve. The Picture Girl had said that she wished Marjorie to meet her friends, but she was not waiting. It was disappointing, but her own fault, thought the lonely freshman as she left the study hall and went slowly downstairs to the locker room. She gave an impatient sigh as she pinned on her hat. Exploring new territory wasn't half so interesting as she could wish. Then a light footstep sounded at her side. A dignified little voice said, stiffly, "Will you please allow me to get my hat?" Marjorie whirled about in amazement. Could she believe her eyes? The voice belonged to the Mary girl; they were to share the same locker. CHAPTER VI THE PLEDGE "Oh, I am so glad we are to have a locker together!" exclaimed Marjorie, impulsively. "I've been very anxious to know you. I really owe you an apology. I spoke to you in the street the other day. I don't know what you thought of me, but you look so much like my dearest chum in B---- that I called to you before I realized what I was doing." The other girl regarded Marjorie with the suspicious, uneasy eyes of a cornered animal. Then, without answering, she reached for her hat and was about to go silently on her way, when something in Marjorie's gracious words seemed to touch her and she said, grudgingly, "I remember you." "That's nice," beamed Marjorie. "I was afraid you wouldn't. Let me tell you about my chum." She launched forth in an enthusiastic description of Mary Raymond and of their long friendship. "I wrote Mary about having seen a girl that looked like her. She will be very curious to see you. She's coming to visit me some time during the year. So I hope you and I will be friends. But I haven't even told you who I am. My name is Marjorie Dean. Won't you please tell me yours?" She offered her hand winningly, but the strange, self-contained young girl ignored it. "My name is Constance Stevens." Her voice was coldly reluctant, carrying with it an unmistakable rebuff. Marjorie drew back, puzzled and hurt. She was not used to having her friendly overtures rejected. The blue-eyed girl saw the shrinking movement, and, stirred by some hitherto unknown impulse, stretched forth her hand. "Please forgive me for being so rude," she said contritely. "It is awfully sweet in you to tell me about your chum and to say that you wish to be my friend. You are the first girl, who has been so nice with me since I came to Sanford. How I hate them!" Her expressive face darkened and her blue eyes became filled with brooding, sullen anger. "Are you going home to luncheon now?" asked Marjorie, with a view toward keeping away from disagreeable subjects. The other girl nodded, then, pinning on her hat, the two left the building. Marjorie wished to ask questions, but she did not know how to begin with this strange, moody girl. There were so many things to say. "Do you play basketball?" she asked, almost timidly, when they had traversed three blocks in silence. Constance shook her head. "I don't even know the game, let alone trying to play it. Do you play?" "Yes. I have played every position on the team. I was chosen for center of the freshman team at Franklin High just before I came here. One of the freshmen has asked me to go to the tryout on Friday." The Mary girl looked wistfully at Marjorie. "I'm going to tell you something," she announced with finality. "Truly, it's for your own good. You mustn't try to be friends with me. If you do, you'll be sorry. We, my father and I, are nobodies in this town. Father's a broken-down musician who teaches the violin for a living. I've a little lame brother, and we take care of a poor old musician, who, people say, is crazy. He isn't, though. He's merely childish. "People call us Bohemians and gypsies and even vagabonds. They don't understand that our greatest crime is just being poor. The girls in the freshman class make fun of me and call me a tramp and a beggar behind my back. One girl did try to be the least bit pleasant with me, but she soon stopped. We've been in Sanford only two months, but it seems like a hundred years. At first I was glad to think I was going to high school. How I hate it now! But they sha'n't drive me away. I'll get my education in spite of everything." Her lips drew together with resolute purpose. "So, you see," her voice grew gentle, "you mustn't waste your time upon me. The girls won't like you if you do, and you don't know how dreadful it is to be left out of everything. Of course, you can speak to me, but----" She paused and looked eloquent meaning at Marjorie. Her late aloofness had quite vanished. Her small face was now soft and friendly, making the resemblance to happy-go-lucky Mary Raymond more apparent. Marjorie laughed. Those who knew her best would have understood that her laughter meant defiance. "I don't choose my friends because they are rich or because others like them. I choose them because I want them myself," she declared with a proud lift of her head. "I knew that someone had been horrid to you the first day I ever saw you. I heard several girls talking of you afterward. At least, I think they were talking of you. I said to myself then that they had misjudged you. So I went home and wrote my letter to Mary. I told mother all about you, too, and that I was going to be your friend, if you would let me. I want you to come and see me and meet mother and father. As for the girls in the freshman class, I'd like to be friends with them, too, but I couldn't do anything so contemptible and unfair as to dislike a girl just because they thought they did. Now, you know what I think about it. Are we going to share our locker and our troubles and our pleasures?" The tears flashed across Constance Stevens' eyes. Her hand slid into Marjorie's, and thus began a friendship between the two freshmen that was to defy time and change. They separated on the next corner and, throwing dignity to the winds, Marjorie raced up the long walk and into the house to see if her captain was better. "I came to report, Captain," she said gently as she tiptoed up to her mother's bed. "How are you, dear?" "Better, Lieutenant," returned her mother, kissing the pretty, flushed face. "Now for the report." "You are sure I won't make your head ache with my chatter?" "No, dear; it is ever so much better now." Marjorie went faithfully through with the events of the morning. "I had to stand by my colors, Captain. I wouldn't be fit to be a soldier if I didn't know how to stand fast. Just as though it makes any difference whether a girl is rich or poor if she's a dear and one likes her. How can some girls be so silly? They wouldn't be if they had Mary's and my military training. When in doubt ask your captain." She laughed gaily, then her merry glance changed to one of dismay. "Good gracious! It's fifteen minutes to one. I'll have to eat my luncheon in a hurry." With a hasty kiss Marjorie flitted from the room and down the stairs to the dining-room. After luncheon she lingered for a brief moment with her mother, then set off for the afternoon session of school. But she could not help wondering as she walked just how it would seem to be in the freshman class but not of it. CHAPTER VII THE WARNING The afternoon session of school passed uneventfully for Marjorie. She had returned too late from luncheon to hold more than a few words of conversation with the Picture Girl. In spite of the watchful espionage of Miss Merton, whose eyes seemed riveted to her side of the room, Muriel managed to convey to Marjorie the news that the girls were dying to meet her and were so sorry they had missed her at noon. "We waited for you more than ten minutes," Muriel whispered guardedly. "Mignon saw you stop at Professor Fontaine's desk. We knew what that meant. It always takes him forever to explain anything. Do you remember a black-haired, black-eyed girl in the French class this morning? She wore the sweetest brown crêpe-de-chine dress. Well, that's Mignon La Salle. Her father is the richest man in Sanford. Mignon could go away to school if she liked, but she doesn't care about it. Tell you more later." Muriel faced front with a sudden jerk that could mean but one thing. Marjorie cast a fleeting glance at Miss Merton. The teacher was frowning angrily, as though about to deliver a rebuke. Luckily for the two girls, the first recitation bell rang and they stood not upon the order of their going, but went with alacrity. Once outside the study-hall door they were safe. "I don't know what ails Miss Merton," complained Muriel. "She has never said a word to me before. That's twice to-day she has shown her claws." "She doesn't like me," said Marjorie, calmly, "and I don't like her. I think she is the rudest teacher I ever knew. It was I, not you that she meant that scolding for this morning." "Nonsense!" scoffed Muriel. "She likes you as well as she likes the rest of us. I don't believe she is awfully, terribly, fearfully fond of girls. When she was young she must have been one of those stiff, prim goody-goodies; the distressingly snippy sort that made all her friends so tired." Muriel laughed softly. Marjorie smiled at Muriel's unflattering description of Miss Merton's youth, then her face sobered. In her heart she knew that Miss Merton disliked her, and the knowledge was not pleasant. She made an earnest resolve to overcome the teacher's prejudice. She would make Miss Merton like her. Muriel went with her as far as the door of the history room, which was in charge of Miss Atkins, a stout, middle-aged woman, who beamed amiably upon Marjorie, entered her name in the class register, motioned her to a front seat and promptly appeared to forget her existence. But though Miss Atkins exhibited small personal interest in her new pupil, such was not the case with regard to the subject which she taught. The lesson dealt with the coming of the Virginia colonists, their settlement in Jamestown and the final burning of the town. Miss Atkins' vivid description of the colonists' determined struggles to gain a foothold in the New World was well worth listening to. The reading of extracts from special reference books pertaining to that gallant expedition into the treacherous forests of an unknown, untried country made the lesson seem doubly interesting. When the recitation was over Marjorie went back to the study hall congratulating herself on the fact that she had not dropped history, and reflecting that no one would ever have suspected Miss Atkins of being so fascinating. As she groped in her desk for her textbook on physiology, she looked about her for some sign of Constance Stevens. She recollected that she had not seen her in her seat when the afternoon session began. The moment her recitation in physiology was over she hastened to the locker room. No, her new friend's hat was not there. She had not returned to school after luncheon. Marjorie reached for her own hat, vaguely wondering what had happened to keep Constance away from school. She stood meditatively poking her hatpins in and out of her hat, when the sound of footsteps on the stairs came to her ears. School was over for the day. She put on her hat in a hurry, took a swift peep at herself as she passed the one large mirror that hung at the end of the freshmen's lockers, and ran up the stairs. She would not disappoint Muriel's friends again. This time she was first on the scene, standing on the identical spot where she had stood the day Constance rushed weeping past her. Why didn't her class come out? Surely she had heard their footsteps on the stairs. But it was fully five minutes before the stream of girls began to issue from the big doors. Then Muriel appeared, surrounded by her friends, and in another instant the girl with the dimples, the fair-haired girl, the stout girl and the Evil Genius were, with varying degrees of friendliness, telling Marjorie Dean that they were glad to meet her. Susan Atwell said so frankly with a delightful show of dimples. Irma Linton looked the acme of gentle friendliness. Geraldine Macy's face wore an expression of open admiration. Mignon La Salle's greeting, however, was distinctly reserved. To be sure, she smiled; but Muriel, who had been furtively watching her, knew that the French girl was not pleased with the idea of admitting another girl to their fellowship. "The rest of the girls like her," thought Muriel. "Mignon will find she'll have to give in this time." Purposely, to make sure she was right, she said boldly: "Miss Dean, will you go to the basketball tryout with us on Friday afternoon?" "Yes, do," urged Geraldine Macy, eagerly. "We'd love to have you," came from Susan Atwell. "We understand that you are a star player." "Of course you must," smiled Irma Linton. The French girl alone hesitated. Her eyes roved speculatively from one face to another, then she said suavely, "Come by all means, Miss Dean. It will be quite interesting." "Thank you. I shall be pleased to go with you." Marjorie ignored Mignon's slight hesitation, although she had noted it. "I wonder if you are all as fond of basketball as I," she went on quickly. "It's a splendid game, isn't it?" Her new acquaintances answered with emphasis that it was certainly a great game, and, the ice now broken, they began to ply their new acquaintance with questions. How did she like Sanford? Did it seem strange to her after a big city high school? What subjects had she selected? Had she met any other girls besides themselves? Marjorie answered them readily enough. She was glad to be one of a crowd of girls again. "Have you met any other girls?" asked Geraldine Macy, abruptly. "I met a Miss Seymour before I had even gone as far as Miss Archer's office. She is a delightful girl, isn't she?" No one of the five girls made answer. The little freshman regarded them perplexedly. "Mm!" ejaculated Muriel Harding. "You wouldn't think her quite so nice if you knew as much about her as we do. Wait until you see her play basketball. She plays center on the sophomore team, and she makes some very peculiar plays. She's always creating trouble, too. She and some of her sophomore friends seem to have a particular grudge against Mignon. They are forever criticising her playing. They have even gone so far as to say that we don't play fairly; that we are tricky. The idea!" Muriel looked highly offended at the mere idea of any such thing. Marjorie listened without comment. Muriel's ready tirade against the pleasant-faced sophomore who had willingly offered her services that morning made her feel decidedly uncomfortable. Then Miss Seymour's straightforward speech to Miss Archer came back to her. The sophomore had been generous to her enemies, if they were enemies, in that she had refused to mention any names. Marjorie wondered if Muriel or Mignon would be equally generous in the same circumstances. She resolved to say nothing of what she had been privileged to hear. It was not hers to tell. Suddenly she divined, rather than saw, Mignon's elfish eyes fixed upon her. "You met another girl, at noon, did you not, Miss Dean?" asked the French girl, with an almost sarcastic inflection. "Yes; Miss Stevens," was the composed answer. "We share the same locker. She is a nice girl, too, and I like her very much, so, please, don't say anything against her," she ended, in half-smiling warning. Mignon La Salle's face grew dark. She recognized the challenging note in the new girl's tone. Muriel, too, frowned. Susan Atwell sidled up to Mignon, Irma Linton looked distressed and Geraldine Macy calmly curious as to what would come next. It came in the way of a small tempest, for the French girl lost her temper over Marjorie's retort. She stamped her foot in childish rage, saying vehemently: "She is a nobody, that Stevens person, and her family are vagabonds. You will make a great mistake if you choose her for your friend." Then, her rage receding as suddenly as it had come, she shrugged her shoulders deprecatingly. "Pardonnez moi." She bowed to Marjorie. "I spoke too strongly. It is not for me to choose Miss Dean's friends." Slipping her arm through Muriel's, she drew her ahead of the others. Susan Atwell took a hurried step forward and caught her other arm, leaving Marjorie to walk between Irma and Geraldine. "Don't mind her," said Jerry, in a low voice. "She has it in for that Miss Stevens. She, the Stevens girl, did something, no one knows what, to make Mignon angry with her. Mignon says Miss Stevens talked about her and Muriel and Susan believed it, but Irma and I are not so silly." Two blocks further on Marjorie bade good-bye to the five girls. She said it without enthusiasm. Their carping, quarrelsome attitude had taken all the pleasure from knowing them. She made mental exception in favor of Irma and Jerry. The gentleness of the one and the sturdy, outspoken manner of the other had impressed her favorably. But she was sorely disappointed in Muriel. Should she tell her mother of the disagreeable ending of her first day? She decided not to do so. She would carry nothing save pleasant tales to her captain to-day. And so that night, when she entered the living-room and found her mother, in a becoming negligee, occupying the wide leather couch by the window, she saluted, like a dutiful soldier, and included in her report only the pleasant happenings of her first, never-to-be-forgotten day in Sanford High School. CHAPTER VIII STANDING BY HER COLORS When Marjorie took her seat in the study hall the next morning, Muriel's greeting was as affable as it had been before the disagreement of the previous afternoon. She even went so far as to whisper, "Don't take Mignon too seriously. She is really dreadfully hurt over the unkind things Miss Stevens has said of her." Marjorie listened in polite silence to the Picture Girl's rather lame apology in behalf of her friend. She could think of nothing to say. Muriel had turned about in her seat, her eyes fixed expectantly upon the other girl. But just then came an unexpected interruption. "Miss Dean," shrilled Miss Merton's high, querulous voice, "who gave you permission to leave school before the regular hour of dismissal yesterday afternoon?" "I did not----" began the astonished girl. "Young woman, do you mean to contradict me?" thundered Miss Merton. Marjorie had now risen to her feet. Her pretty face had turned very white, her brown eyes gleamed like two angry flames. "I had no intention of contradicting you, Miss Merton." Her low, steady tones were full of repressed indignation. "What I had begun to say was that I did not know I was expected to return to the study hall after my last class. In the high school which I attended in B---- we went from our last class to our locker rooms. It is, of course, my fault. I should have inquired about it beforehand." The freshman quietly resumed her seat. Every pair of eyes in the room was turned upon Marjorie. Miss Merton, however, had no intention of letting her off so easily. "The rules and regulations of another high school do not, in the least, interest me, Miss Dean," she said, with biting sarcasm. "It is my business to see that the rules of _Sanford_ High School are enforced, and I propose to do it. You have been a pupil in this school for only one day, yet I have been obliged to reprimand you on two different occasions. If you annoy me further I shall consider myself fully justified in sending you to Miss Archer." The ringing of the first recitation bell put an end to the little scene. Marjorie rose from her seat and marched from the study hall, her head held high. If Miss Merton expected her to break down and cry she would find herself sadly mistaken. Muriel overtook her in the corridor. "My, but Miss Merton hates you!" she commented cheerfully, as though enjoying her classmate's discomfiture. Marjorie made no reply. Her proud spirit was too deeply crushed for words. She went through her recitation in English that morning like one in a dream. Several times during her French hour she gazed appealingly at Constance, but the Mary girl kept her fair head turned resolutely away. She did not appear at her locker either at noon or after school was over, although Marjorie lingered, in the hope that she would come. So successfully did she manage to steer clear of Marjorie, who was too proud to make advances in the face of Constance's marked avoidance, that, when Friday came and the afternoon session was over, Marjorie was escorted to the gymnasium by the Picture Girl and her friends, who, even to Mignon, believed that the newcomer had been wise and taken their brusque advice. At least half of the freshman class had elected to try for a place on the team. Miss Randall, the instructor in gymnastics, and several seniors had been chosen to pick the team, and when the six girls arrived on the scene the testing had begun. Mignon La Salle was the first of their group to play. Her almost marvelous agility, her quick, catlike springs and her fleetness of foot called forth unstinted praise from Marjorie. Muriel, too, played a skilful game; so did Susan Atwell. When Marjorie was called upon to play left guard on a team composed of the last lot of aspirants for basketball honors, she advanced to her position rather nervously. Muriel, Mignon, Susan Atwell and two freshmen, whom she did not know, were to oppose her. She wondered if she could play fast enough to keep up with her clever opponents. Then, as she caught the French girl's elfish eyes fixed upon her, mocking incredulity in their depths, she rallied her doubting spirit and resolved to outplay even Mignon. Fifteen minutes later Marjorie Dean had been chosen to play left guard on a team of which Mignon was center, Muriel, right guard, Susan Atwell, right forward, and a freshman named Harriet Delaney, left forward. Muriel had also been made captain, and several girls were chosen as substitutes. "Hurrah for the new team!" cried Muriel Harding. "Let's call ourselves the Invincibles. You certainly can play basketball, Miss Dean. How lucky in you to come to Sanford just when we need you. By the way, 'Miss Dean' is too formal. Please let us call you Marjorie. You can call us by our first names. What's the use of so much formality among team-mates?" Being merely a very human young girl, Marjorie could not help feeling a little bit pleased with herself. She was glad she had played so well. She felt that she had really begun to like her new associates very much. Even Mignon must have her good points; and how wonderfully well she played basketball! Perhaps Constance Stevens had been just a little bit at fault. Certainly she had acted very queerly after that first day when they had pledged their friendship. Had she, Marjorie, been wise to avow unswerving loyalty to a stranger, and all because she looked like Mary Raymond? Marjorie's disquieting reflections were interrupted by something the French girl was saying. "It was too funny for anything, wasn't it, Muriel?" Mignon laughed with gleeful malice. "Yes," nodded Muriel. "We gave the sophomores a bad scare." "What did you do?" asked Irma Linton, curiously. Seeing that she had the attention of her audience, the French girl began. "You remember the practice game we played against the sophomores last week? According to my way of thinking, the sophomores played a very rough game. I complained to Miss Seymour, their captain. She laughed at me," Mignon scowled at the remembrance, "so I decided to teach her a lesson." "I told Muriel about it, and between us we made up a dialogue. It was all about the sophomores' unfair playing, and how surprised they would be when they found themselves forbidden to play basketball. Then we managed to walk out of school behind two girls that always tell everything they know, and recited our dialogue. The next morning Muriel saw one of the girls talking to Miss Seymour for all she was worth, so we know that she faithfully repeated everything she heard. Miss Seymour wouldn't dare go to Miss Archer with it for fear Miss Archer would ask too many questions. You know Miss Archer said last year when Inez Chester made such a fuss about her sprained wrist that if ever again one team reported another for rough playing she would disband the accused team and have Miss Randall select a new one. So I imagine we gave our friends the sophs something to think about." "But who told you the sophomores would be forbidden to play?" demanded candid Jerry. "No one told us, silly," retorted Muriel, her color rising. "We simply said they would be surprised when they found themselves forbidden to play. 'When' may mean next week or next month, or next year or century, or any other time. We were only talking for their general edification." "Then nobody actually said a word about it?" persisted Jerry. "You just made up all that stuff?" "It didn't do any hurt," began Muriel. "We thought----" "Don't be such a prig, Jerry," put in Mignon, impatiently. "It isn't half so wicked to play a joke on those stupid sophomores as it is to ask one's mother for money for a fountain pen, and then use the money for candy and ice cream." There was a chorus of giggles from the girls, in which Jerry did not join. She was eyeing Mignon steadily. "See here, Mignon," she said with offended dignity. "I just want you to know that I told my mother about that money that very same night. I may have my faults, but I certainly don't tell things that aren't true." Jerry punctuated this pertinent speech with emphatic nods of her head, and, having said her say, walked on a little ahead of her friends, the picture of belligerence. "Now, you've made Jerry angry, Mignon," laughed Susan Atwell. Mignon merely lifted her thin shoulders. "I can't please every one. If I did, I should never please myself." "I don't know what ails Jerry all of a sudden," commented Muriel to Marjorie. "She isn't usually so--so funny." Again Marjorie kept her own counsel. She, alone, knew that the object of the rumor which Muriel and Mignon had started had failed. Ellen Seymour had gone frankly to headquarters with it, and Miss Archer had asked no questions. Marjorie wondered what these girls would say if they knew the truth. She did not like to criticize them, but were they truly honorable? For a moment she wished she had refused to play on the team with them. Muriel and Mignon, in particular, seemed so careless of other people's feelings. Her sympathies were with Jerry, and quickening her pace she slipped her arm through that of the fat girl, saying, "Don't you think to-morrow's algebra lesson is hard?" Jerry viewed her companion's smiling face rather sulkily. Then succumbing to the other's charm, she said in a mollified tone: "Of course it's hard. They're all hard. I know I shall never pass in algebra." "Oh, yes, you will," was Marjorie's cheerful assurance. "It's my hardest study, too; but I'm going to pass my final examination in it. I've simply made up my mind that I must do it." "Then I'll make up my mind to pass, too," announced Jerry, inspired by Marjorie's determined tones. "And, say, it would be splendid if we could do our lessons together sometimes. My mother likes me to bring my school friends home." "So does mine," returned Marjorie, cordially. "She says home is the place for me to entertain my schoolmates. I hope you will come to see me soon. It's your turn first, you know. Oh, please pardon me a moment, I must speak to this girl!" The cause of this sudden exclamation was a young woman in a well-worn blue suit who was coming across the street directly ahead of them. "Oh, Constance!" hailed Marjorie, "I have been looking for you. Stop a minute!" Marjorie stood waiting for her friend with eager face and outstretched hand. By this time the four other girls had come abreast of the trio and had passed them, Irma Linton being the only one of them who bowed to Constance. Jerry stood beside Marjorie for an instant, then walked on and overtook her chums. "Please don't stop," begged Constance, her face expressing the liveliest worry. "Really, you mustn't try to be friends with me. I wish to take back my part of our compact. You've been chosen to play on the team, and those girls seem to like you. I can't stand in your way, and my friendship won't be worth anything to you, so just let's forget all we said the other day." Marjorie stared hard at the other girl, the pathetic droop of whose lips looked for all the world like Mary's when things went wrong. "You don't mean that, and I won't give you up," she said with fine stubbornness. "I haven't time to talk about it now. I must catch up with those girls. Wait for me at our locker to-morrow noon, please, _please_." With a hasty squeeze of Constance's hand, Marjorie raced on up the street to overtake her companions. They were so busily engaged in discussing her, however, that they did not hear her approach, and consequently did not lower their voices. "I will not speak to her; I will not play with her on the team!" she heard Mignon La Salle sputter angrily. "We certainly don't care to bother with her if she's going to take up with all sorts of low people." This loftily from Muriel, who was afraid to cross the French girl. "My mother told me never to speak to any of those crazy Stevens persons," added Susan Atwell, with a toss of her curly head. "I don't care so very much for this Dean girl, either." "Oh, you make me tired, the whole lot of you," cried Jerry, with angry contempt. "Marjorie Dean is nicer than all of you put together, and if she likes that little white-faced Stevens girl, then the girl is all right, even if her family were ragpickers. I'm ashamed of myself for being so silly as to listen to any of Mignon's complaints against her. You can do as you like, but if it's a case of being your friend or Marjorie's, then I guess I'd rather be hers." "Thank you, Geraldine." Marjorie's quiet voice caused the party to turn, then exchange sheepish glances. "I don't wish you to quarrel over me," she went on. "I should like to be friends with all of you, but none of you can choose my friends for me any more than I can choose yours for you." "You can't chum with us and be the friend of that Miss Stevens," muttered Mignon. "She is my enemy. Do you understand?" "I am sorry to hear that," returned Marjorie, keeping her temper with difficulty, "but she is not mine. I like her. I shall stand up for her and be her friend as long as we go to Sanford High School. I am sorry to seem disagreeable, but I shouldn't feel the least bit true to myself if I were afraid to say what I think. This is my street. Good-bye." Marjorie walked proudly away from the group. An instant and she heard the patter of running feet behind her. "You can't get rid of us so easily," panted Geraldine Macy. "I think you are right, Marjorie," said Irma Linton, quietly, putting out her hand. "I should like to be your friend." And the dividing of the sextette of girls was the dividing of the freshman class of Sanford High School. CHAPTER IX A BITTER MOMENT Marjorie went soberly up the steps of her home that afternoon. Her pleasure in making the team had been short-lived. She wondered if it would not be better to write her resignation. How could she bear to play on a team when three of the members had decided to drop her acquaintance? Still, they had not chosen her to play on the team; why, then, should she resign? She decided to consult her captain on the subject; then changed her mind. She would not trouble her mother with such petty grievances. This prejudice against Constance Stevens had originated wholly with Mignon La Salle. Perhaps the French girl would soon forget it, and it would die a natural death. Marjorie was not mortally hurt over the turn of the afternoon's affairs. She had not been so deeply impressed with the importance of Mignon and her friends that she failed to see their snobbish tendencies. She made mental exception of Jerry and Irma. She was secretly glad that they had declared for her. She liked Jerry's blunt independence and Irma's gentle, lovable personality. With the optimism of sixteen, she declined to worry over what had happened, and her report to her captain at the end of that troubled afternoon included only the pleasant events of the day. When she went to school the next Monday morning she discovered that it did hurt, just a trifle, to be deliberately cut by the Picture Girl, and, instead of being greeted with Susan Atwell's dimpled smile, to receive an icy stare from that young woman, as, later in the morning, they passed each other in the corridor. In some mysterious manner the story of the disagreement had been noised about the freshman class, with the result that Marjorie's acquaintance was eagerly sought by a number of freshmen whom she knew merely by sight, and that several girls, who had made it a point to smile and nod to her, now passed her, frigid and unsmiling. As for the members of the little group Marjorie had watched so earnestly before she had been enrolled as a freshman at Sanford, they were now divided indeed. As the week progressed the "Terrible Trio," as Jerry had satirically named Mignon, Muriel and Susan, endeavored to make plain to whoever would listen to them that there was but one side to the story, namely, their side. Emulating Marjorie's example, Jerry and Irma had taken particular pains to be friendly with Constance Stevens. After an eloquent dissertation on friendship, delivered by Marjorie at their locker on the Monday morning following her disagreement with the other girls, Constance had shed a few happy tears and admitted that she had rather be "best friends" with Marjorie than anyone else in the world. The hardest part of it all for Marjorie was her basketball practice. It was dreadful to be on speaking terms with only one girl on the team, Harriet Delaney, and she was not overly cordial. Marjorie tried to remember that Miss Randall had appointed her to her position, that the right to play was hers; but the unfriendly players made her nervous, and she lost her usual snap and daring. The second week's practice came, and she resolved to play up to her usual form, but, try as she might, she fell far short of the promise she had shown at the tryout. She also noted uneasily that, no matter how early she reported for practice, the team seemed always to be in the gymnasium before her and that one of the substitutes invariably held her position. The freshmen had challenged the sophomores to play against them on the first Saturday afternoon in November. It was now the latter part of October and both teams were utilizing as much of their spare time as possible in preparing for the fray. "Are you going to practice this afternoon?" whispered Geraldine Macy to Marjorie as they left the algebra class on Monday morning. Marjorie nodded. "Oh, dear," grumbled Jerry under her breath. "I wanted to talk to you about the Hallowe'en party." "What Hallowe'en party?" asked Marjorie, opening her eyes. "Haven't you your invitation?" It was Jerry's turn to look surprised. "I don't even know what you're talking about." Their entrance into the study hall put an end to the conversation. It was renewed at noon, however, when Jerry, Irma, Marjorie and Constance trooped out of the school building together, a seemingly contented quartet. "Just imagine, girls," announced Jerry, excitedly. "Marjorie doesn't know a thing about the Hallowe'en party. She hasn't her invitation either. I think that's awfully queer." "I haven't mine, but I know all about it," put in Constance Stevens, quietly. "Who has charge of the invitations?" asked Marjorie. "Miss Arnold. You'd better see her about yours to-day. Of course you both want to go." "But what is it and where is it held?" questioned Marjorie. "It's a big dance. Weston High School, that's the boys' school, gives a party to Sanford High on every Hallowe'en night. It's a town institution and as unchangeable as any law the Medes and Persians ever thought of making," informed Jerry. "Oh, how splendid!" exclaimed Marjorie. "I should like to know some nice Sanford boys, and I love to dance!" "Then you ought to meet my brother Hal," declared Jerry, solemnly, "for he's the nicest, handsomest, best boy I know." "Wait until you see the Crane," laughed Irma Linton. "He's the tallest boy in high school. He's six feet two inches now. They say he hasn't stopped growing, either, and he is awfully thin. That's why the boys call him the 'Crane.' He doesn't mind it a bit. His real name is Sherman Norwood, but no one ever calls him that except the teachers." During the rest of the walk home the coming dance was the sole subject under discussion. Yes, the girls wore evening gowns, if they had them. Lots of girls wore their best summer dresses. The leading caterer of Sanford always had charge of the refreshments and the boys paid the bills. There was a real orchestra, too. Of course all the teachers were there, but the pokey ones went home early and the jolly ones, like Miss Flint and Miss Atkins, stayed until the last dance. There were countless other questions to ask, but the luncheon hour was too short to admit of any lingering on the corner. "I wish we had more time to talk," sighed Marjorie, reluctantly, as she came to her street. "I'd love to hear more about the dance." "We'll tell you all there is to tell after school," promised Jerry. "Oh, no, we can't either. You'll have to go to that old basketball practice. What a nuisance it is. And to think you have to play on the team with Mignon, Muriel and Susan, after the way they've treated you. Why don't you resign?" "I don't believe I'll play next term," said Marjorie, slowly, "but I feel as though I ought to stay on the team for the rest of this term. Our game with the sophomores is set for two weeks from to-morrow; then, I believe we are to play against two teams from nearby towns. It wouldn't be fair to leave the team now, after having practiced with it." "I don't believe I'd bother my head much about that part of it," sniffed Jerry, "I'd just quit." "No, you wouldn't, Geraldine Macy," laughed Irma. "You might grumble, but you wouldn't be so hateful." "You don't know how hateful I can be," warned Jerry. "Some other girls are likely to find out, though." "Good-bye. I must not stop here another second," declared Marjorie. "Good-bye!" floated after her as she walked rapidly toward home. "How goes it, Lieutenant?" asked her father, who, with her mother, was already seated at the table as she entered the dining-room. "Pretty well, thank you, General," she replied, touching her hand to her curly head. "I haven't heard you say a word about school for at least a week, my dear," commented her mother. "Has the novelty of Sanford High worn off so soon?" "No, indeed, Captain," returned Marjorie, earnestly. "I'm finding out new things every day." She did not add that some of the "new things" had not been agreeable, nor did she volunteer any further information concerning her school. This touch of reticence on the part of her usually talkative daughter caused her mother to look at her searchingly and wonder if Marjorie had something on her mind which in due season would be brought to light. The subject of the dance returning to the young girl's thoughts, she began at once to talk of it, and her enthusiastic description of the coming affair served to allay her mother's vague impression that Marjorie was not quite happy, and she entered into the important discussion of what her daughter should wear with that unselfish interest belonging only to a mother. When Marjorie returned to school that afternoon she felt happier than she had been since her advent into Sanford High School. The thought of the coming dance brought with it a delightful thrill of anticipation. She had always had such good times at the school dances given by her boy and her girl chums of B----. She hoped she would enjoy this Hallowe'en frolic. She wondered if the "Terrible Trio" would be there. She smiled over Jerry's appropriate appellation, then frowned at herself for countenancing it. Good soldiers didn't indulge in personalities. That afternoon she found it hard, however, to concentrate her thoughts on her studies, and when Miss Atkins asked her on what day the Pilgrim Fathers landed in America, she absent-mindedly replied "Hallowe'en," to the great joy of her class. During her physiology hour she managed to keep strictly to the subject; but she was impatient for the afternoon to pass so that she could go to Miss Arnold for her invitation. Her eyes sparkled, however, when, on returning to the study hall, she saw lying on her desk a square white envelope addressed to her. "Oh, here it is," she thought delightedly. "I'm so glad. I wonder if Constance has hers." She tore open the end of the envelope with eager fingers and drew out a folded sheet of note paper. But the light died out of her face as she read: "My dear Miss Dean: "For some time the members of the freshman team have been dissatisfied with your playing, and have repeatedly urged me to allow Miss Thornton to play in your position on the team. Not wishing to seem unfair, Miss Randall and I watched your work at practice Wednesday afternoon and agreed that the requested change would be best. As manager of the freshmen team, their welfare must ever be my first consideration. I therefore feel no hesitation in asking you for your resignation from the team. "Yours sincerely, "MARCIA ARNOLD." A sigh of humiliation that was half a sob rose to Marjorie's lips. Her chin quivered ominously. Suddenly a dreadful thought flashed across her brain. Suppose Mignon and the others were watching her to see how she received the bad news. Marjorie's desire to cry left her. She leaned back in her seat and assumed an air of indifference far removed from her real state of mind. Then she calmly refolded the letter and placed it in its envelope with the impassivity of a young sphinx. Later that afternoon, as Mignon La Salle strolled out of school between her two satellites, Susan and Muriel, she was heard to declare with disappointed peevishness that that priggish Miss Dean was either too stupid to resent or too thick-skinned to feel a plain out-and-out snub. CHAPTER X A BLUE GOWN AND A SOLEMN RESOLVE The next day in school was a particularly trying one for poor Marjorie. It was decidedly hard for the sore-hearted little freshman to believe that Miss Arnold's motive in asking her to resign from the team had been purely disinterested. She was reasonably sure that she had Mignon to blame for the humiliation. Jerry Macy had told her of Miss Arnold's respect for Mignon's father's money, and that Miss Archer's thin-lipped, austere-looking secretary was one of the French girl's most devoted followers. The wave of dislike which had swept over Marjorie upon first beholding Marcia Arnold had, as the days passed, intensified rather than lessened. Jerry, too, could not endure the secretary. "I never could bear her," she had confided to Marjorie. "I'm glad she's a junior. I'll have two years of comfort after she's gone. I suppose she deserves a lot of credit for keeping up in her studies and earning money as a secretary at the same time, but I'd rather have a nice wriggly snake, or a cheerful crocodile for a friend if it comes to a choice." Marjorie was equally certain that Miss Arnold did not like her. She had had occasion to ask the secretary several questions and the latter's manner of answering had been curt, almost to rudeness. The desired resignation was yet to be written. Marjorie had purposely delayed writing it until the last hour of the afternoon session. She wished to think before writing. It took her the greater part of the hour to compose it, although, when it was finally copied on a sheet of note paper she had brought to school for that purpose, it covered little more than one side of the sheet. While she was addressing it for mailing, she suddenly remembered that she had not yet asked Miss Arnold for her Hallowe'en invitation. Should she hand the secretary her resignation instead of mailing it? She decided that the more dignified course would be to mail it. As to the invitation for the dance, she was entitled to it; therefore she was not afraid to demand it. She wondered if Constance had received hers, and, when her new friend returned from class, Marjorie managed to catch her eye and question her by means of a sign language known only to schoolgirls. A vigorous shake of Constance's fair head brought forth more signs, which, when school was dismissed, resulted in a determined march upon Miss Archer's office by the two friends, reinforced by Jerry and Irma, who had managed to join Marjorie and Constance in the corridor. "That's just why we waited," announced Jerry, wagging her head emphatically when Marjorie explained her mission. "We wondered if she'd given them to you. You let me do the talking. She won't have a word to say when I'm through." "Hush, Jerry!" cautioned Irma. "She'll hear you." They were now entering Miss Archer's living-room office. Marcia Arnold, who was seated before her desk, intent on the book she held in her hand, raised her eyes and regarded the quartette with a displeased frown. Then she addressed them in peremptory tones. "Please make less noise, girls. Your voices can be plainly heard in Miss Archer's office and she is too busy now to be disturbed." This last with a view to discouraging any attempt on their part to see the principal. "We didn't come to see Miss Archer," was Geraldine Macy's calm retort. "We came to see you about Miss Dean's and Miss Stevens' invitations for the dance. They haven't received them." "I know nothing whatever about them," snapped Miss Arnold, picking up her book as a sign of dismissal. "You ought to know. The invitations were given to you by the boys' committee," was Jerry's pertinent reminder. "You sent them the list of names, didn't you? Perhaps you accidentally left out these two names." This was a malicious afterthought on Jerry's part, but it had a potent effect on Marcia Arnold. A tide of red rose to her sallow face. For a second her eyes wavered from the four pairs searchingly upon her. Then she answered with elaborate carelessness: "It is just possible that these two names have been omitted. I will go over my list and see." "Yes, do," advised Jerry, laconically. Then she slyly added: "It seems funny, doesn't it, that when 'D' and 'S' are so far apart on the alphabetical list, they should both happen to be overlooked? If the girls don't receive their invitations by to-morrow night I'll speak to my brother about it. He's the president of the junior class, you know, and he'll take it up with the committee. Come on, girls." The three young women obediently following her, Jerry marched from the room with the air of a conqueror. True to her prediction, Marcia Arnold had found nothing to say to the stout girl's parting shot. "There really wasn't much use in our going. I'm afraid we weren't very brave. We shouldn't have stood like wooden images and let you fight our battles, Jerry. It was awfully dear in you, but I do hope Miss Arnold won't think Constance and I are babies," demurred Marjorie. "What do you care what she thinks as long as she hunts up your invitations?" asked Jerry, with superb contempt. "What she thinks will never hurt either of you." The belated invitations were delivered to the two freshmen by Miss Arnold herself the next day, greatly to Jerry's satisfaction. "I saw her give them to you, girls," she whispered to Marjorie on the way to the English class. "She looked mad as a hatter, too. She thought she'd hold back your invitations until the last minute; then maybe you would get mad and not go to the dance." "But why should she wish to keep us from going?" asked Marjorie, wonderingly. "Ask Mignon," was Jerry's enigmatical answer. "Very likely she knows more about it than anyone else." Marjorie found no chance for conversation with Constance until they met in French class. Even then she had only time to say, "Be sure to wait for me this noon," before Professor Fontaine called his class to order and attacked the advance lesson with his usual Latin ardor. Constance was first at their locker. She had already put on her own hat and coat and was holding Marjorie's for her, when her friend arrived. "What are you going to wear, Constance?" asked Marjorie, as she put on her coat and hat. "I'm not going," was the brief answer. "Not going!" Marjorie stared hard at her friend. Was Constance hurt because she had not received her invitation? Then she went on, eagerly apologetic: "It wasn't the Weston boys' fault that we didn't get our invitations when the others received theirs. They didn't intend to leave us out, even though they only knew our names." "It's not that." Constance's voice trembled a little. "I--I--well, I haven't a dress fit to wear!" Her pale cheeks grew pink with shame as she burst forth with this confession of poverty. "This blue suit and three house dresses are all the clothes I have in the world. Don't say you feel sorry for me. I shall hate you if you do. I sha'n't always be poor. Some day," her eyes grew dreamy, "I'll have all sorts of lovely clothes. When I am a----" She stopped abruptly, then said in her usual half-sullen tones, "I can't go, so don't ask me." Marjorie looked curiously at this strange girl. The longer she knew Constance the better she liked her, but she did not in the least understand her. Suddenly a bright idea popped into her head. "I'm so sorry you can't go to the dance," she commented, then promptly dropped the subject. When she left Constance, however, she remarked innocently: "Don't forget, you are coming home with me to-night. Don't say you can't. You promised, you know." "I will come," promised Constance, brightening. "Good-bye." The moment Marjorie reached home she made a dash for her room and going to her closet, emerged a moment afterward with an immense white pasteboard box in her arms. Stopping only long enough to drop her wraps on her bed she ran downstairs and burst into the dining-room with: "I have found her, Mother. I've found the girl this was made for." "What is all this commotion about, Lieutenant?" asked her father, teasingly. "Are we about to be attacked by the enemy? Salute your superior officers and then state your case. Discipline must be preserved at all costs in the army. Is it a requisition for new uniforms? You soldiers are dreadfully hard on your clothes. Or is the post about to move and is that a packing case?" Marjorie made a most unsoldierlike rush for him and, throwing her arms about his neck, kissed his cheek. "You are a great big tease, and I choose to salute you this way." Then she kissed her mother, saying: "I've the loveliest plan, Captain. I'm sure that this dress will fit Constance. She says she won't go to the school dance because she has no pretty gown to wear. May I give her this darling blue one?" She opened the box and drew forth a dainty frock of pale blue chiffon over silk. The chiffon was caught up here and there with tiny clusters of pinky-white rosebuds. The round neck was just low enough to show to advantage a white girlish throat, while the soft, fluffy sleeves reached barely to the elbows. It was a particularly beautiful and appropriate frock for a young girl. "You see, General," explained Marjorie, "Aunt Mary sent this to me when I graduated from grammar school. She hadn't seen me for two years and didn't know I had grown so fast. She bought it ready made in one of the New York stores. It was too short and too tight for me and to make it over meant simply to spoil it. It was so sweet in her to send it that when I wrote my thank you to her I couldn't bear to tell her that it didn't fit, so I kept it just to look at. I didn't really need it, for, thanks to you and mother, I have plenty of others. Don't you think I ought to make someone else happy when I have the chance? It is right to share one's spoils with a comrade, isn't it?" Her father looked lovingly at the pretty, earnest face of his daughter as she stood holding up the filmy gown, her eyes bright with unselfish purpose. "I am very glad my little girl is so thoughtful of others," he said. "Whatever your captain says is law. How about it, Captain?" His wife and he exchanged glances. "You may give your friend the dress if you like, dear," consented Mrs. Dean, "if you think she will accept it." "That's just the point, Captain," returned Marjorie. "You know you said I could bring Constance home for dinner to-night, and she is coming. Perhaps we can think of some nice way to give it to her while she is here." Marjorie carefully replaced the gown in its box and ran upstairs with it. She returned with her hat and coat on her arm, and hanging them on the hall rack hastened to eat her luncheon. All afternoon she puzzled as to how she might best offer Constance the gown. When the four girls strolled homeward together after school she had still not thought of a way. Jerry and Irma held forth, at length, with true schoolgirl eloquence, upon the subject of their gowns. Constance listened gravely without comment. Her small, impassive face showed no sign of her hopeless longing for the pretty things she had never possessed. Once inside the Dean's pleasant home, a flash of appreciation routed her impassivity as Marjorie conducted her into the comfortable living-room where Mrs. Dean sat reading, and her face softened under the spell of the older woman's gentle greeting. "I am pleased to know you, Constance," said Mrs. Dean, offering her hand. "I have been expecting you for some time. Now that I have seen you I will say that you do look very much like Marjorie's friend Mary." She did not add that this girl's face lacked the good-natured, happy expression that so perfectly matched Mary Raymond's sunny curls. Yet she noted that the blue eyes met hers openly and frankly, and that there was an undeniable air of sincerity and truth about Constance which caused one instinctively to trust her. To the formerly friendless girl who had never before been invited to the home of a Sanford girl, the evening passed like a dream. Under the genial atmosphere of the Dean household, her reserve melted and before dinner was over she had forgotten all about herself and was laughing merrily with Marjorie over Mr. Dean's nonsense. After dinner Mrs. Dean played on the piano and Constance, who knew how to dance was initiated into the mysteries of several new steps which were favorites of the Franklin girls, and later the two girls spent a happy hour in Marjorie's room with her books, of which she had a large collection. "Oh, dear," sighed Constance, as she glanced at the clock on the chiffonier. "It is ten o'clock. I must go." "Wait a few minutes," requested Marjorie. "I have something to show you, but I must see mother for a minute first. Please excuse me. I'll be back directly." "Mother," Marjorie hurried into the living-room. "Have you thought of a way? Constance is going home, and it's now or never." "Suppose you give it to her by yourself," suggested her mother. "I am afraid my presence will embarrass her and then she will surely refuse." Marjorie stood eyeing her mother uncertainly. Then she laughed. "I know the easiest way in the world," she declared, and was gone. When she entered the room Constance was kneeling interestedly before the book-shelves. "You have the 'Jungle Books,' haven't you? Don't you love them?" "Yes," laughed Marjorie. "Mary and I read them together. I always called myself 'Bagheera' the black panther, and she always called herself 'Mogli, the man-cub.' We used to write notes to each other sometimes in the language of the jungle." "How funny," smiled Constance. Her gaze intent upon the books, she did not notice that Marjorie had stepped to her closet, returning to her bed with a cloud of pink over her arm. Next she opened a big box and laid a cloud of blue beside the one of pink. "Constance, come here a minute," she said. Constance sprang up obediently. Her glance fell upon the bed and she gave a little startled, admiring "Oh!" Marjorie linked her arm in that of her friend and drew her up to the bed. "This gown," she pointed to the pink one, "is mine, and this one," she withdrew her arm, and lifting the blue cloud held it out to Constance, "is yours." The Mary girl drew back sharply. "I don't know what you mean," she muttered. "Please don't make fun of me." "I'm not making fun of you. It's your very own, and after I tell you all about it you'll see just why it happens to be yours." Seated on the edge of the bed beside Marjorie, the wonderful blue gown on her lap, the girl who had never owned a party dress before heard the story of how it happened to be hers. At first she steadily refused its acceptance, but in the end wily Marjorie persuaded her to "just try it on," and when she saw herself, for the first time in her poverty-stricken young life, wearing a real evening gown that glimpsed her unusually white neck and arms she wavered. So intent was she upon examining her reflection that she did not notice Marjorie had slipped from the room, returning with a pair of blue silk stockings and satin slippers to match. "These go with it," she announced. "Oh--I--can't," faltered Constance, making a move toward unhooking the frock. "Of course you can." Marjorie deposited the stockings and slippers on the foot of her bed and going over to Constance put both arms around her. "You are going to have this dress because mother and I want you to. I can't possibly wear it myself, and it's a shame to lay it away in the closet until it is all out of style. Please, please take it. You simply must, for I won't go to the dance unless you do, and you know how dreadfully I should hate to miss it. I mean what I say, too." "I'll take it," said Constance, slowly. Suddenly she slipped from Marjorie's encircling arm and leaned against the chiffonier, covering her face with her hands. "Constance!" Marjorie cried out in surprise. "You mustn't cry." "I--can't--help--it." The words came brokenly. "Ever since I was little I've dreamed about a blue dress like this. You--are--too--good--to--me. Nobody--was--ever--good to me before." It was a quarter to eleven o'clock before Constance, her tears dried, her face beaming with a new expression of happiness, left the Deans' house, accompanied by Mr. Dean, who had come in shortly before ten o'clock and insisted on seeing her safely home. Later, as she prepared for bed in her bare little room she could not help wondering why Marjorie had desired her for a best friend, and had clung to her in spite of the displeasure of certain other girls. She wondered, too, if there were any way in which she might show Marjorie her affection and gratitude, and she made a solemn resolve that if that time came she would prove herself worthy of Marjorie Dean's friendship. CHAPTER XI THE HALLOWE'EN DANCE Saturday dawned as inauspiciously as any other day in the week, but to the high school boys and girls of the little city of Sanford it was a day set apart. Aside from commencement, the great event of their high school year was about to take place. As early as eight o'clock that morning the decorating committee of Weston High School was up and laboring manfully at the task of turning Weston's big gymnasium into a veritable bower of beauty, which should, in due season, draw forth plenty of admiring "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" from their gentle guests. For three days the committee had been borrowing, with lavish promises of safe return, as many cushions, draperies, chairs, divans and various other articles calculated to fitly adorn the ballroom, as their families and friends confidingly allowed them to carry off. Their progress along this line had been painstakingly watched by numerous pairs of sharp, young eyes, and the report had gone forth among the girls that this particular Hallowe'en party was going to be "the nicest dance the boys had ever given." To Marjorie Dean, however, the event promised more than the usual interest. It was to be her first opportunity of entering into the social life of the boys and girls of Sanford. In B---- she had numbered many stanch friends among the young men of Lafayette High School, but she had lived in Sanford for, what seemed to her, a very long time and had not met a single Weston boy. Jerry had promised to introduce Marjorie to her brother and to the tall, fair-haired youth known as the Crane, but so far the young people had not been thrown together. Marjorie had no silly, sentimental ideas in her curly brown head about boys. From early childhood she had been allowed to play with them. She was fond of their games and had always evinced far more interest in marbles, tops and even baseball than she had in dolls. Still, at sixteen, she was not a hoyden nor a tomboy, but a merry, light-hearted girl with a strong, healthy body and a feeling of comradeship toward boys in general which was to carry her far in her later life. At the time she had given Constance the blue gown she had also gained her friend's rather reluctant consent to come to dinner at the Deans' on the great night and dress with her for the dance. Marjorie attributed Constance's hesitation to shyness. Always reticent regarding her home life, Constance, aside from her one outburst relating to her family on the day when she had advised Marjorie against her friendship, had said little or nothing further of her home. So Marjorie did not know that it was not a matter of shyness, but rather a question of who would keep house and get the supper while she was out enjoying herself, that caused Constance to demur before accepting the invitation. Then she remembered that Hallowe'en came on Saturday and decided that she could manage after all. The momentous Saturday dawned clear and cold, with just the suspicion of a fall tang to the air. It was a busy day for the Weston boys, and when at four o'clock the last garland of green had been twined about the gymnasium posts and the gallery railing, while the last flag had been painstakingly hung at the proper angle, the dozen or more of young men who formed the decorating committee viewed their work with boyish pride. "It looks bully," shouted an enthusiastic freshman, with a sweep of his arm which was intended to include the whole room. "If the girls aren't suited with this, they won't be invited over here again in a hurry." "Hear him rave!" sadly commented a sophomore. "It takes a freshman to fall all over himself." "That's because we are young and have more enthusiasm," retorted the freshman, his freckled face alive with an impish grin. "Desist from your squabbles And join in the waltz," caroled an extremely tall, thin youth, pirouetting on his toes, and waving a long trail of ground pine about his head in true première danseuse fashion. There was a shout of laughter from the boys at this burst of terpsichorean art. The tall youth pranced and whirled the length of the gymnasium and back, ending his performance with a swift, high kick and a bow that bade fair to dislocate his spine. "Did I hear someone laugh?" he asked severely, drawing down his face with such an indescribably funny expression that the laughter broke forth afresh. "It is evident that you don't appreciate my rare ability as a dancer." "You mean as a grasshopper," jeered the freckle-faced youth. "Exactly. No, I don't either. How dare you insult me?" He made a lengthy lunge toward the freshman, who promptly dodged behind a tall, good-looking young man who had at that moment joined the group. The lunging youth brought up short with, "Hello, Hal, I thought you had gone." "So I had. Got halfway home and found I'd left my pocketknife here. Maybe I didn't hotfoot it back though. Hope the girls will like the looks of things." He cast approving eyes about the transformed gymnasium. "Jerry's been raving to me ever since school began about her new friend, Marjorie Dean. Have you met her? I understand she is coming to-night." "Not I, I can't tell one of those girls from another," grumbled the Crane. "You know just how much I like girls. I don't mind helping get ready for this business, but I'd rather take a licking than come back here to-night. You'll see me vanishing around the corner and out of here at the very first chance. Girls are an awful nuisance anyway." "Nothing like true chivalry," murmured the freckle-faced freshman. An instant later he was sprinting down the gymnasium as fast as his short legs could carry him, the Crane in hot pursuit. "Cut it out, fellows," laughed Harold Macy. "You'll upset something or other, and then, look out." "If we do it will be the Crane's fault," came plaintively from the freckle-faced freshman, as he dodged his pursuer with an agility born of long practice. "I don't see why he wants to chase me. I merely made a simple remark." "Now that you've owned up to its being simple I'll let you off this time," declared the Crane, magnanimously, "but see that it doesn't happen again." "I will," was the glib promise. "I'm sorry I said you were a grasshopper. You look more like a giraffe." Then he made a hurried exit through a nearby side door, leaving the Crane to vow dire vengeance the next time he ventured within reach. A little further loitering and the group of boys broke up, and, leaving the gymnasium, went home to get ready for the evening's fun and be back in good season to help receive their guests. There were two guests, however, who dressed for the party with entirely different emotions. To Constance it was the most wonderful night of her life. She stole frequent, half-startled glances at her blue satin-shod feet and even pinched a fold of her chiffon gown between her fingers to feel if it were real. Mrs. Dean had arranged the girl's fair curling hair in precisely the same fashion that Mary Raymond wore hers, and when she had been hooked into the precious gown, with its exquisite little sprays of rosebuds, she thought she knew just how poor, lowly Cinderella felt when the fairy godmother touched her with her wand. While she was being dressed she said little, yet Marjorie and her mother knew by the happy light that crowded the wistful look quite out of her expressive eyes that their guest was too deeply appreciative for words. Marjorie, who looked radiantly pretty in her frock of pink silk with its overdress of delicate pink net, welcomed the dance with all the enthusiasm of one who was heartily glad to get in touch with the social side of her school life. She had forgotten for the moment that certain girls in the freshman class had turned against her; that she was no longer a member of the freshman basketball team. She remembered only that it seemed ages since she had attended a party and she hoped fervently that someone would ask her to dance. Jerry and Irma had arranged to call for Marjorie and Constance, as the quartette were to use the Macys' limousine. When the automobile stopped before the house, Jerry insisted on getting out and running into the house to see her friends' gowns. Irma followed her, a smile of good-natured tolerance on her placid face. "Jerry couldn't wait to see your dresses," she said, then exclaimed in wonder: "How lovely you look, Constance, and what a perfectly sweet gown!" Constance colored to the tips of her small ears. Jerry, too, began voicing loud approval, and when, after having stood in line and been inspected by Mrs. Dean, the four girls piled into the limousine, Constance was overcome with the peculiar sensation of experiencing too much happiness. She felt that it could not possibly last. The gymnasium was fairly well filled when they entered and by half past eight o'clock the majority of the guests had arrived. Hardly had they deposited their scarfs in the dressing-room and administered last judicious pats to straying fluffy locks of hair when Jerry, who had disappeared the moment they reached the dressing-room, came hurrying back with the information that Hal was waiting outside to do the honors. "You'd better hurry out and console the Crane, Irma," she added slyly. "He looks about ten feet tall in his evening clothes and perfectly miserable." Following in Jerry's wake Marjorie stepped into the gaily decorated room and the next instant was shaking hands with handsome Hal Macy, the most popular fellow in Weston High. As the brown eyes met the frank manly gaze of the gray, there passed between the two young people a vivid flash of liking and comradeship that was later to develop into a stanch and beautiful friendship. "I am so glad to know you," said Marjorie, earnestly. "I am very fond of your sister." "I am sure we shall be friends," declared Hal Macy. Involuntarily he put out his hand. Marjorie's hand met it, and thus began the friendship between Marjorie Dean and Hal Macy. CHAPTER XII ON THE FIRING LINE Introductions followed thick and fast. More than one pair of boyish eyes had been centered approvingly on the girls that "Macy" was "rushing," and he was soon besieged with gentle reminders not to be stingy, but to give someone else a chance. When the enlivening strains of a popular dance began, Hal Macy pointed significantly to his name on Marjorie's card. She nodded happily then glanced quickly about to see if Constance had a partner. Surely enough, she was just about to dance off with a rather tall, slender lad, whose dark, sensitive face, heavy-browed, black-lashed eyes of intense blue and straight-lipped, sensitive mouth caused her to say impulsively, "Oh, who is that nice-looking boy dancing with Constance?" Hal glanced after the two graceful, gliding figures. "That's Lawrence Armitage. He's one of the best fellows in school and my chum. You ought to hear him play on the violin. He's going to Europe to study when he finishes high school." "How interesting," commented Marjorie as they joined the dancers. Then, as Mignon La Salle, wearing an elaborate apricot satin frock, flashed by them on the arm of a rather stout boy, with a disagreeable face, Marjorie suddenly remembered the existence of Mignon, Muriel and Susan. Her eyes began an eager search for the Picture Girl. Muriel was sure to look pretty in evening dress. Mignon's frock made her look older, she decided. She soon spied Muriel, whose gown of white lace was vastly becoming. So was Susan Atwell's dress of old rose and silver. She wondered a trifle wickedly if they had not been surprised to see Constance blossom out in such brave attire. Then she put the thought aside as unworthy and determined to remember only the good time she was having. After each dance the four friends managed to meet and compare notes before they were off again with their next partners, and as the party progressed it became noticeable that there were no wallflowers in that particular group. "What do you think of that Stevens girl to-night, Mignon?" inquired Susan Atwell as she and the French girl stood together for a moment between dances. Mignon's elfish eyes gleamed angrily. "I think such beggars as she ought never to be allowed to come to our parties. Goodness knows where she borrowed that dress. Perhaps she didn't borrow it." She raised her shoulders significantly. "If Laurie Armitage knew what a low, disreputable family she has, I don't think he'd waste his time with her." "Did Laurie ask you to dance to-night?" asked Susan inquisitively. But with a muttered, "I want to speak to Marcia," Mignon flounced off without answering Susan's question, and the latter confided to Muriel afterward that Mignon was mad as anything because Laurie hadn't noticed her, but was trailing about after Miss Nobody Stevens. Completely unaware that she was adding to the French girl's list of grievances, Constance had danced to her heart's content, quite positive in her own mind that she had never met a more delightful boy than Lawrence Armitage, and that never before had she so greatly enjoyed herself. And now the wonderful party was almost over. She examined her card to see with whom she had the next dance. Then her glance straying down, she noticed that a bit of the tiny plaiting at the bottom of her chiffon skirt had become loose and was hanging. Fearful of a fall, she hurried toward the dressing-room. She would have the maid take a stitch or two in it. But the maid was not in the room. A solitary figure in an apricot gown stood before the mirror, lingered for a moment after Constance entered, then glided noiselessly out. Evincing no sign of having seen Mignon, Constance began a diligent hunt for a needle and thread. Failing to find them, she fastened the loose bit of plaiting with a pin and hurried out into the gymnasium. Her next dance was with Lawrence Armitage. She must not miss it. To her surprise Mignon re-entered the dressing-room as she left it. Constance quickly made her way toward the corner which her friends had selected as their headquarters. "I tore the plaiting of my dress," she said ruefully to Marjorie. "I couldn't find the maid or a needle, so I had to pin it. I'm awfully sorry. I don't know how it happened." "That's nothing," returned Marjorie, cheerfully. "I have a great long tear in my sleeve. Someone caught hold of it in Paul Jones, and away it went. Don't look so guilty over a little thing like that." "You don't----" began Constance, but she never finished. A tense little figure clad in apricot satin confronted her, crying out in tones too plainly audible to those standing near, "Where is my bracelet? What have you done with it?" Constance stared at her accuser in stupefied amazement. Her friends, too, were for the moment speechless. "Answer me!" commanded Mignon. "I left it on the table in the dressing-room. You were the only one in there at the time. When I remembered and came back for it you were just leaving, but the bracelet was gone. No one else except you could have taken it." Still Constance continued to stare in horror at the French girl. She tried to speak, but the words would not come. Attracted by Mignon's shrill tones, the dancers began to gather about the two girls. It was Marjorie who came to her friend's defense. Even as a wee girl Marjorie Dean had possessed a temper. It was not an ordinary temper. It was not easily aroused, but when once awakened it shook her small body with intense fury and the object of her rage was likely to remember her outburst forever after. Knowing it to be her greatest fault, she had striven diligently to conquer it and it burst forth only at rare intervals. To-night, however, the French girl's heartless denunciation of Constance during a moment of happiness was too monstrous to be borne. In a voice shaking with indignation she turned to those surrounding her and said, "Will you please go on dancing? I have something to say to Miss La Salle." They scattered as if by magic, leaving Marjorie facing Mignon, her arm about Constance, her face a white mask, her eyes flaming with scorn. Then she began in low, even tones: "I forbid you to say another word either to or about my friend Constance Stevens. She has not taken your bracelet. She knows nothing about it. I will answer for her as I would for myself. You have accused her of this because you wish to disgrace her in the eyes of her friends and schoolmates. I am not at all sure that you have lost it, but I am very sure that Miss Stevens hasn't seen it. And now I hope I shall never be called upon to speak to you again, for you are the cruelest, most contemptible girl I have ever known; but, if I hear anything further of this, I will take you to Miss Archer, to the Board of Education, if necessary, and make you retract every word. Come on, Constance." With her arm still encircling the now weeping girl, Marjorie made her way to the dressing-room. Jerry followed her within the next five minutes. "The car's here," she announced briefly. "Hal and Laurie and the Crane are going home with us." "Don't you cry, Constance," she soothed, patting the curly, golden head. "Mignon made a goose of herself to-night. The boys are all disgusted, and everyone knows she was making a fuss over nothing. You did exactly right, too, Marjorie, when you sent us all about our business. I'm sorry it happened, but you remember what I tell you, Mignon has hurt herself a great deal more than she has hurt you." CHAPTER XIII A PITCHED BATTLE After the echoes of the dance had died away, basketball received a new impetus that brought it to the fore with a bound. With the renewed interest in the coming game was also noised about the report that "Miss Dean wasn't on the team any longer," and in some unknown fashion the news that she had been "asked" to resign had also gone the round of the study hall. The upper class girls were not particularly interested either in Marjorie or her affairs. She had not lived in Sanford long enough to become well-known to them, and as a rule the juniors and seniors left the bringing up of the freshmen to their sophomore sisters. The sophomores were too much absorbed in the progress of their own team to trouble themselves greatly over what was happening in the freshman organization. If Muriel or Mignon had resigned, then there would have been good cause for predicting an easy victory, for both girls were considered formidable opponents; but Marjorie was new material, untried and unproven. It was in the freshman class, however, that comment ran rife. Since the night of the Weston dance the class had been almost equally divided. A little less than half the girls had either openly or by friendly smiles and nods declared in favor of Marjorie and her friends. The remaining members of the class, with a few neutral exceptions, were apparently devoted to the French girl and Muriel. Among their adherents they also counted Miss Merton, who took no pains to conceal her open dislike for Marjorie, and Marcia Arnold, who even went so far as to try to explain the situation to Miss Archer and was sternly reminded that the principal would take no part in the private differences of her girls unless they had something to do with breaking the rules of the school. The days immediately preceding the game were not cheerful ones for Marjorie. She was still unhappy over her unjust dismissal from the team, and she wondered if it had been much talked of among her classmates. At home she had announced offhandedly her resignation from the team and her mother had asked no questions. Mignon was greatly disturbed and displeased with the advent of Marjorie Dean into Sanford High School. Young as she was, she was very shrewd, and she at once foresaw in Marjorie's pretty face and attractive personality a rival power. To be sure, Marjorie's father was not so rich as her own, but it could not be denied that the Deans lived in a big house on Maple avenue, that Marjorie wore "perfectly lovely" clothes and had plenty of pocket money. In the beginning she had decided that it would be better to make friends with her, but Marjorie's sturdy defense of Constance and utter disregard for Mignon's significant warning had shown her plainly that she could not influence the other girl to do what she considered an unworthy act. Therefore, she had secretly determined to make matters as disagreeable as lay within her power for the two girls during her freshman year. Still she was obliged to admit to herself that her next move would have to be planned and carried out with more discretion. And now it was the Friday before the much-heralded basketball game which was to be played between the sophomores and the freshmen, and the merits and shortcomings of the respective organizations were being eagerly discussed throughout the school. The game was to be called at half-past two o'clock on Saturday afternoon, and from all accounts there was to be no lack of spectators. "I wouldn't for anything miss that game to-morrow!" exclaimed Jerry Macy, as she and Constance and Marjorie came down the steps of the school together. "I hope the freshmen get the worst whitewashing that any team in this school has ever had, too," she added, with a deliberate air of spite. "You mustn't say that, Jerry," returned Marjorie, a faint color rising to her cheeks. "You must not let my grievances affect your loyalty to your class." "Do you mean to say that you want that horrid Mignon La Salle and her crowd to win the game, and then go around crowing that it was all because they put you out of the team? You needn't look so as though you didn't believe me. You mark my word, if they win you'll find out that they'll do just as I say. Freshman or no freshman, I'd rather see that nice Ellen Seymour's team win any day." "So would I," echoed Constance, her face darkening with the remembrance of her own wrongs at Mignon's hands. Marjorie was silent for a moment. She knew that Jerry's outburst rose from pure devotion to her friends, and she could not blame Constance for her hostile spirit. Still, was it right to allow personal grudges to warp one's loyalty to one's class? If the record of their class read badly at the end of their freshman year, whose fault would it be? She had fought it all out with herself on the day she wrote her resignation, and had wisely determined, then, not to allow it to spoil her year. "I know how you girls feel about this," she said slowly. "I felt the same way until after I had written my resignation. While I was writing I kept hoping that the team would lose and be sorry they had put someone else in my place. Then it just came to me all of a sudden that a good soldier wouldn't be a traitor to his country even if he were reduced in rank or had something happen unpleasant to him in his camp." She stopped and looked embarrassed. She had forgotten that the girls could not possibly know what she meant. She had never told any one in Sanford High School about the pretty soldier play which she and Mary had carried on for so long. It was one of the little intimate details of her life which she preferred to keep to herself. Should she explain? Jerry's impatient retort made it unnecessary. "The only traitor I know anything about is Mignon," she flung back, failing to grasp the significance of Marjorie's comparison. Constance, however, had flashed a curious glance at her friend, saying nothing. When Geraldine had nodded good-bye at her street, and the two were alone, she asked: "What did you mean by comparing yourself to a soldier, Marjorie?" Marjorie smiled. "I think I'd better tell you all about it. I've never told anyone else." "What a splendid game," mused Constance, half to herself, when Marjorie had finished. "Do you--would you--could I be a soldier, too, Marjorie? It would help me. You don't know. There are so many things." The wistful appeal touched Marjorie. "Of course you can," she assured. "You'd better come to my house to luncheon to-morrow. You can join the army then and go to the game with me." "I'm not going to the game." The look of expectancy died out of Constance's face. "You can't be a soldier if you balk at the first disagreeable thing that comes along," reminded Marjorie, slipping her arm through that of her friend. Constance walked a few steps in stolid silence. She could not make up her mind to watch the playing of the girls whom she felt she hated, even to please Marjorie. It was not until they were about to separate that Marjorie said quietly. "Shall I tell mother you are coming?" and Constance forced herself to reply shortly, "I'll come." By half past one Saturday afternoon every seat in the large gallery surrounding the gymnasium was filled, and by a quarter to two every square foot of standing room was occupied by an enthusiastic audience largely composed of boys and girls of the two high schools. Marjorie's mother had after some little coaxing consented to come to the game with her daughter as her guest. She sat with Constance and Marjorie in the first row of the gallery, while beside her sat none other than Miss Archer, whom they had encountered on their way to the high school and who had invited them to take seats in the front row with her. She had already met Mrs. Dean at the church which both women attended and had conceived an instant liking for the pretty, gracious woman who looked little older than her daughter. "Wasn't it nice of Miss Archer to ask us to sit here?" whispered Marjorie in her friend's ear. "We have mother to thank for it. She is so dear that no one can help liking her." Marjorie looked adoring admiration at her mother's clear-cut profile. "Do you suppose anyone will mistake us for faculty?" Both girls giggled softly at such an improbability. "I never went to a basketball game before," confessed Constance after a time. "What are those girls over there in the red paper hats and big red bows going to do?" "Oh, that's the sophomore class. They lead their class in the songs. The green and purple girls are the freshman chorus." "I didn't even know our class colors were green and purple." "You didn't! Why, that's the reason you and I wore violets to the dance. Almost every freshman had them." "Oh, look!" Constance's eyes were fixed upon a tiny purple figure that had just emerged from a side door in the gymnasium and was walking slowly across the big floor. Immediately afterward a door opened on the opposite side and a diminutive scarlet-clad boy flashed forth. "They are the mascots," explained Marjorie, her gaze on the two children who advanced to the center of the room and gravely shook hands. Then the boy in red announced in a high, clear treble: "Ladies and gentlemen, the noble sophomores!" The door swung wide and a band of lithe blue figures, bearing a huge letter "S" done in scarlet on the fronts of their blouses, pattered into the gymnasium, amid loud applause. "The valiant freshmen!" piped the purple-clad youngster. There was a rush of black-clad girls, with resplendent violet "F's" ornamenting their breasts, another volley of cheers from the audience, then a shrill blast from the referee's whistle rent the air, the teams dropped into their places, the umpire, time-keeper and scorer took their stations, and a tense silence settled over the audience. The referee balanced the ball. Ellen Seymour and Mignon La Salle gathered themselves for the toss. Up it went. The two players leaped for it. The referee's whistle sounded again. The struggle for basketball honors began. A jubilant shout swelled from the throats of the watching freshmen and their fans. Mignon had caught the ball. She sent it speeding toward Helen Thornton, who fumbled it, and losing her head, threw it away from, instead of to the basket. An audible sigh of disapproval came from the freshman contingent as they beheld the ball pass into the hands of the sophomores, who scored shortly afterward. Now that the ball was in their hands the sophomores proceeded to show their friends and opponents a few things about playing. They had the advantage and they kept it. Try as the freshmen might, they could not score. The first unlucky error on the part of Helen Thornton had seemed to turn the tide against them. Toward the close of the first half they managed to score, but all too soon the whistle blew, with the score 8 to 2 in favor of the sophomores. Their fans went wild with delight and their chorus sang or rather shouted gleefully their pet song, beginning, "Hail the sophomores, gallant band! See how bold they take their stand!" to the tune of "Hail Columbia," coming out noisily on the concluding lines, "Firm and steadfast shall they be, Marching on to victory; As a band of players, they Shall be conquerors to-day." The freshmen answered with their song, "The Freshmen's Brave Banner," but they did not sing as spiritedly as they had before the beginning of the game. "I wonder what Jerry and Irma think," commented Marjorie. Their two chums had been detailed to sing in the freshman chorus, which accounted for their absence from the Dean party. "Jerry looks awfully cross," returned Constance, scanning the opposite side of the gallery where Jerry was singing lustily, her straight, heavy brows drawn together in a savage scowl. "There goes the whistle!" Marjorie leaned eagerly forward to see the freshman team come in from the side room which they were using. Her alert eyes noted that Muriel looked sulky, Mignon stormy, Susan Atwell belligerent, Harriet Delaney offended, and that Helen Thornton, the substitute who had replaced her, had been crying. Marjorie felt a thrill of pity for the unfortunate substitute. It looked as though she had spent an unhappy quarter of an hour in the little side room. The teams changed sides and hastened to their places. Again Mignon and Ellen faced each other. Then the whistle shrilled and the second half of the game was on. From the beginning of the second half it looked as though the freshmen might retrieve their early losses. They worked with might and main and made no false moves. Slowly their score climbed to six. So far the sophomores had gained nothing. Then Ellen Seymour made a spectacular throw to the basket and brought her team up two points. With the realization that they were facing defeat the freshmen rallied and made a desperate effort to hold their own, bringing their count up to eight. Two more points were gained and the score was tied, but the time was growing short. Helen Thornton had the ball and was plainly trying to elude the tantalizing sophomore who barred her way. She made a clumsy feint of throwing the ball. It slipped from her fingers and rolled along the floor. There was a mad scramble for it. Mignon and Ellen Seymour leaped forward simultaneously. The crowd in the gallery was aroused to the height of excitement. Marjorie, breathless, leaned far over the gallery rail. She knew every detail of the dear old game. She saw Mignon's and Ellen's heads close together as they sprang; then she saw Mignon give a sly, vicious side lunge which threw Ellen almost off her feet. In the instant it took Ellen to recover herself the French girl had seized the ball and was off with it. Eluding her pursuers, she balanced herself on her toes, and threw her prize toward the freshman basket. But it never reached there. A long blue figure shot straight up into the air. Elizabeth Corey, a girl whose sensational plays had made her a lion during her freshman year, had intercepted the flying ball. She sent it spinning through the air toward the sophomore nearest their basket, whose willing hands received it and threw it home. Mignon's trickery had availed her little. The sophomores had won. CHAPTER XIV WHAT HAPPENED ON BLUE MONDAY For the next ten minutes the air was rent with the lusty voices of the sophomore chorus and the joyous cheers of their fans. No echoing song arose from freshman lips. The vanquished team had already betaken themselves to their quarters, but the sophomore players were holding an impromptu reception on the ground they had so hotly contested. Marjorie and Constance watched them eagerly. "Go downstairs, girls, and join the hero worshipers," smiled Miss Archer. "We will excuse you, won't we, Mrs. Dean?" "Yes; after the fervent manner in which they hung over the railing it would be cruel to keep them with us," smiled Mrs. Dean. "Let's find Jerry and Irma," said Marjorie, as they paused in the open doorway of the gymnasium. Hardly had she spoken, when Jerry's unmistakable tones rose behind her. The stout girl was talking excitedly, a rising note of indignation in her voice. "I tell you I saw her push against Ellen Seymour," she declared. "You must have seen her, too, Irma." "I thought so," admitted Irma, "but I wasn't sure." "Well, I was. Oh, girls, we were just going upstairs to find you! Now that you're here, let's go into the gym, and join the celebration. I don't know how you feel about it, but I'm glad the sophomores won," Jerry ended, with an emphatic wag of her head. "Listen, Jerry," said Marjorie, earnestly, "you were talking so loudly when you were behind us that I couldn't help hearing you. Did it seem to you as though Mignon deliberately pushed against Ellen Seymour?" "I know she did," reiterated Jerry. "I watched her, for she is always unfair and tricky. Anyone who has ever played on a team could tell. I'm surprised that you----" She stopped abruptly. "I believe you saw her, too. Confess, you did see her; now, didn't you?" Marjorie nodded. "Now's your chance to get even with her. Let's go to Miss Archer and tell her," proposed the stout girl. "She'll send for Ellen Seymour and then, good-bye freshman basketball for a while. But what do you care? You aren't on the team any more. It would serve them right at that." "Oh, no," Marjorie looked her horror at the bare idea of tale-bearing. "Just as you say," shrugged Jerry. They were still standing just inside the door watching the sophomore team receiving congratulations, when they beheld a familiar figure in a black gymnasium suit pause squarely in front of Ellen Seymour. They saw Ellen start angrily, then a confused murmur of voices arose and the circle of fans and players closed in about the two girls. "What's happened?" demanded Jerry. "Come on, girls." She hurried toward the crowd, the three girls at her heels. Even as they joined the throng they heard Mignon declare in a tone freighted with malice! "You purposely pushed against me when we ran for the ball in our last play and nearly threw me off my feet. You know that deliberate pushing, striking or any kind of roughness is forbidden, and you could be disqualified as a player. I do not know where the referee's eyes were, I am sure, but I do know that you are not fit to be on a team, and I can prove it by the other players of my team. I shall certainly complain to Miss Archer about it the first thing Monday morning." "All right, I'll meet you in Miss Archer's office the first thing after chapel," answered Ellen, coolly, ignoring everything save the French girl's final threat. "Come along, girls." She beckoned to the other members of her team, who had listened in blank amazement to the bold accusation. With her head held high, a careless smile on her fine face, Ellen marched through the crowd, which made way for her, and across the gymnasium to the sophomores' room, accompanied by her team. "Isn't that a shame?" burst out Jerry. "Ellen will have an awful time to prove herself innocent. She never touched Mignon. It was Mignon who pushed her away. I saw her with my own eyes, and so did you, Marjorie. Say," she looked blankly at Marjorie, "do you suppose it's our duty to go to Miss Archer and tell her what we saw?" "I--don't--know." The words came doubtfully. "Perhaps it will all blow over. I hate to carry tales. Suppose we wait until Monday and see? Mignon may change her mind. Even if she doesn't, Miss Archer may not listen to her. But, if she should, then we'll have to do it, Jerry. It wouldn't be fair to Ellen to keep still about it; I heard Miss Archer tell mother Monday that she would not tolerate the least bit of roughness in the girls' games. She knew of several schools where girls had been tripped or knocked down and seriously hurt. She said that if any reports of rough playing were brought to her she would 'deal severely with the offender.' Those were her very words." "All right; we'll wait," agreed Jerry. "I'm not crazy about reporting even Mignon. Ellen can take care of herself, I guess." So the matter was apparently settled for the time, and the four girls strolled home discussing the various features of the game. "How did you like the game, Captain?" she asked, saluting, as an hour later she entered the living-room, where her mother sat reading. "Very well, indeed," replied her mother, laying down her magazine. "Neither Miss Archer nor I understand all the fine points of the game, but we managed to keep track of most of the plays. By the way, Marjorie, when you go to school on Monday morning, I wish you to take this magazine to Miss Archer. It contains an article which I have marked for her. It is quite in line with a discussion we had this afternoon." "I'll remember," promised Marjorie, and when Monday morning came she kept her word, starting for school with the magazine under her arm. "I'll run up to Miss Archer's office with it after chapel," she decided. When the morning service was over, Marjorie returned to the study hall, and obtained Miss Merton's grudging permission to execute her commission. "I wish to see Miss Archer," she said shortly, as Marcia Arnold looked up from her writing just long enough to cast a half insolent glance of inquiry in her direction. "You can't see her. She's busy." The color flew to Marjorie's cheeks at the bold refusal. Her first impulse was to turn and walk away. She could see Miss Archer later. Then her natural independence asserted itself, and she determined to stand her ground at least long enough to discover whether or not Miss Archer were really too busy to be seen. "Then I'll wait here until she is at liberty." Marcia frowned and seemed on the verge of further unpleasantness when the sound of a buzzer from the inner office sent her hurrying toward it. As she opened the door, Marjorie caught a fleeting glimpse of two persons; one was Miss Archer, her face set and stern, the other Mignon La Salle, her black eyes blazing with satisfaction. "Oh!" gasped Marjorie, remembering Mignon's threat, "she is reporting poor Ellen." The door swung open again and the secretary glided past her and out into the corridor with the peculiar sliding gait that had caused Jerry to liken her to a "nice, wriggly snake." "She is going to bring Ellen here," guessed Marjorie. Sure enough, within five minutes Marcia returned, followed by Ellen Seymour, whose pale, defiant face meant battle. Again the door of the inner office closed with a portending click. Marcia Arnold did not return to the outer office. Marjorie waited apprehensively, wondering if Ellen were holding her own. Then to her utter amazement, the secretary appeared with a sulky, "Miss Archer wants you," and returned to her desk. "Good morning, Miss Dean," was the principal's grave salutation. "I did not know until I asked Miss Arnold to go for you that you were in the outer office." "I have been waiting to give you the magazine that mother promised you. She asked me to say to you that she had marked the article she wished you to read." "Please thank your mother for me," returned Miss Archer, her face relaxing, "and thank you for bringing it. To return to why I sent for you, you understand the game of basketball, do you not?" "Yes," answered Marjorie, simply. "You have played on a team?" inquired the principal. "Yes." "Did I not see you at practice with the freshmen shortly before the game?" Marjorie colored hotly. "I made the team, but afterward was asked to resign because I did not play well enough." "Who asked you to resign?" "The note was signed by the manager of the team." "And is that the reason you stopped playing?" broke in Ellen Seymour, with impulsive disregard for her surroundings. "I might have known it." Then she whirled upon Mignon in a burst of indignation as scathing as it was unexpected. "How contemptible you are! I haven't the least doubt that you are to blame for Miss Dean's leaving the team. You knew her to be a skilful player and you were afraid she would outplay you. You know, too, that when we jumped for the ball Saturday you purposely pushed me away from it, almost throwing me down. It didn't do you the least bit of good, and because you are spiteful you have set out to disgrace me and put a stain on the sophomores' victory." "How dare you? You are not telling the truth! Prove your charge against me, if you can," challenged Mignon, with blazing eyes. "It will be easier to prove than yours against me," flung back Ellen. "Girls, this is disgraceful! Not another word." Miss Archer's tone of stern command had an immediate effect on the belligerents. "Please pardon me, Miss Archer." There was real contrition in Ellen's voice. "I didn't mean to be so rude. I lost control of my temper." Mignon, however, made no apology. Her elfish eyes turned from Marjorie to Ellen with an expression of concentrated hate. "Now, girls," began Miss Archer, firmly, "we are going to settle this difficulty here in my office before anyone of you goes back to her classes. That is the reason I have sent for Miss Dean. When Miss La Salle entered her complaint against you, Miss Seymour, I decided that you should have a chance to speak in your own behalf. No sooner were you brought face to face than one accused the other of treachery. From the front row of the gallery, where I sat on the afternoon of the game, I could see every move of the players, but my eyes were not sufficiently trained to detect the roughness of which you accuse each other. Then I remembered that Miss Dean sat next to me and that she was a seasoned player. So I sent for her to ask her in your presence if she saw the alleged roughness on the part of either of you." There was a half-smothered exclamation of dismay from Marjorie. Ellen was regarding her in mute appeal. Mignon's lips curled back in a sneer. It was dreadful to remain under a cloud. "I am waiting for you to speak, Miss Dean." Marjorie drew a long breath. "Miss Seymour spoke the truth. I saw Miss La Salle purposely push Miss Seymour away from the ball. Someone else saw her, too--someone who sat on the other side of the gallery." Her tones carried unmistakable truth with them. "It isn't true! It isn't true!" Mignon's voice rose to an enraged shriek. "She only says so because she wants to pay me for making her resign from the team." "What did I tell you?" asked Ellen Seymour, triumphantly. "She admits that she was responsible for that resignation." "That will do," commanded Miss Archer, raising her hand. Ellen subsided meekly. Realizing that she had said too much, Mignon quieted as suddenly as she had burst forth. "Miss Dean, are you perfectly sure of what you say?" questioned Miss Archer. "I am quite sure," was the steady answer. A seemingly endless silence followed Marjorie's reply. The principal surveyed the trio searchingly. "What girls comprise the freshman team?" At last she put the question coldly to Mignon. The French girl sulkily named them. Miss Archer made note of their names. The principal then pressed the buzzer that summoned her secretary. "Send these young women to me at once," she directed, handing Marcia the slip of paper. Turning to the three girls before her she said, "Miss Seymour, you may go back to the study hall. Unless you hear from me further you are exonerated from blame. I shall not need you either, Miss Dean. I am sorry that I was obliged to involve you in this affair, but I am glad that you were not afraid to tell the truth." Marjorie turned to follow Ellen Seymour from the room, when the door opened and the freshman basketball team filed in. For a brief instant the principal's attention was fixed upon the entering girls, and in that instant Mignon found time to mutter in Marjorie's ear, "I'll never forgive you for this and you'll be sorry. Just wait and see if you're not." CHAPTER XV MARJORIE'S WONDERFUL DISCOVERY What transpired in Miss Archer's private office on that memorable morning when the freshman team visited her in a body was a subject that agitated high school circles for at least a week afterward. Other than the team no one could furnish any authentic information as to what had actually been said and done, but the amazing report that "Miss Archer had disbanded the freshman basketball team" was on every one's tongue. Whether or not another team would be selected no one knew. That would depend wholly upon Miss Archer's decision. That the members of the team had offended seriously there could be no doubt. As for the ex-members themselves, they were absolutely mute on the subject. Among themselves, however, they had a great deal to say, and, one and all, held Marjorie Dean responsible for their downfall. When Miss Archer had commanded their presence in her office that eventful morning it was not in connection with the conflicting statements of Ellen Seymour and Mignon La Salle. Satisfied that Mignon was the real offender, she had read that young woman a lesson on untruthfulness and treachery in the presence of the team that left her white with mortification, her stormy black eyes alone betraying her rage. Then Miss Archer proceeded to the other business at hand, which was an inquiry into their reason for requesting Marjorie Dean's resignation from the team. One by one, the four girls, with the exception of Helen Thornton, were questioned separately and acknowledged, in shamefaced fashion, that Marjorie was a really good player. "Then why," Miss Archer had asked sharply, "did you ask her to resign?" There had been no answer to this pertinent question, and then had followed their principal's rebuke, sharp and stinging. "It is not often that I feel impelled to interfere in your games," she had said. "Not long since I refused to listen to something Miss Arnold tried to tell me; but, when several heartless girls deliberately combine to humiliate and discomfit a companion under the flimsy pretext of 'the good of the team' it is time to call a halt. Four girls were prime movers in this contemptible plan. One girl was an accessory, and therefore equally guilty. In justice to the traditions of Sanford High School the girl who has suffered at your hands, and in defense of my own self-respect, these offenders must be punished. So I am going to disband your team and forbid any one of you to play basketball again until I am satisfied that you know something of the first principles of honor and fair play. However, I shall not forbid basketball to the freshmen. The innocent shall not suffer with the guilty. A new team will be chosen which I trust will be a credit rather than a detriment to our high school. You are dismissed." Five girls, whose faces were an open indication of their chagrin, had left the principal's office in a far more chastened frame of mind than when they had entered it. Miss Archer's arraignment had been a most unpleasant surprise, and in discussing it among themselves afterward, Helen Thornton had caused Mignon to pour forth a torrent of biting words by saying sulkily, that if Mignon had let Ellen Seymour alone everything would have been all right. "Do you mean to say that you believe those miserable girls?" Mignon had cried out. And Helen had answered with marked sarcasm, "No; I believe what I saw with my own eyes, and I wish I'd never heard of your old team. I'm ashamed to think I ever listened to you," and had walked away from the group with a sore and penitent heart, never to return to their circle again. All this was, of course, kept strictly secret by the other four ex-members, who joined hands and vowed solemnly that they would weather the gale together. The disbanding of the team by Miss Archer and Ellen Seymour's vindication, could not be hushed up, however, and, despite their protests that Miss Archer was unfair, and that the statements of certain other girls were wholly unreliable, they lost ground with their classmates. Marjorie, too, had been made to feel the weight of their displeasure, for they took pains to circulate the report that it was she who had told tales to the principal, and thus brought them to grief. Several of the sophomores, including Ellen Seymour, heatedly denied the rumor, and a number of freshmen also took up the cudgels in her behalf. Jerry, Irma and Constance stood firmly by her, and, although the poor little lieutenant was far more hurt over the allegation than she would show, she kept a brave face to the front and tried to ignore the ill-natured thrusts launched chiefly by Muriel and Mignon. But in the midst of this uncomfortable season Marjorie made a wonderful discovery. It was quite by chance that she made it, and it concerned Constance Stevens. Although the Mary girl had apparently grown very fond of Marjorie and had almost entirely dropped her strange cloak of reserve, she had never invited the girl who had so graciously befriended her to her home. From the words of vehement protest which Constance had spoken on that day when Marjorie had followed her and protested that they become friends, she had partly understood the other girl's position in regard to her family, and had tactfully avoided the subject ever afterward. She had talked the matter over with her captain, and they had decided to respect Constance's reticence and keep religiously away from anything bordering on the discussion of her family. It was on a crisp November afternoon, several days before Thanksgiving, that Marjorie made her discovery. As she walked into the living-room, her books on her arm, her cheeks pink from the sharp, frosty air, her mother hung up the telephone with: "Marjorie, do you think Constance would like to go with us to the theatre to-night? Your father has just telephoned me that he has four tickets." "She'd love it. I know she would. I'll hurry straight down to her house and ask her." Marjorie dropped her books on the table with a joyful thump. "Very well; but I wish you would wait until I finish my letter, then you can post it on your way there." "Did Nora bake chocolate cake to-day?" asked Marjorie irrelevantly. "Yes." There was a rush of light feet from the room. Three minutes later Marjorie returned, a huge piece of chocolate layer cake in her hand. "It's the best ever," she declared between bites. By the time the cake was eaten the letter was ready. "Hurry, dear," her mother called after her; "we shall have an early dinner." It did not recur to Marjorie until within sight of the house where Constance lived that she was an uninvited guest. What a queer-looking little house it was! Long ago it had been painted a pale gray with white trimmings, but now it was a dingy, hopeless color that defied description. A child's dilapidated tricycle stood on the rickety porch, which was approached by a flight of three unstable-looking steps. Her mind centered upon her errand, Marjorie paid small attention to her surroundings. She bounded up the steps, searching with alert eyes for a bell. Finding none she doubled her fist to knock, but paused suddenly with upraised arm. From within the house came the vibrant notes of a violin mingled with the soft accompaniment of a piano. "Schubert's 'Serenade,'" breathed Marjorie, delightedly, lowering her arm. "I simply must listen." Suddenly a voice took up the plaintive strain. It was so high and sweet and clear that the listener caught her breath in sheer amazement. She stood spellbound, while the wonderful voice sang on and on to the last note of the exquisite "Serenade" that seemed to end in a long-drawn sigh. Marjorie knocked lightly, but no one responded. The singer had begun again. This time it was Nevin's "Oh That We Two Were Maying." She listened again; then, to her surprise, the door was gently opened. Before her stood the tiny figure of a boy whose great black eyes looked curiously into hers. Laying his finger upon his lips, he gravely motioned with his other hand for her to enter. Then as he limped away from the door Marjorie saw he was a cripple. Marjorie stepped noiselessly into the room, her eyes on the piano. A man was seated before it. She could not see his face, but she noted that he had an enormous shock of snow-white hair. At one side of him stood another old man, his thin cheek resting lovingly against his violin, his whole soul intent upon the flood of melody he was bringing forth, while on the other side of the pianist, her quiet face fairly transfigured stood Constance, pouring out her very heart in song. CHAPTER XVI THE PEOPLE OF THE LITTLE GRAY HOUSE Intent upon their music, neither the singer nor the two men were immediately aware of the presence of another person in the room. "Oh, that we two were lying Under the churchyard sod," sang Constance, voicing the pent-up longing of Kingsley's tenderly regretful words and Nevin's wistful setting, while the violin sang a subdued, pensive obligato. Marjorie stood very still, her gaze fastened upon Constance. The quaint little boy stared at Marjorie with an equally intent interest. Thus, as Constance began the last line the earnest, compelling regard of the brown eyes caused her own to be turned toward Marjorie. "Oh!" she ejaculated in faltering surprise. "Where--where did you come from? What made you come here?" There was mingled amazement, consternation and embarrassment in the question. The white-haired pianist swung round on his stool, and the old man with the violin raised his head and regarded the unexpected visitor out of two mildly inquiring blue eyes. "I'm sorry," began Marjorie, her cheeks hot with the shame of being unwelcome. "I suppose I ought not to have come, but----" Constance sprang to her side and catching her hands said contritely, "Forgive me, dear, and please don't feel hurt. I--you see--I never invite anyone here--because--well, just because we are so poor. I thought you wouldn't care to come and so----" "I've always wanted to come," interrupted Marjorie, eagerly. "I don't think you are poor. I think you are rich to have this wonderful music. I never dreamed you could sing, Constance. What made you keep it a secret?" "No one ever liked me well enough to care to know it until you came," returned Constance simply. "I meant to tell you, but I kept on putting it off." While the conversation went on between the two girls the one old man was going over a pile of ragged-edged music on the piano, while the other was industriously engaged with a troublesome E string. "Father, Uncle John!" called Constance, gently, "come here. I want you to meet my friend Marjorie Dean." Both musicians left their self-appointed tasks and came forward. Marjorie gave her soft little hand to each in turn, and they bowed over it with almost old-style courtesy. She looked curiously at Constance's father. His daughter did not in any way resemble him. His was the face of a dreamer, rather thin, with clean-cut features and dark eyes that seemed to see past one and into another world of his own creation. In spite of his white hair he was not old. Not more than forty-five, or, perhaps fifty, Marjorie decided. The other man was much older, sixty at least. He was very thin, and his gentle face wore a pathetically vacant expression that brought back to Marjorie the rush of bitter words Constance had poured forth on the day when she had declined to be friends. "We take care of an old man who people say is crazy, and folks call us Bohemians and gypsies and even vagabonds." "I came here to see if Constance could go to the theatre with us to-night," explained Marjorie, rather shyly. "No, thank you, I won't sit down. I promised mother I'd hurry home." "It is very kind in you to ask my daughter to share your pleasure," said Constance's father, his somber face lighting with a smile that reminded Marjorie of the sun suddenly bursting from behind a cloud. "I should like to have her go." "Have her go," repeated the thin old man, bowing and beaming. "Is there a band at the theatre?" piped a small, solemn voice. Marjorie smiled down into the earnest, upraised face of the little boy. "Oh, yes, there is a big, big band at the theatre." "Then take me, too," returned the child calmly. "No, no," reproved Constance gently, "Charlie can't go to-night." A grieved look crept into the big black eyes. Without further words the quaint little boy limped over to the old man, whom Constance had addressed as Uncle John, and hid behind him. Forgetting formality, tender-hearted Marjorie sprang after him. She knelt beside him and gathered him into her arms. He made no resistance, merely regarded her with wistful curiosity. "Listen, dear little man," she said, "you and Constance and I will go to the place where the big band plays some Saturday afternoon, and we'll sit on the front seat where you can see every single thing they do. Won't that be nice?" The boy nodded and slipped his tiny hand in hers. "I'm going to play in the band when I grow up," he confided. "Connie can go to-night if she promises to tell me all about it afterward." "You dear little soul," bubbled Marjorie, stroking his thick hair that fell carelessly over his forehead and almost into his bright eyes. "I'll tell you all about everything, Charlie," promised Constance. "That means you will go," cried Marjorie, joyfully, rising from the floor, the child's hand still in hers. "Yes, I will," returned Constance hesitatingly, "only--I--haven't anything pretty to wear." "Pretty to wear," repeated Uncle John faithfully. "Never mind that," reassured Marjorie. "Just wear a fresh white blouse with your blue suit. I'm sure that will look nice." "Will look nice," agreed Uncle John so promptly, that Marjorie started slightly, then, noting that Constance seemed embarrassed, she nodded genially at the old man, who smiled back like a pleased child. Remembering her mother's injunction, Marjorie took hasty leave of the Stevens family and set off for home at a brisk pace. Her thoughts were as active as her feet. She had seen enough in the last fifteen minutes to furnish ample food for reflection, and she now believed she understood her friend's strange reserve, which at times rose like a wall between them. What strange and yet what utterly delightful people the Stevens were! They really did remind one a little of gypsies. And what a queer room she had been ushered into by the odd little boy named Charlie! She smiled to herself as she contrasted her mother's homelike, yet orderly living-room with the room she had just left, which evidently did duty as a hall, living-room, music-room and also a playroom for little Charlie. There were hats and coats and musical instruments, pile upon pile of well-thumbed music, and numerous dilapidated playthings that bore the marks of too ardent treasuring, all scattered about in reckless confusion. No wonder Constance had fought shy of acquaintanceships which were sure to ripen into schoolgirl visits. Poor Constance! How dreadful it must be to have to keep house, cook the meals and try to go to school! The Stevenses seemed to be very poor in everything except music. She wondered how they lived. Perhaps the two men played in orchestras. Still she had never heard anything about them in school, where news circulated so quickly. "I'm going to ask Constance to tell me all about it," she decided, as she skipped up the front steps. "Perhaps I can help her in some way." Constance rang the Deans' bell at exactly half past seven o'clock. Her blue eyes were sparkling with joyous light, and her usually grave mouth broke into little curves of happiness. It was to be a red-letter night for her. The play was a clean, wholesome drama of American home life in which the leading part was taken by a young girl, who appeared to be scarcely older than Marjorie and Constance. The latter sat like one entranced during the first act, and Marjorie spoke to her twice before she heard. "Constance," she breathed, "won't you please, please tell me all about it?" "About what?" counter-questioned the other girl, reddening. "About your father and your wonderful voice, and, oh, all there is to tell." "Marjorie," the Mary girl's tones were strained and wistful, "do you really think it is wonderful?" "You will be a great singer some day," returned Marjorie, simply. "Oh, do you believe that?" Constance clasped her hands in ecstasy. "I wish to be--I hope to be. If I could only go away to New York city and study! Before we came here we lived in Buffalo. Father played in an orchestra there. He had a friend who taught singing and I studied with him for a year. Then he died suddenly of pneumonia and right after that father fell on an icy pavement and broke his leg. By the time it was well again another man had his place in the orchestra. He had a few pupils, and long before his leg was well he used to sit in a big chair and teach them. The money that they paid him for lessons was all we had to live on." The rising of the curtain on the second act cut short the narrative. With "I'll tell you the rest later," Constance turned eager eyes toward the stage. "Isn't it a beautiful play?" she sighed, when the act ended. "Lovely," agreed Marjorie; "now tell me the rest." "Oh, there isn't much more to tell. It was the last of March when father got hurt, but it was the middle of May before he was quite well again. Then summer came and most of his pupils went away and we grew poorer and poorer. Just when we were the poorest the editor of a new musical magazine wrote him and asked him to write some articles. A friend of father's in New York told the editor about father and gave him our address. We decided to move to a smaller city, where we could live more cheaply, and some of the musicians that father knew gave him a benefit concert. The money from that helped us to move to Sanford, and father has been writing articles off and on for the magazine ever since then. It's better for all of us to be here. Uncle John isn't quite like other people. When he was a young man he studied to be a virtuoso on the violin. He overworked and had brain fever just before he was to give his first recital. After he got well he never played the same again. He had spent all the money his father left him on his musical education, so he had to find work wherever he could. He played the violin in different orchestras, but he was so absent-minded that he couldn't be trusted. Sometimes he would go on playing after all the rest of the orchestra had finished, and then he began to repeat things after people. "When father first met him they were playing in the same theatre orchestra. One night a great tragedian was playing 'Hamlet,' and poor Uncle John grew so interested that he said things after him as loud as he could. The actor was dreadfully angry, and so was the leader of the orchestra. He made the poor old man leave the theatre. After that he played in other orchestras a little, but he couldn't be depended upon, so no one wanted to hire him. "Father did all he could to help him, but he grew queerer and queerer. Then he disappeared, and father didn't see him for a long while. One cold winter night he found him wandering about the streets, so he brought him to his room and he has been with father ever since. That was years ago, before father was married. He isn't really my uncle. I just call him that. The musicians used to call him 'Crazy Johnny.' His name is John Roland." Although Constance had averred that there wasn't "much to tell," the third act interrupted her recital, and it was during the interval before the beginning of the last act that Marjorie heard the story of the fourth member of the Stevenses' household, little lame Charlie. "Charlie has been with us a little over four years," returned Constance, in answer to Marjorie's interested questions. "He is seven years old, but you would hardly believe it. His mother died when he was a tiny baby, and his father was a dreadful drunkard. He was a musician, too, a clarionet player. He let Charlie fall downstairs when he was only two years old and hurt his hip. That's why he's lame. His father used to go away and be gone for days and leave the poor baby with his neighbors. Father found out about it and took Charlie away from him, and we've had him with us ever since." "It was splendid in your father to be so good to the poor old man and Charlie," said Marjorie, warmly. "Father is the best man in the world," returned Constance, with fond pride. "He is such a wonderful musician, too. He can play on the violin as well as the piano, and he teaches both. If only he could get plenty of work here in Sanford. He has a few pupils, and with the articles he writes we manage to live, but the magazine is a small one and does not pay much for them. He has tried ever so many times to get into the theatre orchestra, but there seems to be no chance for him. I think we'll go somewhere else to live before long. Perhaps to a big city again. I'd love to stay here and go through high school with you, but I am afraid I can't. I'm almost eighteen and I ought to work." "Oh, you mustn't think of leaving Sanford!" exclaimed Marjorie, in sudden dismay. "What would I do without you? Perhaps things will be brighter after a while. I am sure they will. Why couldn't your father----" But the last act was on, and she did not finish what had promised to be a suggestion. Nevertheless, a plan had taken shape in her busy mind, which she determined to discuss with her father and mother. As if to further her design they found Mr. Stevens waiting outside the theatre for his daughter and Marjorie lost no time in presenting him to her father and mother. He greeted the Deans gravely, thanking them for their kindness to his daughter, with a fine courtesy that made a marked impression on them, and after he had gone his way, a happy, smiling Constance beside him, Marjorie slipped her arms in those of her father and mother, and walking between them told Constance's story all over again. "I think it is positively noble in Mr. Stevens to take care of that old man and little Charlie, when they have no claim upon him," she finished. "He has a remarkably fine, sensitive face," said Mrs. Dean. "I suppose like nearly all persons of great musical gifts, he lacks the commercial ability to manage his affairs successfully." "Don't you believe that if the people of Sanford only knew how beautifully Mr. Stevens and the other man played together they might hire them for afternoon teas and little parties and such things?" asked Marjorie, with an earnestness that made her father say teasingly, "Are you going to enlist in his cause as his business manager?" "You mustn't tease me, General," she reproved. "I'm in dead earnest. I was just thinking to-night that Mr. Stevens ought to have an orchestra of his own. You know mother promised me a party on my birthday, and that's not until January tenth. Why can't I have it the night before Thanksgiving? That will be next Wednesday. Mr. Stevens and Mr. Roland can play for us to dance. A violin and piano will be plenty of music. If everybody likes my orchestra, then someone will be sure to want to hire it for some of the holiday parties. Don't you think that a nice plan?" "Very," laughed her father. "I see you have an eye to business, Lieutenant." "You can have your party next week, if you like, dear," agreed Mrs. Dean, who made it a point always to encourage her daughter's generous impulses. "Then I'll send my invitations to-morrow," exulted Marjorie. "Hurrah for the Stevens orchestra! Long may it wave!" She gave a joyous skip that caused her father to exclaim "Steady!" and her mother to protest against further jolting. "Beg your pardon, both of you," apologized the frisky lieutenant, giving the arms to which she clung an affectionate squeeze, "but I simply had to rejoice a little. Won't Constance be glad? I could never care quite so much for Constance as I do for Mary, but I like her next best. She's a dear and we're going to be friends as long as we live." But clouds have an uncomfortable habit of darkening the clearest skies and even sworn friendships are not always timeproof. CHAPTER XVII MARJORIE MEETS WITH A LOSS By eight o'clock the following night twenty-eight invitations to Marjorie Dean's Thanksgiving party were on their way. No one of the invitations ran the risk of being declined. Marjorie had invited only those boys and girls of her acquaintance who were quite likely to come and when the momentous evening arrived they put in twenty-eight joyful appearances and enjoyed the Deans' hospitality to the full. But to Constance, who wore her beautiful blue gown and went to the party under the protection of her father, whose somber eyes gleamed with a strange new happiness, and old John Roland, whose usually vacant expression had changed to one of inordinate pride, it was, indeed, a night to be remembered by the three. Charlie was to remain at home in the care of a kindly neighbor. The long living-room had been stripped of everything save the piano, and the polished hardwood floor was ideal to dance on. Uncle John had received careful instructions beforehand from both Mr. Stevens and Constance as to his behavior, and with a sudden flash of reason in his faded eyes had gravely promised to "be good." He had kept his word, too, and from his station beside the piano he had played like one inspired from the moment his violin sang the first magic strains of the "Blue Danube" until it crooned softly the "Home, Sweet Home" waltz. The dancers were wholly appreciative of the orchestra, as their coaxing applause for more music after every number testified, and before the evening was over several boys and girls had asked Marjorie if "those dandy musicians" would play for anyone who wanted them. "Mother's giving a tea next week, and I'm going to tell her about these men," the Crane had informed Marjorie. "Hal and I are going to give a party before long, and we'll have them, too," Jerry had promised. Lawrence Armitage, who had managed to be found near Constance the greater part of the evening, insisted on being introduced to her father, and during supper, which was served at small tables in the dining-room, he had sat at the same table with the two players and Constance, and kept up an animated and interested discussion on music with Mr. Stevens. But the crowning moment of the evening had been when, after supper, the guests had gathered in the living-room to do stunts, and Constance had sung Tosti's "Good-bye" and "Thy Blue Eyes," her exquisite voice coming as a bewildering surprise to the assembled young people. How they had crowded around her afterward! How glad Marjorie had been at the success of her plan, and how Mr. Stevens' eyes had shone to hear his daughter praised by her classmates! In less than a week afterward Constance rose from obscurity to semi-popularity. The story of her singing was noised about through school until it reached even the ears of the girls who had despised her for her poverty. Muriel and Susan had looked absolute amazement when a talkative freshman told the news as she received it from a girl who had attended the party. Mignon, however, was secretly furious at the, to her, unbelievable report that "that beggarly Stevens girl could actually sing." She had never forgiven Constance for refusing to dishonorably assist her in an algebra test, and after her unsuccessful attempt to fasten the disappearance of her bracelet upon Constance she had disliked her with that fierce hatred which the transgressor so often feels for the one he or she has wronged. Next to Constance in Mignon's black book came Marjorie, who had caused her to lose her proud position of center on the team, and in Miss Merton and Marcia Arnold she had two staunch adherents. Just why Miss Merton disliked Marjorie was hard to say. Perhaps she took violent exception to the girl's gay, gracious manner and love of life, the early years of which she was living so abundantly. At any rate, she never lost an opportunity to harass or annoy the pretty freshman, and it was only by keeping up an eternal vigilance that Marjorie managed to escape constant, nagging reproof. Last of all, Marcia Arnold had a grievance against Marjorie. She was no longer manager of the freshman team. A disagreeable ten minutes with Miss Archer after the freshman team had been disbanded, on that dreadful day, had been sufficient to deprive her of her office, and arouse her resentment against Marjorie to a fever pitch. There were still a number of girls in the freshman class who clung to Muriel and Mignon, but they were in the minority. At least two-thirds of 19-- had made friendly overtures not only to Marjorie, but to Constance as well, and as the short December days slipped by, Marjorie began to experience a contentment and peace in her school that she had not felt since leaving dear old Franklin High. "Everything's going beautifully, Captain," she declared gaily to her mother in answer to the latter's question, as she flashed into the living-room one sunny winter afternoon, with dancing eyes and pink cheeks. "It couldn't be better. I like almost every one in school; Constance's father has more playing than he can do; you bought me that darling collar and cuff set yesterday; I've a long letter from Mary; I've studied all my lessons for to-day, and--oh, yes, we're going to have creamed chicken and lemon meringue pie for dinner. Isn't that enough to make me happy for one day at least?" "What a jumble of happiness!" laughed her mother. "Isn't it, though? And now Christmas is almost here. That's another perfectly gigantic happiness," was Marjorie's extravagant comment. "I love Christmas! That reminds me, Mother, you said you would help me play Santa Claus to little Charlie. I don't believe he has ever spent a really jolly Christmas. Of course, Mr. Stevens and Constance will give him things, but he needs a whole lot more presents besides. He climbed into my lap and told me all about what he wanted when I was over there yesterday. I promised to speak to Santa Claus about it. Charlie isn't going to hang up his stocking. He's going to leave a funny little wagon that he drags around for Santa Claus. He told me very solemnly that he knew Santa Claus couldn't fill it, for Connie had said that he never had enough presents to go around, but she was sure he would have a few left when he reached Charlie. "So Constance and I are going to decorate the wagon with evergreen and hang strings of popcorn on it and fill it full of presents after he goes to bed. He has promised to go very early Christmas eve. Mr. Roland has a little violin he is going to give him, and Mr. Stevens has a cunning chair for him. He has never had a chair of his own. Constance has some picture books and toys, and I'm going to buy some, too. I saved some money from my allowance this month on purpose for this." Marjorie's face glowed with generous enthusiasm as she talked. "I am going shopping day after to-morrow," said Mrs. Dean, "and as long as it is Saturday, you had better go with me." "Oh, splendid!" cried Marjorie, dancing up and down on her tiptoes. "Things are getting interestinger and interestinger." "Regardless of English," slyly supplemented her mother, as Marjorie danced out of the room to answer the postman's ring. "Here are two letters for you, Captain, but not even a postcard for me. I'd love to have a letter from Mary, but I haven't answered her last one yet. I'll write to her to-morrow and send her present, too, with special orders not to open it until Christmas." The next morning Marjorie hurried off to school early, in hopes of seeing Constance before the morning session began. Her friend entered the study hall just as the first bell rang, however, and Marjorie had only time for a word or two in the corridor as they filed off to their respective classes. "I'll see her in French class," thought Marjorie. "I'll ask Professor Fontaine to let me sit with her." But when she reached the French room and the class gathered, Constance was not among them, nor did she enter the room later. Wondering what had happened, Marjorie reluctantly turned her attention to the advance lesson. "We weel read this leetle poem togethaire," directed Professor Fontaine, amiably, "but first I shall read eet to you. Eet is called 'Le Papillon,' which means the 'botterfly.'" Unconsciously, Marjorie's hand strayed to the open neck of her blouse. Then she dropped her hand in dismay. Her butterfly, her pretty talisman, where was it? She remembered wearing it to school that morning, or thought she remembered. Oh, yes, she now recalled that she had pinned it to her coat lapel. It had always shone so bravely against the soft blue broadcloth. She longed to rush downstairs to her locker before reporting in the study hall for dismissal, but remembering how sourly Miss Merton had looked at her only that morning, she decided to possess her soul in patience until the session was dismissed. Once out of the study hall she dashed downstairs at full speed and hastily opened her locker. As she seized her coat she noted vaguely that Constance's hat and coat were missing, but her mind was centered on her pin. Then an exclamation of grief and dismay escaped her. The lapel was bare of ornament. Her butterfly was gone! "I wonder if I really did leave it at home?" was her distracted thought, as she climbed the basement stairs with a heavy heart, after having thoroughly examined the locker. But a close search of her room that noon revealed no trace of the missing pin. Hot tears gathered in her eyes, but she brushed them away, muttering: "I won't cry. It isn't lost. It can't be. Oh, my pretty talisman!" She choked back a sob. "I sha'n't tell mother unless it is really hopeless. It won't do any good and she'll feel sorry because I do. It's my own fault. I should have seen that my butterfly was securely fastened." On the way home from the school that afternoon Marjorie reported the loss of her pin to Irma, Jerry and Constance, who had returned for the afternoon session. "What a shame!" sympathized Jerry. "It was such a beauty." "I'm so sorry you lost it," condoled Irma. "So am I," echoed Constance. "I don't remember it. I'm not very observing about jewelry, but I'm dreadfully sorry just the same." "It was----" began Marjorie, but a joyful whistle far up the street and the faint ring of running feet put a sudden end to her description. Lawrence Armitage, Hal Macy and the Crane had espied the girls from afar and come with winged feet to join them. Their evident pleasure in the girls' society, coupled with the indescribably funny antics of the Crane, who had apparently appointed himself an amusement committee of one, drove away Marjorie's distress over her loss for the time being, and it was not until later that she remembered that she had not described the butterfly pin to Constance. CHAPTER XVIII PLAYING SANTA CLAUS TO CHARLIE The next morning Marjorie wrote a description of her pin. It was placed at the end of the basement corridor above a small bulletin board, where those who passed might read. She wondered if the loss of her talisman would bring her bad luck. Before the day was over she gloomily decided that it had, for during the last hour Miss Merton accused her of whispering to the girl across the aisle, when she merely leaned forward in her seat to pick up her handkerchief. Smarting with the teacher's injustice, Marjorie politely but steadily contradicted the accusation, and two minutes later found herself on the way to Miss Archer's office, Miss Merton walking grimly beside her. Miss Archer had been through a particularly trying day, and was irritable, while Miss Merton was consumed with spiteful rage at Marjorie's "impertinence," and did not hesitate to put her side of the story forward in a most unpleasant fashion. The principal turned coldly to Marjory with, "Apologize to Miss Merton at once, Miss Dean, for disturbing her," and Marjorie said, with uplifted chin and resentful eyes, "I am sorry you thought I whispered, Miss Merton, for I did not open my lips." Something in the proud carriage of the girl's head caused Miss Archer to divine the truth of the firm statement, and she said, more gently, "Very well, you are excused, Miss Dean; but I do not wish to hear again that you have failed in courtesy to your teachers. This is not the first time I have received such reports of you." With a steady, reproachful look at Miss Merton, whose shifting eyes refused to meet hers, Marjorie walked from the room, ready to burst into tears, and when the all but interminable afternoon was ended, hurried home to the shelter of her faithful captain's arms and poured forth her grief and wrongs. But the notice of the lost pin posted on the bulletin board brought forth no trace of the vanished butterfly. Marjorie made a valiant effort to thrust aside her heavy sense of loss and allow the spirit of Christmas to enter her heart. She had promised Constance her help in arranging Santa Claus' visit to Charlie, and, when on Christmas eve, at a little after seven o'clock she set out for the Stevens' weighed down by numerous festively-wrapped, be-ribboned packages, she was filled with that quiet exaltation that attends the performance of a good deed and happier than she had been for several days. "Shh!" Constance met her at the door, a warning finger on her lips. "Hasn't he gone to sleep yet?" asked Marjorie, sliding into the house in mouse-like fashion. "Yes, but I thought he never would," returned Constance, with a relieved sigh. "What do you think? Father is playing at the theatre to-night for the first time. The pianist is ill. The leader of the orchestra was here this afternoon to see if father would take his place. We can never be grateful enough to you, Marjorie, for having father and Uncle John play at your party." "Let's talk about Charlie's little wagon," proposed Marjorie, quickly. "Nora popped and strung a lot of corn for me. It's in this bag. Do tell me where I can put the rest of this armful of things." Constance made a place on one end of an old velvet couch for them. "This is yours." Marjorie flourished a wide, flat package tied with long, graceful loops of narrow pale blue ribbon. "I tied it with blue because that's your color. Don't you dare peep at it until to-morrow morning. These two little packages are for your father and Mr. Roland, and all the rest is for Charlie." "He will be the happiest boy in Sanford," said Constance, her own face radiant. "He never dreamed of a Christmas like this." "Can we begin now?" asked Marjorie. "I'm so impatient to see how this wagon will look when we get it fixed." "Wait a minute." Constance disappeared through the door leading into the kitchen, returning with one arm piled high with evergreens, the other wound around a small balsam tree. "Lawrence Armitage brought me this yesterday," she explained. "A party of boys went to the woods to cut down Christmas trees. He brought me this cunning little tree and all this ground pine and holly. Wasn't it nice in him?" "Perfectly dear," agreed Marjorie. "I wonder if there is enough popcorn for the tree, too. I have a lot of little ornaments and candles at home. It won't take long to go there and back." She reached for her hat and coat as she spoke and in spite of Constance's protests was soon speeding home after the required decorations. "I made good time, didn't I?" she observed, as half an hour later she burst into the Stevens' living-room without knocking. Then the work of making one small boy's Christmas merry was begun in earnest. An hour later the sturdy baby balsam stood loaded with its crop of strange fruit, and the faithful, rickety wagon, whose imperfections were quite hidden beneath trails of thick, fragrant ground pine and sprays of flame-berried holly, looked as though it had received a visitation from the fairies. A diminutive black leather violin case, encircled with a wreath of ground pine and tied with a huge red bow, leaned against one wheel of the magic vehicle, and the cunning chair with its absurd little arms and leather cushion was also twined with green. "It's too lovely for words," breathed Constance, her admiring gaze fastened upon the once dingy corner now bright with the flowers of love and generosity, which had bloomed in all shapes and sizes of packages to gladden one youngster's heart. "I wish I could be here when first he sees it," commented Marjorie. "I'll be fast asleep then, for he told me that Mr. Roland promised to call him very early." "He proposed staying up all night, but I was not enthusiastic over that plan," laughed Constance. "I must go," decided Marjorie. "The hands of that clock fairly fly around the dial. I'm sure I just came and yet they point to a quarter to eleven." She reached reluctantly for her hat and her wraps. "How can I ever thank you, Marjorie," began Constance, but Marjorie put a soft hand over her friend's lips. "Please don't," she implored. "I've loved to do it." She held out both hands to Constance. "I wish you the merriest sort of a merry Christmas." "I hope you will have a perfectly wonderful day," was the earnest response. "You'll come over to-morrow and see how happy you've made Charlie and all of us, won't you?" "I'll come," promised Marjorie. "You couldn't keep me away." She reached home just in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of her father disappearing up the stairs with a huge box in his arms, while her mother hastily dropped some thing into the drawer of the library table. "There, I caught both of you," she cried in triumph. "Confess you were hiding things from me, weren't you?" "I'll answer your questions to-morrow," beamed her father. "I forgive you both as long as the things are for me," was her calm declaration. "What is she talking about?" solemnly asked Mr. Dean, with an air of complete mystification. "You know perfectly well what I'm talking about!" exclaimed Marjorie, making a rush for him. "Help, help!" he called feebly. "The battalion has been ambushed and the general captured." "And held prisoner," added Marjorie, severely. "Unless he informs the second lieutenant what is in a certain big, white box with which he escaped upstairs, he shall be court-martialed." "Put off the court-martial until to-morrow and perhaps I'll tell," compromised the captured general, throwing his free arm across his lieutenant's shoulder in a most unmilitary manner. "All right, I'll let you go on parole," returned his daughter. "I'm too sleepy to do guard duty to-night. How I wish you might have seen Charlie's little wagon when we finished it! We had a tree, too." Forgetting that she was sleepy, Marjorie poured forth the story of her evening's work to her sympathetic listeners and it was ten minutes to twelve before she said good-night and went yawning to bed. Eight o'clock Christmas morning found her awake and stirring. Wrapped in her bathrobe, she pattered downstairs to the living-room, her arms full of bundles, but her father and mother were already there before her, and their packages greatly outnumbered hers. After the kisses and greetings of the day had been given her father handed the big white box into her outstretched arms. "Shall I tell you----" he began. "Don't you dare! I'm going to see for myself. Oh-h-h!" She had the lid off, and was clasping to her breast a mass of soft brown fur. "Oh, General, you dear thing! You sha'n't ever go to prison again." She smothered her father in the coat and a rapturous embrace, causing him to protest mildly. Her mother's gift of a bracelet watch also evoked another burst of reckless enthusiasm. What a happy hour it was, to be sure, and how beautifully all her friends had remembered her! Marjorie could hardly bear to leave her presents long enough to eat breakfast, and when after breakfast she left home for her Christmas call on the Stevens, she felt as though she must sing "Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men," at the top of her voice as she walked. CHAPTER XIX THE UNLUCKY TALISMAN There was a rapturous shriek of joy from Charlie as Constance opened the door for Marjorie and their hands and lips met in Christmas greeting. Marjorie stooped to embrace the excited little figure. "Santa Claus did come to see Charlie, didn't he?" she exclaimed, in pretended surprise. "And what did he bring?" For answer the child limped to his Christmas corner. "Oh, a fiddle," he said reverently, clasping the little violin to his heart. "Now I shall play in the band soon. Johnny said so." He thrust the violin under his sharp little chin, the thin fingers of his left hand reaching across the fingerboard, his left wrist curving into position. "Why, he holds it like a real violinist!" exclaimed Marjorie. "Can he play?" Charlie answered her question by dragging his triumphant bow across the helpless strings, drawing forth a wailing discord of tortured sound. "He thinks he can," giggled Constance. "I suppose those awful sounds are the sweetest music to his ears. Luckily, we don't mind them. I hope you don't. I hate to stop him, he is so delighted with himself." "I don't mind in the least," assured Marjorie. "I wouldn't spoil his pleasure for anything in the world." Charlie had no intention of giving a concert that morning, however; he had too many other things to distract his mind. Marjorie sat on the floor beside the Christmas tree, her feet tucked under her, and listened with becoming gravity and attention while he told her about Santa Claus' visit, and one by one brought forth his precious presents for her to see. "He must have had enough presents to go around this year or he wouldn't have left me so many," asserted the child with happy positiveness. "Connie's going to write him a letter and say thank you for me. If I don't say 'thank you' when someone gives me something, then I can never play in the band. Johnny and father always say it. I'm sorry I didn't write to Santa Claus before Christmas and ask him for a new leg. I can't go fast on this one. It's been wearing out ever since I was a baby and it keeps on getting shorter." "Santa Claus can't give you a new leg, Charlie boy," answered Marjorie, her bright face clouding momentarily, "but perhaps some day we can find a good, kind man who will make this poor little leg over like a new one." "When you find him, you'll be sure to tell him all about me, won't you, Marjorie?" he asked eagerly. "As sure as anything," nodded Marjory, brushing his heavy black hair out of his eyes and kissing him gently. "Will you walk down to the drugstore with me, Marjorie?" put in Constance, abruptly. Marjorie glanced up to meet her friend's troubled gaze. In an instant she was on her feet. "It's a good thing I didn't take off my hat and coat. I'm ready to go, you see." "Charlie can watch for us at the window," suggested Constance, hugging the child. "We won't be long." Once outside the house there was an eloquent silence. "It's dreadful, isn't it?" There was a catch in Constance's voice when finally she spoke. "Can't he be cured?" queried Marjorie, softly. "Yes; so a specialist said, if only we had the money." "He is such a quaint child, and he really and truly believes in Santa Claus," mused Marjorie, aloud. "Most children of his age don't." "He's different," was the quick reply. "He has been brought up away from other children and in a world of his own. He believes in fairies, too, good ones and bad ones. But he loves music better than anything else in the world, and his highest ambition in life is to play in the band. If only I had the money to make him well! I'd love to see him strong and sturdy like other children." "You mustn't talk about such sad things to-day, but just be happy," counseled Marjorie, slipping her arm through that of her friend. "Charlie is cheerful and jolly in spite of his poor lame leg. Perhaps the New Year will bring you something glorious." "You are so comforting, Marjorie," sighed Constance. "I'll throw all my cares to the winds and keep sunny all day if I can." "I must go now." They entered the little gray house again, just in time to hear remonstrative squeaks from the E string of the diminutive violin, blended with disheartened moans from the A and growls of protest from the G string. "How did you like that?" inquired Charlie, calmly. "It was very noisy," criticised Constance. "It was a very hard passage to play," explained the embryo musician, soberly. "It seems to have been," laughed Marjorie. "That is what Johnny says when he doesn't pay attention and makes a mistake on the fiddle," confided Charlie. Constance's sad look vanished at this naive assertion. "He imitates father and Uncle John in everything," she explained. "He will have played his way through all the music in the house before to-morrow night--most of it upside down, too." "I'd love to stay longer, but I promised to stop at Macy's and we have our dinner at one o'clock. I wish you could come, too, but I know you'd rather be at home. Thank you again for the hemstitched handkerchiefs. I don't see how you found the time to make them." "Thank you for the lovely hand-embroidered blouse and all Charlie's things," reminded Constance. "I hope we'll spend many, many more Christmases together." "So do I," echoed Marjorie, as she kissed Charlie and held out her hand to her friend. Her call on the Macys lasted the better part of an hour, for Jerry was the recipient of a host of gifts, and insisted upon displaying them, while Hal refused to pose gracefully in the background and absorbed as much of Marjorie's attention as she would give him, secretly wondering if she would be pleased with the box of American Beauty roses he had ordered the florist to deliver at the Deans' residence at noon that day. What a blissful Christmas it was! From the moment of Marjorie's awakening that morning until the day was done it was one long succession of joyous surprises. And, oh, glorious thought! there were ten blessed days of vacation stretching before her. "I'll see if Constance will go to the matinee Saturday," she planned drowsily that night as she prepared for sleep. "We will take Charlie. I promised him long ago that I would. I'll run over there to-morrow. Too bad I didn't think of it to-day." But "to-morrow" brought its own deeds to be done, and so did the following two days, and it was Friday afternoon before Marjorie found time for her visit to the little gray house. Ever since Christmas it had snowed at intervals and the snow-plow men had been kept busy clearing the streets. It was just the kind of weather to wear one's fur coat, and Marjorie gave a little shiver of delight as she slipped into her Christmas treasure. And how warm it was! The searching east wind that was abroad that day held no discomfort for her. As she stepped briskly along over the hard-packed walk, hedged in by high-piled snow, she thought rather soberly of her own good fortune and wondered why so many beautiful things had been given to her while to Constance life had grudged all but the barest necessities. With a rush of generous impulse she resolved to do all in her power to smooth the troubled way of her friend. When within sight of the house Marjorie's eyes were fastened upon the living-room windows for some sign of Charlie, who would sit contentedly at one of them by the hour watching the passersby. Catching sight of his pale little face pressed to the window pane she waved her hand gaily to him. He disappeared from the window and an instant later stood in the open door, shouting gleefully, "Oh, Connie, here's Marjorie! Here's Marjorie!" Marjorie bent and embraced the gleeful little boy. "How is Charlie to-day?" she asked. "Pretty well," nodded the child. "I wish I had asked for that leg, though. Mine hurts to-day." "You poor baby!" consoled Marjorie, tenderly. "But where is Connie, dear?" "She's upstairs. I'll call her." He limped across the room to the stair door, which was situated at one side of the living-room, and opened it. "Connie," he called, "Marjorie's come to see us." There was a sound of quick footsteps on the stairs and Constance appeared. "I didn't know you were here," she apologized. "Where were you on Thursday?" began Marjorie, laughingly. "You promised to come over. Don't you remember?" "Yes," returned Constance, briefly. Then with a swift return of the old, chilling reserve, which of late she had seemed to lose, "It was impossible for me to come." Marjorie scrutinized her friend's face. The look of impassivity had come back to it. "What is the matter, Constance?" she questioned anxiously. "Has anything happened?" An expression of intense pain leaped into Constance's blue eyes. "I've something to tell you, Marjorie. It's dreadful. I----" With a muffled sob she threw herself, face down, upon the old velvet couch, her slender shoulders shaking with passionate grief. "Why, Constance!" Marjorie regarded the sobbing girl in sympathetic amazement. Charlie went over to the couch and patted Constance's fair head. "Don't cry, Connie," he pleaded. Then, limping to a dilapidated writing desk in the corner, which Marjorie never remembered to have seen open before, he took from one of the lower pigeonholes a small, glittering object. "This is what makes Connie cry." He opened his hand and disclosed a little object on his outstretched palm. "Shall I throw the old thing into the fire, Connie?" With a sharp ejaculation of dismay, Constance sprang from the couch. One swift glance toward the desk, then she caught Charlie's tiny hand in hers. "Give it to Connie, this minute," she commanded sternly. For the instant Marjorie was forgotten. Charlie's lips quivered with grieved surprise. Relinquishing his hold on the object he wailed resentfully, "It is a horrid old thing. It made you cry, and me, too." "Charlie, dear," soothed Constance. Then she glanced up to meet the horrified stare of two accusing brown eyes. "Why--Marjorie!" she exclaimed. "Where--where--did you get that pin?" Marjorie's soft voice sounded harsh and unnatural. "That's what I started to tell you," faltered Constance. "Oh, it's so dreadful I can't bear to speak of it. Yet I must tell you. I--the pin----" she broke down and throwing herself on the lounge again began to cry disconsolately. An appalling silence fell upon the shabby, music-littered room, broken only by Constance's sobs. Marjorie stood rooted to the spot. Could it be true that Constance, the girl she had fought for, the girl for whose sake she had braved class ostracism, had deliberately stolen her pin? Yet she must believe the evidence of her own eyes which had told her that in Charlie's hand lay her cherished pin, her lost, much-mourned-for butterfly! If Constance had deliberately taken the pin, then she was a thief. If she had found it, but purposely failed to return it, she was still a thief. Marjorie opened her lips to pour forth a torrent of reproaches, but the words would not come. She had a wild desire to pry open the hand which held her precious butterfly and seize it, but her hands remained limply at her sides. It was her pin, her very own, yet she could not touch it unless Constance chose to hand it to her. But Constance made no such proffer. Still clutching the precious butterfly she continued to weep unrestrainedly. Marjorie waited patiently. Having failed hopelessly as a comforter, Charlie had hobbled to his corner, where his Christmas tree still stood, and, with that blessed forgetfulness of sorrow which childhood alone knows, had dragged forth his violin and begun a dismal screeching and scraping, a nerve-racking obligato to his foster sister's sobs. Five endless minutes passed, but Constance made no sign. "I'm--I'm going now," choked Marjorie. Hot tears lay thick on her eyelashes. She stumbled blindly toward the door, her face averted from the girl who had so misused and abused her friendship. "Good-bye, Constance." Something in the reproachful ring of that "Good-bye," startled Constance out of her grief. She had been too greatly overcome with her own trouble to note the effect of her tears and broken words upon Marjorie. Surely Marjorie was not angry with her for crying. "Wait a minute, Marjorie," she called. "Please don't be angry. I won't cry any more. I want to tell you about the pin. It was----" But only the sound of a closing door answered her. Marjorie was gone. CHAPTER XX THE CROWNING INJURY Marjorie never remembered just how she reached home that afternoon. She followed the familial streets mechanically, her brain tortured with but one burning thought--Constance was a thief. Over and over the dreadful sentence repeated itself in her mind. "How could she?" was her half-sobbed whisper, as she slipped quietly into the house, and, without glancing toward the living-room, went softly upstairs to her room. She wanted to be alone. Not even her beloved captain could ease the hurt dealt her by the girl she had loved and trusted. Her mother must never know that Constance was unworthy. No one should know, but she could never, never be friends with Constance again. With the tears running down her cheeks Marjorie took off the new fur coat she had worn so proudly that afternoon and dropped it upon the first convenient chair. Her hat followed it; then throwing herself across the bed, she gave way to uncontrolled weeping. Until that moment she had not realized how greatly she had loved this girl who had Mary's eyes of true blue, but who was so sadly lacking in Mary's fine sense of honor. Until the afternoon light waned and the shadows began to creep upon her she lay mourning, and inconsolable. Her generous heart had been sorely wounded and she could not easily thrust aside her dreadful sense of loss; neither could she understand why Constance had partly acknowledged that she took the butterfly pin, but had not offered to return it. "I couldn't ask her for it," she sighed to herself, as, at last, she rose, switched on the electric light, and viewed her tear-swollen face in the mirror, "not when she had kept it all this time. She knew how dreadfully I felt over losing it, and she certainly saw the notice in the hall." A flash of resentment tinged her grief. "I can't forgive her. I'll never forgive her. I----" Marjorie's lips began to quiver ominously. "I won't cry any more," she asserted stoutly. "My face is a sight now. Mother will ask me what the trouble is, and I don't want a soul to know. Of course, we can't go to the matinee to-morrow. We can't ever go anywhere together again." Once more the tears threatened to fall. She shut her eyes and forced them back, then went dejectedly down the hall to the bathroom to lave her flushed face and aching eyes. By the time dinner was ready Marjorie showed no traces of her grief. She was unusually quiet at dinner, however, and her mother inquired anxiously if she were ill. "Did you wear your new coat this afternoon?" her father asked soberly. "Yes, General. I went to see Constance." Marjorie tried to speak naturally. "Ah, that accounts for it," he declared, putting on a professional air. "Too much magnificence has struck in. You have, no doubt, a well-developed case of pride and vanity." "I haven't a single shred of either," protested Marjorie, laughing a little at her father's tone, which was an exact imitation of their former family physician. "That sounded just like good old Doctor Bates." "Are you and Constance going to take Charlie to the matinee to-morrow, dear?" asked her mother. "No, Mother," returned Marjorie. Then as though determined to evade further questioning, she asked: "May I go shopping with you?" "I wish you would. You can select the material for your new dress and the lace for that blouse I am making for you. It is so pretty. My new fashion book came to-day. I have picked out several styles of gowns for you." "What did you pick out for me?" inquired Mr. Dean, ingenuously. "You can't have any new clothes. Too much magnificence would strike in. You would have, no doubt, a well-developed case of pride and vanity," retorted Marjorie, wickedly. "Report at the guard house at once, for disrespectful conduct to your superior officer," ordered Mr. Dean with great severity. "Not to-night, thank you," bowed the disobedient lieutenant, as all three rose from the table, "I'm going upstairs to my room to write a letter." Once in her room Marjorie went to her desk and opened it with a reluctance born of the knowledge of a painful task to be performed. Seating herself, she reached for her pen and nibbled the end soberly as she racked her brain for the best way to begin a note to Constance. Finally she decided and wrote: "Dear Constance: "I cannot come over to your house to-morrow or ever again. I know what you wanted to tell me. It is too dreadful to think of. You should have told me before. I will never let anyone know, so you need not worry. You have hurt me terribly, and I can't forgive you yet, but I hope I shall some day. I don't like to mention things, but for your own sake won't you try to do what is right about the pin? I shall always speak to you in school, for I don't wish the girls to know we have separated. "Yours sorrowfully, "MARJORIE." When she had finished, the all-too-ready tears had again flooded her eyes and dropped unrestrained upon the green blotting pad on her desk. After a little she slowly wiped her eyes, and, without reading what she had written, folded the letter, addressed and stamped it. Slipping into her coat, she wound a silken scarf about her head and went downstairs. "I'm going out to the mailbox, Mother," she called, as she passed the living-room door. "Very well," returned Mrs. Dean, abstractedly. She was deep in her book and did not glance up, for which Marjorie was thankful. If her mother noticed her reddened eyelids, explanations would necessarily follow. The next day dragged interminably. Even the usual pleasure of going shopping with her captain could not mitigate the pain of yesterday's shocking discovery. To Marjorie the bare idea of theft was abhorrent. When, at the Hallowe'en dance, Mignon had accused Constance of taking her bracelet, Marjorie's wrath at the insult to her friend had been righteous and sweeping. That night, as she sat opposite her mother in the living-room trying to read one of the books she had received for Christmas the incident of the missing bracelet and Mignon's accusation suddenly loomed up in her mind like an unwelcome specter. Suppose Mignon had been right, after all. Jerry had openly asserted that she did not believe Mignon had really lost her bracelet, and in her anger Marjorie had secretly agreed with the stout girl. Suppose Constance had taken it. What if she were one of those persons one reads of in books whom continued poverty had made dishonest, or perhaps she was a kleptomaniac? The last idea, though unpleasant to contemplate, was not so repugnant to her as the first; but she did not believe it to be true. Constance's partial confession, coupled with her ready tears, was positive proof that she had been conscious of her act of theft. There was only one other theory left; she had found the pin and succumbed to the temptation of keeping it. Yet Constance had always averred that she did not care for jewelry, and would not wear it if she possessed it. Marjorie went over these suppositions again and again, but each time her theories ended with the bitter fact that, in spite of her tears, Constance had kept her ill-gotten bauble. The vacation which had promised so much, and which she had happily supposed would be all too short, seemed endless. During the long days that followed she received no word from the girl in the little gray house. If Constance had received her letter, she made no sign, and this served to add to Marjorie's belief in her unworthiness. Jerry Macy's New Year's party proved a welcome relief from the hateful experience through which she had passed. Although invited, Constance was not among the merry gathering of young people, and Jerry loudly lamented the fact. Mr. Stevens and Uncle John Roland, who furnished the music for the dancing, greeted Marjorie with affectionate regard. It was evident that they knew nothing of what had transpired. Constance was ill, her father reported, but hoped to be able to return to school on Tuesday. He thanked Marjorie for her remembrance of him and Charlie, and Uncle John forgot himself and repeated everything after him with grateful nods and smiles. During the evening Marjorie frequently found herself near the two musicians, and Lawrence Armitage, secretly disappointed because of Constance's absence, also did considerable loitering in their immediate vicinity. If the troubled little lieutenant had had nothing on her mind, she would have spent a most delightful evening, for the Macy's enormous living-room had been transformed into a veritable ballroom, where the guests might dance without bumping elbows at every turn, while Hal and Jerry were the most hospitable entertainers. If Constance's father and foster uncle had not been present, she might have forgotten her woes, but whenever she glanced at either, the sorrowful face of the Mary girl rose before her. To make matters worse, Jerry proposed to her that they call upon Constance the next day, and Marjorie was obliged to refuse lamely without giving any apparent reason. It was in the nature of a relief to her when the party broke up. In spite of the gratifying knowledge that the girls had pronounced her new white silk frock the prettiest gown of all, and that Hal Macy had been her devoted cavalier, Marjorie Dean went to bed that night in a most unhappy mood. The Monday before she returned to school she began a long letter to Mary. She and Mary had sworn that, though miles divided them, they would tell each other their secrets. Resolved to keep her word, she had written her heart out to her chum, then had read the letter and torn it into little pieces. Having written only pleasant things of her new friend to Mary, she could not bear to take away her good name with a few strokes of her pen. "If only Constance were true and honorable like Mary," she sighed as she closed her desk, and selecting a book she wandered disconsolately downstairs to the living-room to read; but her thoughts continually reverted to her own grievance. "If she gives back my pin, I'll forgive her," was her final conclusion as at last she laid her book aside with an impatient sigh, and sitting down on a little stool near the fire, stared gloomily into its ruddy depths; "but I never, never, never can feel the same toward her again." Marjorie went to school on Tuesday morning vaguely hoping that Constance would see things in a finer light and act accordingly. Unselfish in most respects, the poor little soldier had forgotten everything save the fact that she was the injured one. To her it seemed as though the other girl's crushing weight of half-acknowledged guilt ought to make her a willing suppliant for pardon. During the early part of the morning session she waited, half expecting to receive a contrite plea for grace from the Mary girl. When her French hour came, she hurried into the classroom, thinking that she might see Constance before the class gathered; but Professor Fontaine had closed the door and remarked genially, "_Bon jour, mesdemoiselles. Comment vous portez vous, aujourd'hui_. I trost that you have not forgotten your French during your 'oliday," when it opened quietly to admit Constance. Marjorie regarded her gravely, noting that she looked pale and tired. Suddenly her eyes opened in wide, unbelieving amazement. With a half-smothered exclamation that caused half the class to turn and look at her, including Mignon, whose alert eyes traveled knowingly between the two girls, she tore her gaze from the disturbing sight, and, putting one hand over her eyes, leaned her head on her arm. For fastened at the open neck of Constance's blouse was her butterfly pin. CHAPTER XXI MIGNON PLANS MISCHIEF To Marjorie, torn between resentment of Constance's bold display of the stolen pin and shame for her utter absence of honor, the French lesson was a confused jumble. She heard but dimly the rise and fall of Professor Fontaine's voice as he conducted the lesson, and when he called upon her to recite she stared at him dazedly and finally managed to stammer that she was not prepared. "Ah, Mademoiselle Dean, I am of a certainty moch surprised that you cannot translate thees paragraph," the little man declared reproachfully. "I weel begeen eet for you, and you shall do the rest, _N'est pas?_" Marjorie stumbled through the paragraph with hot cheeks and a strong desire to throw her book into the air and rush from the recitation. When class was over she seized her books and left the room without looking in Constance's direction. The eyes of the latter followed her with an expression of perplexed, questioning sorrow that, had Marjorie noted and interpreted as such, might have caused her to doubt what seemed plain, thresh the matter out frankly with Constance, and thus save them both many weeks of misunderstanding and heartache. At the close of the morning session Marjorie lingered until she was sure that Constance had taken her wraps from the locker and departed. The thought of her beloved pin ornamenting the other girl's blouse was too bitter to be tamely borne. Fierce resentment crowded out her gentler feelings, and she could not trust herself to come in contact with her faithless classmate and remain silent. On the steps of the school she met Jerry and Irma, who had posted themselves to wait for her. "I thought you had decided to stay in there all day," grumbled Jerry. "It's only five minutes past twelve," protested Marjorie. "I thought it was at least half-past," retorted Jerry. "Say, Marjorie, didn't you say that you'd lost your butterfly pin?" "Yes," replied Marjorie, shortly, bracing herself for what she felt would follow. She was not the only one who had seen the pin in Constance's possession. "Did Constance Stevens find it?" quizzed Jerry. "Yes." "Oh, then that's all right. I saw her wearing it this morning; and I'm not the only one who saw her, either. Mignon had her eye on it in French class, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear of some hateful remark she had made about it. You know, she still insists that Constance took her bracelet. She might be mean enough to say that Constance found your pin and didn't give it back to you." Marjorie stared at Jerry in amazement. Without knowing it, the stout girl had exactly stated the truth about the pin. "You needn't stare at me like that," went on Jerry. "Of course, we know that Constance wouldn't be so silly as to try to keep a pin belonging to someone else that everyone recognized; but lots of girls would believe it. I suppose you let Constance wear it because you two are so chummy; but you'd better get it back and wear it yourself. Then Mignon can't say a word." "I'll think about it," was Marjorie's evasive answer, but once she had said good-bye to the two girls she began to deliberate within herself as to what she had best do. Here was an exigency against which she had failed to provide. She had resolved never to betray Constance to the girls, but now Constance had, by openly wearing the pin, betrayed herself. Either she would be obliged to go to Constance and demand her own or allow her to wear the bit of jewelry and create the impression that she had sanctioned the wearing of it. When she returned to school that afternoon she had half determined to see Constance and put the situation fairly to her, but rather to her relief Constance did not appear at the afternoon session, nor was she in school the next day. When Friday came and she was still absent, Marjorie was divided between her pride and a desire to go to the little gray house and settle matters. On Saturday she was still halting between two opinions, and it was four o'clock Saturday afternoon before she put on her wraps with the air of one who has made up her mind and started for the Stevens'. As she approached the house she looked toward the particular window where Charlie was so fond of stationing himself to peer out on the dingy little street, but there was no sign of the boy's white, eager face. To her vivid imagination the very house itself wore a sad, cheerless aspect that filled her with a vague apprehension of some impending unpleasantness. She knocked briskly at the door, then waited a little. There was no response. She knocked again, harder and longer, but still silence unbroken by any footfall, reigned within. After pounding upon the door at intervals for at least ten minutes, she turned and walked dejectedly away from the house of denial, speculating as to what could possibly have become of the Stevens'. At the corner she almost ran against Mr. Stevens, who, with his soft black felt hat pulled low over his forehead, was hurrying along, his violin case under his arm. "Oh, Mr. Stevens," cried Marjorie, "where is Constance? I have just come from your house, and there is no one at home." Mr. Stevens looked mildly surprised. "I thought you knew," he answered. "Didn't Constance tell you she was going away? She and Charlie went to New York City yesterday. They are to meet Constance's aunt there. It was very unexpected. She received a letter from her aunt on Tuesday. I was sure she had told you." Mr. Stevens' fine face took on an expression of perplexity. "I did not know it," responded Marjorie, soberly. "When will she return?" "I am not quite sure. I shall not know definitely until I hear from her," was the discouraging reply. "I'm sorry I didn't see her," was all Marjorie could find words for, as she turned to go. "Good-bye, Mr. Stevens." "Good-bye, Miss Marjorie." The musician bared his head, his thick, white hair ruffling in the wind. "You will hear from Constance, no doubt." "No doubt I won't," breathed Marjorie, as she walked on. "What would he say, I wonder, if he knew? He'll never know from me, neither will anyone else. I hope those girls will forget all about seeing Constance wear the pin." But the affair of the pin was destined not to sink into oblivion, for the next morning Marjorie found on her desk the following note: "Miss Dean: "Do you think you are doing right in shielding a thief? It looks as though a certain person either stole or found and kept a certain article belonging to you and yet you allow her to wear it before your very eyes without protest. If you do not immediately insist on the return of your property and denounce the thief, we will put the matter before Miss Archer, as this is not the first offense. This is the decision of several indignant students who insist that the girls of the freshman class shall be above reproach." Marjorie's eyes flashed her contempt of the anonymous missive. She folded it quietly, then, reaching into her desk, drew forth a sheet of note paper and wrote: "Miss La Salle: "Although the note I found on my desk is not signed, I am sure that you wrote it. I do not think you have the slightest right to dictate to me in a personal matter. Miss Stevens and I are perfectly capable of settling our own affairs without the help of any member of the freshman class. "Marjorie Dean." Mignon's pale face flushed crimson as she read the note which Marjorie lost no time in sending to her via the student route, which was merely the passing of it from desk to desk until it reached its destination. With a scornful lifting of her shoulders she flung the note on her desk, then snatching it up, tore it into tiny pieces. When school was dismissed she lingered and twenty minutes afterward emerged from Miss Archer's office in company with Marcia Arnold, an expression of triumph in her black eyes. When she reached home that afternoon she took from the drawer of her dressing-table something small and shining and examined it carefully. "It looks the same, but is it?" she muttered. "Where did the other come from? I don't understand it in the least. Just the same, Marjorie Dean thinks Miss Smarty Stevens took her pin. She was thunderstruck when she saw that Stevens girl wearing it this morning. She's too much afraid of not telling the truth to deny it in her letter. There's something gone wrong with their friendship, too. I'm sure of it from the way they have been acting. I don't know what it's all about, but I do know that this," she touched the small, shining object, "shall never help them solve their problem." CHAPTER XXII PLANNING FOR THE MASQUERADE On the morning following Mignon's visit to Miss Archer's office, Marjorie was unpleasantly startled to hear Miss Merton call out stridently just after opening exercises, "Miss Dean, report to Miss Archer, at once." A battery of curious eyes was turned in speculation upon Marjorie as she walked the length of the study hall, outwardly composed, but inwardly resentful at Miss Merton's tone, which, to her sensitive ears, bordered on insult. "Good morning, Miss Archer; Miss Merton said you wished to see me," began Marjorie, quietly, as she entered the outer office where Miss Archer stood, reading a letter which her secretary had just handed to her for inspection. "Yes," returned the principal, briefly; "come with me." She led the way to her inner office and, motioning to Marjorie to precede her, stepped inside and closed the door. "Sit here, Miss Dean," she directed, indicating a chair at one side of her desk. Then, seating herself, she turned to the young girl, and said, with kind gravity: "I sent for you this morning because I wish to speak frankly to you of one of your classmates. I shall expect you to be absolutely frank, too. Very grave complaints have been brought to me by Miss La Salle concerning Constance Stevens. She insists that Miss Stevens is guilty of the theft of her bracelet, which disappeared on the night of the dance given by the young men of Weston High School. As I left the gymnasium some time before the party was over, I knew nothing of this, and no word of it was brought to me afterward. "Miss La Salle also states that Miss Stevens has been wearing a gold pin, in the form of a butterfly, which belongs to you and which you advertised as lost. She declares that she is positive that Miss Stevens found the pin and made no effort to return it to you, and that you are shielding her from the effects of her own wrongdoing by allowing her to continue to wear it. This latter seems to be a rather far-fetched accusation, but Miss La Salle is so insistent in the matter that I was going to settle that part of it, at least, by asking you where and when you found your pin and whether you gave Miss Stevens permission to wear it. "This may seem to you, my dear, like direct interference in your personal affairs, but it is necessary that this matter be cleared up at once. Miss Stevens cannot afford to allow such detrimental reports to be circulated about her through the school." Miss Archer looked expectantly at Marjorie, who was strangely silent, two signals of distress in her brown eyes. "I cannot answer your questions, Miss Archer," she answered at last, her clear tones a trifle unsteady. The principal regarded her with amazed displeasure. Accustomed to having the deciding voice in all matters pertaining to her position as head of the school, she could not endure being crossed, particularly by a pupil. "I must insist upon an answer, Miss Dean. Your silence is unfair, not only to Miss Stevens, but to the school. If Miss Stevens is innocent of any wrongdoing, now is the time to clear her name of suspicion. If she is guilty, by telling the true circumstances concerning your pin, you are doing the school justice. A person who deliberately appropriates that which does not belong to him or to her is a menace to the community in which he or she lives, and should be removed from it. Our school is our community. It must be kept free from those who are a detriment to it," concluded Miss Archer, her mouth settling into lines of obstinate firmness. The distress in Marjorie's face deepened. "I am sorry, Miss Archer, but I can tell you nothing. Please don't think me stubborn and obstinate. I can't help it. I--I have nothing to say." "I have explained to you the necessity for perfect frankness on your part, and you have refused to comply with my demand," reproved the principal. "I am deeply disappointed in you, Miss Dean. I looked for better things from you. The affair will have to stand as it is until Miss Stevens returns. I am sorry that you will not assist me in clearing it up." She made a gesture of dismissal. "That is all, I believe, this morning. You may return to the study hall." Without a word Marjorie rose and left the room, her eyes full of tears, her proud spirit hurt to the quick. The icy reproach in the principal's words was, indeed, hard to bear, and all for a girl who had proved herself unworthy of friendship. Yet she could not help feeling a swift pang of pity for Constance. How dreadful it would be for her when she returned to Sanford and to school! But Constance seemed in no hurry to return. Midyear, with its burden of examinations, its feverish hopes and fears, came and went. Then followed a three days' vacation, and the new term began with a great readjusting of programs and classes. Marjorie passed her state examinations in American history and physiology, and decided upon physical geography and English history in their places, as both were term studies. She entered upon her second term's work with little enthusiasm, however. The disagreeable, almost tragic events following the holidays had left a shadow on her freshman days, that had promised so much. February came, smiled deceitfully, froze vindictively, threatened a little, then thawed and froze again, as his next-door neighbor, March, whisked resentfully down upon him, hurried him out of the running for a whole year, and blustered about it for two weeks afterward. The swiftly passing days, however, brought no word or sign concerning the absent Constance, and, try as she might, Marjorie could not forget her. Mignon La Salle, though greatly disappointed over the failure of her plan to humiliate the musician's daughter, was craftily biding her time, resolved to strike the moment Constance returned to school. "Mignon certainly intends to make things interesting for Constance," declared Jerry to Marjorie, as the French girl switched haughtily by them one mild afternoon in late March on the way home from school. "Why do you say that?" asked Marjorie, quickly. "Have you heard anything new?" "Nothing startling," replied Jerry. "You know Irma and Susan Atwell used to be best friends until they began chumming with Mignon and Muriel. Well, Susan is awfully angry with Mignon for something she said about her, so she has dropped her, and Muriel, too. She went over to Irma's house the other night and cried and said she was sorry she'd been so silly. She wanted to be friends with Irma again." "What did Irma say?" asked Marjorie, breathlessly. "Oh, she made up with her, then and there," informed Jerry with fine disgust. "I'd have kept her waiting a while. She deserved it. She told Irma she hoped I'd forgive her, but I didn't make any rash promises." "What a hard-hearted person you are," smiled Marjorie. "But, tell me, Jerry, what did you hear about Constance?" "Oh, yes. That's what I started out to tell you. Mignon told Susan last week that she was only waiting for Constance to come back to school to take her to Miss Archer and accuse her of stealing her bracelet." "How dreadful!" deplored Marjorie. "Perhaps Constance won't come back." "Yes, she will. She wrote a note to Miss Archer when she went away saying that she had to go to New York City on business, but would return to school as soon as possible. Marcia Arnold saw the note, and told Mignon. Mignon told Susan before they had their fuss. Susan told Irma, and she told me. Almost an endless chain, but not quite," finished Jerry with a cheerful grin. "I should say so," returned Marjorie, in an abstracted tone. Her thoughts were on the absent girl. She wondered why Constance had gone to New York so suddenly and taken little Charlie with her. She wished she had asked Mr. Stevens more about it. "See here, Marjorie," Jerry's blunt tones interrupted her musing. "What's the trouble between you and Constance? I know something is the matter, but I'd like most awfully well to know what it is." "I can't answer your question, Jerry," said Marjorie in a low tone. "Would you care if I--if we didn't talk about Constance?" "Not a bit," rejoined the stout girl good-naturedly. "Never tell anything you don't want to tell. We'll change the subject. Let's talk about the Sanford High dance. What character do you intend to represent?" "Is Sanford High going to give a party?" Marjorie voiced her surprise. "Of course. The Sanford High girls give one every spring, and the Weston boys give their dance in the fall." "When is it to be?" "Not until after Easter, and this year it's going to be a lot of fun. We are to have a fairy-tale masquerade." "I never heard of any such thing before." "Neither did I," went on Jerry, "that is, until yesterday. The committee just decided upon it. You see, the girls always give a fancy dress party, but not always a masquerade. This year a freshman who was on the committee proposed that it would be a good stunt to make everyone dress as a character in some old fairy tale. The rest of the committee liked the idea, so you had better get busy and hunt up your costume." "But how did you happen to know so much about it?" "Well," Jerry looked impressive. "I was on the committee and I happened to be the freshman who proposed it." "You clever girl!" exclaimed Marjorie, admiringly. "I think that is a splendid idea. I wonder what I could go as?" "Snow White," suggested Jerry, eyeing her critically. "I can get seven of the Weston boys to do the Seven Little Dwarfs and follow you around." "But Snow White had 'a skin like snow, cheeks as red as blood and hair as black as ebony,'" quoted Marjorie. "I don't answer to that description." "You are pretty, and so was she, and that's all you need to care," returned Jerry, calmly. "Besides, the Seven Dwarfs will be great. Will you do it?" "All right," acquiesced Marjorie. "What are you going as?" "One of the 'Fat Friars,'" giggled Jerry. "Don't you remember, 'Four Fat Friars Fanning a Fainting Fly'? I'm going to ask three more stout girls to join me. We'll wear long, gray frocks, get bald-headed wigs and carry palmleaf fans. I don't know anyone who would be willing to go as the 'Fainting Fly,' so we'll have to do without him, I guess." "You funny girl!" laughed Marjorie. "But how will everyone know who is who after the unmasking? There will be so many queens and princesses and kings and courtiers." "We thought of that and we are going to put up a notice for everyone to carry cards. Some of the characters will be easy to guess without cards." "I must tell mother about it as soon as I go home and ask her to help me plan Snow White's costume. When will we receive our invitations?" "We only send printed invitations to the boys. Every girl in high school is invited, of course. The invitations will be sent to the boys next week, and the Sanford girls will be notified at once, so as to give them plenty of time to plan their costumes." "I wish it were to be next week," murmured Marjorie, after she had left Jerry and turned into her own street. "Everything has been gloomy and horrid for so long. I'd love to have a good time again, just to see how it seemed." She reflected rather sadly that the disagreeable happenings of her freshman year had outweighed her good times. She had entered Sanford High School with the resolve to like every girl there, and with the hope that the girls would like her, but in some way everything had gone wrong. Perhaps she had been to blame. She had been warned in the beginning not to champion Constance Stevens. Yet the very girls who had warned her could never have been her intimate friends. Her ideals and theirs, if they had ideals, were too widely separated. No; she had been right in standing up for Constance. The fault lay with the latter. It was she who had betrayed friendship. Determined to go no further into this most painful of subjects, Marjorie resolutely centered her thoughts upon the coming party. The moment she reached home she ran upstairs to her room. Sitting down on the floor before her bookcase, she drew out a thick red volume of Grimms' Fairy Tales and read the story of Snow White. To her joy she discovered that the colored frontispiece was a picture of Snow White begging admittance at the home of the Seven Little Dwarfs. "I'll ask mother to make me a high-waisted white gown like this one, with pale blue trimmings and a big blue sash," she planned. "I'll wear my pale blue slippers, the ones that have no heels, and white silk stockings. Thank goodness, my hair is curly. I'll let it hang loose on my shoulders. Of course, it isn't as black as ebony; but then, I can't help that." With the book still in her hand she ran down the stairs, two at a time, to tell her mother. What mother is not interested in her daughter's school fun and parties? Mrs. Dean entered at once into the planning of the costume and suggested that Snow White's cards be made in the shape of little apples, one half colored red, the other half green, and her name written diagonally across the surface of the apple. Marjorie hailed the idea with delight. "May I buy the water-color paper for the apples to-morrow, Captain?" "Yes," replied Mrs. Dean. "You ought to begin them at once. What is Constance going to wear? She hasn't been here for a long time. Poor child, I suppose her family keep her busy. Why not ask her to dinner some night this week, Marjorie?" Marjorie flushed hotly. Her mother, who was busily engaged with an intricate bit of embroidery, did not notice the added color in her daughter's face. "Constance is in New York visiting her aunt," returned Marjorie. "She has been there for a long time. Charlie is with her. I don't know when they will be home." Something in her daughter's tone caused Mrs. Dean to glance quickly up from her work. Marjorie was staring out of the window with unseeing eyes. "Constance has hurt Marjorie's feelings by not writing to her," was Mrs. Dean's thought. Aloud she said: "Did you know before Constance went to New York that she intended going?" "No; she didn't tell me." Marjorie volunteered no further information, and Mrs. Dean refrained from asking questions. She thought she understood her daughter's reticence. Marjorie naturally felt that Constance was neglectful and a little ungrateful, but would not say so. "I wish I could tell mother all about it," ruminated Marjorie, as she went slowly upstairs to replace the Grimms'. "I can't bear to do it. I suppose I shall some day, but it seems too dreadful to say, 'Mother, Constance is a thief. She stole my butterfly pin. That's why she doesn't come here any more.' It's like a disagreeable dream, and I wish I could wake up some day to find that it's all been a dreadful mistake." But light is sure to follow darkness, and the loyal little lieutenant's awakening was nearer at hand than she could foresee. CHAPTER XXIII THE AWAKENING It was wilful, changeable April's last night, and, being in a tender reminiscent mood, she dispensed her balmiest airs for the benefit of the distinguished company who filled to overflowing the gymnasium of Sanford High School, prepared to dance her last hours away. For the heroes and heroines of fairy-tale renown had apparently left the books that had held them captive for so long, and, jubilant in their unaccustomed freedom, promenaded the floor of the gymnasium in twos, threes or in whole companies. Simple Simon, whose tall, lank figure bore a startling resemblance to that of the Crane, paraded the floor, calm and unafraid, with none less personage than the terrible Blue Beard. Hansel and Gretel immediately formed a warm attachment for Jack and Jill, and the quartet wandered confidently about together. Little Miss Muffet, in spite of her reputed daintiness, clung to the arm of Bearskin, who, despite the fact that his furry coat was that of a buffalo instead of a bear, was a unique success in his line. One suspected, too that the Brave Little Tailor, whose waistcoat bore the modest inscription, "Seven at One Blow," and who tripped over his long sword at regular two-minute intervals, had an impish, freckled countenance. The straight, lithe figure of the youth with the Magic Fiddle reminded one of Lawrence Armitage, while his constant companion, Aladdin, a sultan of unequaled magnificence, had a peculiar swing to his gait that reminded sharp-eyed observers of Hal Macy. The Four Fat Friars loomed large and gray, and fanned imaginary flies with commendable energy, while Snow White, accompanied by her faithful dwarfs, made a radiantly beautiful figure and was greeted with ejaculations of admiration wherever she chose to walk. There were kings and courtiers, queens and goose girls. There were jesters and princesses, old witches and fairies. Mother Goose was there. So were Jack Horner, Bo-peep, Little Boy Blue and many more of her nursery children, not to mention two fearsome giants, at least ten feet high, whose voluminous cloaks concealed figures which appeared far too tall to be true. Rapunzel trailed about on the arm of her prince, her beautiful hair, which looked suspiciously like nice new rope, confined in a braid at least three inches wide and hanging gracefully to her feet. Cinderella came to the party in her old kitchen dress, accompanied by her fairy godmother, and Beauty was attended by a strange being clad in a huge fur robe and a papier-mache tiger's head, which was immediately recognized as the formidable Beast. The gallery of the gymnasium was crowded with the friends and families of the maskers who were admitted by tickets, a limited number of which had been issued. When the first notes of the grand march sounded there was a great craning of necks and a loud buzz of expectation as the gaily dressed company formed into line, and while the brilliant procession circled the gymnasium a lively guessing went on as to who was who in Fairyland. Mother Goose led the march with the Brave Little Tailor, who frisked along in high glee and executed weird and wonderful steps for the edification of his aged partner and the rest of the company in general. "Isn't it great, though," commented Aladdin to his partner, who was none other than Snow White. "I know who you are. I'm sure I do. If I guess correctly will you tell me?" Snow White nodded her curly head. "All right, here goes. You are Marjorie Dean." "I'm so glad you guessed right the first time," declared Snow White in a muffled voice from behind her mask. "I've been perfectly crazy to talk to someone. It's a gorgeous party, isn't it, Hal?" "The nicest one the Sanford girls have ever given the boys," returned Hal Macy, warmly. "You'll give me the next dance, won't you, Marjorie?" "Of course," acquiesced Marjorie. "I think the grand march is going to end in a minute." She danced the first dance with Hal. After that the Youth with the Magic Fiddle claimed her, and when he asked in a tone of deep concern, "When do you think Constance will be home, Marjorie?" she had no difficulty in recognizing Lawrence Armitage. "I don't know, Laurie," she said rather confusedly. "I--I haven't heard from her." "She wrote me one letter," declared Laurie, gloomily. "I answered it, but she hasn't written me a line since." "Then you know----" began Marjorie. She did not finish. "Know what?" asked Laurie, impatiently. "Nothing," was the answer. "That's just it!" exclaimed the boy. "I know exactly nothing about Constance. I thought you'd be sure to know something." Just then the dance came to an end. Jack and the Beanstalk, clad in doublet and hose, and decorated with long green tendrils of that fruitful vine, his famous hatchet slung over his shoulder by a stout leather thong, claimed her for the next dance, and she had no time to exchange further words with Laurie. The moment of unmasking was to follow the ninth dance. The eighth was just about to begin. Marjorie caught sight of a huge lumbering figure in princely garments heading in her direction, and turning fled toward the dressing-room. She was quite sure of the prince's identity, which was that of a youth whom she particularly disliked. Just as she reached the sheltering door a familiar voice called out a low, cautious, "Marjorie." Turning, she saw a stout, gray-robed friar hurrying toward her. "I've hunted all over for you," declared the friar, in Jerry's unmistakable tones. "Come into the dressing-room. Someone is waiting to see you there." "Waiting to see me!" exclaimed Marjorie, in surprise. "That's what I said. Come along." Jerry caught her arm and pulled her gently into the dressing-room. At one end of the room stood the dingy figure of Cinderella, deep in conversation with her fairy godmother. At the sound of the opening door Cinderella wheeled and, with a quavering little cry of "Marjorie!" ran forward to meet the newcomers. Marjorie stopped short and stared unbelievingly at the shabbily clothed figure, but Cinderella had now torn off her mask and was fumbling with trembling eagerness in the pocket of her apron. "Here it is, Marjorie, dear! I never dreamed you had one like it. No wonder you felt dreadfully that day. Look at it." She thrust a small glittering object into Marjorie's limp hand. Marjorie regarded the object with a look of growing amazement, which suddenly changed to one of alarm. "It isn't mine!" she gasped. "It's exactly like it except for one thing. Mine has no pearls here." She touched the tips of the golden butterfly's wings. "Oh, Constance, can you ever forgive me?" The pretty butterfly pin slipped from her lax fingers and Marjorie burst into tears. "Don't cry, Marjorie," said Jerry, with unusual gentleness. "You didn't know. It was just one of those miserable misunderstandings. Constance wants to tell you about the pin." "But how--where----" quavered Marjorie. "Oh, I had an idea that there was some kind of a misunderstanding, so I wrote Constance and asked her to come home as soon as she could," explained Jerry. "Her father gave me her address. She was coming home next week, anyhow, but I wrote her again and asked her to get here in time for the dance. The minute I saw that butterfly pin I asked her straight out and out where she got it. She told me, and then I knew that the thing for me to do was to bring you two together. She only came home last night, so we had to plan a costume in a hurry. You haven't said a word about her fairy godmother, either. Take off your mask, dear fairy godmother." "Irma!" cried Marjorie, as she glimpsed a laughing face. "Oh, it's too wonderful!" She wound two penitent arms around Constance and kissed her. "I guess that will settle Mignon," commented Jerry, in triumph. "It is a shame, but I suppose your butterfly pin is really lost. Constance will tell you the history of hers." "I wish the bracelet problem could be solved, too," sighed Constance. "Jerry tells me that Mignon is going to accuse me of taking it when I go back to school. How can she be so cruel? I don't remember seeing it in the dressing-room on the night of the Weston dance." "But I do!" called out a positive voice that caused them all to face the intruder in astonishment. A slim, pale-faced girl, dressed as a shepherdess, emerged from behind a curtain which hung in a little alcove at one end of the dressing-room. "Please excuse me for listening," apologized the girl. "I was standing here looking out of the window when you girls came in and began to talk. Before I could make up my mind what it was all about I heard Miss Stevens talking about Miss La Salle's bracelet and the Weston dance. Did Miss La Salle accuse you of taking her bracelet that night?" she asked, her eyes upon Constance. "Yes," began Constance, "she----" "Miss La Salle is the real thief," interrupted the girl, dryly. "I saw her take off her bracelet and lay it on the dressing table. I saw her come and take it away after Miss Stevens left the room. I had to catch the last train home that night. You know, I don't live in Sanford, and I was sitting over in one corner of the dressing-room behind a chair putting on my shoes. Neither Miss Stevens nor Miss La Salle saw me. I wondered what Miss La Salle meant by doing as she did, but I never understood until this minute. I'm glad I happened to be there that night and I'm glad I happen to be here now. If there is likely to be any trouble, just send for me. I'm Edna Halstead, of the junior class." The four girls had received this rapidly repeated information with varying degrees of amazement. It was Marjorie who first sprang forward and offered her hand to Edna Halstead. "It is the last word we needed to clear Constance," she asserted, joyously. "Will you go to Miss Archer with us on Monday?" "I should be glad to do so. I never could endure that La Salle girl," was the frank response. "We'll go together," planned Jerry. "Every one of you meet me in Miss Archer's living-room office on Monday morning before school begins." "I must go home now," demurred Constance. "I don't wish anyone to know that I've been here." "Not even Laurie?" asked Marjorie, slyly. "He spoke of you to-night." Constance smiled. "You may tell him after the 'Home, Sweet Home' waltz." "There goes the music for the ninth dance," informed Jerry, who had stepped to the door. "Oh, gracious, I promised this dance to Hal! I can't go. I simply must hear about the pin, Connie." "I'll tell you just one thing about it," stipulated Constance, "but the rest must wait until to-morrow, for Hal is too nice a boy to leave without a partner." "Then tell me that one thing," begged Marjorie. "My aunt sent me the pin," was the quick answer. "Now kiss me good-night and hurry along to Hal." And Marjorie kissed her and went with happiness singing joyfully in her heart. CHAPTER XXIV THE EXPLANATION Owing to the fervent manner in which each succeeding dance was encored, it was after midnight before the fairy-tale masquerade came to an end and the lords and ladies of fairy lore became everyday boys and girls again; and went home congratulating themselves on the blessed fact that to-morrow was Saturday and that they could make up lost sleep the next morning. Marjorie Dean, however, was not among the late sleepers. She was up and about the house at her usual hour, for the day held promise of unusual interest. First of all, Constance was coming to see her at ten o'clock. Then too, it was May day, a gloriously sunshiny May day, without the faintest trace of cloud in the deep blue sky. As a third pleasant anticipation, her class had planned a Mayday picnic at a point about two miles up the river. It had been an unusually early spring, and the wild flowers had blossomed in such profusion in the neighboring woods about the town and along the river that the picnic had been planned with a view to spending the day in gathering as many of them as possible. The expedition having been organized by the officers of the class there was no question of who should be invited or who should be left out. The class was exhorted to turn out in a body, and with the exception of a few girls who had made plans for that Saturday prior to their knowledge of the picnic, the freshmen of 19-- had promised to attend. "Oh, dear, I wish ten o'clock were here!" sighed Marjorie as she straightened the last object on her dressing table and viewed with satisfaction the immaculate order to which she had reduced her room. Keeping her room clean and dainty was almost a sacred obligation with Marjorie. Her mother had spared neither time nor expense to make it a marvel of pink-and-white beauty. The furniture was of white maple, the thick, soft rug had a cream background scattered with small pink roses. The window curtains were cunning ruffled affairs of fine white dotted Swiss, while the window draperies were in pink-and-white French cretonne. An attractive willow stand, which stood beside the bed, the two pretty willow rockers piled high with pink and white cushions and the creamy wallpaper with its graceful border of pink roses made the room a perpetual joy to its appreciative owner. Marjorie always referred to it as her "house" and when at home spent a great deal of her time there. But this morning the May sunshine poured rapturously in at her open windows, touched her brown hair with mischievous golden fingers that left gleaming imprints on her curls, and mutely coaxed her to come out and play. "I can't stand it indoors another minute," she breathed impatiently. "It's almost ten. I'll walk down to the corner. Perhaps I'll see Constance coming." As she was about to leave the window she caught a glimpse of a slender blue figure far down the street. With a cry of, "Oh, there she is!" Marjorie raced out of her room, down the stairs and across the lawn to the gate. "You dear thing!" she called, her hands extended. The next instant the two girls were embracing with a degree of affection known only to those who, after blind misunderstanding, once more see the light. Tears of contrition stood in Marjorie's eyes as she led Constance into the house and upstairs to her room. "Can you ever forgive me?" she faltered, pushing Constance gently into a chair and drawing her own opposite that of her friend. "There is nothing to forgive," returned Constance, unsteadily. "You didn't know. If only I had made you stay that day until we came to an understanding! When you said 'Good-bye' in that queer tone, I called to you to wait, for it seemed to me you were angry; but you had gone. Then your note came. I didn't know how you could possibly have learned about the pin, for I hadn't told a soul besides father and Uncle John. It occurred to me that perhaps you had seen Uncle John and he had told you. When I read what you said about not seeing me again I thought just one thing, that, knowing my story, you didn't care to be friends with me any more." "What do you mean, Constance?" Marjorie's query was full of compelling insistence. "I don't know any story about you." "I know that you don't, dear; but I thought you knew. When Uncle John came in that afternoon I asked him if he had seen you in the last two days, and he said 'no,' and then 'yes.' I asked him if he had told you about what had happened to me, and he declared that he couldn't remember. I was sure that he had told you, because he often says that when he is afraid father or I won't approve of something he has done. That is the reason I didn't come to see you. Then I went to New York in a hurry without dreaming of what your letter really meant. Jerry wrote me two days before I had planned to come home. So I changed my plans and started for Sanford the same day her letter reached me. Charlie was so much better that I wasn't needed." "Charlie?" repeated Marjorie, in bewildered interrogation. "Yes," nodded Constance. "Haven't you seen father since I left? Didn't he tell you?" "Only once. I--he--I didn't let him know about us. It was right after you went away. He said you had taken Charlie with you. I met him in the street and stopped only a minute. I had come from your house that day but there was no one at home. I couldn't bear to let things go on as they had. "Now," declared Marjorie, drawing a long breath, "begin at the beginning and tell me every single thing." "I will," assured Constance, emphatically. "Let me see. It began the day after Christmas. A letter came from New York in the morning mail addressed to father. I gave it to him, and after he read it he sat so still and looked so white that I thought he was going to faint. Then he made me come and sit down beside him and told me that the letter was from my mother's sister in New York and that she was rich and wanted me to come and live with her. "I said that I would never desert my own father no matter how poor he was, and then he told me that he was only my foster father, just as he was Charlie's. That my own father had been his best friend when they were boys. Later on, my father became a worthless, drunken wretch and my mother had to do sewing to take care of herself and me. My mother's family never forgave her for marrying my father and would not help her. She was not strong and could not stand it to be so poor and work so hard. She died when I was a year old, and just a month afterward my father died with pneumonia. No one wanted me, so I was put in an orphan asylum, but Father Stevens, who had been trying to find my father, heard where I was and took me to live with him. He wrote to my aunt first, but she said she didn't want me. That is the first part of my story." "It sounds like a story in a book," said Marjorie, softly. "Go on, Connie." "This letter that father received was from my aunt," continued Constance. "She had been trying to find us for more than two years. Finally, she saw father's name signed to an article in the musical magazine, so she wrote a letter and asked the publishers to forward it. She said in the letter that she was now an old woman who had found that blood was thicker than water, and that she wanted her sister's daughter, who must now be a young woman, to come and live with her. With the letter came a jeweler's box, and in the box was the butterfly pin. She sent it to me as a Christmas gift. "I cried and said I would not go, but father said it was the opportunity of my life time and that I must. He said that he had no legal right to me and that he loved me too dearly to stand in my way. It almost broke my heart. How I hated that butterfly and my aunt, too. When you came to see me that unlucky day I was feeling the worst. That very night I wrote my aunt a long letter. I told her just how I felt, how much I loved father and Charlie and poor old Uncle John and that I could never, never give them up. Father didn't know I wrote the letter. He thought I was becoming resigned to going away. I went back to school and wore the pin, as my aunt had asked me to do in a little note enclosed in father's letter. "Then her letter came and it was so much nicer than the other that I cried out of pure happiness. She asked me to bring Charlie to New York. She knew a famous specialist who she thought might help, if not cure him. She asked me to make her a visit and said she would never wish me to come to live with her except of my own free will. "We went to New York as you know, and, Marjorie"--Constance made an impressive pause--"Charlie is going to be entirely well in a little while. The specialist operated on his hip and the operation was successful. He will be able to walk before very long. When he knew I was coming home he said, 'Tell Marjorie that I don't need to ask Santa Claus for a new leg next year, because the good, kind man she told me about fixed mine.'" "Dear little Charlie," murmured Marjorie. "I'm so glad." A pleasant silence fell upon the two young girls. So much had happened that for a brief moment each was busy with her own thoughts. "Are you coming back to school to finish the year, Constance?" asked Marjorie, at last. "Yes. I am going to try to make up for lost time. I'll take in June the examinations I should have tried in January. I hope to be a Sanford sophomore, Marjorie. Aunt Edith is coming to visit us this summer. She is going to bring Charlie home." Constance remained with Marjorie until almost noon. "I wish you'd stay to luncheon," coaxed the little lieutenant. "I can't. I'm sorry. I promised father I'd be home at noon." "Then I wish you were going to the picnic this afternoon." Constance shook her head, looking wistful, nevertheless. "I'd rather not. Mignon will be there. It is better to be out of sight and out of mind until after Monday." "Everything is turning out beautifully," sighed Marjorie. "There's only one thing more that I could possibly wish for." "What is that?" asked Constance quickly. "My lost butterfly." "Perhaps it will fly back home when you least expect it," consoled Constance. "Lost pins don't fly," retorted Marjorie. "If they did my butterfly would have come back to me long ago." But, even then, though she could not know it, her cherished butterfly was poising its golden wings for the homeward flight. CHAPTER XXV MARJORIE DEAN TO THE RESCUE By one o'clock that afternoon 19-- had assembled at the big elm tree on the river road which had been chosen as a meeting place. The flower hunters had planned to follow the road for a mile to a point where a boat house, which had a small teashop connected with it, was situated. Owing to the continued spring weather the proprietor had opened the place earlier than usual and it was decided that the picnickers should make this their headquarters, returning there for tea when they grew tired of roaming the neighboring woods. Marjorie Dean had not hailed the prospect of 19--'s picnic with enthusiasm. She did not welcome the idea of coming into close contact with the little knot of freshmen that were loyal to Mignon La Salle's interests. However, it would be a pleasure to walk in the fresh spring woods and gather flowers, so she started for the rendezvous that afternoon determined to have the best kind of a time possible under the circumstances. She had promised to call for Jerry, but the latter, accompanied by Irma, met her halfway between the two houses. "I thought you were never coming," grumbled the stout girl, in her characteristic fashion. "I've heard those words before," giggled Marjorie. "Haven't you, Irma?" "Something very similar," laughed Irma. Jerry grinned broadly. "Shouldn't be surprised if you had," she admitted. "It's the first May I ever remember that it hasn't rained. I hope the weather doesn't change its mind and pour before we get home." "Don't speak of it," cautioned Irma, superstitiously. "You'll bring rain down upon us if you do. May is a weepy month, you know." "Weeps or no weeps, I suppose we'll have the pleasure of seeing our dear friends, Mignon and Muriel, to-day. I could weep for that," growled Jerry, resentfully. Arrived at the elm tree, the girls found the majority of their classmates already there. To Marjorie's secret disgust, Marcia Arnold was among the number of upper-class girls chosen to chaperon the picnickers. "Mignon's work," confided Jerry, as she caught sight of Marcia. "I hope she falls into the river and gets a good wetting," she added, with cheerful malice. "Jerry!" expostulated Irma in horror. "You mustn't say such awful things." "I didn't say I hoped she'd get drowned," flung back Jerry. "I'd just like to see her get a good ducking." It was impossible not to laugh at Jerry, who, encouraged by their laughter, made various other uncomplimentary remarks about the offending junior. The picnic party set out for the boathouse with merry shouts and echoing laughter. The quiet air rang with the melody of school songs welling from care-free young throats as the crowd of rollicking girls tramped along the river road. Spring had not been niggardly with her flower wealth, and gracious, smiling May trailed her pink-and-white skirts over carpets of living green, starred with hepaticas and spring beauties, while, from under clusters of green-brown leaves, the trailing arbutus lifted its shy, delicate face to peep out, the loveliest messenger of spring. The girls pounced upon the fragrant clumps of blossoms and began an enthusiastic filling of baskets. Held captive by the lure of the waking woods, the time slipped by unnoticed, and it was after four o'clock before the majority of the flower-hunters turned their steps toward the boathouse. Mignon La Salle, Muriel Harding, Marcia Arnold and half a dozen girls who were worshipful admirers of the French girl, soon found flower gathering decidedly monotonous. "Let's hurry out of these stupid woods," proposed Mignon. "My feet are damp and I'm sure I saw a snake a minute ago." "Let's go canoeing," proposed Muriel Harding, as they came in sight of the boathouse. "The very thing," exulted Mignon. "Let me see; there are nine of us. That will be three in a canoe. I'll hire the canoes and tell the man to send the bill to my father." With quick, catlike springs, she ran lightly down the bank, across the road and disappeared into the boathouse. Ten minutes later three canoes floated on the surface of the river, swollen almost to the banks by April's frequent tearful outbursts. Mignon stood on the shore and gave voluble orders as the girls cautiously took seats in the bobbing craft. "Get in, Marcia," she commanded, pointing to the third canoe. Marcia obeyed with nervous expressions of fear. An hour later, from a little slope just inside the woods, Marjorie and her friends, who had reluctantly directed their steps toward the boathouse, glimpsed the returning canoeing party through the trees. The canoers had lifted their voices in song, and Marcia Arnold, forgetful of her fears, was singing as gaily as the rest. "It's dangerous to go canoeing now," commented Jerry, judicially. "The river's too high." "Can you swim?" asked Irma, irrelevantly of Marjorie. "Yes," nodded Marjorie. "I won a prize at the seashore last year for----" A sharp, terror-freighted scream rang out. The eyes of the trio were instantly fastened upon the river, where floated an overturned canoe with two girls struggling near it in the water. They saw the one girl strike out for shore, and, unheeding her companions' wild cries, swim steadily toward the river bank. "Oh!" gasped Marjorie. Then she darted down the slope, scattering the flowers from her basket as she ran. At the river's edge she threw aside her sweater and, sitting down on the ground, tore off her shoes. Poising herself on the bank, she cut the water in a clean, sharp dive and, an instant later, came up not far from Marcia Arnold, who was making desperate efforts to keep afloat. A few skilful strokes and she had reached the now sinking secretary's side. Slipping her left hand under Marcia's chin, she managed to keep her head above water and support her with her left arm while she struck out strongly for shore with her right. The water was very cold, but the distance was short, and Marjorie felt herself equal to her task. To the panic-stricken girls on shore it seemed hours, instead of not more than ten minutes, before Marjorie reached the bank with her burden. Willing hands grasped Marcia, who, with unusual presence of mind for one threatened by drowning, had tried to lighten Marjorie's brave effort to rescue her. Once on dry land she dropped back unconscious, while Marjorie clambered ashore, little disturbed by her wetting. It was Jerry, however, who now rose to the occasion. "Marjorie Dean," she ordered, "go into that tea shop this minute. I'm going to my house to get you some dry clothes. I'll be back in a little while." Marjorie allowed herself to be led into the back room of the little shop, where Marcia was already being divested of her wet clothing. Fifteen minutes afterward the two girls sat garbed in voluminous wrappers, belonging to the boat tender's wife, sipping hot tea. Marjorie smiled and talked gaily with her admiring classmates, but Marcia sat white and silent. Suddenly a girl entered the room and pushed her way through the crowd of girls to Marcia's side. It was Muriel Harding. "How do you feel, Marcia?" she asked tremulously. "I'm all right now," quavered Marcia. Muriel turned impulsively to Marjorie, and bending down, kissed her cheek. "You are a brave, brave girl, Marjorie Dean, and I hope some day I'll be worthy of your friendship." Then she turned and fairly ran from the room. Before Marjorie could recover from her surprise, Jerry's loud, cheerful tones were heard outside. "Here's a whole wardrobe," she proclaimed, setting down two suitcases with a flourish. "I came back in our car, and as soon as you girls are dressed, I'll take you home, and as many more as the car will hold," she added genially. It was a triumphant little procession that marched to the spot where the Macy's huge car stood ready. As Marjorie put her foot on the step a girl's voice called out, "Three cheers for Marjorie Dean!" and the car glided off in the midst of a noisy but heartfelt ovation. They were well down the road when Marjorie felt a timid hand upon hers. Marcia Arnold's eyes looked penitently into her own. "Will you forgive me, Marjorie?" she said, almost in a whisper. "I've been so hateful." "Don't ever think of it again," comforted Marjorie, patting the other girl's hand. "I must think of it," returned Marcia, earnestly. "I--I can't talk about it now, but may I come to see you to-morrow afternoon? I have something to tell you." "Come by all means," invited Marjorie. "I must say good-bye now. Here we are at my house. I hope mother won't be too much alarmed when I tell her. I'll have to explain Jerry's clothes. They are not quite a perfect fit, as you can see." Marcia held the young girl's hand between her own. "I'll come to see you at three o'clock to-morrow afternoon. Maybe I can show you then how deeply I feel what you did for me to-day." "I wonder what she is so mysterious over," thought Marjorie, as she ran up the steps. "I never dreamed that she and I would be friends. And Muriel, too. How perfectly dear she was. But"--Marjorie stopped short in the middle of the veranda--"what do you suppose became of Mignon?" CHAPTER XXVI LETTING BYGONES BE BYGONES Marjorie touched the button of the electric bell for admittance, but her finger had scarcely left it when the door was opened by her mother, who regarded her daughter with mingled amazement and alarm. "Why, Marjorie!" she cried. "What has happened to you?" "Don't be frightened, Mother. I know I look awfully funny!" Marjorie stepped into the hall, with a superb disregard for her strange appearance, assumed with a view to calming Mrs. Dean's fears. "I--a canoe tipped over and I helped one of the girls out of the river and got wet. My clothes are down at the boathouse drying. Jerry went home and brought back some of hers for me. That's why I look so different. She didn't come here for fear of scaring you." "You have been in the river!" gasped her mother in horror, "and it's unusually high just now." "But it didn't hurt me a bit," averred Marjorie, cheerfully. "I can swim, and someone had to help Marcia. Come upstairs with me while I get into my own clothes and I'll tell you all about it." They had reached her room and Mrs. Dean was eyeing her lively little lieutenant doubtfully. "Are you sure you feel well, Marjorie?" she asked anxiously. "Perfectly splendid, Captain," was the extravagant assurance, as Marjorie gently backed her mother into a chair. "I'm going to get out of Jerry's clothes and into my own and then we'll have a nice comfy old talk." Slipping into a one-piece frock of blue linen, Marjorie brushed her dampened brown curls thoroughly dry and let them fall over her shoulders. Placing a sofa pillow on the floor close to her mother, she settled herself cozily at her mother's side and leaned against her knee, looking far more like a little girl than a young woman of seventeen. It was a very long talk, for there was much to be said, and it lasted until the sun dropped low in the west and the early twilight shadows fell. A sudden loud ring of the doorbell sent Marjorie scurrying to the door. She opened it to find a messenger boy, bearing a long, white box with the name of Sanford's principal florist upon it. "For Miss Marjorie Dean," said the boy, handing her the box. "Oh!" ejaculated the surprised lieutenant, almost dropping the box in her astonishment. Carrying it to the living-room table, she lifted the lid and exclaimed again over its fragrant contents. Exquisite, long-stemmed pink roses had been someone's tribute to Marjorie, and a card tucked in among their perfumed petals proclaimed that someone to be Harold Macy. At the bottom of the card was inscribed in Hal's boyish hand, "To my friend, Marjorie Dean, a real heroine." Marjorie had scarcely recovered from this pleasant shock when her father appeared upon the scene and gathered her into his arms with an anxious, "How's my brave little lieutenant?" "Why, General, who told you?" cried Marjorie. "I never dreamed you'd hear of it." "It came to me through Mr. Arnold, who has the next office to mine," said Mr. Dean. "Mrs. Arnold telephoned him as soon as her daughter reached home. She was afraid he might hear an incorrect report of it from some other source." "We never thought of that. We should have telephoned you. But it's my fault. I kept mother up in my room and talked so long to her that she forgot it," avowed Marjorie, apologetically. "It's too late for apologies," Mr. Dean assumed an air of deep injury. Then he laughed and drew from his coat pocket a small package. "Here's an appreciation of bravery," he declared. "To the brave belongs the golden circlet of courage. We might also call it your commission to first lieutenancy. I think you've won your promotion." Marjorie's second surprise was a gold bracelet, delicately chased, for which she had sighed more than once. Sunday dawned as radiantly as had the preceding day. Marjorie went to church in a peculiarly exalted mood, and came home feeling at peace with the world. After dinner she took a book and went out into a little vine-covered pagoda built at one end of the lawn, which was fitted with rustic seats and a small table. Here it was that she and her captain had planned to spend many of the long summer afternoons reading and sewing, and it was here that Marcia found her. "I have something for you, Marjorie," she said in a low voice. Then she opened a little silver mesh bag and drawing forth a small, glittering object handed it to the other girl. Marjorie's eyes opened wide. With a gurgle of joy she caught the little object and fingered it lovingly. "My very own butterfly! Where in the world did you find it, Marcia?" "I didn't find it," returned Marcia, huskily. "Then who did?" "Mignon. She found it the day after you lost it. I don't like to tell you these things, but I believe it is right that you should know. She kept it merely to hurt you. She knew you were fond of it. Muriel told her all about your receiving it as a farewell gift from your friends. I--I--am to blame, too. I knew she had it. She intended to give it back after a while. Then she saw Miss Stevens with one like it and noticed the queer way you looked at her pin in French class that day. She is very shrewd and observing. She suspected that you girls had quarreled, and so she put two and two together. She actually hates Miss Stevens, and told me she would never give the pin back if she could make Miss Stevens any trouble by keeping it. "Then she went to Miss Archer and told her about her bracelet and the pin, too." Marcia paused, looking miserable. "Miss Archer sent for me and questioned me about my pin," said Marjorie, gravely. "She is vexed with me still because I wouldn't say anything. You see I had misjudged Constance. I thought she had found it and kept it. It is only lately that I learned what a dreadful mistake I made. I think I ought to let you know, Marcia, that Constance is in Sanford. She is coming back to school on Monday and going straight to Miss Archer's office to prove her innocence. Constance was Cinderella at the dance Friday night. Jerry made her come to the party on purpose to bring us together. Constance's butterfly pin was a present from her aunt. We know the truth about Mignon's bracelet, too. Did you know that Mignon never lost it, Marcia? She only pretended that she had." The secretary shook her head in emphatic denial. "I'm not guilty of that, at least. I hope I'll never do anything underhanded or dishonorable again. It's dreadful to think that Miss Archer will have to know what a despicable girl I've been, but that's part of my punishment. I suppose she won't have me for her secretary any more." Marcia's face wore an expression of complete resignation. She had been a party to a dishonorable act, and her reaping promised to be bitter indeed. "It means a whole lot to you to be secretary, doesn't it, Marcia?" asked Marjorie, slowly. "Yes. This is my third year. I've been saving the money to go to college. Father couldn't afford to pay all my expenses. I----" Marcia broke down and covered her face with her hands. Marjorie regarded the secretary with a puzzled frown. She was apparently turning over some problem in her mind. "Marcia, how did you obtain my butterfly from Mignon?" Marcia's hands dropped slowly from her face. "I went to her house this morning and made her give it to me. She tried to make me promise that I would say she found it only a day or two ago. I didn't promise. I'm glad I can say that." "Would you go with me to her home?" asked Marjorie, abruptly. "I have thought of a way to settle the whole affair without Miss Archer knowing about either of you." "Oh, if it could only be settled among ourselves!" cried Marcia, clasping her hands. "I'll go with you. She is at home this afternoon, too. I came from her house here." "Wait just a moment, then, until I run indoors for my hat." Marjorie walked briskly across the lawn to the house. She was back in a twinkling, a pretty white flower-trimmed hat on her head, carrying a white fluffy parasol that matched her dainty lingerie gown. "How beautiful Mignon's home is!" she exclaimed softly, as they entered the beautiful grounds of the La Salle estate and walked up the broad driveway bordered with maples. "There's Mignon on the veranda. She is alone. I am glad of that." "What are you going to say to her?" asked Marcia, her curiosity getting the better of her dejection, for Mignon had risen with a muttered exclamation, and was coming toward them with the quick, catlike movements that so characterized her. "What do you mean, Marcia Arnold," she began fiercely, "by----" "Miss Arnold is not responsible for our call this afternoon, Miss La Salle," broke in Marjorie, coolly. "I asked her to come here with me." Mignon glared at the other girl in speechless anger. Her roving black eyes suddenly spied the butterfly pinned in the lace folds of Marjorie's frock. "Oh, I see," she sneered. "You think I'm going to tell you all about your trumpery butterfly pin. You are mistaken, I shall tell you nothing." "I believe I am in possession of all the facts concerning my butterfly," returned Marjorie, dryly, "and also those relating to your supposedly lost bracelet." "'Supposedly lost?'" repeated Mignon, arching her eyebrows. "Have you found it? If you have, give it to me at once." "There is only one person who can do that," said Marjorie, gravely, "and that person is you." The betraying color flew to the French girl's cheeks. "What do you mean?" she asked, but her voice shook. "Why do you ask me that?" retorted Marjorie, with sudden impatience. "You know that on the night of the Weston dance you pretended you had lost your bracelet in order to throw suspicion on Miss Stevens. Someone saw you lay your bracelet on the dressing table. The same person saw you leave the room, return a few minutes afterward and pick it up from the table. How could you be so cruel and dishonorable?" "It isn't true," stormed Mignon. "Constance Stevens is a thief. A thief, do you hear? And when she comes back to Sanford the school shall know it." "No, Constance Stevens is not a thief. You are the real thief," said Marjorie with quiet condemnation. "Knowing the butterfly pin to be mine, you kept it for many weeks. However, I did not come here to quarrel with you. I came to help Marcia and to save you from the effects of your own wrongdoing. Constance Stevens is in Sanford. She is going to Miss Archer to-morrow to prove her innocence. I am going with her. The girl who knows the truth about your bracelet will be there, too. You knew long ago that Constance's butterfly pin was her very own." "Of course I knew it," sneered Mignon. There was a look of consternation in her eyes, however. "Then that is another point against you. You do not deserve to be let off so easily, but for Marcia's sake, I am going to say that if you will go with Constance and me to Miss Archer to-morrow morning and withdraw your charges against Constance, stating that you have your bracelet, we will never mention the subject again. Meet me in Miss Archer's outer office at twenty minutes past eight." She did not even turn to look at the discomfited Mignon as she issued her command. "Marjorie," said Marcia, hesitatingly, as they walked in silence down the poplar-shaded street. "Shall I--had I--do you wish me to go with you to Miss Archer?" Marjorie cast a quick, searching glance at the thoroughly repentant junior. "What for?" she smiled, ignoring all that had been. They had now come to where their ways parted. Marjorie held out her hand. "We are going to be friends forever and always, aren't we, Marcia?" Marcia clasped the extended hand with fervor. "'Forever and always,'" she repeated. And through all their high school days that followed she kept her word. Three unusually silent young women met in Miss Archer's living-room office the next morning and awaited their opportunity to see the principal. "Miss Archer will see you," Marcia Arnold informed them after a wait of perhaps five minutes, and the trio filed into the inner office. "Good morning, girls," greeted Miss Archer, viewing them searchingly. "Miss Stevens, I am glad that you have returned, but I am sorry to say that during your absence I have heard a number of unpleasant rumors concerning you." Constance flushed, then her color receded, leaving her very white. Before the principal could continue, Marjorie's earnest tones rang out. "Miss Archer, Miss Stevens and I had a misunderstanding. When you asked me about it I could not tell you. It has since been cleared away. My butterfly pin has been found, but it was not the one Miss Stevens wore. See, here are the two pins. Mine has no pearls at the tips of the wings." She extended her open palm to the principal. In it lay two butterfly pins, precisely alike save for the pearl-tipped wings of the one. Miss Archer looked long at the pins. Then she lifted them to meet the blue and the brown eyes whose gaze was fastened earnestly upon her. What she saw seemed to satisfy her. She held out her hand to Marjorie and Constance in turn. "They are very alike," was her sole comment, as Marjorie returned Constance's pin. Then Miss Archer turned to Mignon. "I am sorry I accused Miss Stevens of taking my bracelet," murmured Mignon, sulkily. "I have it in my possession. Here it is." She thrust out an unwilling wrist, on which was the bracelet. "I am glad that you have exonerated Miss Stevens from all suspicion." Miss Archer's quiet face expressed little of what was going on in her mind. "I am also thankful that an apparently serious matter has been so easily settled." She did not offer her hand to Mignon, who left the office without answering. A moment later, Marjorie and Constance were in the outer office standing at Marcia Arnold's desk. "It's all settled, Marcia, with no names mentioned," she said reassuringly. "Good-bye, we'll see you later. We'll have to hurry or we'll be late for the opening exercises." In the corridor outside the study hall, Marcia and Constance paused by common consent and faced each other. "Connie, dear," Marjorie said softly. "There's only a little more than a month of our freshman year left. It isn't very much time, but I believe we won't have to try very hard to make up in happiness for what we've lost." "I am so happy this morning, and so grateful to you, Marjorie, for all you've done for me, and most of all for your friendship," was Constance's earnest answer. "I hope you will never have cause to question my loyalty and that next year we'll be sophomore chums, tried and true." "We'll simply have to be," laughed Marjorie, with joyous certainty, "for I don't see how we can very well get along without each other." THE END ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE GIRL SCOUTS SERIES By Edith Lavell A new copyright series of Girl Scouts stories by an author of wide experience in Scouts' craft, as Director of Girl Scouts of Philadelphia. Clothbound, with Attractive Color Designs. Price, 65 Cents Each. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT MISS ALLEN'S SCHOOL THE GIRL SCOUTS AT CAMP THE GIRL SCOUTS' GOOD TURN THE GIRL SCOUTS' CANOE TRIP THE GIRL SCOUTS' RIVALS THE GIRL SCOUTS ON THE RANCH THE GIRL SCOUTS' VACATION ADVENTURES THE GIRL SCOUTS' MOTOR TRIP For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the Publishers. A. L. BURT COMPANY 114-120 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MARJORIE DEAN COLLEGE SERIES By Pauline Lester Author of the Famous Marjorie Dean High School Series. Those who have read the Marjorie Dean High School Series will be eager to read this new series, as Marjorie Dean continues to be the heroine in these stories. All Cloth Bound. Copyright Titles. Price, 65 Cents Each. MARJORIE DEAN, COLLEGE FRESHMAN MARJORIE DEAN, COLLEGE SOPHOMORE MARJORIE DEAN, COLLEGE JUNIOR MARJORIE DEAN, COLLEGE SENIOR For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the Publishers. A. L. BURT COMPANY 114-120 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MARJORIE DEAN HIGH SCHOOL SERIES By Pauline Lester Author of the Famous Marjorie Dean College Series. These are clean, wholesome stories that will be of great interest to all girls of high school age. All Cloth Bound. Copyright Titles. Price, 65 Cents Each. MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMAN MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL SOPHOMORE MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL JUNIOR MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the Publishers. A. L. BURT COMPANY 114-120 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS SERIES By Hildegard G. Frey A Series of Outdoor Stories for Girls 12 to 16 Years. All Cloth Bound. Copyright Titles. Price, 65 Cents Each. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN THE MAINE WOODS; or, The Winnebagos go Camping. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SCHOOL; or, The Wohelo Weavers. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT ONOWAY HOUSE; or, The Magic Garden. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS GO MOTORING; or, Along the Road That Leads the Way. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS' LARKS AND PRANKS; or, The House of the Open Door. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON ELLEN'S ISLE; or, The Trail of the Seven Cedars. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON THE OPEN ROAD; or, Glorify Work. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS DO THEIR BIT; or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS SOLVE A MYSTERY; or, The Christmas Adventure at Carver House. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT CAMP KEEWAYDIN; or, Down Paddles. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the Publishers. A. L. BURT COMPANY 114-120 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK * * * * * * Transcriber's Notes 1. Punctuation and hyphenation have been brought into conformity with current standards. 2. Obvious typographical errors corrected. 3. Modifications to text: p. 62 came to she ears -> came to her ears p. 132 "Yes," answered the Marjorie -> Yes, answered Marjorie p. 144 voicing the pent-up long -> voicing the pent-up longing p. 197 lace took on an expression -> face took on an expression 
32310	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 32310-h.htm or 32310-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32310/32310-h/32310-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32310/32310-h.zip) DOROTHY AT OAK KNOWE by EVELYN RAYMOND New York Hurst & Co., Inc. Publishers * * * * * THE DOROTHY BOOKS By EVELYN RAYMOND These stories of an American girl by an American author have made "Dorothy" a household synonym for all that is fascinating. Truth and realism are stamped on every page. The interest never flags, and is ofttimes intense. No more happy choice can be made for gift books, so sure are they to win approval and please not only the young in years, but also "grown-ups" who are young in heart and spirit. Dorothy Dorothy at Skyrie Dorothy's Schooling Dorothy's Travels Dorothy's House Party Dorothy in California Dorothy on a Ranch Dorothy's House Boat Dorothy at Oak Knowe Dorothy's Triumph Dorothy's Tour COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY THE PLATT & PECK CO. * * * * * [Illustration: "EVER RIDE IN AN OX-CART"? _Dorothy at Oak Knowe._] CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. ON THE ROAD TO OAK KNOWE 9 II. UNFORTUNATE BEGINNINGS 24 III. PEERS AND COMMONS 39 IV. THE GILPINS HAVE A PARTY 55 V. THE FRIGHT OF MILLIKINS-PILLIKINS 69 VI. AT THE FALL OF THE MAIDEN'S BATH 85 VII. ALL HALLOW EVE FESTIVITIES 102 VIII. PEER AND COMMONER 117 IX. THE NIGHT THAT FOLLOWED 133 X. OPEN CONFESSION IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL 148 XI. WHAT CAME WITH THE SNOW AND ICE 164 XII. JOHN GILPIN JOINS THE SPORT 182 XIII. A BAD DAY FOR JOHN GILPIN 193 XIV. EXPLANATIONS ARE IN ORDER 206 XV. MRS. JARLEY ENTERTAINS 221 XVI. A PERPLEXING PROBLEM OF LIFE 232 XVII. COMMENCEMENT; AND CONCLUSION 249 DOROTHY AT OAK KNOWE CHAPTER I ON THE ROAD TO OAK KNOWE "This way for the Queen!" "Here you are for the Duke of Connaught! Right this way!" "Want the Metropole, Miss?" "Room there, stupid! She's from the States--any fool could see that! I'm from your hotel, little lady, the American. Your luggage, Miss, allow me?" If Dorothy's hands hadn't been too full, she would have clapped them over her ears, to drown the cries of the hackmen who swarmed about her as she stepped from the train at the railway station in Toronto. As it was, she clung desperately to her bag and shawlstrap, which the man from the American hotel seemed bound to seize, whether or no. But her heart sank and it was a forlorn little girl, indeed, who looked anxiously around seeking some face on which might be a smile of welcome. But nobody paid any attention to her, except the obstreperous hackmen, and in a sudden fright she let fall the tears she had so bravely kept back until then. It had been a long and lonely journey, but she had been assured that she would be promptly met and cared for when it ended. Now, amid all the throng of travelers and those who awaited them, not one was looking for a "dark haired girl in navy blue" and the tears fell faster as she cried aloud: "Oh! what shall I do! What shall I do!" Even the hackmen had forsaken her in pursuit of other, more promising patrons. The short autumn day was at its close and in the growing darkness her fright increased and her usual common sense left her. But, as she spoke, a hand was laid upon her shoulder and a rather gruff voice demanded: "Why, little stranger, what's a-troublin' ye?" Dorothy winked her tears away and looked up into the face of an old man, whose gray beard swept his breast while his head was entirely bald. He wore a long blue smock, carried an ox-goad in one hand and a canvas bag in the other. He looked as kind as he was homely and Dorothy answered quickly: "I'm lost, I guess. Or forgotten, and that's just as bad! I--I--" "Lost? Right here in this town? Well, that couldn't hardly be. Though I own it's a biggish place. But if you be, I'll see to it that you get found again, immediate. First start--who be ye?" "I'm Dorothy Calvert, from Baltimore. I came to the Oak Knowe School for Girls. Somebody was to meet me. Nobody has and--and--I don't know what to do." John Gilpin whistled and exclaimed: "No! Never! I saw at a glance you was no Cannuck! The little maids we raise in our Province have redder cheeks 'an yours. An' we don't let 'em go traversin' round the universe without their mothers or leastways nurses to look after 'em. But bless my soul, you've fell into safe hands. I know old Oak Knowe well. No better school in the whole Empire nor that. Moresomever, there's been some miscarry betwixt your folks and the Lady Principal or she'd never let you come to this pass. But my road lies same as yours. I'll just step-an'-fetch my oxen and head 'em straight for home. We'll get to the School in next to no time. Leastways, betwixt now and bedding-bell--they ring it about half-past nine." "Is it so far? Why, it must be hours till then!" At the cheerful sound of this old teamster's voice Dorothy forgot her fear. She didn't stop to reflect that she should have waited quietly in the station till somebody called for her, nor that she might have telephoned to her teachers to announce her arrival. All she realized was that here was a friend in need and that he was a quaintly interesting person. "'Tis a matter of some miles, lassie, and my old oxen are no electric tram. Slow and sure's their motto and what's an hour, more or less, in a little girl's lifetime? You got a box?" Dorothy glanced at the rug and magazine, tightly strapped together, and at the handbag she had set down upon the platform and replied: "No, Mr.--I don't know your name yet--I haven't now. I had one, but I ate the lunch out of it and tossed it from the car window." The old man stared as if she had spoken nonsense, but informed her: "Gilpin's my name. John Gilpin; but my dame says I'm no descendant of him that took that famous ride as is in the story books. I'm too slow, Dame says. But is all your clothes in that satchel?" It was Dorothy's turn to stare and to laugh. "Oh! no, indeed! They're in my trunk. Here is my check. Number 70777. I put that down in my little notebook, though it's easy to remember." "Humph! I've heard that in the States they call a box a 'trunk,' same's if it was an elephant. Well, give me the check. I'll just step-an'-fetch it and we'll be jogging." Mr. Gilpin took the check and lumbered away, dragging one leg stiffly as if he could not bend the knee, while Dorothy's spirits rose as she watched him. After all, this was a real adventure; and when it was over and she was safe at her fine school, she could write all about it to the friends at home. Thinking about them, she forgot how long John Gilpin tarried and roused from her reverie with a start when his hearty voice, guiding his oxen, came around the corner of the station. "Here we be, lassie! Ever ride in an ox-cart? Ever see a neater yoke o' cattle? That's an unco big box for a small maid to own and hefty, to boot. Step right in, for it's gathering clouds, I see, and we can't have that tidy dress of yours get spoiled while it's new." It was easy to "step in" to the low-hung vehicle and Dorothy nestled against her new friend on his spring-seat forward; all the back part of the wagon being filled with empty barrels and her own trunk. It had been some sort of holiday in the city and the streets were gay with flags and bunting, causing Dorothy to exclaim: "Why, it's just like Halifax, that time Earl Grey was coming! It's just as English as that was--even more so, for I don't see Old Glory anywhere, and there I did." Old John turned his bare, bald head toward her and demanded: "What do you know about Halifax? Or the Governor General? I thought you was United States." "So I am, so I am! But people may travel once in a while, mayn't they? I can tell you lots about Halifax, even though I was there but a little while. That was on a vacation journey and it was delight-ful!" Then, finding the farmer so interested, Dorothy eagerly recited the story of her "Travels" and their happy ending at her rightful home at Deerhurst and in the love of her Great-Aunt Betty. "Sounds like a story book, now don't it! And to think after all that the old lady should be willin' to despatch you up here to our Province, just to get a mite of education. Should ha' thought there'd be institooshuns of learning nigher hand 'an Oak Knowe, where she could ha' clapped eyes on ye, now and again. She--" "Oh! don't misjudge my darling aunt! She hated to have me come as badly as I hated to leave her; but, though I've never been really ill, she fancied that this climate would make me very, very strong. Besides, the minister who founded Oak Knowe--he was a bishop, I believe--was one of her girlhood friends, and so she chose it for that, too. Anyway, to her who has traveled so much, Canada and Maryland seem but a little way apart." "That's right, lassie. That's right. Be loyal to your friends, whether they be right or wrong. An' talk about travel, there beant many corners of this earth that I haven't took a glance at. I've not always been a farmer, though you mightn't think it now." They had passed out of the city streets into the open country, the oxen swaying and pacing sedately along, as if it mattered nothing how late they might reach home. To pass the time, Dorothy asked the old man to talk about his own travels, and he promptly answered: "In course, and obleeged for anybody to care to listen. Dame has heard my yarns so often, she scoffs 'em; but I've seen a power o' things in my day, a power o' things. I was born in Lunnon, raised in Glasgo', run away to Liverpool and shipped afore the mast. From sailor I turned soldier under Chinese Gordon--Ah! the man he wus! Miner, constable, me Lord's butler, then his cook, and now, at the fag end of my days, settled down to be my Dame's right-hand-man. She was a likely widow, coming from England to take up land here, and I met her aboard ship, last time I crossed seas. Didn't take us long to strike a bargain. She needed a man to till her farm; I needed a good woman to mend me and do for me, for I was that tired of rovin'--my hearties! We get along well. We get along prime. I do the talking and her does the thinking. She's that uncommon thing--a silent woman. Like to hear how I come nigh-hand to death along of a devil fish? Want to feel your hair rise on end and your arms get reg'lar goose-fleshy? Makes me nigh get that way myself, every time I recall--Whist! If that ain't thunder I'm a-dreamin', sure! Thunder this season of the year! Now that's fair ridic'lous. But mentionin' devil fish, yon comes one them red go-devils, Dame calls 'em, as squawkin', blazing-eyed automobeelyers--comin' this minute. No marvel natur' gets topsy-turvy with them wild things ramsaging round. But, quick, lassie! Do your young eyes see something or somebody lying beyond in the middle of the road?" The old man checked his garrulous tongue to rise and peer into the darkness, while Dorothy sprang to her feet beside him, straining her own eyes to follow his pointing finger. "There is, there is! Looks like a man or boy or bicycle or something and that horrid car is coming right toward it! Make 'em stop! Holloa! Loud, loud, for they don't see him! they'll run over him--he'll be killed!" But still the gay occupants of the car observed nothing; till at last a fiercer shriek from Dorothy sounded above their laughter and instantly hushed it, while the driver of the machine looked curiously at the cart which the wise oxen, perceiving their own danger, had drawn out of harm on the roadside. But the stop had been too late. Though the motor was swerved aside, it had already collided with the objects in its path, and it was in a terrified silence that the merrymakers descended from it. But even old John had been quicker than they and was now bending above the lad crushed beneath the forward wheels of this hated "go-devil." "Oh! my poor lad! Oh! my sunny Robin!" he groaned: then in a fury of anger at the great machine, tried his strength to lift it from its victim. Fortunately there were several men in the party, and the car well equipped against mischance, and so it was swiftly forced away, while the farmer again stooped over the motionless lad beneath and tenderly raised him in his arms. For a moment the group gathered about the pair believed that the boy was dead; then a low moan from his white lips mingled with the lamentations of John Gilpin and brought relief to everyone. Again came flashes of lightning and the growls of thunder, and the owner of the car exclaimed: "Lay the boy in the motor and we'll get him to a hospital at once. Maybe he isn't so badly hurt as seems. Pile up the cushions, somebody, and give him to me, old man. I'm stronger than you and better used to sick folks. Doctor Winston is my name." "The more shame to you then for what you've done this night!" hotly retorted old John, clasping his burden the closer and moving slowly toward his own humble cart. "Idiot! Don't put him in that shaky wagon. Delay may cost his life. Hospital's the place and the car is swiftest!" cried another of the gentlemen, indignantly. "Of course we'll see to it that he has the best of care with no expense spared." As if he had not heard, old John still moved away, quietly ordering Dorothy: "Undo that shawl of yours. Roll them barrels out of the wagon. Take off your jacket and make a piller of it. Spread the shawl out and cover him with part of it whilst I lay him down. Poor little Robin! The 'only son of his mother and she was a widow.'" Dorothy was glad to obey this strange old man who had been so genial and was now so stern, and it relieved her distress to be doing something to help. But as she tried to roll the barrels out, a hand fell on her arm and the doctor said: "I'll do that, Miss. They're too heavy for you. I wish you'd persuade your grandfather to trust me with this poor boy. It would be so much better." "He isn't my grandfather. I don't know him--I mean he was taking me--" But her words fell upon deaf ears, apparently. Having sent the empty barrels flying where they would, the doctor had now taken the pile of cushions somebody had brought him and arranged them on the wagon bottom. Next he calmly relieved John Gilpin of the injured boy and laid him gently down. Shaking out Dorothy's thick steamer rug, her "shawl," he carefully covered Robin and, sitting down beside him, ordered: "Drive on, farmer! Chauffeur, follow with the car. Lady Jane, the medicine case. To the nearest house at once." There was no resisting the firm authority of the physician and John Gilpin climbed meekly to his seat and at his urgent "gee-ho" the oxen started onward at a steady gait. But despite his anxiety there was a satisfaction in their owner's mind that the "nearest house" would be his own and that it would be his capable "Dame" who would care for Robin and not a hospital nurse. Meanwhile Dorothy seemed forgotten both by the people who had returned to their car and Mr. Gilpin; so, fearing that she would be left alone by the roadside, she sprang upon the end of the cart and sat there, her feet dangling over its edge. Now, indeed, her adventure was proving anything but amusing. What would Aunt Betty think of her heedless action? Or her dear guardian, Seth Winters, the "learned Blacksmith," wisest of men, whom the reader of this series will recall in "Dorothy's Schooling." Would she ever reach Oak Knowe, and how would this escapade be regarded there? Into her troubled thoughts now broke a sound of pain, that drove everything save pity from her mind. The rain was now falling fast and drenching her new clothes, but her anxiety was only that the injured boy should not get wet and she was glad that her rug was so thick and warm. It had been a parting gift from her "House-Boat" guests and held almost sacred as a memento of their happy trip together. But now the oxen were turning into a lane. She could dimly see the hedgerows on either side, that now and then the lightning flashes showed more plainly; and, after a time, something big and white seemed to block their way. A moment more and the white obstruction proved to be a cottage with a lamp shining through its window. Then a door opened and a woman's voice called cheerily: "Welcome home, my man! You're late the night. Met you up with any trouble? Didn't the apples sell well?" "More trouble than you dream, Dame, and I've fetched it for you to share. Light the bedroom to once. 'Tis the dead--or dyin'--is here." Without a word the woman turned away, moving heavily because of her great size, and an inner door opened, showing a comfortable bed, its covers already invitingly spread back. Lighting more candles the dame stood quietly aside, waiting her unexpected guest. The doctor brought the boy in, still wrapped in the rug and, tossing that to the floor, gently laid him down. John followed close behind, announcing: "'Tis Robin, Dame, our bonny Robin of the Glen. The heart of the mother will break. He--" "Help here. Hot water, please. More light. An old sheet for bandages. Don't dally. Undress him, Lady Jane." "But, doctor, I'm afraid!" objected that lady who, partly from curiosity, partly to avoid the rain, had followed the physician into the house. Indeed, all the motoring party had now swarmed into the kitchen, intending to be quiet yet really chattering noisily, and some of them sniffing covetously the odors from a great pot of soup, steaming away on the stove. But nobody was quite ready to respond to the doctor's appeals for help, even Mrs. Gilpin being confused and stupid before these strangers who had taken possession of her home. As for old John, he could simply stand and stare at the unconscious lad on the bed, too dazed and grieved to be of any use whatever. Not so Dorothy, who had entered with the rest and who noticed Dr. Winston's impatience--who knew that a hospital was where his patient should be and not this ill-equipped cottage. Throwing off her dripping jacket, she cried: "I'll help." A teakettle was singing beside the soup-pot on the stove and a dishpan was hanging near. To empty the kettle into the pan and to carry it to the chair beside the bed was an instant's task. Then, seizing the upper sheet and using her teeth for scissors, she swiftly tore it into strips; and by this time the dame had regained her own presence of mind. Without troubling to ask who Dorothy was or how she came to be there, she now took charge of things, saying: "You'll find clean towels in that chest of drawers. Fetch the doctor a pile. Shears are yon in that work-basket. You're spry on your feet as I can't be, but I do know how to take the clothes off this poor Robin. My, what's this he clenches so tight in hand? One of them telegraph letters 'tis his errand to deliver. All over the countryside the laddie rode on his wheel to earn the bit money would pay his mother's rent. Brave, bonny lad that he was!" Gently releasing the telegram from his fingers, Mrs. Gilpin held it up for the doctor to see. "For Oak Knowe. Open it, little girl, and read if it's important." She obeyed, but her voice trembled as she read. It was the belated message that announced her own coming and the hour of her arrival. It explained why she had not been met at the station, but she felt both shocked and guilty as she exclaimed: "Oh! it is my fault! It's all my fault that he is killed! Just about me it happened! What shall I do--what shall I do?" "Stop that sort of talk and see how your dead boy stares at you! Look well, Robin, you see a real live Yankee girl!" CHAPTER II UNFORTUNATE BEGINNINGS Even the most cultured Lady Principals do not enjoy being roused from their slumbers, an hour after midnight, by the tooting of a motor car beneath their bedroom windows. It was annoying to have to dress again and descend to a dimly-lighted reception room to receive a new pupil who had missed a train, on the route, and misdirected her telegram. Nor was there anything prepossessing about this especial girl, whose clothes steamed with moisture and whose travel-soiled cheeks were streaked by raindrops and tears. So it was small wonder that Dorothy's reception by Miss Muriel Tross-Kingdon was decidedly cool and crisp. "This is really unprecedented, Miss Calvert. I cannot understand how any young lady, whose friends consider her intelligent enough to travel alone, could have made such stupid blunders, as you have. At the point where you knew you were to change trains, why did you not keep watch and inquire for direction?" "Well, you see there was a military parade and the soldiers looked so queer in their red uniforms and their funny little caps on the sides of their heads that--that--that I forgot. I mean the timetable told the right hour, course, but the first train was behind and so--and so--" It was a very lame excuse and Dolly knew it. But it was the truth and as such she gave it. Miss Tross-Kingdon made no reply. Inwardly she was commenting upon Dorothy's pronunciation of certain words, which was wholly at fault according to English custom, and realizing that here was the first fault to be corrected in her new pupil. Dorothy's heart sank. Uncle Seth's last advice to her had been: "Whenever you feel blue, just wave your flag of high courage and march ahead. Don't stop to think! March, march, march--toward the better time that will surely come." But that high-courage flag hung limply now and she felt she could never again wave it at all. But, fortunately, the Lady Principal now rose to terminate the interview. Touching an electric bell for the maid on night duty, she said: "It is very late and you are tired. Dawkins will show you to your cubicle and assist you in undressing. You may omit your bath, to-night, and are allowed an extra hour of sleep in the morning. Where are your suit case and hand bag?" Dorothy rose, as the lady did, but a fresh feeling of guilt made her eyes fall as she murmured: "I--don't--know." "Don't know!" echoed the Lady Principal, in amazement. Then directing Dawkins to supply what was needed, she returned to her interrupted repose, while Dorothy wearily followed the stern-faced maid; being cautioned, meanwhile: "Do not dare to make a noise and arouse the young ladies." Yet arrived at the cubicle, or small division of the great dormitory which had been assigned her, Dorothy realized that Dawkins was kinder than she looked. For presently she was being undressed, her face and hands sponged with cool water, and herself reclothed with the freshest of gowns. Then she was bodily lifted into the dainty little bed as if she were a baby. This unexpected gentleness touched her heart and, flinging her arms about the maid's neck, she sobbed: "Oh! do be good to me! I am so desolate!" "Whist, child! We must no be wakin' the troublesome girls around. And sure the lonesomeness'll pass, like the dew afore sun, once you get a good sleep and meet up with your mates. Good night, child, and sleep well." Then, since there was nobody to witness her unusual demonstration, maid Dawkins stooped and kissed the tired eyes of her new charge, and went quietly away. But there had been one observer of this caress. Peeping from her own compartment stood a girl whose keen eyes had noticed everything, and who felt she could scarcely wait until morning to spread the news. Creeping back to her own bed, she lay long awake, thinking the matter over. For this schoolgirl, who rejoiced in the title of the Honorable Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard, had a deal of curiosity that was wholly roused now. "Never saw old Dawkins kiss anybody. Dawkins, of all creatures! Never knew a new girl come at this time of night--and she certainly was new. And she hadn't any clothes, I know, because that was one of the school hampers Dawkins had. Must be somebody very poor. I wonder who! Maybe--for goodness sake! Maybe she's some relation to old Dawk! Else why should she kiss her? Humph! I thought this was a school for young ladies, not for the poor relations of servants. There's one thing certain, mamma will never allow me to remain where there are paupers. Never in this world. Neither would Lord Christopher let Marjorie. No, indeed. So will Miss Tross-Kingdon find out. Why! one charity pupil at Oak Knowe would ruin it! Anyhow, I mean to hurry round in the morning and warn all my set against noticing the beggar and what our set does surely goes. Mamma gets odd notions about things, sometimes, like saying I must sleep in this old dormitory instead of having a private room, and that I have silly feelings about rank. Wanted the Lady Principal to make me more democratic: but even she couldn't wish me to sleep among paupers. Heigho! I wish it was morning! But I'll take a nap now and that will pass the time." Exhausted by the long journey she had taken, and by the startling events of the night, unconscious Dorothy slept calmly on, little dreaming of Gwendolyn's fancies about her; nor did she wake till long after all her dormitory mates had dressed and gone below to breakfast. When she did arouse it was to wonder about this strange place in which she found herself and at an elfish-looking child perched on the foot of her little bed, staring at her with wide eyes and keen impatience, and who greeted her first movement with the exclamation: "Well, old sleepy-head, I thought you never would wake up! Who are you, anyway, and what makes you stay in cubicle so long after breakfast? Won't you catch a lecture, though! I wouldn't be in your shoes for a sovereign!" "Don't believe you could be in them. You're so small they'd fall off," answered Dorothy laughing. "No, they wouldn't. I'd tie them on. If I wanted to. Who are you? When'd you come? How dare you stay in bed so?" Dolly laughed again. She had fallen asleep convinced that she could never laugh again, so tired and homesick had she been. But now, refreshed by rest and with the sunlight streaming through the windows, the world seemed a very different place. Besides, there was something so winning about this inquisitive little maid, that the stranger's heart was comforted that she had found a friend already. "Well, dearie, I suppose I dare because Miss Tross-Kingdon--" "Did she say you could? Isn't that odd! She's my aunt. I haven't any folks 'cept her, I'm a norphan. I'm Millikins-Pillikins, my brother Hugh calls me; and the girls, too. But I'm not, really. I'm Grace Adelaide Victoria Tross-Kingdon. That's my truly name. Nobody could call me all that, could they? Wouldn't be time. Auntie Princie calls me just plain 'darling' or 'dear.' I'm a Minim. I don't have to do lessons and things. I'm in the 'kindy.' Auntie Princie doesn't approve of a kindergarten in this School for Young Ladies; but it's a speriment the Board of Directioners wanted to try. Them's the gentlemen auntie has to mind. Fancy! My great big grown-up Auntie Prin having to mind them, same's I have to mind her! My Lord Bishop, he's the head Directioner, but he's the jolliest! I just love him! He knew my papa and mamma before they got drowned in the sea. My brother Hugh lives with the Bishop and writes things for him. They call him a seckeratary. He gets money for doing it. Think of that! Sometimes he gives me pennies and even six-pences. Sometimes--not often. You see he wants to earn enough to buy a cottage for him and me. I'm to be the lady of it--the mistress! Fancy! But Auntie Princie says I have lots to learn before then. I will have to make his bread, 'cause he won't have money enough to keep me and a cook, too. I'll have to have a housemaid to help me, but you know housemaids never do the cooking. But say, girl, you haven't told me your name yet?" Dorothy sat up in bed and drew the child toward her: "My dear, you haven't given me a chance yet, you've been so busy telling me who you are. But I've enjoyed it and I thank you for coming to wake me up. Now I must get up and dress. Maybe you will show me to the bathroom, though I don't like to go about in this way." "That's a school nightie you've got on. Where's your bath robe?" "In my trunk." "Where's your trunk?" "I suppose it's at John Gilpin's house. That is, if he didn't throw it out of the cart with the empty barrels." "Why did he throw out the barrels?" "To make a place for Robin to lie on." "What Robin?" "The messenger boy who was hurt. He was bringing my telegram and he fainted and fell and the motor car--but I mustn't stop now to talk. I must get dressed." "Couldn't you talk without stopping? I could." "I believe you, child. Will you show me?" "Of course--if you'll tell the rest. Wait. If you want a robe I'll get Gwendolyn's. It's right yonder." So it happened that the first act of the supposed charity pupil was to borrow a garment of the very girl who had so misjudged her, and who entered the dormitory just as Dorothy was leaving it for the lavatory. Curiosity had sent Gwendolyn and Laura Griswold, her chum and "shadow," back to this apartment at this unusual hour, but at sight of Dorothy disappearing toward the bath wearing Gwendolyn's robe, its owner forgot her curiosity in indignation. Stopping short, midway the great room, she clasped her hands in a tragic manner and demanded of Laura: "Did you ever in your life see anything so cool as that? The impudent girl! How dare she? I wonder what else she's taken! And that mischievous little Pill with her. That child's the nuisance of this school. Even if she is Lady Principal's niece, she shouldn't be given the liberty she has. But I'll report." "Yes, indeed, I'd report!" echoed Laura. "First, have to sleep in the school things; then help herself to yours. It's simply outrageous. Why not go right away? It's recess and Miss Tross-Kingdon has no class." "She has worse. The Bishop's in the reception-room, and Dr. Winston, too. They were all talking very fast and I wanted to stop and listen. But I didn't quite dare, for she was facing the door and might see me. But I did hear the Bishop say that if she was a Calvert she could hardly fail to be all right. She came of good stock--none better. I wondered who he meant; but Lady Principal saw me looking in and asked me if 'I wished anything?' Hateful woman! She has the most disagreeable manners!" "Never mind. Anyway, let's go tell her!" advised Laura, and the pair departed. However, the electric bell rang just then, announcing that recess was over and the telling had to be postponed to a better season. A few moments later a maid came to say that as soon as Dorothy was ready the Lady Principal would receive her in the west parlor. But she might stop in the breakfast-room on the way, where a dish of cereal and a bowl of hot milk was awaiting her. The maid added to the "Little Pill": "As for you, Miss Grace, the Minims are ready for their calisthenics and your teacher wants you." "But I don't want her. I want to go with Dolly." "You're too big a girl for dolls, Miss Grace, and quite big enough to obey orders." Grace's sharp little face darkened and she made a mocking grimace to the maid, retorting: "You don't know anything, Dora Bond! You don't know that the Dolly I play with is this new girl. I shall go with her. I hate them exercises. They make my back ache. I'm excused to-day, anyhow. I heard Auntie Princie tell a lady how I wasn't a bit strong and that she had to indulge me a lot. I shall do as I please. I shall go where I like. I shall, so, old Bondy! So there!" Dorothy was surprised by the unpleasant expression which had settled on the little girl's face, but said nothing. Following Bond's direction, she hurried through a long hall to a sunshiny breakfast-room and the simple meal prepared for her. She hastily drank the milk, but had no appetite for the cereal. Her heart was in a flutter of anxiety about the coming interview with Miss Tross-Kingdon. She had at once disliked and feared that lady, on the night before, and felt that her present appearance, in a rain-spotted frock and with her hair so hastily brushed, must only add to the sternness of this unknown Lady Principal. However, the clinging hand of Millikins-Pillikins gave a little comfort. She didn't feel quite so lonely and timid with the child beside her and, as she made her graceful curtsey at the open door, all her fear vanished and she became once more the self-possessed Dorothy of old. For, rising and crossing the room to meet her was her acquaintance of the night, who had brought her to Oak Knowe in his own car from John Gilpin's cottage. With extended hands he grasped hers and, turning to Miss Muriel, remarked: "Any time you need a nurse, madam, just call upon this little lady. She was the best helper I had last night. Quick and quiet and intelligent. She must train herself for that vocation when she is older." The color flew to Dorothy's cheeks and she flashed him a grateful smile, for the kind words that so soothed her homesick heart. The other gentleman in the room did not rise, but held out a beckoning hand and, with another curtsey to Doctor Winston, Dorothy excused herself to him and obeyed the summons. This other was a venerable man with a queer-shaped cap upon his white head and wearing knee breeches and gaiters, which made the young American remember some pictures of old Continental statesmen. "So this is my old friend Betty Calvert's child, is it? Well, well! You're as like her as possible--yet only her great-niece. Ha, hum! Little lady, you carry me straight back to the days of my boyhood, when my parents came from England--strangers to your Baltimore. But we were not strangers for long. There's a distant blood relation between our house and yours and we youngsters found in beautiful Bellevieu a second home. So you must remember that, since your aunt has done me the honor to send you away up here to this school of mine--of ours, I should say--you have come to another home just as I did then. Dear little Betty! What a mischief she was! Are you mischievous, too, I wonder?" Then he turned to the Lady Principal, warning her: "Look out for this little miss, Miss Tross-Kingdon! She looks as meek as a lamb, just now, but blood will tell and she'll bear watching, I believe." The dear old man had drawn Dorothy close to his side and was smiling upon her in a manner to win the heart of any girl and to cure her of her homesickness--at least for the time being. When he released her, he rose to depart, resuming for a moment the business talk with the Lady Principal, which Dorothy's entrance had interrupted. Both she and the doctor also arose and stood respectfully waiting till the Bishop disappeared. Then said Dr. Winston: "You'll like to hear about your boy patient, I suppose, Miss Calvert. Well, I think he's all right, or will be as soon as his bones and bruises mend. What I suspect is that the brave lad is about half-starved--or was. He's in danger of being overfed now, since he has fallen into Dame Gilpin's hands." "Half-starved, sir? How dreadful!" cried Dorothy, while Miss Tross-Kingdon exclaimed: "Can that be possible!" "Quite possible, indeed. His mother is a widow and very frail, old John tells me. Her husband was a carpenter who worked in town and was trying to pay for the little place he'd bought out here in the suburbs, hoping the open-air life might cure her. She'd gone into chicken and flower culture, thinking she could help in the payment. They were proud of Robin, the 'brightest, merriest, best boy in the Glen,' John claims, and had somehow got a second-hand bicycle for him to ride into school for the 'grand eddication' they wanted he should have. Then the father died and Robin got a position as messenger boy. Every cent he earned he gave his mother and she took in sewing. They ate just as little as they could and the result has been disastrous. A growing boy can't work all day and half the night, sometimes, on a diet of bread and water. So last night he fainted on his trip and fell off his wheel in the middle of the road. Then I came speeding along toward home and smashed them both up. But it's an ill wind that blows nobody good and the lad's accident may turn out his blessing. Dorothy and I and the Dame have mended a collar bone and a couple of ribs and my ambitious young 'Mercury' is laid up for repairs. John 'step-and-fetched' the mother, Mrs. Locke, and she, too, will get some rest and nourishment. She's worrying a good deal, but has no need. Plucky little Robin will soon be chirping again, 'fine as silk.' Maybe, after school hours, Miss Tross-Kingdon will permit me to take Dorothy with me in the car to visit her patient. May I, Madam?" The Lady Principal did not look pleased. The Bishop's and the doctor's treatment of the new pupil had really softened her heart toward the girl, but she was a stickler for "rules" and "discipline," and remembered that this was not the day on which her "young ladies" were allowed to pay visits. "Thank you, Doctor Winston, but I am obliged to decline the invitation for to-day. She has entered Oak Knowe some time after the opening of term and must pass examination, that I may understand for which Form she is best fitted. Nor have I yet been advised of such houses as her guardians desire her to visit. Commonly, the young ladies of Oak Knowe do not consort with laborers and messenger boys. But I thank you for your courtesy toward her; and, as that is the bell for my class in Greek, I must beg you to excuse me and I wish you good morning, Dr. Winston. Come, Miss Calvert, I will have your examination begin at once. Make your obeisance to the doctor." Dolly's heart sank. Why should she be made to feel so guilty and insignificant? Still, as she turned to follow the teacher, she obediently saluted the physician and, glancing up into his face, saw--was it possible that he winked? Though she felt as she were going to be tried for her life, this sight so surprised her, that she giggled hysterically and thus irreverently followed the haughty instructress out of the room. So doing, she added one more to the list of misdemeanors that lady had already placed against her account. CHAPTER III PEERS AND COMMONS Along the hall down which Dorothy followed the Lady Principal were many doors opening into small class rooms. Each class was under its especial teacher, its number being limited to ten students. It was the policy of the school that by this division better instruction could be given each pupil, and Dorothy wondered to which of these groups--if any--she would be assigned. Another hall and other class rooms joined the first and longer one, at a right angle, and here Miss Muriel paused, directing: "Proceed down this corridor till you reach the parlor at its end. There you will find Miss Hexam awaiting you. She will test your scholarship and report to me. Do not fail to answer her questions promptly and distinctly. I observe that you do not enunciate well. You slur some of your words and clip the endings from your participles. To say 'hopin'' or 'runnin'' is execrable. Also, there is no such word as 'daown' or 'araoun'.'" Dorothy's temper rose. She had done nothing right, it seemed, since she had arrived at this "school for criticism," as she termed it, and now said pertly: "I reckon that's the Southern way of talking. I noticed that the Bishop didn't bother about his 'gs' and he had the same twang that all do down home. He must have lived there a right smart time when he was little." "Many things are permissible in a cultured old gentleman which are not in an ignorant and forward girl. You came here for your own improvement. I shall see that you attain it; or, if you fail in this after a reasonable trial, you cannot be retained. That rule is plainly stated in our circular. I will bid you good morning until I send for you." Poor Dorothy fairly withered under this sternness that she felt was unjust, but she felt, also, that she had been impertinent, and running after Miss Muriel, as she moved away, she caught the lady's sleeve, imploring: "Please don't think I'm all bad, Miss Tross-Kingdon! I've been heedless and saucy, but I didn't mean it--not for badness. Please wait and try me and I _will_ 'improve,' as you said. Please, please! It would break Aunt Betty's heart if she thought I wasn't good and--and I'm so unhappy! Please forgive me." The dark eyes, lifted so appealingly, filled with tears which their owner bravely restrained, and the Lady Principal was touched by this self-control. Also, under all her sternness, she was just. "Certainly, Dorothy, your apology is sufficient. Now go at once to Miss Hexam and do yourself credit. If you have studied music, another person will examine you in that." Impulsively Dorothy caught the lady's hand and kissed it; and, fortunately, did not observe that dainty person wipe off the caress with her handkerchief. Then summoning her courage, the new pupil hurried to the end parlor and entered it as she had been taught. But the "den of inquisition," as some of the girls had named it, proved anything but that to Dorothy. "The Inquisitor" was a lovely, white-haired woman, clothed in soft white wool, and smiling so gently toward the trembling girl that all fear instantly left her. "So this is Dorothy Calvert, our little maid from Dixie. You'll find a wide difference between your Southland and our Province, but I hope you'll find the change a pleasant one. Take this chair before the fire. You'll find it comfortable. I love these autumn days, when a blazing log can keep us warm. It's so fragrant and cheerful and far more romantic than a coil of steam pipe. Have a biscuit, dear?" Miss Hexam motioned to a low wicker chair, which some girls had declared a "chair of torture," but which suited Dorothy exactly, for it was own mate to her own little reading chair "at home." Almost she could have kissed it for its likeness, but was allowed no time for foolishness. The homely little treat of the simple crackers banished all shyness and the dreaded "exam" proved really but a social visit, the girl not dreaming that under this friendly talk was a careful probing of her own character and attainments. Nor did she understand just then how greatly her answers pleased the gentle "Inquisitor." "You want me to 'begin at the beginning'? Why, that's a long way back, when I was a mere midget. A baby only a year and a half old. Papa and mamma died away out west, but, of course, I didn't know that then. I didn't know anything, I reckon, except how to make Mother Martha trouble. My father was Aunt Betty's nephew and she didn't like his marrying mamma. I don't know why; only Ephraim says 'Miss Betty was allays full o' notions same's a aig's full o' meat.' Ephy's Aunt Betty's 'boy,' about as old as she is--something over eighty. Nobody knows just auntie's real age, except Ephraim and Dinah. They've lived with her always and treat her now just as if she were a child. It's too funny for words, sometimes, to hear the three of them argue over some thing or trifle. She'll let them go a certain length; then all at once she'll put on her dignity and they fairly begin to tremble. She's mistress then and they're her servants, but I do believe either one would die to prolong her life. Dinah says: ''Pears lak death an' dyin' nebah gwine come nigh my Miss Betty Calvert.' And she's just right. Everybody thinks my darling aunt is the sweetest, most wonderful woman in the world. But I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to talk so much and hinder your examination." "Oh! that is all right. I love to hear your story that you've left off at its beginning. You're only a 'baby' so far, you know." "Well, if you like. When my father died, my mother felt that she would die, too, and she couldn't bear to leave me alone. So she just sent me to Aunt Betty. But she felt, auntie did, that she couldn't be bothered with a 'squalling baby,' nor could she cast me off, really. 'Cause she was my real great-aunt and my nearest relation and was rich enough to do what she liked in a money way. Besides, she wanted me to be raised real sensible. So she picked out a splendid couple she knew and had me left on their doorstep. She had pinned to my clothes that my name was 'Dorothy C.' Their name began with 'C,' too, so they guessed I was meant for them to keep, because they hadn't any other child. What a lot I'm talking! Do you want to hear any more? Won't the Lady Principal be angry if I don't get examined?" "I will make that all right, Dorothy, and I am greatly interested. It's 'like a story out of a book,' as the Minims say. Go on, please." "Well, these dear people took care of me till I was a real big girl. I love them dearly. He was a postman and he walked too much. So he had to lose his position with lameness and he's never gotten over it, though he's better now. He has a position in a sanitarium for other lame folks and Mother Martha is the housekeeper, or matron, there. Uncle Seth Winters, who knows so much that he is called the 'Learned Blacksmith,' is my guardian. He and Aunt Betty have been dearest friends ever since they were little. They call each other cousin, though they're no kin at all, any more than he's my uncle. He was my first teacher at his 'school in the woods,' but felt I ought to go to a school for girls. So I went to the Rhinelander Academy and he stayed at his smithy on the mountain, near Mother Martha's little farm and Aunt Betty's big one, and one vacation auntie told me who I was and took me home to live with her; and she liked Oak Knowe because the Bishop is her lifelong friend. She has had my name on the list waiting for a vacancy for a long, long time; so it's a terrible pity I should have been horrid, and offended the Lady Principal." "Let us hope she is not seriously offended, dear, nor have you told me what the offense is. But bear in mind, Dorothy, that she is at the head of a great and famous institution and must strictly live up to its standards and keep her pupils to their duty. But she is absolutely just, as you will learn in time. "I feel like hearing music, to-day, but get very little. All our practice rooms are sound-deadened. Do you play at all, on any instrument, or sing?" "A little of both, when I'm at home. Not well in either, though Aunt Betty loves my violin and my little songs. If I had it here, I would try for you, if you'd like. But it's in my trunk, my 'box,' Mr. Gilpin called it." Miss Hexam smiled and, opening a little secretary, took out an old Cremona, explaining: "This was my brother's, who died when I was young. He was a master of it, had many pupils. I allow few to touch it, but I'd be pleased to have you, if you would like." "Would you? May I?" asked Dorothy, handling it reverently for its sacredness to this loving old sister. And, after she had tuned it, as reverently for its own sake. It was a rare old instrument of sweetest tone and almost unconsciously Dorothy tried one theme after another upon it while Miss Hexam leaned back in her chair listening and motionless. Into that playing the young musician put all the love and homesickness of her own heart. It seemed as if she were back at Deerhurst, with the Great Danes lying on the rug at her feet and dear Aunt Betty resting before the fire. Then, when memory threatened to bring the tears she was determined should not fall, she stopped, laid the violin silently upon the table and slipped out of the room, leaving Miss Hexam still motionless in her chair. But she would have been surprised had she looked back into the "inquisition chamber" a few moments later to see the "inquisitor" arouse, seize a sheet of paper and rapidly write a few lines upon it. But the few lines were important. They gave a synopsis of Dorothy's scholarship and accomplishments, and unerringly assigned her to "Form IVb, class of Miss Aldrich." The "terrible exam" was over and Dorothy hadn't known a thing about it! Outside that little parlor another surprise awaited her. A crowd of girls was racing madly down the hall, the foremost looking backward as she ran and roughly colliding with Dorothy; with the result that both fell; while the others, following in such speed, were unable to check in time to prevent their tumbling over the first pair. Then such shrieks of laughter rang out that the teachers in the nearby classrooms came to their doors in haste. Even they were obliged to smile over the heap of girls and the tangle of legs and arms as the fallen ones strove to extricate themselves. They were all in gymnasium-costume and were bound for a side door of the building which led by a short cut to the gymnasium in the Annex. This was Dorothy's introduction to the "Commons," the largest and wildest "set" in the great school. They were all daughters of good families but of no "rank" or titles; and there was an abiding opposition among them to the "Peers," the smaller "set" of aristocrats to which the Honorable Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard and Lady Marjorie Lancaster belonged. Mostly the "Commons" were a rollicking company, going to the extreme limits of behavior where any fun promised to follow, yet mostly keeping just safely within rules. Their escapades kept the faculty in considerable anxiety as to what they would do next, yet their very gayety was the life of Oak Knowe and even the Lady Principal was secretly fonder of them than of the more dignified "Peers." As they now scrambled to their feet, she who had run against Dorothy heartily apologized, yet paused half-way in that apology to stare and remark: "Why, heigho, there! I thought you were a Minim, you're so little. But I fancy you're a newcomer whom I don't know. Please explain; are you 'Peer' or 'Lower House'?" Dorothy laughed: "'Lower House,' I thought when you knocked me down, whatever that may be." "It means--is your father an Earl? or your mother a Duchess? Have you an Honorable amongst you? You hold your curly head as if you might have all three!" All the girls had now gathered about the stranger whom their leader was so unceremoniously quizzing and were eagerly inspecting her, but somehow Dorothy did not resent the scrutiny. There were big girls and little ones, fat girls and thin ones, plain and pretty, but each so good-natured looking and so friendly in her curiosity that Dolly's own spirits rose in response to their liveliness. "No, indeed! I'm just a plain American girl and prouder of that than of any title in the world. You see, all of _us_ are queens in our own right!" answered the newcomer, promptly. "Well, come on then; you belong to us and we all belong to the queen. Queen, what shall we call you? Where do you hail from?" "My home is in Baltimore, and my name is Dorothy Calvert." "Then you must be a sort of 'Peer' after all. I hate history, but I remember about that, for Lord Baltimore and Calvert are the same thing, I fancy. I'm sorry. I hoped you belonged to our 'set' and weren't an aristocrat." "But I'm not, I'm not!" protested Dorothy. "I do belong to you, I want to because you look so friendly and I need friends dreadfully. I'm so lonely, or I was. I've just come, you know." "Have you been 'inquisitioned' yet?" "I don't understand." The questioner explained, and Dorothy exclaimed: "Oh! I think that's cruel! Miss Hexam is perfectly lovely!" "So do we think, course, and she doesn't mind the nickname. It was first given her by a silly Seventh Form girl who thought she was all ready for the University yet failed to pass even a Fifth Form exam. I guess you'll not be put to study to-day, so best come over to the gym with us. What stunts can you do?" "None. But I've told you my name and you haven't told yours. Thank you, though, for asking me. I'm so glad to go." "Oh! you poor little lonesome Queen Baltimore! I'm Winifred Christie; this freckle face is Fannie Dimock; Annie Dow wears that blue bow in her hair; Florita Sheraton is the fat one; Ernesta Smith the thin; Bessie Walters--well, no need to point out Bessie. She's the nimblest girl in the gym. We here extend the freedom of the Lower House; and all in favor of grabbing this Yankee into our set before the other set catches her, say--Aye!" "Aye--aye--aye!" endorsed the motion and Dorothy clapped her hands over her ears, to keep out the ear-splitting shouts. How these girls dared make such an uproar amazed her; but she did not yet know that in the "long recess," now passing, much liberty was permitted and that a noise which did not interfere with study hours was not reprimanded. "It's the overflow of natural spirits and inevitable in the young," was one of the Bishop's beliefs, and not even the Lady Principal disputed his authority. "Come on, Queenie, and be put through your paces!" cried Winifred, throwing her arm around Dorothy's shoulders and forcibly racing her out of doors and across the lawn toward the gymnasium. But arrived there only one or two of the group attempted any exercise. The rest settled around Dorothy, whom the athletic Winifred had tossed upward upon the back of the wooden horse, and, with her arms folded upon the newcomer's knees, this leader of the "Commons" proceeded to cross-question her victim. [Illustration: "PROCEEDED TO CROSS-QUESTION HER VICTIM." _Dorothy at Oak Knowe._] "It's the cast-iron rule of our set to find out everything about anybody we receive into it. Begin at the date of your birth and proceed in a seemly manner until you come up to date. Where were you born? What sort of baby were you--good, bad, or indifferent? Begin!" Entering into the spirit of the thing Dorothy gave her simple life history in a few sentences. But when the questions came as to the events of the last few days her face grew serious and her voice faltered. "Why did I come to Oak Knowe alone? Because there was nobody to come with me. That is, Dinah or Ephraim, who might have come, couldn't be trusted to go back alone. My dearest girl friend, Molly Breckenridge, had been enrolled here and we expected to come together, but the Judge's health suddenly broke down and he was ordered to California and couldn't part with her. Uncle Seth wasn't well. He's my guardian and Aunt Betty's friend. She's my great aunt who takes care of me but she wouldn't leave Uncle Seth, even if he's not our kin at all, though we call him so. Jim Barlow is tutoring in a boys' school and; well, Aunt Betty said I could perfectly well and safely travel alone. I was put into the conductor's care when I started from Baltimore and he passed me along to the next one, and they've all been splendid to me. There'd have been no mistakes if I hadn't been careless myself. But I was. I missed a train I should have taken and didn't send the telegram I ought at the right time and there was nobody at the station to meet me and--and--" "The idea! A girl like you, traveling all the way from Baltimore to Toronto without a maid or any grown-up to take care of her! That's the strangest thing I ever heard. Weren't you just awfully scared all the time?" asked Florita Sheraton, amazed. "An English girl would have been in a blue funk every minute of the time." "I don't know anything about a blue or other colored funk, but every well-bred American girl can take care of herself if she chooses. If she 'loses her head' she gets into trouble right away. I lost mine last night and went riding off at dark with a strange old man, who said he'd bring me here, instead of stepping into the telegraph office and wiring the Lady Principal. Then all I'd have had to do would be to wait for her to send for me, and after all it wasn't the old man who brought me, it was Dr. Winston in his motor. He called here this morning and asked me to ride back with him and see Robin, but Miss Tross-Kingdon wouldn't let me." "Course she wouldn't. She never lets anybody do anything she wants to, if she can help it. Hateful old thing!" remarked Bessie Walters; at which the others laughed and Annie Dow inquired, "Who is Robin?" Dorothy told the story of last night, her new acquaintances listening intently, and Winifred commenting: "If you aren't the very luckiest girl in the world! Why I never had an adventure in my life, yet I'm ages older than you." At this a shout of derision rose, and Fannie Dimock exclaimed: "Don't believe that, Queen Baltimore. There's scarcely a day passes that she isn't in some scrape or other. Why, last term, she was in disgrace so often I really believed she wouldn't be allowed to come back." "Oh! little things like that don't count. But--" she stopped speaking so abruptly and such an earnest expression settled on her face that a mate remarked: "Look! There's something brewing this minute! Look out, Win, what you do! Don't mix any of us up in your schemes. I don't want any more extras so soon again;" then explained to Dorothy that "extras" were some difficult lessons any culprit was obliged to learn. Just then came the bell for mid-day luncheon, and all the Commons except Winifred answered the summons promptly. But she lingered behind, detaining Dorothy till the others were out of hearing, and then suggested something to her which made her clap her hands in delight. For the secret thus imparted seemed the simplest thing possible and one in which, to Dolly's ignorance of Oak Knowe rules, was entirely right. Arm in arm, the new friends entered the dining-room and Winifred marched Dorothy steadily forward to a seat at her own table, just opposite that occupied by some of the other "set," with the Honorable Gwendolyn among them. Dolly glanced across and nodded, but that titled young person returned the nod with a stare so intent and contemptuous that the color flashed to the stranger's face and her eyes fell as if she were in guilt. Yet she couldn't guess why, nor why she should be relieved when there arose a sudden diversion outside the doorway toward which everybody turned their eyes. CHAPTER IV THE GILPINS HAVE A PARTY The young ladies of Oak Knowe went out for their afternoon exercise for the half hour before supper. Those who had been long at the school were allowed to roam about the spacious grounds without a teacher, but newcomers, or those who wished to go further afield, were always attended by one. Most of Winifred's motherless life had been passed at Oak Knowe, even few of her vacations elsewhere. Her father was a very wealthy man, of large affairs which carried him often from the Province, to England or countries further away, so that his home was seldom opened. But to compensate his daughter for this state of things he had arranged with the authorities that her school life should be made as homelike as possible. She had her own private room with a tiny parlor and private bath adjoining. She was allowed to entertain her schoolmates there as she would have done in her father's house; always, of course, within the limits set by the faculty. But Winifred cared little for all this unusual luxury. She rarely asked for any money "banked" with the Lady Principal beyond the twenty-five cents a week which any pupil might spend; and she liked the common parlor far better than her own richly furnished one. Nothing hurt her feelings more than to have her mates refer to her wealth or to treat her differently from the poorest pupil. But there were times when she enjoyed her privileges to the utmost, and that first day of Dorothy's life at Oak Knowe was one such. Not having been "in disgrace" for a week at least she confidently asked permission to entertain the newcomer in her rooms, "Just we two by ourselves. She's lonely and I like her. Please, Miss Tross-Kingdon." "You'll be quiet, Winifred, and keep out of mischief?" asked the Lady Principal, with more gentleness than ordinary. It was natural that she should feel great interest in the girl she had almost reared and whose own power for good or ill Winifred herself could not yet comprehend. "Ah, now, Miss Muriel, you know I will! Why, surely, I've been as good for a whole week as if I were a kindergarten Minim. You should trust me more. I read the other day that people are just what you think they are. So, whatever you want me to be, please just think I _am_ and I'll be it!" and the audacious creature actually dabbed a kiss on the Lady Principal's own cheek. "Wheedler! Well, I'll try to fancy you're a saint, but I'm not so fanciful about this Dorothy Calvert. She's a pretty little thing and my Grace made friends with her at once and the Bishop says she is of good blood. That counts, of course, but she seems to me a little headstrong and very stupid. I don't yet understand how Miss Hexam came to put her into so high a Form. However, I know that she is very homesick, as all new pupils are, so you may entertain her if you wish. A maid shall send you in a tray and you are excused from school supper; but see to it, Winifred, that you use your influence aright. The more favored a person is in this world the more that individual should watch her own actions." Winifred thanked the teacher and backed out of the room as if in the presence of royalty itself. This action in itself was offensive to the teacher but was one she could hardly criticise; nor did she guess that, once out of sight, the "wheedler" should first stamp her foot and exclaim: "I'm sick to death of hearing about my 'influence' and being an 'individual.' Makes me feel like a spider, that time the German count came to visit Father and called his attention to 'that individual crawling down the wall.' He meant 'one, a solitary thing.' But I'm no 'solitary' just because Father has a little money. I often wish he hadn't a pound, especially when some of the 'Peers' try to make me believe he is at least a 'Sir'." Then hurrying to Dorothy she danced about in delight at her success. "Yes, she says you may come, and she's sure to send us in a fine supper. Miss Muriel Tross-Kingdon never does a thing by halves, not even a lecture on 'individual influence.' Queen Baltimore, aren't you glad you're poor?" "Neither glad nor sorry, Winifred, because I'm neither rich nor poor. Anyway neither of us can help being just as we are, I reckon." "Come on, though, and hurry up. 'If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly,'" quoted Winifred, whose class reading just then was "Macbeth"; and seizing the smaller girl whirled merrily down the hall. Five minutes later, with hats and jackets on, they joined the other pupils out of doors. To Dorothy it seemed the beautiful grounds were alive with all sorts and conditions of girls, pacing rapidly up and down, "sprinting" to warm themselves against the chill of the coming evening, playing tennis for the brief half-hour, or racing one another from point to point. There were girls so many and so various, from Seventh Form young ladies to the wee little Minims, that Dolly wondered if she would ever know them all or feel herself a member of the great company. But Winifred gave her little time to gaze about her. "Oh! don't bother with them now. Our way is that lower gate, and it's a good bit of a distance, I hope you're a good walker." "Pretty good, I reckon," answered Dolly falling into step with the taller girl and hurrying forward at even a swifter pace. "But, begging your pardon, that's no way. We Canadians learn pedestrianism--whew! what a long word!--just as we learn our letters. Begin very slowly at first. Then when your muscles are limbered, walk faster--and faster--and faster! Till it seems as if your legs swing up and down of their own accord, just like machines. It's wonderful then how little you tire and how far you can go. Slack up a bit and I'll show you." Absorbed in this new lesson Dorothy scarcely noticed when they left Oak Knowe limits and struck out along a country lane, with hedgerows at either side; nor when having climbed a stile they set out across a plowed field, till her feet grew heavy with the soil they gathered. "Oh! dear! What mud! Why do you walk in it, Winifred?" "It's the shortest road. Here's a stone. Stop a bit and scrape it off--as I do. See?" answered the other, calmly illustrating her advice. "But I don't like it. My shoes will be ruined!" wailed Dolly who was always finical about "dirt." "Humph! Haven't you another pair? But they ought to be--such flimsy-wimpsy affairs! Look at mine. A bit of mud more or less can't hurt them and it's the boot-boy's business to clean them." The English girl held forth a good sized foot clad in a still larger shoe of calfskin, which though soiled with the clay had not absorbed much of its moisture: while the finer affairs of Dorothy's were already wet through, making her uncomfortable. "I couldn't walk in such heavy boots. And it's raining again. It rained last night. Does it rain every day in Canada? We ought to go back. Do let's, and try this some other time. I reckon this will finish my new suit, entirely." Winifred put her arms akimbo and stared at her new friend. Then burst into a hearty laugh over Dorothy's disgusted face. "Ha, ha, ha! And 'I reckon,' little southerner, that you'll be a more sensible girl after you've lived up here a while. The idea of turning back because it rains! absurd! Why, it's fine, just fine! The Lady Principal will overhaul your fair-weather-clothes and see that you get some fit to stand anything. This homespun suit of mine couldn't get wet through if it tried! But I shan't stand here, in the middle of a plowed field, and let it try. Come on. Its the States against the Province! Who'll win?" "I will! For old Maryland and the President!" cried Dorothy, and valiantly strode forward again. "For our Province and the King!" shouted the Canadian; and after that neither spoke, till the long walk ended before the cottage door of old John Gilpin and his dame. There Winifred gave a smart tap to the panel and holding her hand toward Dorothy, cried: "Quits, Queen Baltimore! We'll call it even and I'll never doubt your pluck again. But you certainly must get some decent clothes--if I have to buy them myself!" Then the door opened and there stood old John, peering from the lamp-lighted room into the twilight without. After a second he recognized Dorothy and drew her in, exclaiming joyfully: "Why, Dame, 'tis our little lass herself! Her of the night last spent and the helping hand! Step ben, step ben, and 'tother miss with ye. You're surely welcome as the flowers in spring." Mrs. Gilpin came ponderously forward, a smile on her big but comely face, and silently greeted both visitors, while her more nimble husband promptly "step-an'-fetched" the best chairs in the room and placed them before the fire. "Dry yourselves, lassies, whilst I tell the Robin you've come to see him. He'll be that proud, poor laddie, to have Oak Knowe young ladies pay him that honor! and he's mending fine, mending fine, doctor says. The mother--" He disappeared within that inner chamber still talking and as happy now as he had seemed sorrowful when Dorothy parted from him on the night before. Then he had anticipated nothing less than death for the boy he loved, despite the doctor's assurance to the contrary. He came back leading a woman by the hand, as protectingly as if she had been a child, and introduced her as: "The bit mother hersel'! Look at her well. Isn't she the very sight and image of Robin, the lad? And mind how she's pickin' up already. Just one day of good victuals and Dame's cossetting and the pink's streamin' back to her cheeks. Please the good Lord they'll never get that thin again whilst I have my ox-team to haul with and the Dame's good land to till. I'll just step-an'-fetch the rocker out--" At that point in his remarks the Dame laid a hand on his shoulder, saying: "That'll do, John Gilpin. Just brew a cup of tea. I'll tell the lad." Winifred was amused at this wifely reprimand, but no offense seemed meant nor taken. The farmer stopped talking and deftly made the tea from the boiling kettle, added a couple of plates to the waiting supper table, and drew from the oven a mighty dish of baked beans that might have been cooked in Yankee-land, and flanked this by a Yorkshire pudding. "Oh! how nice that smells!" cried Dorothy, springing up to add the knives and forks from the dresser; while Winifred clapped her hands in a pretended ecstasy and sniffed the savory odors, admitting: "I'm as hungry as hungry! And this beats any supper I asked for at Oak Knowe. I hope they'll want us to stay!" Her frankness made timid little Mrs. Locke smile as she had not been able to do since she had known of Robin's accident, and smiling was good for her. Indeed, the whole atmosphere of this simple, comfortable home was good for her, and the high spirits of these three young people delightful to her care-burdened heart. For, presently, it was the three--not least of these her idol, her Robin! Dorothy had followed the Dame into the boy's room and Winifred had promptly followed her; and because he was the sunny-hearted lad which the farmer had claimed him to be, he put all thought of his own pain or trouble out of mind, and laughed with the two girls at their awkward attempts at feeding him from the tray on the stand beside the bed. Having to lie flat upon his back he could still use one arm and could have fed himself fairly well. But this his visitors would not allow; and he was obliged to submit when Winifred, playfully struggling with Dolly for "My time now!" thrust a spoon into his ear instead of his mouth. The truth was that under the girl's assumed indifference to the fact that she was breaking rules by "visiting without permission" lay a feeling of guilt. "Double guilt" she knew, because she had imposed upon Dorothy's ignorance by stating that during "exercise hour" any long resident pupil was free to go where she chose. This was true, but only in a measure. What was not true was that so distant a point as John Gilpin's cottage should be chosen, much less entered without permission. But curiosity had been too strong for her and she had resented, on Dorothy's account, the refusal of Dr. Winston's invitation in the morning. Besides, she argued with her own conscience: "We're excused from school supper and free to entertain each other in my room till chapel. What difference does it make, and who will know? To-morrow, I'll go and 'fess to Miss Muriel and if she is displeased I'll take my punishment, whatever it is, without a word. Anyhow, Dolly can't be punished for what she doesn't know is wrong." So, feeling that she "was in for it, anyway" Winifred's mood grew reckless and she "let herself go" to a positive hilarity. Dorothy watched and listened in surprise but soon caught her schoolmate's spirit, and jested and laughed as merrily as she. Even Robin tried to match their funny remarks with odd stories of his own and after a little time, when he had eaten as much as they could make him, began to sing a long rigmarole, of innumerable verses, that began with the same words and ended midway each verse, only to resume. It was all something about the king and the queen and the "hull r'yal famblely" which Dorothy promptly capped with an improved version of Yankee Doodle. Whereupon, the absurd jumble and discord of the two contrasting tunes proved too much for old John's gravity. Springing up from his chair in the outer room he seized his fiddle from its shelf and scraped away on a tune of his own. For his fiddle was his great delight and his one resort at times when his wife silenced his voluble tongue. The old fiddle was sadly out of tune and Dorothy couldn't endure that. Running to him she begged him: "Oh! do stop that, please, please! Here, let me take and get it into shape. You make me cringe, you squawk so!" "You fix it? you, lassie! Well, if that don't beat the Dutch! What else do they l'arn children over in the States? Leave 'em to go sky-larkin' round the country in railway carriages all by themsel's, and how to help doctors set broken bones, and how to fiddle a tune--Stars an' Garters! What next? Here, child, take her and make her hum!" Presently, the preliminary squeaks and discords, incident to "tuning up," were over and Dorothy began a simple melody that made all her hearers quietly listen. One after another the familiar things which Aunt Betty and her guardian loved best came into her mind; and remembering the beloved scenes where she had last played them, her feeling of homesickness and longing made her render them so movingly that soon the little widow was crying and Robin's sensitive face showed signs of his own tears following hers. The tempting supper had remained untouched thus far. But now the sight of his guests' emotion, and a warning huskiness in his own throat, brought John Gilpin to his feet. "This isn't no mournin' party, little miss, and you quit, you quit that right square off. Understand? Something lively's more to this occasion than all that solemcholy 'Old Lang Synin', 'or 'Wearin' Awa'' business. Touch us off a 'Highland Fling,' and if that t'other girl, was gigglin' so a few minutes gone, 'll do me the honor"--here the old fellow bowed low to Winifred--"I'll show you how the figger should be danced. I can cut a pigeon-wing yet, with the supplest." Away rolled the table into the further corner of the room: even the Dame merely moving her own chair aside. For she had watched the widow's face and grieved to see it growing sad again, where a little while before it had been cheerful. Dorothy understood, and swiftly changed from the "Land O' the Leal" to the gay dance melody demanded. Then laughter came back, for it was so funny to see the farmer's exaggerated flourish as he bowed again to Winifred and gallantly led her to the middle of the kitchen floor, now cleared for action. Then followed the merriest jig that ever was danced in that old cottage, or many another. The cuts and the capers, the flings and pigeon-wings that bald-headed John Gilpin displayed were little short of marvelous. Forgotten was the dragging foot that now soared as high as the other, while perspiration streamed from his wrinkled face, flushed to an apoplectic crimson by this violent exercise. Winifred was no whit behind. Away flung her jacket and then her hat. Off flew the farmer's smock, always worn for a coat and to protect the homespun suit beneath. The pace grew mad and madder, following the movement of the old fiddle which Dorothy played to its swiftest. Robin's blue eyes grew big with wonder and he whistled his liveliest, to keep up with the wild antics he could see in the outer room. Nobody heard a knock upon the door, repeated until patience ceased, and then it softly opened. A full moment the visitor waited there, gazing upon this orgy of motion; then with an ultra flourish of her skirts Winifred faced about and beheld--the Lady Principal! CHAPTER V THE FRIGHT OF MILLIKINS-PILLIKINS For another moment there was utter silence in the cottage. Even the Dame's calmness forsook her, the absurd performance of her bald-headed husband making her ashamed of him. She had seen the Lady Principal passing along the road beyond the lane but had never met her so closely, and she felt that the mistress of Oak Knowe was high above common mortals. However, as the flush died out of Miss Tross-Kingdon's face Mrs. Gilpin's ordinary manner returned and she advanced in welcome. "You do us proud, madam, by this call. Pray come in and be seated." "Yes, yes, do!" cried John, interrupting. "I'll just step-an'-fetch the arm-chair out o' Robin's room. 'Twas carried there for his mother to rest in. She--" The mortified old fellow was vainly trying to put back the smock he had so recklessly discarded and without which he never felt fully dressed. He hated a coat and wore one only on Sundays, at church. But his frantic efforts to don this garment but added to his own discomfiture, for he slipped it on backwards, the buttons behind, grimacing fiercely at his failure to fasten them. One glance toward him set all the young folks laughing, he looked so comical, and even the dignified caller was forced to smile. "Don't see what's so terrible funny as to send ye all into a tee-hee's-nest! but if so be _you_ do, why giggle away and get shut of it!" testily cried the poor old man. To have been caught "making a fool of himself" was a "bitter pill" for him to swallow; having always prided himself upon his correct deportment. It was, as usual, the portly Dame who came to his relief, reminding: "There, husband, that will do." Then she quietly drew the smock over his head and slipped it back in proper guise. With this upon him his composure returned, and he apologized to Miss Tross-Kingdon as any gentleman might have done. "Sorry to have kep' you standing so long, lady, but I'll step-an'-fetch--" However he was spared that necessity. Dorothy had heard and understood that the best chair in the house must be placed at the caller's service and had as promptly brought it. For a moment Miss Tross-Kingdon still stood as if she would decline, till, seeing the disappointment on her host's face, she accepted it with: "Thank you. My errand could easily have been done without so troubling you. I came to see if you have any more of that variety of apples that you sent us last time. The _chef_ declares they are the finest yet. Have you?" "Yes, lady, I've got a few bar'ls left. Leastwise, my Dame has. She can speak for hersel', if so be she wants to part with 'em. I heard her say she meant to keep 'em for our own winter use. But--" "That will do, John. Bring a pan from the further bin and show Miss Tross-Kingdon. Maybe she'll like them just as well." "All right, wife. I'll step-an'-fetch 'em to oncet." So this obedient husband went out, his lame foot once more dragging heavily behind him, and he managing as he departed to pass by Dorothy and firmly clutch her sleeve, as he hoarsely whispered: "Did you ever see the beat! In your mortal 'arthly life, did ye? Well, I'm ashamed to the marrer of my bones to be caught cavortin' round like the donkey I was. Come on down suller with me and I'll get the apples. But carry 'em back--I shan't. Not this night. That woman--lady, I mean--has got eyes like gimlets and the less she bores 'em into old John Gilpin the better he'll like it. Worst is, what'll dame think? She won't say much. She's a rare silent woman, dame is, but she can do a power of thinking. Oh! hum!" So it happened that Dorothy returned to the kitchen, fairly staggering under the weight of the biggest pan of apples that the farmer could find. Mrs. Gilpin took them from her and showed them to the Lady Principal, who was inwardly disappointed at the failure of her visit. But the business was speedily concluded and, rising, she bade Mrs. Gilpin good evening. The only notice she bestowed upon her runaway pupils was to offer: "If your visit is ended, young ladies, you may return to Oak Knowe in my carriage." Dorothy did not yet know how serious an offense she had committed and merely thought that the Lady Principal was "stiffer" even than usual; not once speaking again until the school was reached. Then, as she moved away ignoring Winifred entirely, she bade Dorothy: "Go to your dormitory, take a warm bath, and dress yourself freshly all through. Your luggage has been unpacked and arranged in your wardrobe. Put on one of your wool gowns for the evening, and come to Assembly Hall. We are to have a lecture and concert, beginning at eight. Punctual attendance required." "She acts and looks as if we had done something dreadful, but I can't guess what," said Dorothy, perplexed. "Lucky for you that you can't! Your ignorance of school rules may save you this time, but it can't save me. One of the hardest things about it is, that you and I will be prohibited each other's 'society' for nobody knows how long. I'm a wild black sheep, who's led a little lamb--that's you--astray. It was fun--_was_ fun, mind you, but--but it's all over for Winifred!" "Win, you darling, what do you mean?" demanded Dolly, throwing her arms about her new friend's neck in great distress. "I mean exactly what I say. I'm an old offender, I've been there before and ought to know better. I did like you so! Well, never mind! The milk is spilled and no use crying about it!" Dorothy was surprised to see tears suddenly fill Winifred's eyes and to feel her clinging arms gently loosened. Under all her affected indifference, the girl was evidently suffering, but as evidently resented having sympathy shown her; so the new pupil made no further comment, but asked: "Do we have supper before that lecture? and should I dress before the supper?" "Huh! There'll be no supper for you nor me this night! And I'm just ravenous hungry! Why was I such a fool as to dance that jig instead of eating that pudding and beans? Yorkshire pudding's just delicious, if it's made right, and the Dame's looked better even than our _chef's_. If one could only look ahead in this world, how wise one would be, 'specially in the matter of suppers! Well, good-by, Queenie, with aching heart from you I part; when shall we meet again? Ah! me! When?" With a gesture of despair, half-comical, half-serious, the older girl dashed down the corridor and Dorothy turned slowly toward her own little room. There she found her luggage unpacked, her frocks and shoes neatly arranged in the wardrobe, underclothing in the small bureau, her toilet things on the tiny dressing table, and the fresh suit she had been asked to put on spread out upon the bed. It was all very cosy and comfortable, or would have been if she hadn't been so hungry. However, she had hardly begun undressing before Dawkins appeared with a small tray of sandwiches and milk, explaining: "Supper's long past, Miss Dorothy, but the Principal bade me bring this. Also, if there's time before lecture, you are to go to her private parlor to speak with her. I'll help you and 'twill make the time seem shorter." "Thank you, Dawkins, that's sweet and kind of you; but--but I don't feel any great hurry about dressing. Maybe Miss Tross-Kingdon'll be better-natured--I mean not so cross--Oh! dear, you know what I mean, don't you, dear Dawkins?" "Sure, lassie, I know you have a deal more fear of the Lady Principal 'an you need. She's that just kind of a person one can always trust." "I reckon I don't like 'just' people. I like 'em real plain _kind_. I--I don't like to be found fault with." "Few folks do so like; especially them as deserves it. But you will love Miss Muriel better 'an anybody at Oak Knowe afore the year's out. Only them that has lived with her knows her. I do know. A better woman never trod shoe leather, and so you'll find. Now, you've no time to waste." Nor was any wasted, though Dorothy would gladly have postponed the Principal's further acquaintance till another day. She found the lady waiting and herself welcomed by a gracious word and smile. Motioning to a low seat beside her own chair, Miss Muriel began: "You are looking vastly improved, Dorothy, since you've taken off your rain-soaked clothes. I hope you haven't taken cold. Have you felt any chill?" "Thank you, Miss Tross-Kingdon, none at all. Winifred says I will soon get used to rain, and she doesn't mind it in the least. She says she likes it." The Lady Principal's expression altered to one of sadness rather than anger, at the mention of the other girl, but she did not criticise her in words. "My dear little Dorothy, I sent for you to explain some things about Oak Knowe which you do not understand. We try to make our rules as few and lenient as possible, but such as do exist we rigidly enforce. Where there are three hundred resident and day pupils gathered under one roof, there is need for regular discipline, and, in general, we have little trouble. What we do have sometimes comes from ignorance, as in your case to-night. Your taking so long a walk without a chaperon, and paying a social visit without permission, was a direct trespass upon our authority. So, to prevent any future mistakes, I have prepared you a list of what you may and may not do. Keep this little notebook by you until you have grown familiar with Oak Knowe life. Also, you will find copies of our regulations posted in several places upon the walls. "And now that we have finished 'business' for the present, let us talk of something pleasanter. Tell me about that 'Aunt Betty' of yours, whom our good Bishop lauds so highly." Vastly relieved that the dreaded "scolding" had been so mild and Miss Tross-Kingdon so really kind, Dorothy eagerly obeyed, and was delighted to see a real interest in this wonderful aunt showing in the teacher's face. But her enthusiastic description of Mrs. Calvert was rudely interrupted by a childish scream and little Millikins-Pillikins flying wildly into the room, to spring into Miss Muriel's lap and hide her face on the lady's shoulder, begging: "Don't you let him! Don't you let him! Oh! Auntie, don't you!" "Why, darling, what is this? What sent you out of bed, just in your nightgown? What has frightened you?" "The debbil!" "Grace! What wicked word is that you speak?" "It was, _it was!_ I seen him! He come--set on my feet--an'--an'--Oh! Auntie Prin, you hold me close. 'Cause he was a talkin' debbil. He come to cotch me--he said it, yes he did." Miss Tross-Kingdon was as perplexed as horrified. That little Grace, her orphan niece and the dearest thing in life to her, should speak like this and be in such a state was most amazing. For a few seconds she did hold the little one "close" and in silence, tenderly stroking the small body and folding her own light shawl about it, and gradually its trembling ceased, the shuddering sobs grew fainter and fewer and the exhausted little maid fell fast asleep. Just then the clock on the mantel chimed for eight and Miss Muriel's place was in assembly, on the platform with the famous lecturer who had come to do her great school honor. She must go and at once. Dorothy, watching, saw the struggle in the aunt's mind depicted on her face. With a tender clasp of the little one she put her own desire aside and turned to duty; and the girl's own heart warmed to the stately woman as she had not believed it ever could. Dawkins had prophesied: "You'll love Miss Muriel, once you know her," but Dorothy had not believed her. Yet here it was coming true already! "Dorothy, will you please ring for a maid to look after Grace? Wake up, darling, Auntie Prin must go." The child roused as her aunt spoke, but when she attempted to put her down and rise, the frantic screams broke out afresh, nor would she submit to be lifted by the maid who promptly came. Miss Muriel's bell was not one to be neglected! "No, no, no! I shan't--I won't--the deb--" "Not that word, sweetheart, never again!" warned the Lady Principal, laying her finger on Grace's lips. "Go nicely now with Dora, and make no trouble." "No, no, no!" still screamed Grace: her flushed face and feverish appearance sending fresh alarm to her aunt's heart. "Why, look here, Millikins! I'm Dorothy. The 'sleepy-head' you came to wake up this morning. Won't you go with _me_, dear? If Auntie Prin says 'yes,' I'll take you back to bed, and if you'll show me where." Millikins looked long and steadily at Dolly's appealing arms, then slowly crept into them. "Pretty! Millikins'll go with pretty Dorothy!" So they went away, indeed a "pretty" sight to the anxious aunt. Dorothy's white gown and scarlet ribbons transformed her from the rain-and-mud-bespattered girl of a few hours before, while her loving interest in the frightened child banished all fear and homesickness from her own mobile face. Little Grace's room was a small one opening off from Miss Muriel's, and as soon as the lecture was over and she was free, she took Dr. Winston with her to see the child. Her dark little face was still very flushed, but she was asleep, Dorothy also. The girl had drawn a chair close to the child's cot and sat there with an arm protectingly thrown over her charge: and now a fresh anxiety rose in the Lady Principal's heart. "Oh! Doctor, what if it should be something contagious? I don't see why I didn't think of that before. Besides, I sacrificed Miss Calvert's opportunity to hear the lecture for Grace's sake. How could I have been so thoughtless!" "Well, Madam, I suppose because you are human as well as a schoolma'am, and love for your niece stronger than training. But don't distress yourself. I doubt if this is anything more than a fit of indigestion. That would account, also, for the imaginary visit of a goblin, which terrified the little one. However, it might be well to isolate Miss Dorothy for a day or so, in case anything serious develops." By that time Dorothy was awake and sat up listening to this conversation; and when the doctor explained to her that this isolation meant that she must live quite apart from the schoolmates she so desired to know, she was bitterly disappointed. "I haven't been here more than twenty-four hours, yet it seems as if more unpleasant things have happened than could anywhere else in a lifetime," she complained to Dawkins, who had come to arrange another cot for her to use and to bring the needed articles from her own little cubicle. "Ah, lassie! When you've lived as long as me you'll learn 't a 'lifetime' is a goodish long spell: and if so be you can't mix with your mates for a little few days, more's the blessing that's yours, alongside as you'll be of the Lady Principal. Now, say your prayers and hop into this fine bed I've fixed for you, and off to Noddle Island quick as wink. Good night and sleep well." Surely our Dorothy had the gift of winning hearts, and other Oak Knowe girls with whom Dawkins exchanged scant speech would have been astonished by the kindly gossip with this newcomer. Also, the maid's belief that Dorothy's intercourse with the Lady Principal would be delightful was well founded. Miss Muriel was grateful to her pupil for her patience with troublesome Grace, and regretful that her isolation from her mates had come about in just this wise. However, Dr. Winston had been right. Millikins-Pillikins had been allowed the run of the house and, like most children, found its kitchen its most attractive place. There her sharp tongue and amusing capers furnished amusement for the servants, who rewarded her with all sorts of "treats" and sweetmeats. The result was natural, but what was not so natural was her persistent declaration that she had been visited by an evil spirit. "I did so see him, Auntie Princie! He had big whitey eyes, and his head was all red--" "No more, darling. Say no more. Just play with your blocks. See what sort of house you can build, or--" "Auntie Prin, I do _hate_ blocks! And you don't believe me. Did Millikins ever tell you a wrong story in her whole life?" "No, darling, not to my knowledge. I'm proud to know you are a very truthful little girl. But even such can _dream_ queer things. Ask Dorothy to play for you and me. You know this is the last day she'll be shut up here and I'd like to hear some music." Dorothy laid down her book and went to fetch her violin, but the self-willed Grace would have none of that. Stamping her foot, she imperiously cried: "No, no, no! She shall come with me and seek that old debbil. She shall so. He had hornses and his face--" "Grace Adelaide Tross-Kingdon! if you disobey me again by mentioning that subject, I shall send for the Bishop and brother Hugh and see what they can do with you. Do you want to be disgraced before them?" The little girl pondered that question seriously. She could not understand why telling the truth should disgrace anybody. She loved the Bishop and fairly idolized her big brother Hugh. Her Aunt Muriel was more angry with the child than ever before in her short life and Millikins fully realized this fact. "I'm sorry, Auntie Prin. I'm sorrier than ever was. I hate them two should think I was bad and I wish--I wish you wouldn't not for to tell 'em. I isn't bad, you only think so. 'Cause it's the truthiest truth, I _did_ see him. He had--" Miss Tross-Kingdon held up a warning hand and her face was sterner than any pupil had ever seen it. Such would have quailed before it, but Millikins-Pillikins quailed not at all. Rising from the carpet, where she had been sitting, she planted her sturdy legs apart, folded her arms behind her and unflinchingly regarded her aunt. The midget's defiant attitude made Dorothy turn her head to hide a smile, while the little girl reiterated: "I did see him. I have to tell the truth all times. You said so and I have to mind. I did see that debbil. He lives in this house. When my brother Hugh comes, he shall go with me to hunt which room he lives in, and the Bishop shall preach at him the goodest and hardest he can. This isn't no badness, dear, angry Auntie Prin; it is the truthiest truth and when you see him, too, you'll believe it. If Hugh would come--" Miss Tross-Kingdon leaned back in her chair and threw out her hand in a gesture of despair. What made her darling so incorrigible? "Oh! I wish he would come, I certainly wish he would! This thing is beyond me or anything in my experience. I almost begin to believe that Bible days have returned and you are possessed of the evil spirit." Millikins-Pillikins returned to her play in supreme indifference. She knew what she knew. Couldn't a body believe one's own eyes? Didn't the _chef_ often say that "Seeing is believing," when the scullery maid stole the raisins and he found them in her pocket? She couldn't help Auntie Prin being stupid; and-- "Oh, oh, oh! Hughie's come! Hughie's come! Oh! you darling brother boy, let's go and seek that debbil!" The youth who entered and into whose arms his little sister had sprung, held her away from him and gasped. Then answered merrily: "That gentleman doesn't belong in good society, kiddie. It's not good form even to mention him. I'd rather go the other way." Then he set her gently down and turned to acknowledge his aunt's introduction to Dorothy. He was well used to meeting the Oak Knowe girls, but wondered a little at finding one at this hour in the Lady Principal's private parlor. As he opened his lips to address some courteous remark to her, a shriek of utter terror rang through the house and a housemaid burst unceremoniously in, white and almost breathless, yet managing to say: "Oh! Ma'am, I'm leavin'--I'm leavin' the now! Sure, 'tis a haunted house and Satan hisself dwells in it!" CHAPTER VI AT THE FALL OF THE MAIDEN'S BATH There had, indeed, been strange happenings at Oak Knowe. Beginning on that first day of Dorothy's life there, with the crash outside the dining-room door. That had been caused by the tripping and falling with a loaded tray of one of the best waitresses employed. Afterward it was discovered that a wire had been stretched across the doorway, low down near to the floor, and not easily noticeable in the dim passage. Who had done this thing? Miss Tross-Kingdon paid scant attention to the incident, apparently, although she caused a very thorough investigation to be secretly made. Nothing came of it. Matters went so wrong in the servants' quarters that they became demoralized and several threatened to leave. Thefts from one and another were frequent; yet as often the missing article was found in some unusual place where, as Dawkins declared: "Nobody but a crazy person would ha' puttin' it." One morning the _chef's_ spotless marble molding-board was found decorated by a death's-head and bones, done in red paint, and his angry accusations of his fellow-workers brought the Lady Principal to the kitchen to restore peace. But peace did not last long. The head laundress, who personally "did up" the finest pieces in "the wash," found her pile of them deluged with blueing, so that her work had to be done all over again. These were but samples of the strange happenings; and though most of the servants had been so long at Oak Knowe that they considered it their real home, some of the most loyal to its interests felt they couldn't endure this state of things much longer. Then had come the fright of little Grace, followed by that of the housemaid, whom no arguments could calm, and who rushed out of Miss Muriel's parlor as she rushed into it, departing that hour for good and all and to spread far and near ill reports of the great school. However, after that day nothing further happened. At a secret meeting of the faculty it was decided to take no outward notice of these disturbances, but to keep silent watch until such a time as the culprit, or culprits, should betray themselves. "He or she is bound to do so, after a time. There's always a hitch somewhere in such mischievous schemes and nothing worse than mortal hands has performed this 'witch work,'" said the Bishop calmly, though vexed that such foolishness could be found at his beloved Oak Knowe. Then for many days the disturbances ceased. Dorothy fell into the daily life of the school with all her heart, making friends with her mates in her own Form and even with some of the older girls. Best of all, she had lost all fear of the Lady Principal, whose heart she had won by her devotion to little Millikins. She even begged forgiveness for Winifred, against whom the teacher still felt some resentment; saying to Dolly: "It isn't what she did--in itself--so much as her broken trust. She has been with me so long, she has been taught so constantly, that I feel indignant at her deception. Anything but deception, Dorothy. Remember that a treacherous person is more to be feared than an openly wicked one." "But, dear Miss Muriel, Winifred will never cheat again. Never, I know. She won't go off bounds a step now, even though her 'restriction's' taken off. And she keeps away from me till she makes me feel dreadfully. Says she doesn't want to 'contaminate' and get me into trouble again. Please let her go nutting this afternoon with Miss Aldrich's class." "Very well. She may go." "One thing more, Miss Tross-Kingdon. When may I, may we, go to see Robin?" The lady smiled. A sudden memory of the scene upon which she had entered that rainy evening of her first visit to the cottage amused her, and she answered graciously: "Probably on Saturday, if you wish. Though I am still doubtful whether your guardians would approve." "I can answer for them, dear Miss Muriel. They are just the kind that would like me to go. Some of Aunt Betty's dearest friends are very poor. She finds them honester and more generous than the rich ones. As for darling Uncle Seth, he learned to be a regular blacksmith, just so he could live among them on 'even terms,' he said. Yet he's the wisest, best man in all the world." In the Lady Principal's private opinion he was also the most eccentric; but she did not dash Dorothy's enthusiasm further than to say: "To me it seems wisest to content one's self with the station in which one has been born. To step aside from the normal path in life--" Foreseeing a "lecture," Dorothy interrupted: "Beg pardon, Miss Muriel, but there's Win yonder this minute, walking with her head down as if she were worrying. She thought her father was coming home next week and he isn't, and she's so disappointed. She's reading his letter over again. She said, when I asked her why she was so blue, that it didn't seem like home here any longer with you offended, and he wasn't coming, and she had no real home anywhere. Oh! you needn't be afraid of darling Win doing anything crooked again. Do love her and take her back into your trust, and may I go now to tell her she can go nutting and about Saturday, and may I hurry up?" Without waiting an instant longer, Dorothy took permission for granted and ran out of the house. In reality, she had grieved far more over Winifred's punishment, by being kept on bounds and denied some other privileges, than that lively young person had herself. Winifred was ashamed, but she wasn't unhappy. Only now this letter of her father's, and the longing to see him, had sobered her greatly. Yet she was ready enough for the next amusement that might offer and looked up eagerly as Dorothy ran towards her across the lawn, crying: "Don't look so forlorn, Win! We can go--you can go--" "They can go!" finished the other, her mood quickly changing at sight of Dorothy's beaming face. "Where can they go, how can they go, when can they go, Teacher?" "Nutting, with Miss Aldrich's class. On their feet. With baskets and bags and the boot-boy with poles to thresh the trees and carry the nuts! and on Saturday to old John's cottage to hear the Robin sing!" "Oh! do you mean it? Do you? Then I know I'm all right with Miss Muriel again and I must go and thank her." Away hurried the impulsive girl and in the Lady Principal's room was presently an interview that was delightful to both. For in her heart, beneath a cold manner, Miss Tross-Kingdon kept a warm love for this wild pupil of hers; and was as ready to believe in Winifred's promises as the girl was to make them. The late autumn day was uncommonly fine. Not only Miss Aldrich, but most of the other teachers, were to take their classes to a distant forest on their annual nutting excursion, from which, this year, Winifred had felt she would be excluded. Miss Aldrich was not her own class director, but the girls in it were her especial friends and belonged to her gymnasium class. They were all "Commons," except Marjorie Lancaster, a gentle little "Peer," whom haughty Gwendolyn kept well reminded of her rank. "I don't like your being so chummy with those girls, and, worst of all, with that Dorothy Calvert. She's a pert sort of girl, with no manner at all. Why, Marjorie, I've seen her leaning against the Bishop just as if he were a post! _The Bishop_, mind you!" "Well, if he wanted her to, what harm, Gwen? Somebody said he knew her people over in the States and that's why she was sent away up here to his school. I like her ever so much. She's so full of fun and so willing to help a girl, any girl, with her lessons. She learns so easy and I'm so stupid!" protested Marjorie, who was, indeed, more noted for her failures than her successes at recitations. "But I don't like it. If you must have an intimate, why not choose her from 'our set'?" "The 'Commons' are lots jollier. They're not all the time thinking about their clothes, or who's higher ranked than another. I'm thankful I belong with the Aldrich ten. We have splendid times." Gwendolyn sighed. She found it very difficult to keep many of her "set" up to their duty as peers of the realm. "Class distinction" fell from her nimble tongue a dozen times a day in reprimands to other "Peers" who would hobnob with untitled schoolmates despite all she could do; and now to preserve Marjorie from mingling too much with the "Commons," she declared: "Well, if you won't come with us, I shall go with you. My director will let me. She always does let me do about as I like. She's lots more agreeable than the Lady Principal, who ought to appreciate what I try to do for the good of the school. When I told her how Florita Sheraton had complained she just couldn't get enough to eat here, she was cross as two sticks and said: 'Gwendolyn, if you are a real Honorable, you'll not descend to tale-bearing!' Hateful thing. And she comes of a titled family, too, somebody said. Yes, I'm sure my teacher will let me." "Even a worm will turn," and mild little Marjorie murmured under her breath: "I wish she wouldn't! But, of course, she will, 'cause it's the easiest way to get along. Yet you'll spoil sport--sure!" But the Honorable Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard was already moving away to announce her intention to her greatly relieved director. For it was usually the case, that wherever this young aristocrat went, trouble followed; for, like the 'twelfth juryman,' she never could understand why the 'eleven contrary ones' didn't agree with _him_. Nobody stayed at Oak Knowe, that day, who was able to join this outing: and when nearly three hundred girls take the road, they are a goodly sight worth seeing. Each had been provided with her own little parcel of lunch packed in the small basket that was to be carried home full of nuts, and each carried a stout alpenstock, such as the experienced teachers had found a help on their pupils' long walks. "A walk that is less than five miles long is no walk at all for healthy girls," had been Dr. Winston's remark; adding, for the Lady Principal's ear alone: "That'll take the kinks out of them and they'll give you less trouble, skylarking. Teach them the art of walking and let them go!" To escape Gwendolyn, Marjorie had hurried to the fore of her "Ten" and slipped her arm into Winifred's, who had expected Dorothy instead. But she couldn't refuse Marjorie's pleading: "Don't look like you didn't want me, Winnie dear. Gwen is bound so to take care of me and I don't need her care. I don't see any difference between you 'Commons' and we 'Peers' except that you're nicer." "Why, of course, I want you, Marjorie. Can you see Dorothy Calvert anywhere behind? It's so narrow here and the hedge so thick I can't look back." From her outer place and lower height Marjorie could stoop and peer around the curve, and gleefully cried: "Of all things! The girls have paired off so as to leave Gwen and Dolly together at the very end! Another class is so close behind they can't change very well and I wonder what Gwendolyn will do!" "I'm sorry for Dolly, but she'll get on. Gwen has pretended not to see her so many times that Dorothy can hardly put up with it. Under all her good nature she has a hot temper. You'd ought to have seen her pitch into one of the scullery boys for tormenting a cat. And she said once that she'd make Gwendolyn like her yet or know the reason why. Now's her chance to try it! It's all that silly imagination of Gwen's that makes her act so. Made up her mind that Dolly is a 'charity' girl, when anybody with common sense would know better. There are some at Oak Knowe, course: we all know that, for it's one of the Bishop's notions he must give any girl an education who wants it and can't pay for it. But I don't know which ones are; do you?" "No, indeed! And if I did, I'd never let them know I knew." "Of course you wouldn't. No gentlewoman would, except that stuck-up Gwen. Her mother, Lady Jane's so different. She's almost as jolly and simple as her brother, Dr. Winston. But her Honorable young daughter just makes me tired! Peek again. What are they doing now?" "The 'Peer' is walking like a soldier on parade, stiff as can be, thumping her alpenstock up and down plumpety-plump, hard as nails. But Dorothy seems to be chattering away like a good one!" Winifred stooped and peered between the bobbing rows of girls and branches of trees and caught Dorothy's eye, to whom she beckoned: "Forward!" But Dorothy smilingly signaled "No!" "Well, _one_ of that pair is happy, but it isn't Lady Jane's daughter! I fancy we'd best leave them to 'fight it out on that line,'" decided Winifred, facing about again. "I know Queen Baltimore will down Honorable England at the end." Despite her own stiffness, Dorothy's continued chatter at last began to interest Gwendolyn, and the perfect good nature with which she accepted the marked coldness of the haughty girl to make her ashamed. Also, she was surprised to see how the girl from the States enjoyed the novelty of everything Canadian. The wild flowers especially interested her, and Gwendolyn was compelled to admire the stranger's love and knowledge of growing things. With more decency than she had hitherto shown, she finally asked: "However did you come to know so much botany, Miss Calvert?" "Why, my Uncle Seth, the Blacksmith, taught me; he lived in the woods and loved them to that degree--my heart! he would no sooner hurt a plant than a person! He was that way. Some people are, who make friends of little things. And he was so happy, always, in his smithy under the Great Tree, which people from all the countryside came to see, it was so monstrous big. Oh! I wish you could see dear Uncle Seth, sitting at the smithy door, reading or talking to the blacksmith inside at the anvil, a man who worked for him and adored him." The Honorable Gwendolyn stiffened again, and walked along in freezing silence. She would have joined some other girl ahead, but none invited her, and she was too proud to beg for a place beside those who should have felt it an honor to have her. Besides, pride kept her to her place in the rear. "Huh! I'll show this Yankee farrier's niece that I am above caring who is near me. But it's horrid to be forced into such a position and I wish I hadn't come. Goodness! how her tongue runs! And now what freak sets her 'Oh-ing!' and 'Ah-ing!' that style?" ran Gwendolyn's thoughts, and she showed her annoyance by asking: "Miss Calvert, will you oblige me by not screaming quite so loud? It's wretched form and gets on my nerves, for I'm not used to that sort of thing." "Neither am I!" laughed Dorothy; "but you see, I never saw anything so lovely as that glimpse before. I couldn't help crying out--we came upon it so suddenly. Do see yonder!" Her finger pointed westward, then was promptly drawn back, as she admitted: "Pointing is 'bad form,' too, I've been taught. But do look--do look! It's just like fairyland!" Gwendolyn did look, though rather against her will, and paused, as charmed as Dorothy, but in a quieter fashion. She was a considerable artist and her gift in painting her one great talent. Oddly enough, too, she cared less for the praise of others than for the delight of handling her brush. Beyond, a sudden break in the thick wood revealed a tumbling waterfall, descending from a cliff by almost regular steps into a sunlit pool below. Bordering it on both sides were trees of gorgeous coloring and mountain ashes laden with their brilliant berries; while a shimmering vapor rose from the pool beneath, half veiling the little cascade, foaming white upon the rocks. For a moment Gwendolyn regarded the scene in silence but with shining eyes and parted lips. Then she exclaimed: "The very spot we've searched for so often and never found! 'The Maiden's Bath,' it's called. I've heard about it so much. The story is that there was an Indian girl so lovely and pure that it was thought a mortal sin for mortal eyes to look upon her. She had devoted herself to the service of the Great Spirit and, to reward her, He formed this beautiful Bath for her use alone, hid it so deep in the heart of the forest that no one could find it but she. There was but one trail which led to it and--we've found it, we've found it! Hurry up! Come." Dorothy stared. Here seemed a new Gwendolyn, whose tongue ran quite as rapidly as her own had ever done, and whose haughty face was now transformed by eager delight. As the young artist ran forward toward the spot, Dolly noticed that no other girl was in sight. They two had turned a little aside from the smoother path which the rest had taken, Dorothy following the lure of some new wild flower and Gwendolyn stiffly following her. Only a minute before the chatter and laughter of many girls had filled the air; now, save for their own footsteps on the fallen leaves, there was no sound. "I wonder where the rest are! Did you see which way they went, Gwendolyn?" "No. I didn't notice. But they're just around the next turn, I fancy. Oh! to think I've found the Bath at last. I must make a little sketch of it and come back as soon as I can with my color box. How the studio girls will envy me! Every time we've been in these woods we've searched for it and now to come upon it all at once, never dreaming, makes me proud! But--_don't you tell_. I'd begun something else for next exhibition, but I shall drop that and do this. I'll get leave to do it in my recreation hours in some empty class room, and bring it out as a surprise. I wish I'd found it alone. I wish nobody knew it but me. It must be kept a secret--so don't you dare to tell. Come on." "Huh! I reckon if you'll stick to facts, it was I--not you--who found it. I don't see why I should keep it secret. It doesn't belong to either of us, it belongs to the whole world. I wish everybody who loves beauty could enjoy it," answered Dorothy, warmly. "Well, go tell then, tattle-tale! You might know a common girl like you would be hateful to her betters, if she got a chance!" retorted Gwendolyn, angrily. It rose to Dorothy's lips to respond: "Tattle-tale and mischief-maker is what all the girls know _you_ are!" but she kept the hard words back, "counting ten" vigorously, and also listening for some sound of her now invisible schoolmates. She wasn't a timid girl, but the silence of this deep forest startled her, nor looking around could she discover by what path they had come to this place. Then Gwendolyn was hurrying forward, carrying the pocket-pad and pencil without which she went nowhere, and careless of everything but to get her sketch. So Dorothy followed, forgetting her resentment in watching her companion. To see Gwen's head turning this way, then that, squinting her eyes and holding her pencil before them, measuring distance thus and seeking the "right light," interested the watcher for the time. Finally, the artist had secured a point which suited her and, seating herself, rapidly drew a picture of one view. She worked so deftly and confidently, that Dorothy's only feeling now was one of admiration. Then a new position was sought and another sketch made, but Gwen permitted no talk between them. "I can't work and talk, too; please be still, can't you?" she asked, looking up from her work. And again the real earnestness of the girl she disliked made Dorothy obedient, again rising to follow while Gwen chose another view still, high up near the top of the wonderful cascade. Her face had grown pink and animated and her eyes glowed with enthusiasm. "I shall paint that misty-veil with a glaze of ultramarine. There should be an underwash of madder, and maybe terre verte. Oh! if I can only make it look one atom as I see it! We must come here again and again, you and I, Miss Calvert, and you must--you simply _must_ keep the secret of our finding till after I've exhibited my picture." "All right. How long will it be before we can go find the others? you know we can't gather any nuts right here. I don't see a single nut tree." "I don't know how long I shall be, and why care about nuts while we can have--this?" returned Gwen, indifferently. "Very well, I guess I'll take a nap. Seems terrible close in this shut-in nook and my walk has made me sleepy. I reckon I'll take a nap. Wake me up when you get through." So saying, Dorothy curled down upon a mass of mighty ferns, laid her head on her arm and went to sleep. For how long she never knew, but her awakening was sudden and startling. She had been roused from a dream of Bellevieu, her Baltimore home, and of dear Aunt Betty feeding her pets, the Great Danes. Brushing the slumber from her eyes, she gazed about her, wondering for an instant, where she was. Then--that frantic shriek again: "Help! Help! I'm dr--" The cry died in a gurgle and Dorothy sprang to her feet in terror. She had warned Gwendolyn not to take that high seat so close to that slippery rock, from beneath which the cascade began its downward flow. "If you fall, it will be straight into the pool. Do be careful, Gwen, how you move." But the warning had been useless--Gwendolyn was already in the pool. CHAPTER VII ALL HALLOW EVE FESTIVITIES "I'm going to choose Queen Bess! I've made a lovely ruff, stands away up above my head. And Mrs. Archibald, the matron, has bought me four yards of chintz that might be brocade--if it was!" said Florita Sheraton, from the gymnasium floor, hugging her arms for warmth. "Four yards! That'll never go around you, Fatty!" declared Fanny Dimock, with playful frankness. "Well, it'll have to go as far as it may, then. It cost twenty cents. That left five only for the white and gilt paper for my ruff and crown." "Was Queen Elizabeth fat?" asked Dorothy, from her now favorite perch upon the high wooden horse. "What does that matter, whether she were or not? The plot is to act like a Queen when once you get her clothes on," observed Winifred, judicially. "I wonder if you can do that, Flo. Or if it needs another yard of cloth to make you real stately--she ought to have a train, oughtn't she--I might lend you another sixpence. If Miss Muriel would let me." "Don't ask for it, Win. You've done so splendidly ever since--" "That time I didn't! Well, I'd rather not ask for it. Twenty-five cents was the limit she set." "Wants to stimulate our ingenuity, maybe, to see how well we can dress on twenty-five cents a week!" laughed Ernesta Smith, who had no ingenuity at all. "If it weren't for Dolly here, I'd have to give it up, but she's fixed me a lovely, spooky rig that'll just make you all goose-fleshy." "What is it? Tell," begged the others, but Ernesta shook her head. "No, indeedy! It's the chance of my life to create an impression and I shan't spoil it beforehand. It'll be all the more stunning because I'm such a bean-pole. Dorothy says that Florrie and I must walk together in the parade." "Oh! I hope it will be a grand success!" cried Winifred, seizing Bessie Walters and going through a lively calisthenic exercise with her. "We've always wanted to have a Hallowe'en Party, but the faculty have never before said yes. It's all Dorothy's doings that we have it now." A shadow fell over Dolly's bright face. It was quite true that she had suggested this little festivity to the good Bishop. She had told him other things as well which hurt him to hear and made him the more willing to consent to any bit of gayety she might propose. She had said: "There is somebody in this school that doesn't like me. Yes, dear Bishop, it's true; though I don't know who and I've tried to be friendly to everybody. That is to all I know. The high-up Form girls don't appear to see me at all, though they're friendly enough with lots of the other younger ones. I heard Edna Ross-Ross saying to another that all the strange, horrid things that had happened at Oak Knowe this autumn began with my coming. She'd been told that I was a charity scholar, belonging to one of the servants. She didn't object to charity girls, so long as she knew they were of _good_ family, but she drew the line at _servants'_ families. She said that Gwendolyn had heard you, yourself, tell Miss Tross-Kingdon that I was mischievous and she must look out for me." "My dear, my dear! Surely no fair-minded girl could have so misunderstood me, even admitting that I did say that--which I fail to remember. As to that silly notion about the 'haunting' business, Betty Calvert's niece should be able to laugh at that. Absurd, absurd! Now tell me again what your fancy is about this Hallowe'en Party." "Why, sir, things can't be done without folks do them, can they?" "That's a poser; but I'll grant your premises. Proceed with the argument," answered the old gentleman, merrily. "Well, I thought, somehow, that if everybody was allowed to dress in character and wear some sort of a mask, the one who had played such pranks and frightened Grace and the maids might be found out. If anybody in this house owns such a mask as that horrid one and is mean enough to scare little girls, he or she wouldn't lose so good a chance of scaring a lot more. Don't you think so? And--and--there's something else I ought to tell, but am afraid. Miss Muriel gets so stern every time the thing is mentioned that I put it off and off. I can tell you though, if you wish." "Certainly, I wish you would." The gentleman's face had grown as serious now, and almost as stern, as the Lady Principal's at similar times; and Dorothy gave a sigh to bolster her own courage as she gravely announced: "When I took out my white shoes to wear them last evening, there was a skull and cross-bones on each one, done with red paint: and the tube of vermilion had been taken from my own oil color box. Now--what do you think of that?" Her listener pursed his lips in a silent whistle, which indicated great amazement in a man like him, but he said nothing. Only, for a moment he drew the girl to him and looked searchingly into her brown eyes. But they looked back at him with a clear, straightforward gaze that pleased him and made him exclaim: "Well, little Betty--whom you always seem to me--we're in a scrape worthy of old Bellevieu. We've got to get out of it, somehow. You try your scheme of playing masked detective first. If you fail in proving our innocence and some other youngster's roguery, I'll tackle the matter myself. For this nonsense is hurtful to Oak Knowe. That I am compelled to admit. 'Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth.' A miserable rumor started has wide-spread effect. I could preach you a sermon on that topic, but I won't. Run along back to your mates and try it. Just whisper 'Hallowe'en Party' to any one of them and see if every girl at Oak Knowe doesn't know beforehand that after chapel, to-night, the Lady Principal will announce this intended event. Now, good day, my dear 'Betty,' and for the present, to oblige me, just put those decorated shoes out of sight." This talk had been two days before: and with the Lady Principal's announcement of the affair had been coupled the decision: "Those of you young ladies that have no costume suitable may expend their week's allowance in material for one. Of course, this restricts the expense to utmost simplicity. No one may run in debt, nor borrow more than suggestions from her neighbors. Under these conditions I hope you will have the happy time you anticipate." So they were dismissed in gay spirits, to gather in groups everywhere to discuss costumes and the possibility of evolving a fetching one at the modest cost of a quarter dollar. By the afternoon following, most of the preparations had been made. Some of the maids had lent a hand to the sewing and the good-natured matron had planned and purchased and cut till her arms ached. But she had entered into the spirit of the occasion as heartily as any girl of them all; and the sixth and seventh Form students, who rather fancied themselves too grown-up for such frivolity, had willingly helped the preparations of the lower school pupils. Only one who might have enjoyed the fun was out of it. Gwendolyn was in the hospital, in the furthest west wing: for the time being a nervous and physical wreck from her experience at the Maiden's Bath. Even yet nobody dared speak to her of that terrible time, for it made her so hysterical; and for some reason she shrank from Dorothy's visits of inquiry and sympathy more than from any other's. But this seemed ungrateful to Lady Jane, her mother, now in residence at the school to care for and be near her daughter. She determined this "nonsense" must be overcome and had especially begged Dolly to come to the sick room, dressed for the party, and to relate in detail all that had happened on that dreadful day. So Dorothy had slipped away from her mates, to oblige Lady Jane, but dreading to meet the girl she had saved, yet who still seemed to dislike her. She wore her gipsy costume of scarlet, a little costume that she had worn at home at a similar party, and a dainty scarlet mask would be added later on. She looked so graceful and winsome, as she tapped at the door, that Lady Jane exclaimed as she admitted her: "Why, you darling! What a picture you have made of yourself! I must give you a good kiss--two of them! One for myself and Gwen and one for the Aunt Betty you love." Then the lady led her in to the low chair beside Gwen's bed, with a tenderness so motherly that Dorothy lost all feeling of awkwardness with the sick girl. "Now, my child, I must hear every detail of that afternoon. My darling daughter is really much better. I want her to get over this dread of what is past, and safely so. I'm sure your story of the matter will help her to think of it calmly." She waited for Dorothy to begin, and at last she did, making as light of the affair as of an ordinary playground happening. "Why, it wasn't anything. Really, it wasn't, except that Gwen took such a cold and grieved so because other folks had to find where the hidden cascade was. She just got so eager with her drawing that she didn't notice how close she got to the edge of the rock. If I had stayed awake, instead of going to sleep, I should have seen and caught her before she slipped. I can't forgive myself for that." The Lady Jane shook a protesting head. "That was no fault in you, Dorothy. Go on." "When I waked up, she was in the water, and she didn't understand how to get out. She couldn't swim, you know, but I can. So, course, I just jumped in and caught her. There was a big branch bent down low and I caught hold of that. She caught hold of me, but not both my arms, and so--so--I could pull us both out." Dorothy did not add that her arm had been so strained she could not yet use it without pain. "Oh! thank God for you, my dear!" cried the mother, laying her hand upon Gwendolyn's shoulder, who had turned toward the wall and lay with her face hidden. "And after that? Somebody said you stripped off your own jacket and wrapped it around her." "It wasn't as nice as hers, but you see she was cold, and I thought she wouldn't mind for once. I borrowed her bathrobe once and she didn't like it, and now she'd borrowed my jacket and didn't like that, I suppose." "Like it! Doubtless it helped to save her life, too, or her from pneumonia. Oh! if you hadn't been there! If--" sobbed the mother. "But there wasn't any 'if,' Lady Jane; 'cause if I hadn't seen the falls and made her see them, too, she wouldn't have been near hand. If she'd gone with the girl she wanted to, nothing at all would have happened. Some way it got mixed up so she had to walk with me and that's all. Only once we got out of the water onto the ground, I started yelling, and I must have done it terrible loud. Else Mr. Hugh wouldn't have heard me and followed my yells. He'd gone long past us, hunting with his gun, and he heard me and came hurrying to where the sound was. So he just put his coat around her and made her get up and walk. He had to speak to her real cross before she would, she was so dazed and mis'able. But she did at last, and he knew all those woods by heart. And the directions of them, which way was north, or south, or all ways. "It was a right smart road he took for roughness, so that sometimes we girls stumbled and fell, but he wouldn't stop. He kept telling us that, and saying: 'Only a little further now!' though it did seem to the end of the world. And by and by we came out of the woods to a level road, and after a time to a little farmhouse. Mr. Hugh made the farmer hitch up his horse mighty quick and wrap us in blankets and drove us home--fast as fast. And, that's all. I'm sorry Gwendolyn took such a cold and I hope when she gets well she'll forgive me for going to sleep that time. And, please, Lady Jane, may I go now? Some of the girls are waiting for me, 'cause they want me in the parade." "Surely, my dear: and thank you for telling me so long a story. I wanted it at first hands and I wanted Gwendolyn to hear it, too. Good night and a happy, happy evening. It's really your own party, I hear; begged by yourself from the Bishop for your schoolmates' pleasure. I trust the lion's share of that pleasure may be your own." As Dorothy left the room, with her graceful farewell curtsey, the girl on the bed turned back toward her mother and lifted a tear-wet face. "Why, Gwen, dearest, surely she didn't make you nervous again, did she? She described your accident so simply and in such a matter of course way. She seemed to blame the whole matter on herself; first her discovery of the waterfall, then her falling asleep. She is a brave, unselfish girl. Hoping you 'would forgive' her--for saving your life!" "Oh, mother, don't! You can't guess how that hurts me. 'Forgive her'! Can she ever in this world forgive me!" And again the invalid's face was hidden in the covers, while her body shook with sobs; that convinced Lady Jane that nobody, not even her anxious self, knew how seriously ill her daughter was. "My child, my child, don't grieve so! It is all past and gone. I made a mistake in forcing you to meet the companion of your disaster and hearing the story from her, but please do forget it for my sake. You are well--or soon will be; and the sooner you gain some strength, you'll be as happy as ever." "I shall never be happy again--never. I want to go away from here. I never want to see Oak Knowe again!" wailed Gwendolyn with fresh tears. "Go away? Why, darling, you have always been happier here than in any other place. At home you complain of your brothers, and you think my home rules harder than the Lady Principal's. Besides, I've just settled the boys at school and with you here, I felt free to make all my plans for a winter abroad. Don't be nonsensical. Don't spoil everything by foolishness concerning an accident that ended so well. I don't understand you, dearest, I certainly do not." Assembly Hall had been cleared for the entertainment. Most of the chairs had been removed, only a row of them being left around the walls for the benefit of the invited guests. These were the friends and patrons of the school from the near by city and from the country houses round about. Conspicuous among these was old John Gilpin in his Sunday suit, his long beard brushed till each hair hung smooth and separate, his bald head polished till it shone, and himself the most ill at ease of all the company. Beside him sat the little widow, Robin's mother; without whom, John had declared, he would "not stir hand nor hoof" toward any such frivolity, and the good Dame abetting him in the matter. She had said: "No, Mrs. Locke, no more he shall. I can't go, it's bread-settin' night, and with my being so unwieldy and awkward like--I'd ruther by far stay home. Robin will be all right. The dear lad's become the very apple of my eye and I e'enamost dread his gettin' well enough to go to work again. A bit of nonsense, like this of Dorothy's gettin'-up, 'll do you more good nor medicine. I've said my say and leave it said. If John could go in his clean smock, he'd be all right, even to face that Lady Principal that caught him cavortin' like a silly calf. But 'twould be an obligement to me if you'd go along and keep him in countenance." Of course, Mrs. Locke could do no less for a neighbor who had so befriended her and Robin: so here she was, looking as much the lady in her cheap black gown as any richer woman there. Also, so absorbed she was in keeping old John from trying to "cut and run," or doing anything else that would have mortified his wife. The Lady Principal had herself hesitated somewhat before the cottagers were invited, fearing their presence would be offensive to more aristocratic guests, but the good Bishop had heartily endorsed Dorothy's plea for them and she accepted his decision. In any case, she need not have feared. For suddenly there sounded from the distance the wailing of a violin, so weird and suggestive of uncanny things, that all talking ceased and all eyes turned toward the wide entrance doors, through which the masqueraders must come. Everything within the great room had been arranged with due attention to "effect." In its center a great "witches' caldron" hung suspended from three poles, and a lantern hung above it, where the bobbing for apples would take place. Dishes of salt, witch-cakes of meal, jack-o'-lanterns dimly lighted, odors of brimstone, daubs of phosphorus here and there--in fact, everything that the imaginations of the maskers could conceive, or reading suggest as fit for Hallowe'en, had been prepared. The doleful music drew nearer and nearer and as the lights in the Hall went out, leaving only the pale glimmer of the lanterns, even the most indifferent guests felt a little thrill run through their nerves. Then the doors slowly opened and there came through them a ghostly company that seemed endless. From head to foot each "ghost" was draped in white, even the extended hand which held a lighted taper was gloved in white, and the whole procession moved slowly to the dirge which the unseen musicians played. After a circuit of the great room, they began a curious dance which, in reality, was a calisthenic movement familiar to the everyday life of these young actors, but, as now performed, seemed weird and nerve-trying even to themselves. Its effect upon others was even more powerful and upon John Gilpin, to send him into a shivering fit that alarmed Mrs. Locke. "Why, Mr. Gilpin, what's the matter? Are you ill?" "Seems if--seems if--my last hour's come! Needn't tell me--them's--just--just plain schoolgirls! They--they're spooks right out the graveyard, sure as preachin' and I wish--I hadn't come! And there's no end of 'em! And it means--somethin' terr'ble! I wish--do you suppose--Ain't there a winder some'ers nigh? Is this Hall high up? Could I--could I climb out it?" The poor little widow was growing very nervous herself. Her companion's positive terror was infecting her and she felt that if this were her promised "fun" she'd had quite enough of it, and would be as glad as he to desert the gathering. Suddenly the movement changed. The slowly circling ghosts fell into step with the altered music, which, still a wailing minor, grew fast and faster, until with a crash its mad measure ended. At that instant, and before the lights were turned on, came another most peculiar sound. It was like the patter of small hoofs, the "ih-ih-ihing" of some terrified beast; and all ears were strained to listen while through those open doors came bounding and leaping, as if to escape its own self--What? From her perch on Dr. Winston's knees, Miss Millikins-Pillikins identified it as: "The debbil! The debbil!" Old John sprang to his feet and shrieked, while, as if attracted by his cry, the horrible object made straight for him and with one vicious thrust of its dreadful head knocked him down. CHAPTER VIII PEER AND COMMONER The lights flashed out. The ghostly wrappings fell from the figures which had been halted by the sudden apparition that had selected poor John Gilpin as its victim, though, in knocking him down it had knocked common sense back into his head. For as he lay sprawled on the floor the thrusts of that demoniac head continued and now, instead of frightening, angered him. For there was something familiar in the action of his assailant. Recovering his breath, he sat up and seized the horns that were prodding his Sunday suit, and yelled: "Quit that, Baal, you old rascal! Dressin' up like the Old Boy, be ye? Well, you never could ha' picked out a closer fit! But I'll strip ye bare--you cantankerous old goat, you Baal!" Away flew the mask of the evil spirit which some ingenious hand had fastened to the animal's head, and up rose such a shout of laughter as made the great room ring. The recent "ghosts" swarmed about the pair, still in masks and costumes, and a lively chase of Baal followed. The goat had broken away from the irate old man, as soon as might be, and John had risen stiffly to his feet. But his bashfulness was past. Also, his lameness was again forgotten, as one masquerader after another whirled about him, catching his coat skirts or his arm and laughingly daring him: "Guess who I am!" He didn't even try, but entered into the fun with as great zest as any youngster present, and it must be admitted, making a greater noise than any. Around and around the great hall sped the goat, somebody having mischievously closed the doors to prevent its escape; and across and about chased the merrymakers, tossing off their masks to see and careless now who guessed their identity. "Baal!" "Baal here!" "Who owns him? Where did he come from?" "What makes him so slippery? I wonder if he's been greased!" At last answered the farmer: "I guess I could tell you who owns him, but I'd better not. I don't want to get nobody into trouble, much as he deserves it." "'He?' Is it a 'he' then and not one of the girls?" demanded Winifred. But he did not inform her, merely asking when it would be time to bob for apples. "Because I know they're prime. They come out Dame's choisest bar'l. Grew on a tree she'll let nobody touch, not even me." "Apples! Apples! My turn first!" cried Florita Sheraton, stooping her fat body above the "caldron" into which some of the fruit had been tossed. But she failed, of course, her frantic efforts to plant her white teeth in any one of the apples resulting only in the wetting of her paper crown and ruff, as well as the ripping of her hastily made "robe." Then the others crowded around the great kettle, good naturedly pushing first comers aside while but a few succeeded in obtaining a prize. Old John was one of these; so gay and lively that the audience found him the most amusing feature of the entertainment. Till finally Mrs. Locke gained courage to cross to his side and whisper something in his ear; at which he looked, abashed and with a furtive glance in the direction of the Lady Principal, he murmured: "Right you be. I 'low I've forgot myself and I'm afraid she'd blush to see me so cuttin' up again. And too, I clean forgot that bag! I'll step-an'-fetch it right away." With his disappearance half the noise and nonsense ended, but more than satisfaction greeted his return, with Jack, the boot-boy, in close attendance. The latter bore in each hand a jug of freshly made sweet cider but his expression was not a happy one, and he kept a watchful eye upon the old man he followed. The latter carried two baskets; one heavy with well cracked nuts, the other as light with its heap of white popped corn. Bowing low to the Lady Principal he remarked: "With your permission, Ma'am;" then set the articles down beside the "caldron," clapping his hands to attract the schoolgirls' attention and bid them gather around his "treat" to enjoy it. Then, stumbling over a fallen mask, he sternly ordered Jack: "Get to work and clear these things up, and don't you forget to save Baal's, for, likely, 'twill be needed again." At which the boot-boy's face turned crimson, though that might have come from stooping. Nobody waited a second invitation to enjoy the good things that John's thoughtfulness had provided; but, sitting on the floor around his baskets, they made him act the host in dispensing fair portions to all, a maid having quickly brought plates, nutpicks and cups for their service. After the feast followed games and dances galore, till the hour grew late for schoolgirls, and the Bishop begged: "Before we part, my children, please give us a little music. A song from the Minims, a bit from the Sevenths on the piano, and a violin melody from our girl from the South. For it is she, really, who is responsible for this delightful party. Now she has coaxed us into trying it once, I propose that we make Hallowe'en an annual junketing affair, and--All in favor of so doing say 'Aye.'" After which the "Ayes" and hand claps were so deafening, that the good man bowed his head as if before a storm. Then the room quieted and the music followed; but when it came to Dorothy's turn she was nowhere to be seen. Girlish cries for "Queenie!" "Miss Dixie!" "Dolly! Dolly Doodles!" "Miss Calvert to the front!" failed to bring her. "Gone to 'step-an'-fetch' her fiddle--or Mr. Gilpin's, maybe!" suggested Winifred, with a mischievous glance at the old man who sat on the floor in the midst of the girls, gay now as any of them and still urging them to take "just a han'ful more" of the nuts he had been at such pains to crack for them. But neither Dorothy nor "fiddle" appeared; and the festivities came to a close without her. "Queer where Queenie went to!" said Florita, walking along the hall toward her dormitory, "and as queer, too, where that goat came from." "Seemed to be an old acquaintance of the farmer's, didn't it? He called it 'Baal,' as if that was its name; and wasn't it too funny for words? to see him chasing after it, catching it and letting it slip away so, till Jack caught it and led it away. From the way he acted I believe _he_ was the one who owns it and rigged it up so," said Ernesta, beside her. "Well, no matter. I'm so sleepy I can hardly keep my eyes open! But what a glorious time we've had; and what a mess Assembly Hall is in." "Who cares? We're had the fun and now Jack and the scullery boy will have to put it in order for us. Matron'll see to that. Good night." They parted, each entering her own cubicle and each wondering somewhat why Dorothy did not come to hers. Commonly she was the most prompt of all in retiring and this was long past the usual hour. Could they have seen her at that moment their surprise would have been even greater. Long before, while the feast was at its height, the girl had quietly slipped away. Despite the fun she had so heartily enjoyed, thoughts of the visit to Gwendolyn's sick room, which she had made just before it, kept coming into her mind: and her thoughts running thus: "Gwen was ill, she really was, although Lady Jane seemed to think her only whimsical. She looked so unhappy and maybe partly because she couldn't be in this first Hallowe'en party. It was too bad. I felt as if she must come and when I said so to Winnie she just laughed and answered: 'Serves her right. Gwendolyn has always felt herself the top of the heap, that nothing could go on just right if she didn't boss the job. Now she'll find out that a little "Commoner" like you can do what no "Peer" ever did. Don't go worrying over that girl, Queen Baltimore. A lesson or two like this will do her good. She'd be as nice as anybody if it wasn't for her wretched stuck-up-ness. Miss Muriel says it's no harm to be proud if it's pride of the right sort. But pride of rank--Huh! How can anybody help where they're born or who their parents are? Don't you be silly, too, Dorothy Calvert, and pity somebody who'd resent the pity. I never knew a girl like you. You make me provoked. Never have a really, truly good time because you happen to know of somebody else that isn't having it. I say again: If the Honorable Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard feels bad because she isn't in this racket I'm downright glad of it. She has spoiled lots of good times for other girls and 'turn about's fair play.'" "Now, Winnie dear, your 'bark is worse than your bite' if I can quote maxims, too. In your heart, down deep, you're just as sorry for poor Gwen as I am. Only you won't admit it." "Well, if you think so, all right. You're a stubborn little thing and once you take a notion into your brain nobody can take it out. 'Where are you going, my pretty maid? I'm going a studying, sir, she said;'" and tossing an airy kiss in Dorothy's direction, ran swiftly away. Yet events proved that, as Winifred had argued, Dorothy's opinion did not alter. Neither could she be sorry for anyone without trying to help them in some way. The simple country treat of nuts, popped corn, and cider had proved enjoyable to other schoolmates--why shouldn't it to Gwendolyn? She'd try it, anyway. So, unnoticed by those around her, Dolly heaped her own plate with the good things, placing a tumbler of cider in the middle and hurried away, or rather glided away, so gently she moved until she reached the doorway. There she ran as swiftly down the long hall toward the west wing and Gwendolyn's room in it. Tapping at the door Lady Jane soon opened it, but with finger on lip requesting silence. But she smiled as she recognized who stood there and at the plate of goodies Dorothy had brought. Then she gently drew her in, nodding toward the cot where her daughter seemed asleep. She was not, however, but had been lying still, thinking of many things and among them her present visitor. She was not surprised to see her and this time was not pained. It seemed to the imaginative invalid that her own thoughts had compelled Dorothy to come, in response to them. "I'm awake, Mamma. You needn't keep so quiet." "Are you, dearest? Well, that's good; for here has come our little maid with something tempting for your appetite. A share of the Hallowe'en treat, is it, Dorothy?" "Yes, Lady Jane, and it's something different from what we often have. The farmer, Mr. Gilpin, brought it for us girls and I couldn't bear--I mean I thought Gwendolyn should have--might like, her share, even if--if _I_ brought it. I'm sorry the plate is a cracked one, but you see there were so many needed and the maids brought what they could find handiest, I suppose. But--the glass of cider is all right. That's from the regular table and--and it's really very sweet and nice." Now that she had come poor Dorothy wished that she hadn't. Lady Jane seemed pleased enough and had promptly turned on a stronger light which clearly showed the face of the girl on the bed. She could talk readily enough to the mother but whenever she glanced toward Gwendolyn her tongue faltered and hesitated woefully. It seemed as if the sick girl's eyes were still hard and forbidding and their steady stare made her uncomfortable. So she did not speak to the invalid and was promptly retreating when Gwendolyn suddenly asked, yet with apparent effort: "Mamma, will you please go away for a few minutes? I've--I've got to speak to Dorothy--alone." "Why, certainly, dearest, if you think you're strong enough. But wouldn't you better wait another day? Wouldn't I be able to talk for you?" "No, no. Oh! no, no. Nobody but I can--Please go--go quick!" "'Stand not upon the order of your going but go at once!'" quoted Lady Jane, jestingly. But she failed to make her daughter smile and went away, warning: "Don't talk of that accident again to-night, girls." "That's exactly what I must talk about, Mamma, but you mustn't care." Lady Jane's heart was anxious as she closed the door behind her and she would have been amazed had she heard Gwendolyn's exclamation: "I've been a wicked girl! Oh, Dorothy! I've been so mean to you! And all the time you show me kindness. Are you trying to 'heap coals' on my head?" "'Heap coals?'" echoed Dolly, at first not comprehending; then she laughed. "I couldn't do that. I have none to 'heap' and I'd be horrid if I tried. What do you mean?" "It began the night you came. I made up things about you in my mind and then told them to our 'set' for facts. I'd--I'd had trouble with the 'set' because they would not remember about--about keeping ourselves apart from those who hadn't titles. I felt we ought to remember; that if our England had made 'classes' we ought to help her, loyally. That was the first feeling, way down deep. Then--then I don't get liked as I want to be, because I can't help knowing things about other girls and if they break the rules I felt I ought to tell the teachers. Somehow, even they don't like that; for the Lady Principal about as plain as called me 'tale-bearer.' I hate--oh! I do hate to tell you all this! But I can't help it. Something inside me makes me, but I'm so miserable!" She looked the fact she stated and Dorothy's sympathy was won, so that she begged: "Don't do it, then. Just get well and--and carry no more tales and you'll be happy right away." "It's easy to talk--for you, maybe. For me, I'd almost rather die than own I've been at fault--if it wasn't for that horrid, sick sort of feeling inside me." In spite of herself the listener laughed, for Gwendolyn had laid her hands upon her stomach as if locating the seat of her misery. She asked merrily: "Is it there we keep our consciences? I never knew before and am glad to find out." But Gwendolyn didn't laugh. She was an odd sort of girl, and always desperately earnest in whatever she undertook. She had made up her mind she must confess to the "Commoner" the things she had done against her; she was sincerely sorry for them now, but she couldn't make that confession gracefully. She caught her breath as if before a plunge into cold water and then blurted out: "I told 'our set' that you were Dawkins's niece! I said you were a disgrace to the school and one of us would have to leave it. But Mamma wouldn't take _me_ and I couldn't make _you_ go. I got mad and jealous. Everybody liked you, except the girls I'd influenced. The Bishop petted you--he never notices me. Miss Tross-Kingdon treats you almost as lovingly as she does Millikins-Pillikins. All the servants smile on you and nobody is afraid of you as everybody is of me. Dawkins, and sometimes even Mamma, accuses me of a 'sharp tongue' that makes enemies. But, somehow, I can't help it. And the worst is--one can't get back the things one has said and done, no matter how she tries. Then you went and saved my life!" At this, the strange girl covered her face and began to cry, while Dorothy stared at her, too surprised to speak. Until the tears changed to sobs and Gwendolyn shook with the stress of her emotion. Then, fearing serious results, Dorothy forgot everything except that here was someone in distress which she must soothe. Down on her knees she went, flung her arms around the shaking shoulders, and pleaded: "Well, you poor dear, can't you be glad of that? Even if you can never like me isn't it good to be alive? Aren't you grateful that somebody who could swim, even poor I, was at the pool to help you out of it that day? Forget it, do forget it, and get well and happy right away. I'll keep away from you as far as I can and you must forgive me for coming here again just now." "Forgive you? Forgive you! Oh! Dorothy Calvert, can you, will you ever forgive me? After all my meanness to you, could you make yourself like me just a little?" Gwendolyn's own arms had now closed in eager entreaty about the girl she had injured. Her pride was humbled at last and completely. But there was no need of further speech between them. They clung together in their suddenly awakened affection, at peace and so happy that neither felt it possible they had ever been at odds. When, at last, Dorothy drew back and rose, Gwen still clung to her hand, and penitently said: "But that isn't all. There's a lot more to tell that, maybe, will make you despise me worse than ever. I've done--" "No matter what, dearest. You've talked quite enough for to-night and Dorothy should be in bed. Bid one another good night, my dears, and meet again to-morrow;" interrupted Lady Jane, who had quietly returned. So Dorothy departed, and with a happier heart than she had had since her coming to Oak Knowe; for now there was nobody there with whom she was at discord. But--was there not? Gayly tripping down the long corridor, humming a merry air and hoping that she hadn't yet broken the retiring-rule, she stopped short on the way. Something or somebody was far ahead of her, moving with utmost caution against noise, yet himself, or itself, making a peculiar rat-a-tat-tat upon the polished boards. Instantly Dorothy hushed her light song and slackened her steps. The passage was dimly lighted for it was rarely used, leading as it did to the distant servants' quarters and ending in a great drying-room above the laundry. Even this drying-room was almost given up to the storage of trunks and other things, the laundry itself being more convenient for all its requirements. Rumors came back to her of the burglaries which the kitchen-folk had declared had been frequent of late, none more serious than the loss of a dinner provided and the strange rifling of safes and cupboard. Such had happened weeks before, then apparently ceased; but they had begun again of late; with added rumors of strange noises heard at night, and in the quieter hours of the day. The faculty had tried to keep these fresh rumors from the pupils' ears, but they had leaked out. Yet no real investigation had been made. It was a busy household, both above and below stairs; and as is usual, what is "everybody's business is nobody's" and things were left to run their course. But now, was the burglar real? And had Dorothy come suddenly upon his track? If she only could find out! Without fear of consequences to herself and forgetful of that retiring-rule she tip-toed noiselessly in the wake of whatever was in advance, and so came at last to the door of the drying-room. It stood ajar and whatever had preceded her passed beyond it as the girl came to it. She also entered, curiosity setting every nerve a-tingle, yet she still unafraid. Stepping behind the open door she waited what next, and trying to accustom her eyes to the absolute darkness of the place. The long row of windows on the outer wall were covered by wooden shutters, as she had noticed from the ground, and with them closed the only light which could enter came through a small scuttle, or skylight in the center of the ceiling. From her retreat behind the door she listened breathlessly. The rat-a-tat-tat had died away in the distance, whither she now dared not follow because of the darkness; and presently she heard a noise like the slipping of boards in a cattle shed. Then footsteps returning, swiftly and softly, as of one in bare or stockinged feet. There was a rush past her, the door to which she clung was snatched from her and shut with a bang. This sound went through her with a thrill, and vividly there arose the memory of a night long past when she had been imprisoned in an empty barn, by the wild freak of an old acquaintance of the mountain, and half-witted Peter Piper for sole companion. Then swiftly she felt her way back along the door till her hand was on its lock--which she could not move. Here was a situation suitable, indeed, for any Hallowe'en! CHAPTER IX THE NIGHT THAT FOLLOWED It was long past the hour when, on ordinary nights, Oak Knowe would have been in darkness, relieved only by a glimmer here and there, at the head of some stairway, and in absolute stillness. But the Hallowe'en party had made everything give way and the servants were up late, putting the great Assembly Hall into the spotless order required for the routine of the next day. Nut shells and scattered pop corn, apple-skins that had been tossed over the merrymakers' shoulders to see what initial might be formed, broken masks that had been discarded, fragments of the flimsy costumes, splashes of spilled cider, scattered crumbs and misplaced furniture, made Dawkins and her aids lift hands in dismay as, armed with brooms and scrubbing brushes they came to "clear up." "Clear up, indeed! Never was such a mess as this since ever I set foot at Oak Knowe. After the sweepin' the scrubbin'; and after the scrubbin' the polishin', and the chair fetchin' and--my heart! 'Tis the dear bit lassie she is, but may I be further afore Dorothy Dixie gets up another Hallowe'en prank!" grumbled Dawkins, yet with a tender smile on her lips, remembering the thousand and one trifles which the willing girl had done for her. For Dawkins was growing old. Under her maid's cap the hair was thin and gray, and stooping to pick up things the girls had carelessly thrown down was no longer an easy task. The rules against carelessness were stringent enough and fairly well obeyed, yet among three hundred lively girls some rules were bound to be ignored. But from the first, as soon as she understood them, Dorothy had been obedient to all these rules; and it was Dawkins's pride, when showing visitors through the building to point to Dolly's cubicle as a model. Here was never an article left out of place; because not only school regulations but real affection for the maid, who had been her first friend at Oak Knowe, made Dorothy "take care." Then busy at their tasks, the workers talked of the evening's events and laughingly recalled the incident of the goat, which they had witnessed from the upper gallery; a place prepared for them by the good Bishop's orders, that nobody at his great school should be prohibited from enjoying a sight of the pupils' frequent entertainments. "But sure, 'tis that lad, Jack, which frets me as one not belongin' to Oak Knowe," said Dora, with conviction. "Not belonging? Why, woman alive, he's been here longer nor yourself. 'Twas his mother that's gone, was cook here before the _chef_ and pity for his orphaned state the reason he's stayed since. But I own ye, he's not been bettered by his summers off, when the school's not keepin' and him let work for any farmer round. I note he's a bit more prankish an' disobliging, every fall when he comes back. For some curious reason--I can't dream what--he's been terrible chummy with Miss Gwendolyn. Don't that beat all?" said Dawkins whirling her brush. "I don't know--I don't really know as 'tis. He's forever drawing pictures round of every created thing, and she's come across him doin' it. She's that crazy for drawing herself that she's likely took an int'rest in him. I heard her puttin' notions in his head, once, tellin' him how 't some the greatest painters ever lived had been born just peasants like him." "Huh! Was that what made him so top-lofty and up-steppin'? When I told him he didn't half clean the young ladies' shoes, tossin' his head like the simpleton he is, and saucin' back as how he wouldn't be a boot-boy all his life. I'd find out one these days whom I'd been tongue-lashin' so long and'd be ashamed to look him in the face. Huh!" added another maid. "Well, why bother with such as him, when we've all this to finish, and me to go yet to my dormitory to see if all's right with my young ladies," answered Dawkins and silence fell, till the task was done and the great room in the perfect order required for the morning. Then away to her task above hurried good Dawkins and coming to Dorothy's cubicle found its bed still untouched and its light brightly burning. The maid stared and gasped. What did this mean? Had harm befallen her favorite? Then she smiled at her own fears. Of course, Dorothy was in the room with little Grace, where the cot once prepared for her still remained because the child had so begged; in "hopes I'll be sick some more and Dolly'll come again." So Dawkins turned off the light and hurried to her reclining chair in the outer hall, where she usually spent the hours of her watch. But no sooner had she settled herself there than all her uneasiness returned. Twisting and turning on her cushions she fretted: "I don't see what's got into this chair, the night! Seems if I can't get a comfortable spot in it anywhere. Maybe, it's 'cause I'm extra tired. Hallowe'en pranks are fun for the time but there's a deal hard work goes along with 'em. Or any other company fixings, for that matter. I wonder was the little Grace scared again, by that ridic'lous goat? Is that why Dorothy went with her? Where'd the beast come from, anyway? And who invited it to the masquerade? Not the good Bishop, I'll be bound. Now, what does make me so uneasy! Sure there's nought wrong with dear little Dixie. How could there be under this safe roof?" But the longer Dawkins pondered the matter the more restless she grew; till, at last, she felt she must satisfy her mind, even at the cost of disturbing the Lady Principal; and a moment later tapped at her door, asking softly: "Are you awake, Miss Muriel? It's Dawkins." "Yes, Dawkins, come in. I've not been able to sleep yet. I suppose the evening's care and excitement has tired me too much. What is it you want? Anything wrong in the dormitory?" "Well, not to say wrong--or so I hope. I just stepped here to ask is Miss Dorothy Calvert staying the night?" "Staying with Grace? No, indeed, the child has been asleep for hours: perfectly satisfied now that I and so many others have seen the apparition she had, and so proved her the truthful little creature she'd always been." That seemed a very long answer to impatient Dawkins and she clipped it short by asking: "Then, Ma'am, where do you suppose she is?" "What? Do you mean that she isn't in her own place?" "No, Ma'am, nor sign of her; and it's terr'ble strange, 'pears to me. I don't like the look of it, Ma'am, I do not." "Pooh! don't make a mystery out of it, my good woman!" replied Miss Tross-Kingdon, yet with a curious flutter in her usually stern voice. Then she considered the matter for a moment, finally directing: "Go to the hospital wing and ask if she's there with Gwendolyn. She's been so sorry for the girl and I noticed her slipping out of Assembly with a plate full of the things Mr. Gilpin brought. I don't remember her coming back, but she was certainly absent when her violin was asked for. Doubtless, you'll find her there, but be careful not to rouse any of the young ladies. Then come back and report." Dawkins tip-toed away, glad that she had told her anxiety to her mistress. But she was back from her errand before it seemed possible she could be, her face white and her limbs trembling with fear of--she knew not what! "If it was any girl but her, Ma'am! That keeps the rules better nor any other here!" "Hush, good Dawkins. She's all right somewhere, as we shall soon discover. We'll go below and look in all the rooms, in case she might be ill, or locked in some of them." "Yes, yes, Ma'am, we'll look. Ill she might really be after all them nuts an' trash, but locked in she can't be, since never a lock is turned in this whole house. Sure the Bishop wouldn't so permit, seeing that if it fired any time them that was locked up could not so easy get out. And me the last one down, to leave all in the good order you like." "Step softly still, Dawkins. It would take very little to start a panic among our many girls should they hear that anything was amiss." Each took a candle from the rack in the hall and by the soft light of these began their search below, not daring to flash on the electric lights whose brilliance might possibly arouse the sleepers in the house. Dawkins observed that the Lady Principal, walking ahead, was shaking, either with cold or nervousness, and, as for herself, her teeth were fairly chattering. Of course their search proved useless. Nowhere in any of those first floor rooms was any trace of the missing girl. Even closets were examined while Dawkins peered behind the furniture and curtains, her heart growing heavier each moment. Neither mistress nor maid spoke now, though the former led the way upwards again and silently inspected the dormitories on each floor. Also, she looked into each private room of the older and wealthier pupils, but the result was the same--Dorothy had as completely disappeared as if she had been bodily swallowed up. Then the aid of the other maids and, even of a few teachers was secured, although that the school work might go on regularly the next day, not many of these latter were disturbed. At daybreak, when the servants began to gather in the great kitchen, each to begin his daily tasks, the Lady Principal surprised them by her appearance among them. In the briefest and quietest manner possible she told them what had happened and begged their help in the search. But she was unprepared for the result. A housemaid threw up her hands in wild excitement, crying: "'Tis ten long years I've served Oak Knowe but my day is past! Her that went some syne was the wise one. I'll not tarry longer to risk the health o' me soul in a house that's haunted by imps!" "Nor me! Him that's snatched off to his wicked place the sweet, purty gell, of the willin' word an' friendly smile, 'll no long spare such as me! A fine collectin' ground for the Evil One is so big a school as this. I'm leavin' the dustin' to such as can do it, but I'm off, Ma'am, and better times for ye, I'm sure!" cried another superstitious creature. This was plain mutiny. For a moment the lady's heart sank at the prospect before her, for the panic would spread if not instantly quelled, and there were three hundred hungry girls awaiting breakfast--and breakfast but one feature of the case. Should these servants leave, to spread their untrue tales, new ones would be almost impossible to obtain. Then, summoning her authority, she demanded: "Silence and attention from all of you. I shall telephone for the constabulary, and any person who leaves Oak Knowe before Miss Calvert is found will leave it for the lock-up. The housemaids are excused from ordinary duties and are to assist the _chef_ in preparing breakfast. The rest of you, who have retained your common sense, are to spread yourselves about the house and grounds, and through every outbuilding till some one of you shall find the girl you all have loved. Leave before then? I am ashamed of your hard hearts." With stately dignity the mistress left the kitchen and a much subdued force of helpers behind her. That threat of "the constabulary" was an argument not to be defied. "Worst of it is, she meant it. Lady Principal never says a thing she doesn't mean. So--Well, I suppose I'll have to stay, then, for who wants to get took up? But it's hard on a workin' woman 't she can't do as she likes," muttered the first deserter and set about her duties. Also, as did she so did the others. Meanwhile how had the night passed with the imprisoned Dorothy? At first with greater anger than fear; anger against the unknown person who had shut that door upon her. Then she thought: "But of course he didn't know, whoever it was. I'm sure it was a man or boy, afraid, maybe, to make a noise account of its being late. Yet what a fix I'm in! Nobody will know or come to let me out till Dawkins goes her rounds and that'll be very, very late, on account of her clearing up the mess we made down in Assembly. My! what a fine time we had! And how perfectly grand that Gwendolyn and I should be friends at last. She kissed me. Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard kissed me! It's worth even being shut up here alone, behind that spring-locked door, just to be friends. I'm so sleepy. I wish I could find something to put around me and I'd lie right down on this floor and take a nap till somebody lets me out." Then she remembered that once she had heard Dawkins telling another maid that there were "plenty more blankets in the old drying-room if her 'beds' needed 'em;" and maybe she could find some if she tried. "This is the very darkest place could ever be, seems if! ouch! that hurt!" said the prisoner aloud, to bolster her own courage, and as she stumbled against a trunk that bruised her ankle. "I'll take more care." So she did: reasoning that people generally piled things against a wall, that is, in such a place, for greater convenience. With outstretched hands she felt her way and at last was rewarded by finding the blankets she sought. Here, too, were folded several cots, that were needed at times, like Commencement, when many strangers were at Oak Knowe. But she didn't trouble to set up one of these, even if she could have done so in that gloom. But a blanket she could manage, and beside the cots she could feel a heap of them. In a very few minutes she had pulled down several of these and spread them on the floor; and a little later had wrapped them about her and was sound asleep--"as a bug in a rug, like Dawkins says," her last, untroubled thought. So, though a prisoner, for many hours she slumbered peacefully. Down in the breakfast-room matters went on as usual. Or if many of the girls and a few of the pupils seemed unduly sleepy, that was natural enough, considering the frivolities and late hours of the night before. Even the Lady Principal, sitting calmly in her accustomed place, looked very pale and tired; and Winifred, observing this, whispered to her neighbor: "I don't believe we'll get another party very soon. Just look at Miss Tross-Kingdon. She's as white as a ghost and so nervous she can hardly sit still. I never saw her that way before. The way she keeps glancing toward the doors, half-scared every time she hears a noise, is queer. I wonder if she's expecting somebody!" "Likely somebody's late and she's waiting to say: 'Miss'--whoever it is--'your excuse, please?' I wonder who 'twill be! and say, look at the Aldrich ten--can you see Dorothy?" Winifred glanced around and answered, with real surprise: "Why, she's absent! If it were I nobody'd be astonished, 'cause I always have the same excuse: 'Overslept.' But Dolly? Oh! I hope she isn't sick!" And immediately the meal was over, Winifred hurried to the Lady Principal and asked: "Please, Miss Muriel, can you tell me, is Dorothy Calvert ill?" "Excuse me, Winifred, I am extremely busy," returned Miss Tross-Kingdon, and hurried away as if she were afraid of being questioned further. Naturally, Winifred was surprised, for despite her sternness the Lady Principal was invariably courteous; and putting "two and two together" she decided that Dorothy was in trouble of some sort and began a systematic inquiry of all she met concerning her. But nobody had seen the girl or knew anything about her; yet the questioner's anxiety promptly influenced others and by the time school session was called there was a wide-spread belief that some dreadful thing had befallen the southerner, and small attention was paid to lessons. It was not until the middle of the morning that Jack-boot-boy appeared in the kitchen, from his room in an outside building, where the men servants slept. He was greeted by reproofs for his tardiness and the news of Dorothy's disappearance. "Lost? Lost, you say? How can she be right here in this house? Why, I saw her around all evening. It was her own party, wasn't it? or hers was the first notion of it. Huh! That's the queerest! S'pose the faculty'll offer a reward? Jiminy cricket! Wish they would! I bet I'd find her. Why, sir, I'd make a first rate detective, I would. I've been readin' up on that thing an' I don't know but it would pay me better'n paintin', even if I am a 'born artist,' as Miss Gwendolyn says." "Born nincompoop! That's what you are, and the all-conceitedest lazybones 't ever trod shoe leather! Dragging out of bed this time o' day, and not a shoe cleaned--in my dormitory, anyway!" retorted Dawkins, in disgust. "Huh! old woman, what's the matter with you? And why ain't you _in_ bed, 'stead of out of it? I thought all you night-owls went to bed when the rest of us got up. You need sleep, you do, for I never knowed you crosser'n you be now--which is sayin' consid'able!" Dawkins was cross, there was no denying that, for her nerves were sadly shaken by her fears for the girl she had learned to love so dearly. "You get about your business, boy, at once; without tarryin' to pass remarks upon your betters;" and she made a vicious dash toward him as if to strike him. He knew this was only pretence, and sidled toward her, mockingly, then, as she raised her hand again--this time with more decision--he cowered aside and made a rush out of the kitchen. "Well, that's odd! The first time I ever knew that boy to turn down his breakfast!" remarked the _chef_, pointing to a heaped up plate at the back of the range. "Well, I shan't keep it any longer. He'll have the better appetite for dinner, ha, ha!" Jack's unusual indifference to good food was due to a sound he had overheard. It came from somewhere above and passed unnoticed by all but him, but set him running to a distant stairway which led from "the old laundry" to the drying-loft above: and a sigh of satisfaction escaped him as he saw that the door of this was shut. "Lucky for me, that is! I was afraid they'd been looking here for that Calvert girl, but they haven't, 'cause the lock ain't broke and the key's in my pocket," said he, in a habit he had of talking to himself. The noise beyond the door increased, and worried him, and he hurriedly sought the key where he usually carried it. The door could be, and had been, closed by a spring, but it needed that key to open it, as he had boastingly remembered. Unhappy lad! In not one of his many and ragged pockets could that key now be found! While in the great room beyond the noise grew loud, and louder, with each passing second and surely would soon be heard by all the house. Under the circumstances nobody would hesitate to break that hateful lock to learn the racket's cause; yet what would happen to him when this was discovered? What, indeed! Yet, strangely enough, in all his trepidation there was no thought of Dorothy. CHAPTER X OPEN CONFESSION IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL A housemaid, passing through the disused "old laundry" on the ground floor, as a short-cut toward the newer one in a detached building, heard a strange noise in the drying-room overhead, and paused to listen. This was unusual. In ordinary the loft was never entered, nowadays, except by some slippered maid, or Michael with a trunk. Setting down her basket of soiled linen she put her hands on her hips and stood motionless, intently listening. Dorothy? Could it be Dorothy? Impossible! No living girl could make all that racket; yet--was that a scream? Was it laughter--terror--wild animal--or what? Away she sped; her nimble feet pausing not an instant on the way, no matter with whom she collided nor whom her excited face frightened, and still breathlessly running came into the great Assembly Hall. There Miss Tross-Kingdon had, by the advice of the Bishop, gathered the whole school; to tell them as quietly as she could of Dorothy's disappearance and to cross-examine them as to what anyone could remember about her on the evening before. For the sorrowful fact could no longer be hidden--Dorothy Calvert was gone and could not be found. On the faces of those three hundred girls was consternation and grief; in their young hearts a memory of the "spookish" things which had happened of late, but that had not before disturbed them; and now, at the excited entrance of the maid, a shiver ran over the whole company. Here was news! Nothing less could explain this unceremonious disturbance. Even Miss Muriel's face turned paler than it had been, could that have been possible and without a word she waited for the maid to speak. "Oh! Lady Principal! Let somebody come! The drying-loft! screams--boards dragging--or trunks--or murder doing--maybe! Let somebody go quick--Michael--a man--men--Somebody quick!" Exhausted by her own excitement, the maid sank upon the nearest chair, her hand on her heart, and herself unable to add another word. Miss Tross-Kingdon rose, trembling so that she could hardly walk, and made her way out of the room. In an instant every assembled schoolgirl was on her feet, speeding toward the far west wing and the great loft, dreading yet eager to see what would there be revealed. Still anxious on his own account, but from a far different cause, and still listening at the closed door with wonder at what seemed going on behind it, was Jack, the boot-boy. At the approach of the excited girls, he lifted his ear from the keyhole and looked behind him, to find himself trapped, as it were, at this end of the narrow passage by the multitude which swarmed about him, feverishly demanding: "Boy, what is it? What is it? Is Dorothy in there? Is Dorothy found?" "Is Dorothy--" Poor Jack! This was the worst yet! At full comprehension of what that question meant, even he turned pale and his lips stuttered: "I--I--dunno--I--Jiminy cricket!" He must get out of that! He must--he must! Before that door was opened he must escape! Frantically he tried to force his way backward through the crowd which penned him in, but could make little progress; even that being suddenly cut off by a strong hand laid on his shoulder and the _chef_ forcing into his hand a stout crowbar, and ordering: "Help to break her down!" at the same instant Michael, the porter, pressing to his side armed with an ax. "Now, all together!" cried he, and whether or no, Jack was compelled to aid in the work of breaking in. But it was short work, indeed, and the crowd surged through the opening in terror of what they might behold--only to have that terror changed into shouts of hilarious delight. For there was Dorothy! not one whit the worse for her brief imprisonment and happily unconscious of the anxiety which that had caused to others. And there was Baal, the goat! Careering about the place, dragging behind him a board to which he had been tied and was unable to dislodge. The room was fairly lighted now by the sun streaming through the skylight, and Baal had been having a glorious time chasing Dorothy about the great room, from spot to spot, gleefully trying to butt her with his horns, leaping over piles of empty trunks, and in general making such a ridiculous--if sometimes dangerous--spectacle of himself, that Dorothy, also, had had a merry time. "Oh! you darling, you darling!" "Dolly Doodles, how came you here!" "Why did you do it? You've scared us all almost to death!" "The Bishop has gone into town to start detectives on your track!" "The Lady Principal--Here she is now! you've made her positively ill, and as for Dawkins, they say she had completely collapsed and lies on her chair moaning all the time." "Oh, oh! How dreadful! And how sorry I am! I never dreamed; oh! dear Miss Muriel, do believe me--listen, listen!" The lady sat down on a trunk and drew the girl to her. Her only feeling now was one of intensest gratitude, but she remembered how all the others had shared her anxiety and bade her recovered pupil tell the story so that all might hear. It was very simple, as has been seen, and needs no repetition here, ending with the heartfelt declaration: "That cures me of playing detective ever again! I was so anxious to stop all that silly talk about evil spirits and after all the only such around Oak Knowe was Baal!" "But how Baal, and why? And most of all how came he here in the house?" demanded Miss Tross-Kingdon, looking from one to another; until her eye was arrested by the expression of Jack, the boot-boy's face. That was so funny she smiled, seeing it, and asked him: "Can't you explain this, Jack?" "Uh--er--Ah! Wull--wull, yes, Ma'am, I allow 't I might. I mean 't I can. Er--sho!--Course, I'll have to. Wull--wull--You see, Miss Lady Principal, how as last summer, after school was took in, I hired myself out to work for old John Gilpin an' he had a goat. Dame didn't hanker for it no great; said it et up things an' got into places where 'twarn't wanted and she adwised him, that is to say she told him, how 't he must get rid of it. He got rid of it onto me. I hadn't got nobody belongin' and we've been first rate friends, Baal and me." This was evidenced by the quietude of the animal, now lying at the boot-boy's feet in affectionate confidence, and refreshing itself with a nap, after its hilarious exercise. "Strange that we didn't know he was on our grounds, for I did not. Where have you kept him, Jack, and how?" The lad flushed and fidgetted but dared not refuse to reply. He had been too long under the authority of Miss Tross-Kingdon for that, to whose good offices his mother had left him when she died. "Wull--Wull--" "Kindly stop 'wulling' and reply. It is nearly lunch time and Dorothy has had no breakfast." "Yes, Miss Muriel, please but I have. When I waked up after I'd slept so long it was real light, so I went poking around to see if I could find another door that would open, or any way out; and I came to a queer place away yonder at the end; and I heard the funniest noise--'ih-ih-ih--Ah-umph!' something like that. Then I knew it was the goat, that I'd heard pat-pat-pattering along the hall last night and that I'd followed. And I guessed it was Jack, instead of a burglar, who'd rushed past me and locked me in. I was mighty glad to see anybody, even a goat, and I opened the gate to the place and Baal jumped out. He was tied to that board--he'd pulled it off the gate, and was as glad to see me as I was him. That little sort of cupboard, or cubby-hole, had lots of excelsior in it; I guess it had come around crockery or something, and that was where Baal slept. There was a tin box there, too, and I opened it. I was glad enough then! For it was half full of cakes and apples and a lemon pie, that you call a 'Christchurch' up here in Canada; and before I knew it Baal had his nose in the box, like he was used to eating out of it, and I had to slap his nose to make him let me have a share. So I'm not hungry and all I care is that I have made you all so worried." But already that was almost forgotten, though Miss Muriel's curiosity was not yet satisfied. "Jack, are you in the habit of keeping that animal here, in this room?" "Yes--yes, Ma'am; times I am. Other times he stays in the old shed down by the brook. Most of the men knew I had him; Michael did, anyhow. He never said nothing again' it;" answered the boy, defiantly, trying to shift responsibility to the old porter, the most trusted servant of the house. "No, I cannot imagine Michael meddling with you and your foolishness; and for a lad who's lived so long at a great school, I wonder to hear such bad grammar from your lips. How did you get Baal into this room without being detected in it?" "Why, Ma'am, that was easy as preachin'. That back end, outside steps, what leads up from the ground for carrying up wet clothes, it used to be. He comes up that way, for goats can climb any place. Leastwise, Baal can, and the door's never locked no more, 'cause I lost the key;" answered Jack, who was now the center of attention and proud of the fact. "Very well, Jack. That will do. Kindly see to it that Baal is permanently removed from Oak Knowe, and--" She paused for a moment, as if about to add more, then quietly moved away, with Dorothy beside her and all her now happy flock following. Never before had the laughter and chatter of her girls sounded so musical in her ears, nor her own heart been lighter than now, in its rebound from her recent anxiety. She wasn't pleased with Jack, the boot-boy; decidedly she was not pleased. She had not been since his return from his summer's work, for he had not improved either in industry or behavior. She had not liked the strange interest which Gwendolyn had taken in his slight gift for drawing, which that enthusiastic young artist called "remarkable," but which this more experienced instructor knew would never amount to anything. Yet that was a matter which could wait. Meanwhile, here was a broken day, with everybody still so excited that lessons would be merely wasted effort; so, after she had sent Dorothy to put on her ordinary school dress, she informed the various classes that no more work was required that day and that after lunch there would be half-holiday for all her pupils. "Hurrah! Hurrah! Three cheers for Dolly and may she soon get lost again!" shouted Winifred, and, for once, was not rebuked because of unladylike manners. Left to himself, Jack regarded his beloved Baal, in keen distress. "Said you'd got to go, did she? Well, if you go I do, too. Anyhow I'm sick to death of cleaning nasty girls', or nasty shoes o' a lot o' girls--ary way you put it. Boot-boy, Baal! Think o' that. If that ain't a re--restrick-erated life for a artist, like Miss Gwen says I am; or uther a dectective gentleman--I'd like to know. No, sir, Baal! We'll quit an' we'll do it to once. Maybe they won't feel sorry when they find me gone an' my place empty to the table! Maybe them girls that laughed when that old schoolmarm was a pitchin' into me afore all them giggling creatures, maybe they won't feel bad, a-lookin' at that hull row of shoes outside cubicle doors waiting to be cleaned and not one touched toward it! Huh! It'll do all them 'ristocratics good to have to clean 'em themselves. All but Miss Gwendolyn. She's the likeliest one of the hull three hundred. I hate--I kinder hate to leave her. 'Artists has kindred souls,' she said once when she was showin' me how to draw that skull. Who can tell? I might get to be more famouser'n her, smart as she is; an' I might grow up, and her too, and I might come to her house--or is it a turreted castle?--an' I might take my fa--famousness an' offer it to her to marry me! And then, when her folks couldn't hardly believe that I was I, and her old boot-boy, maybe they'd say 'Yes, take her, my son! I'm proud to welcome into our 'ristocraticy one that has riz from a boot-boy to our rank!' Many a story-book tells o' such doings, an' what's in them ought to be true. Good for 't I can buy 'em cheap. The Bishop caught me reading one once and preached me a reg'lar sermon about it. Said that such kind of literatoor had ruined many a simple fellow and would me if I kep' on. But even Bishops don't know everything, though I allow he's a grand old man. I kind of sorter hate to leave Oak Knowe on his account, he takes such an int'rest in me. But he'll get over it. He'll have to, for we're going, Baal an' me, out of this house where we're wastin' our sweetness on the desert air. My jiminy cricket! If a boy that can paint pictures and recite poetry like I can, can't rise above shoe-cleanin' and get on in this world--I'd like to know the reason why! Come, Baal! I'll strap my clothes in a bundle, shake the dust of old Oak Knowe offen me, and hie away to seek my fortune--and your'n." Nobody interfering, Jack proceeded to put this plan into action; but it was curious that, as he reached the limits of Oak Knowe grounds, he turned and looked back on the big, many-windowed house, and at the throngs of happy girls who were at "recreation" on the well-kept lawns. A sort of sob rose in his throat and there was a strange sinking in his stomach that made him most uncomfortable. He couldn't tell that this was "homesickness," and he tried to forget it in bitterness against those whom he was deserting. "They don't care, none of 'em! Not a single mite does anyone of them 'ristocratics care what becomes of--of poor Jack, the boot-boy! Come on, Baal! If we don't start our seekin' pretty quick--Why jiminy cricket I shall be snivellin'!" Saying this, the self-exiled lad gripped the goat's leading strap and set out at a furious pace down the long road toward the distant city. He had a dime novel in one pocket, an English sixpence in another--And what was this? "My soul! If there ain't the key to that old door they broke in to see what was racketing round so! I wonder if I ought to take it back? Baal, what say? That cubby of our'n wasn't so bad. You know, Baal, I wouldn't like to be a thief--not a reg'lar thief that'd steal a key. Course I wouldn't. Anyhow, I've left, I've quit. I'm seekin' my fortune--understand? Whew! The wind's risin'. I allow there's going to be a storm. I wish--Old Dawkins used to say: 'Better take two thoughts to a thing!' an' maybe, maybe, if I'd ha' waited a spell afore--I mean I wouldn't ha' started fortune-seekin' till to-morrow and the storm over. Anyhow, I've really started, though! And if things don't happen to my mind, I can show 'em what an honest boy I am by takin' back that key. Come on, Baal, do come on! What in creation makes you drag so on that strap and keep lookin' back? Come on, I say!" Then, both helping and hindering one another, the lad and his pet passed out of sight and for many a day were seen no more in that locality. Yet the strange events of that memorable day were not all over. At study hour, that evening, came another surprise--a visit to her mates of the invalid Gwendolyn. From some of them she received only a silent nod of welcome; but Laura, Marjorie, and Dorothy sprang to meet her with one accord, and Winifred followed Dorothy's example after a second's hesitation. "Oh, Gwen! How glad we are to have you back! Are you sure you're quite strong enough to come?" questioned Marjorie, while less judicious Laura exclaimed: "But you can't guess what you've missed! We've had the greatest scare ever was in this school! You'd ought to have come down sooner. What do you think it was that happened? Guess--quick--right away! Or I can't wait to tell! I'll tell anyhow! Dorothy was lost and everybody feared she had been killed! Yes, Gwen, lost all the long night through and had to sleep with the goat and--" Gwendolyn's face was pale from her confinement in the sick room but it grew paler now, and catching Dorothy's hand she cried out: "Oh! what if I had been too late!" Nobody understood her, not even Dorothy herself, who merely guessed that Gwen was referring to their interview of the night before; but she didn't know this proud girl fully, nor the peculiar nature of that pride which, once aroused, compelled her to do what she most shrank from. As Dorothy pushed a chair forward, Gwendolyn shook her head. "Thank you, but not yet. I've got something to say--that all of you must hear." Of course, everybody was astonished by this speech and every eye turned toward the young "Peer" who was about to prove herself of noble "rank" as never in all her life before. Dorothy began to suspect what might be coming and by a silent clasp of Gwendolyn's waist and a protesting shake of her head tried to prevent her saying more. But Gwendolyn as silently put aside the appealing arm and folding her own arms stood rigidly erect. It wouldn't have been the real Gwen if she hadn't assumed this rather dramatic pose, which she had mentally rehearsed many times that day. Also, she had chosen this quiet hour and place as the most effective for her purpose, and she had almost coerced Lady Jane into letting her come. "Schoolmates and friends, I want to confess to you the meanest things that ever were done at dear Oak Knowe. From the moment she came here I disliked Dorothy Calvert and was jealous of her. In less than a week she had won Miss Muriel's heart as well as that of almost everybody else. I thought I could drive her out of the school, if I made the rest of you hate her, too. I'd begun to teach the boot-boy to draw, having once seen him attempting it. I painted him a death's head for a copy, and gave him my pocket-money to buy a mask of the Evil One." "Oh! Gwendolyn how dared you? You horrid, wicked girl!" cried gentle Marjorie, moved from her gentleness for once. "Well, I'll say this much in justice to myself. That thing went further than I meant, which was only to have him put pictures of it around in different places. He'd told me about keeping a goat in the old drying-room, and of course he couldn't always keep it still. The kitchen folks put the pictures and the goat's noises together and declared the house was haunted. I told the maids that they might lay that all to the new scholar from the States, and a lot of them believed me." Even loyal Laura now shrank aside from her paragon, simply horrified. She had helped to spread the rumor that Dorothy was a niece of Dawkins, but she had done no worse than that. It had been left to Jack-boot-boy to finish the contemptible acts. He got phosphorus from the laboratory, paint from any convenient color box, and his first success as a terrifier had been in the case of Millikins-Pillikins, at whose bed he had appeared--with the results that have been told. He it had been who had frightened the maid into leaving, and had spread consternation in the kitchen. "And in all these things he did, I helped him. I planned some of them but he always went ahead and thought worse ones out. Yet nobody, except the simpletons below stairs, believed it was Dorothy who had 'bewitched' the house," concluded that part of Gwendolyn's confession. Yet still she stood there, firmly facing the contempt on the faces of her schoolmates, knowing that that was less hard to bear than her own self-reproach had been. And presently she went on: "Then came that affair at the Maiden's Bath. Dorothy Calvert, whom I still hated, saved my life--while she might have lost her own. What I have suffered since, knowing this and how bravely she had borne all my hatefulness and had sacrificed herself for me--You must guess that. I can't tell it. But last night I made myself beg her pardon in private as I now beg it before you all. May I yet have the chance to do to her as she has done to me! Dorothy Calvert--will you forgive me?" CHAPTER XI WHAT CAME WITH THE SNOW AND ICE After that memorable week of Hallowe'en, affairs at Oak Knowe settled into their ordinary smooth running. That week had brought to all the school a surfeit of excitement so that all were glad of quiet and peace. "The classes have never made such even, rapid progress before, in all the years I've been here;" said the Lady Principal to the good Bishop. "Things are almost ominously quiet and I almost dread to have Christmas time approach. All the young ladies get more interested then in gift-preparing and anticipations of vacations at home than in school routine. I hate to have that interrupted so soon again." The Bishop laughed. "My dear Miss Muriel, you take life too seriously. Upheavals are good for us. Our lives would grow stagnant without them." "Beg pardon, but I can't fancy affairs at Oak Knowe ever being stagnant! Nor do I see, as you seem to, any fine results from the happenings of Hallow week. One of the ill results is--I cannot find a competent boot-boy. That makes you smile again, but I assure you it is no trifle in a large establishment like this, with it the rule that every pupil must walk the muddy road each day. The maids will do the work, of course, but they grumble. I do wish the ground would freeze or some good boy offer his services." A rattling of the window panes and a sound of rising wind sent the Bishop to the window: "Well, Miss Tross-Kingdon, one of your wishes is already coming true. There's a blizzard coming--surely. Flakes are already falling and I'm glad the double sashes are in place on this north side the building, and that Michael has seen to having the toboggan slide put in order. I prophesy that within a few days all the young folks will be tobogganing at a glorious rate. That's one of the things I'm thankful for--having been born in Canada where I could slide with the best!" He turned about and the lady smiled at his boyish enthusiasm. He was a man who never felt old, despite his venerable white head, but as he moved again toward the fire and Dorothy entered the room a shadow crossed his face. He had sent for her because within his pocket lay a letter he knew she ought to have, yet greatly disliked to give her. All the mail matter coming to the Oak Knowe girls passed first through their instructors' hands, though it was a rare occasion when such was not promptly delivered. This letter the Bishop had read as usual, but it had not pleased him. It was signed by one James Barlow, evidently a very old friend of Dorothy's, and was written with a boyish assumption of authority that was most objectionable, the Bishop thought. It stated that Mr. Seth Winters was very ill and that Mrs. Calvert was breaking down from grief and anxiety concerning him; and that, in the writer's opinion, Dorothy's duty lay at home and not in getting an education away up there in Canada. "Anybody who really wishes to learn can do that anywhere," was the conclusion of this rather stilted epistle. Now when his favorite came in, happy and eager to greet him, he suddenly decided that he would keep that letter to himself for a time, until he had written to some other of the girl's friends and found out more about the matter. "Did you send for me, dear Bishop?" "Well, yes, little girl, I did. There was something I wanted to talk to you about, but I've changed my mind and decided to put it off for the present;" he answered with a kindly smile that was less bright than usual. So that the sensitive girl was alarmed and asked: "Is it something that I've done but ought not?" "Bless your bonny face, no, indeed. No, Miss Betty the second, I have no fault to find with you. Rather I am greatly delighted by all your reports. Just look out of window a minute--what do you see?" Dorothy still wondered why she had been summoned, but looked out as she had been bidden. "Why, it's snowing! My, how fast, and how all of a sudden! When we were out for exercise the sun was shining bright." "The sun is always shining, dear child, even though clouds of trouble often obscure it. Always remember that, little Dorothy, no matter what happens." Then he dropped what the schoolgirls called his "preachy manner" and asked: "How do you like tobogganing?" "Why--why, of course I don't know. I've never even seen a toboggan, except in pictures. They looked lovely." "Lovely? I should say, but the real thing far lovelier. Miss Tross-Kingdon, here, knows my opinion of tobogganing. The finest sport there is and one that you unfortunate southerners cannot enjoy in your native land. Up here we have everything delightful, ha, ha! But you'll have to be equipped for the fun right away. Will you see to it, Miss Muriel, that Dorothy has a toboggan rig provided? For Michael will have the slides ready, you may be sure. He was born a deal further north even than this and snow-and-ice is his native element. Why, the honest old fellow can show several prizes he won, in his younger days, for skating, ice-boating, tobogganing, and the like. I always feel safe when Michael is on hand at the slide to look after his 'young leddies.' "Now, I must go. I have a service in town, to-night, and if I don't hurry I'll be caught in this blizzard. You run along, 'Betty' and spread the news of the grand times coming." With a gentle pat of the little hand he held he thus dismissed her, and inspired by his talk of the--to her--novel sport, she ran happily away, forgetful already of anything more serious. "Oh! girls! the Bishop says we'll soon have tobogganing!" she cried, joining a group gathered about a great wood fire in the library. "Oh! goody! I was looking at my new suit this very morning. Mother's had such a pretty one made for me, a blanket suit of baby blue with everything to match--mittens and cap and all! I'm just wild to wear it!" answered Fanny Dimock, running to the window to peer out. "To-morrow's half-holiday. Let's all go help Michael to get the slides ready!" "Of course--if the storm will let us out! Oh glorious!" said Ernesta Smith flying to Fanny's side, and trying to see through the great flakes, fast packing against the pane and hiding the view without. But this only increased the gayety within. Electric lights flashed out, girl after girl ran to fetch her own coasting suit and to spread it before the eyes of her mates. "Oh! aren't they the sweetest things!" exclaimed the delighted Dorothy; "the very prettiest clothes I ever saw!" Indeed they did make a fine show of color, heaped here and there, their soft, thick texture assuring perfect protection from cold. Reds and greens, pinks and blues, and snowy white; some fresh from the makers' hands, some showing the hard wear of former winters; yet all made after the Oak Knowe pattern. A roomy pair of pantaloons, to draw over the ordinary clothing from the waist down, ended in stocking-shaped feet, fitted for warm wool overshoes. The tunic fell below the knees and ended above in a pointed hood, and mittens were made fast to the sleeves. "Lovely, but isn't it terribly clumsy?" asked Dorothy, more closely examining one costume. "Let's show her! Let's have an Indian dance! Hurry up, everybody, and dress!" In a jiffy every girl who owned a costume got into it and the place was transformed. For somebody flew to the piano and struck up a lively waltz, and away went the girls, catching one another for partner--no matter who--whirling and circling, twisting bodies about, arms overhead, as in a regular calisthenic figure--till Dorothy was amazed. For what looked so thick and clumsy was too soft and yielding to hinder grace. In the midst of the mirth, the portieres were lifted and Gwendolyn came in. It was unfortunate that just then the music ended with a crash and that the whirling circles paused. For it looked as if her coming had stopped the fun, though this was far from true. Ever since that day of her open confession her schoolmates had regarded her with greater respect than ever before. Most of them realized how hard that confession had been for so haughty a girl, and except for her own manner, many would have shown her marked affection. When she had ceased speaking on that day an awkward silence followed. If she had expected hand-claps or applause she failed to get either. The listeners were too surprised to know what to do, and there was just as much pride in the young "Peer's" bearing as of old. After a moment of waiting she had stalked away and all chance for applause was gone. But she had returned to her regular classes the next morning and mixed with the girls at recreation more familiarly than she had formerly done; yet still that stiffness remained. For half-minute, Gwendolyn hesitated just within the entrance, then forced herself to advance toward the fireplace and stand there warming herself. "It's getting very cold," she remarked by way of breaking the unpleasant silence. "Yes, isn't it!" returned Winifred; adding under her breath: "Inside this room, anyway." "We're warm enough, dressed up like this," said Marjorie, pleasantly. "Dorothy says that the Bishop thinks we'll have tobogganing in a day or two, if the snow holds. She's never seen a toboggan nor how we dress for the sport, and we brought in our togs to show her. She thinks they look too clumsy for words, so we've just been showing her that we can move as easily in them as without them. But--my! It's made us so warm!" Gwendolyn turned toward Dorothy with a smile intended to be cordial, and asked: "Is that so, indeed? Then I suppose you'll have to get a rig like ours if you want to try the slide." "Yes, I suppose so. The Bishop asked the Lady Principal to get me one, but I don't suppose she can right away. Nobody could go shopping in such weather, and I suppose they have to be bought in town." "The blankets are bought there, but usually the suits are made at home before we come; or else by the matron and some of the maids here. I--" A look of keener interest had come into her face, but she said nothing further and a moment later went out again. As the portieres fell together behind her, Winifred threw up her hands in comic despair. "Whatever is the matter with that girl? or with _me_--or _you_--or _you_!" pointing to one and another around her. "She wants to be friendly--and so do we! But there's something wrong and I don't know what." "I do," said a sweet-faced "Seventher," who had been quietly studying during all this noise. "Poor Gwendolyn is sorry but isn't one bit humble. She's absolutely just and has done what she believed right. But it hasn't helped her much. She's fully as proud as she ever was, and the only way we can help her is by loving her. We've _got_ to love her or she'll grow harder than ever." "You can't make love as you'd make a--a pin-cushion!" returned Florita Sheraton, holding up, to illustrate, a Christmas gift she was embroidering. Dorothy listened to this talk, her own heart upbraiding her for her failure to "love" Gwen. She liked her greatly and admired her courage more. "Win, let's you and me try and see if that is true, what Florita says. Maybe love can be 'made' after all;" she whispered to her friend. "Huh! That'll be a harder job than algebra! I shall fail in both." "I reckon I shall, too, but we can try--all the same. That won't hurt either one of us and I'm awfully sorry for her, she must be so lonesome." "'Pity is akin to love!' You've taken the first step in your climb toward Gwen's top-lofty heart!" quoted Winifred. "Climb away and I'll boost you as well as I can. I--" "Miss Dorothy Calvert, the Lady Principal would like to see you in her own parlor;" said a maid, appearing at the door. "What now? You seem to be greatly in demand, to-day, by the powers that be, I hope it isn't a lecture the Bishop passed on to her to deliver," said Florita as Dorothy rose to obey. But whatever fear Dolly felt of any such matter was banished by her first glance into her teacher's face. Miss Muriel had never looked kinder nor better pleased than then, as, holding up a pair of beautiful white blankets she said: "How will these do for the toboggan suit the Bishop wished me to get for you?" "Oh! Miss Muriel! Are those for me and so soon? Why, it's only an hour ago, or not much more, since he spoke of it, and how could anybody go to town and back in that little while, in such a storm?" "That wasn't necessary. These were in the house. Do you like them?" "Like them! They're the softest, thickest, prettiest things! I never saw any so fine, even at Aunt Betty's Bellevieu. Do you think I ought to have them? Wouldn't cheaper ones answer for messing around in the snow?" "The question of expense is all right, dear, and we're fortunate to have the material on hand. Mrs. Archibald will be here, directly, to take your measurements. Ah! here she is now." This was something delightfully different from any "lecture," and even Miss Muriel talked more and in higher spirits than usual; till Dorothy asked: "Do you love tobogganing, too, Miss Tross-Kingdon?" "No, my dear, I'm afraid of it. My heart is rather weak and the swift motion is bad for it. But I love to see others happy and some things have happened, to-day, which have greatly pleased me. But you must talk sliding with Mrs. Archibald. Dignified as she is, she'll show you what a true Canadian can do, give her a bit of ice and a hill." The matron laughed and nodded. "May the day be long before I tire of my nation's sport! I'm even worse than Michael, who's almost daft on the subject." Then she grew busy with her measurings and clippings, declaring: "It just makes me feel bad to put scissors into such splendid blankets as these. You'll be as proud as Punch, when I dress you out in the handsomest costume ever shot down Oak Knowe slide!" "Oh! I wish Aunt Betty could see it, too. She does so love nice things!" When Mrs. Archibald and her willing helpers had completed her task and Dolly was arrayed in her snow-suit she made, indeed, "the picture" which Dawkins called her. For the weather proved what the Bishop had foretold. The snow fell deep and heavy, "just right for packing," Michael said, on the great wooden slide whose further end rose to a dizzy height and from whose lower one a second timbered "hill" rose and descended. If the toboggan was in good working order, the momentum gained in the descent of the first would carry the toboggans up and over the second; and nothing could have been in finer condition than these on that next Saturday morning when the sport was to begin. The depression between the two slides was over a small lake, or pond, now solidly frozen and covered with snow; except in spots where the ice had been cut for filling the Oak Knowe ice-houses. Into one of these holes Michael and his force had plunged a long hose pipe, and a pump had been contrived to throw water upward over the slide. On the night before men had been stationed on the slide, at intervals, to distribute this water over the whole incline, the intense cold causing it to freeze the instant it fell; and so well they understood their business they had soon rendered it a perfectly smooth slide of ice from top to bottom. A little hand-railed stairway, for the ascent of the tobogganers, was built into the timbers of the toboggan, or incline, itself; and it was by this that they climbed back to the top after each descent, dragging their toboggans behind them. At the further side of the lake, close to its bank, great blazing fires were built, where the merry makers could warm themselves, or rest on the benches placed around. Large as some of the toboggans were they were also light and easily carried, some capable of holding a half-dozen girls--"packed close." Yet some sleds could seat but two, and these were the handsomest of all. They belonged to the girls who had grown proficient in the sport and able to take care of themselves; while some man of the household always acted as guide on the larger sleds and for the younger pupils. When Dorothy came out of the great building, that Saturday holiday, she thought the whole scene was truly fairyland. The evergreens were loaded to the ground with their burden of snow, the wide lawns were dazzlingly bright, and the sun shone brilliantly. "Who're you going to slide with, Dolly? On Michael's sled? I guess the Lady Principal will say so, because you're so new to it. Will you be afraid?" "Why should I be afraid? I used to slide down the mountain side when I lived at Skyrie. What makes you laugh, Winifred? This won't be very different, will it?" "Wait till you try it! It's perfectly glorious but it isn't just the same as sliding down a hill, where a body can stop and step off any time. You can't step off a toboggan, unless you want to get killed." Dorothy was frightened and surprised, and quickly asked: "How can anybody call that 'sport' which is as dangerous as that? What do you mean? I reckon I won't go. I'll just watch you." It was Winifred's turn to stare, but she was also disappointed. "Oh! you little 'Fraid-Cat,' I thought you were never afraid of anything. That's why I liked you. One why--and there are other whys--but don't you back out in this. Don't you dare. When you've got that be-a-u-tiful rig and a be-a-u-tiful toboggan to match. I'd hate to blush for you, Queen Baltimore!" "I have no toboggan, Winnie, dear. You know that. I was wondering who'd take me on theirs--if--if I try it at all." Winifred rushed to the other side of the porch and came flying back, carrying over her head a toboggan, so light and finely polished that it shone; also a lovely cushion of pink and white dragged from one hand. This fitted the flat bottom of the sled and was held in place, when used, by silver catches. The whole toboggan was of this one polished board, curving upward in front according to the most approved form, pink tassels floating from its corners that pink silk cords held in their place. Across this curving front was stenciled in pink: "Dorothy Calvert." "There, girlie, what do you say to that? Isn't it marked plainly enough? Didn't you know about it before? Why all we girls have been just wild with envy of you, ever since we saw it among the others." Dorothy almost caught her breath. It certainly was a beauty, that toboggan! But how came she to have it? "What do you mean, Winifred Christie? Do you suppose the Bishop has had it made, or bought it, for me? Looks as if it had cost a lot. And Aunt Betty has lost so much money she can't afford to pay for extra things--not very high ones--" "Quit borrowing trouble, Queenie! Who cares where it came from or how much it cost? Here it is with your own name on it and if you're too big a goose to use it, I shall just borrow it myself. So there you are. There isn't a girl here but wouldn't be glad to have first ride on it. Am I invited?" and Winifred poked a saucy face under her friend's hood. "Am I?" asked Florita Sheraton, coaxingly throwing her arms around Dolly. "Oh! get away, Flo! You're too big! You'd split the thing in two!" said Ernesta, pulling away her chum's arms. "Just look at me, Dolly Doodles! Just see how nice and thin I am! Why I'm a feather's weight to Flo, and I'm one of the best tobogganers at Oak Knowe. Sure. Ask Mrs. Archibald herself, for here she comes all ready for her share of the fun!" "Yes, yes, lassie, you're a fair one at the sport now and give some promise o' winning the cup yet!" answered the matron, joining the girls and looking as fit and full of life as any of them. "Hear! Hear! Hurrah for 'Nesta! Three cheers for the champion cup winner!" "And three times three for the girl Dolly chooses to share her first slide on the new toboggan!" cried somebody, while a dozen laughing faces were thrust forward and as many hands tapped on the breasts of the pleaders, signifying: "Choose me!" The Bishop was already on hand, looking almost a giant in his mufflers, and as full of glee as the youngest there. The lady Principal, in her furs, had also joined the group, for though she did not try the slides, she loved to watch the enjoyment of the others, from a warm seat beside the bonfire. While Dorothy hesitated in her choice, looking from one to another of the merry, pleading faces about her, Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard stood a little apart, watching with keen interest the little scene before her, while the elder members of the group also exchanged some interested glances. "Count us! Count us! That's fair! Begin: 'Intry, mintry, outry, corn; wire, brier, apple, thorn. Roly, poly, dimble-dee;--O--U--T spells Out goes SHE!'" Over and over, they laughingly repeated the nonsense-jingle, each girl whom the final "she" designated stepping meekly back with pretended chagrin, while the "counting out" went on without her. The game promised to be so long that the matron begged: "Do settle it soon, young ladies! We're wasting precious time." Dorothy laughed and still undecided, happened to glance toward Gwendolyn, who had made no appeal for preference, and called out: "Gwen, dear, will you give me my first lesson? I choose Gwendolyn!" It was good to see the flush of happiness steal into Gwen's face and to see the smile she flashed toward Dorothy. Stepping forward she said: "Thank you, dear. I do appreciate this in you, and you needn't be afraid. The Lady Principal knows I can manage a toboggan fairly well, and this of yours seems to be an exact copy of my own that I've used so long." Other cheers followed this and in a moment the whole party had spread over the white grounds leading to the great slide, the good Bishop following more slowly with the other "grown-ups," and softly clapping his mittened hands. "Good! Fine! I like that. Dorothy has ignorantly done the one right thing. If she could only guess the secret which lies under all how thankful she would be that she made this choice and no other." CHAPTER XII JOHN GILPIN JOINS THE SPORT Old Michael stood on the wide platform at the top of the slide, his face aglow with eagerness, and his whole manner altered to boyish gayety. His great toboggan was perched on the angle of the incline, like a bird poised for flight, while he was bidding his company to: "Get on, ladies! Get on and let's be off!" Behind and around him were the other men employees of Oak Knowe, and every one of them, except the _chef_, enthusiastic over the coming sport. But he, unhappy mortal, preferred the warmth of his kitchen fire to this shivery pastime and had only entered into it to escape the gibing tongues of the other servants. Yet in point of costume he could "hold his head up with the best"; and the fact that he could, in this respect even outshine his comrades was some compensation for his cold-pinched toes. The platform was crowded with toboggans and girls; the air rang with jest and laughter; with girlish squeals of pretended fear; and cries of: "Don't crowd!" or: "Sit close, sit close!" "Sit close" they did; the blanketed legs of each tobogganer pressed forward on either side of the girl in front, and all hands clasping the small rod that ran along the sides of the toboggan. The slide had been built wide enough for two of the sleds abreast, and one side was usually left to the smaller ones of the experienced girls, who could be trusted to safely manage their own light craft. To Michael and the matron was always accorded the honor of first slide on the right while the "best singles" coasted alongside on the left. That morning, by tacit consent, the new "Dorothy Calvert" was poised beside the big "Oak Knowe" and the Honorable Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard was a proud and happy girl, indeed, as she took her place upon it as guide and protector of ignorant Dorothy. "She chose me of her own accord! I do believe she begins to really love me. Oh! it's so nice to be just free and happy with her as the others are!" thought Gwen, as she took her own place and directed her mate just how to sit and act. Adding a final: "Don't you be one bit afraid. I never had an accident sliding and I've always done it every winter since I can remember. We're off! Bow your head a little and--keep--your--mouth--shut!" There wasn't time! Dorothy felt a little quiver run through the thing on which she sat and a wild rush through icy air! That was all! They had reached the bottom of the first slide and began to fly upward over the other before she realized a thing. Gwen hadn't even finished her directions before they had "arrived!" The Southerner was too amazed, for a second, to even step off the toboggan, but Gwendolyn caught her up, gave her a hearty kiss and hug, and demanded: "Well! Here we are! How do you like it! We've beat! We've beat!" Dorothy rubbed her eyes. So they had, for at that instant the big Oak Knowe fetched up beside them, and its occupants stepped or tumbled off, throwing up their hands and cheering: "Three cheers for the Dorothy Calvert! Queen of the Slide for all This Year!" And liveliest among the cheerers was the once so dignified young "Peer," the Honorable Gwen. Dorothy looking into her beaming face and hearing her happy voice could scarce believe this to be the same girl she had hitherto known. But she had scant time to think for here they came, thick and fast, toboggan after toboggan, Seventh Form girls and Minims, teachers and pupils, the Bishop and the _chef_, maids and men-servants, the matron and old Michael--all in high spirits, all apparently talking at once and so many demanding of "Miss Dixie" how she liked it, that she could answer nobody. Then the Bishop pushed back her tasseled hood and smiled into her shining eyes: "Well little 'Betty the Second,' can you beat that down at old Baltimore? What do you think now? Isn't it fine--fine? Doesn't it make you feel you're a bird of the air? Ah! it's grand--grand. Just tell me you like it and I'll let you go." "I--Yes--I reckon I do! I hadn't time to think. We hadn't started, and we were here." "Up we go. Try her again!" cried one, and the climb back to the top promptly began, the men carrying the heavier sleds, the girls their lighter ones, Gwendolyn and Dorothy their own between them. Then the fun all over again; the jests at awkward starts, the cheers at skillful ones, the laughter and good will, till all felt the exhilaration of the moment and every care was forgotten. Many a slide was taken and now Dorothy could answer when asked did she like it: "It's just grand, as the Bishop said. At first I could hardly breathe and I was dizzy. Now I do as Gwen tells me and I love it! I should like to stay out here all day!" "Wait till dinner-time! Then you'll be ready enough to go in. Tobogganing is the hungriest work--or play--there can possibly be!" said Gwendolyn, pirouetting about on the ice as gracefully as on a waxed floor, the merriest, happiest girl in all that throng. Not only Dorothy but many another observed her with surprise. This was a new Gwen, not the stand-offish sort of creature who had once so haughtily scorned all their fun. She had always tobogganed, every year that she had been in that school, but she had never enjoyed it like this; and again as the Bishop regarded her, he nodded his head in satisfaction and said to the matron: "I told you so. I knew it. Do a kindness to somebody and it will return to yourself in happiness a thousand fold." "Thanks, dear Bishop! I'll try to remember," merrily answered she; noticing that Gwendolyn had drawn near enough to hear, and taking this little preachment to herself to prevent Gwendolyn's doing so. She was so pleased by sight of the girl's present happiness that she wished nothing to cloud it, and believing herself discussed would certainly offend proud, sensitive Gwen. Almost two hours had passed, and a few were beginning to tire of the really arduous sport, with its upward climb, so out of proportion to the swift descent; when suddenly fresh shouts of laughter rang out from the high platform and those ascending made haste to join the others at the top. There stood old John Gilpin and Robin, the latter's young bones now sound and strong again, and himself much the better for his sojourn at the cottage with his enforced rest and abundance of good food. "Well, well! How be ye all? Hearty, you look, and reg'lar circus pictures in them warm duds! Good day to your Reverence, Bishop, and I hope I see you in good health. My humble respects, your Reverence, and I thought as how I'd just step up and ask your Reverence might my lad here and me have a try on your slide. I thought--why, sir, the talk on't has spread way into town a'ready, sir, and there'll be more beggars nor me seekin' use on't, your Reverence--" The prelate's hearty laughter rang out on the frosty air, a sound delightful to hear, so full it was of genial humanity, and he grasped the hand of the old teamster as warmly as he would that of a far wealthier man. "Man to man, John, we're all in the same boat to-day. Drop the formality and welcome to the sport. But what sort of sled is this, man? Looks rather rough, doesn't it? Sure you could manage it on this steep incline?" John bridled and Robin looked disappointed. Expectations of the toboggan-slide's being made ready had filled his head, and he and the old man had toiled for hours to make the sled at which the Bishop looked so doubtfully. "Well, your Reverence--I mean--you without the Reverence--" here the Bishop smiled and Robin giggled, thereby causing his host to turn about with a frown. "You see, sir, Robin's always been hearin' about your toboggan up here to Oak Knowe and's been just plumb crazy--" At this point the shy lad pulled John's coat, silently begging him to leave him out of the talk; but the farmer had been annoyed by Robin's ill-timed giggle, and testily inquired: "Well, sir, ain't that so? Didn't you pester the life clean out o' me till I said I'd try? Hey?" "Y-yes," meekly assented the boy; then catching a glimpse of Dorothy and Winifred and their beckoning nods he slipped away to them. To him Dorothy proudly exhibited her beautiful toboggan, explaining its fine construction with a glibness that fitted an "old tobogganer" better than this beginner at the sport. Gwen's face beamed again, listening to her, as if she felt a more personal pride in the sled than even Dorothy herself. She even unbent so far from her pride of rank as to suggest: "If you'll let me borrow it and he'd like to go, I'll take Robin down once, to show him how smoothly it runs." Robin's eyes sparkled. He wasn't shy with girls, but only when he felt himself made too conspicuous by his host's talk. "Would you? Could she? May she?" he cried, teetering about on his ragged shoes in an ecstasy of delight. Dolly laughed and clapped her hands. "Verily, she should, would, can, and may! laddie boy. But where's your jacket? I mean your other one? It's so cold, you'll freeze in that thin one." By the color which came to the lad's cheek Dolly realized that she had asked a "leading question," but Robin's dismay lasted only an instant; then he laughed merrily at the "good joke," and answered: "Well, you see, Miss Dorothy, my 'other one' is at some tailor's shop in town. I haven't had a chance yet to choose one, let alone pay for it! But what matter? 'Tisn't winter all the year and who wears top-coats in summer? Did she really mean it?" Gwendolyn proved that she "really meant it" by pushing the "Dorothy Calvert" into position and nodding to him that she was ready. "All right! Let her go!" he responded to her silent invitation and away they went, as ill-matched a pair as might have been found. But he had a boy's fearlessness and love of adventure; and even on that swift descent his gay whistling floated back to those above. Meanwhile, John Gilpin was explaining with considerable pride, yet thankful that the Bishop was out of hearing on his own downward-speeding toboggan: "You see, lassie, how't Robin was dead set to come. Said he knew so good a man as his Reverence wouldn't say 'No' to us, and just kept teasin' at me till we stepped-an'-fetched a lot of staves come off a hogshead. So I fastened 'em together on the insides--See? And we've shaved an' shaved, an' glass-scraped 'em on t'other till they'll never hurt no slide 't ever was iced. The Bishop seemed terr'ble afraid I'd rough up his track with it, but it's a poor track that water won't freeze smooth again; so if we do happen to scratch it a mite, I'll step-an'-fetch a few buckets o' water and fix it up again. And say, girlie, where's that Jack, boot-boy? And Baal? I ain't seen hide nor hair of ary one this long spell, an' I allow I kind of sorter miss 'em. He used to give the dame the fidgets with his yarns of what he's goin to be an' do, time comes, but me an' him got on fairly well--fairly. As for that goat, he was the amusingest little creatur' 't ever jumped a fence, even if we did fight most of the time. Hah, hum! I've noticed more'n once that the folks or things you quarrel with are the ones you miss most, once they're gone." "We haven't seen Jack since that time he locked me in the drying-room. He ran away, I reckon, and took Baal with him. And it's just like you say: nobody liked him much, and he was always in disgrace with somebody, but I heard the Lady Principal say, only yesterday, that she actually believed she missed that worthless boot-boy more than any other servant who might have left." "Well, now, Dorothy, don't that beat all? That book-l'arned lady just agreein' with me! I often tell Dame 't I know more'n she thinks I do, but all she'll answer to that is: 'John, that'll do.' A rare silent woman is my Dame but a powerful thinker. Hello! Here they come back again. Robin! Robin! Look-a-here! You didn't bamboozle me into makin' our sled and climbin' this height just to leave me go for a passel o' silly girls! No, siree! You come and slide with me right to once. I set out to go a-tobogganin' an' I'm goin'. So none of your backslidin' now!" "All right, Mr. Gilpin, here am I! And I do hope it won't be any true _back_ sliding we shall do on this thing. You'd ought to have put a little handrail on the sides like I told you there always was; but--" "But that'll do, Robin. In my young days knee-high boys didn't know more'n their elders. That'll do!" The old farmer's imitation of his wife's manner seemed very funny to all the young folks, but his anxiety was evident, as he glanced from his own hand-made "toboggan" to the professional ones of the others. Upon his was not even the slight rod to hold on by and the least jar might send him off upon the ice. Peering down, it seemed to him that glazed descent was a straight road to a pit of perdition and his old heart sank within him. But--He had set out to go tobogganing and go he would, if he perished doing it. Dame had besought him with real tears not to risk his old bones in such a foolhardy sport, and he had loftily assured her that "what his Reverence can do I can do. Me and him was born in the same year, I've heard my mother tell, and it's a pity if I can't ekal him!" Moreover, there were all these youngsters makin' eyes at him, plumb ready to laugh, and thinkin' he'd back out. Back out? He? John Gilpin? Never! "Come on, Robin! Let's start!" Gwendolyn and Dorothy were also ready to "start" upon what they intended should be their last descent of that morning. Alas! it proved to be! Five seconds later such a scream of terror rent the air that the hearts of all who heard it chilled in horror. CHAPTER XIII A BAD DAY FOR JOHN GILPIN What had happened! Those who were sliding down that icy incline could not stop to see, and those who were on the ground below covered their eyes that they might not. Yet opened them again to stare helplessly at the dangling figure of a girl outside that terrible slide. For in a moment, when the clutching fingers must unclose, the poor child must drop to destruction. That was inevitable. Then they saw it was Dorothy, who hung thus, suspended between life and death. Dorothy in her white and pink, the daintiest darling of them all, who had so enjoyed her first--and last!--day at this sport. Fresh shudders ran through the onlookers as they realized this and the Lady Principal sank down in a faint. Then another groan escaped them--the merest possibility of hope. Behold! The girl did not fall! Another's small hand reached over the low side of the toboggan and clutched the blanket-covered shoulder of the imperiled child. Another hand! the other shoulder, and hope grew stronger. Someone had caught the falling Dorothy--she and her would-be-rescuer were now moving--moving--slowly downward along the very edge--one swaying perilously with the motion, the other wholly unseen save for those outstretched hands, with their death-fast grip upon the snowy wool. Down--down! And faster now! Till the hands of the tallest watchers could reach and clasp the feet, then the whole precious little body of "Miss Dixie," their favorite from the Southland. But even then, as strong arms drew her into their safe shelter, the small hands which had supported her to safety clung still so tight that only the Bishop's could loose their clasp. "Gwendolyn! You brave, sweet girl! Let go--let go. It's all right now--Dorothy did not fall--You saved her life. Look up, my daughter. Don't faint now when all is over. Look up, you noble child, and hear me tell you: Dorothy is safe and it is you who saved her life. At the risk of your own you saved her life." Clasped close in his fatherly arms, Gwendolyn shuddered but obeyed and looked up into the Bishop's face. "Say that again. Please. Say that again--very slow--if it's the--the truth." [Illustration: "SOMEONE HAD CAUGHT THE FALLING GIRL." _Dorothy at Oak Knowe._] "Gwendolyn, I tell you now, in the presence of God and these witnesses, it has been your precious privilege to save a human life, by your swift thought and determined action you have saved the life of Dorothy Calvert, and God bless you for it." "Then we are quits!" For another moment after she had said those words she still rested quietly where she was, then slowly rose and looked about her. Dorothy had been in the greater peril of the two, yet more unconscious of it. She had not seen how high above the ground she hung, nor how directly beneath was the lake with the thinly frozen spots whence the thicker ice had been cut for the ice-houses; nor how there were heaped up rocks bordering the water, left as nature had designed to beautify the scene. She was the quickest to recover her great fright and she was wholly unhurt. Her really greater wonder was that poor Miss Muriel should happen to faint away just then. "I'm glad she did, though, if it won't make her ill, 'cause then she didn't see me dangling, like I must have, and get scared for that. Likely she stayed out doors too long. She isn't very strong and it's mighty cold, I think." So they hurried her indoors, Gwendolyn with her, yet neither of them allowed to discuss the affair until they were both warmly dressed in ordinary clothes and set down to a cute little lunch table, "all for your two selves," Nora explained: "And to eat all these warm things and drink hot coffee--as much of it as you like. It was Miss Muriel herself who said that!" This was a treat indeed. Coffee at any meal was kept for a special treat, but to have unlimited portions of it was what Dolly called "a step beyond." Curious glances, but smiling and tender, came often their way, from other tables in the room, yet the sport, and happily ended hazard of the morning had given to every girl a fine appetite, so that, for once, knives and forks were more busily employed than tongues. Neither did the two heroines of the recent tragic episode feel much like speech. Now that it was all over and they could think about it more clearly their hearts were filled with the solemnity of what had happened; and Gwendolyn said all that was needed for both, when once laying her hand on Dorothy's she whispered: "You saved my life--the Bishop says that I saved yours. After that we're even and we must love each other all our lives." "Oh! we must, we must! And I do, I shall!" returned Dorothy, with tears rising. Then this festive little lunch dispatched, they were captured by their schoolmates and led triumphantly into the cheerful library, the scene of all their confabs, and Winifred demanded: "Now, in the name of all the Oak Knowe girls, I demand a detailed history of what happened. Begin at the beginning and don't either of you dare to skip a single moment of the time from where you started down the old toboggan alongside of John Gilpin and that boy. I fancy if the tale were properly told his ride would outdo that of his namesake of old times. Dorothy Calvert, begin." "Why, dear, I don't know what to say, except that, as you say, we started. My lovely toboggan went beautifully, as it had all the time, but theirs didn't act right. I believe that the old man was scared so that he couldn't do a thing except meddle with Robin, who doesn't know much more about sliding than I do, or did. He--" "I saw he was getting on the wrong side, right behind you two, as we shot past on ours," interrupted Serena Huntington, "and we both called out: 'steer! steer right!' but I suppose they didn't hear or understand. We were so far down then that I don't know." "Gwen, dear, you tell the rest," begged Dorothy, cuddling up to the girl she now so dearly loved. It wasn't often that Gwendolyn was called to the front like this, but she found it very pleasant; so readily took up the tale where Dorothy left it, "at the very beginning" as "Dixie" laughingly declared. "It seems as if there was nothing to tell--it was all so quick--it just happened! Half way down, it must have been, the farmer's sled hit ours. That scared me, too, and I called, just as Serena had, and as everybody on the slide was doing as they passed: 'Steer right!' I guess that only confused the poor old man, for he kept bobbing into us and that hindered our getting away from him ourselves. "Next I knew, Dolly was off the sled and over the edge of the slide, clinging to it for her life. I knew she couldn't hold on long and so I rolled off and grabbed her. Then we began to slide and I knew somebody was trying to help by pushing us downward toward the bottom. I don't know who that was. I don't know anything clearly. It was all like a flash--I guessed we would be killed--I shut my eyes and--that's all." To break the too suggestive silence which followed with its hint of a different, sorrowful ending, Florita Sheraton exclaimed: "I know who did that pushing! It was our little Robin Adair, or whatever his name is. Fact. That home-made toboggan of his came to grief. The old man has told me. He's out in the kitchen now warming up his bruises. You see, there wasn't anything to hang on by, on the sides. He had scorned Robin's advice to nail something on and he nearly ground his fingers off holding on by the flat bottom. It went so swift--his fingers ached so--he yanked them out from under--Robin screeched--they ran into you--they both tumbled off--Robin lodged against you but John Gilpin rode to the bottom--thus wise!" Florita illustrated by rolling one hand over and under the other; and thus, in fact, had John Gilpin taken his first toboggan slide. Laughter showed that the tension of excitement which had held these schoolgirls all that day had yielded to ordinary feelings, and now most of them went away for study or practicing, leaving Dorothy and Gwendolyn alone. After a moment, they also left the library, bound kitchenwards, to visit old John and see if Robin were still thereabouts. "I wish there were something I could do for that boy," said Gwen. "I feel so grateful to him for helping us and he looked so poor. Do you suppose, Dolly, if Mamma offered him money for that new coat he jested about, that he would be offended." "Of course, Gwen, I don't know about _him_. You never can tell about other folks, but Uncle Seth thinks it's a mighty safe rule 'to put yourself in his place'; and if I were in Robin's I'd be 'mad as a hatter' to have money offered me for doing a little thing like that. Wouldn't you?" "Why, yes, Dorothy, of course I would. The idea! But I'm rich, or my people are, which is the same thing. But he's poor. His feelings may not, cannot, be the same as our sort have." "Why can't they? I don't like to have you think that way. You ought not. Gwen you must not. For that will make us break friendship square off. I'm not poor Dawkins's niece, though I might be much worse off than that, but once I was 'poor' like Robin. I was a deserted baby, adopted by a poor letter carrier. Now, what do you think of that? Can't I have nice feelings same as you? And am I a bit better--in myself--because in reality I belonged to a rich old family, than I was when I washed dishes in Mother Martha's kitchen? Tell me that, before we go one step further." Dorothy had stopped short in the hall and faced about, anxiously studying the face of this "Peer," who had now become so dear to her. Gwendolyn's face was a puzzle; as, for a time, the old opinions and the new struggled within her. But the struggle was brief. Her pride, her justice, and now her love, won the victory. "No, you darling, brave little thing, you are not. Whatever you are you were born such, and I love you, I love you. If I'd only been born in the States I'd have had no silly notions." "Don't you believe that, Gwen. Aunt Betty says that human nature is the same all the world over. You'd have been just as much of a snob if you'd been 'raised in ol' Ferginny' as you are here. Oh! my! I didn't mean that. I meant--You must understand what I mean!" A flush of mortification at her too plain speaking made Dorothy hide her face, but her hands were swiftly pulled down and a kiss left in their place. "Don't you fret, Queenie! It's taken lots of Mamma's plain speaking to keep me half-way decent to others less rich than I, and I'm afraid it'll take lots of yours, too, to put the finishing touches to that lesson. Come on. We love each other now, and love puts everything right. Come on. Let's find that Robin and see what we can do for him without hurting his feelings." "Oh! yes, come, let's hurry! But first to the Lady Principal. Maybe we can help them both. Won't that be fine?" But they were not to help Robin just then. A groan from the servants' parlor, a pleasant room opening from the kitchen, arrested their attention and made them pause to listen. Punctuated by other sounds, a querulous voice was complaining: "Seems if there warn't a hull spot left on my old body that ain't bruised sore as a bile. Why, sir, when I fell off that blamed sled we'd tinkered up"--groan--"I didn't know anything. Just slid--an' slid--an' rolled over and over, never realizin' which side of me was topmost till I fetched up--kerwhack! to the very bottom. Seemed as if I'd fell out o' the sky into the bottomless pit. Oh! dear!" Dawkins's voice it was that answered him, both pitying and teasing him in the same breath: "I'm sure it's sorry I am, Mr. Gilpin, for what's befell; but for a man that's lived in a tobogganing country ever since he was born, you begun rather late in life to learn the sport. Why--" "Ain't no older'n the Bishop! Can't one man do same's t'other, I'd like to know, Mis' Dawkins?" "Seems not;" laughed the maid. "But, here, take this cup of hot spearmint tea. 'Twill warm your old bones and help 'em to mend; an' next time you start playin' children's game--why don't! And for goodness' sake, John, quit groanin'! Takin' on like that don't help any and I tell you fair and square I've had about all the strain put on my nerves, to-day, 't I can bear. What was your bit of a roll down that smooth ice compared to what our girls went through?" "Has you got any nuts in your pockets? Has you?" broke in Millikins-Pillikins, who had been a patient listener to the confab between the farmer and the nurse till she could wait no longer. Never had the old man come to Oak Knowe without some dainty for the little girl and she expected such now. "No, sissy, I haven't. I dunno as I've got a pocket left. I dunno nothing, except--except--What'll SHE say when I go home all lamed up like this! Oh! hum! Seems if I was possessed to ha' done it, and so she thought. But 'twas Robin's fault. If Robin hadn't beset me so I'd never thought of it. Leastwise, not to go the length I did. If I'd--But there! What's the use? But one thing's sure. I'll get shut of that boy, see if I don't. He's well now an' why should I go to harboring _reptiles_ in my buzzum? Tell me that if ye can! _Reptiles._ That's what he was, a-teasin' an' misleadin' a poor old man into destruction. Huh! I'll make it warm for him--trust John Gilpin for that!" Dawkins had long since departed, unable to bear the old man's lamentations, and leaving the cup, or pot, of hot tea on the table beside him. But little Grace couldn't tear herself away. She lingered, first hoping for the nuts she craved, and later in wonder about the "_reptile_" he said was in his bosom. There were big books full of pictures in the library, that Auntie Prin sometimes let her see. She loved to have them opened on the rug and lie down beside them to study them. She knew what "reptiles" were. That was the very one of all the Natural History books with the blue bindings that she liked best, it was so delightfully crawly and sent such funny little thrills all through her. If a picture could do that what might not the real thing do! "Show it to me, please, Mr. Gilpin. I never saw a reptile in all my whole life long! Never!" The farmer had paid scant attention to her chatter; indeed, he scarcely heard it, his mind being wholly engrossed now with what his dame would say to him, on his return home; and in his absent-mindedness he reached out for the drink good Dawkins had left him and put the pot to his lips taking a great draught. An instant later the pot flew out of his hand and he sprang to his feet, clutching frantically at his bosom and yelling as if he were stung. For the contents of the pot were boiling hot and he had scalded his throat most painfully. But wide-eyed little Grace did not understand his wild action, as, still clutching his shirt front, he hurled the pot far from him. Of course, the "reptile" was biting! That must be why he screeched so, and now all her desire for a personal acquaintance with such a creature vanished. She must get as far away from it as possible before it appeared on the surface of his smock and, darting doorward, was just in time to receive the pot and what was left in it upon her curly head. Down she dropped as if she had been shot, and Dorothy entering was just in time to see her fall. The scene apparently explained itself. The angry face of the old man, his arm still rigid, in the gesture of hurling, the fallen child and the broken pot--who could guess that it was horror at his uncalculated deed which kept him in that pose? Not Dorothy, who caught up little Grace and turned a furious face upon poor John, crying out in fierce contempt: "Oh! you horrible old man! First you tried to kill me and now you have killed her!" CHAPTER XIV EXPLANATIONS ARE IN ORDER Dorothy ran straight to the Lady Principal's room, too horrified by what she imagined was the case to pause on the way and too excited to feel the heavy burden she carried. Nobody met her to stop her or inquire what had happened. Gwendolyn had been called to join her mother and had seen nothing of the incident, and Dorothy burst into the pretty parlor--only to find it empty. Laying Millikins down on the couch she started to find help, but was promptly called back by the child herself. "Where you going, Dolly Doodles? What you carry me for, running so?" "Why--why--darling--can you _speak_? Are you _alive_? Oh! you dear--you dear! I thought you were killed!" cried the relieved girl kneeling beside the couch and hugging the astonished little one. "Why for can't I speak, Dorothy? Why for can't I be alive? The 'reptile' didn't bite me, it bited _him_. That's why he hollered so and flung things. See, Dolly, I'm all wet with smelly stuff like 'meddy' some kind, that Dawkins made him. And what you think? Soon's he started drinking it the 'reptile' must not have liked it and must have bited him to make him stop--'Ou-u-c-ch!' Just like that he said it, an' course I runned, an' the tea-pot flew, an' I fell down, and you come, grabbed me and said things, and--and--But the reptile didn't get Gracie, did it? No it didn't, 'cause I runned like anything, and 'cause you come, and--Say, Dolly! I guess I'd rather see 'em in the book. I guess I don't want to get acquainted with no live ones like I thought I did. No, sir!" "What in the world do you mean, Baby? Whatever are you talking about? Oh! you mischief, you gave poor Dolly such a fright when you fell down like that!" "Why, Dolly Doodles, how funny! I fall down lots of times. Some days I fall down two-ten-five times, and sometimes I'd cry, but Auntie Prin don't like that. She'll say right off: 'There, Millikins, I wouldn't bother to do that. You haven't hurt the floor any.' So course I stop. 'Cause if I had hurted the floor she'd let me cry a lot. She said so, once. Mr. Gilpin didn't have a single nut in his pockets. He said so. And he talked awful funny! Not as if to me at all, so must ha' been to the 'reptile' in his 'buzzum.' Do 'reptiles' buzz, Dolly, same as sting-bees do? And wouldn't you rather carry nuts in your pockets for such nice little girls as me, than crawly things inside your smock to bite you? I think a smock's the funniest kind of clothes, and Mr. Gilpin's the funniest kind of man inside 'em. Don't you?" "If either one can match you for funniness, you midget, I'll lose my guess. Seems if this had been the 'funniest' kind of day ever was. But I'll give you up till you get ready to explain your 'reptile' talk. Changing the subject, did you get a slide to-day?" "Yes, lots of them. What do think? I didn't have anybody give me a nice new toboggan with my name on it, like you had; so the Bishop he told Auntie Prin that he'd look out for me this year same's he did last year. I hadn't grown so much bigger, he thought. Course he's terrible big and I'm terrible little, so all he does is tuck me inside his great toboggan coat. Buttons it right around me--this way--so I never could slip out, could I? And I don't have to hold on at all he holds on for me and Auntie's not afraid, that way. Don't you think it was terrible nice for Gwendolyn to give you your things?" "What things, dear? Gwen has given me nothing that I know of. Is this another mystery of yours?" "It isn't not no mystery, I don't know what them are, except when girls like you get lost right in their own houses and don't get found again right soon. But I know 'secrets.' Secrets are what the one you have 'em about don't get told. That was a secret about your things, Gwen said. You didn't get told, did you?" "I have a suspicion that I'm being told now," answered Dorothy, soberly. "Suppose you finish the telling, dear, while we are airing the subject. What are the things you're talking about?" "Why, aren't you stupid, Dolly? About the be-a-u-tiful blankets were made into your suit. Auntie said they were the handsomest ever was. Lady Jane had bought 'em to have new things made for Gwen, 'cause Lady Jane's going far away across the ocean and she wanted to provide every single thing Gwen might want. In case anything happened to Gwen's old one. "So Gwen said, no, she didn't need 'em and you did. She guessed your folks hadn't much money, she'd overheard the Bishop say so. That's the way she knows everything is 'cause she always 'overhears.' I told Auntie Prin that I thought that was terrible nice, and I'd like to learn overhearing; and she sauced me back the funniest! My! she did! Said if she ever caught me overhearing I'd be put to bed with nothing but bread and water to eat, until I forgot the art. Just like that she said it! Seems if overhearing is badness. She does so want Gwendolyn to be really noble. Auntie Prin thinks it noble for Gwen to give up her blankets and to have that be-a-u-tiful toboggan bought for you with your name on it. You aren't real poor, are you, Dolly? Not like the beggar folks come 'tramping' by and has 'victuals' given to them? Bishop says all little girls must be good to the poor. That's when he wants me to put my pennies in my Mite Box for the little heathen. I don't so much care about the heathen and Hugh--" But Dorothy suddenly put the child down, knowing that once started upon the theme of "Brother Hugh" the little sister's talk was endless. And she was deeply troubled. She had altogether forgotten John Gilpin and the accusation she had hurled at him. Nothing now remained in her mind but thoughts of Gwendolyn's rich gifts and indignation against her. Why had she done it? As a sort of payment for Dorothy's assistance at the Maiden's Bath? Meeting Miss Muriel in the hall she cried: "Oh! my dear lady, I am in such trouble! May I talk to you a moment?" "Certainly, Dorothy. Come this way. Surely there can be nothing further have happened to you, to-day." Safe in the shelter and privacy of a small classroom, Dorothy told her story into wise and loving ears; and to be comforted at once. "You are all wrong, Dorothy. I am sure that there was no such thought as payment for any deed of yours in poor Gwendolyn's mind. You have been invariably kind to her in every way possible; and until this chance came she had found none in which to show you that she realized this and loved you for it. Why, my dear, if you could have seen her happiness when I told her it was a beautiful thing for her to do, you would certainly have understood her and been glad to give her the chance she was glad to take. It is often harder to accept favors than to bestow them. It takes more grace. Now, dear, let's call that 'ghost laid,' as Dawkins says. Hunt up Gwen, tell her how grateful you are to her for her rich, unselfish gifts, and--do it with a real Dorothy face; not with any hint of offended pride--which is not natural to it! And go at once, then drop the subject and forget it. We were all so thankful that you chose her this morning without knowing." Back came the smiles as Miss Muriel hoped to see them, and away sped Dorothy to put the good advice in practice; and five minutes later Gwendolyn was the happiest girl at Oak Knowe, because her gifts had been ascribed to real affection only. "Now, Gwen, that we've settled _that_, let's go and see what we can do for Robin. Heigho, Winifred! you're just in time to aid a worthy cause--Come on to Lady Principal!" "Exactly whither I was bound!" waving a letter overhead. "Going a-begging, my dears, if you please!" she returned, clasping Gwen's waist on one side to walk three abreast. A trivial action in itself but delightful to the "Peer," showing that this free-spoken "Commoner" no longer regarded her as "stand-offish" but "just one of the crowd." "Begging for what, Win?" "That's a secret!" "Pooh! You might as well tell. Secrets always get found out. I've just discovered one--by way of chattering Millikins-Pillikins. Guess it." "I couldn't, Dolly, I'm too full of my own. As for that child's talk--but half of it has sense." "So I thought, too, listening to her. But _half did_ have sense and that is--Who do you think gave me my beautiful toboggan things?" "Why, your Aunt Betty, I suppose, since she does everything else for you," answered Winifred promptly. "Anyhow, don't waste time on guesses--Tell!" Then she glanced up into Gwendolyn's face and saw how happy it was, and hastily added: "No, you needn't tell, after all, I know. It was Gwen, here, the big-hearted dear old thing! She's the only girl at Oak Knowe who's rich enough and generous enough to do such a splendid thing." "Good for you, Win, you guessed right at once!" answered Dolly trying to clap her hands but unable to loosen them from her comrades' clasp. "Now for yours!" "Wait till we get to the 'audience chamber'! Come on." But even yet they were hindered. In the distance, down at the end of the hall, Dorothy caught sight of Mr. Gilpin, evidently just departing from the house. A more dejected figure could scarcely be imagined, nor a more ludicrous one, as he limped toward the entrance, hands on hips and himself bent forward forlornly. Below his rough top-coat which he had discarded on his arrival, hung the tatters of his smock that had been worn to ribbons by his roll down the slide. Nobody knew what had become of his own old beaver hat, but a light colored derby, which the _chef_ had loaned him, sat rakishly over one ear, in size too small for the whole top of his bald head. "Looks as if he had two foreheads!" said Winifred, who couldn't help laughing at his comical appearance, with part of his baldness showing at front and back of the borrowed hat. Dorothy laughed, too, yet felt a guilty regret at the way she had spoken to him. She had accused him of "trying to kill her" as well as Gwen and little Grace; but he "kill anything"? Wicked, even to say that. "There goes John Gilpin, and, girls, I must speak to him. Come--I can't let him go that way!" As his "good foot" crossed the threshold Dorothy's hand was on his shoulder and her voice begging: "Oh! please, Mr. Gilpin! Do forgive that horrible thing I said! I didn't know, I didn't understand, I didn't mean it--I thought--it looked--Do come back just a minute and let me explain." The old fellow turned and gazed into her pleading eyes, but at first scarcely heard her. "Why, 'tis the little maid! hersel' that was cryin' that night on the big railway platform. The night that Robin lad was anigh kilt. Something's mixed up in me head. What's it, lassie, you want?" "I want your forgiveness, Mr. Gilpin. When I saw Gracie on the floor and the broken pot beside her I thought--you'd--you'd tried--and account of your sled hitting Gwen and me--Do come in and rest. You're worse hurt than anybody thought, I'm afraid. There, there, that's right. Come back and rest till the team goes into town for the Saturday night's supplies. It always goes you know, and Michael will get the driver to drop you at your own door. I'm sure he will." Obediently, he allowed her to lead him back into the hall and to seat him on the settle beside the radiator. The warmth of that and the comfort of three sympathetic girls soon restored his wandering wits and he was as ready to talk as they to listen. "You do forgive, don't you, dear old John?" "Sure, lassie, there's nought about forgiveness, uther side. It was a bit misunderstandin' was all. The wee woman a-pleadin' for treats out of pocket, and me thinkin' hard o' Robin, for coaxin' an old man to make a fool of hissel'. Me feeling that minute as if 'twas all his fault and thinking I'd cherished a snake, a reptile, in my buzzum, and sayin' it out loud, likes I have a bad habit of doing. "Silly I was, not remembering how't a child takes all things literal. Ha, ha, ha! To think it! When I scalded mysel' with the hot tea the bairnie should fancy I yelled at a sarpent's bite! Sure, I could split my sides a-laughin' but for the hurt I gave her. How is she doin', lass? I've waited this long spell for someone to pass by and give me the word, but nobody has. Leastwise, them that passes has no mind for old John in his dumps." "Why, Mr. Gilpin, she wasn't hurt at all; and it's just as you said. She thought you had a real snake in your clothes and it had bitten you. She's all right now, right as can be; and so will you be as soon as you get home and into your wife's good care. She--" "Ah, my Dorothy! 'Tis she I dread. Not a word'll she say, like enough, but the look she will give to my silly face--Hmm. She's a rare silent woman is my Dame, but she can do a power o' thinkin'." "Yes, she can, and the first thing she'll think is how glad she is to have her husband back again, safe and sound." "Aye, but Dorothy, hark ye! I'm safe, I'll grant ye that; but--sound? 'Tis different letters spells that word. Sound? I'll no' be that for weeks to come!" and the poor fellow, who certainly had been badly bruised and lucky to have escaped broken bones, sighed profoundly. Winifred had an inspiration. "Speaking of Robins, suppose we write her a round-robin letter? Right here and now, on the back of this letter of Father's? It's a grand good letter for me and we'll write so nicely of you, Mr. John, that it'll be a good one for her, too." "Will ye? A real letter explainin' about the accident, when the lassie's toboggan got in our way and we got that mixed 'twas nigh the death of the lot? Dame'd be proud enough to get that letter. Sure, I believe 'twould set her thinkin' of other things, and she'll be liker to overlook my foolishness." They all laughed at the crafty manner in which he shipped his responsibility for the accident from his shoulders to theirs; but Winifred plumped herself down on the settle beside him and, using it for a desk, concocted an amusing story of the whole day's happenings. The other girls had less of the gift of writing, but each added a few words and signed her name with a flourish. Altogether it was a wonderful document, so the farmer thought, as Winifred tore that half-sheet from her father's letter, folded it in a fantastic way and gave it him. Indeed, he was so pleased with it and so anxious to get it into his wife's hands that, after turning it over and about, in admiration of the "true lover's knot" into which Win had folded it, he rose to go away. All his stiffness was forgotten, he almost neglected to drag his lame foot, he firmly declined to stay for supper or any ride with the Oak Knowe team, so completely had the kindness of the three girls cured him. "A letter for the Dame! Sure she'll be the proud woman the night, and maybe she'll think I'd more sense after all. I don't mind she'd ary letter come before since we was married. Good night, young ladies. Tell the bit woman 't next time there'll be nuts in me pockets, all right, and no fear for her o' more snakes. Good-by." They watched him down the path, fairly strutting in his pride over the note which a mere whim on Winifred's part had suggested, and Dorothy exclaimed: "What a dear, simple old soul he is! That a tiny thing like that could make so happy. I believe he was more delighted with that half-sheet of your paper than you are with your father's other half." Winifred caught the others about the waist and whirled them indoors again, first gleefully kissing her father's bit of writing and asking: "Think so? Then he's the gladdest person in the world, to-night. Oh--ee!" "Well, Win, you can be glad without squeezing the breath out of a body, can't you? Heigho, Robin! Where'd you come from?" said Dolly, as the boy came suddenly upon them from a side hall. "Why, from the kitchen. The folks there made me eat a lot of good stuff and a woman--I guess it was the housekeeper--she made me put on some of the men's clothes while she took my knickers and mended them. I'd torn them all to flinders on that slide, or old botched up sled, and she said I was a sight. I was, too. She was awful kind. She made me tell all about Mother and my getting hurt and everything. But she said I ought to go right away and find Mr. Gilpin and get friends with him again. Isn't it funny? He blames _me_ for all that happened and for teasing him to make that wretched sled, yet, sir, if you'll believe me he was the one spoke of it first. True! Said he'd never had a toboggan ride in all his life, long as that was, because he hadn't anybody to go with him. But 'he'd admire' to have just one before he died--" "He had it, didn't he?" laughed Winifred. "He had a hard time getting Mrs. Gilpin's consent. She treats him as if he were a little boy, worse'n Mother does me, but he doesn't get mad at all. He thinks she's the most wonderful woman in the world, but I must find him and put myself right with him before we go home and tackle her. He'll need my help then more'n he did makin' that beastly sled! It was awful--really awful--the way he went rolling down that icy slide, but to save my life I can't help laughing when I think of it. Can you?" At the lad's absurd movements, as he now pictured John's remarkable "ride" they all laughed; but suddenly Dorothy demanded: "You sit right down yonder on that settle and wait for me. You can't find Mr. Gilpin, now, he's far on the road home. But there's something I must ask Miss Tross-Kingdon--" "No! You don't ask Miss Tross-Kingdon one single thing till I've had my ask first, Dorothy Calvert! Here I'm nearly crazy, trying to hold in my secret, and--" "I claim my chance too! I've a petition of my own if you please and let the first to arrive win!" shouted Gwendolyn, speeding after the other two toward the "audience chamber." Thus deserted, Robin laughed and curled up on the bench to wait; while the Lady Principal's sanctum was boisterously invaded by three petitioners, forgetful of the required decorum, and each trying to forestall the others, with her: "Oh! Miss Muriel, may I--?" "Please, Miss Tross-Kingdon, my father's--" "Hear me first, dear Lady Principal, before he gets away. Can--" But the Lady Principal merely clapped her hands over her ears and ordered: "One at a time. Count twenty." CHAPTER XV MRS. JARLEY ENTERTAINS "I've counted! And I beg pardon for rushing in here like that. But I was afraid the others had favors to ask and I wanted to get mine in first!" said Gwendolyn, after the brief pause Miss Tross-Kingdon had suggested. "Oh! you sweet, unselfish thing!" mocked Winifred, "your favor can't be half as fine as mine--" "Nor mine! Oh! do please let me speak first, for fear he gets away!" begged Dorothy, eagerly. "First come first served, Dolly, please!" coaxed Gwendolyn and the teacher nodded to her to speak. "Mine's for next Saturday. Mrs. Jarley's Wax Works are to be in town and Mamma says if you'll allow I may invite the whole school to go. She'll have big sleighs sent out for us and will let us have supper at the hotel where she stops. May we go?" "Wait a moment, Gwendolyn. Did you say the 'whole school'?" Each year Lady Jane had allowed her daughter to entertain her schoolmates in some such manner but the number had, heretofore, been limited to "Peers" only. Such a wholesale invitation as this required some explanation. Gwendolyn's eyes fell and her cheek flushed, while the other girls listened in wondering delight for her answer, which came after some hesitation. But came frankly at last in the girl's own manner. "I'm ashamed now of the silly notions I used to have. I wanted to do something which would prove that I am; so instead of picking out a few of what we called 'our set' I want every girl at Oak Knowe to join us. You'll understand, of course, that there will be no expense to anybody. It's Mamma's farewell treat to us girls, before she goes abroad. May she and I give it?" "Indeed, you may, Gwendolyn, if the Bishop approves. With the understanding that no lessons are neglected. The winter is about over. Spring exams are near, and 'Honors' or even 'Distinction' will not be won without hard work." "Thank you, Miss Muriel. May I go now and ask the Bishop, then tell the girls?" "Certainly," and there was an expression of greater pleasure on the lady's face than on that of Gwendolyn's even. Winifred executed what she called a "war dance" as Gwen disappeared, crying: "That's what I call a wholesale burying of the hatchet! That 'Honorable' young woman is distinguishing herself. Don't you think so, Miss Muriel?" "I am pleased. I am very pleased. Gwendolyn has surely dropped her foolishness and I'm proud of her. It's so much safer for anyone to be normal, without fads or fancies--" "Oh! come now, you dear Schoolma'am! Never mind the pretty talk just this minute, 'cause I can't wait to tell you--Father's coming--my Father is coming and a proper good time with him! If you'll only remember I wasn't saucy then--A girl you'd raised to hand, like me, couldn't really be saucy, could she? And--and please just wait a minute. Please let me talk first. Because _I_ can't ask _everybody_, but my darling Father means just as well as Lady Jane. His invite is only for a dozen--round baker's dozen, to take a trip in his car to Montreal and visit the Ice Palace! Think of that! The beautiful Ice Palace that I've never seen in all my life. If you'll say 'yes,' if you'll be the picker out of 'em, besides yourself and Miss Hexam and Dawkins--Oh! dear! You three grown-ups take off three from my dozen-thirteen! But there'll be ten left, any way, and please say yes and how many days we may be gone and--Oh! I love you, Miss Muriel, you know I do!" The lady Principal calmly loosened Winifred's clasping arms, and smilingly looked into the sparkling, pleading eyes before her. Who could be stern with the whimsical child she had cared for during so many years, and under whose apparently saucy manner, lay a deep love and respect? She did not enlighten the pleader on the fact that this was no new thing she had just heard; nor that there had been written communications passing between Mr. Christie and the Bishop with consent already won. But she put her answer off by saying: "We'll see about it, Winifred: and I'm glad there was nobody save Dorothy here to see you so misbehave! But if we go, and if the selection is left to me, I may not please you; for I should choose those whose record for good conduct is highest and whose preparation for exams is most complete." Winifred wrinkled her brows. Of course she, as hostess couldn't be counted either out or in, but she knew without telling that but few of her own class-ten would be allowed to go. They were the jolliest "ten" at Oak Knowe and oftener in disgrace about lessons than free from it. "Oh! dear! I do wish we'd dreamed this treat was coming! I'd have forced the 'Aldriches' to study as hard as they played--if--if I had to do it at the point of my mahl-stick. I guess it'll be a lesson to them." "I trust it will, dear, but Dorothy has waited all this time. Three little maids with three little wishes, regular fairy-tale like, and two of them granted already. What's yours, Dorothy?" Since listening to the others' requests, her own seemed very simple, almost foolish; but she answered promptly: "I want to get you a boot-boy." Winifred laughed. "Hey, Dolly! To switch off from a private-car-ice-palace-trip into a boot-boy's jacket is funny enough. Who's the candidate you're electioneering for?" Miss Muriel hushed Winifred's nonsense which had gone far enough and was due, she knew, to the girl's wild delight over her father's promised visit. "If you could find a good one for me, Dorothy, you would certainly be doing me a favor, not I one for you. Whom do you mean?" "Robin Locke, Miss Tross-Kingdon. He's so very poor." "Poverty isn't always a recommendation for usefulness. Is he old enough? Is it that lad who came with Mr. Gilpin?" "Yes, Miss Muriel. He's just the loveliest boy I've seen in Canada--" "The _only_ one, except Jack!" interrupted Winifred. "It was because of me and my carelessness he got hurt and broke himself. He was carrying my telegram that I ought to have sent long before and he was so starved he fell off his bicycle and always ever since I've wished I could help him some way and he'd have such a nice home here and he wouldn't bring in goats, and his mother could do things to help and I thought maybe he could do the shoes and other things would be easier than what he did and could be a golf-boy for the Bishop when the time comes and it's pretty near and--" "There, Dorothy, take your breath, and put a comma or two into your sentences. Then we'll talk about this project of yours. Where's Robin now?" "Right out on the settle this minute waiting--if he hasn't gone away--May I--" "Yes, honey, step-an'-fetch him!" laughed Winifred again, "he's used to that sort of talk." Away flashed Dorothy and now, at a really serious rebuke from the Lady Principal, Winifred sobered her lively spirits to be an interested witness of the coming interview, as Dorothy came speeding back, literally dragging the shy Robin behind her. But, as before, the presence of other young folks and Miss Muriel's first question put him at his ease. "Robin, are you willing to work rather hard, in a good home, for your mother and to provide one for her, too?" "Why, of course, Ma'am. That's what I was a-doin' when I fell off. Goody! Wouldn't I? Did you ever see my mother, lady?" "Yes, Robin, at our Hallowe'en Party," answered Miss Tross-Kingdon, smiling into the beautiful, animated face of this loyal son. "You'd like her, Ma'am, you couldn't help it. She's 'the sweetest thing in the garden,' Father used to say, and he knew. She feels bad now, thinking we've been so long at the farmer's 'cause she don't see how 't we ever can pay them. And the doctor, too. Oh! Ma'am, did you hear tell of such a place? Do you think I could get it?" "Yes, lad, I did hear of just such, for Dorothy told me. It's right here at Oak Knowe. The work is to pick up row after row of girls' shoes, standing over night outside their bedroom doors and to blacken them, or whiten them, as the case might be, and to have them punctually back in place, in time for their owners to put on. Cleaning boots isn't such a difficult task as it is a tedious one. The maids complain that it's more tiresome than scrubbing, and a boy I knew grew very careless about his work. If I asked you and your mother to come here to live, would you get tired? Or would she dislike to help care for the linen mending? Of course, you would be paid a fair wage as well as she. What do you think?" What Robin thought was evident: for away he ran to Dorothy's side and catching her hand kissed it over and over. "Oh! you dear, good girl! It was you who helped the doctor set my bones, it was you who let me slide on your new toboggan, and it's you who've 'spoke for me' to this lady. Oh! I do thank you. And now I'm not afraid to go back and see Mr. Gilpin. He was so vexed with me because he thought--May I go now, Ma'am? and when do you want us, Mother and me?" "To-morrow morning, at daybreak. Will you be here?" "Will I not? Oh! good-by. I must go quick! and tell my Mother that she needn't worry any more. Oh! how glad I am!" With a bow toward Miss Tross-Kingdon and a gay wave of his hand toward the girls, he vanished from the room, fairly running down the corridor and whistling as he went. The rules of Oak Knowe had yet all to be learned but it certainly was a cheerful "noise in halls" to which they listened now. "And that's another 'link' in life, such as Uncle Seth was always watching for. If I hadn't delayed that telegram and he hadn't fallen down and--everything else that happened--Robin would never have had such a lovely chance," said Dorothy proudly. "That's a dangerous doctrine, Dorothy. It's fine to see the 'links' you speak of, but not at all fine to do evil that good may come. I'd rather have you believe that this same good might have come to the lad without your own first mistake. But it's time for studying Sunday lessons and you must go." "Catch me studying 'links' for things, Dolly, if it gets a body lectured. Dear Lady Principal does so love to cap her kindnesses with 'a few remarks.' There's a soft side and a hard side to that woman, and a middle sort of schoolma'amy side between. She can't help it, poor thing, and mostly her soft side was in front just now. "Think of it! Wax Works and Ice Palaces all in one term! I do just hope Mrs. Jarley'll have a lot of real blood-curdling 'figgers' to look at and not all miminy-piminy ones. Well, good night, honey, I'm off to be as good as gold." Every pupil at Oak Knowe, in the week that followed, tried to be "as good as gold," for a pleasure such as Lady Jane proposed to give the school was as welcome to the highest Form as to the lowest Minims, and the result was that none was left out of the party--not one. It was all perfectly arranged, even the weather conspiring to further the good time, with a beautifully clear day and the air turned mild, with a promise of the coming spring. The snow was beginning to waste, yet the sleighing held fine and the city stables had been ransacked to obtain the most gorgeous outfits with the safest drivers. Thirty handsome sleighs with their floating plumes and luxurious robes, drawn by thirty spans of beautiful horses was the alluring procession which entered Oak Knowe grounds on the eventful Saturday; and three hundred happy girls, each in her best attire piled into them. Yes, and one small boy! For who could bear to leave behind that one last child of the great family? And a boy who in but a week's time had learned to clean shoes so well and promptly? So clad in his new suit, of the school's uniform, "Such as all we men folks wear"--as he had proudly explained to his mother when he first appeared in this before her--and with a warm top-coat and cap to match, the happy youngster rode in the leading sleigh in which sat Lady Jane herself. Of how those happy young folks took possession of the exhibition hall, that had been reserved for them; and smiled or shuddered over the lifelike images of famous men and women; and finally tore themselves away from the glib tongue of the exhibitor and his fascinating show--all this any schoolgirl reader can picture for herself. Then of the dinner at the great hotel, in a beautiful room also reserved that they might indulge their appetites as hunger craved without fear or observation of other guests: the slow drive about the city, and the swift drive home--with not one whit of the gayety dimmed by any untoward accident. "Oh! it's been a perfect success! Nothing has happened that should not, and I believe that I've been the happiest girl of all! But such a crowd of them. Better count your flock, Miss Tross-Kingdon, maybe, and see if any are missing;" said Lady Jane as she stepped down at the Oak Knowe door. "I don't see how there could be, under your care, my Lady, but I'll call a mental roll." So she did. But the roll was not perfect. Two were missing. Why? CHAPTER XVI A PERPLEXING PROBLEM OF LIFE Miss Tross-Kingdon entered Miss Hexam's room, looking so disturbed that the latter asked: "Why, Muriel, what is the matter?" They two were of kin and called each other by their first names. "Matter enough, Wilda. I'm worried and angry. And to think it should happen while the Bishop is away on that trip of his to the States!" "Tell me," urged the gentle little woman, pushing a chair forward into which the Lady Principal wearily dropped. "It's that Dorothy Calvert. She's lost herself again!" "She has a knack of doing that! But she'll be found." "Maybe. Worst is she's taken another with her. Robin, the new boot-boy." Miss Hexam laughed: "Well, I admit that is the greater loss just now! Girls are plentiful enough at Oak Knowe but boot-boys are scarce. And this Robin was a paragon, wasn't he? Also, I thought Dorothy was away up toward the 'good conduct medal,' as well as 'distinction' in music. I don't see why she should do so foolish a thing as you say and lessen her chances for the prize." "Wilda, you don't understand how serious it is. It was one thing to have it happen in this house but it's night now and she away in a strange city. I declare I almost wish she'd never come at all." For a moment Miss Hexam said no more. She knew that Miss Muriel loved the missing girl with sincere affection and was extremely proud of her great progress in her studies. All the school had readily conceded that in her own Form Dorothy stood highest, and would certainly win the "honors" of that Form. When the Principal had rested quietly a while longer she asked: "Now tell me all about it, Muriel." "Nobody missed her, but, she did not come home with the rest. I've 'phoned to the police to look for for her and the boy, but it's a disgrace to the school to have to do such a thing. Besides, Robin's mother is half wild about him and declares she must walk into town to seek him." "You're foolish, the pair of you. Stop and reason. Robin is thoroughly familiar with the city and suburbs, from his messenger-boy experience. Dorothy is blessed with a fair share of common sense. If they wandered away somewhere, they'll soon wander back again when they realize what they have done. I'm sorry you stirred up the police and they should be warned to keep the matter quiet." "Oh! they have been," answered the weary Lady Principal. "It does seem, lately, that every good time we allow the girls ends in disaster." "Never mind. You go to bed. You've done all you can till morning." Miss Muriel did go away but only to spend the night in watching along with Lady Jane in the library, the latter deeply regretting that she had ever suggested this outing and, like the Lady Principal, both sorry and angry over its ending. Dorothy had ridden to the exhibition in the very last sleigh of all, as Robin had in the first, and when they all left the hotel after dinner he had lingered beside her while she waited for the other teams to drive on and her own to come up. This took a long time, there was so much ado in settling so many girls to the satisfaction of all; and looking backward he saw that there would still be a delay of several moments. "I say, Dorothy, come on. I want to show you where we used to live before my father died. We'll be back in plenty time. It's the dearest little house, with only two rooms in it; but after we left it nobody lived there and it's all gone to pieces. Makes me feel bad but I'd like to show you. Just down that block and around a side street. Come on. What's the use standing here?" "Sure we can be back in time, Robin?" "Certain. Cross my heart. I'm telling you the truth. It's only a step or so." "Well, then, let's hurry." Hurry they did, he whistling as usual, until they came to a narrow alley that had used to be open but had now been closed by a great pile of lumber, impossible for them to climb. "Oh! pshaw! Somebody must be going to build here. But never mind. Our house was right yonder, we can go another way." His interest as well as hers in exploring "new places," made them forget everything else; and when, at last, they came to Robin's old home a full half-hour had passed. It was, indeed, a sorry place. Broken windows, hanging doors and shutters, chimney fallen, and doorstep gone. Nobody occupied it now except, possibly, a passing tramp or the street gamin who had destroyed it. "My! I'm glad my Mother can't see it now. She never has since we moved down to our cottage in the glen. It would break her dear heart, for my father built it when they were first married. That was the kitchen, that the bedroom--Hark! What's that?" "Sounded like a cat." "Didn't to me. Cats are squealier'n that was. I wonder if anybody or thing is in there now. If I had time I'd go and see." "Robin, wouldn't you be afraid?" "Afraid? Afraid to go into my own house, that was, that my father built with his own hands? Huh! What do you take me for? I'd as soon go in there as eat my din--Hello! There certainly--" They put their heads close to the paneless window and listened intently. That was a human groan. That was a curious patter of small hoofs--Dorothy had heard just such a sound before. That surely was a most familiar wail: "Oh, Baal! My jiminy cricket!" "Jiminy cricket yourself, Jack-boot-boy! What you doing in my house? I'm living in yours--I mean I'm boot-boy now. How are you?" cried Robin, through the window. "Who'm you? Have you got anything to eat? Quick! Have you?" The voice which put the question was surely Jack's but oddly weak and tremulous. Dorothy answered: "Not here, Jack, course. Are you hungry?" "Starvin'! Starvin'! I ain't touched food nor drink this two days. Oh! Have you?" Daylight was already fading and street lights flashing out but this by-way of the town had no such break to the darkness. Robin was over the rickety threshold in an instant and Dorothy quickly followed. Neither had now any thought save for the boy within and his suffering. They found him lying on a pile of old rags or pieces of discarded burlap which he had picked up on the streets, or that some former lodger in the room had gathered. Beside him was Baal, bleating piteously, as if he, too, were starving. The reason for this was evident when Robin stumbled over a rope by which the animal was fastened to the window sash; else he might have strolled abroad and foraged for himself. But if Robin fell he was up in a second and with the instincts of a city bred boy knew just what to do and how to do it. "Got any money, Dorothy?" "Yes. Twenty-five cents, my week's allowance." "I've got ten. Mother said I might keep that much out of my week's wages. Give it here. I'll be back in a minute." He was gone and Dorothy dropped down on the dusty floor beside Jack and asked his story. He told it readily enough, as far as willingness went, but his speech lagged for once and from sheer lack of strength. "I left--seeking my fortune. It warn't so easy as I thought it would be. I've hired for odd jobs, held horses, run arrants, helped 'round taverns, but didn't get no place for steady. Trouble was, folks don't take no great to Baal. They'd put with him a spell, treat him real decent till he'd up and butt somebody over--then his dough was cooked. The worse he was used the better I liked him, though I'd ha' sold him for money if I could, I've been hungry so much the time. And that right here, Dorothy, _in a town full o' victuals_! Just chock full. See 'em in the winders, see 'em in the markets, on wagons--and every created place, but not a speck for me. But I got along, I'd ha' made out, if I hadn't et somethin' made me dretful sick. It was somethin' in a can I picked up out a garbage pail, some sort o' fish I guess, and I've been terr'ble ever since. What'd he go for? Why don't he come back?" "I don't know. I reckon he went for food. How did you keep warm in here, if this is where you lived?" "Didn't keep warm. How could I? I ain't been warm, not real clean through, since the last night I slep' in my nice bed at Oak Knowe." "Why didn't you come back? Or go to the railway stations? They are always heated, I reckon." "Did. Turned me out. Lemme stay a spell but then turned me out. Said I better go to the poorhouse but--won't that boy never come!" "He's coming now, Jack," she answered and was almost as glad as he of the fact. Robin came whistling in, good cheer in the very sound. "Here you are neighbor! Candle and matches--two cents. Pint of milk--three. Drink it down while I light up!" Jack grabbed the milk bottle with both hands and drained it; then fell back again with a groan. "'T hurts my stummick! Hurts my stummick awful!" "Never mind. I'll turn Baal loose and let him find something outside. A likely supper of tin cans and old shoes'll set him up to a T. Scoot, Baal!" The goat was glad enough to go, apparently, yet in a moment came bleating back to his master. Dorothy thought that was pathetic but Robin declared it disgusting. "Clear out, you old heathen, and hunt your supper--" "Oh! don't be cruel to the loving creature, Robin! Suppose he should get lost?" begged Dorothy. "Lost? You can't lose Baal, don't you fret. Look-a-here, boy! here's a sandwich! Come from the best place in town. I know it. Give the biggest slice for the least money. Can't tell me anything about that, for I've been nigh starved myself too often in this same old town. What? You don't want it? Can't eat it? Then what do you want?" Provoked that his efforts to please Jack failed so fully, Robin whistled again, but not at all merrily this time; for he had at last begun to think of his own predicament and Dorothy's. Here they were stranded in town, Oak Knowe so far away, night fast falling and, doubtless, a stern reprimand due--should they ever reach that happy haven again. "Robin, I do believe he is sick. Real, terrible sick. It wasn't just starving ailed him. Do you s'pose we could get a doctor to him?" "To this shanty? No, I don't. But if he's sick, there's hospitals. Slathers of 'em. Hurray! There's the one that Dr. Winston is head of. There's an emergency ward there and free ones--and it's the very checker!" Jack had ceased moaning and lay very still. So still that they were both frightened and Dolly asked: "How can we get him there, if they would take him in? He's terrible heavy to carry." Even dimly seen by the light of the flickering candle struck on the floor, Dorothy thought the pose of superiority Robin now affected the funniest thing, and was not offended when he answered with lofty scorn: "Carry him? I should say not. We couldn't and we won't. I'll just step to the corner and ring up an ambulance. I know the name. You stay here. I'll meet it when it comes and don't get scared when the gong clangs to get out of the way." Dorothy's own life in a southern city returned to her now and she remembered some of its advantages which Robin had spoken of. So she was not at all frightened when she heard the ambulance come into the street beyond the alley, which was too narrow for it to enter, nor when two men in hospital uniforms appeared at the door of the room. They had lanterns and a stretcher and at once placed poor Jack upon it and hurried away. They needed not to ask questions for Robin had followed them and was glibly explaining all he knew of the "case" and the rest which he had guessed. "Ate spoiled fish out of a garbage can, did he? So you think it's ptomaine poisoning, do you Doctor Jack-o'-my-thumb? Well, I shouldn't be surprised if your diagnosis is correct. Steady now, mate, this is a--Hello! What's that?" "That" proved to be Baal, returned to inquire what was being done to his master by prodding the orderly's legs with his horns, so that the stretcher nearly fell out of his hand. Baal got his answer by way of a vicious kick which landed him out of reach and permitted the men to carry their burden quickly away. Left behind, the pair of young Samaritans stared for an instant at one another, dismayed at their own delay. It was Dorothy who came to a decision: "We've done as bad as we could and as good. Seems awful queer how it all happened. Now we must go home. Can we get a carriage anywhere and would it take us back without any money to pay it? Would Miss Tross-Kingdon pay it, do you think? The Bishop would but he's gone traveling." Leaving their candle still flickering on the floor they anxiously left the shanty; and it may be stated here, for the guidance of other careless ones that there was an item in the next morning's paper stating that a certain "old rookery had been burned down during the night; origin of fire unknown; a benefit to the city for it had long been infested by hoboes and tramps." To which of these classes poor Jack belonged it did not state; but either one was a far call to the "great artist" he had said he would become. There were cabs in plenty to be seen and, probably, to be hired; but they did not summon one. A vision of Miss Tross-Kingdon's face at its sternest rose before Dorothy and she dared not venture on the lady's generosity. Another thought came, a far happier one: "I'll tell you! Let's follow Jack. Maybe Dr. Winston would be there or somebody would know about us--if we told--and would telephone to Oak Knowe what trouble we're in. For it is trouble now, Robin Locke, and you needn't say it isn't. You're scared almost to death and so am I. I wish--I wish I'd never heard of a Wax Works, so there!" Robin stopped and turned her face up to the light of a street lamp they were passing and saw tears in her eyes. That was the oddest thing for her to cry--right here in this familiar city where were railway stations plenty in which they might wait till morning and somebody came. But, softened as her tears made him, he couldn't yet quite forget that he was the man of the party. "It's an awful long ways to that Hospital, and I've got five cents left. We can go in anywhere and I can 'phone for myself. No need to bother any doctors or nurses." Opposition to her wishes dried her tears. "Well, I am going to Dr. Winston's hospital. I'd like you to go with me and show me the way but if you won't the policemen I meet will do it. I'm going right now." That conquered this small Canadian gentleman, and he answered: "All right. I'll show you. Only don't you dare to be crying when you get there." She wasn't. It proved a long walk but help loomed at the end of it and the youngsters scarcely felt fatigue in the prospect of this. Also, the help proved to be just what they most desired. For there was Dr. Winston himself, making his night visit to a very ill patient and almost ready to depart in his car which stood waiting at the door. Dorothy remembered how little gentlewomen should conduct themselves when paying visits; so after inquiring of the white-clad orderly who admitted her if Dr. Winston was there, and being told that he was, she took her empty purse from her pocket and sent up her card. She would have written Robin's name below hers if she had had a pencil or--had thought about it. The tiny card was placed upon a little silver salver and borne away with all the dignity possible; but there was more amazement than dignity in the good doctor's reception of it. Another moment he was below, buttoning his top-coat as he came and demanding with a smile that was rather anxious: "To what am I indebted for the pleasure of this visit, Miss Dorothy Calvert?" But the tears were still too near the girl's eyes for her to meet jest with jest. She could only hold out her arms, like the lonely, frightened child she was and he promptly clasped her in his own. Then "tinkle, tinkle, tinkle," ran a little bell in the Oak Knowe library and over the telephone wire rang the doctor's hearty voice. "Be at rest, Miss Muriel. Your runaways are found and I'll motor them home in a jiffy!" This was so joyful a message that Lady Jane and the Lady Principal promptly fell upon one another's neck and wept a few womanly tears. Then Miss Tross-Kingdon released herself, exclaiming: "Oh! those dreadful police. Why did I violate the privacy of Oak Knowe by setting them to search? I must recall the order right away--if I can!" Self-blame doesn't tend toward anybody's good nature and the head of Oak Knowe School for Young Ladies had been sorely tried. Also, her offense had come from the very girl she trusted most and was, therefore, the more difficult to forgive. So clothing herself in all her dignity, she was simply the Lady Principal and nothing more, when for a second time the quiet of her domain was broken by the honk-honk of an automobile, the door opened and Dorothy and Robin walked in. The doctor had laughingly declared that he couldn't enter with them--he was afraid! But though it was really only lack of time that prevented him so doing, their own spirits were now so low that they caught the infection of his remark--if not his spirit--and visibly trembled. This was a sign of guilt and caught Miss Muriel's eye at once. "What is the explanation of this, Dorothy? Robin?" Dorothy had been pondering that explanation on the swift ride home. Dr. Winston had called them the Good Samaritans and seemed pleased with them. Maybe Miss Muriel would think so, too. "We stayed to see--we had to be what he said. Good little Samaritans--" "Humph! If that is some new game you have invented, please never to play it again. Your duty--" "Why, Lady Principal, you wouldn't have us 'pass by on the other side,' would you? To-morrow's lesson--" But there was no softening in Miss Muriel's eye, and indignant Robin flashed out: "Well--well--you needn't blame _her_. You needn't blame a _girl_--when it was all my fault! I coaxed her or she wouldn't ha' done it!" This was such a manly, loyal reversion of the old story of Adam and Eve that Lady Jane laughed and would have clapped her hands in pride of her small compatriot. But she refrained and chose the wiser course of slipping away unseen. "Robin! you forget yourself! I have given you a home here but I have not given you license to be insolent or disobedient. You have been both. Your mother is somewhere on the road to town, looking for you." But it happened she was not. Dr. Winston had espied a lone woman dragging herself citywards and had stopped to give her a lift. Then, learning who she was and her errand, had promptly turned about and conveyed her also home; so she was back in their own rooms almost as soon as her boy was and able to soothe his wrath as only mothers can. But upon poor Dorothy fell the full force of her teacher's indignation. "Dorothy, I would not have believed it possible for you so willfully to disappoint me. Go to your dormitory and to bed at once. You cannot go off bounds again till Easter holidays. Good night." Dorothy obeyed in silence. She could think of many things to say but she could not say them. Even to anxious Dawkins who would have welcomed her warmly and ministered loving comfort she could only say: "Good night. It's such a mixed up world. It was good to help Jack, the doctor said; and it was wrong, Miss Tross-Kingdon said; and--and--I'm so tired! Oh! if I could only see Aunt Betty!" With that last homesick cry, she laid her head on her pillow, and being a perfectly healthy girl--fell fast asleep. CHAPTER XVII COMMENCEMENT; AND CONCLUSION Dorothy in disgrace! That seemed an incredible thing to her schoolmates, who had hitherto believed "Dixie" to be the one great favorite of all. However, she could never speak of the matter to anybody, except the Bishop when he came home from his southern journey and the news he had to bring her was so far more important and saddening that a short confinement "on bounds" seemed actually trivial. For Uncle Seth was dead. The dear guardian and wise counselor would greet her no more. At first her grief seemed unbearable; but the good Bishop took her into his own home for a little time and she came back to Oak Knowe somewhat comforted for her loss. Besides she had had a little talk with Miss Tross-Kingdon, and there was again sweet peace and confidence between them. Miss Muriel now helped the girl in her work, inciting her ambition and keeping her so well employed that she had little time to sit and grieve. Indeed, the spirit of ambition was in everyone's heart. Easter holidays were past, spring exams proved fairly satisfactory with much yet to be accomplished before Commencement came. So the weeks fairly flew, the outdoor recreations changing with the seasons, and Dorothy learning the games of cricket and golf, which were new to her and which she described in her letters home as "adorably fascinating and English." Tennis and basket-ball were not so new. She had played these at the Rhinelander Academy, the first private school she had ever attended; but for even these familiar sports she spared little time. "It does seem as if the minutes weren't half as long as they were in the winter, Winifred! There's so much, so much I want to finish and the time so short. Why, it's the middle of June already, and Commencement on the twenty-first. Only six days for us to be together, dear!" cried Dorothy in the music room with her violin on her lap, and her friend whirling about on the piano stool. They were "programmed" for a duet, the most difficult they had ever undertaken, and were resting for the moment from their practicing while Dorothy's thoughts ran back over the year that was past. "Such a lot of things have happened. So many bad ones that have turned out good. Maybe, the best of all was Jack-boot-boy's running away and our finding him. It gave Robin and me a rather unhappy time, but it's turned out fine for him, because as he says: 'It's knocked the nonsense out of me.'" "The Dame will let no more creep in. Old John told me how it was. Soon as Dr. Winston told him where Jack was, at that hospital, he said to his wife: 'I'm going to see him.' Then that 'rare silent woman' spoke her mind. 'Husband, that'll do. I'll ride yon, on the cart, to fetch him home here to our cottage. The doctor says he's well enough to leave that place. I'll get him bound out to me till he's twenty-one. Then I'll let him go to 'seek' that 'fortune' he yearns for, with a new suit of clothes on his back and a hundred dollars in his pocket. That's the law and I've took him in hand." "So he's settled and done for, for a long time to come. It's just fine for him, they'll treat him like a son--Baal can live his days out in a pen--and Jack will grow up better fitted for his own station in life, as you Canadians say. Down in the States we believe that folks make their own 'stations'; don't find them hanging around their necks when they are born. Why I know a boy who was--" "There, Dolly Doodles! Don't get started on that subject. I know him by heart. One remarkable creature named James Barlow, who couldn't spell till you taught him and now has aspirations toward a college professorship. By the letters he writes, I should judge him to be a horrible prig. I wish I could see him once. I'd make him bow his lofty head; you'd find out!" Dorothy pulled a letter from her pocket and tossed it into her friend's hands. "You'll soon have a chance. Read that." "Oh! may I?" But the reading was brief and an expression of great disappointment came to Winifred's face. "Oh, Dorothy! How horrid!" "Yes, dear. I felt so, too, at first. Now all I feel is a wish to be through so I can hurry home to dear Aunt Betty who must need me dreadfully, or she'd never disappoint us like this." "It was such a beautiful plan. We should have had such a lovely time. Ah! here comes Gwen. Girl, what do you think? Mrs. Calvert isn't well enough to come to Canada, after all, and Dorothy has got to go home. When it's all fixed, too. Father's freed himself from business for three delightful months, and we three, with her were to go jaunting about all over the country in his private car, and Dorothy to learn that Canada beats the States all to pieces." Gwendolyn shared the disappointment. That trio had been dubbed by their mates as the "Inseparables" and the love between them all was now deep and sincere. "Read it aloud, Gwen. Maybe there's a chance yet, that I overlooked. I was so mad I couldn't half see that upstart's writing--not after the first few words. He doesn't mince matters, does he?" The letter ran thus: "DEAR DOROTHY: "Mrs. Calvert will not be able to come to Canada to meet you. She is not ill in bed but she needs you here. Dinah is taking care of her now, and Ephraim and I have decided that it is best for us two to come to Oak Knowe to fetch you home. Of course, you could come alone, as you went, but I'm at leisure now, and have laid aside enough from my year's earnings to pay the expenses of us all; and Ephraim wants to go for you. He says 'it ain' fitten fo' no young lady lak my li'l Miss to go trabbelin' erbout de country widout her own serbant-boy to take care ob her. Mah Miss Betty was clean bewitchted, erlowin' hit in de fust place, but she's laid up an' ole Eph, he ain' gwine hab no mo' such foolishness.' "Those are his own words and lately--Well, I don't like to go against that old man's wishes. So he and I will be on hand by the twenty-first of June and I expect can get put up somewhere, though I'm ignorant as to what they do with negroes in Canada. "Faithfully, "JIM." "Negroes! Negroes? Why, is that Ephraim a negro?" "Yes, indeed. As black as ink, almost, with the finest white head--of wool! Not quite so thick and curly as your 'barristers' wear, but handsome, I think. It represents so many, many years of faithful service. That dear old man has taken care of Aunt Betty ever since she was a child, and does so still. Nobody knows his real age, but it's one proof of his devotion to her that he'll take this long journey just because he remembers what's 'fitten,' even if she has grown careless about it. You see, it's Uncle Seth's death that must have changed her so," said Dorothy, musingly, with her eyes on the floor. The other two exchanged pitying glances, and it rose to Winifred's lips to say: "But she let you come alone in the fall and he wasn't dead then;" but she refrained. She knew, for Dolly had told her, that all that winter Dorothy's home letters had not seemed quite the same as they had used, during other separations from her aunt; and that many of them had been written for Mrs. Calvert by various friends of the old lady's, "just to oblige." Never before had the sprightly Mrs. Betty shrunk from writing her own letters; and, indeed, had done so often enough during the early winter to prevent Dorothy's suspicion of anything amiss. "Auntie dear, is so old, you know girls, that of course she does need me. Besides she's been all over the world and seen everything, so there's really 'nothing new under the sun' for her. That's why this junketing around we'd planned so finely, doesn't appeal to her as it does to us," said Dorothy, at last, lifting her violin to her shoulder and rising to her feet. "Shall we try it again, Win? And, Gwen, dear, have you finished your picture yet for the exhibition?" "Just finished, Dolly. And I forgot my errand here. Miss Muriel sent me to tell you girls that the dressmaker was in the sewing-room, giving last fittings to our frocks. She wants us to go there right after practice hour, for we must not lose our turn. I wanted to wear that beautiful one Mamma sent me from Paris but 'No' was the word. 'There will be no change in our custom. Each girl will wear a plain white lawn Commencement frock, untrimmed, and with no decoration except a sash of each Form's colors.' So there we are, same old six-pences, and dowds I think, every one of us." But when those few days intervening had passed and great Oak Knowe was alight with its hundreds of daintily robed girls, there was not a single "dowd" among them; nor one, whether unknown "charity" scholar or otherwise who felt envy of any difference between themselves or others. "What a glorious day! What crowds are here and coming. Assembly and all the rooms near it will be packed closer than ever! Oh! I'm so happy I can't keep still! No more lessons, no more early-to-bed-and-rise business for three delightful months! There's father! There he is--right in the front row of guests' seats. Right amongst the 'Peers,' where he belongs by right!" cried Winifred, turning Dorothy's head around that she might see the object of her own great excitement. "See, see! He's looking our way. He's discovered us! And he's awfully disappointed about you. He never forgave Miss Tross-Kingdon that she wouldn't let you take that Ice Palace trip with us, just because you'd broken a few rules. But never you mind, darling. Though this is the end of Oak Knowe for us together, it isn't the end of the world--nor time. Father shall bring me to you, he shall, indeed! Just think how it would help my education to visit the States! But, hark! The bugle is blowing--fall into line!" From their peep-hole in the hall Dorothy, also, could see the guests taking seats; and clutching Winifred's sleeve, whispered: "Look! Look! Away there at the back of Assembly, close to the door--that's Jim! That's Ephy! Oh! isn't it good to see them? For no matter now, I'm not without my own home folks any more than the rest of you. After banquet I'll introduce you if I get a chance." Then they fell into the line of white clad girls, and to the strains of a march played by the Seventh Form graduates, three hundred bright faced maidens--large and small--filed to their places in Assembly for their last appearance all together. It was a Commencement like multitudes of others; with the usual eager interest in guessing who'd be prize winners. The most highly valued prize of each year at Oak Knowe was the gold medal for improvement in conduct. Who would get it? Looking back the "Inseparables" could think of nobody who'd shown marked advance along that line; Winifred remarking, complacently: "I think we're all about as good as can be, anyway. 'Cause we're not allowed to be anything else." "I know who's improved most, though. I hope--Oh! I hope she'll get it!" And when the announcement was made she did! Said the Bishop, who conferred the diplomas and prizes: "The Improvement Gold Medal, the highest honor our faculty can bestow, is this year awarded to--" Here the speaker paused just long enough to whet the curiosity of those eager girls--"To the Honorable Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard. Will she kindly advance and receive it?" Never was "honor girl" more deeply moved, surprised, and grateful than this once so haughty "Peer," now humble at heart as the meekest "Charity" present, and never such deafening cheers and hand-claps greeted the recipient of that coveted prize. Other lesser prizes followed: to Winifred's surprise, she had gained "Distinction" in physical culture; Florita in mathematics; and a new "Distinction" was announced for that year--"To Miss Dorothy Calvert for uniform courtesy," and one that she valued less: a gold star for advancement in music. "Two prizes, Dolly Doodles! You ought to should give poor Gracie one, you should. 'Tis not nice for one girl to have two, but my Auntie Prin, she couldn't help it. She told the Bishop you'd always been a beautiful behaver, an' she must. Now, it's all over, and I'm glad. I'm so tired and hungry. Come to banquet." After all it was the same as most Commencements the world over, with its joys and its anticipations. What of the latter's realization? In Dorothy's case at least the telling thereof is not for this time or place; but all is duly related in a new story and a new volume which tells of "Dorothy's Triumph." But there was that year one innovation at the banquet, that farewell feast of all the school together. For the company was but just seated when there stalked majestically into the great hall an old negro in livery. Pulling his forelock respectfully toward the Bishop, bowing and scraping his foot as his Miss Betty had long ago taught him, he marched straight to his Miss Dorothy's chair and took his stand behind it. He took no notice when turning her head she flashed a rather frightened smile in his direction, nor did either of them speak. But she glanced over to the head of the table and received an approving nod from her beloved Bishop; whose own heart felt a thrill of happy memory as he beheld this scene. So, away back in boyhood's days, in the dining-room at beautiful Bellevieu, had this same white-headed "boy" served those he had loved and lost. To him it was pathetic; to other observers, a novelty and curiosity; but to Dorothy and Ephraim themselves, after that first minute, a mere matter of course. Looking over that great table, the girl's face grew thoughtful. She had come among all these a stranger; she was leaving them a friend with everyone. The days that were coming might be happy, might be sorry; yet she was not alone. Old Ephraim stood behind her, faithful to the end; and out in the hall waited James Barlow, also faithful and full of the courage of young life and great ambition. No, she was not alone, whatever came or had come; and, after all, it was sweet to be going back to the familiar places and the familiar friends. So, the banquet at its end, by a nod from the Bishop, she drew her violin from under the table and rising in her place played sweetly and joyfully that forever well loved melody of "Home, Sweet Home." One by one, or in groups, the company melted away. Each to her new life of joy or sorrow or as general, both intermingled. * * * * * Transcriber's note: Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent. 
18896	----	FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD by MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY Author of "The Gayworthy's," "A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life," "Footsteps on the Seas," etc. New York The New York Book Company 1913 CONTENTS I.   "Money, Money!" 1 II.   Sortes. 4 III.   Aunt Henderson. 6 IV.   Glory McWhirk. 10 V.   Something Happens. 15 VI.   Aunt Henderson's Girl Hunt. 26 VII.   Cares; And What Came Of Them. 31 VIII.   A Niche In Life, And A Woman To Fill It. 34 IX.   Life Or Death? 37 X.   Rough Ends. 40 XI.   Cross Corners. 43 XII.   A Reconnoissance. 49 XIII.   Development. 54 XIV.   A Drive With The Doctor. 59 XV.   New Duties. 65 XVI.   "Blessed Be Ye, Poor." 68 XVII.   Frost-Wonders. 75 XVIII.   Out In The Snow. 79 XIX.   A "Leading." 85 XX.   Paul. 89 XXI.   Pressure. 94 XXII.   Roger Armstrong's Story. 99 XXIII.   Question And Answer. 103 XXIV.   Conflict. 112 XXV.   A Game At Chess. 116 XXVI.   Lakeside. 120 XXVII.   At The Mills. 124 XXVIII.   Locked In. 127 XXIX.   Home. 135 XXX.   Aunt Henderson's Mystery. 140 XXXI.   Nurse Sampson's Way Of Looking At It. 147 XXXII.   Glory Mcwhirk's Inspiration. 152 XXXIII.   Last Hours. 157 XXXIV.   Mrs. Parley Gimp. 160 XXXV.   Indian Summer. 164 XXXVI.   Christmastide. 169 XXXVII.   The Wedding Journey. 177 FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD CHAPTER I. "MONEY, MONEY!" "Shoe the horse and shoe the mare, And let the little colt go bare." East or West, it matters not where--the story may, doubtless, indicate something of latitude and longitude as it proceeds--in the city of Mishaumok, lived Henderson Gartney, Esq., one of those American gentlemen of whom, if she were ever canonized, Martha of Bethany must be the patron saint--if again, feminine celestials, sainthood once achieved through the weary experience of earth, don't know better than to assume such charge of wayward man--born, as they are, seemingly, to the life destiny of being ever "careful and troubled about many things." We have all of us, as little girls, read "Rosamond." Now, one of Rosamond's early worries suggests a key to half the worries, early and late, of grown men and women. The silver paper won't cover the basket. Mr. Gartney had spent his years, from twenty-five to forty, in sedulously tugging at the corners. He had had his share of silver paper, too--only the basket was a little too big. In a pleasant apartment, half library, half parlor, and used in the winter months as a breakfast room, beside a table still covered with the remnants of the morning meal, sat Mrs. Gartney and her young daughter, Faith; the latter with a somewhat disconcerted, not to say rueful, expression of face. A pair of slippers on the hearth and the morning paper thrown down beside an armchair, gave hint of the recent presence of the master of the house. "Then I suppose I can't go," remarked the young lady. "I'm sure I don't know," answered the elder, in a helpless, worried sort of tone. "It doesn't seem really right to ask your father for the money. I did just speak of your wanting some things for a party, but I suppose he has forgotten it; and, to-day, I hate to trouble him with reminding. Must you really have new gloves and slippers, both?" Faith held up her little foot for answer, shod with a partly worn bronze kid, reduced to morning service. "These are the best I've got. And my gloves have been cleaned over and over, till you said yourself, last time, they would hardly do to wear again. If it were any use, I should say I must have a new dress; but I thought at least I should freshen up with the 'little fixings,' and perhaps have something left for a few natural flowers for my hair." "I know. But your father looked annoyed when I told him we should want fresh marketing to-day. He is really pinched, just now, for ready money--and he is so discouraged about the times. He told me only last night of a man who owed him five hundred dollars, and came to say he didn't know as he could pay a cent. It doesn't seem to be a time to afford gloves and shoes and flowers. And then there'll be the carriage, too." "Oh, dear!" sighed Faith, in the tone of one who felt herself checkmated. "I wish I knew what we really _could_ afford! It always seems to be these little things that don't cost much, and that other girls, whose fathers are not nearly so well off, always, have, without thinking anything about it." And she glanced over the table, whereon shone a silver coffee service, and up at the mantel where stood a French clock that had been placed there a month before. "Pull at the bobbin and the latch will fly up." An unspoken suggestion, of drift akin to this, flitted through the mind of Faith. She wondered if her father knew that this was a Signal Street invitation. Mr. Gartney was ambitious for his children, and solicitous for their place in society. But Faith had a touch of high-mindedness about her that made it impossible for her to pull bobbins. So, when her father presently, with hat and coat on, came into the room again for a moment, before going out for the day, she sat quite silent, with her foot upon the fender, looking into the fire. Something in her face however, quite unconsciously, bespoke that the world did not lie entirely straight before her, and this catching her father's eye, brought up to him, by an untraceable association, the half-proffered request of his wife. "So you haven't any shoes, Faithie. Is that it?" "None nice enough for a party, father." "And the party is a vital necessity, I suppose. Where is it to be?" The latch string was put forth, and while Faith still stayed her hand, her mother, absolved from selfish end, was fain to catch it up. "At the Rushleighs'. The Old Year out and the New Year in." "Oh, well, we mustn't 'let the colt go bare,'" answered Mr. Gartney, pleasantly, portemonnaie in hand. "But you must make that do." He handed her five dollars. "And take good care of your things when you have got them, for I don't pick up many five dollars nowadays." And the old look of care crept up, replacing the kindly smile, as he turned and left the room. "I feel very much as if I had picked my father's pocket," said Faith, holding the bank note, half ashamedly, in her hand. Henderson Gartney, Esq., was a man of no method in his expenditure. When money chanced to be plenty with him it was very apt to go as might happen--for French clocks, or whatsoever; and then, suddenly, the silver paper fell short elsewhere, and lo! a corner was left uncovered. The horse and the mare were shod. Great expenses were incurred; money was found, somehow, for grand outlays; but the comfort of buying, with a readiness, the little needed matters of every day--this was foregone. "Not let the colt go bare!" It was precisely the thing he was continually doing. Mrs. Gartney had long found it to be her only wise way to make her hay while the sun was shining--to buy, when she could buy, what she was sure would be most wanted--and to look forward as far as possible, in her provisions, since her husband scarcely seemed to look forward at all. So she exemplified, over and over again in her life, the story of Pharaoh and his fat and lean kine. That night, Faith, her little purchases and arrangements all complete, and flowers and carriage bespoken for the next evening, went to bed to dream such dreams as only come to the sleep of early years. At the same time, lingering by the fireside below for a half hour's unreserved conversation, Mr. Gartney was telling his wife of another money disappointment. "Blacklow, at Cross Corners, gives up the lease of the house in the spring. He writes me he is going out to Indiana with his son-in-law. I don't know where I shall find another such tenant--or any at all, for that matter." CHAPTER II. SORTES. "How shall I know if I do choose the right?" "Since this fortune falls to you, Be content, and seek no new." MERCHANT OF VENICE. "Now, Mahala Harris," said Faith, as she glanced in at the nursery door, which opened from her room, "don't let Hendie get up a French Revolution here while I'm gone to dinner." "Land sakes! Miss Faith! I don't know what you mean, nor whether I can help it. I dare say he'd get up a Revolution of '76, over again, if he once set out. He does train like 'lection, fact, sometimes." "Well, don't let him build barricades with all the chairs, so that I shall have to demolish my way back again. I'm going to lay out my dress for to-night." And very little dinner could her young appetite manage on this last day of the year. All her vital energy was busy in her anticipative brain, and glancing thence in sparkles from her eyes, and quivering down in swift currents to her restless little feet. It mattered little that there was delicious roast beef smoking on the table, and Christmas pies arrayed upon the sideboard, while upstairs the bright ribbon and tiny, shining, old-fashioned buckles were waiting to be shaped into rosettes for the new slippers, and the lace hung, half basted, from the neck of the simple but delicate silk dress, and those lovely greenhouse flowers stood in a glass dish on her dressing table, to be sorted for her hair, and into a graceful breast knot. No--dinner was a very secondary and contemptible affair, compared with these. There were few forms or faces, truly, that were pleasanter to look upon in the group that stood, disrobed of their careful outer wrappings, in Mrs. Rushleigh's dressing room; their hurried chat and gladsome greetings distracted with the drawing on of gloves and the last adjustment of shining locks, while the bewildering music was floating up from below, mingled with the hum of voices from the rooms where, as children say, "the party had begun" already. And Mrs. Rushleigh, when Faith paid her timid respects in the drawing-room at last, made her welcome with a peculiar grace and _empressement_ that had their own flattering weight and charm; for the lady was a sort of St. Peter of fashion, holding its mystic keys, and admitting or rejecting whom she would; and culled, with marvelous tact and taste, the flower of the up-growing world of Mishaumok to adorn "her set." After which, Faith, claimed at once by an eager aspirant, and beset with many a following introduction and petition, was drawn to and kept in the joyous whirlpool of the dance, till she had breathed in enough of delight and excitement to carry her quite beyond the thought even of ices and oysters and jellies and fruits, and the score of unnamable luxuries whereto the young revelers were duly summoned at half past ten o'clock. Four days' anticipation--four hours' realization--culminated in the glorious after-supper midnight dance, when, marshaled hither and thither by the ingenious orders of the band, the jubilant company found itself, just on the impending stroke of twelve, drawn out around the room in one great circle; and suddenly a hush of the music, at the very poising instant of time, left them motionless for a moment to burst out again in the age-honored and heartwarming strains of "Auld Lang Syne." Hand joining hand they sang its chorus, and when the last note had lingeringly died away, one after another gently broke from their places, and the momentary figure melted out with the dying of the Year, never again to be just so combined. It was gone, as vanishes also every other phase and grouping in the kaleidoscope of Time. "Now is the very 'witching hour' to try the Sortes!" Margaret Rushleigh said this, standing on the threshold of a little inner apartment that opened from the long drawing-room, at one end. She held in her hand a large and beautiful volume--a gift of Christmas Day. "Here are Fates for everybody who cares to find them out!" The book was a collection of poetical quotations, arranged by numbers, and to be chosen thereby, and the chance application taken as an oracle. Everything like fortune telling, or a possible peering into the things of coming time, has such a charm! Especially with them to whom the past is but a prelude and beginning, and for whom the great, voluminous Future holds enwrapped the whole mystic Story of Life! "No, no, this won't do!" cried the young lady, as circle behind circle closed and crowded eagerly about her. "Fate doesn't give out her revelations in such wholesale fashion. You must come up with proper reverence, one by one." As she spoke, she withdrew a little within the curtained archway, and, placing the crimson-covered book of destiny upon an inlaid table, brought forward a piano stool, and seated herself thereon, as a priestess upon a tripod. A little shyly, one after another, gaining knowledge of what was going on, the company strayed in from without, and, each in turn hazarding a number, received in answer the rhyme or stanza indicated; and who shall say how long those chance-directed words, chosen for the most part with the elastic ambiguity of all oracles of any established authority, lingered echoing in the heads and hearts of them to whom they were given--shaping and confirming, or darkening with their denial many an after hope and fear? Faith Gartney came up among the very last. "How many numbers are there to choose from?" she asked. "Three hundred and sixty-five. The number of days in the year." "Well, then, I'll take the number of the day; the last--no, I forgot--the first of all." Nobody before had chosen this, and Margaret read, in a clear, gentle voice, not untouched with the grave beauty of its own words, and the sweet, earnest, listening look of the young face that bent toward her to take them in: "Rouse to some high and holy work of love, And thou an angel's happiness shalt know; Shalt bless the earth while in the world above; The good begun by thee while here below Shall like a river run, and broader flow." Ten minutes later, and all else were absorbed in other things again--leave-takings, parting chat, and a few waltzing a last measure to a specially accorded grace of music. Faith stood, thoughtfully, by the table where the book was closed and left. She quietly reopened it at that first page. Unconscious of a step behind her, her eyes ran over the lines again, to make their beautiful words her own. "And that was your oracle, then?" asked a kindly voice. Glancing quickly up, while the timid color flushed her cheek, she met a look as of a wise and watchful angel, though it came through the eye and smile of a gray-haired man, who laid his hand upon the page as he said: "Remember--it is _conditional_." CHAPTER III. AUNT HENDERSON. "I never met a manner more entirely without frill." SYDNEY SMITH. Late into the morning of the New Year, Faith slept. Through her half consciousness crept, at last, a feeling of music that had been wandering in faint echoes among the chambers of her brain all those hours of her suspended life. Light, and music, and a sense of an unexamined, half-remembered joy, filled her being and embraced her at her waking on this New Year's Day. A moment she lay in a passive, unthinking delight; and then her first, full, and distinct thought shaped itself, as from a sweet and solemn memory: "Rouse to some high and holy work of love, And thou an angel's happiness shalt know." An impulse of lofty feeling held her in its ecstasy; a noble longing and determination shaped itself, though vaguely, within her. For a little, she was touched in her deepest and truest nature; she was uplifted to the threshold of a great resolve. But generalities are so grand--details so commonplace and unsatisfying. _What_ should she do? What "high and holy work" lay waiting for her? And, breaking in upon her reverie--bringing her down with its rough and common call to common duty--the second bell for breakfast rang. "Oh, dear! It is no use! Who'll know what great things I've been wishing and planning, when I've nothing to show for it but just being late to breakfast? And father hates it so--and New Year's morning, too!" Hurrying her toilet, she repaired, with all the haste possible, to the breakfast room, where her consciousness of shortcoming was in nowise lessened when she saw who occupied the seat at her father's right hand--Aunt Henderson! Aunt Faith Henderson, who had reached her nephew's house last evening just after the young Faith, her namesake, had gone joyously off to "dance the Old Year out and the New Year in." Old-fashioned Aunt Faith--who believed most devoutly that "early to bed and early to rise" was the _only_ way to be "healthy, wealthy, or wise!" Aunt Faith, who had never quite forgiven our young heroine for having said, at the discreet and positive age of nine, that "she didn't see what her father and mother had called her such an ugly name for. It was a real old maid's name!" Whereupon, having asked the child what she would have preferred as a substitute, and being answered, "Well--Clotilda, I guess; or Cleopatra," Miss Henderson had told her that she was quite welcome to change it for any heathen woman's that she pleased, and the worse behaved perhaps the better. She wouldn't be so likely to do it any discredit! Aunt Henderson had a downright and rather extreme fashion of putting things; nevertheless, in her heart she was not unkindly. So when Faithie, with her fair, fresh face--a little apprehensive trouble in it for her tardiness--came in, there was a grim bending of the old lady's brows; but, below, a half-belying twinkle in the eye, that, long as it had looked out sharply and keenly on the things and people of this mixed-up world, found yet a pleasure in anything so young and bright. "Why, auntie! How do you do?" cried Faith, cunning culprit that she was, taking the "bull by the horns," and holding out her hand. "I wish you a Happy New Year! Good morning, father, and mother! A Happy New Year! I'm sorry I'm so late." "Wish you a great many," responded the great-aunt, in stereotyped phrase. "It seems to me, though, you've lost the beginning of this one." "Oh, no!" replied Faithie, gayly. "I had that at the party. We danced the New Year in." "Humph!" said Aunt Henderson. Breakfast over, and Mr. Gartney gone to his counting room, the parlor girl made her appearance with her mop and tub of hot water, to wash up the silver and china. "Give me that," said Aunt Henderson, taking a large towel from the girl's arm as she set down her tub upon the sideboard. "You go and find something else to do." Wherever she might be--to be sure, her round of visiting was not a large one--Aunt Henderson never let anyone else wash up breakfast cups. This quiet arming of herself, with mop and towel, stirred up everybody else to duty. Her niece-in-law laughed, withdrew her feet from the comfortable fender, and departed to the kitchen to give her household orders for the day. Faith removed cups, glasses, forks, and spoons from the table to the sideboard, while the maid, returning with a tray, carried off to the lower regions the larger dishes. "I haven't told you yet, Elizabeth, what I came to town for," said Aunt Faith, when Mrs. Gartney came back into the breakfast room. "I'm going to hunt up a girl." "A girl, aunt! Why, what has become of Prudence?" "Mrs. Pelatiah Trowe. That's what's become of her. More fool she." "But why in the world do you come to the city for a servant? It's the worst possible place. Nineteen out of twenty are utterly good for nothing." "I'm going to look out for the twentieth." "But aren't there girls enough in Kinnicutt who would be glad to step in Prue's place?" "Of course there are. But they're all well enough off where they are. When I have a chance to give away, I want to give it to somebody that needs it." "I'm afraid you'll hardly find any efficient girl who will appreciate the chance of going twenty miles into the country." "I don't want an efficient girl. I'm efficient myself, and that's enough." "Going to _train_ another, at your time of life, aunt?" asked Mrs. Gartney, in surprise. "I suppose I must either train a girl, or let her train me; and, at my time of life, I don't feel to stand in need of that." "How shall I go to work to inquire?" resumed Aunt Henderson, after a pause. "Well, there are the Homes, and the Offices, and the Ministers at Large. At a Home, they would probably recommend you somebody they've made up their minds to put out to service, and she might or might not be such as would suit you. Then at the Offices, you'll see all sorts, and mostly poor ones." "I'll try an Office, first," interrupted Miss Henderson. "I _want_ to see all sorts. Faith, you'll go with me, by and by, won't you, and help me find the way?" Faith, seated at a little writing table at the farther end of the room, busied in copying into her album, in a clear, neat, but rather stiff schoolgirl's hand, the oracle of the night before, did not at once notice that she was addressed. "Faith, child! don't you hear?" "Oh, yes, aunt. What is it?" "I want you to go to a what-d'ye-call-it office with me, to-day." "An intelligence office," explained her mother. "Aunt Faith wants to find a girl." "'_Lucus a non lucendo_,'" quoted Faith, rather wittily, from her little stock of Latin. "Stupidity offices, _I_ should call them, from the specimens they send out." "Hold your tongue, chit! Don't talk Latin to me!" growled Aunt Henderson. "What are you writing?" she asked, shortly after, when Mrs. Gartney had again left her and Faith to each other. "Letters, or Latin?" Faith colored, and laughed. "Only a fortune that was told me last night," she replied. "Oh! 'A little husband,' I suppose, 'no bigger than my thumb; put him in a pint pot, and there bid him drum.'" "No," said Faith, half seriously, and half teased out of her seriousness. "It's nothing of that sort. At least," she added, glancing over the lines again, "I don't think it means anything like that." And Faith laid down the book, and went upstairs for a word with her mother. Aunt Henderson, who had been brought up in times when all the doings of young girls were strictly supervised, and who had no high-flown scruples, because she had no mean motives, deliberately walked over and fetched the elegant little volume from the table, reseated herself in her armchair--felt for her glasses, and set them carefully upon her nose--and, as her grandniece returned, was just finishing her perusal of the freshly inscribed lines. "Humph! A good fortune. Only you've got to earn it." "Yes," said Faith, quite gravely. "And I don't see how. There doesn't seem to be much that I can do." "Just take hold of the first thing that comes in your way. If the Lord's got anything bigger to give you, he'll see to it. There's your mother's mending basket brimful of stockings." Faith couldn't help laughing. Presently she grew grave again. "Aunt Henderson," said she, abruptly, "I wish something would happen to me. I get tired of living sometimes. Things don't seem worth while." Aunt Henderson bent her head slightly, and opened her eyes wide over the tops of her glasses. "Don't say that again," said she. "Things happen fast enough. Don't you dare to tempt Providence." "Providence won't be tempted, nor misunderstand," replied Faith, an undertone of reverence qualifying her girlish repartee. "He knows just what I mean." "She's a queer child," said Aunt Faith to herself, afterwards, thinking over the brief conversation. "She'll be something or nothing, I always said. I used to think 'twould be nothing." CHAPTER IV. GLORY McWHIRK. "There's beauty waiting to be born, And harmony that makes no sound; And bear we ever, unawares, A glory that hath not been crowned." Shall I try to give you a glimpse of quite another young life than Faith Gartney's? One looking also vaguely, wonderingly, for "something to happen"--that indefinite "something" which lies in everybody's future, which may never arrive, and yet which any hour may bring? Very little likelihood there has ever seemed for any great joy to get into such a life as this has been, that began, or at least has its earliest memory and association, in the old poorhouse at Stonebury. A child she was, of five years, when she was taken in there with her old, crippled grandmother. Peter McWhirk was picked up dead, from the graveled drive of a gentleman's place, where he had been trimming the high trees that shaded it. An unsound limb--a heedless movement--and Peter went straight down, thirty feet, and out of life. Out of life, where he had a trim, comfortable young wife--one happy little child, for whom skies were as blue, and grass as green, and buttercups as golden as for the little heiress of Elm Hill, who was riding over the lawn in her basket wagon, when Peter met his death there--the hope, also, of another that was to come. Rosa McWhirk and her baby of a day old were buried the week after, together; and then there was nothing left for Glory and her helpless grandmother but the poorhouse as a present refuge; and to the one death, that ends all, and to the other a life of rough and unremitting work to look to for by and by. When Glory came into this world where wants begin with the first breath, and go on thickening around us, and pressing upon us until the last one is supplied to us--a grave--she wanted, first of all, a name. "Sure what'll I call the baby?" said the proud young mother to the ladies from the white corner house, where she had served four faithful years of her maidenhood, and who came down at once with comforts and congratulations. "They've sint for the praist, an' I've niver bethought of a name. I made so certain 'twould be a boy!" "What a funny bit of a thing it is!" cried the younger of the two visitors, turning back the bedclothes a little from the tiny, red, puckered face, with short, sandy-colored hair standing up about the temples like a fuzz ball. "I'd call her Glory. There's a halo round her head like the saints in the pictures." "Sure, that's jist like yersilf, Miss Mattie!" exclaimed Rosa, with a faint, merry little laugh. "An' quare enough, I knew a lady once't of the very name, in the ould country. Miss Gloriana O'Dowd she was; an' the beauty o' County Kerry. My Lady Kinawley, she came to be. 'Deed, but I'd like to do it, for the ould times, an' for you thinkin' of it! I'll ask Peter, anyhow!" And so Glory got her name; and Mattie Hyde, who gave her that, gave her many another thing that was no less a giving to the mother also, before she was two years old. Then Mrs. Hyde and the young lady, having first let the corner house, went away to Europe to stay for years; and when a box of tokens from the far, foreign lands came back to Stonebury a while after, there was a grand shawl for Rosa, and a pretty braided frock for the baby, and a rosary that Glory keeps to this hour, that had been blessed by the Pope. That was the last. Mattie and her mother sailed out upon the Mediterranean one day from the bright coast of France for a far eastern port, to see the Holy Land. God's Holy Land they did see, though they never touched those Syrian shores, or climbed the hills about Jerusalem. Glory remembered--for the most part dimly, for some special points distinctly--her child life of three years in Stonebury poorhouse. How her grandmother and an old countrywoman from the same county "at home" sat knitting and crooning together in a sunny corner of the common room in winter, or out under the stoop in summer; how she rolled down the green bank behind the house; and, when she grew big enough to be trusted with a knife, was sent out to dig dandelions in the spring, and how an older girl went with her round the village, and sold them from house to house. How, at last, her old grandmother died, and was buried; and how a woman of the village, who had used to buy her dandelions, found a place for her with a relative of her own, in the ten-mile distant city, who took Glory to "bring up"--"seeing," as she said, "there was nobody belonging to her to interfere." Was there a day, after that, that did not leave its searing impress upon heart and memory, of the life that was given, in its every young pulse and breath, to sordid toil for others, and to which it seemed nobody on earth owed aught of care or service in return? It was a close little house--one of those houses where they have fried dinners so often that the smell never gets out in Budd Street--a street of a single side, wedged in between the back yards of more pretentious mansions that stood on fair parallel avenues sloping down from a hilltop to the waterside, that Mrs. Grubbling lived in. Here Glory McWhirk, from eight years old to nearly fifteen, scoured knives and brasses, tended doorbell, set tables, washed dishes, and minded the baby; whom, at her peril, she must "keep pacified"--i. e., amused and content, while its mother was otherwise busy. For her, poor child--baby that she still, almost, was herself--who amused, or contented her? There are humans with whom amusement and content have nothing to do. What will you? The world must go on. Glory curled the baby's hair, and made him "look pretty." Mrs. Grubbling cut her little handmaid's short to save trouble; so that the very determined yellow locks which, under more favoring circumstances of place and fortune, might have been trained into lovely golden curls, stood up continually in their restless reaching after the fairer destiny that had been meant for them, in the old fuzz-ball fashion; and Glory grew more and more to justify her name. Do you think she didn't know what beauty was--this child who never had a new or pretty garment, but who wore frocks "fadged up" out of old, faded breadths of her mistress's dresses, and bonnets with brims cut off and topknots taken down, and coarse shoes, and stockings cut out of the legs of those whereof Mrs. Grubbling had worn out the extremities? Do you think she didn't feel the difference, and that it wasn't this that made her shuffle along so with her toes in, when she sped along the streets upon her manifold errands, and met gentle-people's children laughing and skipping their hoops upon the sidewalks? Out of all lives, actual and possible, each one of us appropriates continually into his own. This is a world of hints only, out of which every soul seizes to itself what it needs. This girl, uncherished, repressed in every natural longing to be and to have, took in all the more of what was possible; for God had given her this glorious insight, this imagination, wherewith we fill up life's scanty outline, and grasp at all that might be, or that elsewhere, is. In her, as in us all, it was often--nay, daily--a discontent; yet a noble discontent, and curbed with a grand, unconscious patience. She scoured her knives; she shuffled along the streets on hasty errands; she went up and down the house in her small menial duties; she put on and off her coarse, repulsive clothing; she uttered herself in her common, ignorant forms of speech; she showed only as a poor, low, little Irish girl with red hair and staring, wondering eyes, and awkward movements, and a frightened fashion of getting into everybody's way; and yet, behind all this, there was another life that went on in a hidden beauty that you and I cannot fathom, save only as God gives the like, inwardly, to ourselves. When Glory's mistress cut her hair, there were always tears and rebellion. It was her one, eager, passionate longing, in these childish days, that these locks of hers should be let to grow. She thought she could almost bear anything else, if only this stiff, unseemly crop might lengthen out into waves and ringlets that should toss in the wind like the carefully kempt tresses of children she met in the streets. She imagined it would be a complete and utter happiness just once to feel it falling in its wealth about her shoulders or dropping against her cheeks; and to be able to look at it with her eyes, and twist her fingers in it at the ends. And so, when it got to be its longest, and began to make itself troublesome about her forehead, and to peep below her shabby bonnet in her neck, she had a brief season of wonderful enjoyment in it. Then she could "make believe" it had really grown out; and the comfort she took in "going through the motions"--pretending to tuck behind her ears what scarcely touched their tips, and tossing her head continually, to throw back imaginary masses of curls, was truly indescribable, and such as I could not begin to make you understand. "Half-witted monkey!" Mrs. Grubbling would ejaculate, contemptuously, seeing, with what she conceived marvelous penetration, the half of her little servant's thought, and so pronouncing from her own half wit. Then the great shears came out, and the instinct of grace and beauty in the child was pitilessly outraged, and her soul mutilated, as it were, in every clip of the inexorable shears. She was always glad--poor Glory--when the springtime came. She took Bubby and Baby down to the Common, of a May Day, to see the processions and the paper-crowned queens; and stood there in her stained and drabbled dress, with the big year-and-a-half-old baby in her arms, and so quite at the mercy of Master Herbert Clarence, who defiantly skipped oft down the avenues, and almost out of her sight--she looking after him in helpless dismay, lest he should get a splash or a tumble, or be altogether lost; and then what would the mistress say? Standing there so--the troops of children in their holiday trim passing close beside her--her young heart turned bitter for a moment, as it sometimes would; and her one utterance of all that swelled her martyr soul broke forth: "Laws a me! Sech lots of good times in the world, and I ain't in 'em!" Yet, that afternoon, when Mrs. Grubbling went out shopping, and left her to her own devices with the children, how jubilantly she trained the battered chairs in line, and put herself at the head, with Bubby's scarlet tippet wreathed about her upstart locks, and made a May Day! I say, she had the soul and essence of the very life she seemed to miss. There were shabby children's books about the Grubbling domicile, that had been the older child's--Cornelia's--and had descended to Master Herbert, while yet his only pastime in them was to scrawl them full of pencil marks, and tear them into tatters. These, one by one, Glory rescued, and hid away, and fed upon, piecemeal, in secret. She could read, at least--this poor, denied unfortunate. Peter McWhirk had taught his child her letters in happy, humble Sundays and holidays long ago; and Mrs. Grubbling had begun by sending her to a primary school for a while, irregularly, when she could be spared; and when she hadn't just torn her frock, or worn out her shoes, or it didn't rain, or she hadn't been sent of an errand and come back too late--which reasons, with a multitude of others, constantly recurring, reduced the school days in the year to a number whose smallness Mrs. Grubbling would have indignantly disputed, had it been calculated and set before her; she being one of those not uncommon persons who regard a duty continually evaded as one continually performed, it being necessarily just as much on their minds; till, at last, Herbert had a winter's illness, and in summer it wasn't worth while, and the winter after, baby came, so that of course she couldn't be spared at all; and it seemed little likely now that she ever again would be. But she kept her spelling book, and read over and over what she knew, and groped her way slowly into more, till she promoted herself from that to "Mother Goose"--from "Mother Goose" to "Fables for the Nursery"--and now, her ever fresh and unfailing feast was the "Child's Own Book of Fairy Tales," and an odd volume of the "Parents' Assistant." She picked out, slowly, the gist of these, with a lame and uncertain interpretation. She lived for weeks with Beauty and the Beast--with Cinderella--with the good girl who worked for the witch, and shook her feather bed every morning; till at last, given leave to go home and see her mother, the gold and silver shower came down about her, departing at the back door. Perhaps she should get her pay, some time, and go home and see her mother. Meanwhile, she identified herself with--lost herself utterly in,--these imaginary lives. She was, for the time, Cinderella; she was Beauty; she was above all, the Fair One with Golden Locks; she was Simple Susan going to be May Queen; she dwelt in the old Castle of Rossmore, with the Irish Orphans. The little Grubbling house in Budd Street was peopled all through, in every corner, with her fancies. Don't tell me she had nothing but her niggardly outside living there. And the wonder began to come up in her mind, as it did in Faith Gartney's, whether and when "something might happen" to her. CHAPTER V. SOMETHING HAPPENS. "Athirst! athirst! The sandy soil Bears no glad trace of leaf or tree; No grass-blade sigheth to the heaven Its little drop of ecstasy. "Yet other fields are spreading wide Green bosoms to the bounteous sun; And palms and cedars shall sublime Their rapture for thee,--waiting one!" "Take us down to see the apple woman," said Master Herbert, going out with Glory and the baby one day when his school didn't keep, and Mrs. Grubbling had a headache, and wanted to get them all off out of the way. Bridget Foye sat at her apple stand in the cheery morning sunlight, red cheeks and russets ranged fair and tempting before her, and a pile of roasted peanuts, and one of delicate molasses candy, such as nobody but she knew how to make, at either end of the board. Bridget Foye was the tidiest, kindliest, merriest apple woman in all Mishaumok. Everybody whose daily path lay across that southeast corner of the Common, knew her well, and had a smile, and perhaps a penny for her; and got a smile and a God-bless-you, and, for the penny, a rosy or a golden apple, or some of her crisp candy in return. Glory and the baby, sitting down to rest on one of the benches close by, as their habit was, had one day made a nearer acquaintance with blithe Bridget. I think it began with Glory--who held the baby up to see the passing show of a portion of a menagerie in the street, and heard two girls, stopping just before her to look, likewise, say they'd go and see it perform next day--uttering something of her old soliloquy about "good times," and why she "warn't ever in any of 'em." However it was, Mrs. Foye, in her buxom cheeriness, was drawn to give some of it forth to the uncouth-looking, companionless girl, and not only began a chat with her, after the momentary stir in the street was over, and she had settled herself upon her stool, and leaning her back against a tree, set vigorously to work again at knitting a stout blue yarn stocking, but also treated Bubby and Baby to some bits of her sweet merchandise, and told them about the bears and the monkeys that had gone by, shut up in the gay, red-and-yellow-painted wagons. So it became, after this first opening, Glory's chief pleasure to get out with the children now and then, of a sunny day, and sit here on the bench by Bridget Foye, and hear her talk, and tell her, confidentially, some of her small, incessant troubles. It was one more life to draw from--a hearty, bright, and wholesome life, besides. She had, at last, in this great, tumultuous, indifferent city, a friendship and a resource. But there was a certain fair spot of delicate honor in Glory's nature that would not let her bring Bubby and Baby in any apparent hope of what they might get, gratuitously, into their mouths. She laid it down, a rule, with Master Herbert, that he was not to go to the apple stand with her unless he had first put by a penny for a purchase. And so unflinchingly she adhered to this determination, that sometimes weeks went by--hard, weary weeks, without a bit of pleasantness for her; weeks of sore pining for a morsel of heart food--before she was free of her own conscience to go and take it. Bridget told stories to Herbert--strange, nonsensical fables, to be sure--stuff that many an overwise mother, bringing up her children by hard rule and theory, might have utterly forbidden as harmful trash--yet that never put an evil into his heart, nor crowded, I dare to say, a better thought out of his brain. Glory liked the stories as well, almost, as the child. One moral always ran through them all. Troubles always, somehow, came to an end; good creatures and children got safe out of them all, and lived happy ever after; and the fierce, and cunning, and bad--the wolves, and foxes, and witches--trapped themselves in their own wickedness, and came to deplorable ends. "Tell us about the little red hen," said Herbert, paying his money, and munching his candy. "An' thin ye'll trundle yer hoop out to the big tree, an' lave Glory an' me our lane for a minute?" "Faith, an' I will that," said the boy--aping, ambitiously, the racy Irish accent. "Well, thin, there was once't upon a time, away off in the ould country, livin' all her lane in the woods, in a wee bit iv a house be herself, a little rid hin. Nice an' quite she was, and nivir did no kind o' harrum in her life. An' there lived out over the hill, in a din o' the rocks, a crafty ould felly iv a fox. An' this same ould villain iv a fox, he laid awake o' nights, and he prowled round shly iy a daytime, thinkin' always so busy how he'd git the little rid hin, an' carry her home an' bile her up for his shupper. But the wise little rid hin nivir went intil her bit iv a house, but she locked the door afther her, an' pit the kay in her pocket. So the ould rashkill iv a fox, he watched, an' he prowled, an' he laid awake nights, till he came all to skin an' bone, on' sorra a ha'porth o' the little rid hin could he git at. But at lasht there came a shcame intil his wicked ould head, an' he tuk a big bag one mornin', over his shouldher, and he says till his mother, says he, 'Mother, have the pot all bilin' agin' I come home, for I'll bring the little rid hin to-night for our shupper.' An' away he wint, over the hill, an' came craping shly and soft through the woods to where the little rid hin lived in her shnug bit iv a house. An' shure, jist at the very minute that he got along, out comes the little rid hin out iv the door, to pick up shticks to bile her taykettle. 'Begorra, now, but I'll have yees,' says the shly ould fox, and in he shlips, unbeknownst, intil the house, an' hides behind the door. An' in comes the little rid hin, a minute afther, with her apron full of shticks, an' shuts to the door an' locks it, an' pits the kay in her pocket. An' thin she turns round--an' there shtands the baste iv a fox in the corner. Well, thin, what did she do, but jist dhrop down her shticks, and fly up in a great fright and flutter to the big bame acrass inside o' the roof, where the fox couldn't get at her? "'Ah, ha!' says the ould fox, 'I'll soon bring yees down out o' that!' An' he began to whirrul round, an' round, an' round, fashter an' fashter an' fashter, on the floor, after his big, bushy tail, till the little rid hin got so dizzy wid lookin', that she jist tumbled down off the bame, and the fox whipped her up and popped her intil his bag, and shtarted off home in a minute. An' he wint up the wood, an' down the wood, half the day long, with the little rid hin shut up shmotherin' in the bag. Sorra a know she knowd where she was, at all, at all. She thought she was all biled an' ate up, an' finished, shure! But, by an' by, she renumbered herself, an' pit her hand in her pocket, and tuk out her little bright schissors, and shnipped a big hole in the bag behind, an' out she leapt, an' picked up a big shtone, an' popped it intil the bag, an' rin aff home, an' locked the door. "An' the fox he tugged away up over the hill, with the big shtone at his back thumpin' his shouldhers, thinkin' to himself how heavy the little rid hin was, an' what a fine shupper he'd have. An' whin he came in sight iv his din in the rocks, and shpied his ould mother a-watchin' for him at the door, he says, 'Mother! have ye the pot bilin'?' An' the ould mother says, 'Sure an' it is; an' have ye the little rid hin?' 'Yes, jist here in me bag. Open the lid o' the pot till I pit her in,' says he. "An' the ould mother fox she lifted the lid o' the pot, and the rashkill untied the bag, and hild it over the pot o' bilin' wather, an' shuk in the big, heavy shtone. An' the bilin' wather shplashed up all over the rogue iv a fox, an' his mother, an' shcalded them both to death. An' the little rid hin lived safe in her house foriver afther." "Ah!" breathed Bubby, in intense relief, for perhaps the twentieth time. "Now tell about the girl that went to seek her fortune!" "Away wid ye!" cried Bridget Foye. "Kape yer promish, an' lave that till ye come back!" So Herbert and his hoop trundled off to the big tree. "An' how are yees now, honey?" says Bridget to Glory, a whole catechism of questions in the one inquiry. "Have ye come till any good times yit?" "Oh, Mrs. Foye," says Glory, "I think I'm tied up tight in the bag, an' I'll never get out, except it's into the hot water!" "An' havint ye nivir a pair iv schissors in yer pocket?" asks Bridget. "I don't know," says poor Glory, hopelessly. And just then Master Herbert comes trundling back, and Bridget tells him the story of the girl that went to seek her fortune and came to be a queen. Glory half thinks that, some day or other, she, too, will start off and seek her fortune. The next morning, Sunday--never a holiday, and scarcely a holy day to her--Glory sits at the front window, with the inevitable baby in her arms. Mrs. Grubbling is upstairs getting ready for church. After baby has his forenoon drink, and is got off to sleep--supposing he shall be complaisant, and go--Glory is to dust up, and set table, and warm the dinner, and be all ready to bring it up when the elder Grubbling shall have returned. Out at the Pembertons' green gate she sees the tidy parlor maid come, in her smart shawl and new, bright ribbons; holding up her pretty printed mousseline dress with one hand, as she steps down upon the street, and so revealing the white hem of a clean starched skirt; while the other hand is occupied with the little Catholic prayer book and a folded handkerchief. Actually, gloves on her hands, too. The gate closes with a cord and pulley after her, and somehow the hem of the fresh, outspreading crinoline gets caught in it, as it shuts. So she turns half round, and takes both hands to push it open and release herself. Doing so, something slips from between the folds of her handkerchief, and drops upon the ground. A bright half dollar, which was going to pay some of her little church dues to-day. And she hurries on, never missing it out of her grasp, and is halfway down the side street before Glory can set the baby suddenly on the carpet, rush out at the front door, regardless that Mrs. Grubbling's chamber window overlooks her from above, pick up the coin, and overtake her. "I saw you drop it by the gate," is all she says, as she puts it into Katie Ryan's hand. Katie stares with surprise, turning round at the touch upon her shoulder, and beholding the strange figure, and the still stranger evidence of honesty and good will. "Indeed, and I'm thoroughly obliged to ye," says she, barely in time, for the odd figure is already retreating up the street. "It's the red-headed girl over at Grubbling's," she continues to herself. "Well, anyhow, she's an honest, kind-hearted crature, and I'll not forget it of her." Glory has made another friend. "Well, Glory McWhirk, this is very pretty doings indeed!" began Mrs. Grubbling, meeting the little handmaiden at the parlor door. "So this is the way, is it, when my back is turned for a minute? That poor baby dumped down on the floor, to crawl up to the hot stove, or do any other horrid thing he likes, while you go flacketting out, bareheaded, into the streets, after a topping jade like that? You can't have any high-flown acquaintances while you live in my house, I tell you now, once and for all. Are you going to take up that baby or not?" Mrs. Grubbling had been thus far effectually heading Glory off, by standing square in the parlor doorway. "Or perhaps, I'd better stay at home and take care of him myself," she added, in a tone of superlative irony. Poor Glory, meekly murmuring that it was only to give back some money the girl had dropped, slid past her mistress submissively, like a sentry caught off his post and warned of mortal punishment, and shouldered arms once more; that is, picked up the baby, who, as if taking the cue from his mother, and made conscious of his grievance, had at this moment begun to cry. Glory had a good cry of her own first, and then, "killing two birds with one stone," pacified herself and the baby "all under one." After this, Katie Ryan never came out at the green gate, of a Sunday on the way to church, or of a week day to run down the little back street of an errand, but she gave a glance up at the Grubblings' windows; and if she caught sight of Glory's illumined head, nodded her own, with its pretty, dark-brown locks, quite pleasant and friendly. And between these chance recognitions of Katie's, and the good apple woman's occasional sympathy, the world began to brighten a little, even for poor Glory. Still, good times went on--grand, wonderful good times--all around her. And she caught distant glimpses, but "wasn't in 'em." One day, as she hurried home from the grocer's with half-a-dozen eggs and two lemons, Katie ran out from the gate, and met her halfway down Budd Street. "I've been watchin' for ye," said she. "I seen ye go out of an errand, an' I've been lookin' for ye back. There's to be a grand party at our house to-morrow night, an' I thought maybe ye'd like to get lave, an' run over to take a peep at it. Put on yer best frock, and make yer hair tidy, an' I'll see to yer gettin' a good chance." Poor Glory colored up, as Mrs. Grabbling might have done if the President's wife had bidden her. Not so, either. With a glow of feeling, and an oppression of gratitude, and a humility of delight, that Mrs. Grubbling, under any circumstances whatever, could have known nothing about. "If I only can," she managed to utter, "and, anyhow, I'm sure I'm thankful to ye a thousand times." And that night she sat up in her little attic room, after everybody else was in bed, mending, in a poor fashion, a rent in the faded "best frock," and sewing a bit of cotton lace in the neck thereof that she had picked out of the ragbag, and surreptitiously washed and ironed. Next morning, she went about her homely tasks with an alacrity that Mrs. Grubbling, knowing nothing of the hope that had been let in upon her dreariness, attributed wholly to the salutary effect of a "good scolding" she had administered the day before. The work she got out of the girl that Thursday forenoon! Never once did Glory leave her scrubbing, or her dusting, or her stove polishing, to glance from the windows into the street, though the market boys, and the waiters, and the confectioners' parcels were going in at the Pembertons' gate, and the man from the greenhouse, even, drove his cart up, filled with beautiful plants for the staircase. She waited, as in our toils we wait for Heaven--trusting to the joy that was to come. After dinner, she spoke, with fear and trembling. Her lips turned quite white with anxiety as she stood before Mrs. Grubbling with the baby in her arms. "Please, mum," says Glory, tremulously, "Katie Ryan asked me over for a little while to-night to look at the party." Mrs. Grubbling actually felt a jealousy, as if her poor, untutored handmaid were taking precedence of herself. "What party?" she snapped. "At the Pembertons', mum. I thought you knew about it." "And what if I do? Maybe I'm going, myself." Glory opened her eyes wide in mingled consternation and surprise. "I didn't think you was, mum. But if you is----" "You're willing, I suppose," retorted her mistress, laughing, in a bitter way. "I'm very much obliged. But I'm going out to-night, anyhow, whether it's there or not, and you can't be spared. Besides, you needn't think you're going to begin with going out evenings yet a while. At your age! A pretty thing! There--go along, and don't bother me." Glory went along; and only the baby--of mortal listeners--heard the suffering cry that went up from her poor, pinched, and chilled, and disappointed heart. "Oh, baby, baby! it was _too_ good a time! I'd ought to a knowed I couldn't be in it!" Only a stone's throw from those brightly lighted windows of the Pembertons'! Their superfluous radiance pouring out lavishly across the narrow street, searched even through the dim panes behind which Glory sat, resting her tired arms, after tucking away their ordinary burden in his crib, and answering Herbert's wearisome questions, who from his trundle bed kept asking, ceaselessly: "What are they doing now? Can't you see, Glory?" "Hush, hush!" said Glory, breathlessly, as a burst of brilliant melody floated over to her ear. "They're making music now. Don't you hear?" "No. How can I, with my head in the pillow? I'm coming there to sit with you, Glory." And the boy scrambled from his feed to the window. "No, no! you'll ketch cold. Besides, you'd oughter go to sleep. Well--only for a little bit of a minute, then," as Herbert persisted, and climbing upon her lap, flattened his face against the window pane. Glory gathered up her skirt about his shoulders and held him for a while, begging him uneasily, over and over, to "be a good boy, and go back to bed." No; he wouldn't be a good boy, and he wouldn't go back to bed, till the music paused. Then, by dint of promising that if it began again she would open the window a "teenty little crack," so that he might hear it better, she coaxed him to the point of yielding, and tucked him, chilly, yet half unwilling, in the trundle. Back again, to look and listen. And, oh, wonderful and unexpected fortune! A beneficent hand has drawn up the white linen shade at one of the back parlor windows to slide the sash a little from the top. It was Katie, whom her young mistress, standing with her partner at that corner of the room, had called in from the hall to do it. "No, no," whispered the young lady, hastily, as her companion moved to render her the service she desired, "let Katie come in. She'll get such a good look down the room at the dancers." There was no abated admiration in the young man's eye, as he turned back to her side, and allowed her kindly intention to be fulfilled. Did Katie surmise, in her turn, with the freemasonry of her class, how it was with her humble friend over the way--that she couldn't get let out for the evening, and that she would be sure to be looking and listening from her old post opposite? However it was, the linen shade was not lowered again, and there between the lace and crimson curtains stood revealed the graceful young figure of Edith Pemberton, in her floating ball robes, with the wreath of morning-glories in her hair. "Oh, my sakes and sorrows! Ain't she just like a princess? Ain't it a splendid time? And I come so near to be in it! But I ain't; and I s'pose I shan't ever get a chance again. Maybe Katie'd get me over of a common workday though, some time, to help her a bit or so. Wouldn't I be glad to?" "Oh, for gracious, child! Don't ever come here again. You'll catch your death. You'll have the croup and whooping cought, and everything to-morrow." This to Herbert, who had of course tumbled out of bed again at Glory's first rapturous exclamation. "No, I won't!" cried the boy, rebelliously; "I'll stay as long as I like. And I'll tell my ma how you was a-wantin' to go away and be the Pembertons' girl. Won't she lam you when she hears that?" "You can tell wicked lies if you want to, Master Herbert; but you know I never said such a word, nor ever thought of it. Of course I couldn't if I wanted to ever so bad." "Couldn't live there? I guess not. Think they'd have a girl like you? What a lookin' you'd be, a-comin' to the front door answerin' the bell!" Here the doorbell rang suddenly and sharply, and Master Herbert fancying, as did Glory, that it was his mother come back, scrambled into his bed again and covered himself up, while the girl ran down to answer the summons. It was Katie Ryan, with cakes and sweetmeats. "I've jist rin in to fetch ye these. Miss Edith gave 'em me, so ye needn't be feared. I knows ye're sich an honest one. An' it's a tearin' shame, if ever there was, that ye couldn't come over for a bit of diversion. Why don't ye quit this?" "Oh, hush!" whispered Glory, with a gesture up the staircase, where she had just left the little pitcher with fearfully long ears. "And thank you kindly, over and over, I'm sure. It's real good o' you to think o' me so--oh!" And Glory couldn't say anything more for a quick little sob that came in her throat, and caught the last word up into a spasm. "Pooh! it's just nothing at all. I'd do something better nor that if I had the chance; an' I'd adwise ye to get out o' this if ye can. Good-by. I've set the parlor windy open, an' the shade's up. I knew it would jist be a conwenience." Glory ran up the back stairs to the top of the house, and hid away the sweet things in her own room to "make a party" with next day. And then she went down and tented over the crib with an old woolen shawl, and set a high-backed rocking chair to keep the draft from Herbert, and opened the window "a teenty crack." In five minutes the slight freshening of the air and the soothing of the music had sent the boy to sleep, and watchful Glory closed the window and set things in their ordinary arrangement once more. Next morning Herbert made hoarse complaint. "What did you let him do, Glory, to catch such a cold?" asked Mrs. Grabbling. "Nothing, mum, only he would get out of bed to hear the music," replied the girl. "Well, you opened the window, you know you did, and Katie Ryan came over and kept the front door open. And you said how you wished you could go over there and do their chores. I told you I'd tell." "It's wicked lies, mum," burst out Glory, indignant. "Do you dare to tell him he lies, right before my face, you good-for-nothing girl?" shrieked the exasperated mother. "Where do you expect to go to?" "I don't expect to go nowheres, mum; and I wouldn't say it was lies if he didn't tell what wasn't true." "How should such a thing come into his head if you didn't say it?" "There's many things comes into his head," answered Glory, stoutly, "and I think you'd oughter believe me first, when I never told you a lie in my life, and you did ketch Master Herbert fibbing, jist the other day, but." Somehow, Glory had grown strangely bold in her own behalf since she had come to feel there was a bit of sympathy somewhere for her in the world. "I know now where he learns it," retorted the mistress, with persistent and angry injustice. Glory's face blazed up, and she took an involuntary step to the woman's side at the warrantless accusation. "You don't mean that, mum, and you'd oughter take it back," said she, excited beyond all fear and habit of submission. Mrs. Grubbling raised her hand passionately, and struck the girl upon the cheek. "I mean _that_, then, for your impudence! Don't answer me up again!" "No, mum," said Glory, in a low, strange tone; quite white now, except where the vindictive fingers had left their crimson streaks. And she went off out of the room without another word. Over the knife board she revolved her wrongs, and sharpened at length the keen edge of desperate resolution. "Please, mum," said she, in the old form of address, but with quite a new manner, that, in the little dependant of less than fifteen, startled the hard mistress, "I ain't noways bound to you, am I?" She propounded her question, stopping short in her return toward the china closet through the sitting room. "Bound? What do you mean?" parried Mrs. Grubbling, dimly foreshadowing to herself what it would be if Glory should break loose, and go. "To stay, mum, and you to keep me, till I'm growed up," answered Glory, briefly. "There's no binding about it," replied the mistress. "Of course I wouldn't be held to anything of that sort. I shan't keep you any longer than you behave yourself." "Then, if you please, mum, I think I'll go," said Glory. And she burst into a passion of tears. "Humph! Where?" asked Mrs. Grubbling. "I don't know, yet," said Glory, the sarcasm drying her tears. "I s'pose I can go to a office." "And where'll you get your meals and your lodgings till you find a place?" The cat thought she had her paw on the mouse, now, and could play with her as securely and cruelly as she pleased. "If you go away at all," continued Mrs. Grubbling, with what she deemed a finishing stroke of policy, "you go straight off. I'll have no dancing back and forth to offices from here." "Do you mean right off, this minute?" asked Glory, aghast. "Yes just that. Pack up and go, or else let me hear no more about it." The next thing in Glory's programme of duty was to lay the table for dinner. But she went out of the room, and slowly off, upstairs. Pretty soon she came down again, with her eyes very tearful, and her shabby shawl and bonnet on. "I'm going, mum," said she, as one resolved to face calmly whatever might befall. "I didn't mean it to be sudden, but it are. And I wouldn't never a gone, if I'd a thought anybody cared for me the leastest bit that ever was. I wouldn't mind bein' worked and put upon, and not havin' any good times; but when people hates me, and goes to say I doesn't tell the truth"--here Glory broke down, and the tears poured over her stained cheeks again, and she essayed once more to dry them, which reminded her that her hands again were full. "It's some goodies--from the party, mum"--she struggled to say between short breaths and sobs, "that Katie Ryan give me--an' I kept--to make a party--for the children, with--to-day, mum--when the chores was done--and I'll leave 'em--for 'em--if you please." Glory laid her coals of fire upon the table as she spoke. Master Herbert eyed them, as one utterly unconscious of a scorch. "I s'pose I might come back and get my bundle," said Glory, standing still in the hope of one last kindly or relenting word. "Oh, yes, if you get a place," said her mistress, dryly, affecting to treat the whole affair as a childish, though unwonted burst of petulance. But Glory, not daring, unbidden, even to kiss the baby, went steadily and sorrowfully out into the street, and drew the door behind her, that shut with a catch lock, and fastened her out into the wide world. Not stopping to think, she hurried on, up Budd and down Branch Street, and across the green common path to the apple stand and Bridget Foye. "I've done it! I've gone! And I don't know what to do, nor where to go to!" "Arrah, poor little rid hin! So, ye've found yer schiasors, have ye, an' let yersel' loose out o' the bag? Well, it's I that is glad, though I wouldn't pit ye up till it," says Bridget Foye. Poor little red hen. She had cut a hole, and jumped out of the bag, to be sure; but here she was, "all alone by herself" once more, and the foxes--Want and Cruelty--ravening after her all through the great, dreary wood! This day, at least, passed comfortably enough, however, although with an undertone of sadness--in the sunshine, by Bridget's apple stand, watching the gay passers-by, and shaping some humble hopes and plans for the future. For dinner, she shared Mrs. Foye's plain bread and cheese, and made a dessert of an apple and a handful of peanuts. At night Bridget took her home and gave her shelter, and the next day she started her off with a "God bless ye and good luck till ye," in the charge of an older girl who lodged in the same building, and who was also "out after a place." CHAPTER VI. AUNT HENDERSON'S GIRL HUNT. "Black spirits and white, Red spirits and gray; Mingle, mingle, mingle, You that mingle may." MACBETH. It was a small, close, dark room--Mrs. Griggs's Intelligence Office--a little counter and show case dividing off its farther end, making a sanctum for Mrs. Griggs, who sat here in rheumatic ponderosity, dependent for whatever involved locomotion on the rather alarming alacrity of an impish-looking granddaughter who is elbowing her way through the throng of applicants for places and servants. She paid no heed to the astonishment of a severe-looking, elderly lady, who, by her impetuous onset, has been rudely thrust back into the very arms of a fat, unsavory cook with whom she had a minute before been quite unwillingly set to confer by the high priestess of the place. Aunt Henderson grasped Faith's hand as if she felt she had brought her into a danger, and held her close to her side while she paused a moment to observe, with the strange fascination of repulsion, the manifestation of a phase of human life and the working of a vocation so utterly and astoundingly novel to herself. "Well, Melindy," said Mrs. Griggs, salutatorily. "Well, grandma," answered the girl, with a pert air of show off and consequence, "I found the place, and I found the lady. Ain't I been quick?" "Yes. What did she say?" "Said the girl left last Saturday. Ain't had anybody sence. Wants you to send her a first-rate one, right off. Has Care'_line_ been here after me?" "No. Did you get the money?" "She never said a word about it. Guess she forgot the month was out." "Didn't you ask her?" "Me? No. I did the arrant, and stood and looked at her--jest as pious--! And when she didn't say nothin', I come away." "Winny M'Goverin," said Mrs. Griggs, "that place'll suit you. Leastways, it must, for another month. You'd better go right round there." "Where is it?" asked the fat cook, indifferently. "Up in Mount Pleasant Street, Number 53. First-class place, and plenty of privileges. Margaret McKay," she continued, to another, "you're too hard to please. Here's one more place"--handing her a card with address--"and if you don't take that, I won't do nothing more for you, if you _air_ Scotch and a Protestant! Mary McGinnis, it's no use your talking to that lady from the country. She can't spare you to come down but twice or so a year." "Lord!" ejaculated Mary McGinnis, "I wouldn't live a whole year with no lady that ever was, let alone the country!" "Come out, Faith!" said Miss Henderson, in a deep, ineffable tone of disgust. "If _that's_ a genteel West End Intelligence Office," cried Aunt Faith, as she touched the sidewalk, "let's go downtown and try some of the common ones." A large hall--where the candidates were ranged on settees under order and restraint, and the superintendent, or directress, occupied a desk placed upon a platform near the entrance--was the next scene whereon Miss Henderson and Faith Gartney entered. Things looked clean and respectable. System obtained here. Aunt Faith felt encouraged. But she made no haste to utter her business. Tall, self-possessed, and dignified, she stood a few paces inside the door, and looked down the apartment, surveying coolly the faces there, and analyzing, by a shrewd mental process, their indications. Her niece had stopped a moment on the landing outside to fasten her boot lace. Miss Henderson did not wear hoops. Also, the streets being sloppy, she had tucked up her plain, gray merino dress over a quilted black alpaca petticoat. Her boots were splashed, and her black silk bonnet was covered with a large gray barége veil, tied down over it to protect it from the dripping roofs. Judging merely by exterior, one would hardly take her at a glance, indeed, for a "fust-class" lady. The directress--a busy woman, with only half a glance to spare for anyone--moved toward her. "Take a seat, if you please. What kind of a place do you want?" Aunt Faith turned full face upon her, with a look that was prepared to be overwhelming. "I'm looking for a place, ma'am, where I can find a respectable girl." Her firm, emphatic utterance was heard to the farthest end of the hall. The girls tittered. Faith Gartney came in at this moment, and walked up quietly to Miss Henderson's side. There was visibly a new impression made, and the tittering ceased. "I beg pardon, ma'am. I see. But we have so many in, and I didn't fairly look. General housework?" "Yes; general and particular--both. Whatever I set her to do." The directress turned toward the throng of faces whose fire of eyes was now all concentrated on the unflinching countenance of Miss Henderson. "Ellen Mahoney!" A stout, well-looking damsel, with an expression that seemed to say she answered to her name, but was nevertheless persuaded of the utter uselessness of the movement, half rose from her seat. "You needn't call up that girl," said Aunt Faith, decidedly; "I don't want her." Ellen Mahoney had giggled among the loudest. "She knows what she _does_ want!" whispered a decent-appearing young woman to a girl at her side with an eager face looking out from a friz of short curly hair, "and that's more than half of 'em do." "Country, did you say, ma'am? or city?" asked the directress once more of Miss Henderson. "I didn't say. It's country, though--twenty miles out." "What wages?" "I'll find the girl first, and settle that afterwards." "Anybody to do general housework in the country, twenty miles out?" The prevailing expression of the assemblage changed. There was a settling down into seats, and a resumption of knitting and needlework. One pair of eyes, however, looked on, even more eagerly than before. One young girl--she with the short curly hair who hadn't seen the country for six years and more--caught her breath, convulsively, at the word. "I wish I dar'st! I've a great mind!" whispered she to her tidy companion. While she hesitated, a slatternly young woman, a few seats farther forward, moved, with a "don't care" sort of look, to answer the summons. "Oh, dear!" sighed the first. "I'd ought to a done it!" "I don't think she would take a young girl like you," replied her friend. "That's the way it always is!" exclaimed the disappointed voice, in forgetfulness and excitement uttering itself aloud. "Plenty of good times going, but they all go right by. I ain't never in any of 'em!" "Glory McWhirk!" chided the directress, "be quiet! Remember the rules, or leave the room." "Call that red-headed girl to me," said Miss Henderson, turning square round from the dirty figure that was presenting itself before her, and addressing the desk. "She looks clean and bright," she added, aside, to Faith, as Glory timidly approached. "And poor. And longing for a chance. I'll have her." A girl with a bonnet full of braids and roses, and a look of general knowingness, started up close at Miss Henderson's side, and interposed. "Did you say twenty miles, mum? How often could I come to town?" "You haven't been asked to go _out_ of town, that I know of," replied Miss Henderson, frigidly, abashing the office _habitué_, who had not been used to find her catechism cut so summarily short, and moving aside to speak with Glory. "What was it I heard you say just now?" "I didn't mean to speak out so, mum. It was only what I mostly thinks. That there's always lots of good times in the world, only I ain't never in 'em." "And you thought it would be good times, did you, to go off twenty miles into the country, to live alone with an old woman like me?" Miss Henderson's tone softened kindly to the rough, uncouth girl, and encouraged her to confidence. "Well, you see, mum, I should like to go where things is green and pleasant. I lived in the country once--ever so long ago--when I was a little girl." Miss Henderson could not help a smile that was half amused, and wholly pitiful, as she looked in the face of this creature of fourteen, so strange and earnest, with its outline of fuzzy, cropped hair, and heard her talk of "ever so long ago." "Are you strong?" "Yes'm. I ain't never sick." "And willing to work?" "Yes'm. Jest as much as I know how." "And want to learn more?" "Yes'm. I don't know as I'd know enough hardly, to begin, though." "Can you wash dishes? And sweep? And set table?" To each of these queries Glory successively interposed an affirmative monosyllable, adding, gratuitously, at the close, "And tend baby, too, real good." Her eyes filled, as she thought of the Grubbling baby with the love that always grows for that whereto one has sacrificed oneself. "You won't have any babies to tend. Time enough for that when you've learned plenty of other things. Who do you belong to?" "I don't belong to anybody, mum. Father, and mother, and grandmother is all dead. I've done the chores and tended baby up at Mrs. Grubbling's ever since. That's in Budd Street. I'm staying now in High Street, with Mrs. Foye. Number 15." "I'll come after you to-morrow. Have your things ready to go right off." "I'm so glad you took her, auntie," said Faith, as they went out. "She looks as if she hadn't been well treated. Think of her wanting so to go into the country! I should like to do something for her." "That's my business," answered Aunt Faith, curtly, but not crossly. "You'll find somebody to do for, if you look out. If your mother's willing, though, you might mend up one of your old school dresses for her. 'Tisn't likely she's got anything to begin with." And so saying, Aunt Faith turned precipitately into a drygoods store, where she bought a large plaid woolen shawl, and twelve yards of dark calico. Coming out, she darted as suddenly, and apparently unpremeditatedly, across the street into a milliner's shop, and ordered home a brown rough-and-ready straw bonnet, and four yards of ribbon to match. "And that you can put on, too," she said to Faith. That evening, Faith was even unwontedly cheery and busy, taking a burned half breadth out of a dark cashmere dress, darning it at the armhole, and pinning the plain ribbon over the brown straw bonnet. At the same time, Glory went up across the city to Budd Street, with a mingled heaviness and gladness at her heart, and, after a kindly farewell interview with Katie Ryan at the Pembertons' green gate, rang, with a half-guilty feeling at her own independence, at the Grubblings' door. Bubby opened it. "Why, ma!" he shouted up the staircase, "it's Glory come back!" "I've come to get my bundle," said the girl. Mrs. Grubbling had advanced to the stair head, somewhat briskly, with the wakeful baby in her arms. Two days' "tending" had greatly mollified her sentiments toward the offending Glory. "And she's come to get her bundle," added the young usher, from below. Mrs. Grubbling retreated into her chamber, and shut herself and the baby in. Poor Glory crept upstairs to her little attic. Coming down again, she set her bundle on the stairs, and knocked. "What is it?" was the ungracious response. "Please, mum, mightn't I say good-by to the baby?" The latch had slipped, and the door was already slightly ajar. Baby heard the accustomed voice, and struggled in his mother's arms. "A pretty time to come disturbing him to do it!" grumbled she. Nevertheless, she set the baby on the floor, who tottled out, and was seized by Glory, standing there in the dark entry, and pressed close in her poor, long-wearied, faithful arms. "Oh, baby, baby! I'm in it now! And I don't know rightly whether it's a good time or not!" CHAPTER VII. CARES; AND WHAT CAME OF THEM. "To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow; · · · · · To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares; To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires." SPENCER. Two years and more had passed since the New Year's dance at the Rushleighs'. The crisis of '57 and '58 was approaching its culmination. The great earthquake that for months had been making itself heard afar off by its portentous rumbling was heaving to the final crash. Already the weaker houses had fallen and were forgotten. When a great financial trouble sweeps down upon a people, there are three general classes who receive and feel it, each in its own peculiar way. There are the great capitalists--the enormously rich--who, unless a tremendous combination of adversities shall utterly ruin here and there one, grow the richer yet for the calamities of their neighbors. There are also the very poor, who have nothing to lose but their daily labor and their daily bread--who may suffer and starve; but who, if by any little saving of a better time they can manage just to buy bread, shall be precisely where they were, practically, when the storm shall have blown over. Between these lies the great middle class--among whom, as on the middle ground, the world's great battle is continually waging--of persons who are neither rich nor poor; who have neither secured fortunes to fall back upon, nor yet the independence of their hands to turn to, when business and its income fail. This is the class that suffers most. Most keenly in apprehension, in mortification, in after privation. Of this class was the Gartney family. Mr. Gartney was growing pale and thin. No wonder; with sleepless nights, and harassed days, and forgotten, or unrelished meals. His wife watched him and waited for him, and contrived special comforts for him, and listened to his confidences. Faith felt that there was a cloud upon the house, and knew that it had to do with money. So she hid her own little wants as long as she could, wore her old ribbons, mended last year's discarded gloves, and yearned vaguely and helplessly to do something--some great thing if she only could, that might remedy or help. Once, she thought she would learn Stenography. She had heard somebody speak one day of the great pay a lady shorthand writer had received at Washington, for some Congressional reports. Why shouldn't she learn how to do it, and if the terrible worst should ever come to the worst, make known her secret resource, and earn enough for all the family? Something like this--some "high and holy work of love"--she longed to do. Longed almost--if she were once prepared and certain of herself--for even misfortune that should justify and make practicable her generous purpose. She got an elementary book, and set to work, by herself. She toiled wearily, every day, for nearly a month; despairing at every step, yet persevering; for, beside the grand dream for the future, there was a present fascination in the queer little scrawls and dots. It cannot be known how long she might have gone on with the attempt, if her mother had not come to her one day with some parcels of cut-out cotton cloth. "Faithie, dear," said she, deprecatingly, "I don't like to put such work upon you while you go to school; but I ought not to afford to have Miss McElroy this spring. Can't you make up some of these with me?" There were articles of clothing for Faith, herself. She felt the present duty upon her; and how could she rebel? Yet what was to become of the great scheme? By and by would come vacation, and in the following spring, at farthest, she would leave school, and then--she would see. She would write a book, maybe. Why not? And secretly dispose of it, for a large sum, to some self-regardless publisher. Should there never be another Fanny Burney? Not a novel, though, or any grown-up book, at first; but a juvenile, at least, she could surely venture on. Look at all the Cousin Maries, and Aunt Fannies, and Sister Alices, whose productions piled the booksellers' counters during the holiday sales, and found their way, sooner or later, into all the nurseries, and children's bookcases! And think of all the stories she had invented to amuse Hendie with! Better than some of these printed ones, she was quite sure, if only she could set them down just as she had spoken them under the inspiration of Hendie's eager eyes and ready glee. She made two or three beginnings, during the summer holidays, but always came to some sort of a "sticking place," which couldn't be hobbled over in print as in verbal relation. All the links must be apparent, and everything be made to hold well together. She wouldn't have known what they were, if you had asked her--but the "unities" troubled her. And then the labor loomed up so large before her! She counted the lines in a page of a book of the ordinary juvenile size, and the number of letters in a line, and found out the wonderful compression of which manuscript is capable. And there must be two hundred pages, at least, to make a book of tolerable size. There seemed to be nothing in the world that she could do. She could not give her time to charity, and go about among the poor. She had nothing to help them with. Her father gave, already, to ceaseless applications, more than he could positively spare. So every now and then she relinquished in discouragement her aspirations, and lived on, from day to day, as other girls did, getting what pleasure she could; hampered continually, however, with the old, inevitable tether, of "can't afford." "If something only would happen!" If some new circumstance would creep into her life, and open the way for a more real living! Do you think girls of seventeen don't have thoughts and longings like these? I tell you they do; and it isn't that they want to have anybody else meet with misfortune, or die, that romantic combinations may thereby result to them; or that they are in haste to enact the everyday romance--to secure a lover--get married--and set up a life of their own; it is that the ordinary marked-out bound of civilized young-lady existence is so utterly inadequate to the fresh, vigorous, expanding nature, with its noble hopes, and its apprehension of limitless possibilities. Something did happen. Winter came on again. After a twelvemonth of struggle and pain such as none but a harassed man of business can ever know or imagine, Mr. Gartney found himself "out of the wood." He had survived the shock--his last mote was taken up--he had labored through--and that was all. He was like a man from off a wreck, who has brought away nothing but his life. He came home one morning from New York, whither he had been to attend a meeting of creditors of a failed firm, and went straight to his chamber with a raging headache. The next day, the physician's chaise was at the door, and on the landing, where Mrs. Gartney stood, pale and anxious, gazing into his face for a word, after the visit to the sick room was over, Dr. Gracie drew on his gloves, and said to her, with one foot on the stair: "Symptoms of typhoid. Keep him absolutely quiet." CHAPTER VIII. A NICHE IN LIFE, AND A WOMAN TO FILL IT. "A Traveller between Life and Death." WORDSWORTH. Miss Sampson was at home this evening. It was not what one would have pictured to oneself as a scene of home comfort or enjoyment; but Miss Sampson was at home. In her little room of fourteen feet square, up a dismal flight of stairs, sitting, in the light of a single lamp, by her air-tight stove, whereon a cup of tea was keeping warm; that, and the open newspaper on the little table in the corner, being the only things in any way cheery about her. Not even a cat or a canary bird had she for companionship. There was no cozy arrangement for daily feminine employment; no workbasket, or litter of spools and tapes; nothing to indicate what might be her daily way of going on. On the broad ledges of the windows, where any other woman would have had a plant or two, there was no array of geraniums or verbenas--not even a seedling orange tree or a monthly rose. But in one of them lay a plaid shawl and a carpet bag, and in the other that peculiar and nearly obsolete piece of feminine property, a paper bandbox, tied about with tape. Packed up for a journey? Reader, Miss Sampson was _always_ packed up. She was that much-enduring, all-foregoing creature, a professional nurse. There would have been no one to feed a cat, or a canary bird, or to water a rose bush, if she had had one. Her home was no more to her than his station at the corner of the street is to the handcart man or the hackney coachman. It was only the place where she might receive orders; whence she might go forth to the toilsomeness and gloom of one sick room after another, returning between each sally and the next to her cheerless post of waiting--keeping her strength for others, and living no life of her own. There was nothing in Miss Sampson's outer woman that would give you, at first glance, an idea of her real energy and peculiar force of character. She was a tall and slender figure, with no superfluous weight of flesh; and her long, thin arms seemed to have grown long and wiry with lifting, and easing, and winding about the poor wrecks of mortality that had lost their own vigor, and were fain to beg a portion of hers. Her face was thin and rigid, too--molded to no mere graces of expression--but with a strong outline, and a habitual compression about the mouth that told you, when you had once learned somewhat of its meaning, of the firm will that would go straight forward to its object, and do, without parade or delay, whatever there might be to be done. Decision, determination, judgment, and readiness were all in that habitual look of a face on which little else had been called out for years. But you would not so have read it at first sight. You would almost inevitably have called her a "scrawny, sour-looking old maid." A creaking step was heard upon the stair, and then a knock of decision at Miss Sampson's door. "Come in!" And as she spoke, Miss Sampson took her cup and saucer in her hand. That was to be kept waiting no longer for whatever visitor it might chance to be. She was taking her first sip as Dr. Gracier entered. "Don't move, Miss Sampson; don't let me interrupt." "I don't mean to! What sends you here?" "A new patient." "Humph! Not one of the last sort, I hope. You know my kind, and 'tain't any use talking up about any others. Any old woman can make gruel, and feed a baby with catnip tea. Don't offer me any more such work as that! If it's work that _is_ work, speak out!" "It's work that nobody else can do for me. A critical case of typhoid, and nobody in the house that understands such illness. I've promised to bring you." "You knew I was back, then?" "I knew you would be. I only sent you at the pinch. I warned them you'd go as soon as things were tolerably comfortable." "Of course I would. What business should I have where there was nothing wanted of me but to go to bed at nine o'clock, and sleep till daylight? That ain't the sort of corner I was cut out to fill." "Well, drink your tea, and put on your bonnet. There's a carriage at the door." "Man? or woman?" asked Miss Sampson. "A man--Mr. Henderson Gartney, Hickory Street." "Out of his head?" "Yes--and getting more so. Family all frightened to death." "Keep 'em out of my way, then, and let me have him to myself. One crazy patient is enough, at a time, for any one pair of hands. I'm ready." In fifteen minutes more, they were in Hickory Street; and the nurse was speedily installed, or rather installed herself, in her office. Dr. Gracie hastened away to another patient, promising to call again at bedtime. "Now, ma'am," said Miss Sampson to Mrs. Gartney, who, after taking her first to the bedside of the patient, had withdrawn with her to the little dressing room adjoining, and given her a _résumé_ of the treatment thus far followed, with the doctor's last directions to herself--"you just go downstairs to your supper. I know, by your looks, you ain't had a mouthful to-day. That's no way to help take care of sick folks." Mrs. Gartney smiled a little, feebly; and an expression of almost childlike rest and relief came over her face. She felt herself in strong hands. "And you?" she asked. "Shall I send you something here?" "I've drunk a cup of tea, before I started. If I see my way clear, I'll run down for a bite after you get through. I don't want any special providings. I take my nibbles anyhow, as I go along. You needn't mind, more'n as if I wasn't here. I shall find my way all over the house. Now, you go." "Only tell me how he seems to you." "Well--not so terrible sick. Just barely bad enough to keep me here. I don't take any easy cases." The odd, abrupt manner and speech comforted, while they somewhat astonished Mrs. Gartney. "Leave the bread and butter and cold chicken on the table," said she, when the tea things were about to be removed; "and keep the chocolate hot, downstairs. Faithie--sit here; and if Miss Sampson comes down by and by, see that she is made comfortable." It was ten o'clock when Miss Sampson came down, and then it was with Dr. Gracie. "Cheer up, little lady!" said the doctor, meeting Faith's anxious, inquiring glance. "Not so bad, by any means, as we might be. The only difficulty will be to keep Nurse Sampson here. She won't stay a minute, if we begin to get better too fast. Yes--I will take a bit of chicken, I think; and--what have you there that's hot?" as the maid came in with the chocolate pot, in answer to Faith's ring of the bell. "Ah, yes! Chocolate! I missed my tea, somehow, to-night." The "somehow" had been in his kindly quest of the best nurse in Mishaumok. "Sit down, Miss Sampson. Let me help you to a scrap of cold chicken. What? Drumstick! Miss Faithie--here is a woman who makes it a principle to go through the world, choosing drumsticks! She's a study; and I set you to finding her out." Last night, as he had told Miss Sampson, the family had been "frightened to death." He had found Faith sitting on the front stairs, at midnight, when he came in at a sudden summons. She was pale and shivering, and caught him nervously by both hands. "Oh, doctor!" "And oh, Miss Faithie! This is no place for you. You ought to be in bed." "But I can't. Mother is all alone, except Mahala. And I don't dare stay up there, either. What _shall_ we do?" For all answer, the doctor had just taken her in his arms, and carried her down to the sofa in the hall, where he laid her, and covered her over with his greatcoat. There she stayed, passively, till he came back. And then he told her kindly and gravely, that if she could be _quite_ quiet, and firm, she might go and lie on the sofa in her mother's dressing room for the remainder of the night, to be at hand for any needed service. To-morrow he would see that they were otherwise provided. And so, to-night, here was Miss Sampson eating her drumstick. Faith watched the hard lines of her face as she did so, and wondered what, and how much Dr. Gracie had meant by "setting her to find her out." "I'm afraid you haven't had a vary nice supper," said she, timidly. "Do you like that best?" "Somebody must always eat drumsticks," was the concise reply. And so, presently, without any further advance toward acquaintance, they went upstairs; and the house, under the new, energetic rule, soon subsided into quiet for the night. CHAPTER IX. LIFE OR DEATH? "With God the Lord belong the issues from death."--Ps. 68; 18. The nursery was a corner room, opening both into Faith's and her mother's. Hendie and Mahala Harris had been removed upstairs, and the apartment was left at Miss Sampson's disposal. Mrs. Gartney's bed had been made up in the little dressing room at the head of the front entry, so that she and the nurse had the sick room between them. Faith came down the two steps that led from her room into the nursery, the next night at bedtime, as Miss Sampson entered from her father's chamber to put on her night wrapper and make ready for her watch. "How is he, nurse? He will get well, won't he? What does the doctor say?" "Nothing," said Miss Sampson, shortly. "He don't know, and he don't pretend to. And that's just what proves he's good for something. He ain't one of the sort that comes into a sick room as if the Almighty had made him a kind of special delegit, and left the whole concern to him. He knows there's a solemner dealing there than his, whether it's for life or death." "But he can't help _thinking_," said Faith, tremblingly. "And I wish I knew. What do _you_--?" But Faith paused, for she was afraid, after all, to finish the question, and to hear it answered. "I don't think. I just keep doing. That's my part. Folks that think too much of what's a-coming, most likely won't attend to what there is." Faith was finding out--a little of Miss Sampson, and a good deal of herself. Had she not thought too much of what might be coming? Had she not missed, perhaps, some of her own work, when that work was easier than now? And how presumptuously she had wished for "something to happen!" Was God punishing her for that? "You just keep still, and patient--and wait," said Miss Sampson, noting the wistful look of pain. "That's your work, and after all, maybe it's the hardest kind. And I can't take it off folks' shoulders," added she to herself in an under voice; "so I needn't set up for the _very_ toughest jobs, to be sure." "I'll try," answered Faith, submissively, with quivering lips, "only if there _should_ be anything that I could do--to sit up, or anything--you'll let me, won't you?" "Of course I will," replied the nurse, cheerily. "I shan't be squeamish about asking when there's anything I really want done." Faith moved toward the door that opened to her father's room. It was ajar. She pushed it gently open, and paused. "I may go in, mayn't I, nurse, just for a good-night look?" The sick man heard her voice, though he did not catch her words. "Come in, Faithie," said he, with one of his half gleams of consciousness, "I'll see you, daughter, as long as I live." Faith's heart nearly broke at that, and she came, tearfully and silently, to the bedside, and laid her little, cool hand on her father's fevered one, and looked down on his face, worn, and suffering, and flushed--and thought within herself--it was a prayer and vow unspoken--"Oh, if God will only let him live, I will _find_ something that I can do for him!" And then she lifted the linen cloth that was laid over his forehead, and dipped it afresh in the bowl of ice water beside the bed, and put it gently back, and just kissed his hair softly, and went out into her own room. Three nights--three days--more, the fever raged. And on the fourth night after, Faith and her mother knew, by the scrupulous care with which the doctor gave minute directions for the few hours to come, and the resolute way in which Miss Sampson declared that "whoever else had a mind to watch, she should sit up till morning this time," that the critical point was reached; that these dark, silent moments that would flit by so fast, were to spell, as they passed by, the sentence of life or death. Faith would not be put by. Her mother sat on one side of the bed, while the nurse busied herself noiselessly, or waited, motionless, upon the other. Down by the fireside, on a low stool, with her head on the cushion of an easy-chair, leaned the young girl--her heart full, and every nerve strained with emotion and suspense. She will never know, precisely, how those hours went on. She can remember the low breathing from the bed, and the now and then half-distinct utterance, as the brain wandered still in a dreamy, feverish maze; and she never will forget the precise color and pattern of the calico wrapper that Nurse Sampson wore; but she can recollect nothing else of it all, except that, after a time, longer or shorter, she glanced up, fearfully, as a strange hush seemed to have come over the room, and met a look and gesture of the nurse that warned her down again, for her life. And then, other hours, or minutes, she knows not which, went by. And then, a stir--a feeble word--a whisper from Nurse Sampson--a low "Thank God!" from her mother. The crisis was passed. Henderson Gartney lived. CHAPTER X. ROUGH ENDS. "So others shall Take patience, labor, to their heart and hand, From thy hand and thy heart, and thy brave cheer, And God's grace fructify through thee to all." MRS. BROWNING. "M. S. What does that stand for?" said little Hendie, reading the white letters painted on the black leather bottom of nurse's carpetbag. He got back, now, often, in the daytime, to his old nursery quarters, where his father liked to hear his chatter and play, for a short time together--though he still slept, with Mahala, upstairs. "Does that mean 'Miss Sampson'?" Faith glanced up from her stocking mending, with a little fun and a little curiosity in her eyes. "What does 'M.' stand for?" repeated Hendie. The nurse was "setting to rights" about the room. She turned round at the question, from hanging a towel straight over the stand, and looked a little amazed, as if she had almost forgotten, herself. But it came out, with a quick opening and shutting of the thin lips, like the snipping of a pair of scissors--"Mehitable." Faith had been greatly drawn to this odd, efficient woman. Beside that her skillful, untiring nursing had humanly, been the means of saving her father's life, which alone had warmed her with an earnest gratitude that was restless to prove itself, and that welled up in every glance and tone she gave Miss Sampson, there were a certain respect and interest that could not withhold themselves from one who so evidently worked on with a great motive that dignified her smallest acts. In whom self-abnegation was the underlying principle of all daily doing. Miss Sampson had stayed on at the Gartneys', notwithstanding the doctor's prediction, and her usual habit. And, in truth, her patient did not "get well _too_ fast." She was needed now as really as ever, though the immediate danger which had summoned her was past, and the fever had gone. The months of overstrained effort and anxiety that had culminated in its violent attack were telling upon him now, in the scarcely less perilous prostration that followed. And Mrs. Gartney had quite given out since the excessive tension of nerve and feeling had relaxed. She was almost ill enough to be regularly nursed herself. She alternated between her bed in the dressing room and an easy-chair opposite her husband's, at his fireside. Miss Sampson knew when she was really wanted, whether the emergency were more or less obvious. She knew the mischief of a change of hands at such a time. And so she stayed on, though she did sleep comfortably of a night, and had many an hour of rest in the daytime, when Faith would come into the nursery and constitute herself her companion. Miss Sampson was to her like a book to be read, whereof she turned but a leaf or so at a time, as she had accidental opportunity, yet whose every page rendered up a deep, strong--above all, a most sound and healthy meaning. She turned over a leaf, one day, in this wise. "Miss Sampson, how came you, at first, to be a sick nurse?" The shadow of some old struggle seemed to come over Miss Sampson's face, as she answered, briefly: "I wanted to find the very toughest sort of a job to do." Faith looked up, surprised. "But I heard you tell my father that you had been nursing more than twenty years. You must have been quite a young woman when you began. I wonder--" "You wonder why I wasn't like most other young women, I suppose. Why I didn't get married, perhaps, and have folks of my own to take care of? Well, I didn't; and the Lord gave me a pretty plain indication that He hadn't laid out that kind of a life for me. So then I just looked around to find out what better He had for me to do. And I hit on the very work I wanted. A trade that it took all the old Sampson grit to follow. I made up my mind, as the doctor says, that _somebody_ in the world had got to choose drumsticks, and I might as well take hold of one." "But don't you ever get tired of it all, and long for something to rest or amuse you?" "Amuse! I couldn't be amused, child. I've been in too much awful earnest ever to be much amused again. No, I want to die in the harness. It's hard work I want. I couldn't have been tied down to a common, easy sort of life. I want something to fight and grapple with; and I'm thankful there's been a way opened for me to do good according to my nature. If I hadn't had sickness and death to battle against, I should have got into human quarrels, maybe, just for the sake of feeling ferocious." "And you always take the very worst and hardest cases, Dr. Gracie says." "What's the use of taking a tough job if you don't face the toughest part of it? I don't want the comfortable end of the business. _Somebody's_ got to nurse smallpox, and yellow fever, and raving-distracted people; and I _know_ the Lord made me fit to do just that very work. There ain't many that He _does_ make for it, but I'm one. And if I shirked, there'd be a stitch dropped." "Yellow fever! where have you nursed that?" "Do you suppose I didn't go to New Orleans? I've nursed it, and I've _had_ it, and nursed it again. I've been in the cholera hospitals, too. I'm seasoned to most everything." "Do you think everybody ought to take the hardest thing they can find, to do?" "Do you think everybody ought to eat drumsticks? We'd have to kill an unreasonable lot of fowls to let 'em! No. The Lord portions out breasts and wings, as well as legs. If He puts anything into your plate, take it." Dr. Gracie always had a word for the nurse, when he came; and, to do her justice, it was seldom but she had a word to give him back. "Well, Miss Sampson," said he gayly, one bright morning, "you're as fresh as the day. What pulls down other folks seems to set you up. I declare you're as blooming as--twenty-five." "You--fib--like--sixty! It's no such thing! And if it was, I'd ought to be ashamed of it." "Prodigious! as your namesake, the Dominie, would say. Don't tell me a woman is ever ashamed of looking young, or handsome!" "Now, look here, doctor!" said Miss Sampson, "I never was handsome; and I thank the Lord He's given me enough to do in the world to wear off my young looks long ago! And any woman ought to be ashamed that gets to be thirty and upward, to say nothing of forty-five, and keeps her baby face on! It's a sign she ain't been of much account, anyhow." "Oh, but there are always differences and exceptions," persisted the doctor, who liked nothing better than to draw Miss Sampson out. "There are some faces that take till thirty, at least, to bring out all their possibilities of good looks, and wear on, then, till fifty. I've seen 'em. And the owners were no drones or do-nothings, either. What do you say to that?" "I say there's two ways of growing old. And growing old ain't always growing ugly. Some folks grow old from the inside, out; and some from the outside, in. There's old furniture, and there's growing trees!" "And the trunk that is roughest below may branch out greenest a-top!" said the doctor. The talk Faith heard now and then, in her walks from home, or when some of "the girls" came in and called her down into the parlor--about pretty looks, and becoming dresses, and who danced with who at the "German" last night, and what a scrape Loolie Lloyd had got into with mixing up and misdating her engagements at the class, and the last new roll for the hair--used to seem rather trivial to her in these days! Occasionally, when Mr. Gartney had what nurse called a "good" day, he would begin to ask for some of his books and papers, with a thought toward business; and then Miss Sampson would display her carpetbag, and make a show of picking up things to put in it. "For," said she, "when you get at your business, it'll be high time for me to go about mine." "But only for half an hour, nurse! I'll give you that much leave of absence, and then we'll have things back again as they were before." "I guess you will! And _further_ than they were before. No, Mr. Gartney, you've got to behave. I _won't_ have them vicious-looking accounts about, and it don't signify." "If it don't, why not?" But it ended in the accounts and the carpetbag disappearing together. Until one morning, some three weeks from the beginning of Mr. Gartney's illness, when, after a few days' letting alone the whole subject, he suddenly appealed to the doctor. "Doctor," said he, as that gentleman entered, "I must have Braybrook up here this afternoon. I dropped things just where I stood, you know. It's time to take an observation." The doctor looked at his patient gravely. "Can't you be content with simply picking up things, and putting them by, for this year? What I ought to tell you to do would be to send business to the right about, and go off for an entire rest and change, for three months, at least." "You don't know what you're talking about, doctor!" "Perhaps not, on one side of the subject. I feel pretty certain on the other, however." Mr. Gartney did not send for Braybrook that afternoon. The next morning, however, he came, and the tabooed books and papers were got out. In another day or two, Miss Sampson _did_ pack her carpetbag, and go back to her air-tight stove and solitary cups of tea. Her occupation in Hickory Street was gone. CHAPTER XI. CROSS CORNERS. "O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the Actual, and criest bitterly to the Gods for a kingdom, wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth, the thing thou seekest is already with thee, 'here or nowhere,' couldst thou only see!"--CARLYLE. "It is of no use to talk about it," said Mr. Gartney, wearily. "If I live--as long as I live--I must do business. How else are you to get along?" "How shall we get along if you do _not_ live?" asked his wife, in a low, anxious tone. "My life's insured," was all Mr. Gartney's answer. "Father!" cried Faith, distressfully. Faith had been taken more and more into counsel and confidence with her parents since the time of the illness that had brought them all so close together. And more and more helpful she had grown, both in word and doing, since she had learned to look daily for the daily work set before her, and to perform it conscientiously, even although it consisted only of little things. She still remembered with enthusiasm Nurse Sampson and the "drumsticks," and managed to pick up now and then one for herself. Meantime she began to see, indistinctly, before her, the vision of a work that must be done by some one, and the duty of it pressed hourly closer home to herself. Her father's health had never been fully reëstablished. He had begun to use his strength before and faster than it came. There was danger--it needed no Dr. Gracie, even, to tell them so--of grave disease, if this went on. And still, whenever urged, his answer was the same. "What would become of his family without his business?" Faith turned these things over and over in her mind. "Father," said she, after a while--the conversation having been dropped at the old conclusion, and nobody appearing to have anything more to say--"I don't know anything about business; but I wish you'd tell me how much money you've got!" Her father laughed; a sad sort of laugh though, that was not so much amusement as tenderness and pity. Then, as if the whole thing were a mere joke, yet with a shade upon his face that betrayed there was far too much truth under the jest, after all, he took out his portemonnaie and told her to look and see. "You know I don't mean that, father! How much in the bank, and everywhere?" "Precious little in the bank, now, Faithie. Enough to keep house with for a year, nearly, perhaps. But if I were to take it and go off and spend it in traveling, you can understand that the housekeeping would fall short, can't you?" Faith looked horrified. She was bringing down her vague ideas of money that came from somewhere, through her father's pocket, as water comes from Lake Kinsittewink by the turning of a faucet, to the narrow point of actuality. "But that isn't all, I know! I've heard you talk about railroad dividends, and such things." "Oh! what does the Western Road pay this time?" asked his wife. "I've had to sell out my stock there." "And where's the money, father?" asked Faith. "Gone to pay debts, child," was the answer. Mrs. Gartney said nothing, but she looked very grave. Her husband surmised, perhaps, that she would go on to imagine worse than had really happened, and so added, presently: "I haven't been obliged to sell _all_ my railroad stocks, wifey. I held on to some. There's the New York Central all safe; and the Michigan Central, too. That wouldn't have sold so well, to be sure, just when I was wanting the money; but things are looking better, now." "Father," said Faithie, with her most coaxing little smile, "please just take this bit of paper and pencil, and set down these stocks and things, will you?" The little smile worked its way; and half in idleness, half in acquiescence, Mr. Gartney took the pencil and noted down a short list of items. "It's very little, Faith, you see." They ran thus: New York Central Railroad 20 shares. Michigan Central " 15 " Kinnicutt Branch " 10 " Mishaumok Insurance Co. 15 " Merchants Bank 30 " "And now, father, please put down how much you get a year in dividends." "Not always the same, little busybody." Nevertheless he noted down the average sums. And the total was between six and seven hundred dollars. "But that isn't all. You've got other things. Why, there's the house at Cross Corners." "Yes, but I can't let it, you know." "What used you to get for it?" "Two hundred and fifty. For house and land." "And you own this house, too, father?" "Yes. This is your mother's." "How much rent would this bring?" Mr. Gartney turned around and looked at his daughter. He began to see there was a meaning in her questions. And as he caught her eye, he read, or discerned without fully reading, a certain eager kindling there. "Why, what has come over you, Faithie, to set you catechising so?" Faith laughed. "Just answer this, please, and I won't ask a single question more to-night." "About the rent? Why, this house ought to bring six hundred, certainly. And now, if the court will permit, I'll read the news." About a week after this, in the latter half of one of those spring days that come with a warm breath to tell that summer is glowing somewhere, and that her face is northward, Aunt Faith Henderson came out upon the low, vine-latticed stoop of her house in Kinnicutt. Up the little footpath from the road--across the bit of greensward that lay between it and the stoop--came a quick, noiseless step, and there was a touch, presently, on the old lady's arm. Faith Gartney stood beside her, in trim straw bonnet and shawl, with a black leather bag upon her arm. "Auntie! I've come to make you a tiny little visit! Till day after to-morrow." "Faith Gartney! However came you here? And in such a fashion, too, without a word of warning, like--an angel from Heaven!" "I came up in the cars, auntie! I felt just like it! Will you keep me?" "Glory! Glory McWhirk!" Like the good Vicar of Wakefield, Aunt Henderson liked often to give the whole name; and calling, she disappeared round the corner of the stoop, without ever a word of more assured welcome. "Put on the teapot again, and make a slice of toast." The good lady's voice, going on with further directions, was lost in the intricate threading of the inner maze of the singular old dwelling, and Faith followed her as far as the first apartment, where she set down her bag and removed her bonnet. It was a quaint, dim room, overbrowed and gloomed by the roofed projection of the stoop; low-ceiled, high-wainscoted and paneled. All in oak, of the natural color, deepened and glossed by time and wear. The heavy beams that supported the floor above were undisguised, and left the ceiling in panels also, as it were, between. In these highest places, a man six feet tall could hardly have stood without bending. He certainly would not, whether he could or no. Even Aunt Faith, with her five feet, six-and-a-half, dropped a little of her dignity, habitually, when she entered. But then, as she said, "A hen always bobs her head when she comes in at a barn door." Between the windows stood an old, old-fashioned secretary, that filled up from floor to ceiling; and over the fireplace a mirror of equally antique date tilted forward from the wall. Opposite the secretary, a plain mahogany table; and eight high-backed, claw-footed chairs ranged stiffly around the room. Aunt Henderson was proud of her old ways, her old furniture, and her house, that was older than all. Some far back ancestor and early settler had built it--the beginning of it--before Kinnicutt had even become a town; and--rare exception to the changes elsewhere--generation after generation of the same name and line had inhabited it until now. Aunt Faith, exultingly, told each curious visitor that it had been built precisely two hundred and ten years. Out in the back kitchen, or lean-to, was hung to a rafter the identical gun with which the "old settler" had ranged the forest that stretched then from the very door; and higher up, across a frame contrived for it, was the "wooden saddle" fabricated for the back of the placid, slow-moving ox, in the time when horses were as yet rare in the new country, and used with pillions, to transport I can't definitely say how many of the family to "meeting." Between these--the best room and the out-kitchen--the labyrinth of sitting room, bedrooms, kitchen proper, milk room, and pantry, partitioned off, or added on, many of them since the primary date of the main structure, would defy the pencil of modern architect. In one of these irregularly clustered apartments that opened out on different aspects, unexpectedly, from their conglomerate center, Faith sat, some fifteen minutes after her entrance into the house, at a little round table between two corner windows that looked northwest and southwest, and together took in the full radiance of the evening sky. Opposite sat her aunt, taking care of her as regarded tea, toast, and plain country loaf cake, and watching somewhat curiously, also, her face. Faith's face had changed a little since Aunt Henderson had seen her last. It was not the careless girl's face she had known. There was a thought in it now. A thought that seemed to go quite out from, and forget the self from which it came. Aunt Henderson wondered greatly what sudden whim or inward purpose had brought her grandniece hither. When Faith absolutely declined any more tea or cake, Miss Henderson's tap on the table leaf brought in Glory McWhirk. A tall, well-grown girl of eighteen was Glory, now--quite another Glory than had lightened, long ago, the dull little house in Budd Street, and filled it with her bright, untutored dreams. The luminous tresses had had their way since then; that is, with certain comfortable bounds prescribed; and rippled themselves backward from a clear, contented face, into the net that held them tidily. Faith looked up, and remembered the poor office girl of three years since, half clad and hopeless, with a secret amaze at what "Aunt Faith had made of her." "You may give me some water, Glory," said Miss Henderson. Glory brought the pitcher, and poured into the tumbler, and gazed at Faith's pretty face, and the dark-brown glossy rolls that framed it, until the water fairly ran over the table. "There! there! Why, Glory, what are you thinking of?" cried Miss Henderson. Glory was thinking her old thoughts--wakened always by all that was beautiful and _beyond_. She came suddenly to herself, however, and darted off, with her face as bright a crimson as her hair was golden; flashing up so, as she did most easily, into as veritable a Glory as ever was. Never had baby been more aptly or prophetically named. Coming back, towel in hand, to stop the freshet she had set flowing, she dared not give another glance across the table; but went busily and deftly to work, clearing it of all that should be cleared, that she might make her shy way off again before she should be betrayed into other unwonted blundering. "And now, Faith Gartney, tell me all about it! What sent you here?" "Nothing. Nobody. I came, aunt. I wanted to see the place, and you." The rough eyebrows were bent keenly across the table. "Hum!" breathed Aunt Henderson. There was small interior sympathy between her ideas and those that governed the usual course of affairs in Hickory Street. Fond of her nephew and his family, after her fashion, notwithstanding Faith's old rebellion, and all other differences, she certainly was; but they went their way, and she hers. She felt pretty sure theirs would sooner or later come to a turning; and when that should happen, whether she should meet them round the corner, or not, would depend. Her path would need to bend a little, and theirs to make a pretty sharp angle, first. But here was Faith cutting across lots to come to her! Aunt Henderson put away her loaf cake in the cupboard, set back her chair against the wall in its invariable position of disuse, and departed to the milk room and kitchen for her evening duty and oversight. Glory's hands were busy in the bread bowl, and her brain kneading its secret thoughts that no one knew or intermeddled with. Faith sat at the open window of the little tea room, and watched the young moon's golden horn go down behind the earth rim among the purple, like a flamy flower bud floating over, and so lost. And the three lives gathered in to themselves, separately, whatsoever the hour brought to each. At nine o'clock Aunt Faith came in, took down the great leather-bound Bible from the corner shelf, and laid it on the table. Glory appeared, and seated herself beside the door. For a few moments, the three lives met in the One Great Life that overarches and includes humanity. Miss Henderson read from the sixth chapter of St. John. They were fed with the five thousand. CHAPTER XII. A RECONNOISSANCE. "Then said his Lordship, 'Well God mend all!' 'Nay, Donald, we must help him to mend it,' said the other."--Quoted by CARLYLE. "Oh, leave these jargons, and go your way straight to God's work in simplicity and singleness of heart!"--MISS NIGHTINGALE. "Auntie," said Faith, next morning, when, after some exploring, she had discovered Miss Henderson in a little room, the very counterpart of the one she had had her tea in the night before, only that this opened to the southeast, and hailed the morning sun. "Auntie, will you go over with me to the Cross Corners house, after breakfast? It's empty, isn't it?" "Yes, it's empty. But it's no great show of a house. What do you want to see it for?" "Why, it used to be so pretty, there. I'd like just to go into it. Have you heard of anybody's wanting it yet?" "No; and I guess nobody's likely to, for one while. Folks don't make many changes, out here." "What a bright little breakfast room this is, auntie! And how grand you are to have a room for every meal!" "It ain't for the grandeur of it. But I always did like to follow the sun round. For the most part of the year, at any rate. And this is just as near the kitchen as the other. Besides, I kind of hate to shut up any of the rooms, altogether. They were all wanted, once; and now I'm all alone in 'em." For Miss Henderson, this was a great opening of the heart. But she didn't go on to say that the little west room had been her young brother's, who long ago, when he was just ready for his Master's work in this world, had been called up higher; and that her evening rest was sweeter, and her evening reading holier for being holden there; or that here, in the sunny morning hours, her life seemed almost to roll back its load of many years, and to set her down beside her mother's knee, and beneath her mother's gentle tutelage, once more; that on the little "light stand" in the corner by the fireplace stood the selfsame basket that had been her mother's then--just where she had kept it, too, when it was running over with little frocks and stockings that were always waiting finishing or mending--and now held only the plain gray knitting work and the bit of sewing that Aunt Faith might have in hand. A small, square table stood now in the middle of the floor, with a fresh brown linen breakfast cloth upon it; and Glory, neat and fresh, also, with her brown spotted calico dress and apron of the same, came in smiling like a very goddess of peace and plenty, with the steaming coffeepot in one hand, and the plate of fine, white rolls in the other. The yellow print of butter and some rounds from a brown loaf were already on the table. Glory brought in, presently, the last addition to the meal--six eggs, laid yesterday, the water of their boiling just dried off, and modestly took her own seat at the lower end of the board. Aunt Faith, living alone, kept to the kindly old country fashion of admitting her handmaid to the table with herself. "Why not?" she would say. "In the first place, why should we keep the table about, half an hour longer than we need? And I suppose hot cakes and coffee are as much nicer than cold, for one body as another. Then where's the sense? We take Bible meat together. Must we be more dainty about 'meat that perisheth'?" So her argument climbed up from its lower reason to its climax. Glory had little of the Irish now about her but her name. And all that she retained visibly of the Roman faith she had been born to, was her little rosary of colored shells, strung as beads, that had been blessed by the Pope. Miss Henderson had trained and fed her in her own ways, and with such food as she partook herself, physically and spiritually. Glory sat, every Sunday, in the corner pew of the village church, by her mistress's side. And this church-going being nearly all that she had ever had, she took in the nutriment that was given her, to a soul that recognized it, and never troubled itself with questions as to one truth differing from another, or no. Indeed, no single form or theory could have contained the "credo" of her simple, yet complex, thought. The old Catholic reverence clung about her still, that had come with her all the way from her infancy, when her mother and grandmother had taught her the prayers of their Church; and across the long interval of ignorance and neglect flung a sort of cathedral light over what she felt was holy now. Rescued from her dim and servile city life--brought out into the light and beauty she had mutely longed for--feeling care and kindliness about her for the long-time harshness and oppression she had borne--she was like a spirit newly entered into heaven, that needs no priestly ministration any more. Every breath drew in a life and teaching purer than human words. And then the words she _did_ hear were Divine. Miss Henderson did no preaching--scarcely any lip teaching, however brief. She broke the bread of life God gave her, as she cut her daily loaf and shared it--letting each soul, God helping, digest it for itself. Glory got hold of some old theology, too, that she could but fragmentarily understand but that mingled itself--as all we gather does mingle, not uselessly--with her growth. She found old books among Miss Henderson's stores, that she read and mused on. She trembled at the warnings, and reposed in the holy comforts of Doddridge's "Rise and Progress," and Baxter's "Saint's Rest." She traveled to the Holy City, above all, with Bunyan's Pilgrim. And then, Sunday after Sunday, she heard the simple Christian preaching of an old and simple Christian man. Not terrible--but earnest; not mystical--but high; not lax--but liberal; and this fused and tempered all. So "things had happened" for Glory. So God had cared for this, His child. So, according to His own Will--not any human plan or forcing-- she grew. Aunt Faith washed up the breakfast cups, dusted and "set to rights" in the rooms where, to the young Faith's eyes, there seemed such order already as could not be righted, made up a nice little pudding for dinner, and then, taking down her shawl and silk hood, and putting on her overshoes, announced herself ready for Cross Corners. "Though it's all cross corners to me, child, sure enough. I suppose it's none of my business, but I can't think what you're up to." "Not up to any great height, yet, auntie. But I'm growing," said Faith, merrily, and with meaning somewhat beyond the letter. They went out at the back door, which opened on a little footpath down the sudden green slope behind, and stretched across the field, diagonally, to a bar place and stile at the opposite corner. Here the roads from five different directions met and crossed, which gave the locality its name. Opposite the stile at which they came out, across the shady lane that wound down from the Old Road whereon Miss Henderson's mansion faced, a gateway in a white paling that ran round and fenced in a grassy door yard, overhung with pendent branches of elms and stouter canopy of chestnuts, let them in upon the little "Cross Corners Farm." "Oh, Aunt Faith! It's just as lovely as ever! I remember that path up the hill, among the trees, so well! When I was a little bit of a girl, and nurse and I came out to stay with you. I had my 'fairy house' there. I'd like to go over this minute, only that we shan't have time. How shall we get in? Where is the key?" "It's in my pocket. But it mystifies me, what you want there." "I want to look out of all the windows, auntie, to begin with." Aunt Faith's mystification was not lessened. The front door opened on a small, square hall, with doors to right and left. The room on the left, spite of the bare floor and fireless hearth, was warm with the spring sunshine that came pouring in at the south windows. Beyond this, embracing the corner of the house rectangularly, projected an equally sunny and cheery kitchen; at the right of which, communicating with both apartments, was divided off a tiny tea and breakfast room. So Faith decided, though it had very likely been a bedroom. From the entrance hall at the right opened a room larger than either of the others--so large that the floor above afforded two bedrooms over it--and having, besides its windows south and east, a door in the farther corner beyond the chimney, that gave out directly upon the grassy slope, and looked up the path among the trees that crossed the ridge. Faith drew the bolt and opened it, expecting to find a closet or a passage somewhither. She fairly started back with surprise and delight. And then seated herself plump upon the threshold, and went into a midsummer dream. "Oh, auntie!" she cried, at her waking, presently, "was ever anything so perfect? To think of being let out so! Right from a regular, proper parlor, into the woods!" "Do you mean to go upstairs?" inquired Miss Henderson, with a vague amaze in her look that seemed to question whether her niece had not possibly been "let out" from her "regular and proper" wits! Whereupon Faith scrambled up from her seat upon the sill, and hurried off to investigate above. Miss Henderson closed the door, pushed the bolt, and followed quietly after. It was a funny little pantomime that Faith enacted then, for the further bewilderment of the staid old lady. Darting from one chamber to another, with an inexplicable look of business and consideration in her face, that contrasted comically with her quick movements and her general air of glee, she would take her stand in the middle of each one in turn, and wheeling round to get a swift panoramic view of outlook and capabilities, would end by a succession of mysterious and apparently satisfied little nods, as if at each pause some point of plan or arrangement had settled itself in her mind. "Aunt Faith!" cried she, suddenly, as she came out upon the landing when she had peeped into the last corner, and found Miss Henderson on the point of making her descent--"what sort of a thing do you think it would be for us to come here and live?" Aunt Faith sat down now as suddenly, in her turn, on the stairhead. Recovering, so, from her momentary and utter astonishment, and taking in, during that instant of repose, the full drift of the question propounded, she rose from her involuntarily assumed position, and continued her way down--answering, without so much as turning her head, "It would be just the most sensible thing that Henderson Gartney ever did in his life!" What made Faithie a bit sober, all at once, when the key was turned, and they passed on, out under the elms, into the lane again? Did you ever project a very wise and important scheme, that involves a little self-sacrifice, which, by a determined looking at the bright side of the subject, you had managed tolerably to ignore; and then, by the instant and unhesitating acquiescence of some one to whose judgment you submitted it, find yourself suddenly wheeled about in your own mind to the standpoint whence you discerned only the difficulty again? "There's one thing, Aunt Faith," said she, as they slowly walked up the field path; "I couldn't go to school any more." Faith had discontinued her regular attendance since the recommencement for the year, but had gone in for a few hours on "French and German days." "There's another thing," said Aunt Faith. "I don't believe your father can afford to send you any more. You're eighteen, ain't you?" "I shall be, this summer." "Time for you to leave off school. Bring your books and things along with you. You'll have chance enough to study." Faith hadn't thought much of herself before. But when she found her aunt didn't apparently think of her at all, she began to realize keenly all that she must silently give up. "But it's a good deal of help, auntie, to study with other people. And then--we shouldn't have any society out here. I don't mean for the sake of parties, and going about. But for the improvement of it. I shouldn't like to be shut out from cultivated people." "Faith Gartney!" exclaimed Miss Henderson, facing about in the narrow footway, "don't you go to being fine and transcendental! If there's one word I despise more than another, in the way folks use it nowadays--it's 'Culture'! As if God didn't know how to make souls grow! You just take root where He puts you, and go to work, and live! He'll take care of the cultivating! If He means you to turn out a rose, or an oak tree, you'll come to it. And pig-weed's pig-weed, no matter where it starts up!" "Aunt Faith!" replied the child, humbly and earnestly, "I believe that's true! And I believe I want the country to grow in! But the thing will be," she added, a little doubtfully, "to persuade father." "Doesn't he want to come, then? Whose plan is it, pray?" asked Miss Henderson, stopping short again, just as she had resumed her walk, in a fresh surprise. "Nobody's but mine, yet, auntie! I haven't asked him, but I thought I'd come and look." Miss Henderson took her by the arm, and looked steadfastly in her dark, earnest eyes. "You're something, sure enough!" said she, with a sharp tenderness. Faith didn't know precisely what she meant, except that she seemed to mean approval. And at the one word of appreciation, all difficulty and self-sacrifice vanished out of her sight, and everything brightened to her thought, again, till her thought brightened out into a smile. "What a skyful of lovely white clouds!" she said, looking up to the pure, fleecy folds that were flittering over the blue. "We can't see that in Mishaumok!" "She's just heavenly!" said Glory to herself, standing at the back door, and gazing with a rapturous admiration at Faith's upturned face. "And the dinner's all ready, and I'm thankful, and more, that the custard's baked so beautiful!" CHAPTER XIII. DEVELOPMENT. "Sits the wind in that corner?" MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. "For courage mounteth with occasion." KING JOHN. The lassitude that comes with spring had told upon Mr. Gartney. He had dyspepsia, too; and now and then came home early from the counting room with a headache that sent him to his bed. Dr. Gracie dropped in, friendly-wise, of an evening--said little that was strictly professional--but held his hand a second longer, perhaps, than he would have done for a mere greeting, and looked rather scrutinizingly at him when Mr. Gartney's eyes were turned another way. Frequently he made some slight suggestion of a journey, or other summer change. "You must urge it, if you can, Mrs. Gartney," he said, privately, to the wife. "I don't quite like his looks. Get him away from business, at _almost any_ sacrifice," he came to add, at last. "At _every_ sacrifice?" asked Mrs. Gartney, anxious and perplexed. "Business is nearly all, you know." "Life is more--reason is more," answered the doctor, gravely. And the wife went about her daily task with a secret heaviness at her heart. "Father," said Faith, one evening, after she had read to him the paper while he lay resting upon the sofa, "if you had money enough to live on, how long would it take you to wind up your business?" "It's pretty nearly wound up now! But what's the use of asking such a question?" "Because," said Faith, timidly, "I've got a little plan in my head, if you'll only listen to it." "Well, Faithie, I'll listen. What is it?" And then Faith spoke it all out, at once. "That you should give up all your business, father, and let this house, and go to Cross Corners, and live at the farm." Mr. Gartney started to his elbow. But a sudden pain that leaped in his temples sent him back again. For a minute or so, he did not speak at all. Then he said: "Do you know what you are talking of, daughter?" "Yes, father; I've been thinking it over a good while--since the night we wrote down these things." And she drew from her pocket the memorandum of stocks and dividends. "You see you have six hundred and fifty dollars a year from these, and this house would be six hundred more, and mother says she can manage on that, in the country, if I will help her." Mr. Gartney shaded his eyes with his hand. Not wholly, perhaps, to shield them from the light. "You're a good girl, Faithie," said he, presently; and there was assuredly a little tremble in his voice. "And so, you and your mother have talked it over, together?" "Yes; often, lately. And she said I had better ask you myself, if I wished it. She is perfectly willing. She thinks it would be good." "Faithie," said her father, "you make me feel, more than ever, how much I _ought_ to do for you!" "You ought to get well and strong, father--that is all!" replied Faith, with a quiver in her own voice. Mr. Gartney sighed. "I'm no more than a mere useless block of wood!" "We shall just have to set you up, and make an idol of you, then!" cried Faith, cheerily, with tears on her eyelashes, that she winked off. There had been a ring at the bell while they were speaking; and now Mrs. Gartney entered, followed by Dr. Gracie. "Well, Miss Faith," said the doctor, after the usual greetings, and a prolonged look at Mr. Gartney's flushed face, "what have you done to your father?" "I've been reading the paper," answered Faith, quietly, "and talking a little." "Mother!" said Mr. Gartney, catching his wife's hand, as she came round to find a seat near him, "are you really in the plot, too?" "I'm glad there is a plot," said the doctor, quickly, glancing round with a keen inquiry. "It's time!" "Wait till you hear it," said Mr. Gartney. "Are you in a hurry to lose your patient?" "Depends upon _how_!" replied the doctor, touching the truth in a jest. "This is how. Here's a little jade who has the conceit and audacity to propose to me to wind up my business (as if she understood the whole process!), and let my house, and go to my farm at Cross Corners. What do you think of that?" "I think it would be the most sensible thing you ever did in your life!" "Just exactly what Aunt Henderson said!" cried Faith, exultant. "Aunt Faith, too! The conspiracy thickens! How long has all this been discussing?" continued Mr. Gartney, fairly roused, and springing, despite the doctor's request, to a sitting position, throwing off, as he did so, the afghan Faith had laid over his feet. "There hasn't been much discussion," said Faith. "Only when I went out to Kinnicutt I got auntie to show me the house; and I asked her how she thought it would be if we were to do such a thing, and she said just what Dr. Gracie has said now. And, father, you _don't_ know how beautiful it is there!" "So you really want to go? and it isn't drumsticks?" queried the doctor, turning round to Faith. "Some drumsticks are very nice," said Faith. "Gartney!" said Dr. Gracie, "you'd better mind what this girl of yours says. She's worth attending to." The wedge had been entered, and Faith's hand had driven it. The plan was taken into consideration. Of course, such a change could not be made without some pondering; but when almost the continual thought of a family is concentrated upon a single subject, a good deal of pondering and deciding can be done in three weeks. At the end of that time an advertisement appeared in the leading Mishaumok papers, offering the house in Hickory Street to be let; and Mrs. Gartney and Faith were busy packing boxes to go to Kinnicutt. Only a passing shade had been flung on the project which seemed to brighten into sunshine, otherwise, the more they looked at it, when Mrs. Gartney suddenly said, after a long "talking over," the second evening after the proposal had been first broached: "But what will Saidie say?" Now Saidie--whom before it has been unnecessary to mention--was Faith's elder sister, traveling at this moment in Europe, with a wealthy elder sister of Mrs. Gartney. "I never thought of Saidie," cried Faith. Saidie was pretty sure not to like Kinnicutt. A young lady, educated at a fashionable New York school--petted by an aunt who found nobody else to pet, and who had money enough to have petted a whole asylum of orphans--who had shone in London and Paris for two seasons past--was not exceedingly likely to discover all the possible delights that Faith had done, under the elms and chestnuts at Cross Corners. But this could make no practical difference. "She wouldn't like Hickory Street any better," said Faith, "if we couldn't have parties or new furniture any more. And she's only a visitor, at the best. Aunt Etherege will be sure to have her in New York, or traveling about, ten months out of twelve. She can come to us in June and October. I guess she'll like strawberries and cream, and--whatever comes at the other season, besides red leaves." Now this was kind, sisterly consideration of Faith, however little so it seems, set down. It was very certain that no more acceptable provision could be made for Saidie Gartney in the family plan, than to leave her out, except where the strawberries and cream were concerned. In return, she wrote gay, entertaining letters home to her mother and young sister, and sent pretty French, or Florentine, or Roman ornaments for them to wear. Some persons are content to go through life with such exchange of sympathies as this. By and by, Faith being in her own room, took out from her letter box the last missive from abroad. There was something in this which vexed Faith, and yet stirred her a little, obscurely. All things are fair in love, war, and--story books! So, though she would never have shown the words to you or me, we will peep over her shoulder, and share them, "_en rapport_." "And Paul Rushleigh, it seems, is as much as ever in Hickory Street! Well--my little Faithie might make a far worse '_parti_' than that! Tell papa I think he may be satisfied there!" Faith would have cut off her little finger, rather than have had her father dream that such a thing had been put into her head! But unfortunately it was there, now, and could not be helped. She could only--sitting there in her chamber window with the blood tingling to the hair upon her temples, as if from every neighboring window of the clustering houses about her, eyes could overlook and read what she was reading now--"wish that Saidie would not write such things as that!" For all that, it was one pleasant thing Faith would have to lose in leaving Mishaumok. It was very agreeable to have him dropping in, with his gay college gossip; and to dance the "German" with the nicest partner in the Monday class; and to carry the flowers he so often sent her. Had she done things greater than she knew in shutting her eyes resolutely to all her city associations and enjoyments, and urging, for her father's sake, this exodus in the desert? Only that means were actually wanting to continue on as they were, and that health must at any rate be first striven for as a condition to the future enlargement of means, her father and mother, in their thought for what their child hardly considered for herself, would surely have been more difficult to persuade. They hoped that a summer's rest might enable Mr. Gartney to undertake again some sort of lucrative business, after business should have revived from its present prostration; and that a year or two, perhaps, of economizing in the country, might make it possible for them to return, if they chose, to the house in Hickory Street. There were leave takings to be gone through--questions to be answered, and reasons to be given; for Mrs. Gartney, the polite wishes of her visiting friends that "Mr. Gartney's health might allow them to return to the city in the winter," with the wonder, unexpressed, whether this were to be a final breakdown of the family, or not; and for Faith, the horror and extravagant lamentations of her young _coterie_, at her coming occultation--or setting, rather, out of their sky. Paul Rushleigh demanded eagerly if there weren't any sober old minister out there, with whom he might be rusticated for his next college prank. Everybody promised to come as far as Kinnicutt "some time" to see them; the good-bys were all said at last; the city cook had departed, and a woman had been taken in her place who "had no objections to the country"; and on one of the last bright days of May they skimmed, steam-sped, over the intervening country between the brick-and-stone-encrusted hills of Mishaumok and the fair meadow reaches of Kinnicutt; and so disappeared out of the places that had known them so long, and could yet, alas! do so exceedingly well without them. By the first of June nobody in the great city remembered, or remembered very seriously to regard, the little gap that had been made in its midst. CHAPTER XIV. A DRIVE WITH THE DOCTOR. "And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays." LOWELL. "All lives have their prose translation as well as their ideal meaning."--CHARLES AUCHESTER. But Kinnicutt opened wider to receive them than Mishaumok had to let them go. If Mr. Gartney's invalidism had to be pleaded to get away with dignity, it was even more needed to shield with anything of quietness their entrance into the new sphere they had chosen. Faith, with her young adaptability, found great fund of entertainment in the new social developments that unfolded themselves at Cross Corners. All sorts of quaint vehicles drove up under the elms in the afternoon visiting hours, day after day--hitched horses, and unladed passengers. Both doctors and their wives came promptly, of course; the "old doctor" from the village, and the "young doctor" from "over at Lakeside." Quiet Mrs. Holland walked in at the twilight, by herself, one day, to explain that her husband, the minister, was too unwell to visit, and to say her pleasant, unpretentious words of welcome. Squire Leatherbee's daughters made themselves fine in lilac silks and green Estella shawls, to offer acquaintance to the new "city people." Aunt Faith came over, once or twice a week, at times when "nobody else would be round under foot," and always with some dainty offering from dairy, garden, or kitchen. At other hours, Glory was fain to seize all opportunity of errands that Miss Henderson could not do, and irradiate the kitchen, lingeringly, until she herself might be more ecstatically irradiated with a glance and smile from Miss Faith. There was need enough of Aunt Faith's ministrations during these first, few, unsettled weeks. The young woman who "had no objections to the country," objected no more to these pleasant country fashions of neighborly kindness. She had reason. Aunt Faith's "thirds bread," or crisp "vanity cakes," or "velvet creams," were no sooner disposed of than there surely came a starvation interval of sour biscuits, heavy gingerbread, and tough pie crust, and dinners feebly cooked, with no attempt at desserts, at all. This was gloomy. This was the first trial of their country life. Plainly, this cook was no cook. Mr. Gartney's dyspepsia must be considered. Kinnicutt air and June sunshine would not do all the curative work. The healthy appetite they stimulated must be wholesomely supplied. Faith took to the kitchen. To Glory's mute and rapturous delight, she began to come almost daily up the field path, in her pretty round hat and morning wrapper, to waylay her aunt in the tidy kitchen at the early hour when her cookery was sure to be going on, to ask questions and investigate, and "help a little," and then to go home and repeat the operation as nearly as she could for their somewhat later dinner. "Miss McGonegal seems to be improving," observed Mr. Gartney, complacently, one day, as he partook of a simple, but favorite pudding, nicely flavored and compounded; "or is this a charity of Aunt Henderson's?" "No," replied his wife, "it is home manufacture," and she glanced at Faith without dropping her tone to a period. Faith shook her head, and the sentence hung in the air, unfinished. Mrs. Gartney had not been strong for years. Moreover, she had not a genius for cooking. That is a real gift, as much as a genius for poetry or painting. Faith was finding out, suddenly, that she had it. But she was quite willing that her father should rest in the satisfactory belief that Miss McGonegal, in whom it never, by any possibility, could be developed, was improving; and that the good things that found their way to his table had a paid and permanent origin. He was more comfortable so, she thought. Meanwhile, they would inquire if the region round about Kinnicutt might be expected to afford a substitute. Dr. Wasgatt's wife told Mrs. Gartney of a young American woman who was staying in the "factory village" beyond Lakeside, and who had asked her husband if he knew of any place where she could "hire out." Dr. Wasgatt would be very glad to take her or Miss Faith over there, of a morning, to see if she would answer. Faith was very glad to go. Dr. Wasgatt was the "old doctor." A benign man, as old doctors--when they don't grow contrariwise, and become unspeakably gruff and crusty--are apt to be. A benign old doctor, a docile old horse, an old-fashioned two-wheeled chaise that springs to the motion like a bough at a bird flitting, and an indescribable June morning wherein to drive four miles and back--well! Faith couldn't help exulting in her heart that they wanted a cook. The way was very lovely toward Lakeside, and across to factory village. It crossed the capricious windings of Wachaug two or three times within the distance, and then bore round the Pond Road, which kept its old traditional cognomen, though the new neighborhood that had grown up at its farther bend had got a modern name, and the beautiful pond itself had come to be known with a legitimate dignity as Lake Wachaug. Graceful birches, with a spring, and a joyous, whispered secret in every glossy leaf, leaned over the road toward the water; and close down to its ripples grew wild shrubs and flowers, and lush grass, and lady bracken, while out over the still depths rested green lily pads, like floating thrones waiting the fair water queens who, a few weeks hence, should rise to claim them. Back, behind the birches, reached the fringe of woodland that melted away, presently, in the sunny pastures, and held in bush and branch hundreds of little mother birds, brooding in a still rapture, like separate embodied pulses of the Universal Love, over a coming life and joy. Life and joy were everywhere. Faith's heart danced and glowed within her. She had thought, many a time before, that she was getting somewhat of the joy of the country, when, after dinner and business were over, she had come out from Mishaumok, in proper fashionable toilet, with her father and mother, for an afternoon airing in the city environs. But here, in the old doctor's "one-hoss shay," and with her round straw hat and chintz wrapper on, she was finding out what a rapturously different thing it is to go out into the bountiful morning, and identify oneself therewith. She had almost forgotten that she had any other errand when they turned away from the lake, and took a little side road that wound off from it, and struck the river again, and brought them at last to the Wachaug Mills and the little factory settlement around them. "This is Mrs. Pranker's," said the doctor, stopping at the third door in a block of factory houses, "and it's a sister-in-law of hers who wants to 'hire out.' I've a patient in the next row, and if you like, I'll leave you here a few minutes." Faith's foot was instantly on the chaise step, and she sprang to the ground with only an acknowledging touch of the good doctor's hand, upheld to aid her. A white-haired boy of three, making gravel puddings in a scalloped tin dish at the door, scrambled up as she approached, upset his pudding, and sidled up the steps in a scared fashion, with a finger in his mouth, and his round gray eyes sending apprehensive peeps at her through the linty locks. "Well, tow-head!" ejaculated an energetic female voice within, to an accompaniment of swashing water, and a scrape of a bucket along the floor; "what's wanting now? Can't you stay put, nohow?" An unintelligible jargon of baby chatter followed, which seemed, however, to have conveyed an idea to the mother's mind, for she appeared immediately in the passage, drying her wet arms upon her apron. "Mrs. Pranker?" asked Faith. "That's my name," replied the woman, as who should say, peremptorily, "what then?" "I was told--my mother heard--that a sister of yours was looking for a place." "She hain't done much about _lookin'_," was the reply, "but she was sayin' she didn't know but what she'd hire out for a spell, if anybody wanted her. She's in the keepin' room. You can come in and speak to her, if you're a mind to. The kitchen floor's wet. I'm jest a-washin' of it. You little sperrit!" This to the child, who was amusing himself with the floor cloth which he had fished out of the bucket, and held up, dripping, letting a stream of dirty water run down the front of his red calico frock. "If children ain't the biggest torments! Talk about Job! His wife had to have more patience than he did, I'll be bound! And patience ain't any use, either! The more you have, the more you're took advantage of! I declare and testify, it makes me as cross as sin, jest to think how good-natured I be!" And with this, she snatched the cloth from the boy's hands, shook first him and then his frock, to get rid, in so far as a shake might accomplish it, of original depravity and sandy soapsuds, and carried him, vociferant, to the door, where she set him down to the consolation of gravel pudding again. Meanwhile Faith crossed the sloppy kitchen, on tiptoe, toward an open door, that revealed a room within. Here a very fat young woman, with a rather pleasant face, was seated, sewing, in a rocking-chair. She did not rise, or move, at Faith's entrance, otherwise than to look up, composedly, and let fall her arms along those of the chair, retaining the needle in one hand and her work in the other. "I came to see," said Faith--obliged to say something to explain her presence, but secretly appalled at the magnitude of the subject she had to deal with--"if you wanted a place in a family." "Take a seat," said the young woman. Faith availed herself of one, and, doubtful what to say next, waited for indications from the other party. "Well--I _was_ calc'latin' to hire out this summer, but I ain't very partic'ler about it, neither." "Can you cook?" "Most kinds. I can't do much fancy cookin'. Guess I can make bread--all sorts--and roast, and bile, and see to common fixin's, though, as well as the next one!" "We like plain country cooking," said Faith, thinking of Aunt Henderson's delicious, though simple, preparations. "And I suppose you can make new things if you have direction." "Well--I'm pretty good at workin' out a resate, too. But then, I ain't anyways partic'ler 'bout hirin' out, as I said afore." Faith judged rightly that this was a salvo put in for pride. The Yankee girl would not appear anxious for a servile situation. All the while the conversation went on, she sat tilting herself gently back and forth in the rocking-chair, with a lazy touching of her toes to the floor. Her very _vis inertiæ_ would not let her stop. Faith's only question, now, was with herself--how she should get away again. She had no idea that this huge, indolent creature would be at all suitable as their servant. And then, her utter want of manners! "I'll tell my mother what you say," said she, rising. "What's your mother's name, and where d'ye live?" "We live at Kinnicutt Cross Corners. My mother is Mrs. Henderson Gartney." "'M!" Faith turned toward the kitchen. "Look here!" called the stout young woman after her; "you may jest say if she wants me she can send for me. I don't mind if I try it a spell." "I didn't ask _your_ name," remarked Faith. "Oh! my name's Mis' Battis!" Faith escaped over the wet floor, sprang past the white-haired child at the doorstep, and was just in time to be put into the chaise by Dr. Wasgatt, who drove up as she came out. She did not dare trust her voice to speak within hearing of the house; but when they had come round the mills again, into the secluded river road, she startled its quietness and the doctor's composure, with a laugh that rang out clear and overflowing like the very soul of fun. "So that's all you've got out of your visit?" "Yes, that is all," said Faith. "But it's a great deal!" And she laughed again--such a merry little waterfall of a laugh. When she reached home, Mrs. Gartney met her at the door. "Well, Faithie," she cried, somewhat eagerly, "what have you found?" Faith's eyes danced with merriment. "I don't know, mother! A--hippopotamus, I think!" "Won't she do? What do you mean?" "Why she's as big! I can't tell you how big! And she sat in a rocking-chair and rocked all the time--and she says her name is Miss Battis!" Mrs. Gartney looked rather perplexed than amused. "But, Faith!--I can't think how she knew--she must have been, listening--Norah has been so horribly angry! And she's upstairs packing her things to go right off. How _can_ we be left without a cook?" "It seems Miss McGonegal means to demonstrate that we can! Perhaps--the hippopotamus _might_ be trained to domestic service! She said you could send if you wanted her." "I don't see anything else to do. Norah won't even stay till morning. And there isn't a bit of bread in the house. I can't send this afternoon, though, for your father has driven over to Sedgely about some celery and tomato plants, and won't be home till tea time." "I'll make some cream biscuits like Aunt Faith's. And I'll go out into the garden and find Luther. If he can't carry us through the Reformation, somehow, he doesn't deserve his name." Luther was found--thought Jerry Blanchard wouldn't "value lettin' him have his old horse and shay for an hour." And he wouldn't "be mor'n that goin'." He could "fetch her, easy enough, if that was all." Mis' Battis came. She entered Mrs. Gartney's presence with nonchalance, and "flumped" incontinently into the easiest and nearest chair. Mrs. Gartney began with the common preliminary--the name. Mis' Battis introduced herself as before. "But your first name?" proceeded the lady. "My first name was Parthenia Franker. I'm a relic'." Mrs. Gartney experienced an internal convulsion, but retained her outward composure. "I suppose you would quite as lief be called Parthenia?" "Ruther," replied the relict, laconically. And Mrs. Parthenia Battis was forthwith installed--_pro tem_.--in the Cross Corners kitchen. "She's got considerable gumption," was the opinion Luther volunteered, of his own previous knowledge--for Mrs. Battis was an old schoolmate and neighbor--"but she's powerful slow." CHAPTER XV. NEW DUTIES. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."--Ecc. 9:10. "A servant with this clause Makes drudgery divine;-- Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws, Makes that and the action fine." GEORGE HERBERT. Mis' Battis's "gumption" was a relief--conjoined, even, as it was, to a mighty _inertia_--after the experience of Norah McGonegal's utter incapacity; and her admission, _pro tempore,_ came to be tacitly looked upon as a permanent adoption, for want of a better alternative. She continued to seat herself, unabashed, whenever opportunity offered, in the presence of the family; and invariably did so, when Mrs. Gartney either sent for, or came to her, to give orders. She always spoke of Mr. Gartney as "he," addressed her mistress as Miss Gartney, and ignored all prefix to the gentle name of Faith. Mrs. Gartney at last remedied the pronominal difficulty by invariably applying all remarks bearing no other indication, to that other "he" of the household--Luther. Her own claim to the matronly title she gave up all hope of establishing; for, if the "relic'" abbreviated her own wifely distinction, how should she be expected to dignify other people? As to Faith, her mother ventured one day, sensitively and timidly, to speak directly to the point. "My daughter has always been accustomed to be called _Miss_ Faith," she said, gently, in reply to an observation of Parthenia's, in which the ungarnished name had twice been used. "It isn't a _very_ important matter--still, it would be pleasanter to us, and I dare say you won't mind trying to remember it?" "'M! No--I ain't partic'ler. Faith ain't a long name, and 'twon't be much trouble to put a handle on, if that's what you want. It's English fashion, ain't it?" Parthenia's coolness enabled Mrs. Gartney to assert, somewhat more confidently, her own dignity. "It is a fashion of respect and courtesy, everywhere, I believe." "'M!" reëjaculated the relict. Thereafter, Faith was "Miss," with a slight pressure of emphasis upon the handle. "Mamma!" cried Hendie, impetuously, one day, as he rushed in from a walk with his attendant, "I _hate_ Mahala Harris! I wish you'd let me dress myself, and go to walk alone, and send her off to Jericho!" "Whereabouts do you suppose Jericho to be?" asked Faith, laughing. "I don't know. It's where she keeps wishing I was, when she's cross, and I want anything. I wish she was there!--and I mean to ask papa to send her!" "Go and take your hat off, Hendie, and have your hair brushed, and your hands washed, and then come back in a nice quiet little temper, and we'll talk about it," said Mrs. Gartney. "I think," said Faith to her mother, as the boy was heard mounting the stairs to the nursery, right foot foremost all the way, "that Mahala doesn't manage Hendie as she ought. She keeps him in a fret. I hear them in the morning while I am dressing. She seems to talk to him in a taunting sort of way." "What can we do?" exclaimed Mrs. Gartney, worriedly. "These changes are dreadful. We might get some one worse. And then we can't afford to pay extravagantly. Mahala has been content to take less wages, and I think she means to be faithful. Perhaps if I make her understand how important it is, she will try a different manner." "Only it might be too late to do much good, if Hendie has really got to dislike her. And--besides--I've been thinking--only, you will say I'm so full of projects----" But what the project was, Mrs. Gartney did not hear at once, for just then Hendie's voice was heard again at the head of the stairs. "I tell you, mother said I might! I'm going--down--in a nice--little temper--to ask her--to send you--to Jericho!" Left foot foremost, a drop between each few syllables, he came stumping, defiantly, down the stairs, and appeared with all his eager story in his eyes. "She plagues me, mamma! She tells me to see who'll get dressed first; and if _she_ does, she says: "'The first's the best, The second's the same; The last's the worst Of all the game!' "And if _I_ get dressed first--all but the buttoning, you know--she says: "'The last's the best, The second's the same; The first's the worst Of all the game!' "And then she keeps telling me 'her little sister never behaved like me.' I asked her where her little sister was, and she said she'd gone over Jordan. I'm glad of it! I wish Mahala would go too!" Mrs. Gartney smiled, and Faith could not help laughing outright. Hendie burst into a passion of tears. "Everybody keeps plaguing me! It's too bad!" he cried, with tumultuous sobs. Faith checked her laughter instantly. She took the indignant little fellow on her lap, in despite of some slight, implacable struggle on his part, and kissed his pouting lips. "No, indeed, Hendie! We wouldn't plague you for all the world! And you don't know what I've got for you, just as soon as you're ready for it!" Hendie took his little knuckles out of his eyes. "A bunch of great red cherries, as big as your two hands!" "Where?" "I'll get them, if you're good. And then you can go out in the front yard, and eat them, so that you can drop the stones on the grass." Hendie was soon established on a flat stone under the old chestnut trees, in a happy oblivion of Mahala's injustice, and her little sister's perfections. "I'll tell you, mamma. I've been thinking we need not keep Mahala, if you don't wish. She has been so used to do nothing but run round after Hendie, that, really, she isn't much good about the house; and I'll take Hendie's trundle bed into my room, and there'll be one less chamber to take care of; and you know we always dust and arrange down here." "Yes--but the sweeping, Faithie! And the washing! Parthenia never would get through with it all." "Well, somebody might come and help wash. And I guess I can sweep." "But I can't bear to put you to such work, darling! You need your time for other things." "I have ever so much time, mother! And, besides, as Aunt Faith says, I don't believe it makes so very much matter _what_ we do. I was talking to her, the other day, about doing coarse work, and living a narrow, common kind of life, and what do you think she said?" "I can't tell, of course. Something blunt and original." "We were out in the garden. She pointed to some plants that were coming up from seeds, that had just two tough, clumsy, coarse leaves. 'What do you call them?' said auntie. 'Cotyledons, aren't they?' said I. 'I don't know what they are in botany,' said she; 'but I know the use of 'em. They'll last a while, and help feed up what's growing inside and underneath, and by and by they'll drop off, when they're done with, and you'll see what's been coming of it. Folks can't live the best right out at first, any more than plants can. I guess we all want some kind of--cotyledons.'" Mrs. Gartney's eyes shone with affection, and something that affection called there, as she looked upon her daughter. "I guess the cotyledons won't hinder your growing," said she. And so, in a few days after, Mahala was dismissed, and Faith took upon herself new duties. It was a bright, happy face that glanced hither and thither, about the house, those fair summer mornings; and it wasn't the hands alone that were busy, as under their dexterous and delicate touch all things arranged themselves in attractive and graceful order. Thought straightened and cleared itself, as furniture and books were dusted and set right; and while the carpet brightened under the broom, something else brightened and strengthened, also, within. It is so true, what the author of "Euthanasy" tells us, that exercise of limb and muscle develops not only themselves, but what is in us as we work. "Every stroke of the hammer upon the anvil hardens a little what is at the time the temper of the smith's mind." "The toil of the plowman furrows the ground, and so it does his brow with wrinkles, visibly; and invisibly, but quite as certainly, it furrows the current of feeling, common with him at his work, into an almost unchangeable channel." Faith's life purpose deepened as she did each daily task. She had hold, already, of the "high and holy work of love" that had been prophesied. "I am sure of one thing, mother," said she, gayly; "if I don't learn much that is new, I am bringing old knowledge into play. It's the same thing, taken hold of at different ends. I've learned to draw straight lines, and shape pictures; and so there isn't any difficulty in sweeping a carpet clean, or setting chairs straight. I never shall wonder again that a woman who never heard of a right angle can't lay a table even." CHAPTER XVI. "BLESSED BE YE, POOR." "And so we yearn, and so we sigh, And reach for more than we can see; And, witless of our folded wings, Walk Paradise, unconsciously." October came, and brought small dividends. The expenses upon the farm had necessarily been considerable, also, to put things in "good running order." Mr. Gartney's health, though greatly improved, was not yet so confidently to be relied on, as to make it advisable for him to think of any change, as yet, with a view to business. Indeed, there was little opportunity for business, to tempt him. Everything was flat. Mr. Gartney must wait. Mrs. Gartney and Faith felt, though they talked of waiting, that the prospect really before them was that of a careful, obscure life, upon a very limited income. The house in Mishaumok had stood vacant all the summer. There was hope, of course, of letting it now, as the winter season came on, but rents were falling, and people were timid and discouraged. October was beautiful at Kinnicutt. And Faith, when she looked out over the glory of woods and sky, felt rich with the great wealth of the world, and forgot about economies and privations. She was so glad they had come here with their altered plans, and had not struggled shabbily and drearily on in Mishaumok! It was only when some chance bit of news from the city, or a girlish, gossipy note from some school friend found its way to Cross Corners, that she felt, a little keenly, her denials--realized how the world she had lived in all her life was going on without her. It was the old plaint that Glory made, in her dark days of childhood--this feeling of despondency and loss that assailed Faith now and then--"such lots of good times in the world, and she not in 'em!" Mrs. Etherege and Saidie were coming home. Gertrude Rushleigh, Saidie's old intimate, was to be married on the twenty-eighth, and had fixed her wedding thus for the last of the month, that Miss Gartney might arrive to keep her promise of long time, by officiating as bridesmaid. The family eclipse would not overshadow Saidie. She had made her place in the world now, and with her aunt's aid and countenance, would keep it. It was quite different with Faith--disappearing, as she had done, from notice, before ever actually "coming out." "It was a thousand pities," Aunt Etherege said, when she and Saidie discussed with Mrs. Gartney, at Cross Corners, the family affairs. "And things just as they were, too! Why, another year might have settled matters for her, so that this need never have happened! At any rate, the child shouldn't be moped up here, all winter!" Mrs. Etherege had engaged rooms, on her arrival, at the Mishaumok House; and it seemed to be taken for granted by her, and by Saidie as well, that this coming home was a mere visit; that Miss Gartney would, of course, spend the greater part of the winter with her aunt; and that lady extended also an invitation to Mishaumok for a month--including the wedding festivities at the Rushleighs'--to Faith. Faith shook her head. She "knew she couldn't be spared so long." Secretly, she doubted whether it would be a good plan to go back and get a peep at things that might send her home discontented and unhappy. But her mother reasoned otherwise. Faithie must go. "The child mustn't be moped up." She would get on, somehow, without her. Mothers always can. So Faith, by a compromise, went for a fortnight. She couldn't quite resist her newly returned sister. Besides, a pressing personal invitation had come from Margaret Rushleigh to Faith herself, with a little private announcement at the end, that "Paul was refractory, and utterly refused to act as fourth groomsman, unless Faith Gartney were got to come and stand with him." Faith tore off the postscript, and might have lit it at her cheeks, but dropped it, of habit, into the fire; and then the note was at the disposal of the family. It was a whirl of wonderful excitement to Faith--that fortnight! So many people to see, so much to hear, and in the midst of all, the gorgeous wedding festival! What wonder if a little dream flitted through her head, as she stood there, in the marriage group, at Paul Rushleigh's side, and looked about her on the magnificent fashion, wherein the affection of new relatives and old friends had made itself tangible; and heard the kindly words of the elder Mr. Rushleigh to Kate Livingston, who stood with his son Philip, and whose bridal, it was well known, was to come next? Jewels, and silver, and gold, are such flashing, concrete evidences of love! And the courtly condescension of an old and world-honored man to the young girl whom his son has chosen, is such a winning and distinguishing thing! Paul Rushleigh had finished his college course, and was to go abroad this winter--between the weddings, as he said--for his brother Philip's was to take place in the coming spring. After that--things were not quite settled, but something was to be arranged for him meanwhile--he would have to begin his work in the world; and then--he supposed it would be time for him to find a helpmate. Marrying was like dying, he believed; when a family once began to go off there was soon an end of it! Blushes were the livery of the evening, and Faith's deeper glow at this audacious rattle passed unheeded, except, perhaps, as it might be somewhat willfully interpreted. There were two or three parties made for the newly married couple in the week that followed. The week after, Paul Rushleigh, with the bride and groom, was to sail for Europe. At each of these brilliant entertainments he constituted himself, as in duty bound, Faith's knight and sworn attendant; and a superb bouquet for each occasion, the result of the ransack of successive greenhouses, came punctually, from him, to her door. For years afterwards--perhaps for all her life--Faith couldn't smell heliotrope, and geranium, and orange flowers, without floating back, momentarily, into the dream of those few, enchanted days! She stayed in Mishaumok a little beyond the limit she had fixed for herself, to go, with the others, on board the steamer at the time of her sailing, and see the gay party off. Paul Rushleigh had more significant words, and another gift of flowers as a farewell. When she carried these last to her own room, to put them in water, on her return, something she had not noticed before glittered among their stems. It was a delicate little ring, of twisted gold, with a forget-me-not in turquoise and enamel upon the top. Faith was half pleased, half frightened, and wholly ashamed. Paul Rushleigh was miles out on the Atlantic. There was no help for it, she thought. It had been cunningly done. And so, in the short November days, she went back to Kinnicutt. The east parlor had to be shut up now, for the winter. The family gathering place was the sunny little sitting room; and with closed doors and doubled windows, they began, for the first time, to find that they were really living in a little bit of a house. It was very pretty, though, with the rich carpet and the crimson curtains that had come from Hickory Street, replacing the white muslin draperies and straw matting of the summer; and the books and vases, and statuettes and pictures, gathered into so small space, seemed to fill the room with luxury and beauty. Faith nestled her little workstand into a nook between the windows. Hendie's blocks and picture books were stowed in a corner cupboard. Mr. Gartney's newspapers and pamphlets, as they came, found room in a deep drawer below; and so, through the wintry drifts and gales, they were "close hauled" and comfortable. Faith was happy; yet she thought, now and then, when the whistling wind broke the stillness of the dark evenings, of light and music elsewhere; and how, a year ago, there had always been the chance of a visitor or two to drop in, and while away the hours. Nobody lifted the old-fashioned knocker, here at Cross Corners. By day, even, it was scarcely different. Kinnicutt was hibernating. Each household had drawn into its shell. And the huge drifts, lying defiant against the fences in the short, ineffectual winter sunlight, held out little hope of reanimation. Aunt Faith, in her pumpkin hood, and Rob Roy cloak, and carpet moccasins, came over once in two or three days, and even occasionally stayed to tea, and helped make up a rubber of whist for Mr. Gartney's amusement; but, beyond this, they had no social excitement. January brought a thaw; and, still further to break the monotony, there arose a stir and an anxiety in the parish. Good Mr. Holland, its minister of thirty years, whose health had been failing for many months, was at last compelled to relinquish the duties of his pulpit for a time; and a supply was sought with the ultimate probability of a succession. A new minister came to preach, who was to fill the pastor's place for the ensuing three months. On his first Sunday among them, Faith heard a wonderful sermon. I indicate thus, not the oratory, nor the rhetoric; but the _sermon_, of which these were the mere vehicle--the word of truth itself--which was spoken, seemingly, to her very thought. So also, as certainly, to the long life-thought of one other. Glory McWhirk sat in Miss Henderson's corner pew, and drank it in, as a soul athirst. A man of middle age, one might have said, at first sight--there was, here and there, a silver gleam in the dark hair and beard; yet a fire and earnestness of youth in the deep, beautiful eye, and a look in the face as of life's first flush and glow not lost, but rather merged in broader light, still climbing to its culmination, belied these tokens, and made it as if a white frost had fallen in June--rising up before the crowded village congregation, looked round upon the upturned faces, as One had looked before who brought the bread of Life to men's eager asking; and uttered the selfsame simple words. It was a certain pause and emphasis he made--a slight new rendering of punctuation--that sent home the force of those words to the people who heard them, as if it had been for the first time, and fresh from the lips of the Great Teacher. * * * * * "'Blessed are the poor: _in spirit_: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' "Herein Christ spoke, not to a class, only, but to the world! A world of souls, wrestling with the poverty of life! "In that whole assemblage--that great concourse--that had thronged from cities and villages to hear His words upon the mountainside--was there, think you, _one satisfied nature_? "Friends--are _ye_ satisfied? · · · · · "Or, does every life come to know, at first or at last, how something--a hope, or a possibility, or the fulfillment of a purpose--has got dropped out of it, or has even never entered, so that an emptiness yawns, craving, therein, forever? "How many souls hunger till they are past their appetite! Go on--down through the years--needy and waiting, and never find or grasp that which a sure instinct tells them they were made for? "This, this is the poverty of life! These are the poor, to whom God's Gospel was preached in Christ! And to these denied and waiting ones the first words of Christ's preaching--as I read them--were spoken in blessing. "Because, elsewhere, he blesses the meek; elsewhere and presently, he tells us how the lowly in spirit shall inherit the earth; so, when I open to this, his earliest uttered benediction upon our race, I read it with an interpretation that includes all humanity: "'Blessed, in spirit, are the poor. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' · · · · · "What is this Kingdom of Heaven? 'It is within you.' It is that which you hold, and live in spiritually; the _real_, of which all earthly, outward being and having are but the show. It is the region wherein little children 'do always behold the Face of my Father which is in Heaven.' It is where we are when we shut our eyes and pray in the words that Christ taught us. · · · · · "What matters, then, where your feet stand, or wherewith your hands are busy? So that it is the spot where God has put you, and the work He has given you to do? Your real life is within--hid in God with Christ--ripening, and strengthening, and waiting, as through the long, geologic ages of night and incompleteness waited the germs of all that was to unfold into this actual, green, and bounteous earth! · · · · · "The narrower your daily round, the wider, maybe, the outreach. Isolated upon a barren mountain peak, you may take in river and lake--forest, field, and valley. A hundred gardens and harvests lift their bloom and fullness to your single eye. "There is a sunlight that contracts the vision; there is a starlight that enlarges it to take in infinite space. "'God sets some souls in shade, alone. They have no daylight of their own. Only in lives of happier ones They see the shine of distant suns. "'God knows. Content thee with thy night. Thy greater heaven hath grander light, To-day is close. The hours are small. Thou sit'st afar, and hast them all. "'Lose the less joy that doth but blind; Reach forth a larger bliss to find. To-day is brief: the inclusive spheres Rain raptures of a thousand years.'" Faith could not tell what hymn was sung, or what were the words of the prayer that followed the sermon. There was a music and an uplifting in her own soul that made them needless, but for the pause they gave her. She hardly knew that a notice was read as the people rose before the benediction, when the minister gave out, as requested, that "the Village Dorcas Society would meet on Wednesday of the coming week, at Mrs. Parley Gimp's." She was made aware that it had fallen upon her ears, though heard unconsciously, when Serena Gimp caught her by the sleeve in the church porch. "Ain't it awful," said she, with a simper and a flutter of importance, "to have your name called right out so in the pulpit? I declare, if it hadn't been for seeing the new minister, I wouldn't have come to meeting, I dreaded it so! Ain't he handsome? He's old, though--thirty-five! He's broken-hearted, too! Somebody died, or something else, that he was going to be married to, ever so many years ago; and they say he hasn't hardly spoken to a lady since. That's so romantic! I don't wonder he preaches such low-spirited kind of sermons. Only I wish they warn't quite so. I suppose it's beautiful, and heavenly minded, and all that; but yet I'd rather hear something a little kind of cheerful. Don't you think so? But the poetry was elegant--warn't it? I guess it's original, too. They say he puts things in the _Mishaumok Monthly_. Come Wednesday, won't you? We shall depend, you know." To Miss Gimp, the one salient point, amidst the solemnities of the day, had been that pulpit notice. She had put new strings to her bonnet for the occasion. Mrs. Gimp, being more immediately and personally affected, had modestly remained away from church. Glory McWhirk went straight through the village, home; and out to her little room in the sunny side of the low, sloping roof. This was her winter nook. She had a shadier one, looking the other way, for summer. "I wonder if it's all true!" she cried, silently, in her soul, while she stood for a minute with bonnet and shawl still on, looking out from her little window, dreamily, over the dazzle of the snow, even as her half-blinded thought peered out from its own narrowness into the infinite splendor of the promise of God--"I wonder if God will ever make me beautiful! I wonder if I shall ever have a real, great joyfulness, that isn't a make believe!" Glory called her fancies so. They followed her still. She lived yet in an ideal world. The real world--that is, the best good of it--had not come close enough to her, even in this, her widely amended condition, to displace the other. Remember--this child of eighteen had missed her childhood; had known neither father nor mother, sister nor brother. Don't think her simple, in the pitiful meaning of the word; but she still enacted, in the midst of her plain, daily life, wonderful dreams that nobody could have ever suspected; and here, in her solitary chamber, called up at will creatures of imagination who were to her what human creatures, alas! had never been. Above all, she had a sister here, to whom she told all her secrets. This sister's name was Leonora. CHAPTER XVII. FROST-WONDERS. "No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung; Like some tall palm, the mystic fabric sprung. Majestic silence!" HEBER. The thaw continued till the snow was nearly gone. Only the great drifts against the fences, and the white folds in the rifts of distant hillsides lingered to tell what had been. Then came a day of warm rain, that washed away the last fragment of earth's cast-off vesture, and bathed her pure for the new adornment that was to be laid upon her. At night, the weather cooled, and the rain changed to a fine, slow mist, congealing as it fell. Faith stood next morning by a small round table in the sitting-room window, and leaned lovingly over her jonquils and hyacinths that were coming into bloom. Then, drawing the curtain cord to let in the first sunbeam that should slant from the south upon her bulbs, she gave a little cry of rapturous astonishment. It was a diamond morning! Away off, up the lane, and over the meadows, every tree and bush was hung with twinkling gems that the slight wind swayed against each other with tiny crashes of faint music, and the sun was just touching with a level splendor. After that first, quick cry, Faith stood mute with ecstasy. "Mother!" said she, breathlessly, at last, as Mrs. Gartney entered, "look there! have you seen it? Just imagine what the woods must be this morning! How can we think of buckwheats?" Sounds and odors betrayed that Mis' Battis and breakfast were in the little room adjoining. "There is a thought of something akin to them, isn't there, under all this splendor? Men must live, and grass and grain must grow." Mr. Gartney said this, as he came up behind wife and daughter, and laid a hand on a shoulder of each. "I know one thing, though," said Faith. "I'll eat the buckwheats, as a vulgar necessity, and then I'll go over the brook and up in the woods behind the Pasture Rocks. It'll last, won't it?" "Not many hours, with this spring balm in the air," replied her father. "You must make haste. By noon, it will be all a drizzle." "Will it be quite safe for her to go alone?" asked Mrs. Gartney. "I'll ask Aunt Faith to let me have Glory. She showed me the walk last summer. It is fair she should see this, now." So the morning odds and ends were done up quickly at Cross Corners and at the Old House, and then Faith and Glory set forth together--the latter in as sublime a rapture as could consist with mortal cohesion. The common roadside was an enchanted path. The glittering rime transfigured the very cart ruts into bars of silver; and every coarse weed was a fretwork of beauty. "Bells on their toes" they had, this morning, assuredly; each footfall made a music on the sod. Over the slippery bridge--out across a stretch of open meadow, and then along a track that skirted the border of a sparse growth of trees, projecting itself like a promontory upon the level land--round its abrupt angle into a sweep of meadow again, on whose farther verge rose the Pasture Rocks. Behind these rocks swelled up gently a slope, half pasture, half woodland--neither open ground nor forest; but, although clear enough for comfortable walking, studded pretty closely with trees that often interlaced their branches overhead, and made great, pillared aisles, among whose shade, in summer, wound delicious little footpaths that all came out together, midway up, into--what you shall be told of presently. Here, among and beyond the rocks, were oaks, and pines, and savins--each needle-like leaf a shimmering lance--each clustering branch a spray of gems--and the stout, spreading limbs of the oaks delineating themselves against the sky above in Gothic frost-work. Suddenly--before they thought it could be so near--they came up and out into a broader opening. Between two rocks that made, as it were, a gateway, and around whose bases were grouped sentinel evergreens, they came into this wider space, floored with flat rock, the surface of a hidden ledge, carpeted with crisp mosses in the summer, whose every cup and hollow held a jewel now--and inclosed with lofty oaks and pines, while, straight beyond, where the woods shut in again far closer than below, rose a bold crag, over whose brow hung pendent birches that in their icy robing drooped like glittering wings of cherubim above an altar. All around and underneath, this strange magnificence. Overhead, the everlasting Blue, that roofed it in with sapphire. In front, the rough, gigantic shrine. "It is like a cathedral!" said Faith, solemnly and low. "See!" whispered Glory, catching her companion hastily by the arm--"there is the minister!" A little way beyond them, at the right, out from among the clumps of evergreen where some other of the little wood walks opened, a figure advanced without perceiving them. It was Roger Armstrong, the new minister. He held his hat in his hand. He walked, uncovered, as he would have into a church, into this forest temple, where God's finger had just been writing on the walls. When he turned, slowly, his eye fell on the other two who stood there. It lighted up with a quick joy of sympathy. He came forward. Faith bowed. Glory stood back, shyly. Neither party seemed astonished at the meeting. It was so plain _why_ they came, that if they had wondered at all, it would have been that the whole village should not be pouring out hither, also. Mr. Armstrong led them to the center of the rocky space. "This is the best point," said he. And then was silent. There was no need of words. A greatness of thought made itself felt from one to the other. Only, between still pauses, words came that almost spoke themselves. "'Eye hath not seen, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, that which God hath prepared for them that love him.' What a commentary upon His promise is a glory like this! "'And they shall all shine like the sun in the kingdom of my Father!'" Faith stood by the minister's side, and glanced, when he spoke, from the wonderful beauty before her to a face whose look interpreted it all. There was something in the very presence of this man that drew others who approached him into the felt presence of God. Because he stood therein in the spirit. These are the true apostles whom Christ sends forth. Glory could have sobbed with an oppression of reverence, enthusiasm, and joy. "It is only a glimpse," said Mr. Armstrong, by and by. "It is going, already." A drip--drip--was beginning to be heard. "You ought to get away from under the trees before the thaw comes fully on," continued he. "A branch breaks, now and then, and the ice will be falling constantly. I can show you a more open way than the one you came by, I think." And he gave his arm to Faith over the slope that even now was growing wet and slippery in the sun. Faith touched it with a reverence, and dropped it again, modestly, when they reached a safer foothold. Glory kept behind. Mr. Armstrong turned now and then, with a kindly word, and a thought for her safety. Once he took her hand, and helped her down a sudden descent in the path, where the water had run over and made a smooth, dangerous glare. "I shall call soon to see your father and mother, Miss Gartney," said he, when they reached the road again beyond the brook, and their ways home lay in different directions. "This meeting, to-day, has given me pleasure." "How?" Faith wondered silently, as she kept on to the Cross Corners. She had hardly spoken a word. But, then, she might have remembered that the minister's own words had been few, yet her very speechlessness before him had come from the deep pleasure that his presence had given to her. The recognition of souls cares little for words. Faith's soul had been in her face to-day, as Roger Armstrong had seen it each Sunday, also, in the sweet, listening look she uplifted before him in the church. He bent toward this young, pure life, with a joy in its gentle purity; the joy of an elder over a younger angel in the school of God. And Glory? she laid up in her own heart a beautiful remembrance of something she had never known before. Of a near approach to something great and high, yet gentle and beneficent. Of a kindly, helping touch, a gracious smile, a glance that spoke straight to the mute aspiration within her. The minister had not failed, through all her humbleness and shyness, to read some syllables of that large, unuttered life of hers that lay beneath. He whose labor it is to save souls, learns always the insight that discerns souls. "I have seen the Winter!" cried Faith, glowing and joyous, as she came in from her walk. "It has been a beautiful time!" said Glory to her shadow sister, when she went to hang away hood and shawl. "It has been a beautiful time--and I've been really in it--partly!" CHAPTER XVIII. OUT IN THE SNOW. "Sydnaein showers Of sweet discourse, whose powers Can crown old winter's head with flowers." CRASHAW. Winter had not exhausted her repertory, however. She had more wonders to unfold. There came a long snowstorm. "Faithie," said her father, coming in, wrapped up in furs from a visit to the stable, "put your comfortables on, and we'll go and see the snow. We'll make tracks, literally, for the hills. There isn't a road fairly broken between here and Grover's Peak. The snow lies beautifully, though; and there isn't a breath of wind. It will be a sight to see." Faith brought, quickly, sontag, jacket, and cloak--hood and veil, and long, warm snow boots, and in ten minutes was ready, as she averred, for a sledge ride to Hudson's Bay. Luther drove the sleigh close to the kitchen door, that Faith might not have to cross the yard to reach it, and she stepped directly from the threshold into the warm nest of buffalo robes; while Mis' Battis put a great stone jug of hot water in beside her feet, asserting that it was "a real comfortin' thing on a sleigh ride, and that they needn't be afraid of its leakin', for the cork was druv in as tight as an eye tooth!" So, out by the barn, into the road, and away from the village toward the hills, they went, with the glee of resonant bells and excited expectation. A mile, or somewhat more, along the Sedgely turnpike, took them into a bit of woods that skirted the road on either side, for a considerable distance. Away in, under the trees, the stillness and the whiteness and the wonderful multiplication of snow shapes were like enchantment. Each bush had an attitude and drapery and expression of its own, as if some weird life had suddenly been spellbound in these depths. Cherubs, and old women, and tall statue shapes like images of gods, hovered, and bent, and stood majestic, in a motionless poise. Over all, the bent boughs made marble and silver arches in shadow and light, and, far down between, the vistas lengthened endlessly, still crowded with mystic figures, haunting the long galleries with their awful beauty. They went on, penetrating a lifeless silence; their horse's feet making the first prints since early morning in the unbroken smoothness of the way, and the only sound the gentle tinkle of their own bells, as they moved pleasantly, but not fleetly, along. So, up the ascent, where the land lay higher, toward the hills. "I feel," said Faith, "as if I had been hurried through the Louvre, or the Vatican, or both, and hadn't half seen anything. Was there ever anything so strange and beautiful?" "We shall find more Louvres presently," said her father. "We'll keep the road round Grover's Peak, and turn off, as we come back, down Garland Lane." "That lovely, wild, shady road we took last summer so often, where the grapevines grow so, all over the trees?" "Exactly," replied Mr. Gartney. "But you mustn't scream if we thump about a little, in the drifts up there. It's pretty rough, at the best of times, and the snow will have filled in the narrow spaces between the rocks and ridges, like a freshet. Shall you be afraid?" "Afraid! Oh, no, indeed! It's glorious! I think I should like to go everywhere!" "There is a good deal of everywhere in every little distance," said Mr. Gartney. "People get into cars, and go whizzing across whole States, often, before they stop to enjoy thoroughly something that is very like what they might have found within ten miles of home. For my part, I like microscopic journeying." "Leaving 'no stone unturned.' So do I," said Faith. "We don't half know the journey between Kinnicutt and Sedgely yet, I think. And then, too, they're multiplied, over and over, by all the different seasons, and by different sorts of weather. Oh, we shan't use them up, in a long while!" Saidie Gartney had not felt, perhaps, in all her European travel, the sense of inexhaustible pleasure that Faith had when she said this. Down under Grover's Peak, with the river on one side, and the white-robed cedar thickets rising on the other--with the low afternoon sun glinting across from the frosted roofs of the red mill buildings and barns and farmhouses to the rocky slope of the Peak. Then they came round and up again, over a southerly ridge, by beautiful Garland Lane, that she knew only in its summer look, when the wild grape festooned itself wantonly from branch to branch, and sometimes, even, from side to side; and so gave the narrow forest road its name. Quite into fairyland they had come now, in truth; as if, skirting the dark peak that shut it off from ordinary espial, they had lighted on a bypath that led them covertly in. Trailing and climbing vines wore their draperies lightly; delicate shrubs bowed like veiled shapes in groups around the bases of tall tree trunks, and slight-stemmed birches quivered under their canopies of snow. Little birds hopped in and out under the pure, still shelter, and left their tiny tracks, like magical hieroglyphs, in the else untrodden paths. "Lean this way, Faith, and keep steady!" cried Mr. Gartney, as the horse plunged breast high into a drift, and the sleigh careened toward the side Faith was on. It was a sharp strain, but they plowed their way through, and came upon a level again. This by-street was literally unbroken. No one had traversed it since the beginning of the storm. The drifts had had it all their own way there, and it involved no little adventurousness and risk, as Mr. Gartney began to see, to pioneer a passage through. But the spirit of adventure was upon them both. On all, I should say; for the strong horse plunged forward, from drift to drift, as though he delighted in the encounter. Moreover, to turn was impossible. Faith laughed, and gave little shrieks, alternately, as they rose triumphantly from deep, "slumpy" hollows, or pitched headlong into others again. Thus, struggling, enjoying--just frightened enough, now and then, to keep up the excitement--they came upon the summit of the ridge. Now their way lay downward. This began to look really almost perilous. With careful guiding, however, and skillful balancing--tipping, creaking, sinking, emerging--they kept on slowly, about half the distance down the descent. Suddenly, the horse, as men and brutes, however sagacious, sometimes will, made a miscalculation of depth or power--lost his sure balance--sunk to his body in the yielding snow--floundered violently in an endeavor to regain safe footing--and, snap! crash! was down against the drift at the left, with a broken shaft under him! Mr. Gartney sprang to his head. One runner was up--one down. The sleigh stuck fast at an angle of about thirty degrees. Faith clung to the upper side. Here was a situation! What was to be done? Twilight coming on--no help near--no way of getting anywhere! "Faith," said Mr. Gartney, "what have you got on your feet?" "Long, thick snow boots, father. What can I do?" "Do you dare to come and try to unfasten these buckles? There is no danger. Major can't stir while I hold him by the head." Faith jumped out into the snow, and valorously set to work at the buckles. She managed to undo one, and to slip out the fastening of the trace, on one side, where it held to the whiffletree. But the horse was lying so that she could not get at the other. "I'll come there, father!" she cried, clambering and struggling through the drift till she came to the horse's head. "Can't I hold him while you undo the harness?" "I don't believe you can, Faithie. He isn't down so flat as to be quite under easy control." "Not if I sit on his head?" asked Faith. "That might do," replied her father, laughing. "Only you would get frightened, maybe, and jump up too soon." "No, I won't," said Faith, quite determined upon heroism. While she spoke, she had picked up the whip, which had fallen close by, doubled back the lash against the handle, and was tying her blue veil to its tip. Then she sat down on the animal's great cheek, which she had never fancied to be half so broad before, and gently patted his nose with one hand, while she upheld her blue flag with the other. Major's big, panting breaths came up, close beside her face. She kept a quick, watchful eye upon the road below. "He's as quiet as can be, father! It must be what Miss Beecher called the 'chivalry of horses'!" "It's the chivalry that has to develop under petticoat government!" retorted Mr. Gartney. At this moment Faith's blue flag waved vehemently over her head. She had caught the jingle of bells, and perceived a sleigh, with a man in it, come out into the crossing at the foot of Garland Lane. The man descried the signal and the disaster, and the sleigh stopped. Alighting, he led his horse to the fence, fastened him there, and turning aside into the steep, narrow, unbroken road, began a vigorous struggle through the drifts to reach the wreck. Coming nearer, he discerned and recognized Mr. Gartney, who also, at the same moment, was aware of him. It was Mr. Armstrong. "Keep still a minute longer, Faith," said her father, lifting the remaining shaft against the dasher, and trying to push the sleigh back, away from the animal. But this, alone, he was unable to accomplish. So the minister came up, and found Faith still seated on the horse's head. "Miss Gartney! Let me hold him!" cried he. "I'm quite comfortable!" laughed Faith. "If you would just help my father, please!" The sleigh was drawn back by the combined efforts of the two gentlemen, and then both came round to Faith. "Now, Faith, jump!" said her father, placing his hands upon the creature's temple, close beside her, while Mr. Armstrong caught her arms to snatch her safely away. Faith sprang, or was lifted as she sprang, quite to the top of the huge bank of snow under and against which they had, among them, beaten in and trodden down such a hollow, and the instant after, Mr. Gartney releasing Major's head, and uttering a sound of encouragement, the horse raised himself, with a half roll, and a mighty scramble, first to his knees, and then to his four feet again, and shook his great skin. Mr. Gartney examined the harness. The broken shaft proved the extent of damage done. This, at the moment, however, was irremediable. He knotted the hanging straps and laid them over the horse's neck. Then he folded a buffalo skin, and arranged it, as well as he could, above and behind the saddle, which he secured again by its girth. "Mr. Armstrong," said he, as he completed this disposal of matters, "you came along in good time. I am very much obliged to you. If you will do me the further favor to take my daughter home, I will ride to the nearest house where I can obtain a sleigh, and some one to send back for these traps of mine." "Miss Gartney," said the minister, in answer, "can you sit a horse's back as well as you did his eyebrow?" Faith laughed, and reaching her arms to the hands upheld for them, was borne safely from her snowy pinnacle to the buffalo cushion. Her father took the horse by the bit, and Mr. Armstrong kept at his side holding Faith firmly to her seat. In this fashion, grasping the bridle with one hand, and resting the other on Mr. Armstrong's shoulder, she was transported to the sleigh at the foot of the hill. "We were talking about long journeys in small circuits," said Faith, when she was well tucked in, and they had set off on a level and not utterly untracked road. "I think I have been to the Alhambra, and to Rome, and have had a peep into fairyland, and come back, at last, over the Alps!" Mr. Armstrong understood her. "It has been beautiful," said he. "I shall begin to expect always to encounter you whenever I get among things wild and wonderful!" "And yet I have lived all my life, till now, in tame streets," said Faith. "I thought I was getting into tamer places still, when we first came to the country. But I am finding out Kinnicutt. One can't see the whole of anything at once." "We are small creatures, and can only pick up atoms as we go, whether of things outward or inward. People talk about taking 'comprehensive views'; and they suppose they do it. There is only One who does." Faith was silent. "Did it ever occur to you," said Mr. Armstrong, "how little your thought can really grasp at once, even of what you already know? How narrow your mental horizon is?" "Doesn't it seem strange," said Faith, in a subdued tone, "that the earth should all have been made for such little lives to be lived in, each in its corner?" "If it did not thereby prove these little lives to be but the beginning. This great Beyond that we get glimpses of, even upon earth, makes it so sure to us that there must be an Everlasting Life, to match the Infinite Creation. God puts us, as He did Moses, into a cleft of the rock, that we may catch a glimmer of His glory as He goes by; and then He tells us that one day we 'shall know even as also we are known'!" "And I suppose it ought to make us satisfied to live whatever little life is given us?" said Faith, gently and wistfully. Mr. Armstrong turned toward her, and looked earnestly into her eyes. "Has that thought troubled _you_, too? Never let it do so again, my child! Believe that however little of tangible present good you may have, you have the unseen good of heaven, and the promise of all things to come." "But we do see lives about us in the world that seem to be and to accomplish so much!" "And so we ask why ours should not be like them? Yes; all souls that aspire, must question that; but the answer comes! I will give you, some day, if you like, the thought that comforted me at a time when that question was a struggle." "I _should_ like!" said Faith, with deeply stirred and grateful emphasis. Then they drove on in silence, for a while; and then the minister, pleasantly and easily, brought on a conversation of everyday matters; and so they came to Cross Corners, just as Mrs. Gartney was gazing a little anxiously out of the window, down the road. Mrs. Gartney urged the minister to come in and join them at the tea table; but "it was late in the week--he had writing to finish at home that evening--he would very gladly come another time." "Mother!" cried Faith, presently, moving out of a dream in which she had been sitting before the fire, "I wonder whether it has been two hours, or two weeks, or two years, since we set off from the kitchen door! I have seen so much, and I have heard so much. I told Mr. Armstrong, after we met him, that I had been through the Alhambra and the Vatican, and into fairyland, and over the Alps. And after that, mother," she added, low, "I think he almost took me into heaven!" CHAPTER XIX. A "LEADING." "The least flower, with a brimming cup, may stand And share its dewdrop with another near." MRS. BROWNING. Glory McWhirk was waiting upstairs, in Faith's pretty, white, dimity-hung chamber. These two girls, of such utterly different birth and training, were drawing daily toward each other across the gulf of social circumstance that separated them. Twice a week, now, Glory came over, and found her seat and her books ready in Miss Faith's pleasant room, and Faith herself waiting to impart to her, or to put her in the way of gathering, those bits of week-day knowledge she had ignorantly hungered for so long. Glory made quick progress. A good, plain foundation had been laid during the earlier period of her stay with Miss Henderson, by a regular attendance, half daily, at the district school. Aunt Faith said "nobody's time belonged to anybody that knew better themselves, until they could read, and write, and figure, and tell which side of the globe they lived on." Then, too, the girl's indiscriminate gleaning from such books as had come in her way, through all these years, assorted itself gradually, now, about new facts. Glory's "good times" had, verily, begun at last. On this day that she sat waiting, Faith had been called down by her mother to receive some village ladies who had walked over to Cross Corners to pay a visit. Glory had time for two or three chapters of "Ivanhoe," and to tell Hendie, who strayed in, and begged for it, Bridget Foye's old story of the little red hen, while the regular course of topics was gone through below, of the weather--the new minister--the last meeting of the Dorcas Society--the everlasting wants and helplessness of Mrs. Sheffley and her seven children, and whether the society had better do anything more for them--the trouble in the west district school, and the question "where the Dorcas bag was to go next time." At last, the voices and footsteps retreated, through the entry, the door closed somewhat promptly as the last "good afternoon" was said, and Faith sprang up the narrow staircase. There was a lesson in Geography, and a bit of natural Philosophy to be done first, and then followed their Bible talk; for this was Saturday. Before Glory went it had come to be Faith's practice always to read to her some bit of poetry--a gem from Tennyson or Mrs. Browning, or a stray poem from a magazine or paper which she had laid by as worthy. "Glory," said she, to-day, "I'm going to let you share a little treasure of mine--something Mr. Armstrong gave me." Glory's eyes deepened and glowed. "It is thoughts," said Faith. "Thoughts in verse. I shall read it to you, because I think it will just answer you, as it did me. Don't you feel, sometimes, like a little brook in a deep wood?" Glory's gaze never moved from Faith's face. Her poetical instinct seized the image, and the thought of her life applied it. "All alone, and singing to myself? Yes, I _did_, Miss Faith. But I think it is growing lighter and pleasanter every day. I think I am getting----" "Stop! stop!" said Faith. "Don't steal the verses before I read them! You're such a queer child, Glory! One never can tell you anything." And then Faith gave her pearls; because she knew they would not be trampled under foot, but taken into a heart and held there; and because just such a rapt and reverent ecstasy as her own had been when the minister had given her, in fulfillment of his promise, this thought of his for the comfort that was in it, looked out from the face that was uplifted to hers. "'Up in the wild, where no one comes to look, There lives and sings, a little lonely brook; Liveth and singeth in the dreary pines, Yet creepeth on to where the daylight shines. "'Pure from their heaven, in mountain chalice caught, It drinks the rains, as drinks the soul her thought; And down dim hollows, where it winds along, Bears its life-burden of unlistened song. "'I catch the murmur of its undertone That sigheth, ceaselessly,--alone! alone! And hear, afar, the Rivers gloriously Shout on their paths toward the shining sea! "'The voiceful Rivers, chanting to the sun; And wearing names of honor, every one; Outreaching wide, and joining hand with hand To pour great gifts along the asking land. "'Ah, lonely brook! creep onward through the pines! Press through the gloom, to where the daylight shines! Sing on among the stones, and secretly Feel how the floods are all akin to thee! "'Drink the sweet rain the gentle heaven sendeth; Hold thine own path, howeverward it tendeth; For, somewhere, underneath the eternal sky, Thou, too, shalt find the Rivers, by-and-by!'" Faith's voice trembled with earnestness as she finished. When she looked up from the paper as she refolded it, tears were running down Glory's cheeks. "Why, the little brook has overflowed!" cried Faith, playfully. If she had not found this to say, she would have cried, herself. "Miss Faith!" said Glory, "I ain't sure whether I was meant to tell; but do you know what the minister has asked Miss Henderson? Perhaps she won't; I'm afraid not; it would be _too_ good a time! but he wants her to let him come and board with her! Just think what it would be for him to be in the house with us all the time! Why, Miss Faith, it would be just as if one of those great Rivers had come rolling along through the dark woods, right among the little lonely brooks!" Faith made no answer. She was astonished. Miss Henderson had said nothing of it. She never did make known her subjects of deliberation till the deliberations had become conclusions. "Why, you don't seem glad!" "I _am_ glad," said Faith, slowly and quietly. She was strangely conscious at the moment that she said so, glad as she would be if Mr. Armstrong were really to come so near, and she might see him daily, of a half jealousy that Glory should be nearer still. It was quite true that Mr. Armstrong had this wish. Hitherto, he had been at the house of the elder minister, Mr. Holland. A unanimous invitation had been given to Mr. Armstrong by the people to remain among them as their settled pastor. This he had not yet consented to do. But he had entered upon another engagement of six months, to preach for them. Now he needed a permanent home, which he could not conveniently have at Mr. Holland's. There was great putting of heads together at the "Dorcas," about it. Mrs. Gimp "would offer; but then--there was Serena, and folks would talk." Other families had similar holdbacks--that is the word, for they were not absolute insuperabilities--wary mothers were waiting until it should appear positively necessary that _somebody_ should waive objection, and take the homeless pastor in; and each watched keenly for the critical moment when it should be just late enough, and not too late, for her to yield. Meanwhile, Mr. Armstrong quietly left all this seething, and walked off out of the village, one day, to Cross Corners, and asked Miss Henderson if he might have one of her quaint, pleasant, old-fashioned rooms. Miss Henderson was deliberating. This very afternoon, she sat in the southwest tea parlor, with her knitting forgotten in her lap, and her eyes searching the bright western sky, as if for a gleam that should light her to decision. "It ain't that I mind the trouble. And it ain't that there isn't house room. And it ain't that I don't like the minister," soliloquized she. "It's whether it would be respectable common sense. I ain't going to take the field with the Gimps and the Leatherbees, nor to have them think it, either. She's over here almost every blessed day of her life. I might as well try to keep the sunshine out of the old house, as to keep her; and I should be about as likely to want to do one as the other. But just let me take in Mr. Armstrong, and there'd be all the eyes in the village watching. There couldn't so much as a cat walk in or out, but they'd know it, somehow. And they'd be sure to say she was running after the minister." Miss Henderson's pronouns were not precise in their reference. It isn't necessary for soliloquy to be exact. She understood herself, and that sufficed. "It would be a disgrace to the parish, anyhow," she resumed, "to let those Gimps and Leatherbees get him into their net; and they'll do it if Providence or somebody don't interpose. I wish I was sure whether it was a leading or not!" By and by she reverted, at last, as she always did, to that question of its being a "leading," or not; and, taking down the old Bible from the corner shelf, she laid it with solemnity on the little light stand at her side, and opened it, as she had known her father do, in the important crises of his life, for an "indication." The wooden saddle and the gun were not all that had come down to Aunt Faith from the primitive days of the Puritan settlers. The leaves parted at the story of the Good Samaritan. Bible leaves are apt to part, as the heart opens, in accordance with long habit and holy use. That evening, while Glory was washing up the tea things, Aunt Faith put on cloak and hood, and walked over to Cross Corners. "No--I won't take off my things," she replied to Mrs. Gartney's advance of assistance. "I've just come over to tell you what I'm going to do. I've made up my mind to take the minister to board. And when the washing and ironing's out of the way, next week, I shall fix up a room for him, and he'll come." "That's a capital plan, Aunt Faith!" said her nephew, with a tone of pleased animation. "Cross Corners will be under obligation to you. Mr. Armstrong is a man whom I greatly respect and admire." "So do I," said Miss Henderson. "And if I didn't, when a man is beset with thieves all the way from Jerusalem to Jericho, it's time for some kind of a Samaritan to come along." Next day, Mis' Battis heard the news, and had her word of comment to offer. "She's got room enough for him, if that's all; but I wouldn't a believed she'd have let herself be put about and upset so, if it was for John the Baptist! I always thought she was setter'n an old hen! But then, she's gittin' into years, and it's kinder handy, I s'pose, havin' a minister round the house, sayin' she should be took anyways sudden!" Village comments it would be needless to attempt to chronicle. April days began to wear their tearful beauty, and the southwest room at the old house was given up to Mr. Armstrong. CHAPTER XX. PAUL. "Standing, with reluctant feet, Where the brook and river meet, Womanhood and childhood fleet!" LONGFELLOW. Glory had not been content with the utmost she could find to do in making the southwest room as clean, and bright, and fresh, and perfect in its appointments as her zealous labor and Miss Henderson's nice, old-fashioned methods and materials afforded possibility for. Twenty times a day, during the few that intervened between its fitting up and Mr. Armstrong's occupation of it, she darted in, to settle a festoon of fringe, or to pick a speck from the carpet, or to move a chair a hair's-breadth this way or that, or to smooth an invisible crease in the counterpane, or, above all, to take a pleased survey of everything once more, and to wonder how the minister would like it. So well, indeed, he liked it, when he had taken full possession, that he seemed to divine the favorite room must have been relinquished to him, and to scruple at keeping it quite solely to himself. In the pleasant afternoons, when the spring sun got round to his westerly windows, and away from the southeast apartment, whither Miss Henderson had betaken herself, her knitting work, and her Bible, and where now the meals were always spread, he would open his door, and let the pleasantness stray out across the passage, and into the keeping room, and would often take a book, and come in, himself, also, with the sunlight. Then Glory, busy in the kitchen, just beyond, would catch words of conversation, or of reading, or even be called in to hear the latter. And she began to think that there were good times, truly, in this world, and that even she was "in 'em!" April days, as they lengthened and brightened, brought other things, also, to pass. The Rushleigh party had returned from Europe. Faith had a note from Margaret. The second wedding was close at hand, and would she not come down? But her services as bridesmaid were not needed this time; there was nothing so exceedingly urgent in the invitation--Faith's intimacy was with the Rushleighs, not the Livingstons--that she could not escape its acceptance if she desired; and so--there was a great deal to be done in summer preparation, which Mis' Battis, with her deliberate dignity, would never accomplish alone; also, there was the forget-me-not ring lying in her box of ornaments, that gave her a little troubled perplexity as often as she saw it there; and Faith excused herself in a graceful little note, and stayed at Cross Corners, helping her mother fold away the crimson curtains, and get up the white muslin ones, make up summer sacks for Hendie, and retouch her own simple wardrobe, which this year could receive little addition. One day, Aunt Faith had twisted her foot by a slip upon the stairs, and was kept at home. Glory, of course, was obliged to remain also, as Miss Henderson was confined, helpless, to her chair or sofa. Faith Gartney and the minister walked down the pleasant lane, and along the quiet road to the village church, together. Faith had fresh, white ribbons, to-day, upon her simple straw bonnet, and delicate flowers and deep green leaves about her face. She seemed like an outgrowth of the morning, so purely her sweet look and fair unsulliedness of attire reflected the significance of the day's own newness and beauty. "Do you know," said Mr. Armstrong, presently, after the morning greeting had passed, and they had walked a few paces, silently, "do you know that you are one of Glory's saints, Miss Faith?" Faith's wondering eyes looked out their questioning astonishment from a deep rosiness that overspread her face. The minister was not apt to make remarks of at all a personal bearing. Neither was this allusion to sainthood quite to have been looked for, from his lips. Faith could scarcely comprehend. "I found her this morning, as I came out to cross the field, sitting on the doorstone with her Bible and a rosary of beautiful, small, variously tinted shells upon her lap. I stopped to speak with her, and asked leave to look at them. 'They were given to me when I was very little,' she said. 'A lady sent them from Rome. The Pope blessed them!' 'They are very beautiful,' I said, 'and a blessing, if that mean a true man's prayer, can never be worthless. But,' I asked her, 'do you _use_ these, Glory?' 'Not as she did once,' she said. She had almost forgotten about that. She knew the larger beads stood for saints, and the smaller ones between were prayers. 'But,' she went on, 'it isn't for my prayers I keep them now. I've named some of my saints' beads for the people that have done me the most good in my life, and been the kindest to me; and the little ones are thoughts, and things they've taught me. This large one, with the queer spots, is Miss Henderson; and this lovely rose-colored one is Miss Faith; and these are Katie Ryan and Bridget Foye; but you don't know about them.' And then she timidly told me that the white one next the cross was mine. The child humbled me, Miss Faith! It is nearly fearful, sometimes, to get a glimpse of what one is to some trustful human soul, who looks through one toward the Highest!" Faith had tears in her eyes. "Glory is such a strange girl," said she. "She seems to have an instinct for things that other people are educated up to." "She has seized the spirit of the dead Roman calendar, and put it into this rosary. Our saints _are_ the spirits through whom God wills to send us of His own. Whatever becomes to us a channel of His truth and love we must involuntarily canonize and consecrate. Woe, if by the same channel ever an offense cometh!" Perhaps Faith was nearly the only person in church, to-day, who did not notice that there were strangers in the pew behind the Gimps. When she came out, she was joined; and not by strangers. Margaret and Paul Rushleigh came eagerly to her side. "We came out to Lakeside to stay a day or two with the Morrises; and ran away from them here, purposely to meet you. And we mean to be very good, and go to church all day, if you will take us home with you meanwhile." Faith, between her surprise, her pleasure, her embarrassment, the rush of old remembrance, and a quick, apprehensive thought of Mis' Battis and her probable arrangements, made almost an awkward matter of her reply. But her father and mother came up, welcomed the Rushleighs cordially, and the five were presently on their way toward Cross Corners, and Faith had recovered sufficient self-possession to say something beyond mere words of course. Paul Rushleigh looked very handsome! And very glad, too, to see shy Faith, who kept as invisible as might be at Margaret's other side, and looked there, in her simple spring dress contrasted with Margaret's rich and fashionable, though also simple and ladylike attire, like a field daisy beside a garden rose. Dinner was of no moment. There was only roast chicken, dressed the day before, and reheated and served with hot vegetables since their coming in, and a custard pudding, and some pastry cakes that Faith's fingers had shaped, and coffee; but they drank in balm and swallowed sunshine, and the essence of all that was to be concrete by and by in fruitful fields and gardens. And they talked of old times! Three years old, nearly! And Faith and Margaret laughed, and Mrs. Gartney listened, and dispensed dinner, or spoke gently now and then, and Paul did his cleverest with Mr. Gartney, so that the latter gentleman declared afterwards that "young Rushleigh was a capital fellow; well posted; his father's million didn't seem to have spoiled him yet." Altogether, this unexpected visit infused great life at Cross Corners. Why was it that Faith, when she thought it all over, tried to weigh so very nicely just the amount of gladness she had felt; and was dimly conscious of a vague misgiving, deep down, lest her father and mother might possibly be a little more glad than she was quite ready to have them? What made her especially rejoice that Saidie and the strawberries had not come yet? When Paul Rushleigh took her hand at parting, he glanced down at the fair little fingers, and then up, inquiringly, at Faith's face. Her eyes fell, and the color rose, till it became an indignation at itself. She grew hot, for days afterwards, many a time, as she remembered it. Who has not blushed at the self-suspicion of blushing? Who has not blushed at the simple recollection of having blushed before? On Monday, this happened. Faith went over to the Old House, to inquire about Aunt Henderson's foot, and to sit with her, if she should wish it, for an hour. She chose the hour at which she thought Mr. Armstrong usually walked to the village. Somehow, greatly as she enjoyed all the minister's kindly words, and each moment of his accidental presence, she had, of late, almost invariably taken this time for coming over to see Aunt Faith. A secret womanly instinct, only, it was; waked into no consciousness, and but ignorantly aware of its own prompting. To-day, however, Mr. Armstrong had not gone out. Some writing that he was tempted to do, contrary to his usual Monday habit, had detained him within. And so, just as Miss Henderson, having given the history of her slip, and the untoward wrenching of her foot, and its present condition, to Faith's inquiries, asked her suddenly, "if they hadn't had some city visitors yesterday, and what sent them flacketting over from Lakeside to church in the village?" the minister walked in. If he hadn't heard, she might not have done it; but, with the abrupt question, came, as abruptly, the hot memory of yesterday; and with those other eyes, beside the doubled keenness of Aunt Faith's over her spectacles, upon her, it was so much worse if she should, that of course she couldn't help doing it! She colored up, and up, till the very roots of her soft hair tingled, and a quick shame wrapped her as in a flaming garment. The minister saw, and read. Not quite the obvious inference Faith might fear--he had a somewhat profounder knowledge of nature than that--but what persuaded him there was a thought, at least, between the two who met yesterday, more than of a mere chance greeting; it might not lie so much with Faith as with the other; yet it had the power--even the consciousness of its unspoken being, to send the crimson to her face. What kept the crimson there and deepened it, he knew quite well. He knew the shame was at having blushed at all. Nevertheless, Mr. Armstrong remembered that blush, and pondered it, almost as long as Faith herself. In the little time that he had felt himself her friend, he had grown to recognize so fully, and to prize so dearly, her truth, her purity, her high-mindedness, her reverence, that no new influence could show itself in her life, without touching his solicitous love. Was this young man worthy of a blush from Faith? Was there a height in his nature answering to the reach of hers? Was the quick, impulsive pain that came to him in the thought of how much that rose hue of forehead and cheek might mean, an intuition of his stronger and more instructed soul of a danger to the child that she might not dream? Be it as it might, Roger Armstrong pondered. He would also watch. CHAPTER XXI. PRESSURE. "To be warped, unconsciously, by the magnetic influence of all around is the destiny, to a certain extent, of even the greatest souls."--OAKFIELD. June came, and Saidie Gartney. Not for flowers, or strawberries, merely; but for father's and mother's consent that, in a few weeks, when flowers and strawberries should have fully come, there should be a marriage feast made for her in the simple home, and she should go forth into the gay world again, the bride of a wealthy New York banker. Aunt Etherege and Saidie filled the house. With finery, with bustle, with important presence. Miss Gartney's engagement had been sudden; her marriage was to be speedy. Half a dozen seamstresses, and as many sewing machines, were busy in New York--hands, feet, and wheels--in making up the delicate draperies for the _trousseau_; and Madame A---- was frantic with the heap of elaborate dresses that was thrust upon her hands, and must be ready for the thirtieth. Mrs. Gartney and Faith had enough to do, to put the house and themselves in festival trim. Hendie was spoiled with having no lessons, and more toys and sugar plums than he knew what to do with. Mr. Selmore's comings and goings made special ebullitions, weekly, where was only a continuous lesser effervescence before. Mis' Battis had not been able to subside into an armchair since the last day of May. Faith found great favor in the eyes of her brother-in-law elect. He pronounced her a "_naïve, piquante_ little person," and already there was talk of how pleasant it would be, to have her in Madison Square, and show her to the world. Faith said nothing to this, but in her heart she clung to Kinnicutt. Glory thought Miss Gartney wonderful. Even Mr. Armstrong spoke to Aunt Faith of the striking beauty of her elder niece. "I don't know how she _does_ look," Aunt Faith replied, with all her ancient gruffness. "I see a great show of flounces, and manners, and hair; but they don't look as if they all grew, natural. I can't make _her_ out, amongst all that. Now, _Faith's_ just Faith. You see her prettiness the minute you look at her, as you do a flower's." "There are not many like Miss Faith," replied Mr. Armstrong. "I never knew but one other who so wore the fresh, pure beauty of God's giving." His voice was low and quiet, and his eye looked afar, as he spoke. Glory went away, and sat down on the doorstone. There was a strange tumult at her heart. In the midst, a noble joy. About it, a disquietude, as of one who feels shut out--alone. "I don't know what ails me. I wonder if I ain't glad! Of course, it's nothing to me. I ain't in it. But it must be beautiful to be so! And to have such words said! _She_ don't know what a sight the minister thinks of her! I know. I knew before. It's beautiful--but I ain't in it. Only, I think I've got the feeling of it all. And I'm glad it's real, somewhere. Some way, I seem to have so much _here_, that never grows out into anything. Maybe I'd be beautiful if it did!" So talked Glory, interjectionally, with herself. In the midst of these excited days, there came two letters to Mr. Gartney. One was from a gentleman in Michigan, in relation to some land Mr. Gartney owned there, taken years ago, at a very low valuation, for a debt. This was likely, from the rapid growth and improvement in the neighborhood, to become, within a few years, perhaps, a property of some importance. The other letter was from his son, James Gartney, in San Francisco. The young man urged his father to consider whether it might not be a good idea for him to come out and join him in California. James Gartney's proposal evidently roused his attention. It was a great deal to think of, certainly; but it was worth thinking of, too. James had married in San Francisco, had a pleasant home there, and was prospering. Many old business friends had gone from Mishaumok, in the years when the great flood of enterprise set westward across the continent, and were building up name and influence in the Golden Land. The idea found a place in his brain, and clung there. Only, there was Faith! But things might come round so that even this thought need to be no hindrance to the scheme. Changes, and plans, and interests, and influences were gathering; all to bear down upon one young life. "More news!" said Mr. Gartney, one morning, coming in from his walk to the village post office, to the pleasant sitting room, or morning room, as Mrs. Etherege and Saidie called it, where Faith was helping her sister write a list of the hundreds who were to receive Mr. and Mrs. Selmore's cards--"At Home, in September, in Madison Square." "Whom do you think I met in the village, this morning?" Everybody looked up, and everybody's imagination took a discursive leap among possibilities, and then everybody, of course, asked "Whom?" "Old Jacob Rushleigh, himself. He has taken a house at Lakeside, for the summer. And he has bought the new mills just over the river. That is to give young Paul something to do, I imagine. Kinnicutt has begun to grow; and when places or people once take a start, there's no knowing what they may come to. Here's something for you, Faithie, that I dare say tells all about it." And he tossed over her shoulder, upon the table, a letter, bearing her name, in Margaret Rushleigh's chirography, upon the cover. Faith's head was bent over the list she was writing; but the vexatious color, feeling itself shielded in her face, crept round till it made her ear tips rosy. Saidie put out her forefinger, with a hardly perceptible motion, at the telltale sign, and nodded at Aunt Etherege behind her sister's back. Aunt Etherege looked bland and sagacious. Upstairs, a little after, these sentences were spoken in Saidie's room. "Of course it will be," said the younger to the elder lady. "It's been going on ever since they were children. Faith hasn't a right to say no, now. And what else brought him up here after houses and mills?" "I don't see that the houses and mills were necessary to the object. Rather cumbersome and costly machinery, I should think, to bring to bear upon such a simple purpose." "Oh, the business plan is something that has come up accidentally, no doubt. Running after one thing, people very often stumble upon another. But it will all play in together, you'll see. Only, I'm afraid I shan't have the glory of introducing Faithie in New York!" "It would be as good a thing as possible. And I can perceive that your father and mother count upon it, also. In their situation what a great relief it would be! Of course, Henderson never could do so mad a thing as take the child up by the roots, again, and transplant her to San Francisco! And I see plainly he has got that in his own head." A door across the passage at this moment shut, softly, but securely. Behind it, in her low chair by her sewing table sat the young sister whose fate had been so lightly decreed. Was it all just so, as Saidie had said? Had she no longer a right to say no? Only themselves know how easily, how almost inevitably, young judgments and consciences are drawn on in the track beaten down for them by others. Many and many a life decision has been made, through this _taking for granted_ that bears with its mute, but magnetic power, upon the shyness and irresolution that can scarcely face and interpret its own wish or will. It was very true, that, as Saidie Gartney had said, "this had been going on for years." For years, Faith had found great pleasantness in the companionship and evident preference of Paul Rushleigh. There had been nobody to compare with him in her young set in Mishaumok. She knew he liked her. She had been proud of it. The girlish fancy, that may be forgotten in after years, or may, fostered by circumstance, endure and grow into a calm and happy wifehood, had been given to him. And what troubled her now? Was it that always, when the decisive moment approaches, there is a little revulsion of timid feminine feeling, even amidst the truest joy? Or was it that a new wine had been given into Faith's life, which would not be held in the old bottles? Was she uncertain--inconstant; or had she spiritually outgrown her old attachment? Or, was she bewildered, now, out of the discernment of what was still her heart's desire and need? Paul was kind, and true, and manly. She recognized all this in him as surely as ever. If he had turned from, and forgotten her, she would have felt a pang. What was this, then, that she felt, as he came near, and nearer? And then, her father! Had he really begun to count on this? Do men know how their young daughters feel when the first suggestion comes that they are not regarded as born for perpetual daughterhood in the father's house? Would she even encumber his plans, if she clung still to her maidenly life? By all these subtleties does the destiny of woman close in upon her. Margaret Rushleigh's letter was full of delight, and eagerness, and anticipation. She and Paul had been so charmed with Kinnicutt and Lakeside; and there had happened to be a furnished house to let for the season close by the Morrises, and they had persuaded papa to take it. They were tired of the seashore, and Conway was getting crowded to death. They wanted a real summer in the country. And then this had turned up about the mills! Perhaps, now, her father would build, and they should come up every year. Perhaps Paul would stay altogether, and superintend. Perhaps--anything! It was all a delightful chaos of possibilities; with this thing certain, that she and Faith would be together for the next four months in the glorious summer shine and bloom. Miss Gartney's wedding was simple. The stateliness and show were all reserved for Madison Square. Mr. Armstrong pronounced the solemn words, in the shaded summer parlor, with the door open into the sweeter and stiller shade without. Faith stood by her sister's side, in fair, white robes, and Mr. Robert Selmore was groomsman to his brother. A few especial friends from Mishaumok and Lakeside were present to witness the ceremony. And then there was a kissing--a hand-shaking--a well-wishing--a going out to the simple but elegantly arranged collation--a disappearance of the bride to put on traveling array--a carriage at the door--smiles, tears, and good-bys--Mr., and Mrs., and Mr. Robert Selmore were off to meet the Western train--and all was over. Mrs. Etherege remained a few days longer at Cross Corners. As Mis' Battis judiciously remarked, "after a weddin' or a funeral, there ought to be somebody to stay a while and cheer up the mourners." This visit, that had been so full of happenings, was to have a strange occurrence still to mark it, before all fell again into the usual order. Aunt Etherege was to go on Thursday. On Wednesday, the three ladies sat together in the cool, open parlor, where Mr. Armstrong, walking over from the Old House, had joined them. He had the July number of the _Mishaumok_ in his hand, and a finger between the fresh-cut leaves at a poem he would read them. Just as he had finished the last stanza, amidst a hush of the room that paid tribute to the beauty of the lines and his perfect rendering of them, wheels came round from the high road into the lane. "It is Mr. Gartney come back from Sedgely," said Aunt Etherege, looking from her window, between the blinds. "Whom on earth has he picked up to bring with him?" A thin, angular figure of a woman, destitute of crinoline, wearing big boots, and a bonnet that ignored the fashion, and carrying in her hand a black enameled leather bag, was alighting as she spoke, at the gate. "Mother!" said Faith, leaning forward, and glancing out, also, "it looks like--it is--Nurse Sampson!" And she put her work hastily from her lap, and rose to go out at the side door, to meet and welcome her. To do this, she had to pass by Mr. Armstrong. How came that rigid look, that deadly paleness, to his face? What spasm of pain made him clutch the pamphlet he held with fingers that grew white about the nails? Faith stopped, startled. "Mr. Armstrong! Are you not well?" said she. At the same instant of her pausing, Miss Sampson entered from the hall, behind her. Mr. Armstrong's eye, lifted toward Faith in an attempt to reply, caught a glimpse of the sharp, pronounced outlines of the nurse's face. Before Faith could comprehend, or turn, or cry out, the paleness blanched ghastlier over his features, and the strong man fell back, fainting. With quick, professional instinct, Miss Sampson sprang forward, seizing, as she did so, an ice-water pitcher from the table. "There, take this!" said she to Faith, "and sprinkle him with it, while I loosen his neckcloth! Gracious goodness!" she exclaimed, in an altered tone, as she came nearer to him for this purpose, "do it, some of the rest of you, and let me get out of his way! It was me!" And she vanished out of the room. CHAPTER XXII. ROGER ARMSTRONG'S STORY. "Even by means of our sorrows, we belong to the Eternal Plan." HUMBOLDT. "Go in there," said Nurse Sampson to Mr. Gartney, calling him in from the porch, "and lay that man flat on the floor!" Which Mr. Gartney did, wondering, vaguely, in the instant required for his transit to the apartment, whether bandit or lunatic might await his offices. All happened in a moment; and in that moment, the minister's fugitive senses began to return. "Lie quiet, a minute. Faith, get a glass of wine, or a little brandy." Faith quickly brought both; and Mr. Armstrong, whom her father now assisted to the armchair again, took the wine from her hand, with a smile that thanked her, and depreciated himself. "I am not ill," he said. "It is all over now. It was the sudden shock. I did not think I could have been so weak." Mrs. Gartney had gone to find some hartshorn. Mrs. Etherege, seeing that the need for it was passing, went out to tell her sister so, and to ask the strange woman who had originated all the commotion, what it could possibly mean. Mr. Gartney, at the same instant, caught a glimpse of his horse, which he had left unfastened at the gate, giving indications of restlessness, and hastened out to tie him. Faith and Mr. Armstrong were left alone. "Did I frighten you, my child?" he asked, gently. "It was a strange thing to happen! I thought that woman was in her grave. I thought she died, when--I will tell you all about it some day, soon, Miss Faith. It was the sad, terrible page of my life." Faith's eyes were lustrous with sympathy. Under all other thought was a beating joy--not looked at yet--that he could speak to her so! That he could snatch this chance moment to tell her, only, of his sacred sorrow! She moved a half step nearer, and laid her hand, softly, on the chair arm beside him. She did not touch so much as a fold of his sleeve; but it seemed, somehow, like a pitying caress. "I am sorry!" said she. And then the others came in. Mr. Gartney walked round with his friend to the old house. Miss Sampson began to recount what she knew of the story. Faith escaped to her own room at the first sentence. She would rather have it as Mr. Armstrong's confidence. Next morning, Faith was dusting, and arranging flowers in the east parlor, and had just set the "hillside door," as they called it, open, when Mr. Armstrong passed the window and appeared thereat. "I came to ask, Miss Faith, if you would walk up over the Ridge. It is a lovely morning, and I am selfish enough to wish to have you to myself for a little of it. By and by, I would like to come back, and see Miss Sampson." Faith understood. He meant to tell her this that had been heavy upon his heart through all these years. She would go. Directly, when she had brought her hat, and spoken with her mother. Mrs. Etherege and Mrs. Gartney were sitting together in the guest chamber, above. At noon, after an early dinner, Mrs. Etherege was to leave. Mr. Armstrong stood upon the doorstone below, looking outward, waiting. If he had been inside the room, he would not have heard. The ladies, sitting by the window, just over his head, were quite unaware and thoughtless of his possible position. He caught Faith's clear, sweet accent first, as she announced her purpose to her mother, adding: "I shall be back, auntie, long before dinner." Then she crossed the hall into her own room, made her slight preparation for the walk, and went down by the kitchen staircase, to give Parthenia some last word about the early dinner. "I think," said Mrs. Etherege, in the keenness of her worldly wisdom, "that this minister of yours might as well have a hint of how matters stand. It seems to me he is growing to monopolize Faith, rather." "Oh," replied Mrs. Gartney, "there is nothing of that! You know what nurse told us, last evening. It isn't quite likely that a man would faint away at the memory of one woman, if his thoughts were turned, the least, in that way, upon another. No, indeed! She is his Sunday scholar, and he treats her always as a very dear young friend. But that is all." "Maybe. But is it quite safe for her? He is a young man yet, notwithstanding those few gray hairs." "Oh, Faith has tacitly belonged to Paul Rushleigh these three years!" Mr. Armstrong heard it all. He turned the next moment, and met his "dear young friend" with the same gentle smile and manner that he always wore toward her, and they walked up the Ridge path, among the trees, together. A bowlder of rock, scooped into smooth hollows that made pleasant seats, was the goal, usually, of the Ridge walk. Here Faith paused, and Mr. Armstrong made her sit down and rest. Standing there before her, he began his story. "One summer--years ago," he said, "I went to the city of New Orleans. I went to bring thence, with me, a dear friend--her who was to have been my wife." The deep voice trembled, and paused. Faith could not look up, her breath came quickly, and the tears were all but ready. "She had been there, through the winter and spring, with her father, who, save myself, was the only near friend she had in all the world. "The business which took him there detained him until later in the season than Northerners are accustomed to feel safe in staying. And still, important affairs hindered his departure. "He wrote to me, that, for himself, he must risk a residence there for some weeks yet; but that his daughter must be placed in safety. There was every indication of a sickly summer. She knew nothing of his writing, and he feared would hardly consent to leave him. But, if I came, she would yield to me. Our marriage might take place there, and I could bring her home. Without her, he said, he could more quickly dispatch what remained for him to do; and I must persuade her of this, and that it was for the safety of all that she should so fulfill the promise which was to have been at this time redeemed, had their earlier return been possible. "In the New Orleans papers that came by the same mail, were paragraphs of deadly significance. The very cautiousness with which they were worded weighted them the more. "Miss Faith! my friend! in that city of pestilence, was my life! Night and day I journeyed, till I reached the place. I found the address which had been sent me--there were only strangers there! Mr. Waldo had been, but the very day before, seized with the fatal disease, and removed to a fever hospital. Miriam had gone with him--into plague and death! "Was I wrong, child? Could I have helped it? I followed. Ah! God lets strange woes into this world of His! I cannot tell you, if I would, what I saw there! Pestilence--death--corruption! "In the midst of all, among the gentle sisters of charity, I found a New England woman--a nurse--her whom I met yesterday. She came to me on my inquiry for Mr. Waldo. He was dead. Miriam had already sickened--was past hope. I could not see her. It was against the rule. She would not know me. "I only remember that I refused to be sent away. I think my brain reeled with the weariness of sleepless nights and horror of the shock. "I cannot dwell upon the story. It was ended quickly. When I struggled back, painfully, to life, from the disease that struck me down, there were strange faces round me, and none could even tell me of her last hours. The nurse--Miss Sampson--had been smitten--was dying. "They sent me to a hospital for convalescents. Weeks after, I came out, feeble and hopeless, into my lonely life! "Since then, God, who had taken from me the object I had set for myself, has filled its room with His own work. And, doing it, He has not denied me to find many a chastened joy. "Dear young friend!" said he, with a tender, lingering emphasis--it was all he could say then--all they had left him to say, if he would--"I have told you this, because you have come nearer into my sympathies than any in all these years that have been my years of strangerhood and sorrow! You have made me think, in your fresh, maidenly life, and your soul earnestness, of Miriam! "When your way broadens out into busy sunshine, and mine lies otherwise, do not forget me!" A solemn baptism of mingled grief and joy seemed to touch the soul of Faith. One hand covered her face, that was bowed down, weeping. The other lay in her companion's, who had taken it as he uttered these last words. So it rested a moment, and then its fellow came to it, and, between the two, held Roger Armstrong's reverently, while the fair, tearful face lifted itself to his. "I do thank you so!" And that was all. Faith was his "dear, young friend!" How the words in which her mother limited his thoughts of her to commonplace, widened, when she spoke them to herself, into a great beatitude! She never thought of more--scarcely whether more could be. This great, noble, purified, God-loving soul that stood between her and heaven, like the mountain peak, bathing its head in clouds, and drawing lightnings down, leaned over her, and blessed her thus! She never suspected her own heart, even when the remembrance of Paul came up and took a tenderness from the thought how he, too, might love, and learn from, this her friend. She turned back with a new gentleness to all other love, as one does from a prayer! CHAPTER XXIII. QUESTION AND ANSWER. "Unless you can swear, 'For life, for death!' Oh, fear to call it loving!" MRS. BROWNING. Faith sent Nurse Sampson in to talk with Mr. Armstrong. Then he learned all that he had longed to know, but had never known before; that which took him to his lost bride's deathbed, and awoke out of the silent years for him a moment refused to him in its passing. Miss Sampson came from her hour's interview, with an unbending of the hard lines of her face, and a softness, even, in her eyes, that told of tears. "If ever there was an angel that went walking about in black broadcloth, that man is the one," said she. And that was all she would say. "I'm staying," she explained, in answer to their inquiries, "with a half-sister of mine at Sedgely. Mrs. Crabe, the blacksmith's wife. You see, I'd got run down, and had to take a rest. Resting is as much a part of work as doing, when it's necessary. I had a chance to go to Europe with an invaleed lady; but I allers hate such halfway contrivances. I either want to work with all my might, or be lazy with all my might. And so I've come here to do nothing, as hard as ever I can." "I know well enough," she said again, afterwards, "that something's being cut out for me, tougher'n anything I've had yet. I never had an hour's extra rest in my life, but I found out, precious soon, what it had been sent for. I'm going to stay on all summer, as the doctor told me to; but I'm getting strong, already; and I shall be just like a tiger before the year's out. And then it'll come, whatever it is. You'll see." Miss Sampson stayed until the next day after, and then Mr. Gartney drove her back to Sedgely. In those days it came to pass that Glory found she had a "follower." Luther Goodell, who "did round" at Cross Corners, got so into the way of straying up the field path, in his nooning hours, and after chores were done at night, that Miss Henderson at last, in her plain, outright fashion, took the subject up, and questioned Glory. "If it means anything, and you mean it shall mean anything, well and good. I shall put up with it; though what anybody wants with men folks cluttering round, is more than I can understand. But, if you don't want him, he shan't come. So tell me the truth, child. Yes, or no. Have you any notion of him for a husband?" Glory blushed her brightest at these words; but there was no falling of the eye, or faltering of the voice, as she spoke with answering straightforwardness and simplicity. "No ma'am. I don't think I shall ever have a husband." "No ma'am's enough. The rest you don't know anything about. Most likely you will." "I shouldn't want anybody, ma'am, that would be likely to want me." And Glory walked out into the milk room with the pans she had been scalding. It was true. This woman-child would go all through life as she had begun; discerning always, and reaching spiritually after, that which was beyond; which in that "kingdom of heaven" was hers already; but which to earthly having and holding should never come. God puts such souls, oftener than we think, into such life. These are His vestals. Miss Henderson's foot had not grown perfectly strong. She, herself, said, coolly, that she never expected it to. More than that, she supposed, now she had begun, she should keep on going to pieces. "An old life," she said, "is just like old cloth when it begins to tear. It'll soon go into the ragbag, and then to the mill that grinds all up, and brings us out new and white again!" "Glory McWhirk," said she, on another day after, "if you could do just the thing you would like best to do, what would it be?" "To-day, ma'am? or any time?" asked Glory, puzzled as to how much her mistress's question included. "Ever. If you had a home to live in, say, and money to spend?" Glory had to wait a moment before she could so grasp such an extraordinary hypothesis as to reply. "Well?" said Miss Henderson, with slight impatience. "If I had--I should like best to find some little children, without any fathers or mothers, as I was, and dress them up, as you did me, and curl their hair, and make a real good time for them, every day!" "You would! Well, that's all. I was curious to know what you'd say. I guess those beans in the oven want more hot water." The Rushleighs had come to Lakeside. Every day, nearly, saw Paul, or Margaret, or both, at Cross Corners. Faith was often, also, at Lakeside. Old Mr. Rushleigh treated her with a benignant fatherliness, and looked upon her with an evident fondness and pride that threw heavy weight in the scale of his son's chances. And Madam Rushleigh, as she began to be called, since Mrs. Philip had entered the family, petted her in the old, graceful, gracious fashion; and Margaret loved her, simply, and from her heart. With Paul himself, it had not been as in the days of bouquets, and "Germans," and bridal association in Mishaumok. They were all living and enjoying together a beautiful idyl. Nothing seemed special--nothing was embarrassing. Faith thought, in these days, that she was very happy. Mr. Armstrong relinquished her, almost imperceptibly, to her younger friends. In the pleasant twilights, though, when her day's pleasures and occupations were ended, he would often come over, as of old, and sit with them in the summer parlor, or under the elms. Or Faith would go up the beautiful Ridge walk with him; and he would have a thought for her that was higher than any she could reach, by herself, or with the help of any other human soul. And the minister? How did his world look to him? Perhaps, as if clouds that had parted, sending a sunbeam across from the west upon the dark sorrow of the morning, had shut again, inexorably, leaving him still to tread the nightward path under the old, leaden sky. A day came, that set him thinking of all this--of the years that were past, of those that might be to come. Mr. Armstrong was not quite so old as he had been represented. A man cannot go through plague and anguish, as he had, and "keep," as Nurse Sampson had said, long ago, of women, "the baby face on." There were lines about brow and mouth, and gleams in the hair, that seldom come so early. This day he completed one-and-thirty years. The same day, last month, had been Faith's birthday. She was nineteen. Roger Armstrong thought of the two together. He thought of these twelve years that lay between them. Of the love--the loss--the stern and bitter struggle--the divine amends and holy hope that they had brought to him; and then of the innocent girl life she had been living in them; then, how the two paths had met so, in these last few, beautiful months. Whither, and how far apart, trended they now? He could not see. He waited--leaving the end with God. A few weeks went by, in this careless, holiday fashion, with Faith and her friends; and then came the hour when she must face the truth for herself and for another, and speak the word of destiny for both. She had made a promise for a drive round the Pond Road. Margaret and her brother were to come for her, and to return to Cross Corners for tea. At the hour fixed, she sat, waiting, under the elms, hat and mantle on, and whiling the moments of delay with a new book Mr. Armstrong had lent her. Presently, the Rushleighs' light, open, single-seated wagon drove up. Paul had come alone. Margaret had a headache, but thought that after sundown she might feel better, and begged that Faith would reverse the plan agreed upon, and let Paul bring her home to tea with them. Paul took for granted that Faith would keep to her engagement with himself. It was difficult to refuse. She was ready, waiting. It would be absurd to draw back, sensitively, now, she thought. Besides, it would be very pleasant; and why should she be afraid? Yet she wished, very regretfully, that Margaret were there. She shrank from _tête-à-têtes_--from anything that might help to precipitate a moment she felt herself not quite ready for. She supposed she did care for Paul Rushleigh as most girls cared for lovers; that she had given him reason to expect she should; she felt, instinctively, whither all this pleased acquiescence of father and mother, and this warm welcome and encouragement at Lakeside, tended; and she had a dim prescience of what must, some time, come of it: but that was all in the far-off by and by. She would not look at it yet. She was afraid, now, as she let Paul help her into the wagon, and take his place at her side. She had been frightened by a word of her mother's, when she had gone to her, before leaving, to tell how the plan had been altered, and ask if she had better do as was wished of her. Mrs. Gartney had assented with a smile, and a "Certainly, if you like it, Faith; indeed, I don't see how you can very well help it; only----" "Only what, mother?" asked Faith, a little fearfully. "Nothing, dear," answered her mother, turning to her with a little caress. But she had a look in her eyes that mothers wear when they begin to see their last woman's sacrifice demand itself at their hands. "Go, darling. Paul is waiting." It was like giving her away. So they drove down, through byways, among the lanes, toward the Wachaug Road. Summer was in her perfect flush and fullness of splendor. The smell of new-mown hay was in the air. As they came upon the river, they saw the workmen busy in and about the new mills. Mr. Rushleigh's buggy stood by the fence; and he was there, among his mechanics, with his straw hat and seersucker coat on, inspecting and giving orders. "What a capital old fellow the governor is!" said Paul, in the fashion young men use, nowadays, to utter their affections. "Do you know he means to set me up in these mills he is making such a hobby of, and give me half the profits?" Faith had not known. She thought him very good. "Yes; he would do anything, I believe, for me--or anybody I cared for." Faith was silent; and the strange fear came up in heart and throat. "I like Kinnicutt, thoroughly." "Yes," said Faith. "It is very beautiful here." "Not only that. I like the people. I like their simple fashions. One gets at human life and human nature here. I don't think I was ever, at heart, a city boy. I don't like living at arm's length from everybody. People come close together, in the country. And--Faith! what a minister you've got here! What a sermon that was he preached last Sunday! I've never been what you might call one of the serious sort; but such a sermon as that must do anybody good." Faith felt a warmth toward Paul as he said this, which was more a drawing of the heart than he had gained from her by all the rest. "My father says he will keep him here, if money can do it. He never goes to church at Lakeside, now. It needs just such a man among mill villages like these, he says. My father thinks a great deal of his workpeople. He says nobody ought to bring families together, and build up a neighborhood, as a manufacturer does, and not look out for more than the money. I think he'll expect a great deal of me, if he leaves me here, at the head of it all. More than I can ever do, by myself." "Mr. Armstrong will be the very best help to you," said Faith. "I think he means to stay. I'm sure Kinnicutt would seem nothing without him, now." "Faith! Will you help me to make a home here?" She could not speak. A great shock had fallen upon her whole nature, as if a thunderbolt she had had presentiment of, burst from a clear blue sky. They drove on for minutes, without another word. "Faith! You don't answer me. Must I take silence as I please? It can't be that you don't care for me!" "No, no!" cried Faith, desperately, like one struggling for voice through a nightmare. "I do care. But--Paul! I don't know! I can't tell. Let me wait, please. Let me think." "As long as you like, darling," said he, gently and tenderly. "You know all I can tell you. You know I have cared for you all my life. And I'll wait now till you tell me I may speak again. Till you put on that little ring of mine, Faith!" There was a little loving reproach in these last words. "Please take me home, now, Paul!" They were close upon the return path around the Lake. A look of disappointed pain passed over Paul Rushleigh's features. This was hardly the happy reception, however shy, he had hoped and looked for. Still he hoped, however. He could not think she did not care for him. She, who had been the spring of his own thoughts and purposes for years. But, obedient to her wish, he touched his horse with the lash, and urged him homeward. Paul helped her from the wagon at the little white gate at Cross Corners, and then they both remembered that she was to have gone to Lakeside to tea. "What shall I tell Margaret?" he asked. "Oh, don't tell her anything! I mean--tell her, I couldn't come to-night. And, Paul--forgive me! I do want so to do what is right!" "Isn't it right to let me try and make you happy all your life?" A light had broken upon her--confusedly, it is true--yet that began to show her to herself more plainly than any glimpse she had had before, as Paul's words, simple, yet burning with his strong sure love, came to her, with their claim to honest answer. She saw what it was he brought her; she felt it was less she had to give him back. There was something in the world she might go missing all the way through life, if she took this lot that lay before her now. Would he not miss a something in her, also? Yet, must she needs insist on the greatest, the rarest, that God ever sends? Why should she, more than others? Would she wrong him more, to give him what she could, or to refuse him all? "I ought--if I do--" she said, tremulously, "to care as you do!" "You never can, Faith!" cried the young man, impetuously. "I care as a man cares! Let me love you! care a little for me, and let it grow to more!" Men, till something is accorded, are willing to take so little! And then the little must become so entire! "Well, I declare!" exclaimed Mis' Battis, as Faith came in. "Who'd a thought o' seein' you home to tea! I s'pose you ain't had none?" "Yes--no. That is, I don't want any. Where is my mother?" "She and your pa's gone down to Dr. Wasgatt's. I knew 'twould be contrary to the thirty-nine articles that they should get away from there without their suppers, and so I let the fire right down, and blacked the stove." "Never mind," said Faith, abstractedly. "I don't feel hungry." And she went away, upstairs. "'M!" said Mis 'Battis, significantly, to herself, running a released knitting needle through her hair, "don't tell me! I've been through the mill!" Half an hour after, she came up to Faith's door. "The minister's downstairs," said she. "Hope to goodness, he's had _his_ supper!" "Oh, if I dared!" thought Faith; and her heart throbbed tumultuously. "Why can't there be somebody to tell me what I ought to do?" If she had dared, how she could have leaned upon this friend! How she could have trusted her conscience and her fate to his decision! "Does anything trouble you to-night, Miss Faith?" asked Mr. Armstrong, watching her sad, abstracted look in one of the silent pauses that broke their attempts at conversation. "Are you ill, or tired?" "Oh, no!" answered Faith, quickly, from the surface, as one often does when thoughts lie deep. "I am quite well. Only--I am sometimes puzzled." "About what is? Or about what ought to be?" "About doing. So much depends. I get so tired--feeling how responsible everything makes me. I wish I were a little child again! Or that somebody would just take me and tell me where to go, and where to stay, and what to do, and what not. From minute to minute, as the things come up." Roger Armstrong, with his great, chastened soul, yearned over the child as she spoke; so gladly he would have taken her, at that moment, to his heart, and bid her lean on him for all that man might give of help--of love--of leading! If she had told him, in that moment, all her doubt, as for the instant of his pause she caught her breath with swelling impulse to do! "'And they shall all be led of God';" said the minister. "It is only to be willing to take His way rather than one's own. All this that seems to depend painfully upon oneself, depends, then, upon Him. The act is human--the consequences become divine." Faith was silenced then. There was no appeal to human help from that. Her impulse throbbed itself away into a lonely passiveness again. There was a distance between these two that neither dared to pass. A word was spoken between mother and daughter as they parted for the night. "Mother! I have such a thing to think of--to decide!" It was whispered low, and with cheek hidden on her mother's neck, as the good-night kiss was taken. "Decide for your own happiness, Faithie. We have seen and understood for a long time. If it is to be as we think, nothing could give us a greater joy for you." Ah! how much had father and mother seen and understood? The daughter went her way, to wage her own battle in secret; to balance and fix her decision between her own heart and God. So we find ourselves left, at the last, in all the great crises of our life. Late that night, while Mr. and Mrs. Gartney were felicitating each other, cheerily, upon the great good that had fallen to the lot of their cherished child, that child sat by her open window, looking out into the summer night; the tossing elm boughs whispering weird syllables in her ears, and the stars looking down upon her soul struggle, so silently, from so far! "Mr. Rushleigh's here!" shouted Hendie, precipitating himself, next morning, into the breakfast room, where, at a rather later hour than usual, Mrs. Gartney and Faith were washing and wiping the silver and china, and Mr. Gartney still lingered in his seat, finishing somebody's long speech, reported in the evening paper of yesterday. "Mr. Rushleigh's here, on his long-tailed black horse! And he says he'll give me a ride, but not yet. He wants to see papa. Make haste, papa." Faith dropped her towel, and as Mr. Gartney rose to go out and meet his visitor, just whispered, hurriedly, to her mother: "I'll come down again. I'll see him before he goes." And escaped up the kitchen staircase to her own room. Paul Rushleigh came, he told Mr. Gartney, because, although Faith had not authorized him to appeal to her father to ratify any consent of hers, he thought it right to let him know what he had already said to his daughter. He did not wish to hurry Faith. He only wished to stand openly with Mr. Gartney in the matter, and would wait, then, till she should be quite ready to give him her own answer. He explained the prospect his father offered him, and the likelihood of his making a permanent home at Kinnicutt. "That is," he added, "if I am to be so happy as to have a home, anywhere, of my own." Mr. Gartney was delighted with the young man's unaffected warmth of heart and noble candor. "I could not wish better for my daughter, Mr. Rushleigh," he replied. "And she is a daughter whom I may fairly wish the best for, too." Mr. Gartney rose. "I will send Faith," said he. "I do not _ask_ for her," answered Paul, a flush of feeling showing in his cheek. "I did not come, expecting it--my errand was one I owed to yourself--but Faith knows quite well how glad I shall be if she chooses to see me." As Mr. Gartney crossed the hall from parlor to sitting room, a light step came over the front staircase. Faith passed her father, with a downcast look, as he motioned with his hand toward the room where Paul stood, waiting. The bright color spread to her temples as she glided in. She held, but did not wear, the little turquoise ring. Paul saw it, as he came forward, eagerly. A thrill of hope, or dread--he scarce knew which--quivered suddenly at his heart. Was he to take it back, or place it on her finger as a pledge? "I have been thinking, Paul," said she, tremulously, and with eyes that fell again away from his, after the first glance and greeting, "almost ever since. And I do not think I ought to keep you waiting to know the little I can tell you. I do not think I understand myself. I cannot tell, certainly, how I ought--how I do feel. I have liked you very much. And it was very pleasant to me before all this. I know you deserve to be made very happy. And if it depends on me, I do not dare to say I will not try to do it. If you think, yourself, that this is enough--that I shall do the truest thing so--I will try." And the timid little fingers laid the ring into his hand, to do with as he would. What else could Paul have done? With the strong arm that should henceforth uphold and guard her, he drew her close; and with the other hand slipped the simply jeweled round upon her finger. For all word of answer, he lifted it, so encircled, to his lips. Faith shrank and trembled. Hendie's voice sounded, jubilant, along the upper floor, toward the staircase. "I will go, now, if you wish. Perhaps I ought," said Paul. "And yet, I would so gladly stay. May I come again, by and by?" Faith uttered a half-audible assent, and as Hendie's step came nearer down the stairs, and passed the door, straight out upon the grassplot, toward the gate, and the long-tailed black horse that stood there, she escaped again to her own chamber. Hendie had his ride. Meanwhile, his sister, down upon her knees at her bedside, struggled with the mystery and doubt of her own heart. Why could she not feel happier? Would it never be otherwise? Was this all life had for her, in its holiest gift, henceforth? But, come what might, she would have God, always! So, without words, only with tears, she prayed, and at last, grew calm. CHAPTER XXIV. CONFLICT. "O Life, O Beyond, _Art_ thou fair!--_art_ thou sweet?" MRS. BROWNING. There followed days that almost won Faith back into her outward life of pleasantness. Margaret came over with Madam Rushleigh, and felicitated herself and friend, impetuously. Paul's mother thanked her for making her son happy. Old Mr. Rushleigh kissed her forehead with a blessing. And Mr. and Mrs. Gartney looked upon their daughter as with new eyes of love. Hendie rode the black horse every day, and declared that "everything was just as jolly as it could be!" Paul drove her out, and walked with her, and talked of his plans, and all they would do and have together. And she let herself be brightened by all this outward cheer and promise, and this looking forward to a happiness and use that were to come. But still she shrank and trembled at every loverlike caress, and still she said, fearfully, every now and then: "Paul--I don't feel as you do. What if I don't love you as I ought?" And Paul called her his little oversensitive, conscientious Faithie, and persuaded himself and her that he had no fear--that he was quite satisfied. When Mr. Armstrong came to see her, gravely and tenderly wishing her joy, and looked searchingly into her face for the pure content that should be there, she bent her head into her hands, and wept. She was very weak, you say? She ought to have known her own mind better? Perhaps. I speak of her as she was. There are mistakes like these in life; there are hearts that suffer thus, unconscious of their ail. The minister waited while the momentary burst of emotion subsided, and something of Faith's wonted manner returned. "It is very foolish of me," she said, "and you must think me very strange. But, somehow, tears come easily when one has been feeling a great deal. And such kind words from you touch me." "My words and thoughts will always be kind for you, my child. And I know very well that tears may mean sweeter and deeper things than smiles. I will not try you with much talking now. You have my affectionate wishes and my prayers. If there is ever any help that I can give, to you who have so much loving help about you, count on me as an earnest friend, always." The hour was past when Faith, if she could ever, could have asked of him the help she did most sorely need. And so, with a gentle hand clasp, he went away. Mr. Gartney began to be restless about Michigan. He wanted to go and see this wild estate of his. He would have liked to take his wife, now that haying would soon be over, and he could spare the time from his farm, and make it a pleasant summer journey for them both. But he could neither leave Faith, nor take her, well, it seemed. Hendie might go. Fathers always think their boys ready for the world when once they are fairly out of the nursery. One day, Paul came to Cross Corners with news. Mr. Rushleigh had affairs to be arranged and looked to, in New York--matters connected with the mills, which had, within a few weeks, begun to run; he had been there, once, about them; he could do all quite well, now, by letter, and an authorized messenger; he could not just now very well leave Kinnicutt. Besides, he wanted Paul to see and know his business friends, and to put himself in the way of valuable business information. Would Faith spare him for a week or two--he bade his son to ask. Madam Rushleigh would accompany Paul; and before his return he would go with his mother to Saratoga, where her daughter Gertrude and Mrs. Philip Rushleigh were, and where he was to leave her for the remainder of their stay. Margaret liked Kinnicutt better than any watering-place; and she and her father had made a little plan of their own, which, if Faith would go back with him, they would explain to her. So Faith went over to Lakeside to tea, and heard the plan. "We are going to make our first claim upon you, Faith," said the elder Mr. Rushleigh, as he led his daughter-in-law elect out on the broad piazza under the Italian awnings, when the slight summer evening repast was ended. "We want to borrow you, while madam and the yonker are gone. Your father tells me he wishes to make a Western journey. Now, why not send him off at this very time? I think your mother intends accompanying him?" "It had been talked of," Faith said; "and perhaps her father would be very glad to go when he could leave her in such good keeping. She would tell him what Mr. Rushleigh had been so kind as to propose." It was a suggestion of real rest to Faith--this free companionship with Margaret again, in the old, girlish fashion--and the very thoughtful look, that was almost sad, which had become habitual to her face, of late, brightened into the old, careless pleasure, as she spoke. Old Mr. Rushleigh saw something in this that began to seem to him more than mere maidenly shyness. By and by, Margaret called her brother to sing with her. "Come, Faithie," said Paul, drawing her gently by the hand. "I can't sing unless you go, too." Faith went; more, it seemed, of his will, than her own. "How does that appear to you?" said Mr. Rushleigh to his wife. "Is it all right? Does the child care for Paul?" "Care!" exclaimed the mother, almost surprised into too audible speech. "How can she help caring? And hasn't it grown up from childhood with them? What put such a question into your head? I should as soon think of doubting whether I cared for you." It was easier for the father to doubt, jealously, for his son, than for the mother to conceive the possibility of indifference in the woman her boy had chosen. "Besides," added Mrs. Rushleigh, "why, else, should she have accepted him? I _know_ Faith Gartney is not mercenary, or worldly ambitious." "I am quite sure of that, as well," answered her husband. "It is no doubt of her motive or her worth--I can't say it is really a doubt of anything; but, Gertrude, she must not marry the boy unless her whole heart is in it! A sharp stroke is better than a lifelong pain." "I'm sure I can't tell what has come over you! She can't ever have thought of anybody else! And she seems quite one of ourselves." "Yes; that's just the uncertainty," replied Mr. Rushleigh. "Whether it isn't as much Margaret, and you and I, as Paul. Whether she fully knows what she is about. She can't marry the family, you know. We shall die, and go off, and Heaven knows what; Paul must be the whole world to her, or nothing. I hope he hasn't hurried her--or let her hurry herself." "Hurry! She has had years to make up her mind in!" Mrs. Rushleigh, woman as she was, would not understand. "We shall go, in three days," said Paul, when he stood in the moonlight with Faith at the little white gate under the elms, after driving her home; "and I must have you all the time to myself, until then!" Faith wondered if it were right that she shouldn't quite care to be "had all the time to himself until then"? Whether such demonstrativeness and exclusiveness of affection was ever a little irksome to others as to her? Faith thought and questioned, often, what other girls might feel in positions like her own, and tried to judge herself by them; it absolutely never occurred to her to think how it might have been if another than Paul had stood in this relation toward herself. The young man did not quite have his own way, however. His father went down to Mishaumok on one of the three days, and left him in charge at the mills; and there were people to see, and arrangements to make; but some part of each day he did manage to devote to Faith, and they had walking and driving together, and every night Paul stayed to tea at Cross Corners. On the last evening, they sat together, by the hillside door, in the summer parlor. "Faithie," said Paul, a little suddenly, "there is something you must do for me--do you know?" "What is it?" asked Faith, quite calmly. "You must wear this, now, and keep the forget-me-not for a guard." He held her hand, that wore the ring, in one of his, and there was a flash of diamonds as he brought the other toward it. Then Faith gave a quick, strange cry. "I can't! I can't! Oh, Paul! don't ask me!" And her hand was drawn from the clasp of his, and her face was hidden in both her own. Paul drew back--hurt, silent. "If I could only wait!" she murmured. "I don't dare, yet!" She could wear the forget-me-not, as she wore the memory of all their long young friendship, it belonged to the past; but this definite pledge for the future--these diamonds! "Do you not quite belong to me, even yet?" asked Paul, with a resentment, yet a loving and patient one, in his voice. "I told you," said Faith, "that I would try--to be to you as you wish; but Paul! if I couldn't be so, truly?--I don't know why I feel so uncertain. Perhaps it is because you care for me too much. Your thought for me is so great, that mine, when I look at it, never seems worthy." Paul was a man. He could not sue, too cringingly, even for Faith Gartney's love. "And I told you, Faith, that I was satisfied to be allowed to love you. That you should love me a little, and let it grow to more. But if it is not love at all--if I frighten you, and repel you--I have no wish to make you unhappy. I must let you go. And yet--oh, Faith!" he cried--the sternness all gone, and only the wild love sweeping through his heart, and driving wild words before it--"it can't be that it is no love, after all! It would be too cruel!" At those words, "I must let you go," spoken apparently with calmness, as if it could be done, Faith felt a bound of freedom in her soul. If he would let her go, and care for her in the old way, only as a friend! But the strong passionate accents came after; and the old battle of doubt and pity and remorse surged up again, and the cloud of their strife dimmed all perception, save that she was very, very wretched. She sobbed, silently. "Don't let us say good-by, so," said Paul. "Don't let us quarrel. We will let all wait, as you wish, till I come home again." So he still clung to her, and held her, half bound. "And your father, Paul? And Margaret? How can I let them receive me as they do--how can I go to them as I have promised, in all this indecision?" "They want you, Faith, for your own sake. There is no need for you to disappoint them. It is better to say nothing more until we do know. I ask it of you--do not refuse me this--to let all rest just here; to make no difference until I come back. You will let me write, Faith?" "Why, yes, Paul," she said, wonderingly. It was so hard for her to comprehend that it could not be with him, any longer, as it had been; that his written or his spoken word could not be, for a time, at least, mere friendly any more. And so she gave him, unwittingly, this hope to go with. "I think you _do_ care for me, Faith, if you only knew it!" said he, half sadly and very wistfully, as they parted. "I do care, very much," Faith answered, simply and earnestly. "I never can help caring. It is only that I am afraid I care so differently from you!" She was nearer loving him at that moment, than she had ever been. Who shall attempt to bring into accord the seeming contradictions of a woman's heart? CHAPTER XXV. A GAME AT CHESS. "Life's burdens fall, its discords cease, I lapse into the glad release Of nature's own exceeding peace." WHITTIER. "I don't see," said Aunt Faith, "why the child can't come to me, Henderson, while you and Elizabeth are away. I don't believe in putting yourself under obligations to people till you're sure they're going to be something to you. Things don't always turn out according to the Almanac." "She goes just as she always has gone to the Rushleighs," replied Mr. Gartney. "Paul is to be away. It is a visit to Margaret. Still, I shall be absent at least a fortnight, and it might be well that she should divide her time, and come to Cross Corners for a few days, if it is only to see the house opened and ready. Luther can have a bed here, if Mis' Battis should be afraid." Mis' Battis was to improve the fortnight's interval for a visit to Factory Village. "Well, fix it your own way," said Miss Henderson. "I'm ready for her, any time. Only, if she's going to peak and pine as she has done ever since this grand match was settled for her, Glory and I'll have our hands full, nursing her, by then you get back!" "Faith is quite well," said Mrs. Gartney. "It is natural for a girl to be somewhat thoughtful when she decides for herself such an important relation." "Symptoms differ, in different cases. _I_ should say she was taking it pretty hard," said the old lady. Mr. and Mrs. Gartney left home on Monday. Faith and Mis' Battis remained in the house a few hours after, setting all things in that dreary "to rights" before leaving, which is almost, in its chillness and silence, like burial array. Glory came over to help; and when all was done--blinds shut, windows and doors fastened, fire out, ashes removed--stove blackened--Luther drove Mis' Battis and her box over to Mrs. Pranker's, and Glory took Faith's little bag for her to the Old House. This night she was to stay with her aunt. She wanted just this little pause and quiet before going to the Rushleighs'. "Tell Aunt Faith I'm coming," said she, as she let herself and Glory out at the front door, and then, locking it, put the key in her pocket. "I'll just walk up over the Ridge first, for a little coolness and quiet, after this busy day." There was the peace of a rested body and soul upon her face when she came down again a half hour after, and crossed the lane, and entered, through the stile, upon the field path to the Old House. Heart and will had been laid asleep--earthly plan and purpose had been put aside in all their incompleteness and uncertainty--and only God and Nature had been permitted to come near. Mr. Armstrong walked down and met her midway in the field. "How beautiful mere simpleness and quiet are," said Faith. "The cool look of trees and grass, and the stillness of this evening time, are better even than flowers, and bright sunlight, and singing of birds!" "'He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters: He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.'" They did not disturb the stillness by more words. They came up together, in the hush and shadow, to the pleasant doorstone, that offered its broad invitation to their entering feet, and where Aunt Faith at this moment stood, watching and awaiting them. "Go into the blue bedroom, and lay off your things, child," she said, giving Faith a kiss of welcome, "and then come back and we'll have our tea." Faith disappeared through passages and rooms beyond. Aunt Henderson turned quickly to the minister. "You're her spiritual adviser, ain't you?" she asked, abruptly. "I ought to be," answered Mr. Armstrong. "Why don't you advise her, then?" "Spiritually, I do and will, in so far as so pure a spirit can need a help from me. But--I think I know what you mean, Miss Henderson--spirit and heart are two. I am a man; and she is--what you know." Miss Henderson's keen eyes fixed themselves, for a minute, piercingly and unflinchingly, on the minister's face. Then she turned, without a word, and went into the house to see the tea brought in. She knew, now, all there was to tell. Faith's face interpreted itself to Mr. Armstrong. He saw that she needed, that she would have, rest. Rest, this night, from all that of late had given her weariness and trouble. So, he did not even talk to her in the way they mostly talked together; he would not rouse, ever so distantly, thought, that might, by so many subtle links, bear round upon her hidden pain. But he brought, after tea, a tiny chessboard, and set the delicate carved men upon it, and asked her if she knew the game. "A little," she said. "What everybody always owns to knowing--the moves." "Suppose we play." It was a very pleasant novelty--sitting down with this grave, earnest friend to a game of skill--and seeing him bring to it all the resource of power and thought that he bent, at other times, on more important work. "Not that, Miss Faith! You don't mean that! You put your queen in danger." "My queen is always a great trouble to me," said Faith, smiling, as she retracted the half-made move. "I think I do better when I give her up in exchange." "Excuse me, Miss Faith; but that always seems to me a cowardly sort of game. It is like giving up a great power in life because one is too weak to claim and hold it." "Only I make you lose yours, too." "Yes, there is a double loss and inefficiency. Does that make a better game, or one pleasanter to play?" "There are two people, in there, talking riddles; and they don't even know it," said Miss Henderson to her handmaid, in the kitchen close by. Perhaps Mr. Armstrong, as he spoke, did discern a possible deeper significance in his own words; did misgive himself that he might rouse thoughts so; at any rate, he made rapid, skillful movements on the board, that brought the game into new complications, and taxed all Faith's attention to avert their dangers to herself. For half an hour, there was no more talking. Then Faith's queen was put in helpless peril. "I must give her up," said she. "She is all but gone." A few moves more, and all Faith's hope depended on one little pawn, that might be pushed to queen and save her game. "How one does want the queen power at the last!" said she. "And how much easier it is to lose it, than to get it back!" "It is like the one great, leading possibility, that life, in some sort, offers each of us," said Mr. Armstrong. "Once lost--once missed--we may struggle on without it--we may push little chances forward to partial amends; but the game is changed; its soul is gone." As he spoke he made the move that led to obvious checkmate. Glory came in to the cupboard, now, and began putting up the tea things she had brought from washing. Mr. Armstrong had done just what, at first, he had meant not to do. Had he bethought himself better, and did he seize the opening to give vague warning where he might not speak more plainly? Or, had his habit, as a man of thought, discerning quick meaning in all things, betrayed him into the instant's forgetfulness? However it might be, Glory caught glimpse of two strange, pained faces over the little board and its mystic pieces. One, pale--downcast--with expression showing a sudden pang; the other, suffering also, yet tender, self-forgetful, loving--looking on. "I don't know whichever is worst," she said afterwards, without apparent suggestion of word or circumstance, to her mistress; "to see the beautiful times that there are in the world, and not be in 'em--or to see people that might be in 'em, and ain't!" They were all out on the front stoop, later. They sat in the cool, summer dusk, and looked out between the arched lattices where the vines climbed up, seeing the stars rise, far away, eastwardly, in the blue; and Mr. Armstrong, talking with Faith, managed to win her back into the calm he had, for an instant, broken; and to keep her from pursuing the thought that by and by would surely come back, and which she would surely want all possible gain of strength to grapple with. Faith met his intention bravely, seconding it with her own. These hours, to the last, should still be restful. She would not think, to-night, of those words that had startled her so--of all they suggested or might mean--of life's great possibility lost to him, away back in the sorrowful past, as she also, perhaps was missing it--relinquishing it--now. She knew not that his thought had been utterly self-forgetful. She believed that he had told her, indirectly, of himself, when he had spoken those dreary syllables--"the game is changed. Its soul is gone!" CHAPTER XXVI. LAKESIDE. "Look! are the southern curtains drawn? Fetch me a fan, and so begone! · · · · · Rain me sweet odors on the air, And wheel me up my Indian chair; And spread some book not overwise Flat out before my sleepy eyes." O. W. HOLMES. The Rushleighs' breakfast room at Lakeside was very lovely in a summer's morning. Looking off, northwestwardly, across the head of the Pond, the long windows, opening down to the piazza, let in all the light and joy of the early day, and that indescribable freshness born from the union of woods and water. Faith had come down long before the others, this fair Wednesday morning. Mr. Rushleigh found her, when he entered, sitting by a window--a book upon her lap, to be sure--but her eyes away off over the lake, and a look in them that told of thoughts horizoned yet more distantly. Last night, he had brought home Paul's first letter. When he gave it to her, at tea time, with a gay and kindly word, the color that deepened vividly upon her face, and the quiet way in which she laid it down beside her plate, were nothing strange, perhaps; but--was he wrong? the eyes that drooped so quickly as the blushes rose, and then lifted themselves again so timidly to him as he next addressed her, were surely brimmed with feeling that was not quite, or wholly glad. And now, this wistful, silent, musing, far-off look! "Good morning, Faithie!" "Good morning." And the glance came back--the reverie was broken--Faith's spirit informed her visible presence again, and bade him true and gentle welcome. "You haven't your morning paper yet? I'll bring it. Thomas left it in the library, I think. He came back from the early train, half an hour ago." "Can't you women tell what's the matter with each other?" said Mr. Rushleigh to his daughter, who entered by the other door, as Faith went out into the hall. "What ails Faith, Margaret?" "Nothing of consequence, I think. She is tired with all that has been going on, lately. And then she's the shyest little thing!" "It's a sort of shyness that don't look so happy as it might, it seems to me. And what has become of Paul's diamonds, I wonder? I went with him to choose some, last week. I thought I should see them next upon her finger." Margaret opened her eyes widely. Of course, this was the first she had heard of the diamonds. Where could they be, indeed? Was anything wrong? They had not surely quarreled! Faith came in with the paper. Thomas brought up breakfast. And presently, these three, with all their thoughts of and for each other, that reached into the long years to come, and had their roots in all that had gone by, were gathered at the table, seemingly with no further anxiety than to know whether one or another would have toast or muffins--eggs or raspberries. Do we not--and most strangely and incomprehensively--live two lives? "I must write to my mother, to-day," said Margaret, when her father had driven away to the mills, and they had brought in a few fresh flowers from the terrace for the vases, and had had a little morning music, which Margaret always craved, "as an overture," she said, "to the day." "I must write to my mother; and you, I suppose, will be busy with answering Paul?" A little consciousness kept her from looking straight in Faith's face, as she spoke. Had she done so, she might have seen that a paleness came over it, and that the lips trembled. "I don't know," was the answer. "Perhaps not, to-day." "Not to-day? Won't he be watching every mail? I don't know much about it, to be sure; but I fancied lovers were such uneasy, exacting creatures!" "Paul is very patient," said Faith--not lightly, as Margaret had spoken, but as one self-reproached, almost, for abusing patience--"and they go to-morrow to Lake George. He won't look for a letter until he gets to Saratoga." She had calculated her time as if it were the minutes of a reprieve. When Paul Rushleigh, with his mother, reached Saratoga, he found two letters there, for him. One kind, simple, but reticent, from Faith--a mere answer to that which she could answer, of his own. The other was from his father. "There seems," he wrote to his son, toward the close, "to be a little cloud upon Faith, somehow. Perhaps it is one you would not wish away. It may brighten up and roll off, at your return. You, possibly, understand it better than I. Yet I feel, in my strong anxiety for your true good, impelled to warn you against letting her deceive herself and you, by giving you less than, for her own happiness and yours, she ought to be able to give. Do not marry the child, Paul, if there can be a doubt of her entire affection for you. You had better go through life alone, than with a wife's half love. If you have reason to imagine that she feels bound by anything in the past to what the present cannot heartily ratify--release her. I counsel you to this, not more in justice to her, than for the saving of your own peace. She writes you to-day. It may be that the antidote comes with the hurt. I may be quite mistaken. But I hurt you, my son, only to save a sorer pain. Faith is true. If she says she loves you, believe her, and take her, though all the world should doubt. But if she is fearful--if she hesitates--be fearful, and hesitate yourself, lest your marriage be no true marriage before Heaven!" Paul Rushleigh thanked his father, briefly, for his admonition, in reply. He wrote, also, to Faith--affectionately, but with something, at last, of her own reserve. He should not probably write again. In a week, or less, he would be home. And behind, and beyond all this, that could be put on paper, was the hope of a life--the sharp doubt of days--waiting the final word! In a week, he would be home! A week! It might bring much! Wednesday had come round again. Dinner was nearly ended at Lakeside. Cool jellies, and creams, and fruits, were on the table for dessert. Steaming dishes of meats and vegetables had been gladly sent away, but slightly partaken. The day was sultry. Even now, at five in the afternoon, the heat was hardly mitigated from that of midday. They lingered over their dessert, and spoke, rather languidly, of what might be done after. "For me," said Mr. Rushleigh, "I must go down to the mills again, before night. If either, or both of you, like a drive, I shall be glad to have you with me." "Those hot mills!" exclaimed Margaret. "What an excursion to propose!" "I could find you a very cool corner, even in those hot mills," replied her father. "My little sanctum, upstairs, that overlooks the river, and gets its breezes, is the freshest place I have been in, to-day. Will you go, Faith?" "Oh, yes! she'll go! I see it in her eyes!" said Margaret. "She is getting to be as much absorbed in all those frantic looms and things--that set me into a fever just to think of, whizzing and humming all day long in this horrible heat--as you are! I believe she expects to help Paul overseer the factory, one of these days, she is so fierce to peer into and understand everything about it. Or else, she means mischief! You had a funny look in your face, Faithie, the other day, when you stood there by the great rope that hoists the water gate, and Mr. Blasland was explaining it to us!" "I was thinking, I remember," said Faith, "what a strange thing it was to have one's hand on the very motive power of it all. To see those great looms, and wheels, and cylinders, and spindles, we had been looking at, and hear nothing but their deafening roar all about us, and to think that even I, standing there with my hand upon the rope, might hush it all, and stop the mainspring of it in a minute!" Ah, Faithie! Did you think, as you said this, how your little hand lay, otherwise, also, on the mainspring and motive of it all? One of the three, at least, thought of it, as you spoke. "Well--your heart's in the spindles, I see!" rejoined Margaret. "So, don't mind me. I haven't a bit of a plan for your entertainment, here. I shouldn't, probably, speak to you, if you stayed. It's too hot for anything but a book, and a fan, and a sofa by an open window!" Faith laughed; but, before she could reply, a chaise rolled up to the open front door, and the step and voice of Dr. Wasgatt were heard, as he inquired for Miss Gartney. Faith left her seat, with a word of excuse, and met him in the hall. "I had a patient up this way," said he, "and came round to bring you a message from Miss Henderson. Nothing to be frightened at, in the least; only that she isn't quite so well as ordinary, these last hot days, and thought perhaps you might as lief come over. She said she was expecting you for a visit there, before your folks get back. No, thank you"--as Faith motioned to conduct him to the drawing-room--"can't come in. Sorry I couldn't offer to take you down; but I've got more visits to make, and they lie round the other way." "Is Aunt Faith ill?" "Well--no. Not so but that she'll be spry again in a day or two; especially if the weather changes. That ankle of hers is troublesome, and she had something of an ill turn last night, and called me over this morning. She seems to have taken a sort of fancy that she'd like to have you there." "I'll come." And Faith went back, quickly, as Dr. Wasgatt departed, to make his errand known, and to ask if Mr. Rushleigh would mind driving her round to Cross Corners, after going to his mills. "Wait till to-morrow, Faithie," said Margaret, in the tone of one whom it fatigues to think of an exertion, even for another. "You'll want your box with you, you know; and there isn't time for anything to-night." "I think I ought to go now," answered Faith. "Aunt Henderson never complains for a slight ailment, and she might be ill again, to-night. I can take all I shall need before to-morrow in my little morocco bag. I won't keep you waiting a minute," she added, turning to Mr. Rushleigh. "I can wait twenty, if you wish," he answered kindly. But in less than ten, they were driving down toward the river. Margaret Rushleigh had betaken herself to her own cool chamber, where the delicate straw matting, and pale green, leaf-patterned chintz of sofa, chairs, and hangings, gave a feeling of the last degree of summer lightness and daintiness, and the gentle air breathed in from the southwest, sifted, on the way, of its sunny heat, by the green draperies of vine and branch it wandered through. Lying there, on the cool, springy cushions of her couch--turning the fresh-cut leaves of the August _Mishaumok_--she forgot the wheels and the spindles--the hot mills, and the ceaseless whir. Just at that moment of her utter comfort and content, a young factory girl dropped, fainting, in the dizzy heat, before her loom. CHAPTER XXVII. AT THE MILLS. "For all day the wheels are droning, turning,-- Their wind comes in our faces,-- Till our hearts turn,--our head with pulses burning,-- And the walls turn in their places." MRS. BROWNING. Faith sat silent by Mr. Rushleigh's side, drinking in, also, with a cool content, the river air that blew upon their faces as they drove along. "Faithie!" said Paul's father, a little suddenly, at last--"do you know how true a thing you said a little while ago?" "How, sir?" asked Faith, not perceiving what he meant. "When you spoke of having your hand on the mainspring of all this?" And he raised his right arm, motioning with the slender whip he held, along the line of factory buildings that lay before them. A deep, blazing blush burned, at his words, over Faith's cheek and brow. She sat and suffered it under his eye--uttering not a syllable. "I knew you did _not_ know. You did not think of it so. Yet it is true, none the less. Faith! Are you happy? Are you satisfied?" Still a silence, and tears gathering in the eyes. "I do not wish to distress you, my dear. It is only a little word I should like to hear you speak. I must, so far as I can, see that my children are happy, Faith." "I suppose," said Faith, tremulously, struggling to speech--"one cannot expect to be utterly happy in this world." "One does expect it, forgetting all else, at the moment when is given what seems to one life's first, great good--the earthly good that comes but once. I remember my own youth, Faithie. Pure, present content is seldom overwise." "Only," said Faith, still tremblingly, "that the responsibility comes with the good. That feeling of having one's hand upon the mainspring is a fearful one." "I am not given," said Mr. Rushleigh, "to quoting Bible at all times; but you make a line of it come up to me. 'There is no fear in love. Perfect love casteth out fear.'" "Be sure of yourself, dear child. Be sure you are content and happy; and tell me so, if you can; or, tell me otherwise, if you must, without a reserve or misgiving," he said again, as they drove down the mill entrance; and their conversation, for the time, came, necessarily, to an end. Coming into the mill yard, they were aware of a little commotion about one of the side doors. The mill girl who had fainted sat here, surrounded by two or three of her companions, slowly recovering. "It is Mary Grover, sir, from up at the Peak," said one of them, in reply to Mr. Rushleigh's question. "She hasn't been well for some days, but she's kept on at her work, and the heat, to-day, was too much for her. She'd ought to be got home, if there was any way. She can't ever walk." "I'll take her, myself," said the mill owner, promptly. "Keep her quiet here a minute or two, while I go in and speak to Blasland." But first he turned to Faith again. "What shall I do with you, my child?" "Dear Mr. Rushleigh," said she, with all her gratitude for his just spoken kindness to herself and her appreciation of his ready sympathy for the poor workgirl, in her voice--"don't think of me! It's lovely out there over the footbridge, and in the fields; and that way, the distance is nearly nothing to Aunt Faith's. I should like the walk--really." "Thank you," said Mr. Rushleigh. "I believe you would. Then I'll take Mary Grover up to the Peak." And he shook her hand, and left her standing there, and went up into the mill. Two of the girls who had come out with Mary Grover, followed him and returned to their work. One, sitting with her in the doorway, on one of the upper steps, and supporting her yet dizzy head upon her shoulder, remained. Faith asked if she could do anything, and was answered, no, with thanks. She turned away, then, and walked over the planking above the race way, toward the river, where a pretty little footbridge crossed it here, from the end of the mill building. Against this end, projected, on this side, a square, tower-like appendage to the main structure, around which one must pass to reach the footbridge. A door at the base opened upon a staircase leading up. This was the entrance to Mr. Rushleigh's "sanctum," above, which communicated, also, with the second story of the mill. Here Faith paused. She caught, from around the corner, a sound of the angry voices of men. "I tell you, I'll stay here till I see the boss!" "I tell you, the boss won't see you. He's done with you." "Let him _be_ done with me, then; and not go spoiling my chance with other people! I'll see it out with him, somehow, yet." "Better not threaten. He won't go out of his way to meddle with you; only it's no use your sending anybody here after a character. He's one of the sort that speaks the truth and shames the devil." "I'll let him know he ain't boss of the whole country round! D----d if I don't!" Faith turned away from hearing more of this, and from facing the speakers; and took refuge up the open staircase. Above--in the quiet little countingroom, shut off by double doors at the right from the great loom chamber of the mill, and opening at the front by a wide window upon the river that ran tumbling and flashing below, spanned by the graceful little bridge that reached the green slope of the field beyond--it was so cool and pleasant--so still with continuous and softened sound--that Faith sat down upon the comfortable sofa there, to rest, to think, to be alone, a little. She had Paul's letter in her pocket; she had his father's words fresh upon ear and heart. A strange peace came over her, as she placed herself here; as if, somehow, a way was soon to be opened and made clear to her. As if she should come to know herself, and to be brave to act as God should show her how. She heard, presently, Mr. Rushleigh's voice in the mill yard, and then the staircase door closed and locked below. Thinking that he should be here no more, to-night, he had shut and fastened it. It was no matter. She would go through the mill, by and by, and look at the looms; and so out, and over the river, then, to Aunt Faith's. CHAPTER XXVIII. LOCKED IN. "How idle it is to call certain things godsends! as if there were anything else in the world."--HARE. It is accounted a part of the machinery of invention when, in a story, several coincident circumstances, that apart, would have had no noticeable result, bear down together, with a nice and sure calculation upon some catastrophe or _dénouement_ that develops itself therefrom. Last night, a man--an employee in Mr. Rushleigh's factory--had been kept awake by one of his children, taken suddenly ill. A slight matter--but it has to do with our story. Last night, also, Faith--Paul's second letter just received--had lain sleepless for hours, fighting the old battle over, darkly, of doubt, pity, half-love, and indecision. She had felt, or had thought she felt--thus, or so--in the days that were past. Why could she not be sure of her feeling now? The new wine in the old bottles--the new cloth in the old garment--these, in Faith's life, were at variance. What satisfied once, satisfied no longer. Was she to blame? What ought she to do? There was a seething--a rending. Poor heart, that was likely to be burst and torn--wonderingly, helplessly--in the half-comprehended struggle! So it happened, that, tired with all this, sore with its daily pressure and recurrence, this moment of strange peace came over her, and soothed her into rest. She laid herself back, there, on the broad, soft, old-fashioned sofa, and with the river breeze upon her brow, and the song of its waters in her ears, and the deadened hum of the factory rumbling on--she fell asleep. How long it had been, she could not tell; she knew not whether it were evening, or midnight, or near the morning; but she felt cold and cramped; everything save the busy river was still, and the daylight was all gone, and stars out bright in the deep, moonless sky, when she awoke. Awoke, bewilderedly, and came slowly to the comprehension that she was here alone. That it was night--that nobody could know it--that she was locked up here, in the great dreary mill. She raised herself upon the sofa, and sat in a terrified amaze. She took out her watch, and tried to see, by the starlight, the time. The slender black hands upon its golden face were invisible. It ticked--it was going. She knew, by that, it could not be far beyond midnight, at the most. She was chilly, in her white dress, from the night air. She went to the open window, and looked out from it, before she drew it down. Away, over the fields, and up and down the river, all was dark, solitary. Nobody knew it--she was here alone. She shut the window, softly, afraid of the sounds herself might make. She opened the double doors from the countingroom, and stood on the outer threshold, and looked into the mill. The heavy looms were still. They stood like great, dead creatures, smitten in the midst of busy motion. There was an awfulness in being here, the only breathing, moving thing--in darkness--where so lately had been the deafening hum of rolling wheels, and clanking shafts, and flying shuttles, and busy, moving human figures. It was as if the world itself were stopped, and she forgotten on its mighty, silent course. Should she find her way to the great bell, ring it, and make an alarm? She thought of this; and then she reasoned with herself that she was hardly so badly off, as to justify her, quite, in doing that. It would rouse the village, it would bring Mr. Rushleigh down, perhaps--it would cause a terrible alarm. And all that she might be spared a few hours longer of loneliness and discomfort. She was safe. It would soon be morning. The mill would be opened early. She would go back to the sofa, and try to sleep again. Nobody could be anxious about her. The Rushleighs supposed her to be at Cross Corners. Her aunt would think her detained at Lakeside. It was really no great matter. She would be brave, and quiet. So she shut the double doors again, and found a coat of Paul's, or Mr. Rushleigh's, in the closet of the countingroom, and lay down upon the sofa, covering herself with that. For an hour or more, her heart throbbed, her nerves were excited, she could not sleep. But at last she grew calmer, her thought wandered from her actual situation--became indistinct--and slumber held her again, dreamily. There was another sleeper, also, in the mill whom Faith knew nothing of. Michael Garvin, the night watchman--the same whose child had been ill the night before--when Faith came out into the loom chamber, had left it but a few minutes, going his silent round within the building, and recording his faithfulness by the half-hour pin upon the watch clock. Six times he had done this, already. It was half past ten. He had gone up, now, by the stairs from the weaving room, into the third story. These stairs ascended at the front, from within the chamber. Michael Garvin went on nearly to the end of the room above--stopped, and looked out at a window. All still, all safe apparently. He was very tired. What harm in lying down somewhere in a corner, for five minutes? He need not shut his eyes. He rolled his coat up for a pillow, and threw it against the wall beneath the window. The next instant he had stretched his stalwart limbs along the floor, and before ten minutes of his seventh half hour were spent--long before Faith, who thought herself all alone in the great building, had lost consciousness of her strange position--he was fast asleep. Fast asleep, here, in the third story! So, since the days of the disciples, men have grown heavy and forgotten their trust. So they have slumbered upon decks, at sea. So sentinels have lain down at picket posts, though they knew the purchase of that hour of rest might be the leaden death! Faith Gartney dreamed, uneasily. She thought herself wandering, at night, through the deserted streets of a great city. She seemed to have come from somewhere afar off, and to have no place to go to. Up and down, through avenues sometimes half familiar, sometimes wholly unknown, she went wearily, without aim, or end, or hope. "Tired! tired! tired!" she seemed to say to herself. "Nowhere to rest--nobody to take care of me!" Then--city, streets, and houses disappeared; the scenery of her dream rolled away, and opened out, and she was standing on a high, bare cliff, away up in wintry air; threatening rocky avalanches overhanging her--chill winds piercing her--and no pathway visible downward. Still crying out in loneliness and fear. Still with none to comfort or to help. Standing on the sheer edge of the precipice--behind her, suddenly, a crater opened. A hissing breath came up, and the chill air quivered and scorched about her. Her feet were upon a volcano! A lake of boiling, molten stone heaved--huge, brazen, bubbling--spreading wider and wider, like a great earth ulcer, eating in its own brink continually. Up in the air over her, reared a vast, sulphurous canopy of smoke. The narrowing ridge beneath her feet burned--trembled. She hovered between two destructions. Instantly--in that throbbing, agonizing moment of her dream, just after which one wakes--she felt a presence--she heard a call--she thought two arms were stretched out toward her--there seemed a safety and a rest near by; she was borne by an unseen impulse, along the dizzy ridge that her feet scarce touched, toward it; she was taken--folded, held; smoke, fire, the threatening danger of the cliff, were nothing, suddenly, any more. Whether they menaced still, she thought not; a voice she knew and trusted was in her ear; a grasp of loving strength sustained her; she was utterly secure. So vividly she felt the presence--so warm and sure seemed that love and strength about her--that waking out of such pause of peace, before her senses recognized anything that was real without, she stretched her hands, as if to find it at her side, and her lips breathed a name--the name of Roger Armstrong. Then she started to her feet. The kind, protecting presence faded back into her dream. The horrible smoke, the scorching smell, were true. A glare smote sky and trees and water, as she saw them from the window. There was fire near her! Could it be among the buildings of the mill? The long, main structure ran several feet beyond the square projection within which she stood. Upon the other side, close to the front, quite away, of course, from all observation hence, joined, at right angles, another building, communicating and forming one with the first. Here were the carding rooms. Then beyond, detached, were houses for storage and other purposes connected with the business. Was it from one of these the glare and smoke and suffocating burning smell were pouring? Or, lay the danger nearer--within these close, contiguous walls? Vainly she threw up the one window, and leaned forth. She could not tell. * * * * * At this moment, Roger Armstrong, also, woke from out a dream. In this strange, second life of ours, that replaces the life of day, do we not meet interiorly? Do not thoughts and knowledges cross, from spirit to spirit, over the abyss, that lip, and eye, and ear, in waking moments, neither send nor receive? That even mind itself is scarcely conscious of? Is not the great deep of being, wherein we rest, electric with a sympathetic life--and do not warnings and promises and cheer pulse in upon us, mysteriously, in these passive hours of the flesh, when soul only is awake and keen? Do not two thoughts, two consciousnesses, call and answer to each other, mutely, in twin dreams of night? Roger Armstrong came in, late, that evening, from a visit to a distant sick parishioner. Then he sat, writing, for an hour or two longer. By and by, he threw down his pen--pushed back his armchair before his window--stretched his feet, wearily, into the deep, old-fashioned window seat--leaned his head back, and let the cool breeze stir his hair. So it soothed him into sleep. He dreamed of Faith. He dreamed he saw her stand, afar off, in some solitary place, and beckon, as it were, visibly, from a wide, invisible distance. He dreamed he struggled to obey her summons. He battled with the strange inertia of sleep. He strove--he gasped--he broke the spell and hastened on. He plunged--he climbed--he stood in a great din that bewildered and threatened; there was a lurid light that glowed intense about him as he went; in the midst of all--beyond--she beckoned still. "Faith! Faith! What danger is about you, child?" These words broke forth from him aloud, as he started to his feet, and stretched his hands, impulsively, out before him, toward the open window. His eyes flashed wide upon that crimson glare that flooded sky and field and river. There was fire at the mills! Not a sound, yet, from the sleeping village. * * * * * The heavy, close-fitting double doors between the countingroom and the great mill chamber were shut. Only by opening these and venturing forth, could Faith gain certain knowledge of her situation. Once more she pulled them open and passed through. A blinding smoke rushed thick about her, and made her gasp for breath. Up through the belt holes in the floor, toward the farther end of the long room, sprang little tongues of flame that leaped higher and higher, even while she strove for sight, that single, horrified, suffocating instant, and gleamed, mockingly, upon the burnished shafts of silent looms. In at the windows on the left, came the vengeful shine of those other windows, at right angles, in the adjacent building. The carding rooms, and the whole front of the mill, below, were all in flames! In frantic affright, in choking agony, Faith dashed herself back through the heavy doors, that swung on springs, and closed tightly once more after her. Here, at the open window, she took breath. Must she wait here, helpless, for the fiery death? Down below her, the narrow brink--the rushing river. No foothold--no chance for a descent. Behind her, only those two doors, barring out flame and smoke! And the little footbridge, lying in the light across the water, and the green fields stretching away, cool and safe beyond. A little farther--her home! "Fire!" She cried the fearful word out upon the night, uselessly. There was no one near. The village slumbered on, away there to the left. The strong, deep shout of a man might reach it, but no tone of hers. There were no completed or occupied dwelling houses, as yet, about the new mills. Mr. Rushleigh was putting up some blocks; but, for the present, there was nothing nearer than the village proper of Kinnicutt on the one hand, and as far, or farther, on the other the houses at Lakeside. The flames themselves, alone, could signal her danger, and summon help. How long would it be first? Thoughts of father, mother, and little brother--thoughts of the kind friends at Lakeside, parted from but a few hours before--thoughts of the young lover to whom the answer he waited for should be given, perhaps, so awfully; through all, lighting, as it were, suddenly and searchingly, the deep places of her own soul, the thought--the feeling, rather, of that presence in her dream; of him who had led her, taught her, lifted her so, to high things; brought her nearer, by his ministry, to God! Of all human influence or love, his was nearest and strongest, spiritually, to her, now! All at once, across these surging, crowding, agonizing feelings, rushed an inspiration for the present moment. The water gate! The force pump! The apparatus for working these lay at this end of the building. She had been shown the method of its operation; they had explained to her its purpose. It was perfectly simple. Only the drawing of a rope over a pulley--the turning of a faucet. She could do it, if she could only reach the spot. Instantly and strangely, the cloud of terror seemed to roll away. Her faculties cleared. Her mind was all alert and quickened. She thought of things she had heard of years before, and long forgotten. That a wet cloth about the face would defend from smoke. That down low, close to the floor, was always a current of fresher air. She turned a faucet that supplied a basin in the countingroom, held her handkerchief to it, and saturated it with water. Then she tied it across her forehead, letting it hang before her face like a veil. She caught a fold of it between her teeth. And so, opening the doors between whose cracks the pent-up smoke was curling, she passed through, crouching down, and crawled along the end of the chamber, toward the great rope in the opposite corner. The fire was creeping thitherward, also, to meet her. Along from the front, down the chamber on the opposite side, the quick flames sprang and flashed, momently higher, catching already, here and there, from point to point, where an oiled belt or an unfinished web of cloth attracted their hungry tongues. As yet, they were like separate skirmishers, sent out in advance; their mighty force not yet gathered and rolled together in such terrible sheet and volume as raged beneath. She reached the corner where hung the rope. Close by, was the faucet in the main pipe fed by the force pump. Underneath it, lay a coil of hose, attached and ready. She turned the faucet, and laid hold of the long rope. A few pulls, and she heard the dashing of the water far below. The wheel was turning. The pipes filled. She lifted the end of the coiled hose, and directed it toward the forward part of the chamber, where flames were wreathing, climbing, flashing. An impetuous column of water rushed, eager, hissing, upon blazing wood and heated iron. Still keeping the hose in her grasp, she crawled back again, half stifled, yet a new hope of life aroused within her, to the double doors. Before these, with the little countingroom behind her, as her last refuge, she took her stand. How long could she fight off death? Till help came? All this had been done and thought quickly. There had been less time than she would have believed, since she first woke to the knowledge of this, her horrible peril. The flames were already repulsed. The mill was being flooded. Down the belt holes the water poured upon the fiercer blaze below, that swept across the forward and central part of the great spinning room, from side to side. At this moment, a cry, close at hand. "Fire!" A man was swaying by a rope, down from a third-story window. "Fire!" came again, instantly, from without, upon another side. It was a voice hoarse, excited, strained. A tone Faith had never heard before; yet she knew, by a mysterious intuition, from whom it came. She dropped the hose, still pouring out its torrent, to the floor, and sprang back, through the doors, to the countingroom window. The voice came from the riverside. A man was dashing down the green slope, upon the footbridge. Faith stretched her arms out, as a child might, wakened in pain and terror. A cry, in which were uttered the fear, the horror, that were now first fully felt, as a possible safety appeared, and the joy, that itself came like a sudden pang, escaped her, piercingly, thrillingly. Roger Armstrong looked upward as he sprang upon the bridge. He caught the cry. He saw Faith stand there, in her white dress, that had been wet and blackened in her battling with the fire. A great soul glance of courage and resolve flashed from his eyes. He reached his uplifted arms toward her, answering hers. He uttered not a word. "Round! round!" cried Faith. "The door upon the other side!" Roger Armstrong, leaping to the spot, and Michael Garvin, escaped by the long rope that hung vibrating from his grasp, down the brick wall of the building, met at the staircase door. "Help me drive that in!" cried the minister. And the two men threw their stalwart shoulders against the barrier, forcing lock and hinges. Up the stairs rushed Roger Armstrong. Answering the crash of the falling door, came another and more fearful crash within. Gnawed by the fire, the timbers and supports beneath the forward portion of the second floor had given way, and the heavy looms that stood there had gone plunging down. A horrible volume of smoke and steam poured upward, with the flames, from out the chasm, and rushed, resistlessly, everywhere. Roger Armstrong dashed into the little countingroom. Faith lay there, on the floor. At that fearful crash, that rush of suffocating smoke, she had fallen, senseless. He seized her, frantically, in his arms to bear her down. "Faith! Faith!" he cried, when she neither spoke nor moved. "My darling! Are you hurt? Are you killed? Oh, my God! must there be another?" Faith did not hear these words, uttered with all the passionate agony of a man who would hold the woman he loves to his heart, and defy for her even death. She came to herself in the open air. She felt herself in his arms. She only heard him say, tenderly and anxiously, in something of his old tone, as her consciousness returned, and he saw it: "My dear child!" But she knew then all that had been a mystery to her in herself before. She knew that she loved Roger Armstrong. That it was not a love of gratitude and reverence, only; but that her very soul was rendered up to him, involuntarily, as a woman renders herself but once. That she would rather have died there, in that flame and smoke, held in his arms--gathered to his heart--than have lived whatever life of ease and pleasantness--aye, even of use--with any other! She knew that her thought, in those terrible moments before he came, had been--not father's or mother's, only; not her young lover, Paul's; but, deepest and mostly, his! CHAPTER XXIX. HOME. "The joy that knows there _is_ a joy-- That scents its breath, and cries, 'tis there! And, patient in its pure repose, Receiveth so the holier share." Faith's thought and courage saved the mill from utter destruction. For one fearful moment, when that forward portion of the loom floor fell through, and flame, and vapor, and smoke rioted together in a wild alliance of fury, all seemed lost. But the great water wheel was plying on; the river fought the fire; the rushing, exhaustless streams were pouring out and down, everywhere; and the crowd that in a few moments after the first alarm, and Faith's rescue, gathered at the spot, found its work half done. A little later, there were only sullen smoke, defeated, smoldering fires, blackened timbers, the burned carding rooms, and the ruin at the front, to tell the awful story of the night. Mr. Armstrong had carried Faith into one of the unfinished factory houses. Here he was obliged to leave her for a few moments, after making such a rude couch for her as was possible, with a pile of clean shavings, and his own coat, which he insisted, against all her remonstrances, upon spreading above them. "The first horse and vehicle which comes, Miss Faith, I shall impress for your service," he said; "and to do that I must leave you. I have made that frightened watchman promise to say nothing, at present, of your being here; so I trust the crowd may not annoy you. I shall not be gone long, nor far away." The first horse and vehicle which came was the one that had brought her there in the afternoon but just past, yet that seemed, strangely, to have been so long ago. Mr. Rushleigh found her lying here, quiet, amidst the growing tumult--exhausted, patient, waiting. "My little Faithie!" he cried, coming up to her with hands outstretched, and a quiver of strong feeling in his voice. "To think that you should have been in this horrible danger, and we all lying in our beds, asleep! I do not quite understand it all. You must tell me, by and by. Armstrong has told me what you have _done_. You have saved me half my property here--do you know it, child? Can I ever thank you for your courage?" "Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" cried Faith, rising as he came to her, and holding her hands to his, "don't thank me! and don't wait here! They'll want you--and, oh! my kind friend! there will be nothing to thank me for, when I have told you what I must. I have been very near to death, and I have seen life so clearly! I know now what I did not know yesterday--what I could not answer you then!" "Let it be as it may, I am sure it will be right and true, and I shall honor you, Faith! And we must bear what is, for it has come of the will of God, and not by any fault of yours. Now, let me take you home." "May I do that in your stead, Mr. Rushleigh?" asked Roger Armstrong, who entered at this moment, with garments he had brought from somewhere to wrap Faith. "I must go home," said Faith. "To Aunt Henderson's." "You shall do as you like," answered Mr. Rushleigh. "But it belongs to us to care for you, I think." "You do--you have cared for me already," said Faith, earnestly. And Mr. Rushleigh helped to wrap her up, and kissed her forehead tenderly, and Roger Armstrong lifted her into the chaise, and seated himself by her, and drove her away from out the smoke and noise and curious crowd that had begun to find out she was there, and that she had been shut up in the mill, and had saved herself and stopped the fire; and would have made her as uncomfortable as crowds always do heroes or heroines--had it not been for the friend beside her, whose foresight and precaution had warded it all off. And the mill owner went back among the villagers and firemen, to direct their efforts for his property. Glory McWhirk had been up and watching the great fire, since Roger Armstrong first went out. She had seen it from the window of Miss Henderson's room, where she was to sleep to-night; and had first carefully lowered the blinds lest the light should waken her mistress, who, after suffering much pain, had at length, by the help of an anodyne, fallen asleep; and then she had come round softly to the southwest room, to call the minister. The door stood open, and she saw him sitting in his chair, asleep. Just as she crossed the threshold to come toward him, he started, and spoke those words out of his restless dream: "Faith! Faith! What danger is about you, child?" They were instinct with his love. They were eager with his visionary fear. It only needed a human heart to interpret them. Glory drew back as he sprang to his feet, and noiselessly disappeared. She would not have him know that she had heard this cry with which he waked. "He dreamed about her! and he called her Faith. How beautiful it is to be cared for so!" Glory--while we have so long been following Faith--had no less been living on her own, peculiar, inward life, that reached to, that apprehended, that seized ideally--that was denied, so much! As Glory had seen, in the old years, children happier than herself, wearing beautiful garments, and "hair that was let to grow," she saw those about her now whom life infolded with a grace and loveliness she might not look for; about whom fair affections, "let to grow," clustered radiant, and enshrined them in their light. She saw always something that was beyond; something she might not attain; yet, expectant of nothing, but blindly true to the highest within her, she lost no glimpse of the greater, through lowering herself to the less. Her soul of womanhood asserted itself; longing, ignorantly, for a soul love. "To be cared for, so!" But she would rather recognize it afar--rather have her joy in knowing the joy that might be--than shut herself from knowledge in the content of a common, sordid lot. She did not think this deliberately, however; it was not reason, but instinct. She renounced unconsciously. She bore denial, and never knew she was denied. Of course, the thought of daring to covet what she saw, had never crossed her, in her humbleness. It was quite away from her. It was something with which she had nothing to do. "But it must be beautiful to be like Miss Faith." And she thanked God, mutely, that she had this beautiful life near her, and could look on it every day. She could not marry Luther Goodell. "A vague unrest And a nameless longing filled her breast"; But, unlike the maiden of the ballad, she could not smother it down, to break forth, by and by, defying the "burden of life," in sweet bright vision, grown to a keen torture then. Faith had read to her this story of Maud, one day. "I shouldn't have done so," she had said, when it was ended. "I'd rather have kept that one minute under the apple trees to live on all the rest of my days!" She could not marry Luther Goodell. Would it have been better that she should? That she should have gone down from her dreams into a plain man's life, and made a plain man happy? Some women, of far higher mental culture and social place, have done this, and, seemingly, done well. Only God and their own hearts know if the seeming be true. Glory waited. "Everybody needn't marry," she said. This night, with those words of Mr. Armstrong's in her ears, revealing to her so much, she stood before that window of his and watched the fire. Doors were open behind her, leading through to Miss Henderson's chamber. She would hear her mistress if she stirred. If she had known what she did not know--that Faith Gartney stood at this moment in that burning mill, looking forth despairingly on those bright waters and green fields that lay between it and this home of hers--that were so near her, she might discern each shining pebble and the separate grass blades in the scarlet light, yet so infinitely far, so gone from her forever--had she known all this, without knowing the help and hope that were coming--she would yet have said "How beautiful it would be to be like Miss Faith!" She watched the fire till it began to deaden, and the glow paled out into the starlight. By and by, up from the direction of the river road, she saw a chaise approaching. It was stopped at the corner, by the bar place. Two figures descended from it, and entered upon the field path through the stile. One--yes--it was surely the minister! The other--a woman. Who? Miss Faith! Glory met them upon the doorstone. Faith held her finger up. "I was afraid of disturbing my aunt," said she. "Take care of her, Glory," said her companion. "She has been in frightful danger." "At the fire! And you----" "I was there in time, thank God!" spoke Roger Armstrong, from his soul. The two girls passed through to the blue bedroom, softly. Mr. Armstrong went back to the mills again, with horse and chaise. Glory shut the bedroom door. "Why, you are all wet, and draggled, and smoked!" said she, taking off Faith's outer, borrowed garments. "What _has_ happened to you--and how came you there, Miss Faith?" "I fell asleep in the countingroom, last evening, and got locked in. I was coming home. I can't tell you now, Glory. I don't dare to think it all over, yet. And we mustn't let Aunt Faith know that I am here." These sentences they spoke in whispers. Glory asked no more; but brought warm water, and bathed and rubbed Faith's feet, and helped her to undress, and put her night clothes on, and covered her in bed with blankets, and then went away softly to the kitchen, whence she brought back, presently, a cup of hot tea, and a biscuit. "Take these, please," she said. "I don't think I can, Glory. I don't want anything." "But he told me to take care of you, Miss Faith!" That, also, had a power with Faith. Because he had said that, she drank the tea, and then lay back--so tired! * * * * * "I waited up till you came, sir, because I thought you would like to know," said Glory, meeting Mr. Armstrong once more upon the doorstone, as he returned a second time from the fire. "She's gone to sleep, and is resting beautiful!" "You are a good girl, Glory, and I thank you," said the minister; and he put his hand forth, and grasped hers as he spoke. "Now go to bed, and rest, yourself." It was reward enough. From the plenitude that waits on one life, falls a crumb that stays the craving of another. CHAPTER XXX. AUNT HENDERSON'S MYSTERY. "Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, And I said in underbreath,--All our life is mixed with death, And who knoweth which is best? "Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness,-- Round our restlessness, His rest." MRS. BROWNING. "So the dreams depart, So the fading phantoms flee, And the sharp reality Now must act its part." WESTWOOD. It was a little after noon of the next day, when Mr. Rushleigh came to Cross Corners. Faith was lying back, quite pale, and silent--feeling very weak after the terror, excitement, and fatigue she had gone through--in the large easy-chair which had been brought for her into the southeast room. Miss Henderson had been removed from her bed to the sofa here, and the two were keeping each other quiet company. Neither could bear the strain of nerve to dwell long or particularly on the events of the night. The story had been told, as simply as it might be; and the rest and the thankfulness were all they could think of now. So there were deep thoughts and few words between them. On Faith's part, a patient waiting for a trial yet before her. "It's Mr. Rushleigh, come over to see Miss Faith. Shall I bring him in?" asked Glory, at the door. "Will you mind it, aunt?" asked Faith. "I? No," said Miss Henderson. "Will you mind my being here? That's the question. I'd take myself off, without asking, if I could, you know." "Dear Aunt Faith! There is something I have to say to Mr. Rushleigh which will be very hard to say, but no more so because you will be by to hear it. It is better so. I shall only have to say it once. I am glad you should be with me." "Brave little Faithie!" said Mr. Rushleigh, coming in with hands outstretched. "Not ill, I hope?" "Only tired," Faith answered. "And a little weak, and foolish," as the tears would come, in answer to his cordial words. "I am sorry. Miss Henderson, that I could not have persuaded this little girl to go home with me last night--this morning, rather. But she would come to you." "She did just right," Aunt Faith replied. "It's the proper place for her to come to. Not but that we thank you all the same. You're very kind." "Kinder than I have deserved," whispered Faith, as he took his seat beside her. Mr. Rushleigh would not let her lead him that way yet. He ignored the little whisper, and by a gentle question or two drew from her that which he had come, especially, to learn and speak of to-day--the story of the fire, and her own knowledge of, and share in it, as she alone could tell it. Now, for the first time, as she recalled it to explain her motive for entering the mill at all, the rough conversation she had overheard between the two men upon the river bank, suggested to Faith, as the mention of it was upon her lips, a possible clew to the origin of the mischief. She paused, suddenly, and a look of dismayed hesitation came over her face. "I ought to tell you all, I suppose," she continued. "But pray, sir, do not conclude anything hastily. The two things may have had nothing to do with each other." And then, reluctantly, she repeated the angry threat that had come to her ears. Pausing, timidly, to look up in her listener's face, to judge of its expression, a smile there surprised her. "See how truth is always best," said Mr. Rushleigh. "If you had kept back your knowledge of this, you would have sealed up a painful doubt for your own tormenting. That man, James Regan, came to me this morning. There is good in the fellow, after all. He told me, just as you have, and as Hardy did, the words he spoke in passion. He was afraid, he said, they might be brought up against him. And so he came to 'own up,' and account for his time; and to beg me to believe that he never had any definite thought of harm. I told him I did believe it; and then the poor fellow, rough as he is, turned pale, and burst into tears. Last night gave him a lesson, I think, that will go far to take the hardness out of him. Blasland says, 'he worked like five men and a horse,' at the fire." Faith's face glowed as she listened, at the nobleness of these two; of the generous, Christian gentleman--of the coarse workman, who wore his nature, like his garb--the worse part of an everyday. Fire and loss are not all calamity, when such as this comes of them. Her own recital was soon finished. Mr. Rushleigh listened, giving his whole sympathy to the danger she had faced, his fresh and fervent acknowledgment and admiring praise to the prompt daring she had shown, as if these things, and naught else, had been in either mind. At these thanks--at this praise--Faith shrank. "Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" she interrupted, with a low, pained, humbled entreaty--"don't speak so! Only forgive me--if you can!" Her hands lifted themselves with a slight, imploring gesture toward him. He laid his own upon them, gently, soothingly. "I will not have you trouble or reproach yourself, Faith," he answered, meeting her meaning, frankly, now. "There are things beyond our control. All we can do is to be simply true. There is something, I know, which you think lies between us to be spoken of. Do not speak at all, if it be hard for you. I will tell the boy that it was a mistake--that it cannot be." But the father's lip was a little unsteady, to his own feeling, as he said the words. "Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" cried Faith. "If everything could only be put back as it was, in the old days before all this!" "But that is what we can't do. Nothing goes back precisely to what it was before." "No," said Aunt Faith, from her sofa. "And never did, since the days of Humpty Dumpty. You might be glad to, but you can't do it. Things must just be made the best of, as they are. And they're never just alike, two minutes together. They're altering, and working, and going on, all the time. And that's a comfort, too, when you come to think of it." "There is always comfort, somehow, when there has been no willful wrong. And there has been none here, I am sure." Faith, with the half smile yet upon her face, called there by her aunt's quaint speaking, bent her head, and burst into tears. "I came to reassure and to thank you, Faith--not to let you distress yourself so," said Mr. Rushleigh. "Margaret sent all kind messages; but I would not bring her. I thought it would be too much for you, so soon. Another day, she will come. We shall always claim old friendship, my child, and remember our new debt; though the old days themselves cannot quite be brought back again as they were. There may be better days, though, even, by and by." "Let Margaret know, before she comes, please," whispered Faith. "I don't think I could tell her." "You shall not have a moment of trial that I can spare you. But--Paul will be content with nothing, as a final word, that does not come from you." "I will see him when he comes. I wish it. Oh, sir! I am so sorry." "And so am I, Faith. We must all be sorry. But we are _only_ sorry. And that is all that need be said." The conversation, after this, could not be prolonged. Mr. Rushleigh took his leave, kindly, as he had made his greeting. "Oh, Aunt Faith! What a terrible thing I have done!" "What a terrible thing you came near doing, you mean, child! Be thankful to the Lord--He's delivered you from it! And look well to the rest of your life, after all this. Out of fire and misery you must have been saved for something!" Then Aunt Faith called Glory, and told her to bring an egg, beat up in milk--"to a good froth, mind; and sugared and nut-megged, and a teaspoonful of brandy in it." This she made Faith swallow, and then bade her put her feet up on the sofa, and lean back, and shut her eyes, and not speak another word till she'd had a nap. All which, strangely enough, Faith--wearied, troubled, yet relieved--obeyed. For the next two days, what with waiting on the invalids--for Faith was far from well--and with answering the incessant calls at the door of curious people flocking to inquire, Glory McWhirk was kept busy and tired. But not with a thankless duty, as in the days gone by, that she remembered; it was heart work now, and brought heart love as its reward. It was one of her "real good times." Mr. Armstrong talked and read with them, and gave hand help and ministry also, just when it could be given most effectually. It was a beautiful lull of peace between the conflict that was past, and the final pang that was to come. Faith accepted it with a thankfulness. Such joy as this was all life had for her, henceforth. There was no restlessness, no selfishness in the love that had so suddenly asserted itself, and borne down all her doubts. She thought not of it, as love, any more. She never dreamed of being other to Mr. Armstrong than she was. Only, that other life had become impossible to her. Here, if she might not elsewhere, she had gone back to the things that were. She could be quite content and happy, so. It was enough to rest in such a friendship. If only she had once seen Paul, and if he could but bear it! And Roger Armstrong, of intent, was just what he had always been--the kind and earnest friend--the ready helper--no more. He knew Faith Gartney had a trouble to bear; he had read her perplexity--her indecision; he had feared, unselfishly, for the mistake she was making. Miss Henderson had told him, now, in few, plain words, how things were ending; he strove, in all pleasant and thoughtful ways, to soothe and beguile her from her harassment. He dreamed not how the light had come to her that had revealed to her the insufficiency of that other love. He laid his own love back, from his own sight. So, calmly, and with what peace they might, these hours went on. "I want to see that Sampson woman," said Aunt Faith, suddenly, to her niece, on the third afternoon of their being together. "Do you think she would come over here if I should send for her?" Faith flashed a surprised look of inquiry to Miss Henderson's face. "Why, aunt?" she asked. "Never mind why, child. I can't tell you now. Of course it's something, or I shouldn't want her. Something I should like to know, and that I suppose she could tell me. Do you think she'd come?" "Why, yes, auntie. I don't doubt it. I might write her a note." "I wish you would. Mr. Armstrong says he'll drive over. And I'd like to have you do it right off. Now, don't ask me another word about it, till she's been here." Faith wrote the note, and Mr. Armstrong went away. Miss Henderson seemed to grow tired, to-day, after her dinner, and at four o'clock she said to Glory, abruptly: "I'll go to bed. Help me into the other room." Faith offered to go too, and assist her. But her aunt said, no, she should do quite well with Glory. "And if the Sampson woman comes, send her in to me." Faith was astonished, and a little frightened. What could it be that Miss Henderson wanted with the nurse? Was it professionally that she wished to see her? She knew the peculiar whim, or principle, Miss Sampson always acted on, of never taking cases of common illness. She could not have sent for her in the hope of keeping her merely to wait upon her wants as an invalid, and relieve Glory? Was her aunt aware of symptoms in herself, foretokening other or more serious illness? Faith could only wonder, and wait. Glory came back, presently, into the southeast room, to say to Faith that her aunt was comfortable, and thought she should get a nap. But that whenever the nurse came, she was to be shown in to her. The next half hour, that happened which drove even this thought utterly from Faith's mind. Paul Rushleigh came. Faith lay, a little wearily, upon the couch her aunt had quitted; and was thinking, at the very moment--with that sudden, breathless anticipation that sweeps over one, now and then, of a thing awaited apprehensively--of whether this Saturday night would not probably bring him home--when she caught the sound of a horse's feet that stopped before the house, and then a man's step upon the stoop. It was his. The moment had come. She sprang to her feet. For an instant she would have fled--anywhither. Then she grew strangely calm and strong. She must meet him quietly. She must tell him plainly. Tell him, if need be, all she knew herself. He had a right to all. Paul came in, looking grave; and greeted her with a gentle reserve. A moment, they stood there as they had met, she with face pale, sad, that dared not lift itself; he, not trusting himself to the utterance of a word. But he had come there, not to reproach, or to bewail; not even to plead. To hear--to bear with firmness--what she had to tell him. And there was, in truth, a new strength and nobleness in look and tone, when, presently, he spoke. If he had had his way--if all had gone prosperously with him--he would have been, still--recipient of his father's bounty, and accepted of his childish love--scarcely more than a mere, happy boy. This pain, this struggle, this first rebuff of life, crowned him, a man. Faith might have loved him, now, if she had so seen him, first. Yet the hour would come when he should know that it had been better as it was. That so he should grow to that which, otherwise, he had never been. "Faith! My father has told me. That it must be all over. That it was a mistake. I have come to hear it from you." Then he laid in her hand his father's letter. "This came with yours," he said. "After this, I expected all the rest." Faith took the open sheet, mechanically. With half-blinded eyes, she glanced over the few earnest, fatherly, generous lines. When she came to the last, she spoke, low. "Yes. That is it. He saw it. It would have been no true marriage, Paul, before Heaven!" "Then why did I love you, Faith?" cried the young man, impetuously. "I don't know," she said, meditatively, as if she really were to answer that. "Perhaps you will come to love again, differently, yet, Paul; and then you may know why this has been." "I know," said Paul, sadly, "that you have been outgrowing me, Faith. I have felt that. I know I've been nothing but a careless, merry fellow, living an outside sort of life; and I suppose it was only in this outside companionship you liked me. But there might be something more in me, yet; and you might have brought it out, maybe. You _were_ bringing it out. You, and the responsibilities my father put upon me. But it's too late, now. It can't be helped." "Not too late, Paul, for that noble part of you to grow. It was that I came so near really loving at the last. But--Paul! a woman don't want to lead her husband. She wants to be led. I have thought," she added, timidly, "so much of that verse in the Epistle--'the head of the woman is the man, and the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God.'" "You came _near_ loving me!" cried Paul, catching at this sentence, only, out of all that should, by and by, nevertheless, come out in letters of light upon his thought and memory. "Oh, Faith! you may, yet! It isn't all quite over?" Then Faith Gartney knew she must say it all. All--though the hot crimson flushed up painfully, and the breath came quick, and she trembled from head to foot, there, where she stood. But the truth, mighty, and holy in its might, came up from heart to lip, and the crimson paled, and the breath grew calm, and she stood firm with her pure resolve, even in her maidenly shame, before him. There are instants, when all thought of the moment itself, and the look and the word of it, are overborne and lost. "No, Paul. I will tell you truly. With my little, childish heart, I loved you. With the love of a dear friend, I hold you still, and shall hold you, always. But, Paul!--no one else knows it, and I never knew it till I stood face to face with death--with my _soul_ I have come to love another!" Deep and low these last words were--given up from the very innermost, and spoken with bowed head and streaming eyes. Paul Rushleigh took her hand. A manly reverence in him recognized the pure courage that unveiled her woman's heart, and showed him all. "Faith!" he said, "you have never deceived me. You are always noble. Forgive me that I have made you struggle to love me!" With these words, he went. Faith flung herself upon the sofa, and hid her face in its cushion, hearing, through her sobs, the tread of his horse as he passed down the road. This chapter of her life story was closed. CHAPTER XXXI. NURSE SAMPSON'S WAY OF LOOKING AT IT. "I can believe, it shall you grieve, And somewhat you distrain; But afterward, your paines hard, Within a day or twain, Shall soon aslake; and ye shall take Comfort to you again." OLD ENGLISH BALLAD. Glory looked in, once, at the southeast room, and saw Faith lying, still with hidden face; and went away softly, shutting the door behind her as she went. When Mr. Armstrong and Miss Sampson came, she met them at the front entrance, and led the nurse directly to her mistress, as she had been told. Mr. Armstrong betook himself to his own room. Perhaps the hollow Paul Rushleigh's horse had pawed at the gatepost, and the closed door of the keeping room, revealed something to his discernment that kept him from seeking Faith just then. There was a half hour of quiet in the old house. A quiet that ever brooded very much. Then Nurse Sampson came out, with a look on her face that made Faith gaze upon her with an awed feeling of expectation. She feared, suddenly, to ask a question. It was not a long-drawn look of sympathy. It was not surprised, nor shocked, nor excited. It was a look of business. As if she knew of work before her to do. As if Nurse Sampson were in her own proper element, once more. Faith knew that something--she could not guess what--something terrible, she feared--had happened, or was going to happen, to her aunt. It was in the softening twilight that Miss Henderson sent for her to come in. Aunt Faith leaned against her pillows, looking bright and comfortable, even cheerful; but there was a strange gentleness in look and word and touch, as she greeted the young girl who came to her bedside with a face that wore at once its own subduedness of fresh-past grief, and a wondering, loving apprehension of something to be disclosed concerning the kind friend who lay there, invested so with such new grace of tenderness. Was there a twilight, other than that of day, softening, also, around her? "Little Faith!" said Aunt Henderson. Her very voice had taken an unwonted tone. "Auntie! It is surely something very grave! Will you not tell me?" "Yes, child. I mean to tell you. It may be grave. Most things are, if we had the wisdom to see it. But it isn't very dreadful. It's what I've had warning enough of, and had mostly made up my mind to. But I wasn't quite sure. Now, I am. I suppose I've got to bear some pain, and go through a risk that will be greater, at my years, than it would have been if I'd been younger. And I may die. That's all." The words, of old habit, were abrupt. The eye and voice were tender with unspoken love. Faith turned to Miss Sampson, who sat by. "And then, again, she mayn't," said the nurse. "I shall stay and see her through. There'll have to be an operation. At least, I think so. We'll have the doctor over, to-morrow. And now, if there's one thing more important than another, it's to keep her cheerful. So, if you've got anything bright and lively to say, speak out! If not, _keep_ out! She'll do well enough, I dare say." Poor Faith! And, without this new trouble, there was so much that she, herself, was needing comfort for! "You're a wise woman, Nurse Sampson. But you don't know everything," said Aunt Faith. "The best thing to take people out of their own worries, is to go to work and find out how other folks' worries are getting on. He's been here, hasn't he, child?" It was not so hard for Aunt Faith, who had borne secretly, so long, the suspicion of what was coming, and had lived on, calmly, nevertheless, in her daily round, to turn thus from the announcement of her own state and possible danger, to thought and inquiry for the affairs of another, as it was for that other, newly apprised, and but half apprised, even, of what threatened, to leave the subject there, and answer. But she saw that Miss Henderson spoke only truth in declaring it was the best way to take her out of her worries; she read Nurse Sampson's look, and saw that she, at any rate, was quite resolved her patient should not be let to dwell longer on any painful or apprehensive thought, and she put off all her own anxious questionings, till she should see the nurse alone, and said, in a low tone--yes, Paul Rushleigh had been there. "And you've told him the truth, like a woman, and he's heard it like a man?" "I've told him it must be given up. Oh, it was hard, auntie!" "You needn't worry. You've done just the rightest thing you could do." "But it seems so selfish. As if my happiness were of so much more consequence than his. I've made him so miserable, I'm afraid!" "Miss Sampson!" cried Aunt Faith, with all her old oddity and suddenness, "just tell this girl, if you know, what kind of a commandment a woman breaks, if she can't make up her mind to marry the first man that asks her! 'Tain't in _my_ Decalogue!" "I can't tell what commandment she won't be likely to break, if she isn't pretty sure of her own mind before she _does_ marry!" said Miss Sampson, energetically. "Talk of making a man miserable! Supposing you do for a little while? 'Twon't last long. Right's right, and settles itself. Wrong never does. And there isn't a greater wrong than to marry the wrong man. To him as well as to you. And it won't end there--that's the worst of it. There's more concerned than just yourself and him; though you mayn't know how, or who. It's an awful thing to tangle up and disarrange the plans of Providence. And more of it's done, I verily believe, in this matter of marrying, than any other way. It's like mismatching anything else--gloves or stockings--and wearing the wrong ones together. They don't fit; and more'n that, it spoils another pair. I believe, as true as I live, if the angels ever do cry over this miserable world, it's when they see the souls they have paired off, all right, out of heaven, getting mixed up and mismated as they do down here! Why, it's fairly enough to account for all the sin and misery there is in the world! If it wasn't for Adam and Eve and Cain, I should think it did!" "But it's very hard," said Faith, smiling, despite all her saddening thoughts, at the characteristic harangue, "always to know wrong from right. People may make mistakes, if they mean ever so well." "Yes, awful mistakes! There's that poor, unfortunate woman in the Bible. I never thought the Lord meant any reflection by what he said--on her. She'd had six husbands. And he knew she hadn't got what she bargained for, after all. Most likely she never had, in the whole six. And if things had got into such a snarl as that eighteen hundred years ago, how many people, do you think, by this time, are right enough in themselves to be right for anybody? I've thought it all over, many a time. I've had reasons of my own, and I've seen plenty of reasons as I've gone about the world. And my conclusion is, that matrimony's come to be more of a discipline, nowadays, than anything else!" It was strange cheer; and it came at a strange moment; with the very birth of a new anxiety. But so our moments and their influences are mingled. Faith was roused, strengthened, confirmed in her own thought of right, beguiled out of herself, by the words of these two odd, plain-dealing women, as she would not have been if a score of half-comprehending friends had soothed her indirectly with inanities, and delicate half-handling of that which Aunt Faith and Nurse Sampson went straight to the heart of, and brought out, uncompromisingly, into the light. So much we can endure from a true earnestness and simplicity, rough and homely though it be, which would be impertinent and intolerable if it came but with surface sympathy. She had a word that night from Robert Armstrong, when he came, late in the evening, from a conversation with Aunt Faith, and found her at the open door upon the stoop. It was only a hand grasp, and a fervent "God bless you, child! You have been brave and true!" and he passed on. But a balm and a quiet fell deep into her heart, and a tone, that was a joy, lingered in her ear, and comforted her as no other earthly comfort could. But this was not all earthly; it lifted her toward heaven. It bore her toward the eternal solace there. Aunt Faith would have no scenes. She told the others, in turn, very much as she had told Faith, that a suffering and an uncertainty lay before her; and then, by her next word and gesture, demanded that the life about her should go right on, taking as slightly as might be its coloring from this that brooded over her. Nobody had a chance to make a wail. There was something for each to do. Miss Henderson, by Nurse Sampson's advice, remained mostly in her bed. In fact, she had kept back the announcement of this ailment of hers, just so long as she could resist its obvious encroachment. The twisted ankle had been, for long, a convenient explanation of more than its own actual disability. But it was not a sick room--one felt that--this little limited bound in which her life was now visibly encircled. All the cheer of the house was brought into it. If people were sorry and fearful, it was elsewhere. Neither Aunt Faith nor the nurse would let anybody into "their hospital," as Miss Sampson said, "unless they came with a bright look for a pass." Every evening, the great Bible was opened there, and Mr. Armstrong read with them, and uttered for them words that lifted each heart, with its secret need and thankfulness, to heaven. All together, trustfully, and tranquilly, they waited. Dr. Wasgatt had been called in. Quite surprised he was, at this new development. He "had thought there was something a little peculiar in her symptoms." But he was one of those Æsculapian worthies who, having lived a scientifically uneventful life, plodding quietly along in his profession among people who had mostly been ill after very ordinary fashions, and who required only the administering of stereotyped remedies, according to the old stereotyped order and rule, had quite forgotten to think of the possibility of any unusual complications. If anybody were taken ill of a colic, and sent for him and told him so, for a colic he prescribed, according to outward indications. The subtle signs that to a keener or more practiced discernment, might have betokened more, he never thought of looking for. What then? All cannot be geniuses; most men just learn a trade. It is only a Columbus who, by the drift along the shore of the fact or continent he stands on, predicates another, far over, out of sight. Surgeons were to come out from Mishaumok to consult. Mr. and Mrs. Gartney would be home, now, in a day or two, and Aunt Faith preferred to wait till then. Mis' Battis opened the Cross Corners house, and Faith went over, daily, to direct the ordering of things there. "Faith!" said Miss Henderson, on the Wednesday evening when they were to look confidently for the return of their travelers next day, "come here, child! I have something to say to you." Faith was sitting alone, there, with her aunt, in the twilight. "There's one thing on my mind, that I ought to speak of, as things have turned out. When I thought, a few weeks ago, that you were provided for, as far as outside havings go, I made a will, one day. Look in that right-hand upper bureau drawer, and you'll find a key, with a brown ribbon to it. That'll unlock a black box on the middle shelf of the closet. Open it, and take out the paper that lies on the top, and bring it to me." Faith did all this, silently. "Yes, this is it," said Miss Henderson, putting on her glasses, which were lying on the counterpane, and unfolding the single sheet, written out in her own round, upright, old-fashioned hand. "It's an old woman's whim; but if you don't like it, it shan't stand. Nobody knows of it, and nobody'll be disappointed. I had a longing to leave some kind of a happy life behind me, if I could, in the Old House. It's only an earthly clinging and hankering, maybe; but I'd somehow like to feel sure, being the last of the line, that there'd be time for my bones to crumble away comfortably into dust, before the old timbers should come down. I meant, once, you should have had it all; but it seemed as if you wasn't going to _need_ it, and as if there was going to be other kind of work cut out for you to do. And I'm persuaded there is yet, somewhere. So I've done this; and I want you to know it beforehand, in case anything goes wrong--no, not that, but unexpectedly--with me." She reached out the paper, and Faith took it from her hand. It was not long in reading. A light shone out of Faith's eyes, through the tears that sprang to them, as she finished it, and gave it back. "Aunt Faith!" she said, earnestly. "It is beautiful! I am so glad! But, auntie! You'll get well, I know, and begin it yourself!" "No," said Miss Henderson, quietly. "I may get over this, and I don't say I shouldn't be glad to. But I'm an old tree, and the ax is lying, ground, somewhere, that's to cut me down before very long. Old folks can't change their ways, and begin new plans and doings. I'm only thankful that the Lord has sent me a thought that lightens all the dread I've had for years about leaving the old place; and that I can go, thinking maybe there'll be His work doing in it as long as it stands." "I don't know," she resumed, after a pause, "how your father's affairs are now. The likelihood is, if he has any health, that he'll go into some kind of a venture again before very long. But I shall have a talk with him, and if he isn't satisfied I'll alter it so as to do something more for you." "Something more!" said Faith. "But you have done a great deal, as it is! I didn't say so, because I was thinking so much of the other." "It won't make an heiress of you," said Aunt Faith. "But it'll be better than nothing, if other means fall short. And I don't feel, somehow, as if you need be a burden on my mind. There's a kind of a certainty borne in on me, otherwise. I can't help thinking that what I've done has been a leading. And if it has, it's right. Now, put this back, and tell Miss Sampson she may bring my gruel." CHAPTER XXXII. GLORY McWHIRK'S INSPIRATION. "No bird am I to sing in June, And dare not ask an equal boon. Good nests and berries red are Nature's To give away to better creatures,-- And yet my days go on, go on." MRS. BROWNING. Mr. and Mrs. Gartney arrived on Thursday. Two weeks and three days they had been absent; and in that time how the busy sprites of change and circumstance had been at work! As if the scattered straws of events, that, stretched out in slender windrows, might have reached across a field of years, had been raked together, and rolled over--crowded close, and heaped, portentous, into these eighteen days! Letters had told them something; of the burned mill, and Faith's fearful danger and escape; of Aunt Henderson's continued illness, and its present serious aspect; and with this last intelligence, which met them in New York but two days since, Mrs. Gartney found her daughter's agitated note of pained avowal, that she "had come, through all this, to know herself better, and to feel sure that this marriage ought not to be"; that, in short, all was at length over between her and Paul Rushleigh. It was a meeting full of thought--where much waited for speech that letters could neither have conveyed nor satisfied--when Faith and her father and mother exchanged the kiss of love and welcome, once more, in the little home at Cross Corners. It was well that Mis' Battis had made waffles, and spread a tempting summer tea with these and her nice, white bread, and fruits and creams; and wished, with such faint impatience as her huge calm was capable of, that "they would jest set right down, while things was good and hot"; and that Hendie was full of his wonderful adventures by boat and train, and through the wilds; so that these first hours were gotten over, and all a little used to the old feeling of being together again, before there was opportunity for touching upon deeper subjects. It came at length--the long evening talk, after Hendie was in bed, and Mr. Gartney had been over to the old house, and seen his aunt, and had come back, to find wife and daughter sitting in the dim light beside the open door, drawn close in love and confidence, and so glad and thankful to have each other back once more! First--Aunt Faith; and what was to be done--what might be hoped--what must be feared--for her. Then, the terrible story of the fire; and all about it, that could only be got at by the hundred bits of question and answer, and the turning over and over, and repetition, whereby we do the best--the feeble best--we can, to satisfy great askings and deep sympathies that never can be anyhow made palpable in words. And, last of all--just with the good-night kiss--Faith and her mother had had it all before, in the first minutes they were left alone together--Mr. Gartney said to his daughter: "You are quite certain, now, Faith?" "Quite certain, father"; Faith answered, low, with downcast eyes, as she stood before him. Her father laid his hand upon her head. "You are a good girl; and I don't blame you; yet I thought you would have been safe and happy, so." "I am safe and happy here at home," said Faith. "Home is in no hurry to spare you, my child." And Faith felt taken back to daughterhood once more. Margaret Rushleigh had been to see her, before this. It was a painful visit, with the mingling of old love and new restraint; and the effort, on either side, to show that things, except in the one particular, were still unchanged. Faith felt how true it was that "nothing could go back, precisely, to what it was before." There was another visit, a day or two after the reassembling of the family at Cross Corners. This was to say farewell. New plans had been made. It would take some time to restore the mills to working order, and Mr. Rushleigh had not quite resolved whether to sell them out as they were, or to retain the property. Mrs. Rushleigh wished Margaret to join her at Newport, whither the Saratoga party was to go within the coming week. Then there was talk of another trip to Europe. Margaret had never been abroad. It was very likely they would all go out in October. Paul's name was never mentioned. Faith realized, painfully, how her little hand had been upon the motive power of much that was all ended, now. Two eminent medical men had been summoned from Mishaumok, and had held consultation with Dr. Wasgatt upon Miss Henderson's case. It had been decided to postpone the surgical operation for two or three weeks. Meanwhile, she was simply to be kept comfortable and cheerful, strengthened with fresh air, and nourishing food, and some slight tonics. Faith was at the old house, constantly. Her aunt craved her presence, and drew her more and more to herself. The strong love, kept down by a stiff, unbending manner, so, for years--resisting almost its own growth--would no longer be denied or concealed. Faith Gartney had nestled herself into the very core of this true, upright heart, unpersuadable by anything but clear judgment and inflexible conscience. "I had a beautiful dream last night, Miss Faith," said Glory, one morning, when Faith came over and found the busy handmaiden with her churn upon the doorstone, "about Miss Henderson. I thought she was all well, and strong, and she looked so young, and bright, and pleasant! And she told me to make a May Day. And we had it out here in the field. And everybody had a crown; and everybody was queen. And the little children danced round the old apple tree, and climbed up, and rode horseback in the branches. And Miss Henderson was out there, dressed in white, and looking on. It don't seem so--just to say it; but I couldn't tell you how beautiful it was!" "Dreams are strange things," said Faith, thoughtfully. "It seems as if they were sent to us, sometimes--as if we really had a sort of life in them." "Don't they?" cried Glory, eagerly. "Why, Miss Faith, I've dreamed on, and on, sometimes, a whole story out! And, after all, we're asleep almost as much as we're awake. Why isn't it just as real?" "I had a dream that night of the fire, Glory. I never shall forget it. I went to sleep there, on the sofa. And it seemed as if I were on the top of a high, steep cliff, with no way to get down. And all at once, there was fire behind me--a burning mountain! And it came nearer, and nearer, till it scorched my very feet; and there was no way down. And then--it was so strange!--I knew Mr. Armstrong was coming. And two hands took me--just as his did, afterwards--and I felt so safe! And then I woke, and it all happened. When he came, I felt as if I had called him." The dasher of the churn was still, and Glory stood, breathless, in a white excitement, gazing into Faith's eyes. "And so you did, Miss Faith! Somehow--through the dreamland--you certainly did!" Faith went in to her aunt, and Glory churned and pondered. Were these two to go on, dreaming, and calling to each other "through the dreamland," and never, in the daylight, and their waking hours, speak out? This thought, in vague shape, turned itself, restlessly, in Glory's brain. Other brains revolved a like thought, also. "Somebody talked about a 'ripe pear,' once. I wonder if that one isn't ever going to fall!" Nurse Sampson wondered thus, as she settled Miss Henderson in her armchair before the window, and they saw Roger Armstrong and Faith Gartney walk up the field together in the sunset light. "I suppose it wouldn't take much of a jog to do it. But, maybe, it's as well to leave it to the Lord's sunshine. He'll ripen it, if He sees fit." "It's a pretty picture, anyhow. There's the new moon exactly over their right shoulders, if they'd only turn their heads to look at it. I don't think much of signs; but, somehow, I always _do_ like to have that one come right!" "Well, it's there, whether they've found it out, or not," replied Aunt Faith. Glory sat on the flat doorstone. She had the invariable afternoon knitting work in her hand; but hand and work had fallen to her lap, and her eyes were away upon the glittering, faint crescent of the moon, that pierced the golden mist of sunset. Close by, the evening star had filled his chalice of silver splendor. "The star and the moon only see each other. I can see both. It is better." She had come to the feeling of Roger Armstrong's sermon. To receive consciously, as she had through her whole, life intuitively and unwittingly, all beauty of all being about her into the secret beauty of her own. She could be glad with the gladness of the whole world. The two came up, and Glory rose, and stood aside. "You have had thoughts, to-night, Glory," said the minister. "Where have they been?" "Away, there," answered Glory, pointing to the western sky. They turned, and followed her gesture; and from up there, at their right, beyond, came down the traditional promise of the beautiful young moon. Glory had shown it them. "And I've been thinking, besides," said Glory, "about that dream of yours, Miss Faith. I've thought of it all day. Please tell it to Mr. Armstrong?" And Glory disappeared down the long passage to the kitchen, and left them standing there, together. She went straight to the tin baker before the fire, and lifted the cover, to see if her biscuits were ready for tea. Then she seated herself upon a little bench that stood against the chimney-side, and leaned her head against the bricks, and looked down into the glowing coals. "It was put into my head to do it!" she said, breathlessly, to herself. "I hope it wasn't ridiculous!" So she sat, and gazed on, into the coals. _They_ were out there in the sunset, with the new moon and the bright star above them in the saffron depths. They stood alone, except for each other, in this still, radiant beauty of all things. Miss Henderson's window was around a projection of the rambling, irregular structure, which made the angle wherein the pleasant old doorstone lay. "May I have your dream, Miss Faith?" She need not be afraid to tell a simple dream. Any more, at this moment, than when she told it to Glory, that morning, on that very spot. Why did she feel, that if she should speak a syllable of it now, the truth that lay behind it would look out, resistless, through its veil? That she could not so keep down its spirit-meaning, that it should not flash, electric, from her soul to his? "It was only--that night," she said, tremulously. "It seemed very strange. Before the fire, I had the dream. It was a dream of fire and danger--danger that I could not escape from. And I held out my hands--and I found you there--and you saved me. Oh, Mr. Armstrong! As you _did_ save me, afterwards!" Roger Armstrong turned, and faced her. His deep, earnest eyes, lit with a new, strange radiance, smote upon hers, and held them spellbound with their glance. "I, too, dreamed that night," said he, "of an unknown peril to you. You beckoned me. I sprang from out that dream, and rushed into the night--until I found you!" Their two souls met, in that brief recital, and knew that they had met before. That, through the dreamland, there had been that call and answer. Faith neither spoke, nor stirred, nor trembled. This supreme moment of her life held her unmoved in its own mightiness. Roger Armstrong held out both his hands. "Faith! In the sight of God, I believe you belong to me!" At that solemn word, of force beyond all claim of a mere mortal love, Faith stretched her hands in answer, and laid them into his, and bowed her head above them. "In the sight of God, I belong to you!" So she gave herself. So she was taken. As God's gift, to the heart that had been earthly desolate so long. There was no dread, no shrinking, in that moment. A perfect love cast out all fear. And the new moon and the evening star shone down together in an absolute peace. CHAPTER XXXIII. LAST HOURS. "In this dim world of clouding cares We rarely know, till 'wildered eyes See white wings lessening up the skies, The angels with us unawares. · · · · · "Strange glory streams through life's wild rents, And through the open door of death We see the heaven that beckoneth To the beloved going hence." GERALD MASSEY. "Read me the twenty-third Psalm," said Miss Henderson. It was the evening before the day fixed upon by her physicians for the surgical operation she had decided to submit to. Faith was in her place by the bedside, her hand resting in that of her aunt. Mr. Armstrong sat near--an open Bible before him. Miss Sampson had gone down the field for a "snatch of air." Clear upon the stillness fell the sacred words of cheer. There was a strong, sure gladness in the tone that uttered them, that told they were born anew, in the breathing, from a heart that had proved the goodness and mercy of the Lord. In a solemn gladness, also, two other hearts received them, and said, silently, Amen! "Now the fourteenth of St. John." "'In my father's house are many mansions.' 'I will dwell in the house of the Lord, forever.' Yes. It holds us all. Under one roof. One family--whatever happens! Now, put away the book, and come here; you two!" It was done; and Roger Armstrong and Faith Gartney stood up, side by side, before her. "I haven't said so before, because I wouldn't set people troubling beforehand. But in my own mind, I'm pretty sure of what's coming. And if I hadn't felt so all along, I should now. When the Lord gives us our last earthly wish, and the kind of peace comes over that seems as if it couldn't be disturbed by anything, any more, we may know, by the hush of it, that the day is done. I'm going to bid you good night, Faith, and send you home. Say your prayers, and thank God, for yourself and for me. Whatever you hear of me, to-morrow, take it for good news; for it _will_ be good. Roger Armstrong! Take care of the child! Child! love your husband; and trust in him; for you may!" Close, close--bent Faith above her aunt, and gave and took that solemn good-night kiss. "'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with us all. Amen!'" With the word of benediction, Roger Armstrong turned from the bedside, and led Faith away. And the deeper shadows of night fell, and infolded the Old House, and the hours wore on, and all was still. Stillest, calmest of all, in the soul of her who had dwelt there for nearly threescore years and ten, and who knew, none the less, that it would be surely home to her wheresoever her place might be given her next, in that wide and beautiful "House of the Lord!" It was a strange day that succeeded; when they sat, waiting so, through those morning hours, keeping such Sabbath as heart and life do keep, and are keeping, somewhere, always, in whatever busy workday of the world, when great issues come to solemnize the time. Almost as still at the Old House as at Cross Corners. No hurry. No bustle. Glory quietly doing her needful duties, and obeying all direction of the nurse. Mr. Armstrong in his own room, in readiness always, for any act or errand that might be required of him. Henderson Gartney alone in that ancient parlor at the front. The three physicians and Miss Sampson shut with Aunt Faith into her room. A faint, breathless odor of ether creeping everywhere, even out into the summer air. It was eleven o'clock, when a word was spoken to Roger Armstrong, and he took his hat and walked across the field. Faith, with pale, asking face, met him at the door. "Well--thus far," was the message; and a kiss fell upon the uplifted forehead, and a look of boundless love and sympathy into the fair, anxious eyes. "All has been done; and she is comfortable. There may still be danger; but the worst is past." Then a brazen veil fell from before the face of day. The sunshine looked golden again, and the song of birds rang out, unmuffled. The strange, Sabbath stillness might be broken. They could speak common words, once more. Faith and her mother sat there, in the hillside parlor, talking thankfully, and happily, with Roger Armstrong. So a half hour passed by. Mr. Gartney would come, with further tidings, when he had been able to speak with the physicians. The shadows of shrub and tree crept and shortened to the lines of noon, and still, no word. They began to wonder, why. Mr. Armstrong would go back. He might be wanted, somehow. They should hear again, immediately, unless he were detained. He was not detained. They watched him up the field, and into the angle of the doorway. He was hidden there a moment, but not more. Then they saw him turn, as one lingering and reluctant, and retrace his steps toward them. "Faith! Stay here, darling! Let me meet him first," said Mrs. Gartney. Faith shrank back, fearful of she knew not what, into the room they had just quitted. A sudden, panic dread and terror seized her. She felt her hearing sharpened, strained, involuntarily. She should catch that first word, however it might be spoken. She dared not hear it, yet. Out at the hillside door, into the shade of the deep evergreens, she passed, with a quick impulse. Thither Roger Armstrong followed, presently, and found her. With the keen instinct of a loving sympathy, he knew she fled from speech. So he put his arm about her, silently, tenderly; and led her on, and up, under the close, cool shade, the way their steps had come to know so well. "Take it for good news, darling. For it is good," he said, at last, when he had placed her in the rocky seat, where she had listened to so many treasured words--to that old, holy confidence--of his. And there he comforted her. * * * * * A sudden sinking--a prostration beyond what they had looked for, had surprised her attendants; and, almost with their notice of the change, the last, pale, gray shadow had swept up over the calm, patient face, and good Aunt Faith had passed away. Away--for a little. Not out of God's house. Not lost out of His household. * * * * * This was her will. "I, Faith Henderson, spinster, in sound mind, and of my own will, direct these things. "That to my dear grandniece, Faith Henderson Gartney, be given from me, as my bequest, that portion of my worldly property now invested in two stores in D---- Street, in the city of Mishaumok. That this property and interest be hers, for her own use and disposal, with my love. "Also, that my plate, and my box of best house linen, which stands beside the press in the northwest chamber, be given to her, Faith Henderson Gartney; and that my nephew, Henderson Gartney, shall, according to his own pleasure and judgment, appropriate and dispose of any books, or articles of old family value and interest. But that beds, bedding, and all heavy household furniture, with a proper number of chairs and other movables, be retained in the house, for its necessary and suitable furnishing. "And then, that all this residue of personal effects, and my real estate in the Old Homestead at Kinnicutt Cross Corners, and my shares in the Kinnicutt Bank, be placed in the hands of my nephew, Henderson Gartney, to be held in trust during the natural life of my worthy and beloved handmaiden, Gloriana McWhirk; for her to occupy said house, and use said furniture, and the income of said property, so long as she can find at least four orphan children to maintain therewith, and 'make a good time for, every day.' "Provided, that in case the said Gloriana McWhirk shall marry, or shall no longer so employ this property, or in case that she shall die, said property is to revert to my above-named grandniece, Faith Henderson Gartney, for her and her heirs, to their use and behoof forever. "And if there be any failure of a legal binding in this paper that I write, I charge it upon my nephew, Henderson Gartney, on his conscience, as I believe him to be a true and honest man, to see that these my effects are so disposed of, according to my plain will and intention. "(Signed) FAITH HENDERSON. "(Witnessed) ROGER ARMSTRONG, HIRAM WASGATT, LUTHER GOODELL." CHAPTER XXXIV. MRS. PARLEY GIMP. "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley." BURNS. Kinnicott had got an enormous deal to talk about. The excitement of the great fire, and the curiosity and astonishment concerning Miss Gartney's share in the events of that memorable night had hardly passed into the quietude of things discussed to death and laid away, unwillingly, in their graves, when all this that had happened at Cross Corners poured itself, in a flood of wonder, upon the little community. Not all, quite, at once, however. Faith's engagement was not, at first, spoken of publicly. There was no need, in this moment of their common sorrow, to give their names to the little world about them, for such handling as it might please. Yet the little world found plenty to say, and a great many plans to make for them, none the less. Miss Henderson's so long unsuspected, and apparently brief illness, her sudden death, and the very singular will whose provisions had somehow leaked out, as matters of the sort always do, made a stir and ferment in the place, and everybody felt bound to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion which should account for all, and to get a clear idea of what everybody immediately concerned would do, or ought, in the circumstances, to do next, before they--the first everybodies--could eat and sleep, and go comfortably about their own business again, in the ordinary way. They should think Mr. Gartney would dispute the will. It couldn't be a very hard matter, most likely, to set it aside. All that farm, and the Old Homestead, and her money in the bank, going to that Glory McWhirk! Why, it was just ridiculous. The old lady must have been losing her faculties. One thing was certain, anyway. The minister was out of a boarding place again. So that question came up, in all its intricate bearings, once more. This time Mrs. Gimp struck, while, as she thought, the iron was hot. Mr. Parley Gimp met Mr. Armstrong, one morning, in the village street, and waylaid him to say that "his good lady thought she could make room for him in their family, if it was so that he should be looking out for a place to stay at." Mr. Armstrong thanked him; but, for the present, he was to remain at Cross Corners. "At the Old House?" "No, sir. At Mr. Gartney's." The iron was cold, after all. Mrs. Parley Gimp called, one day, a week or two later, when the minister was out. A visit of sympathetic scrutiny. "Yes, it was a great loss, certainly. But then, at her age, you know, ma'am! We must all expect these things. It was awfully sudden, to be sure. Must have been a terrible shock. Was her mind quite clear at the last, ma'am?" "Perfectly. Clear, and calm, and happy, through it all." "That's very pleasant to think of now, I'm sure. But I hear she's made a very extraordinary arrangement about the property. You can't tell, though, to be sure, about all you hear, nowadays." "No, Mrs. Gimp. That is very true," said Mrs. Gartney. "Everybody always expected that it would all come to you. At least, to your daughter. She seemed to make so much of her." "My daughter is quite satisfied, and we for her." "Well, I must say!--and so Mr. Armstrong is to board here, now? A little out of the way of most of the parish, isn't it? I never could see, exactly, what put it into his head to come so far. Not but what he makes out to do his duty as a pastor, pretty prompt, too. I don't hear any complaints. He's rather off and on about settling, though. I guess he's a man that keeps his intentions pretty close to himself--and all his affairs, for that matter. Of course he's a perfect right to. But I will say I like to know all about folks from the beginning. It aggravates me to have to begin in the middle. I tell Serena, it's just like reading a book when the first volume's lost. I don't suppose I'm _much_ more curious than other people; but I _should_ like to know just how old he is, for one thing; and who his father and mother were; and where he came from in the first place, and what he lives on, for 'tain't our salary, I know that; he's given away more'n half of it a'ready--right here in the village. I've said to my husband, forty times, if I've said it once, 'I declare, I've a great mind to ask him myself, straight out, just to see what he'll say.'" "And why not?" asked a voice, pleasantly, behind her. Mr. Armstrong had come in, unheard by the lady in her own rush of words, and had approached too near, as this suddenly ceased, to be able to escape again unnoticed. Mis' Battis told Luther Goodell afterwards, that she "jest looked in from the next room, at that, and if ever a woman felt cheap--all over--and as if she hadn't a right to her own toes and fingers, and as if every thread and stitch on her turned mean, all at once--it was Mrs. Gimp, that minit!" "Has Faith returned?" Mr. Armstrong asked, of Mrs. Gartney, after a little pause in which Mrs. Gimp showed no disposition to develop into deed her forty-times declared "great mind." "I think not. She said she would remain an hour or two with Glory, and help her to arrange those matters she came in, this morning, to ask us about." "I will walk over." And the minister took his hat again, and with a bow to the two ladies, passed out, and across the lane. "Faith!" ejaculated the village matron, her courage and her mind to meddle returning. "Well, that's intimate!" It might as well be done now, as at any time. Mr. Armstrong, himself, had heedlessly precipitated the occasion. It had only been, among them, a question of how and when. There was nothing to conceal. "Yes," replied Mrs. Gartney, quietly. "They will be married by and by." "Did she go out the door, ma'am? Or has she melted down into the carpet? 'Cause, I _have_ heerd of people sinkin' right through the floor," said Mis' Battis, who "jest looked in" a second time, as the bewildered visitor receded. * * * * * The pleasant autumn months, mellowing and brightening all things, seemed also to soften and gild their memories of the life that had ended, ripely and beautifully, among them. Glory, after the first overwhelm of astonishment at what had befallen her--made fully to understand that which she had a right, and was in duty bound to do--entered upon the preparations for her work with the same unaffected readiness with which she would have done the bidding of her living mistress. It was so evident that her true humbleness was untouched by all. "It's beautiful!" and the tears and smiles would come together as she said it. "But then, Miss Faith--Mr. Armstrong! I never can do any of it unless you help me!" Faith and Mr. Armstrong did help with heart and hand, and every word of counsel that she needed. "I must buy some cotton and calico, and make some little clothes and tyers. Hadn't I better? When they come, I'll have them to take care of." And with the loving anticipation of a mother, she made up, and laid away, Faith helping her in all, her store of small apparel for little ones that were to come. She had gone down, one day, to Mishaumok, and found out Bridget Foye, at the old number in High Street. And to her she had intrusted the care of looking up the children--to be not less than five, and not more than eight or nine years of age--who should be taken to live with her at "Miss Henderson's home," and "have a good time every day." "I must get them here before Christmas," said Glory to her friends. "We must hang their stockings all up by the great kitchen chimney, and put sugarplums and picture books in!" She was going back eagerly into her child life--rather into the life her childhood wist of, but missed--and would live it all over, now, with these little ones, taken already, before even they were seen or found, out of their strangerhood into her great, kindly heart! A plain, capable, motherly woman had been obtained, by Mr. Armstrong's efforts and inquiry, who would live with Glory as companion and assistant. There was the dairy work to be carried on, still. This, and the hay crops, made the principal income of the Old Farm. A few fields were rented for cultivation. "Just think," cried Glory when the future management of these matters was talked of, "what it will be to see the little things let out a-rolling in the new hay!" Her thoughts passed so entirely over herself, as holder and arbiter of means, to the good--the daily little joy--that was to come, thereby, to others! When all was counted and calculated, they told her that she might safely venture to receive, in the end, six children. But that, for the present, four would perhaps be as many as it would be wise for her to undertake. "You know best," she said, "and I shall do whatever you say. But I don't feel afraid--any more, that is, for taking six than four. I shall just do for them all the time, whether or no." "And what if they are bad and troublesome, Glory?" "Oh, they won't be," she replied. "I shall love them so!" CHAPTER XXXV. INDIAN SUMMER. "'Tis as if the benignant Heaven Had a new revelation given, And written it out with gems; For the golden tops of the elms And the burnished bronze of the ash And the scarlet lights that flash From the sumach's points of flame, Like blazonings on a scroll Spell forth an illumined Name For the reading of the soul!" It is of no use to dispute about the Indian summer. I never found two people who could agree as to the time when it ought to be here, or upon a month and day when it should be decidedly too late to look for it. It keeps coming. After the equinoctial, which begins to be talked about with the first rains of September, and isn't done with till the sun has measured half a dozen degrees of south declination, all the pleasant weather is Indian summer--away on to Christmastide. For my part, I think we get it now and then, little by little, as "the kingdom" comes. That every soft, warm, mellow, hazy, golden day, like each fair, fragrant life, is a part and outcrop of it; though weeks of gale and frost, or ages of cruel worldliness and miserable sin may lie between. It was an Indian summer day, then; and it was in October. Faith and Mr. Armstrong walked over the brook, and round by Pasture Rocks, to the "little chapel," as Faith had called it, since the time, last winter, when she and Glory had met the minister there, in the still, wonderful, pure beauty that enshrined it on that "diamond morning." The elms that stood then, in their icy sheen, about the meadows, like great cataracts of light, were soft with amber drapery, now; translucent in each leaf with the detained sunshine of the summer; and along the borders of the wood walk, scarlet flames of sumach sprang out, vivid, from among the lingering green; and birches trembled with their golden plumes; and bronzed ash boughs, and deep crimsons and maroons and chocolate browns and carbuncle red that crowned the oaks with richer and intenser hues, made up a wealth and massiveness of beauty wherein eye and thought reveled and were sated. Over and about all, the glorious October light, and the dreamy warmth that was like a palpable love. They stood on the crisp moss carpet of the "halfway rock"--the altar crag behind them, with its cherubim that waved illumined wings of tenderer radiance now--and gazed over the broad outspread of marvelous color; and thought of the summer that had come and gone since they had stood there, last, together, and of the beauty that had breathed alike on earth and into life, for them. "Faith, darling! Tell me your thought," said Roger Armstrong. "This was my thought," Faith answered, slowly. "That first sermon you preached to us--that gave me such a hope, then--that comes up to me so, almost as a warning, now! The poor--that were to have the kingdom! And then, those other words--'how hardly shall they who have riches enter in!' And I am _so_ rich! It frightens me." "Entire happiness does make one tremble. Only, if we feel God in it, and stand but the more ready for His work, we may be safe." "His work--yes," Faith answered. "But now he only gives me rest. It seems as if, somehow, I were not worthy of a hard life. As if all things had been made too easy for me. And I had thought, so, of some great and difficult thing to do." Then Faith told him of the oracle that, years ago, had first wakened her to the thought of what life might be; of the "high and holy work" that she had dreamed of, and of her struggles to fulfill it, feebly, in the only ways that as yet had opened for her. "And now--just to receive all--love, and help, and care--and to rest, and to be so wholly happy!" "Believe, darling, that we are led, through all. That the oil of joy is but as an anointing for a nobler work. It is only so I dare to think of it. We shall have plenty to do, Faithie! And, perhaps, to bear. It will all be set before us, in good time." "But nothing can be _hard_ to do, any more. That is what makes me almost feel unworthy. Look at Nurse Sampson. Look at Glory. They have only their work, and the love of God to help them in it. And I--! Oh, I am not poor any longer. The words don't seem to be for me." "Let us take them with their double edge of truth, then. Holding ourselves always poor, in sight of the infinite spiritual riches of the kingdom. Blessed are the poor, who can feel, even in the keenest earthly joy, how there is a fullness of life laid up in Him who gives it, of whose depth the best gladness here is but a glimpse and foretaste! We will not be selfishly or unworthily content, God helping us, my little one!" "It is so hard _not_ to be content!" whispered Faith, as the strong, manly arm held her, in its shelter, close beside the noble, earnest heart. "I think," said Roger Armstrong, afterwards, as they walked down over the fragrant pathway of fallen pine leaves, "that I have never known an instance of one more evidently called, commissioned, and prepared for a good work in the world, than Glory. Her whole life has been her education for it. It is not without a purpose, when a soul like hers is left to struggle up through such externals of circumstance. We can love and help her in it, Faith; and do something, in our way, for her, as she will do, in hers, for others." "Oh, yes!" assented Faith, impulsively. "I have wished--" but there she stopped. "Am I to hear no more?" asked Mr. Armstrong, presently. "Have I not a right to insist upon the wish?" "I forgot what I was coming to," said Faith, blushing deeply. "I spoke of it, one day, to mother. And she said it was a thing I couldn't decide for myself, now. That some one else would be concerned, as well as I." "And some one else will be sure to wish as you do. Only there may be a wisdom in waiting. Faithie--I have never told you yet--will you be frightened if I tell you now--that I am not a poor man, as the world counts poverty? My friend, of whom you know, in those terrible days of the commencing pestilence, having only his daughter and myself to care for, made his will; in provision against whatever might befall them there. By that will--through the fearful sorrow that made it effective--I came into possession of a large property. Your little inheritance, Faithie, goes into your own little purse for private expenditures or charities. But for the present, as it seems to me, Glory has ample means for all that it is well for her to undertake. By and by, as she gains in years and in experience, you will have it in your power to enlarge her field of good. 'Miss Henderson's Home' may grow into a wider benefit than even she, herself, foresaw." Faith was not frightened. These were not the riches that could make her tremble with a dread lest earth should too fully satisfy. This was only a promise of new power to work with; a guarantee that God was not leaving her merely to care for and to rest in a good that must needs be all her own. "We shall find plenty to do, Faithie!" Mr. Armstrong repeated; and he held her hand in his with a strong pressure that told how the thought of that work to come, and her sweet and entire association in it, leaped along his pulses with a living joy. Faith caught it; and all fear was gone. She could not shrink from the great blessedness that was laid upon her, any more than Nature could refuse to wear her coronation robes, that trailed their radiance in this path they trod. Life held them in a divine harmony. The October sun, that mantled them with warmth and glory; the Indian summer, that transfigured earth about them; all tints--all redolence--all broad beatitude of globe and sky--were none too much to breathe out and make palpable the glad and holy auspice of the hour. * * * * * Mr. Gartney had gradually relinquished his half-formed thought of San Francisco. Already the unsettled and threatening condition of affairs in the country had begun to make men feel that the time was not one for new schemes or adventurous changes. Somehow, the great wheels, mercantile and political, had slipped out of their old grooves, and went laboring, as it were, roughly and at random, with fierce clattering and jolting, quite off the ordinary track; so that none could say whether they should finally regain it, and roll smoothly forward, as in the prosperous and peaceful days of the past, or should bear suddenly and irretrievably down to some horrible, unknown crash and ruin. Henderson Gartney, however, was too restless a man to wait, with entire passiveness, the possible turn and issue of things. Quite strong, again, in health--so great a part of his burden and anxiety lifted from him in the marriages, actual and prospective, of his two daughters--and his means augmented by the sale of a portion of his Western property which he had effected during his summer visit thereto--it was little to be looked for that he should consent to vegetate, idly and quietly, through a second winter at Cross Corners. The first feeling of some men, apparently, when they have succeeded in shuffling off a load of difficulty, is a sensation of the delightful ease with which they can immediately shoulder another. As when one has just cleared a desk or drawer of rubbish, there is such a tempting opportunity made for beginning to stow away and accumulate again. Well! the principle is an eternal one. Nature does abhor a vacuum. The greater portion of the ensuing months, therefore, Mr. Gartney spent in New York; whither his wife and children accompanied him, also, for a stay of a few weeks; during which, Faith and her mother accomplished the inevitable shopping that a coming wedding necessitates; and set in train of preparation certain matters beyond the range of Kinnicutt capacity and resource. Mr. Armstrong, too, was obliged to be absent from his parish for a little time. Affairs of his own required some personal attention. He chose these weeks while the others, also, were away. It was decided that the marriage should take place in the coming spring; and that then the house at Cross Corners should become the home of Mr. Armstrong and Faith; and that Mr. Gartney should remove, permanently, to New York, where he had already engaged in some incidental and preliminary business transactions. His purpose was to fix himself there, as a shipping and commission merchant, concerning himself, for a large proportion, with California trade. The house in Mishaumok had been rented for a term of five years. One change prepares the way for another. Things never go back precisely to what they were before. Mr. Armstrong, after serious thought, had come to this conclusion of accepting the invitation of the Old Parish at Kinnicutt to remain with it as its pastor, because the place itself had become endeared to him for its associations; because, also, it was Faith's home, which she had learned to love and cling to; because she, too, had a work here, in assisting Glory to fulfill the terms of her aunt's bequest; and because, country parish though it was, and a limited sphere, as it might seem, for his means and talents, he saw the way here, not only to accomplish much direct good in the way of his profession, but as well for a wider exercise of power through the channel of authorship; for which a more onerous pastoral charge would not have left him the needful quiet or leisure. So, with these comings and goings, these happy plans, and helpings and onlookings, the late autumn weeks merged in winter, and days slipped almost imperceptibly by, and Christmas came. Three little orphan girls had been welcomed into "Miss Henderson's Home." And only one of them had hair that would curl. But Glory gave the other two an extra kiss each, every morning. CHAPTER XXXVI. CHRISTMASTIDE. "Through suffering and through sorrow thou hast past, To show us what a woman true may be; They have not taken sympathy from thee, Nor made thee any other than thou wast; · · · · · "Nor hath thy knowledge of adversity Robbed thee of any faith in happiness, But rather cleared thine inner eye to see How many simple ways there are to bless." LOWELL. "And if any painter drew her, He would paint her unaware, With a halo round the hair." MRS. BROWNING. There were dark portents abroad. Rumors, and threats, and prognostications of fear and strife teemed in the columns of each day's sheet of news, and pulsed wildly along the electric nerves of the land; and men looked out, as into a coming tempest, that blackened all the southerly sky with wrath; and only that the horror was too great to be believed in, they could not have eaten and drunken, and bought and sold, and planted and builded, as they did, after the age-old manner of man, in these days before the flood that was to come. Civil war, like a vulture of hell, was swooping down from the foul fastness of iniquity that had hatched her in its high places, and that reared itself, audaciously, in the very face of Heaven. And a voice, as of a mighty angel, sounded "Woe! woe! woe! to the inhabiters of earth!" And still men but half heard and comprehended; and still they slept and rose, and wrought on, each in his own work, and planned for the morrow, and for the days that were to be. And in the midst of all, came the blessed Christmastide! Yes! even into this world that has rolled its seething burden of sin and pain and shame and conflict along the listening depths through waiting cycles of God's eternity, was Christ once born! And little children, of whom is the kingdom, in their simple faith and holy unconsciousness, were looking for the Christmas good, and wondering only what the coming joy should be. The shops and streets of Mishaumok were filled with busy throngs. People forgot, for a day, the fissure that had just opened, away there in the far Southland, and the fierce flames that shot up, threatening, from the abyss. What mattered the mass meetings, and the shouts, and the guns, along those shores of the Mexican Gulf? To-night would be Christmas Eve; and there were thousands of little stockings waiting to be hung by happy firesides, and they must all be filled for the morrow. So the shops and streets were crowded, and people with arms full of holiday parcels jostled each other at every corner. There are odd encounters in this world tumble that we live in. In the early afternoon, at one of the bright show cases, filled within and heaped without with toys, two women met--as strangers are always meeting, with involuntary touch and glance--borne together in a crowd--atoms impinging for an instant, never to approach again, perhaps, in all the coming combinations of time. These two women, though, had met before. One, sharp, eager--with a stylish-shabby air of dress about her, and the look of pretense that shopmen know, as she handled and asked prices, where she had no actual thought of buying--holding by the hand a child of six, who dragged and teased, and got an occasional word that crushed him into momentary silence, but who, tired with the sights and the Christmas shopping, had nothing for it but to begin to drag and tease again; another, with bright, happy, earnest eyes and flushing cheeks, and hair rolled back in a golden wealth beneath her plain straw bonnet; bonnet, and dress, and all, of simple black; these two came face to face. The shabby woman with a sharp look recognized nothing. Glory McWhirk knew Mrs. Grubbling, and the child of six that had been the Grubbling baby. All at once, she had him in her arms; and as if not a moment had gone by since she held him so in the little, dark, upper entry in Budd Street, where he had toddled to her in his nightgown, for her grieved farewell, was hugging and kissing him, with the old, forgetting and forgiving love. Mrs. Grubbling looked on in petrified amaze. Glory had transferred a fragrant white paper parcel from her pocket to the child's hands, and had thrust upon that a gay tin horse from the counter, before it occurred to her that the mother might, possibly, neither remember nor approve. "I beg your pardon, ma'am, for the liberty; and it's very likely you don't know me. I'm Glory McWhirk, that used to live with you, and mind the baby." "I'm sure I'm glad to see you, Glory," said Mrs. Grubbling patronizingly; "and I hope you've been doing well since you went away from me." As if she had been doing so especially well before, that there might easily be a doubt as to whether going farther had not been faring worse. I have no question that Mrs. Grubbling fancied, at the moment, that the foundation of all the simple content and quiet prosperity that evidenced themselves at present in the person of her former handmaid, had been laid in Budd Street. "And where are you living now?" proceeded she, as Glory resigned the boy to his mint stick, and was saying good-by. "Out in Kinnicutt, ma'am; at Miss Henderson's, where I have been ever since." She never thought of triumphing. She never dreamed of what it would be to electrify her former mistress with the announcement that she whom she had since served had died, and left her, Glory McWhirk, the life use of more than half her estate. That she dwelt now, as proprietress, where she had been a servant. Her humbleness and her faithfulness were so entire that she never thought of herself as occupying, in the eyes of others, such position. She was Miss Henderson's handmaiden, still; doing her behest, simply, as if she had but left her there in keeping, while she went a journey. So she bade good-by, and courtesied to Mrs. Grubbling and gathered up her little parcels, and went out. Fortunately, Mrs. Grubbling was half stunned, as it was. It is impossible to tell what might have resulted, had she then and there been made cognizant of more. Not to the shorn lamb, alone, always, are sharp winds beneficently tempered. There is a mercy, also, to the miserable wolf. Glory had one trouble, to-day, that hindered her pure, free and utter enjoyment of what she had to do. All day she had seen, here and there along the street, little forlorn and ragged ones, straying about aimlessly, as if by any chance, a scrap of Christmas cheer might even fall to them, if only they kept out in the midst of it. There was a distant wonder in their faces, as they met the buyers among the shops, and glanced at the fair, fresh burdens they carried; and around the confectioners' windows they would cluster, sometimes, two or three together, and _look_; as if one sense could take in what was denied so to another. She knew so well what the feeling of it was! To see the good times going on, and not be in 'em! She longed so to gather them all to herself, and take them home, and make a Christmas for them! She could only drop the pennies that came to her in change loose into her pocket, and give them, one by one, along the wayside. And she more than once offered a bright quarter (it was in the days when quarters yet were, reader!), when she might have counted out the sum in lesser bits, that so the pocket should be kept supplied the longer. * * * * * Down by the ---- Railway Station, the streets were dim, and dirty, and cheerless. Inside, the passengers gathered about the stove, where the red coals gleamed cheerful in the already gathering dusk of the winter afternoon. A New York train was going out; and all sorts of people--from the well-to-do, portly gentleman of business, with his good coat buttoned comfortably to his chin, his tickets bought, his wallet lined with bank notes for his journey, and secretly stowed beyond the reach (if there be such a thing) of pickpockets, and the _Mishaumok Journal_, Evening Edition, damp from the press, unfolded in his fingers, to the care-for-naught, dare-devil little newsboy who had sold it to him, and who now saunters off, varying his monotonous cry with: "_Jour-nal_, gentlemen! Eve-nin' 'dition! Georgy out!" ("What's that?" exclaims an inconsiderate.) "Georgy out! (Little brother o' mine. Seen him anywhere?) Eve-nin' 'dition! _Jour-nal_, gentleman!" and the shivering little candy girl, threading her way with a silent imploringness among the throng--were bustling up and down, in waiting rooms, and on the platforms, till one would think, assuredly, that the center of all the world's activity, at this moment, lay here; and that everybody _not_ going in this particular express train to New York, must be utterly devoid of any aim or object in life, whatever. So we do, always, carry our center about with us. A little while ago all the world was buying dolls and tin horses. Horizons shift and ring themselves about us, and we, ourselves, stand always in the middle. By and by, however, the last call was heard. "Passengers for New York! Train ready! All aboard!" And with the ringing of the bell, and the mighty gasping of the impatient engine, and a scuffle and scurry of a minute, in which carpetbags and babies were gathered up and shouldered indiscriminately, the rooms and the platforms were suddenly cleared of all but a few stragglers, and half a dozen women with Christmas bundles, who sat waiting for trains to way stations. Two little pinched faces, purple with the bitter cold, looked in at the door. "It's good and warm in there. Less' go!" And the older drew the younger into the room, toward the glowing stove. They looked as if they had been wandering about in the dreary streets till the chill had touched their very bones. The larger of the two, a boy--torn hopelessly as to his trousers, dilapidated to the last degree as to his fragment of a hat--knees and elbows making their way out into the world with the faintest shadow of opposition--had, perhaps from this, a certain look of pushing knowingness that set itself, by the obscure and inevitable law of compensation, over against the gigantic antagonism of things he found himself born into; and you knew, as you looked at him, that he would, somehow, sooner or later, make his small dint against the great dead wall of society that loomed itself in his way; whether society or he should get the worst of it, might happen as it would. The younger was a little girl. A flower thrown down in the dirt. A jewel encrusted with mean earth. Little feet in enormous coarse shoes, cracked and trodden down; bare arms trying to hide themselves under a bit of old woolen shawl; hair tangled beneath a squalid hood; out from amidst all, a face of beauty that peeped, like an unconscious draft of God's own signing, upon humanity. Was there none to acknowledge it? An official came through the waiting room. The boy showed a slink in his eyes, like one used to shoving and rebuff, and to getting off, round corners. The girl stood, innocent and unheeding. "There! out with you! No vagrums here!" Of course, they couldn't have all Queer Street in their waiting rooms, these railway people; and the man's words were rougher than his voice. But these were two children, who wanted cherishing! The slink in the boy's eye worked down, and became a sneak and a shuffle, toward the door. The girl was following. "Stop!" called a woman's voice, sharp and authoritative. "Don't you stir a single step, either of you, till you get warm! If there isn't any other way to fix it, I'll buy you both a ticket somewhere and then you'll be passengers." It was a tall, thin, hoopless woman, with a carpetbag, a plaid shawl, and an umbrella; and a bonnet that, since other bonnets had begun to poke, looked like a chaise top flattened back at the first spring. In a word, Mehitable Sampson. Something twitched at the corners of the man's mouth as he glanced round at this sudden and singular champion. Something may have twitched under his comfortable waistcoat, also. At any rate, he passed on; and the children--the brief battledore over in which they had been the shuttlecocks--crept back, compliant with the second order, much amazed, toward the stove. Miss Sampson began to interrogate. "Why don't you take your little sister home?" "This one ain't my sister." Children always set people right before they answer queries. "Well--whoever she is, then. Why don't you both go home?" "'Cause it's cold there, too. And we was sent to find sticks." "If she isn't your sister, who does she belong to?" "She don't belong to nobody. She lived upstairs, and her mother died, and she came down to us. But she's goin' to be took away. Mother's got five of us, now. She's goin' to the poorhouse. She's a regular little brick, though; ain't yer, Jo?" The pretty, childish lips that had begun to grow red and lifelike again, parted, and showed little rows of milk teeth, like white shells. The blue eyes and the baby smile went up, confidingly, to the young ragamuffin's face. There had been kindness here. The boy had taken to Jo, it seemed; and was benevolently evincing it, in the best way he could, by teaching her good-natured slang. "Yes; I'm a little brick," she lisped. Miss Sampson's keen eyes went from one to the other, resting last and long on Jo. "I shouldn't wonder," she said, deliberately, "if you was Number Four!" "Whereabouts do you live?" suddenly, to the boy. "Three doors round the corner. 'Tain't number four, though. It's ninety-three." "What's your name?" "Tim Rafferty." "Tim Rafferty! Did anybody ever trust you with a carpetbag?" "I've carried 'em up. But then they mostly goes along, and looks sharp." "Well, now I'm going to leave you here, with this one. If anybody speaks to you, say you was left in charge. Don't stir till I come back. And--look here! if you see a young woman come in, with bright, wavy hair, and a black gown and bonnet, and if she comes and speaks to you, as most likely she will, tell her I said I shouldn't wonder if this was Number Four!" And Nurse Sampson went out into the street. When she came back, the children sat there, still; and Glory McWhirk was with them. "I don't know as I'd any business to meddle; and I haven't made any promises; but I've found out that you can do as you choose about it, and welcome. And I couldn't help thinking you might like to have this one for Number Four." Glory had already nestled the poor, tattered child close to her, and given her a cake to eat from the refreshment counter. Tim Rafferty delivered up the carpetbag, in proud integrity. To be sure, there were half a dozen people in the room who had witnessed its intrustment to his hands; but I think he would have waited there, all the same, had the coast been clear. Miss Sampson gave him ten cents, and recounted to Glory what she had learned at number ninety-three. "She's a strange child, left on their hands; and they're as poor as death. They were going to give her in charge to the authorities. The woman said she couldn't feed her another day. That's about the whole of it. If Tim don't bring her back, they'll know where she is, and be thankful." "Do you want to go home with me, and hang up your stocking, and have a Christmas?" "My golly!" ejaculated Tim, staring. The little one smiled shyly, and was mute. She didn't know what Christmas was. She had been cold, and she was warm, and her mouth and hands were filled with sweet cake. And there were pleasant words in her ears. That was all she knew. As much as we shall comprehend at first, perhaps, when the angels take us up out of the earth cold, and give us the first morsel of heavenly good to stay our cravings. This was how it ended. Tim had a paper bag of apples and cakes, with some sugar pigs and pussy cats put in at the top, and a pair of warm stockings out of Glory's bag, to carry home, for himself; and he was to say that the lady who came to see his mother had taken Jo away into the country. To Miss Henderson's, at Kinnicutt. Glory wrote these names upon a paper. Tim was to be a good boy, and some day they would come and see him again. Then Nurse Sampson's plaid shawl was wrapped about little Jo, and pinned close over her rags to keep out the cold of Christmas Eve; and the bell rang presently; and she was taken out into the bright, warm car, and tucked up in a corner, where she slept all the hour that they were steaming over the road. And so these three went out to Kinnicutt to keep Christmas at the Old House. So Glory carried home the Christ gift that had come to her. Tim went back, alone, to number ninety-three. He had his bag of good things, and his warm stockings, and his wonderful story to tell. And there was more supper and breakfast for five than there would have been for six. Nevertheless, somehow, he missed the "little brick." Out at Cross Corners, Miss Henderson's Home was all aglow. The long kitchen, which, by the outgrowth of the house for generations, had come to be a central room, was flooded with the clear blaze of a great pine knot, that crackled in the chimney; and open doors showed neat adjoining rooms, in and out which the gleams and shadows played, making a suggestive pantomime of hide and seek. It was a grand old place for Christmas games! And three little bright-faced girls sat round the knee of a tidy, cheery old woman, who told them, in a quaint Irish brogue, the story of the "little rid hin," that was caught by the fox, and got away, again, safe, to her own little house in the woods, where she "lived happy iver afther, an' got a fine little brood of chickens to live wid her; an' pit 'em all intill warrum stockings and shoes, an' round-o-caliker gowns." And they carped at no discrepancies or improbabilities; but seized all eagerly, and fused it in their quick imaginations to one beautiful meaning; which, whether it were of chicken comfort, overbrooded with warm love, or of a clothed, contented childhood, in safe shelter, mattered not a bit. Into this warm, blithe scene came Glory, just as the fable was ended for the fourth time, bringing the last little chick, flushed and rosy from a bath; born into beauty, like Venus from the sea; her fair hair, combed and glossy, hanging about her neck in curls; and wrapped, not in a "round-o-caliker," but in a scarlet-flannel nightgown, comfortable and gay. Then they had bowls of bread and milk, and gingerbread, and ate their suppers by the fire. And then Glory told them the old story of Santa Claus; and how, if they hung their stockings by the chimney, there was no knowing what they mightn't find in them to-morrow. "Only," she said, "whatever it is, and whoever He sends it by, it all comes from the good Lord, first of all." And then, the two white beds in the two bedrooms close by held four little happy bodies, whose souls were given into God's keeping till his Christmas dawn should come, in the old, holy rhyme, said after Glory. By and by, Faith and Mr. Armstrong and Miss Sampson came over from the Corner House, with parcels from. Kriss Kringle. And now there was a gladsome time for all; but chiefly, for Glory. What unpacking and refolding in separate papers! Every sugar pig, and dog, and pussy cat must be in a distinct wrapping, that so the children might be a long time finding out all that Santa Claus had brought them. What stuffing, and tying, and pinning, inside, and outside, and over the little red woolen legs that hung, expectant, above the big, open chimney! How Glory laughed, and sorted, and tied and made errands for string and pins, and seized the opportunity for brushing away great tears of love, and joy, and thankfulness, that would keep coming into her eyes! And then, when all was done, and she and Faith came back from a little flitting into the bedrooms, and a hovering look over the wee, peaceful, sleeping faces there, and they all stood, for a minute, surveying the goodly fullness of small delights stored up and waiting for the morrow--how she turned suddenly, and stretched her hands out toward the kind friends who had helped and sympathized in all, and said, with a quick overflow of feeling, that could find only the old words wherein to utter herself: "Such a time as this! Such a beautiful time! And to think that I should be in it!" Miss Henderson's will was fulfilled. A happy, young life had gathered again about the ancient hearthstone that had seen two hundred years of human change. The Old House, wherefrom the last of a long line had passed on into the Everlasting Mansions, had become God's heritage. Nurse Sampson spent her Christmas with the Gartneys. They must have her again, they told her, at parting, for the wedding; which would be in May. "I may be a thousand miles off, by that time. But I shall think of you, all the same, wherever I am. My work is coming. I feel it. There's a smell of blood and death in the air; and all the strong hearts and hands'll be wanted. You'll see it." And with that, she was gone. CHAPTER XXXVII. THE WEDDING JOURNEY. "The tree Sucks kindlier nurture from a soil enriched By its own fallen leaves; and man is made, In heart and spirit, from deciduous hopes And things that seem to perish." "A stream always among woods or in the sunshine is pleasant to all and happy in itself. Another, forced through rocks, and choked with sand, under ground, cold, dark, comes up able to heal the world."--FROM "SEED GRAIN." "Shall we plan a wedding journey, Faith?" It was one evening in April that Mr. Armstrong said this. The day for the marriage had been fixed for the first week in May. Faith had something of the bird nature about her. Always, at this moment of the year, a restlessness, akin to that which prompts the flitting of winged things that track the sunshine and the creeping greenness that goes up the latitudes, had used to seize her, inwardly. Something that came with the swelling of tender buds, and the springing of bright blades, and the first music born from winter silence, had prompted her with the whisper: "Abroad! abroad! Out into the beautiful earth!" It had been one of her unsatisfied longings. She had thought, what a joy it would be if she could have said, frankly, "Father, mother! let us have a pleasant journey in the lovely weather!" And now, that one stood at her side, who would have taken her in his tender guardianship whithersoever she might choose--now that there was no need for hesitancy in her wish--this child, who had never been beyond the Hudson, who had thought longingly of Catskill, and Trenton, and Niagara, and had seen them only in her dreams--felt, inexplicably, a contrary impulse, that said within her, "Not yet!" Somehow, she did not care, at this great and beautiful hour of her life, to wander away into strange places. Its holy happiness belonged to home. "Not now. Unless you wish it. Not on purpose. Take me with you, some time, when, perhaps, you would have gone alone. Let it _happen_." "We will just begin our quiet life, then, darling, shall we? The life that is to be our real blessedness, and that has no need to give itself a holiday, as yet. And let the workdays and the holidays be portioned as God pleases?" "It will be better--happier," Faith answered, timidly. "Besides, with all this fearful tramping to war through the whole land, how can one feel like pleasure journeying? And then"--there was another little reason that peeped out last--"they would have been so sure to make a fuss about us in New York!" The adjuncts of life had been much to her in those restless days when a dark doubt lay over its deep reality. She had found a passing cheer and relief in them, then. Now, she was so sure, so quietly content! It was a joy too sacred to be intermeddled with. So a family group, only, gathered in the hillside parlor, on the fair May morning wherein good, venerable Mr. Holland said the words that made Faith Gartney and Roger Armstrong one. It was all still, and bright, and simple. Glory, standing modestly by the door, said within herself, "it was like a little piece of heaven." And afterwards--not the bride and groom--but father, mother, and little brother, said good-by, and went away upon their journey, and left them there. In the quaint, pleasant home, that was theirs now, under the budding elms, with the smile of the May promise pouring in. And Glory made a May Day at the Old House, by and by. And the little children climbed in the apple branches, and perched there, singing, like the birds. And was there not a white-robed presence with them, somehow, watching all? * * * * * Nearly three months had gone. The hay was down. The distillation of sweet clover was in all the air. The little ones at the Old House were out, in the lengthening shadows of the July afternoon, rolling and reveling in the perfumed, elastic heaps. Faith Armstrong stood with Glory, in the porch angle, looking on. Calm and beautiful. Only the joy of birds and children making sound and stir across the summer stillness. Away over the broad face of the earth, out from such peace as this, might there, if one could look--unroll some vision of horrible contrast? Were blood, and wrath, and groans, and thunderous roar of guns down there under that far, fair horizon, stooping in golden beauty to the cool, green hills? Faith walked down the field path, presently, to meet her husband, coming up. He held in his hand an open paper, that he had brought, just now from the village. There was news. Rout, horror, confusion, death, dismay. The field of Manassas had been fought. The Union armies were falling back, in disorder, upon Washington. Breathlessly, with pale faces, and with hands that grasped each other in a deep excitement that could not come to speech, they read those columns, together. Down there, on those Virginian plains, was this. And they were here, in quiet safety, among the clover blooms, and the new-cut hay. Elsewhere, men were mown. "Roger!" said Faith, when, by and by, they had grown calmer over the fearful tidings, and had had Bible words of peace and cheer for the fevered and bloody rumors of men--"mightn't we take our wedding journey, now?" All the bright, early summer, in those first months of their life together, they had been finding work to do. Work they had hardly dreamed of when Faith had feared she might be left to a mere, unworthy, selfish rest and happiness. The old New England spirit had roused itself, mightily, in the little country town. People had forgotten their own needs, and the provision they were wont to make, at this time, each household for itself. Money and material, and quick, willing hands were found, and a good work went on; and kindling zeal, and noble sympathies, and hearty prayers wove themselves in, with toil of thread and needle, to homely fabrics, and embalmed, with every finger touch, all whereon they labored. They had remembered the old struggle wherein their country had been born. They were glad and proud to bear their burden in this grander one wherein she was to be born anew, to higher life. Roger Armstrong and his wife had been the spring and soul and center of all. And now Faith said: "Roger! mayn't we take our wedding journey?" Not for a bridal holiday--not for gay change and pleasure--but for a holy purpose, went they out from home. Down among the wounded, and war-smitten. Bearing comfort of gifts, and helpful words, and prayers. Doing whatsoever they found to do, now; seeking and learning what they might best do, hereafter. Truly, God left them not without a work. A noble ministry lay ready for them, at this very threshold of their wedded life. In the hospital at Georgetown, they found Nurse Sampson. "I told you so," she said. "I knew it was coming. And the first gun brought me down here to be ready. I've been out to Western Virginia; and I came back here when we got the news of this. I shall follow round, wherever the clouds roll." In Washington, still another meeting awaited them. Paul Rushleigh, in a Captain's uniform, came, one day, to the table of their hotel. The first gun had brought him, also, where he could be ready. He had sailed for home, with his father, upon the reception, abroad, of the tidings of the fall of Sumter. "Your country will want you, now, my son," had been the words of the brave and loyal gentleman. And, like another Abraham, he had set his face toward the mount of sacrifice. There was a new light in the young man's eye. A soul awakened there. A purpose, better than any plan or hope of a mere happy living in the earth. He met his old friends frankly, generously; and, seemingly, without a pang. They were all one now, in the sublime labor that, in their several spheres, lay out before them. "You were right, Faith," he said, as he stood with them, and spoke briefly of the past, before they parted. "I shall be more of a man, than if I'd had my first wish. This war is going to make a nation of men. I'm free, now, to give my heart and hand to my country, as long as she needs me. And by and by, perhaps, if I live, some woman may love me with the sort of love you have for your husband. I feel now, how surely I should have come to be dissatisfied with less. God bless you both!" "God bless you, Paul!" THE END. * * * * * * BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY MRS. ADELINE DUTTON (Train) WHITNEY, American novelist and poet, was born in Boston, September 15, 1824, and was married to Seth D. Whitney, of Milton, Mass., in 1843. Writing little for publication in early life, she produced, in 1863, _Faith Gartney's Girlhood_, which brought her great popularity both at home and in England, where the novel gained especially favorable commendation. Although planned purely as a girl's book, the story of _Faith_ grew into her womanhood, and after the lapse of almost half a century continues to be a prime favorite. It is a purely told story of New England life, especially with dramatic incidents and an excellent bit of romance. _The Gayworthys: a Story of Threads and Thrums_ (1865), continued Mrs. Whitney's popularity and received flattering notices from the London _Reader_, _Athenæum_, _Pall Mall Gazette_, and _Spectator_. Mrs. Whitney was a contributor to the _Atlantic Monthly_, _Our Young Folks_, _Old and New_ and various other periodicals. Among her other published works are: _Footsteps on the Seas_ (1857), poems; _Mother Goose for Grown Folks_ (1860); _Boys at Chequasset_ (1862); _A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life_ (1866); _Patience Strong's Outings_ (1868); _Hitherto: a Story of Yesterday_ (1869); _We Girls_ (1870); _Real Folks_ (1871); _Zerub Throop's Experiment_ (1871); _Pansies_, verse (1872); _The Other Girls_ (1873); _Sights and Insights_ (1876); _Odd or Even_ (1880); _Bonnyborough_ (1885); _Holy-Tides_, verse (1886); _Homespun Yarns_ (1887); _Bird Talk_, verse (1887); _Daffodils_, verse (1887); _Friendly Letters to Girl Friends_ (1897); _Biddy's Episodes_ (1904). Breadth of view on social conditions, a deeply religious spirit, and a charming facility both in descriptive and romantic passages, give this novelist her sustained popularity. Mrs. Whitney died in Boston on March 21st, 1906. * * * * * * Transcriber's Notes 1. Some punctuation has been changed to conform to contemporary standards. 2. The author's biography has been moved to the end of the text from the reverse of the title page. 3. A Table of Contents was not present in the original edition. 4. The "certain pause and emphasis" differentiated by the author is marked with spaced mid-dots in Chapter XVI, as in the original text. 
43582	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 43582-h.htm or 43582-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43582/43582-h/43582-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43582/43582-h.zip) Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). [Illustration: _"You hold the flashlight, Jane," said Mary Louise. "While I make the slit."_ (Page 91) (THE MYSTERY AT DARK CEDARS)] The Mary Lou Series THE MYSTERY AT DARK CEDARS by EDITH LAVELL A. L. Burt Company Publishers New York Chicago The Mary Lou Series by EDITH LAVELL The Mystery at Dark Cedars The Mystery of the Fires The Mystery of the Secret Band Copyright, 1935, by A. L. Burt Company Printed in the United States of America _To My Daughter_ Jeanne Marie Lavell _Who loves mystery stories_ Contents CHAPTER PAGE I. The House of Mystery 11 II. The Robbery 26 III. Suspects 41 IV. Interviewing Hannah 52 V. The Stolen Treasure 63 VI. A Wild Ride 76 VII. "Hands Up!" 90 VIII. A Confession 101 IX. The Fifty-Dollar Bill 114 X. Night at Dark Cedars 126 XI. The Picnic 142 XII. Bound and Gagged 156 XIII. Detective Work 168 XIV. Bad News 181 XV. An Alibi 193 XVI. Spreading the Net 204 XVII. The Empty House 215 XVIII. Found! 228 XIX. Conclusion 243 _Characters_ Mary Louise Gay a girl detective. Jane Patterson her chum. Miss Mattie Grant spinster at Dark Cedars. Elsie Grant orphan, niece of Miss Grant, living at Dark Cedars. Mrs. Grace Grant sister-in-law to Miss Grant. family of Mrs. Grace Grant. John Grant middle-aged bachelor Harry Grant younger bachelor Ellen Grant Pearson married daughter Corinne Pearson granddaughter, girl of nineteen Hannah and William Groben servants at Dark Cedars. Mr. Gay, Mrs. Gay, Joseph (Freckles) Gay family of Mary Louise. Max Miller, Norman Wilder, Hope Dorsey, Bernice Tracey friends of Mary Louise. Mrs. Abraham Lincoln Jones a colored woman. Mira a gypsy fortune teller. Silky Mary Louise's dog. CHAPTER I _The House of Mystery_ "Be quiet, Silky! What's the matter with you? You don't usually bark like common dogs over nothing!" The brown spaniel stopped under a maple tree and wagged his tail forlornly, looking pleadingly into his mistress's eyes, as if he were trying to tell her that he wasn't just making a fuss over nothing. Mary Louise Gay stooped over and patted his head. She was a pretty girl of sixteen, with dark hair and lovely brown eyes and long lashes that would make an actress envious. "I see what Silky means!" cried her companion, Jane Patterson who lived next door to Mary Louise and was her inseparable chum. "Look, Mary Lou! Up in the tree. A kitten!" Both girls gazed up at the leafy branches overhead and spied a tiny black kitten crying piteously. It had climbed up and couldn't get down. "I'll get it," said Mary Louise. She swung herself lightly to the lowest branch, chinned herself, and climbed the tree. In another minute she had rescued the kitten with her hands. "Stretch on your tiptoes, Jane," she called to her chum, "and see if I can hand it down to you." The other girl, who was much shorter and stockier than Mary Louise, did as she was told, but the distance was too great. "I suppose I'll have to climb down with her in one hand," concluded Mary Louise. "That's not so easy." "Drop her over to that branch you swung up by, and I'll get her from there," suggested Jane. A moment later Mary Louise was at her chum's side, stroking the little black kitten, now purring contentedly in Jane's arms. "I wonder whose it is," she remarked. "There isn't any house near----" "Except old Miss Grant's." Both girls turned and looked at the hill which rose at the right of the lonely road on which they had been walking. The house, a large drab plaster building, was barely visible through the dark cedars that surrounded it on all sides. A high, thick hedge, taller than an average-sized man, gave the place an even greater aspect of gloominess and seclusion. "Maybe it is Miss Grant's kitten," suggested Jane. "Old maids are supposed to like cats, you know." Mary Louise's brown eyes sparkled with anticipation. "I hope it is!" she exclaimed. "And then we'll get a look at the inside of that house. Because everybody says it's supposed to be haunted. Our colored laundress's little girl was walking past it one evening about dusk, and she heard the most terrible moan. She claims that two eyes, without any head or body, looked out through the hedge at her. She dropped her bundle and ran as fast as she could for home." "You don't really believe there is anything, do you, Mary Lou?" "I don't know. There must be something queer about it." "Maybe there's a crazy woman shut up in the tower." "You've been reading _Jane Eyre_, haven't you, Jane? But there isn't any tower on the Grant house." "Well, I guess Miss Grant is crazy enough herself. She dresses in styles of forty years ago. Did you ever see her?" "Yes, I've had a glimpse of her once or twice when I walked past here. She looks like the picture of the old maid on the old-maid cards. It must be awful for that girl who lives with her." "What girl?" inquired Jane. "A niece, I believe. She must be about our age. Her father and mother both died, so she has to live with Miss Grant. They say the old lady treats her terribly--much worse than the two old servants she keeps." While this conversation was going on, the two girls, followed by Silky, were walking slowly up the hill towards the big hedge which surrounded the Grant place. Once inside the yard, it was almost like being in a deep, thick woods. Cedar trees completely enclosed the house and grew thick on both sides of the narrow path leading from the gate to the porch. In spite of the fact that it was broad daylight, Jane found herself shuddering. But Mary Louise seemed delighted with the strange, gloomy atmosphere. "Doesn't this girl go to high school?" asked Jane. "If she's about our age----" "I don't believe so. I never saw her there." They stopped when they reached the steps of the porch and looked about with curiosity. It certainly was a run-down place. Boards were broken in the steps, and pieces of plaster had crumbled from the outer wall. The grayish-colored ivy which grew over the house seemed to emphasize its aspect of the past. "Isn't Miss Grant supposed to be rich?" whispered Jane incredulously. "It doesn't look like it!" "They say she's a miser. Hoards every cent she can get." Mary Louise smiled. "I believe I'll tell Daddy to report her for hoarding. She deserves it!" "Better wait and find out whether she really is rich, hadn't you?" returned Jane. "Your father's a busy man." Mary Louise nodded and looked at her dog. "You lie down, Silky," she commanded, "and wait here for us. Miss Grant probably wouldn't like you. She might think you'd hurt Pussy." She smiled indulgently. "She doesn't know you belong to the Dog Scouts and do a kind act every day--like rescuing cats in distress!" The spaniel obeyed, and the two girls mounted the rickety steps of the porch. Although it was late in June, the door was closed tightly, and they had to pull a rusty knocker to let the people inside know that they were there. It was some minutes before there was any reply. A sad-faced girl in an old-fashioned purple calico dress finally opened the door and stared at them with big gray eyes. The length of her dress, the way her blond hair was pulled back and pinned into a tight knot, made her seem much older than her visitors. A suggestion of a smile crossed her face at the sight of the girls' pleasant faces, and for a second she looked almost pretty. "Is this your kitten?" asked Mary Louise. "We rescued it from a tree down the road." The girl nodded. "Yes. It belongs to my aunt Mattie. Come in, and I'll call her." The girls stepped into the dark square hall and looked about them. The inside of the house was even more forbidding than the outside. The ceilings were high and the wall paper dark. All the shutters were drawn, as if there were poison in the June sunlight. For no reason at all that they could see, the old stairs suddenly creaked. Jane shuddered visibly, and the girl in the purple dress smiled. "Don't mind the queer noises," she said. "Nothing ever happens in daytime." "Then something does happen after dark?" questioned Mary Louise eagerly. "Oh, yes. Why, only two nights ago----" "What's this? What's this?" demanded the sharp, high voice of an old woman. "What are you standing there talking about, Elsie? With all those peaches waiting to be pared!" All eyes turned naturally towards the old staircase, from which the sound of the voice was coming. Miss Grant slowly descended, holding her hand on her right side and grunting to herself as if the act of walking were painful to her. She was a woman of at least sixty-five, thin and wrinkled, but with little sharp black beady eyes that seemed to peer into everything suspiciously, as if she believed the whole world evil. She was wearing an old-fashioned black dress, and a dark shawl about her shoulders. "These girls have found your kitten, Aunt Mattie," Elsie informed her. "They rescued her from a tree." The black eyes softened, and the old woman came towards the girls. "My precious little Puffy!" she exclaimed, as one might talk to a baby. Then her tone abruptly became harsh again as she turned to her niece. "Go back to your work, Elsie!" she ordered gruffly. "I'll attend to this!" Without any reply the girl slunk away to the kitchen, and Miss Grant took the kitten from Jane. "Tell me what happened to my poor little pet," she said. Briefly Jane repeated the story, with an emphasis upon Mary Louise's prowess in climbing trees. Apparently the old lady was touched. "I must say that was good of you," she remarked. "Not a bit like what most young people nowadays would do! All they seem to enjoy is torturing poor helpless creatures!" She put the kitten down on the floor and turned towards the stairs. "You wait!" she commanded the girls, "I'm going to get you a reward for this!" "Oh, no, Miss Grant!" they both protested instantly, and Mary Louise went on to explain that they were Girl Scouts and never accepted money for good turns. (Even Silky knows better than that, she added to herself. He won't expect a bone for rescuing Pussy--only a pat on the head!) "You really mean that?" demanded Miss Grant, in obvious relief. She would save two cents! She had meant to give each girl a whole penny! "Tell me your names, then," she continued, "and where you live. I might want to call on you for help sometime. I can't trust my niece as far as my nose, and my servants are both old." Mary Louise chuckled. So there was a mystery in this house! A lurking danger that Miss Grant and her niece both feared! And she and Jane were being drawn into it. "Jane Patterson and Mary Louise Gay," she replied. "We live over in Riverside, next to the high school. You can get us on the phone." "I haven't a telephone. Too expensive. Besides, if I had one, I couldn't tell what deviltry Elsie might be up to.... No, I don't hold with these modern inventions." "Well, you could send Elsie for us if you need any help," suggested Jane. "It's only a little over a mile. You see, Mary Louise's father is a detective on the police force, and we're both interested in mysteries." "I'm not thinking of any mystery," snapped Miss Grant. "What I'm thinking of is _facts_. One fact is that I've got a pack of scheming relations who are trying to send me off to the hospital for an operation while they loot my house." Mary Louise's forehead wrinkled in surprise. "I didn't know you had any relations besides your niece," she said. "Certainly I have. Haven't you ever heard of the Grants in Riverside? Mrs. Grace Grant--a woman about my age? She has two grown sons and a married daughter. Well, they spent all their money, and now they want mine. But they're not going to get it!" Her hand went to her side again, as if she were in pain, and Mary Louise decided it was time for them to go. "Well, good-bye, Miss Grant," she said. "And don't forget to call on us if you want help." It was a relief to be out in the bright sunlight again, away from the gloom and the decay of that ugly house. Mary Louise took a deep breath and whistled for Silky. He was waiting at the foot of the porch steps. As they walked down the path they were startled by a rustle in one of the cedar trees. Silky perked up his ears and went to investigate the disturbance. In another moment a head peered cautiously through the branches. It was Elsie Grant. "Will you come over here and talk to me a little while?" she whispered, as if she were afraid of being caught. "I never see any girls my own age--and--you look so nice!" Both Mary Louise and Jane were touched by the loneliness of this poor unhappy orphan. They went gladly to her side. "Don't you go to school?" asked Mary Louise. "I mean--when it isn't vacation time?" The girl shook her head. "That must be awful!" exclaimed Jane. "Sometimes I hate school, but I'd certainly hate worse never to go. How old are you?" "I'm only fifteen," replied Elsie. "But it seems as if I were fifty. I mean--the time is so long. Yet I've really only lived here with Aunt Mattie two years." "And didn't you ever go to school?" questioned Mary Louise. She couldn't believe that, for the girl spoke beautiful English. "Oh, yes--before I came here. I was just ready to enter high school when mother died--only a couple of months after my father was killed in an accident. He was Aunt Mattie's youngest brother. And he didn't leave any money, so I had to come and live with her." "But I can't see why she doesn't send you to school," protested Jane. "It's a public high school. It wouldn't cost her anything." "Yes, it would, because I haven't any clothes except these old things of hers. I can't go anywhere--I'm too ashamed." Mary Louise's eyes gleamed with indignation. "That's terrible!" she cried. "We can report her--" Elsie shook her head. "No, you couldn't. Because she feeds me well enough and gives me clothing that is clean, and warm enough in winter. No, there isn't a thing anybody can do. Except wait until I'm old enough to work in somebody's kitchen." "No!" protested Jane. "But I thought if I could just see you two girls once in a while and talk to you, life wouldn't seem so bad. If I could call you by your first names----" "Of course you can," Mary Louise assured her, and she told Elsie their names. "We'll come over often. And I don't believe your aunt will object, because she seems to like us." "She loves that kitten," explained Elsie. "It's the only thing in the world she does love, besides money." "She mentioned her money," remarked Jane, "and told us that she believed her relatives were trying to get it away from her." "By the way," said Mary Louise, "you started to tell us about something that happened here two nights ago. Remember? What was it?" Elsie shivered, as though the memory of it were still painful to her. "I sleep up in the attic, all by myself. And I hear the most awful noises all night. I'm always scared to death to go to bed." "Don't the servants sleep there too?" asked Mary Louise. She was anxious to get her facts straight from the beginning. "No. They sleep on the second floor, in a room over the kitchen. There are just two of them--an old married couple named Hannah and William Groben. "Well, night before last I heard more distinct noises than ever. First I thought it was one of the trees near my window, and I nerved myself to get out of bed and look out. And what do you think I saw?" "A ghost?" whispered Jane, in awe. "No, I don't think so. I believe it was a human being. Anyway, all I saw was two bright eyes peering in at the window!" "What did you do?" demanded Mary Louise breathlessly. "Scream?" "No, I didn't. Once before I screamed, and Aunt Mattie had William investigate everything, and when he found nobody I was punished for my foolishness. I had to eat bread and water for two days. And it taught me a lesson. I never screamed again." "Then what happened?" "I think whoever it was climbed from the tree into the attic storeroom window and went through an old trunk in there. I heard a little noise, but I couldn't tell whether it was only the wind or not. Anyway, nothing was known about it till yesterday, when Aunt Mattie went up to look for something in her trunk." "Did you tell her then?" "I tried to. But she wouldn't listen. She accused me of going through her trunk. But I wasn't punished, because nothing was stolen." "Then it couldn't have been a robber," said Mary Louise. "Or something would have been taken. Wasn't there anything else in the house missing?" "Not a thing! Hannah even counted the silver and found it was all there." "How does Hannah account for it? Or does she think, like your aunt, that you did it?" questioned Mary Louise. "Hannah says it was 'spirits.' She says the spirits can't rest as long as their old things are around. She wants Aunt Mattie to burn or give away all the old clothing in the house. She says dead people's clothes are possessed." Jane let out a peal of laughter, but Mary Louise warned her to be quiet. "We mustn't get Elsie into trouble," she explained. "Was that the only time anything like that ever happened?" asked Jane. "No. Once, earlier in the spring, when Hannah and William were away at some lodge supper, their room was entered and searched. I was blamed and punished then, though nothing was missing that time, either. But the awful part of it is: I expect it to happen again every night. Every time the wind howls or a branch beats against a windowpane, I'm sure they're coming again--whoever they are. And--I'm afraid!" "Something's got to be done!" announced Mary Louise, with determination. "I'm not my father's daughter if I allow a mysterious outrage like this to go on." She pressed Elsie's hand. "You can count on us," she concluded. "We'll be back to see you tomorrow!" CHAPTER II _The Robbery_ The house in which Mary Louise's family lived was as different from the Grants' as day is from night. It was painted white, and its smooth green lawn was dotted here and there with bright flower beds. Modern, airy, and filled with sunshine, the house itself looked like the home of a happy family, which the Gays were--as their name implied. Mary Louise's young brother--always called "Freckles"--was setting the breakfast table when she came downstairs the morning after her visit to Dark Cedars. It was Mary Louise's task to put the bedding to air while her mother cooked breakfast. Mrs. Gay did not keep a maid, and both children did their share of the work. As they sat down to breakfast Mary Louise could not help contrasting her life with poor Elsie Grant's. Thinking how different, how cheerful everything was here--though of course it was never quite the same when her father was away on a case, as so happened at the present time. Mary Louise wanted to do something to help Elsie, besides just visiting her. She had a sudden inspiration. "I have a lot of clothes, haven't I, Mother?" she inquired as she spread marmalade on her toast. Mrs. Gay smiled. She was a pretty woman, with the same dark hair and dark eyes as her daughter. "I wouldn't say that, dear," she replied. "I think you have enough. But if there is something you specially want, I guess you can have it. Is that why you ask?" "No," replied Mary Louise laughingly. "It's just the other way around. Instead of buying more, what I want to do is to give some away. A couple of dresses, perhaps, and some lingerie. And a pair of slippers." Mrs. Gay nodded approvingly. Being both a neat housekeeper and a charitable woman, she loved to clear things out and, if possible, give them to someone who could use them. "Yes," she said. "I was thinking of making up a package to send to the Salvation Army today. That old blue sweater of yours could go, and the red woolen dress----" "No! No!" interrupted Mary Louise. "I didn't mean things like that, Mother. I want to give away a couple of nice dresses. Like my green flowered silk, for instance, and my pink linen. May I?" "Why, Mary Louise! I thought you especially liked those dresses. What's the matter with them?" "Nothing. I do like them a lot. That's why I chose them. I want to give them to a girl who hasn't had a new dress for over two years." "Who is she?" asked Mrs. Gay sympathetically. "A niece of old Miss Grant. You know--that queer old maid who lives at Dark Cedars. About a mile out of town." Her mother nodded. "Yes, I know where you mean, dear. But that woman is reputed to be rich--much better off than we are. I can't understand----" "Of course you can't, Mother, unless you see poor Elsie Grant. She's about my age--a year younger, to be exact--and she's an orphan. Two years ago, when her mother died, she came to live with Miss Grant because she hadn't anywhere to go and no money. And the old lady treats her shamefully. Dresses her in those old calico dresses that servants used to wear years ago. So Elsie can't go anywhere, not even to school." Mrs. Gay's lips closed tightly, and her eyes narrowed. "So that's the kind of woman Miss Grant is!" she muttered. "I always knew she was queer, but I never thought she was cruel.... Yes, of course you can give the girl some clothing, dear. Go pick out anything you want, except those brand-new things we bought last week for our trip in August." Mary Louise lost no time in making her selection. She piled the clothing on her bed, after she had put her room in order, and called her mother in for her approval. But before tying up the package she whistled for Jane from her window. Her chum came running across the grass that grew between the two houses and bounded up the steps. Briefly Mary Louise explained what she was doing. "But I want to give Elsie something too," Jane said. "She ought to have some kind of summer coat and a hat. Wait till I ask Mother." She returned in less than five minutes bringing a lovely white wool coat and a white felt hat to match it. Mary Louise tied up the bundle. "Please ask Freckles to take care of Silky this morning, Mother," she said. "I'm afraid that perhaps Miss Grant might not like him." The girls started off immediately through the streets of Riverside to the lonely road that led to Dark Cedars. "I sort of wish we had Silky with us," observed Jane as they approached the house. "He is a protection." Mary Louise laughed. "But there isn't anything to protect us from! Elsie said nothing ever happened in the daytime." A stifled sob coming from under the cedar trees caused the girls to stop abruptly and peer in among the low branches. There, half concealed by the thick growth, sat Elsie Grant, crying bitterly. Mary Louise and Jane were beside her in a second. "What's the matter, Elsie?" demanded Mary Louise. "What happened?" The girl raised her tear-stained face and attempted to smile. For Mary Louise and Jane came nearest to being her friends of all the people in the world. "Aunt Mattie has been robbed," she said. "And--everybody thinks I did it!" "You!" cried Jane. "Oh, how awful!" The girls sat down on the ground beside her and asked her to tell them all about it. The bundle of clothing was forgotten for the time being in this new, overwhelming catastrophe. "My aunt has a big old safe in her room, that she always keeps locked," Elsie began. "She hasn't any faith in banks, she says, because they are always closing, so all her money is in this safe. I've often heard Aunt Grace try to make Aunt Mattie stop hoarding, but Aunt Mattie always refuses. She loves to have it where she can see it and count it." "A regular miser," remarked Jane. "Yes. It's her one joy in life--besides the little kitten. Every morning after breakfast she opens that safe and counts her money over again." "Doesn't she ever spend any?" asked Mary Louise. "A little, of course. She pays William and Hannah a small amount, and she buys some food, especially in winter. But we have a garden, you know, and chickens and a cow." "When did she miss this money?" "This morning. It was there yesterday. Aunt Mattie counted it right after you girls went home. You can hear her say the figures out loud and sort of chuckle to herself. But today she just let out a scream. It was horrible! I thought she was dying." "Maybe it was taken last night," said Mary Louise. "Did you hear any of those queer noises--I mean the kind you heard before, when you thought somebody searched that old trunk in the attic?" "No, I didn't. That's the worst part. Nobody else heard anything, either, all night long, and no door locks were broken. Of course, a burglar might have entered over the front porch roof, through Aunt Mattie's window. But she's a light sleeper, and she says she never heard a sound." "So of course she claims you stole it!" Elsie nodded and started to cry again. "But I didn't! I give you my word I didn't!" "Of course you didn't, Elsie. We believe you." "Aunt Mattie did everything but torture me to get a confession out of me. She said if I didn't own up to it and give it back she'd send me to a reform school, and I'd be branded as a criminal for the rest of my life." "She couldn't do that!" exclaimed Mary Louise furiously. "If she has no proof ... I'll tell you what I'll do, Elsie! I'll put my father on the case when he comes home! He's a detective on the police force, and he's just wonderful. He'll find the real thief." Elsie shook her head. "No, I'm afraid you can't do that. Because Aunt Mattie distinctly said that she won't have the police meddling in this. She says that if I didn't steal the money somebody else in the family did." "What family?" "Aunt Grace's family. She's the Mrs. Grant, you know, who lives in Riverside. She has three grown-up children and one grandchild. Aunt Mattie says one of these relatives is guilty, if I'm not, and she'll find out herself, without bringing shame upon the Grant name." Mary Louise groaned. "The only thing I can see for us to do, then, is to be detectives ourselves. Jane and I will do all we can to help you, won't we, Jane?" Her chum nodded. "At least, if we don't have to get into any spookiness at night," she amended. "Those mysterious sounds you told us about, Elsie----" "They may all have some connection with this robbery," announced Mary Louise. "And I'd like to find out!" Elsie looked doubtful. "I only hope Aunt Mattie doesn't try the bread-and-water diet on me, to get a confession. Really, you have no idea how awful that is till you try it. You just get crazy for some real food. You'd be almost willing to lie to get it, even if you knew the lie was going to hurt you." "If she tries that, you let us know," cried Jane angrily, "and we'll bring our parents right over here!" "All right, I will." Elsie seemed to find some relief in the promise. "Elsie," said Mary Louise very seriously, "tell me who you really think did steal the money." The girl considered the problem carefully. "I believe it was somebody in Aunt Grace's family," she replied slowly. "Because they used to be rich, and now they are poor. And I think that if a burglar had entered the house, somebody, probably Aunt Mattie, would have wakened up." "Couldn't he have entered before your aunt went to bed?" suggested Mary Louise. "Maybe. But Aunt Mattie was on the front porch all evening, and she'd probably have heard him." "All right, then," agreed Mary Louise. "Let's drop the idea of the burglar for the time being. Let's hear about the family--your aunt Grace's family, I mean." She reached into her pocket and took out a pencil and notebook, which she had provided for the purpose of writing down any items of clothing that Elsie might particularly want. Instead of that, she would list the possible suspects, the way her father usually did when he was working on a murder case. "Go ahead," she said. "I'm ready now. Tell me how many brothers and sisters your aunt Mattie had, and everything else you can." "Aunt Mattie had only two brothers, and not any sisters at all. My father was one brother, and Aunt Grace's husband was the other. They're both dead." "Then your aunt Grace isn't your aunt Mattie's real sister?" inquired Jane. "No. But Aunt Mattie seems to like her better than any of her blood relations, even if she is only a sister-in-law. She comes over here pretty often." "Maybe she took the money." Elsie looked shocked. "Not Aunt Grace! She's too religious. Always going to church and talking about right and wrong. She even argued with Aunt Mattie to let me go to Sunday school, but Aunt Mattie wouldn't buy me a decent dress." At the mention of clothing, Jane reached for the package they had carried with them to Dark Cedars, but Mary Louise shook her head, signalling her to wait until Elsie had finished. "Well, anyway, Aunt Mattie's father liked her better than her two brothers, and he promised to leave her his money if she wouldn't get married while he was alive. And she didn't, you know." "I guess nobody ever asked her," remarked Jane bluntly. "That's what my mother used to say," agreed Elsie. "She didn't like Aunt Mattie, and Aunt Mattie hated her. So it's no wonder I'm not welcome here!" Mary Louise called Elsie back to her facts by tapping her pencil on her notebook. "So far I have only one relative written down," she said. "That's your aunt Grace. Please go on." "As I told you, I think," Elsie continued immediately, "Aunt Grace has three grown children. Two boys and a girl." "Names, please," commanded Mary Louise in her most practical tone. "John Grant, Harry Grant, and Mrs. Ellen Grant Pearson. The daughter is married." "How old are they?" "All about forty, I guess. I don't know. Middle-aged--no, I guess you wouldn't call Harry middle-aged. He's the youngest. Except, of course, the granddaughter--Mrs. Pearson's only child. She's a girl about eighteen or nineteen." "What's her name?" "Corinne--Corinne Pearson." "Is that everybody?" asked Mary Louise. "I mean, all the living relatives of Miss Mattie Grant?" "Yes, that's all." Mary Louise read her list aloud, just to make sure that she had gotten the names correctly and to impress them upon her own mind. "Mrs. Grace Grant--aged about sixty-five, sister-in-law of Miss Mattie. "John Grant--middle-aged. "Ellen Grant Pearson--middle-aged. "Harry Grant--about thirty. "Corinne Pearson--about nineteen...." "But you forgot me!" Elsie reminded her. "No, we didn't forget you, either," replied Mary Louise, with a smile. "We've got something for you--in that package." "Something to make you forget your troubles," added Jane. "Some new clothes." The girl's eyes lighted up with joy. "Honestly? Oh, that's wonderful! Let me see them!" Mary Louise untied the package and held the things up for Elsie to look at. The girl's expression was one of positive rapture. A silk dress! In the latest style! And the kind of soft wooly coat she had always dreamed of possessing! A hat that was a real hat--not one of those outlandish sunbonnets her aunt Mattie made her wear! Dainty lingerie--and a pair of white shoes! "Oh, it's too much!" she cried. "I couldn't take them! They're your best things--I know they are." And once again her eyes filled with tears. "We have other nice clothes," Mary Louise assured her. "And our mothers said it was all right. So you must take them: we'd be hurt if you didn't." "Honestly?" The girl looked as if she could not believe there was so much goodness in the world. "Absolutely! Now--don't you want to go in and try them on?" "I'll do it right here," said Elsie. "These cedars are so thick that nobody can see me. And if I went into the house they might not let me out again to show you." With trembling fingers she pulled off her shoes and stockings, and the old calico dress she was wearing, and put on the silk slip and the green flowered dress. Then the white stockings and the slippers, which fitted beautifully. And last of all, the coat. Her eyes were sparkling now, and her feet were taking little dancing steps of delight. Elsie Grant looked like a different person! "Wonderful!" cried Mary Louise and Jane in the same breath. "Only--let me fix your hair," suggested the former. "It's naturally curly, isn't it? But you have it drawn back so tightly you can scarcely see any wave." "I'd like to wear it like yours, Mary Louise," replied the orphan wistfully. "But it's too long, and I have no money for barbers or beauty parlors." "We'll see what we can do next time we come," answered Mary Louise. "But let's loosen it up a bit now and put your knot down low on your neck so that the hat will fit." Deftly she fluffed it out a little at the sides and pinned it in a modish style. Then she put the little white felt hat on Elsie's head at just the correct angle and stepped back to survey the transformed girl with pride. "You're positively a knockout, Elsie!" she exclaimed in delight. "Take my word for it, you're going to be a big hit in Riverside." She chuckled to herself. "We'll all lose our boy-friends when they see you!" "Oh no!" protested Elsie seriously. "You are really beautiful, Mary Louise! And so clever and good. And so is Jane." Both girls smiled at Elsie's extravagant praise. Then Mary Louise turned back to her notebook. "I'd like to hear more about yesterday," she said: "whether you think any of these five relatives had a chance to steal that money." "They all had a chance," answered Elsie. "They were all here--and all up in Aunt Mattie's room at some time or other during the day or evening!" CHAPTER III _Suspects_ "Let's sit down again while you tell me every single thing that happened here yesterday," suggested Mary Louise. Elsie took off the white coat and folded it carefully. Then she removed her hat. "But I can't sit down in this silk dress," she objected. "I might get it dirty, and I don't want to take it off till I see myself in a mirror. I might not have another chance to put it on all day long!" "You can sit on the paper," advised Jane. "That will protect it. Besides, the ground is dry, and these needles are a covering." Very cautiously Elsie seated herself, and turned to Mary Louise, who had dropped down beside her on the ground. "Begin when you got up in the morning," she said. "That was about seven o'clock," replied Elsie. "But really, that doesn't matter, because I'm sure Aunt Mattie counted her money after you girls brought the kitten back. I heard her. And she stayed in her room until after lunch." "Does this safe have a combination lock?" inquired Mary Louise. "No, it doesn't. Just a key. John Grant suggested to Aunt Mattie that she have one put on, and she refused. She said people can guess at combinations of figures by twisting the handle around, but if she kept the key with her day and night, nobody could open the safe.... But she got fooled!" "The lock was broken?" "Yes. But the door of the safe was closed, so she hadn't noticed it until she went to count her money this morning." "Do you know how much was taken?" "No, I don't. Plenty, I guess. Only, there was one queer thing about it: the thief didn't take the bonds she kept in a special drawer." "Overlooked them, probably," remarked Mary Louise. "Maybe. I don't know. Well, as I said, Aunt Mattie was in her room until lunch time, and then she went out on the front porch. About two o'clock in the afternoon Aunt Grace and her son John drove over." "John--Grant," repeated Mary Louise, consulting the list in her notebook. "He's your aunt Grace's oldest son?" "Yes. He's about forty, as I said. Fat and a little bit bald. An old bachelor. Probably you'd recognize him if you saw him, because he's on the School Board. Aunt Mattie likes him because he does little repair jobs for her around the house that save her spending money for a carpenter. "Yesterday he went upstairs and fixed a window sash in her bedroom." Elsie paused thoughtfully. "So you see John had a good chance to open the safe and steal the money." "Why, he's the guilty one, of course!" cried Jane instantly. "It's just too plain. I should think your aunt would see that." Elsie shook her head. "No, it would never occur to Aunt Mattie to accuse John. He's the one person in the family she trusts. She always says she is leaving him all her money in her will--so why would he bother to steal it?" "He might need it now, for some particular purpose," replied Jane. "He is handy with tools, you say--and had such a good opportunity." "We better get on with the story," urged Mary Louise. "Any minute Elsie may be called in." The girl shuddered, as if she dreaded the ordeal of meeting her aunt again. "Was your aunt Grace in the bedroom at all during the afternoon?" questioned Mary Louise. "By herself, I mean?" "I don't know. She and Aunt Mattie went up together to look at the window after John finished fixing it, but whether or not Aunt Grace was there alone, I couldn't say. Anyhow, there's no use worrying about that. Aunt Grace just _couldn't_ steal anything." "According to the detective stories," put in Jane, "it's the person who just _couldn't_ commit the crime who always is the guilty one. The one you suspect least." "But this isn't a story," said Elsie. "I wish it were. If you knew how dreadful it is for me, living here and having everybody think I'm a thief!" "Why don't you run away, now that you have some decent clothes?" suggested Jane. "I just wouldn't stand for anything like that!" "But I have nowhere to go. Besides, running away would make me look guiltier than ever." "Elsie's right," approved Mary Louise. "She can't run away now. But we'll prove she's innocent!" she added, with determination. "There's something else that happened during that visit," continued Elsie. "I mean, while Aunt Grace and John were here. Part of a conversation I overhead that may give you a clue. Aunt Grace said her youngest son--Harry, you remember--had gotten into debt and needed some money very badly. She didn't actually ask Aunt Mattie to help him out: she only hinted. But she didn't get any encouragement from Aunt Mattie. She told Aunt Grace just to shut Harry out of the house till he learned to behave himself!" "So this Harry Grant is in debt!" muttered Mary Louise, making a note of this fact in her little book. "Could he have stolen the money?" "Yes, it's possible. After Aunt Grace and John went home, Harry came over to Dark Cedars." "What time was that?" "Around four o'clock, I think. I was out in the kitchen, helping Hannah shell some peas for supper. We heard his car--it's a terribly noisy old thing--and then his voice." "What's he like?" asked Mary Louise. "I told you he was the youngest of Aunt Grace's children, you know, and he's rather handsome. He treats me much better than any of the other relations, except Aunt Grace, but still I don't like him. He always insists on kissing me and teasing me about imaginary boy-friends. I usually run out into the kitchen when I hear him coming." "Is he here often?" "Only when he wants something. He tries to flatter Aunt Mattie and tease her money away from her. But, as far as I know, he never gets any." "What did he want yesterday?" "He said he wanted a loan. He didn't bother to talk quietly: I could hear every word he said from the kitchen." "And your aunt refused?" "Yes. She told him to sell his car if he needed money. As if he could sell that old bus!" Elsie laughed. "You'd have to pay somebody to take that away," she explained. Mary Louise tapped her pencil again. She hated to get away from the all-important subject. "But how do you think Harry could have stolen the money if your aunt Mattie was with him all the time?" she asked. "Aunt Mattie wasn't. He had a fine chance. Something had gone wrong with his car, and he had to fix it on the way over. So his hands were all dirty, and he went upstairs to wash them." "Oh!" exclaimed Jane significantly. "Looks bad for Harry Grant," commented Mary Louise, "because he had a motive. Daddy always looks for two things when he's solving a crime: the motive, and the chance to get away with it. And it seems that this young man had both." Elsie nodded. "Yes, he had. And he was upstairs a good while, too. But then, he's an awful dandy about everything. You never see grease in Harry Grant's finger nails!" "Did he go right out when he came downstairs?" inquired Mary Louise. "No. He laughed and joked a lot. I heard him ask Aunt Mattie to lend him her finger-nail rouge because he had forgotten his. Then he said he'd like some cookies, and I had to make lemonade." "So, if he took the money, he must have had it in his pocket all this time? He didn't go upstairs again?" "No, he didn't. And I know Aunt Mattie had a good deal of it in gold, so it must have been terribly heavy. Still, men have a lot of pockets." Mary Louise nodded. "Yes, that's true. But you'd think if he really had taken it he'd have been anxious to get away. That story about asking for cookies and lemonade almost proves an alibi for him." She sighed; it was all getting rather complicated. "Did anything else happen yesterday?" she asked wearily. "I mean, after Harry went home?" "Not till after supper. Then Mrs. Pearson and her daughter walked over to see Aunt Mattie. They used to be rich, but Mr. Pearson lost his job, and they had to sell their car. So now they have to walk wherever they go." Jane let out a groan. "So every one of those five relations of Miss Grant was here yesterday and had a chance to steal that money!" she exclaimed. "Yes," agreed Elsie. "Every one of them!" "What are the Pearsons like?" asked Mary Louise. "Well, Mrs. Pearson looks like Aunt Grace--she's her daughter, you remember--but she isn't a bit like her. She isn't religious; in fact, she doesn't seem to care for anything in the world but that nasty daughter of hers. Corinne, you know. Have you ever seen Corinne Pearson?" "I think I have," replied Mary Louise. "Though she never went to our school. I believe she attended that little private school, and now she goes around with the Country Club set, doesn't she?" "Yes. Her one ambition, and her mother's ambition for her, is to marry a rich man. I hate both of them. They're so rude to me--never speak to me at all unless they give me a command as if I were a servant. Last night Corinne told me to bring her a certain chair from the parlor, because she thought our porch rockers were dirty. And the tone she used! As if I ought to keep them clean just for her!" "I always imagined she was like that," said Jane. "I was introduced to her once, and when I passed her on the street the next day she cut me dead." "Once she told me to untie her shoe and see if there was a stone in it," continued Elsie. "In the haughtiest tone!" "I'd have slapped her foot!" exclaimed Jane. "You didn't obey her, did you?" "I had to. Aunt Mattie would have punished me if I hadn't. She dislikes Corinne Pearson and her mother, but she hates me worst of all.... So you can easily see why I run off when I see the Pearsons coming. I went back into the kitchen with Hannah, but Aunt Mattie soon called me to bring some ice water. And the conversation I heard may be another clue for you, Mary Louise." "Oh, dear!" sighed Jane. "We've got too many clues already." A voice sounded from the house, making the girls pause for a moment in silence. "Elsie! Oh, Elsie!" "It's Hannah. I'll have to go in a minute," said the girl, carefully getting to her feet, not forgetting her new dress. "But first I must tell you about this conversation, because it's important. It seems Corinne was invited to a very swell dance by one of those rich Mason boys, and she came over to ask Aunt Mattie for a new dress. Aunt Mattie laughed at her--that nasty cackle that she has. And then she said, 'Certainly I'll give you a dress, Corinne. Go up to my closet and pick out anything you want. You'll find some old party dresses there!' "Well, I could see that Corinne was furious, but she got up and went upstairs. And she did pick out an old lace gown--I thought maybe she was going to make it over. Perhaps she was just using it to hide the money, if she did steal it.... Anyhow, she and her mother went home in a few minutes, carrying the dress with them." Mary Louise closed her notebook in confusion. "You better run along now, Elsie, or you'll get punished," she advised. "All right, I will," agreed the younger girl as she gathered up her things. "You know all the suspects now." "All but the servants," replied Mary Louise. "And if I can, I'm going to interview Hannah immediately." CHAPTER IV _Interviewing Hannah_ Keeping under cover of the cedar trees, Mary Louise and Jane followed Elsie Grant, at a discreet distance, to the back of the house. Unlike the front entrance, there was a screen at the kitchen door, so the girls could hear Hannah's exclamation at the sight of the transformation in Elsie's appearance. "My land!" she cried in amazement. "Where did you get them clothes, Elsie?" Elsie laughed; the first normal, girlish laugh that Mary Louise and Jane had ever heard from her. "Don't I look nice, Hannah?" she asked. "I haven't seen myself yet in a mirror, but I'm sure I do. I feel so different." "You look swell, all right," agreed the servant. "But no credit to you! If that's what you done with your aunt's money----" "Oh, no, Hannah!" protested Elsie. "You're wrong there. I didn't _buy_ these things. They were given to me." The two girls were standing at the screen door now, in full view, and Elsie beckoned for them to come inside. "These are my friends, Hannah. The girls who rescued Aunt Mattie's kitten--remember? And they brought me the clothes this morning." The woman shook her head. "It might be true, but nobody'd believe it. Folks don't give away nice things like that. I know that, for I've had a lot of 'hand-me-downs' in my life.... Besides, they fit you too good." "But we did bring them to Elsie," asserted Jane. "You can see that we're all about the same size. And we can prove it by our mothers. We'll bring them over----" "You'll do nuthin' of the kind!" returned Hannah. "Miss Mattie don't want a lot of strangers pokin' into her house and her affairs. Now, you two run along! And, Elsie, hurry up and get out of that finery. Look at them dishes waitin' fer you in the sink!" The girl nodded and disappeared up the back stairs, humming a little tune to herself as she went. Mary Louise stood still. "We want to ask you a question or two, Hannah," she explained. "We want to help find the thief who stole Miss Grant's money." The woman's nose shot up in the air, and a stubborn look came over her face. "Is that so?" she asked defiantly. "And what business is that of your'n?" "We're making it our business," replied Mary Louise patiently, "because we're fond of Elsie. We think it's terrible for her to be accused of something she didn't do." "How do you know she didn't do it?" "Why--we just know." "That ain't no reason! Besides, what do you know about Elsie Grant? Seen her a couple of times and listened to her hard luck story and believe you know all about her!" "But surely you don't believe Elsie stole that money?" demanded Jane. "If she had, she'd certainly have run away immediately. Wouldn't she?" "Maybe--if she had the spirit. But, anyhow, it ain't none of your business, and Miss Mattie don't want it to get around. She don't want no scandal. Now--get along with you!" "Please, Hannah!" begged Mary Louise. "We'll promise not to tell anybody about the robbery--not even our mothers. If you'd just answer a couple of questions----" The woman eyed her suspiciously. "You think maybe I done it?" she demanded. "Well, I didn't! Miss Mattie knows how honest I am. William too--that's me husband. We've been in this house ever since Miss Mattie was a girl, and the whole family knows they can trust us." "Oh, my goodness!" exclaimed Mary Louise. "I'm not suspecting _you_, Hannah! All I want is a little information." "You're not going to the police and tell what you know? Or to some detective?" "No. On my word of honor, no! Jane and I are going to try to be detectives ourselves, that's all. For Elsie's sake." The woman's expression softened. After all, Mary Louise's brown eyes had a winning way. "All right. Only hurry up. I got a lot of work to do." Mary Louise smiled. "I'll be quick," she promised. "I just want to know whether you think there was any time during the day or evening--before Miss Grant went to bed--when a burglar could have entered the house without being seen or heard." Hannah stopped beating the cake which she had been mixing while this conversation was taking place and gave the matter her entire consideration. "Let me think," she muttered. "Not all mornin', fer Miss Mattie was in her room herself. Not in the afternoon, neither, fer there was too many people around. All them relations come over, and Miss Mattie was right on the front parch--and I was here at the back.... No, I don't see how anybody could have got in without bein' heard." "How about supper time?" questioned Mary Louise. "Couldn't somebody have climbed in over the porch roof while the family were eating in the dining room?" "It's possible," answered Hannah. "But it ain't likely. Burglars ain't usually as quiet as all that. No; I hold with Miss Mattie--that Elsie or maybe that good-fer-nuthin' Harry took the money." Mary Louise sighed and turned towards the door. "I'm sure it wasn't Elsie," she said again. "But maybe you're right about Mr. Harry Grant. I hope we find out.... By the way," she added, "you couldn't tell me just how much was taken, could you, Hannah?" "No, I couldn't. Miss Mattie didn't say.... Now, my advice to you girls is: fergit all about it! It ain't none of your affairs, and Elsie ain't a good companion fer you young ladies. She ain't had no eddication, and probably, now she's fifteen, her aunt'll put her into service as a housemaid somewheres. And you won't want to be associatin' with no servant girl!" Jane's eyes blazed with indignation. "It's not fair!" she cried. "In a country like America, where education is free. Anybody who wants it has a right to it." "Then she can git it at night school while she's workin', if she sets her mind to it," remarked Hannah complacently. "Well, Hannah, we thank you very much for your help," concluded Mary Louise as she opened the screen door. "And--you'll see us again!" Neither girl said anything further until they were outside the big hedge that surrounded Dark Cedars. Both of them felt baffled by the conflicting information they had gathered. "I wish I could put the whole affair up to Daddy," observed Mary Louise, as they descended the hill to the road. "He isn't home now, but he soon will be." "Well, you can't," replied her chum. "It might get Elsie into trouble. And besides, we gave our promise." "It'll be hard not to talk about it. Oh, dear, if we only knew where and how to begin!" "I guess the first thing to do is to find out just what was stolen," said Jane. "That would make it more definite, at least. We have heard that it was money, but we don't know how much or what kind." "Yes, that's true--and it would help considerably to know. For instance, if there was a lot of gold, as Elsie seems to think, it would be practically impossible for Harry Grant to have concealed it in his pockets, or for Corinne Pearson to have carried it back to Riverside without any car. But if, on the other hand, it was mostly paper money, it would be no trick at all for either one of them to have made away with it." The shrill screech of a loud horn attracted the girls' attention at that moment. A familiar horn, whose sound could not be mistaken. It belonged on the roadster owned by Max Miller, Mary Louise's special boy-friend. In another second the bright green car flashed into view, came up to the girls, and stopped with a sudden jamming on of the brakes. Two hatless young men in flannel trousers and tennis shirts jumped out of the front seat. "What ho! and hi!--and greetings!" cried Max in delight. "Where have you two been?" "Taking a walk," answered Mary Louise calmly. "Taking a walk!" repeated Norman Wilder, the other young man, who was usually at Jane's elbow at parties and sports affairs. "You mean--giving _us_ the air!" "Giving _you_ the air? In what way?" Jane's tone sounded severe, but her eyes were smiling into Norman's, as if she were not at all sorry to see him. "Forgot all about that tennis date we had, didn't you?" demanded Max. "Is that a nice way to treat a couple of splendid fellows like ourselves?" He threw out his chest and pulled himself up to his full height, which was six feet one. Mary Louise gasped and looked conscience-stricken. "We did forget!" she exclaimed. "But we can play now just as well as not--at least, if you'll take us home to get our shoes and rackets." "O.K.," agreed Max. He turned to Norman. "Get into the rumble, old man. I crave to have Mary Louise beside me." The car started forward with its customary sudden leap, and Max settled back in his seat. "We've got some great news for you, Mary Lou," he announced immediately. "Big picnic on for this coming Saturday! Rounding up the whole crowd." Mary Louise was not impressed. Picnics seemed tame to her in comparison with the excitement of being a detective and hunting down thieves. "Afraid I have an engagement," she muttered. She and Jane had a special arrangement, by which every free hour of the day was pledged to the other, so that if either wanted to get out of an invitation, she could plead a previous date without actually telling a lie. "The heck you have!" exclaimed Max, in disappointment. "You've got to break it!" "Sez you?" "Yeah! Sez I. And you'll say so too, Mary Lou, when you hear more about this picnic. It's going to be different. We're driving across to Cooper's woods----" "Oh, I've been there," yawned Mary Louise. "There's nothing special there. Looks spooky and deep, but it's just an ordinary woods. Maybe a little wilder----" "Wait! You women never let a fellow talk. I've been trying to tell you something for five minutes, and here we are at your house, and you haven't heard it yet." "I guess I shan't die." With a light laugh she opened the car door and leaped out, at the exact moment that Jane and Norman jumped from the rumble, avoiding a collision by a fraction of an inch. "Tell me about it when I come out again," called Mary Louise to Max as she and Jane ran into their respective houses to change. Freckles met Mary Louise at the door. "Can I go with you, Sis?" he demanded. "Yes, if you're ready," she agreed, making a dash for the stairs. Her mother, meeting her in the hall, tried to detain her. She asked, "Did the girl like the clothes, dear?" "Oh, yes, she loved them," replied Mary Louise. "I'll tell you more about it when I get back from tennis. The boys are pestering us to hurry." Three minutes later both she and Jane were back in the car again, with Freckles and Silky added to the passenger list. Max immediately went on about the picnic, just as if he hadn't been interrupted at all. "Here's the big news," he said, as he stepped on the starter: "There are gypsies camping over in that meadow beside Cooper's woods! So we're all going to have our fortunes told. That's why we're having the picnic there. Now, won't that be fun?" "Yes, I guess so. But I really don't see how Jane and I can come----" She was interrupted by a tap on her shoulder from the rumble seat. "I think we can break that date, Mary Lou," announced her chum, with a wink. Mary Louise raised her eyebrows. "Well, of course, if Jane thinks so----" she said to Max. "It's as good as settled," concluded Max, with a chuckle. But Mary Louise was not convinced until she had a chance, after the game was over, to talk to Jane alone and to ask her why she wanted to go on the picnic when they had such important things to do. "Because I had an inspiration," replied Jane. "One of us can ask the gypsy to solve our crime for us! They do tell strange things, sometimes, you know--and they might lead us to the solution!" CHAPTER V _The Stolen Treasure_ "I'm not just tired," announced Jane Patterson, dropping into the hammock on Mary Louise's porch after the tennis was over. "I'm completely exhausted! I don't believe I can even move as far as our house--let alone walk anywhere." "Oh, yes, you can," replied Mary Louise. "You'll feel lots better after you get a shower and some clean clothing. Four sets of tennis oughtn't to do you up. Many a time I've seen you good for six." "I know, but they weren't so strenuous. Honestly, you and Max ran me ragged. I tell you, Mary Lou, I'm all in. And I couldn't walk up that hill to Miss Grant's house if it meant life or death to me." "But think of poor Elsie! She may need us now." "Oh, what could we do?" "I don't know yet. But we have to go to find out just what was stolen, if for nothing else. She may know by this time." "Then why not let the boys drive us up?" asked Jane, with a yawn. "You know why. We can't let them into the secret: they'd tell everybody. And I bet, if the thing got out, Miss Grant would be so mad she'd have Elsie arrested then and there. No, there's nothing for us to do but walk.... So please go get your shower." Wearily Jane struggled to her feet. "O.K. But I warn you, I may drop in my tracks, and then you'll have to carry me." "I'll take a chance." Mary Louise met another protest from her mother, who tried to insist that her daughter lie down for a little rest before supper. But here again persuasion won. "Really, I'm not tired, Mother," she explained. "It's only that I'm hot and dirty. And we have something very important to do--I wish I could tell you all about it, but I can't now." Her mother seemed satisfied. She had learned by this time that she could trust Mary Louise. "All right, dear," she said. "Call Jane over, and you may all have some lemonade. Freckles said he had to have a cold drink." The refreshments revived even Jane, and half an hour later the two girls were walking up the shady lane which led towards the Grant place. It wasn't so bad as Jane had expected; the road was so sheltered by trees that they did not mind the climb. Once inside the hedge they peered eagerly in among the cedar trees for a glimpse of Elsie. But they did not see her anywhere. "She's probably in the kitchen helping Hannah with the dinner," concluded Mary Louise. "Let's go around back." Here they found her, sitting on the back step, shelling peas. She was wearing her old dress again, and the girls could see that she had been crying. But her eyes lighted up with pleasure at the sight of her two friends. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you girls!" she cried. "I wanted you so much, and I didn't know how to let you know. You see, I don't even have your address--though that wouldn't have done me much good, because I'm not allowed out of the gate, and I haven't any stamp to put on a letter. The only thing I could do was pray that you would come!" "Well, here we are!" announced Mary Louise, with a significant look at Jane. "Now tell us why you specially wanted us." "I wanted you to assure Aunt Mattie that you really did give me those dresses and things. Right away she said I must have bought them with her money. Though how she thinks I ever had a chance to get to any store is beyond me. She knows I never leave this place." "How did she find out about them?" inquired Mary Louise. "You didn't show them to her, did you?" "No, I didn't. She found them while she was searching through my things this morning, to see whether I had her money hidden anywhere." "That's terrible!" exclaimed Jane. "Oh, how dreadful it must be to be all alone in the world, without anybody who trusts you!" Something of the same thought ran through Mary Louise's brain at the same time. "Tell us just what has happened today, since we left," urged Mary Louise. "Has anybody been here?" "No. Not a soul. But Aunt Mattie put me through a lot more questions at lunch, and afterward she gave my room a thorough search. When she found my new clothes, she was more sure than ever that I was the thief. She told me if I didn't confess everything right away she'd have to change her mind and call the police." "Did she call them?" demanded Jane. "Not yet. It's lucky for me that she hasn't a telephone. She said she guessed she'd send William after supper. So you can see how much it meant to me for you girls to come over now!" Mary Louise nodded gravely, and Jane blushed at her reluctance in wanting to come. If Elsie had gone to jail, it would have been their fault for giving her the clothing! "When can we see your aunt?" inquired Mary Louise. "Right now. I'll go in and tell her. She's out on the front porch, I think." Elsie handed her pan to Hannah and went through the kitchen to the front of the house. She was back again in a moment, telling the girls to come with her. They found the old lady in her favorite rocking chair, with her knitting in her lap. But she was not working--just scowling at the world in general, and when Elsie came out on the dilapidated porch an expression of pain crossed her wrinkled brows. Whether it was real pain from that trouble in her side which she had mentioned, or whether it was only a miserly grief over the loss of her money, Mary Louise had no way of telling. "Good-afternoon, Miss Grant," she said pleasantly. "How is your kitten today?" A smile crept over the woman's face, making her much more pleasant to look at. "She's fine," she replied. "Come here, Puffy, and speak to the kind girls who rescued you yesterday!" The kitten ran over and jumped into Miss Grant's lap. "She certainly is sweet," said Mary Louise. She cleared her throat: why couldn't the old lady help her out by asking her a question about the clothing? But Elsie, nervously impatient, brought up the subject they were all waiting for. "Tell Aunt Mattie about the dresses and the coat," she urged. "Oh, yes," said Mary Louise hastily. "Your niece told us, Miss Grant, that she never gets to Riverside to buy any new clothes, so when I noticed we were all three about the same size, Jane and I asked our mothers whether we couldn't give her some of ours. They were willing, and so we brought them over this morning." "Humph!" was the only comment Miss Grant made to this explanation. Mary Louise could not tell whether she believed her or not and whether she was pleased or angry. "You didn't mind, did you, Miss Grant?" she inquired nervously. "No, of course not. Elsie's mighty lucky.... I only hope when she's working as somebody's maid that they'll be as nice to her. It helps out, when wages are small. For nobody wants to pay servants much these days." A lump came into Mary Louise's throat at the thought of Elsie's future, which Miss Grant had just pictured for them. She longed to plead the girl's cause, but she knew it would do no good. Especially at the present time, with Miss Grant poorer than she had ever been in her life. The old lady's eyes suddenly narrowed, and she looked sharply at Mary Louise. "See here!" she said abruptly. "You two girls are the only people besides those living in this house who know about this robbery, and I don't want you to say a word of it to anybody! Understand? I don't want the police in on this until I am ready to tell them. Or my other relatives, either. I expect to get that money back myself!" All three girls breathed a sigh of relief: it was evident that the police would not be summoned that evening. And both Mary Louise and Jane gave their promise of utmost secrecy. "But we'd like to help discover the thief, if we can," added Mary Louise. "You don't mind if we try, do you, Miss Grant--if it's all on the quiet?" "No, I don't mind. But I don't see what you can do." Miss Grant looked sharply at Elsie, as if she thought maybe her niece might confess to these girls while she stubbornly refused to tell her aunt anything. "Yes," she added, "you might succeed where I failed.... Yes, I'll pay ten dollars' reward if you get my money back for me." "We think it might have been a robber," remarked Mary Louise, to try to divert Miss Grant's suspicious eyes from her niece. "He could have slipped in while you were at supper." "It wasn't a robber," announced Miss Grant, with conviction. "If it had been, he'd have taken everything. The most valuable things were left in the safe. My bonds. They're government bonds, too, so anybody could see the value of them--except a child! No, it was somebody right in this house!" And she laughed with that nasty cackle which made Jane so angry, that, she said afterward, if Miss Grant hadn't been an old lady, she would have slapped her then and there in the face. "Or maybe it was one of your other relations," said Mary Louise evenly. "Possibly. I wouldn't trust Harry Grant or Corinne Pearson. Or Corinne's mother, either, for that matter!" "How about Mrs. Grant?" "My sister-in-law? No, I don't think she'd take anything. And I know it wasn't John--or either of the servants.... No." She looked at Elsie again. "There's your culprit. Make her confess--and you get ten dollars!" She paused, while everybody looked embarrassed. But she was enjoying the situation. "I'll make it ten dollars apiece!" she added. "It isn't the money we want, Miss Grant," said Mary Louise stiffly. "It's to clear Elsie of suspicion." "Nonsense! Everybody wants money!" Mary Louise took her notebook out of her pocket. "Would you tell us just how much money was taken, Miss Grant?" she asked. "And--all about it?" "Yes, of course I will. There was a metal box in the safe with five hundred dollars in gold----" "Gold!" exclaimed Jane. "I thought you were supposed to turn that in to the government!" "You mind your business!" snapped Miss Grant. "We will--We will!" said Mary Louise hastily. "Please go on, Miss Grant!" "Five hundred dollars in twenty-dollar gold pieces," she repeated. "Then there was eight hundred and fifty dollars in bills--all in fifty-dollar notes. I have the numbers of the bills written down in a book upstairs. Would you like to copy them down, Mary Louise?" "Yes, indeed!" cried the latter rapturously. Miss Grant was treating her just like a real detective! "Come upstairs, then, with me, and you can see the safe and my room at the same time." The old lady turned to her niece, who was still waiting nervously beside the door. "Go back to your work, Elsie," she commanded. "Hannah will be wanting you." The girl nodded obediently, but before she disappeared she softly asked Mary Louise, "Will you and Jane be back again tomorrow?" "Yes, of course," was the reply. "You can count on us." Miss Grant gathered up her knitting and picked up her kitten from the porch floor, where it had been rolling about with a ball of its mistress's wool. "I may want you girls to walk over to the bank with me tomorrow," she remarked. "Unless John happens to come here in his car. I've about decided to put my bonds into a safe-deposit box at the bank." "We'll be glad to go with you," Mary Louise assured her. The old lady struggled painfully to her feet and led the way through the house, up the stairs to her room. Both girls noticed the ominous creak which these gave when anything touched them, and Jane shuddered. It must be awful to live in a tumble-down place like this! Miss Grant's room on the second floor was at the front of the house, just as Elsie had said, and one window overlooked the porch. It was furnished with ugly, heavy wooden furniture, and a rug that was almost threadbare. Along one wall, opposite the bed, was a huge closet, in which, no doubt, Miss Grant kept those old dresses which she had offered to Corinne Pearson. And the most astonishing thing about the bedroom was the fact that it contained not a single mirror! ("But, of course," Jane remarked afterward, "you wouldn't want to see yourself if you looked like that old maid!") Off in the corner was the iron safe, with the only comfortable chair in the room beside it. Here, evidently, Miss Grant spent most of her time, rocking in the old-fashioned chair and gloating over her money. Now she hobbled directly to the safe and opened the door for the girls to look into it. "You can see how the lock has been picked," she pointed out. "It's broken now, of course." She suddenly eyed the girls suspiciously, as if they were not to be trusted either, and added, "The bonds aren't in there now! I hid them somewhere else." Mary Louise nodded solemnly. "Yes, that was wise, Miss Grant.... Now, may I write down the numbers of the bills that were stolen?" After she had concluded this little task, she went to examine the windows. They were both large--plenty big enough for a person to step through without any difficulty. But the one over the porch proved disappointing, for the roof of the porch was crumbling so badly and the posts were so rotted that anyone who attempted to climb in by that method would be taking his life in his hands. "I always keep that window locked," said Miss Grant, following Mary Louise. "So you see why I don't think it was a burglar who took my money. Locked--day and night!" Mary Louise nodded and examined the other window. It was high from the ground; there was a tree growing near it, but not near enough to make it possible for a human being to jump from a branch to the window sill. Only a monkey could perform a trick like that! Mary Louise turned away with a sigh. She was almost ready to admit that the robbery was an inside job, as Miss Grant insisted. "May we see inside the closet before we go?" she asked as an afterthought. Miss Grant nodded and opened the door, disclosing a space as large as the kitchenettes in some of the modern apartments. Miss Grant herself used it as a small storeroom for the things that she did not want to put up in the attic. "Anybody could hide here for hours," Jane remarked, "without being suffocated." "Which is just what I believe Elsie did!" returned Miss Grant, with a smirk. And the girls, unhappy and more baffled than ever, went home to their suppers. CHAPTER VI _A Wild Ride_ "One of the best points in this case," Mary Louise observed, in her most professional tone, "is its secrecy." "Why do you say that?" questioned Jane. The girls were returning from their second visit that day to Dark Cedars and were walking as fast as they could towards home. It was almost six o'clock, and Mary Louise usually helped her mother a little with the supper. But Freckles was there; she knew he would offer his services. "What I mean is, since the robbery hasn't been talked about, nobody is on guard," she explained. "If any of those relatives did take the money, probably they think the theft hasn't been discovered yet, or Miss Grant would have called them over to see her. In a way, it's pretty tricky of her." "But, do you know, I can hardly believe any of them stole all that gold," returned Jane. "Because, what would they do with it? Nobody is supposed to use gold nowadays, and it would arouse all sorts of suspicions." "Yes, that's true. But then, they might want to hoard it, the same as Miss Grant did." "A man like Harry Grant wouldn't want to hoard any! From what I hear of him, he spends money before he even gets it." "True. But there are other relatives. And somebody did steal it!" "Yes, somebody stole it, all right. Only, the fact that a lot of it was gold makes Elsie look guilty. She probably wouldn't know about the new law." Mary Louise frowned: she didn't like that thought. "Well, I'm not going to suspect Elsie till I've investigated everybody else. Every one of those five relations--Mrs. Grant, John Grant, Harry Grant, Mrs. Pearson, and her daughter Corinne!" "Have you any plan at all?" inquired Jane. "Yes, I'd like to do a little snooping tonight." "Snooping? Where? How?" "Sneak around those two houses in Riverside--the Grants', where John and Harry live with their mother, and the Pearsons'! It's such a warm evening they'll probably be on their porches, and we might overhear something to our advantage." "But suppose we were arrested for prowling?" "Oh, they wouldn't arrest two respectable-looking girls like us! Besides, if they did, Daddy could easily get us out." "Is he home?" "No, he isn't. But he'll be back in a day or two." "A day or two in the county jail wouldn't be so good!" "Nonsense, Jane! Nothing will happen," Mary Louise assured her. "We've got to take some chances if we're going to be detectives. Daddy takes terrible ones sometimes." "Do you know where these people live?" inquired her chum. "The Grants and the Pearsons, I mean?" "I know where the Grants live: in that big red brick house on Green Street. Old-fashioned, set back from the street. Don't you remember?" "Yes, I guess I do." "We can pass it on our way home, if we go one block farther down before we turn in at our street." "How about the Pearsons?" asked Jane. "I don't know where they live. But I think we can get the address from the phone book." The girls stepped along at a rapid rate, entirely forgetful of the tennis which had tired Jane so completely a couple of hours ago. In a minute or so they came in sight of the red brick house. It was an ugly place, but it was not run down or dilapidated like Miss Mattie Grant's. John Grant evidently believed in keeping things in repair. The house stood next to a vacant lot, and it was enclosed by a wooden fence, which was overgrown with honeysuckle vines. A gravel drive led from the front to the back yard, alongside of this fence, and there were half a dozen large old trees on the lawn. "We could easily hide there after dark," muttered Mary Louise. "Climb over that fence back by the garage and sneak up behind those trees to a spot within hearing distance of the porch." "I don't see what good it would do us," objected Jane. "It might do us lots of good! Look at that car! That must be Harry Grant's, judging from Elsie's description. If his car's there, he must be home. And if we hear him say anything about spending money, then we can be suspicious. Because, where would he get the money unless he stole his aunt's?" Jane nodded her head. "Yes, I see your logic," she agreed. "But there isn't a soul around now, and likely as not there won't be all evening." "They're probably eating supper. Come on, let's hurry and get ours over. And meet me as soon as you can afterwards." The girls separated at their gates, and Mary Louise ran inside quickly to be on hand to help her mother. "Daddy isn't home yet?" she asked, as she carried a plate of hot biscuits to the table. "No, dear," answered her mother. "He's in Chicago--I had a special-delivery letter from him today. He can't be back before the weekend--Saturday or Sunday." Mary Louise sighed. She had been hoping that perhaps she could get some advice from him without giving away any names or places. Freckles dashed into the room, with Silky close at his heels. "Where have you been, Sis?" he demanded. "Why didn't you take Silky with you? He's been fussing for you." "Jane and I had an errand to go," the girl explained. "And we couldn't take him along. But we'll take him with us for a walk after supper." "Walk again?" repeated Mrs. Gay, her forehead wrinkled in disapproval. "Mary Louise, you're doing too much! You must get some rest!" "We shan't be out long, Mother. It isn't a date or anything. Jane and I want to take a little stroll, with Silky, after supper. Isn't it all right if I promise to go to bed very early?" "I suppose so. If you get in by nine-thirty----" "I promise!" replied Mary Louise, little thinking how impossible it was going to be for her to keep her word. She did not start upon her project until she had finished washing the dishes for her mother. Then, slipping upstairs, she changed into a dark green sweater dress and brown shoes and stockings. Through the window of her bedroom she signaled to her chum to make a similar change. "Might as well make ourselves as inconspicuous as possible," she explained, as the two girls, followed by Silky, walked down the street ten minutes later. "Did you have any trouble getting away, Jane? I mean, without giving any explanation?" "Yes, a little. Mother can't understand all this sudden passion for walking, when I used to have to ride everywhere in Norman's or Max's car. I really think she believes I have a new boy-friend and that I meet him somewhere so as not to make Norman jealous. As if I'd go to all that trouble!" Mary Louise nodded. "A little jealousy does 'em good," she remarked. "Of course, Mother doesn't think it's so queer for me, because I always did have to take Silky for walks. And he's a good excuse now." "Oh, well, we'll be home early tonight," concluded Jane. "So there won't be any cause for worry." "There's somebody on the porch--several people, I think," said Mary Louise as the girls turned into the street on which the Grants' house was situated. "Two men," added Jane as they came nearer. "I think the person sitting down is a woman. But it's getting too dark to see clearly." "All the better! That's just what we want. Let's cut across the lot to the back of the place, and sneak up behind the car in the driveway. We can see the porch from there." "But I'm afraid we'll be caught," objected Jane fearfully. Nevertheless, she followed Mary Louise around a side street to the rear of the lot, and together they climbed the Grants' fence, cautiously and silently. Once inside, they crept noiselessly along the grass near the fence until they came to the back of Harry Grant's car. There could be no doubt that it was his. At least five years old, with battered mudguards and rusted trimmings, it looked like the relic Elsie had laughed about. It was a small black coupé, with a compartment behind for carrying luggage. "If Mr. Harry Grant goes for a ride in this, we're going with him!" announced Mary Louise. "No!" cried her chum. "How could we?" "In the luggage compartment." "We'd smother." "No, we wouldn't. We'd open the lid after we got started." "Suppose he locked us in?" "He can't. I just made sure that the lock has rusted off." "But what good would it do us to ride with him?" demanded Jane. "Sh! They might hear us!" warned Mary Louise. She turned to the dog and patted him. "You keep quiet too, Silky.... Why," she explained in a whisper, "we could watch to see whether Mr. Harry spends any money. If he brings out a fifty-dollar bill, he's a doomed man!" "You are clever, Mary Lou!" breathed her chum admiringly. "But it's an awful risk to take." "Oh no, it isn't. Mr. Grant isn't a gangster or a desperate character. He wouldn't hurt us." Jane looked doubtful. "Have you made out who the people are on the porch?" she asked. "It must be Mrs. Grace Grant--and her two sons. Yes, and I feel sure that is Harry, coming down the steps now.... Listen!" The girls' eyes, more accustomed to the darkness, could distinguish the figures quite plainly by now. The younger of the two men, with a satchel in his hand, was speaking to his mother. "I ought to be back by Saturday," he said in a loud, cheerful voice. "And if this deal I've been talking about over in New York goes through, I'll be driving home in a new car." "You better pay your debts first, Harry," cautioned his mother. "I hope to make enough money to do both," he returned confidently. "And if you see Aunt Mattie, you can tell her I don't need her help!" Mary Louise nudged Jane's arm at this proud boast and repressed a giggle. "Maybe he can fool his mother," she whispered. "But he can't fool us! Come on, get in, Jane." Holding open the lid of the car's compartment she lifted Silky in and gave her hand to her chum. "Suppose he puts his satchel in here," said Jane, when they were all huddled down in the extremely small space and Mary Louise had cautiously let down the lid, shutting them in absolute darkness. "He won't--not if it has money in it. He'll keep it right on the seat beside him.... He will anyway, because it doesn't take up much room." The car rocked to one side, indicating that Harry Grant had stepped in and was seating himself at the wheel. Jane's lip trembled. "It's so dark in here! So terribly dark! Where's your hand, Mary Lou?" "Here--and here's Silky. Oh, Jane, this is going to be good!" The motor started, and the car leaped forward with a sudden uneven bound. Jane repressed a cry of terror. It turned sharply at the gate and buzzed along noisily for several minutes before Mary Louise cautiously raised the lid and looked out. Oh, how good it was to see the lights again, and the sky--after that horrible blackness! The car had reached the open highway which led out of Riverside, and it picked up speed until it was rattling along at a pace of about sixty miles an hour. Growing bolder, Mary Louise continued to raise the lid of the compartment until it was upright at its full height. The girls straightened up, with their heads and shoulders sticking out of the enclosure. "Quite a nice ride after all, isn't it?" observed Mary Louise, gazing up at the stars. "I don't know," returned Jane. "It sounds to me as if there were something wrong with that engine. If we have an accident----" "That's just what I'm hoping for," was the surprising reply. "Or rather, a breakdown." "Whatever would you do?" "I'll tell you. Listen carefully, so we'll be prepared to act the minute the car stops. While Harry gets out on the left--he surely will, because his wheel is on the left--we jump out on the right. If there are woods beside the road, as I remember there are for some distance along here, we disappear into them. If not, we get to the path, and just walk along as if we were two people out for a walk with their dog. He won't think anything about that, for he doesn't know us, or know that we came with him." "But how will that help us to find out whether he is the thief?" inquired Jane. "My plan is to grab that satchel, if we get a chance, and run off with it!" "But that's stealing, Mary Lou! He could have us arrested." "Detectives have to take chances like that. It isn't really stealing, for we want to get hold of it merely to give its contents to the rightful owner. Of course, if there's no money in it, we could return it later." They were silent for a while, listening to the pounding of the engine. Fifteen minutes passed; Mary Louise saw by her watch when they rode under a light that it was quarter after nine, and she recalled her promise to her mother. But she couldn't do anything about it now. They were ascending a hill, and the speed of the car was diminishing; it seemed to the girls that they were not going to make it. The engine wheezed and puffed, but the driver was evidently doing his best. Ahead, on the left, shone the lights of a gas station, and this, Mary Louise decided, must be the goal that Harry was now aiming for. But the engine refused to go the full distance: it sputtered and died, and the girls felt the car jerked close to the right side, with no sign of civilization about except the lighted gas station about fifty yards ahead. But, lonely or not, the time had come for action, and there was not a second to be lost. Before Harry Grant's feet were off the running board both girls were out of the car on the other side, holding Silky close to them and hiding in the shadow. Mr. Grant stepped forward and raised the hood of his motor, peering inside with a flashlight. Keeping her eye on him through the open window of the car, Mary Louise crept cautiously along the right side towards the front. The young man turned about suddenly and swore softly to himself. But it was not because he had seen or heard the girls, although Jane did not wait to find that out. Desperately frightened, she dashed wildly into the protecting darkness of the bushes at the side of the road. Mary Louise, however, remained steadfastly where she was, waiting for her opportunity. It came in another moment. Lighting a cigarette, Mr. Grant started to walk to the gas station. "What could be sweeter!" exclaimed Mary Louise rapturously to herself, for Jane was out of hearing distance by this time. "My big chance!" She reached her hand quickly through the open window and picked up the satchel from the seat. Then, with Silky close at her heels, she too made for the protecting woods. In another moment she was at Jane's side, breathless and triumphant. "You're all right?" demanded her chum exultantly. "Oh, Mary Lou, you're marvelous!" "Not so marvelous as you think," replied the other, feeling for Jane's hand in the darkness. "Lift that satchel!" Jane groped about, and took it from Mary Louise, expecting a heavy weight. But it was surprisingly, disappointingly light! "It can't possibly contain any gold," said Mary Louise, dropping to the ground in disgust. "All our trouble--and we're only a common pair of thieves ourselves!" Silky came close to her and licked her hand reassuringly, as if he did not agree with her about the name she was calling herself and Jane. "Stranded on a lonely road--at least ten miles from home!" wailed Jane. "Sh!" warned Mary Louise. "They're at the car--Harry and another man. We might be caught!" But she stopped suddenly: something was coming towards them, as they could sense from the snapping of a twig close by. Not from the road, however, but from the depth of the woods! CHAPTER VII "_Hands Up!_" The two girls sat rigid with terror, Mary Louise holding tightly to Silky. In the darkness they could see nothing, for the denseness of the trees blotted even the sky from view. The silence of the woods was broken only by a faint rustle in the undergrowth, as something--they didn't know what--came nearer. Silky's ears were alert, his body as tense with watching, and Jane was actually trembling. "Got your flashlight, Mary Lou?" she whispered. "Yes, but I'm afraid to put it on till Harry Grant gets away. He might see it from the road." The sudden roar of the motor almost drowned out her words. The noise startled whatever it was that was near them, and the girls felt a little animal pass so close that it nearly touched them. They almost laughed out loud at their fear: the cause of their terror was only an innocent little white rabbit! Mary Louise took a tighter grip upon her dog. "You mustn't leave us, Silky! You don't want that bunny! We need you with us." The engine continued to roar; the girls heard the car start, and drive away. Jane uttered a sigh of relief. "I wonder whether he missed his satchel," she remarked. "Probably he didn't care if he did," returned her chum. "I don't believe it has anything in it but a toothbrush and a change of linen." "Let's open it and see." Mary Louise turned on her flashlight and looked at the small brown bag beside them. "Shucks!" she exclaimed in disappointment. "It's locked." "It would be. Well, so long as we have to carry it home, maybe we'll be glad that it's so light." "I've got my penknife. I'm going to cut the leather." "But, Mary Lou, it doesn't belong to us!" "Can't help that. We'll buy Harry Grant a new one if he's innocent." "O.K. You're the boss. Be careful not to cut yourself." "You hold the flashlight, Jane," said Mary Louise. "While I make the slit." The operation was not so easy, for the leather was tough, but Mary Louise always kept her knife as sharp as a boy's, and she succeeded at last in making an opening. Excitedly both girls peered into the bag, and Jane reached her hand into its depths. She drew it out again with an expression of disappointment. "An old Turkish towel!" she exclaimed in dismay. But Mary Louise's search proved more fruitful. Her hand came upon a bulky paper wad, encircled by a rubber band. She drew her hand out quickly and flashed the light upon her find. It was a fat roll of money! The girls gazed at her discovery in speechless joy. It seemed more like a dream than reality: one of those strange dreams where you find money everywhere, in all sorts of queer, dark places. "Hide it in your sweater, Mary Lou!" whispered Jane. "Now let's make tracks for home." Her companion concealed it carefully and then took another look into the satchel to make sure that none of the gold was there. She even inserted the flashlight into the bag, to confirm her belief. But there was nothing more. Both girls got to their feet, Jane with the satchel still in her hands. "I wish we were home," she remarked after the flashlight had been turned off, making the darkness seem blacker than before. "We can pick up a bus along this road, I think," returned Mary Louise reassuringly. "They ought to run along here about every half hour." "Shall we use some of this money for carfare?" "No, we don't have to. I have my purse with me." Choosing their way carefully through the bushes and undergrowth, the two girls proceeded slowly towards the road. But their adventures in the wood were not over. They heard another rustle of twigs in front of them, and footsteps. Human footsteps, this time! "Hands up!" snarled a gruff voice. The reactions of the two girls and the dog were instantaneous--and utterly different. Jane clutched her chum's arm in terror; Mary Louise flashed her light upon the man--a rough, uncouth character, without even a mask--and Silky flew at his legs. The dog's bite was quick and sharp: the bully cried out in pain. Mary Louise chuckled and, pulling Jane by the hand, dashed out to the road, towards the lights of the gas station in the distance. As the girls retreated, they could hear groans and swearing from their tormentor. When they slowed down across the road from the gas station, Mary Louise looked around and whistled for Silky. Jane, noticing that she still clutched the empty bag in her hand, hurled it as far as she could in the direction from which they had come. In another moment the brave little dog came bounding to them. Mary Louise stooped over and picked him up in her arms. "You wonderful Silky!" she cried, as she led the way across the road. "You saved our lives!" "Suppose we hadn't taken him!" said Jane in horror. "We'd be dead now." "Let's go ask the attendant about buses," suggested Mary Louise, still stroking her dog's head. "We better not!" cautioned Jane. "He may suspect us, if Harry Grant told him about his loss of the satchel." "Oh no, he won't," replied Mary Louise. "Because we'll tell him about the tramp, or the bandit, or whatever he is--and he'll suspect him." They walked confidently up to the man inside the station. "We're sort of lost," announced Mary Louise. "We want to get to Riverside. There was a tramp back there about fifty yards who tried to make trouble for us. Can we stay here until a bus comes along--they do run along here, don't they?" "Yes, certainly," replied the man, answering both questions at once. "About fifty yards back, you say? Did he have a brown satchel with him?" "I saw a brown satchel lying in the road," replied Mary Louise innocently. "Why?" "Because a motorist stopped there a few minutes ago with engine trouble, and while he came to me for help his grip was stolen." "Did it have anything valuable in it?" inquired Jane, trying to keep her tone casual. "Yes. I believe there was about eight hundred dollars in it." Mary Louise gasped in delight. That meant that practically all of Miss Grant's paper money was there--in her sweater! All but one fifty-dollar bill! "Well, I wouldn't go back there for eight thousand dollars!" said Jane. "You can be sure there ain't any money in the bag now," returned the attendant shrewdly. "Here comes your bus. You're lucky: they only run every half hour.... I'll go stop it for you." Mary Louise kept Silky in her arms, and the two girls followed their protector to the middle of the road. The bus stopped, and the driver looked doubtfully at Silky. "Don't allow no dogs," he announced firmly. "Oh, please!" begged Mary Louise in her sweetest tone. "Silky is such a good, brave dog! He just saved our lives when we were held up by a highwayman. And we have to get home--our mothers will be so worried." "It's agin' the rules----" "Please let us this time! I'll hold him in my lap." Her brown eyes looked into his; for a moment the man thought Mary Louise was going to cry. Then he turned to the half a dozen passengers in his car. "I'll leave it up to youse. Would any of youse people report me if I let this here lady's dog in the bus?" "We'd report you if you didn't," replied a good-natured woman with gray hair. "These girls must get home as quickly as possible. It's not safe for them to be out on a lonely road like this at night." "Oh, thank you so much!" exclaimed Mary Louise, smiling radiantly at the kind woman. "It's so good of you to help us out." The door closed; the girls waved good-bye to the attendant, and the bus started. Mary Louise gazed dismally at her watch. "Even now we'll be an hour late," she remarked. "We promised our mothers we'd be home by half-past nine!" "Girls your age shouldn't go lonely places after dark," observed the motherly woman. "Let this be a lesson to you!" "Oh, it will be, we assure you!" Jane told her. "One experience like this is enough for us." The bus rumbled on for twenty minutes or so and finally deposited the girls in Riverside, half a block from their homes. "Still have the money?" whispered Jane, as they ran the short distance to their gates. "Yes, I can feel the wad here. I was so afraid somebody in the bus would notice it. But having Silky in my lap helped." "It seems we have company," remarked Jane, recognizing a familiar roadster parked in front of their houses. "Now what can Max want at this time of night?" demanded Mary Louise impatiently. She longed so terribly to get into her room by herself and count the money. "Here they are, Mrs. Gay!" called a masculine voice from the porch. "They're all right, apparently." The two mothers appeared on Mary Louise's porch. "What in the world happened?" demanded Mrs. Patterson. "Mrs. Gay and I have been worried to death." "Not to mention us," added Norman Wilder from the doorstep. "We phoned all your friends, and nobody had seen a thing of you." "I wish we could tell you all about it," answered Mary Louise slowly. "But we aren't allowed to. All I can say is, it's something in connection with Elsie Grant--the orphan, you know, Mother, whom we told you about." Mrs. Gay looked relieved but not entirely satisfied. "I can't have you two girls going up that lonely road at night, dear," she said. "To the Grants' place, I mean. It isn't safe." "Oh, we weren't there tonight," Jane assured her, not going on to explain that they had gone somewhere far more dangerous. "Well, if you do have to go there, let Max or Norman drive you," suggested Mrs. Patterson. "The boys are willing, aren't you?" "Sure thing!" they both replied. "Let's all come inside and have some chocolate cake," said Mrs. Gay, delighted that everything had turned out all right. "You girls must be hungry." They were, of course; but Mary Louise was more anxious to be alone to count her treasure than to eat. However, she could not refuse, and the party lasted until after eleven. Her mother followed her upstairs after the company had gone home. "You must be tired, dear," she said tenderly. "Just step out of your clothes, and I'll hang them up for you." "Oh, no, thanks, Mother. I'm not so tired. We rode home in the bus.... Please don't bother. I'm all right." "Just as you say, dear," agreed Mrs. Gay, kissing her daughter good-night. "But don't get up for breakfast. Try to get some sleep!" Mary Louise smiled. ("Not if I know it," she thought to herself. "I'm going after the rest of that treasure! The gold! Maybe if I get that back for Miss Grant, she'll consent to let Elsie go to high school in the fall.") Very carefully she drew off her sweater and laid the bills under the pillow on her bed. Then, while she ran the shower in the bathroom, behind a locked door, she counted the money and checked the numbers engraved on the paper. The attendant was right! There were eight hundred dollars in all, in fifty-dollar notes. And the best part about it was the fact that the numbers proved that the money belonged to Miss Mattie Grant! CHAPTER VIII _A Confession_ It was a little after nine o'clock the following morning that Mary Louise and Jane set off for Dark Cedars. The money was safely hidden in Mary Louise's blouse, and Silky was told to come along for protection. "I'll never leave him home again," said Mary Louise. "Miss Grant will have to get used to him. But when we tell her about last night I guess she'll think he's a pretty wonderful dog." "I dreamed about bandits and robbers," remarked Jane, with a shudder. "No more night adventures for me!" "Well, it was worth it, wasn't it? Think of the pleasure of clearing Elsie of suspicion!" "It won't, though. Her aunt will insist that she took that gold." "We're going to get that back too," asserted Mary Louise confidently. "By the way," observed Jane, "Norman tried to make me promise we'd drive over to the Park with them this afternoon and have our supper there, after a swim. I said I'd let him know." Mary Louise shook her head. "We can't make dates, Jane. It's out of the question, for we don't know what may turn up. I want to investigate the Pearsons today. That disagreeable Corinne may have had a part in the theft.... I'm sorry now that we promised the boys we'd go on that picnic." "That picnic's going to be fun! You know what marvelous swimming there is down by Cooper's woods. And don't forget the gypsies! I love to have my fortune told." "Yes, that's fun, I admit. But a whole day----" "Oh, well, maybe we'll solve the whole crime today! And maybe Miss Grant will let us take Elsie with us, now that she has some nice dresses." Mary Louise's eyes brightened. "That is an idea, Jane. I'll ask Miss Grant today--as our reward for returning her money." The increasing heat of the day and the steepness of the climb to Dark Cedars made the girls long for that swimming pool in the amusement park, and Jane at least wished that they were going with the boys. But one glance at her chum's determined face made her realize that such a hope was not to be fulfilled. Both girls felt hot and sticky when they finally mounted the porch steps at Dark Cedars and pulled the old-fashioned knocker on the wooden door. It was opened almost immediately by Hannah, who evidently had been working right there in the front of the house. The woman looked hot and disturbed, as if she had been working fast, under pressure. "Good-morning," said Mary Louise brightly. "May we see Miss Grant, Hannah?" "I don't know," replied the servant. "She's all of a fluster. We're at sixes and sevens here this mornin'. The ghosts walked last night." "What ghosts?" asked Mary Louise, trying to repress a smile. "You know. Elsie's told you about 'em. The spirits that wanders through this house at night, mussin' up things. They had a party all over the downstairs last night." "Hannah!" exclaimed Jane. "You know that isn't possible. If there was a disturbance, it was caused by human beings. Burglars." The woman shook her head. "You don't know nuthin' about it! If it was burglars, why wasn't somethin' stolen?" "Wasn't anything stolen?" demanded Mary Louise incredulously. "Not Miss Grant's bonds?" "Nope. They're all there--safe. Pictures was taken down--old pictures that must-a belonged to the spirits when they was alive. That old desk in the corner of the dinin' room--the one that belonged to Miss Mattie's father--was rummaged through, and all the closets was upset. But nuthin's missin'!" "It looks as if somebody were searching for a will," remarked Jane. "You know--'the lost will' you so often read about." "There ain't no will in this house," Hannah stated. "Miss Mattie give hers to Mr. John Grant to keep, long ago. No, ma'am, it ain't nateral what's goin' on here, and William and I are movin' out----" "What's this? What's this?" interrupted the shrill, high voice of the old lady. "What are you gossiping about, Hannah? And to whom?" "I'm just tellin' them two young girls--the ones that come here before, you know----" "Well, never mind!" snapped the spinster. "We haven't time to bother with them this morning. Tell them to run along and not to take up Elsie's time, either. She's got plenty to do." Jane laughed sarcastically. "Somebody ought to teach that woman manners," she whispered to Mary Louise. "Serve her right if we didn't give her the money!" Her chum smiled. "We couldn't be so cruel," she replied. "Besides, it wouldn't be honest." She raised her voice. "Miss Grant, we have some money for you." "Money? My money?" The old lady's voice was as eager as a child's. For the moment she forgot all about the pain in her side and came downstairs more rapidly than she had done for many a day. Both girls watched her in surprise. She looked different today--much younger. Instead of the somber old black sateen which she usually wore, she was dressed in a gray gown of soft, summery material, and her cheeks were flushed a pale pink. Her black eyes were alight with vivacity. "You're not fooling me?" she demanded fearfully. Mary Louise reached into her blouse and produced the roll of bills. "No, Miss Grant. We have eight hundred dollars here--your money! The numbers on the bills correspond to the figures you gave me." "Where's the other fifty?" asked the woman greedily. "Did you keep it yourselves?" "No, of course not. We don't know where it is. But if you sit down, Miss Grant, we'll tell you our story." The spinster reached out her hand for the roll of money and clasped it as lovingly as a mother might fondle her lost child. "Come into the parlor," she said, leading the way from the hall, "and tell me all about it." The girls followed her into the ugly room with its old-fashioned furniture, and saw for themselves the chaos which Hannah had been describing. Instinctively Mary Louise glanced at the windows to determine how an intruder could enter, for she did not believe Hannah's story of the ghosts. Although the shutters were half closed, she could see that the catch on the side window had been broken. But everything in this house was so dilapidated that perhaps no one had noticed it. When they were all seated, Jane told the story of the previous evening's adventure, stressing the part that Silky had played at the end. Miss Grant was impressed and actually asked to see the wonderful little dog. Mary Louise replied that he was waiting for them on the porch. "So it was Harry Grant after all!" the old lady muttered. "I'm not surprised. But I still believe Elsie had some part in it--and got the gold pieces for herself. She'd rather have them than the paper money." "Oh no, Miss Grant!" protested Mary Louise. "We're going to track them down too. We want to go over to Harry Grant's now, if you'll write us a note of introduction and explanation. He may have the gold at his house--it isn't likely that he'd carry it around." "Possibly. But I don't believe I'll write a note--I think I'll go along with you! I want to talk to that good-for-nothing nephew of mine myself--if he's home. And he probably is, since you got the money.... Yes, and I'm going to put this money and my bonds in the bank!" She hesitated a moment. "If you girls get me back that other fifty-dollar bill, I'll give you a reward." "We don't want a reward, Miss Grant," objected Mary Louise. "If you'll just let us take Elsie with us to a picnic the young people in Riverside are planning, we'll be satisfied." "I'll think about it," replied the woman. "Hannah!" she called. "You go up and get my bonnet, and a brown paper package that's underneath it in the box. I'm going to Riverside." "You ain't a-goin' a walk, Miss Mattie?" demanded the servant in horror. "Of course I am. I haven't any car. John may not be over for several days." "But your side----" "Fiddlesticks! Do as you're told, Hannah." The girls hated to leave without seeing Elsie, but they knew that Hannah would tell her what had happened. Besides, they would probably return with Miss Grant; perhaps they could get Norman or Max to drive them over. Jane chuckled at the idea of putting the old lady in the rumble seat--just for spite! Silky came darting up to them as they came out of the door, and Miss Grant reached over and patted his head. ("It's her one redeeming trait," thought Mary Louise--"her kindness to animals.") "I'm glad you brought him," she said, "in case we meet anybody like that man you encountered last night!" They proceeded slowly, although the road was downhill; every few minutes Miss Grant stopped and held her hand over her side. Mary Louise wondered what they would do if the old lady collapsed, and decided that Jane would have to run for a doctor while she and Silky stayed to protect her and administer first aid. But they reached the Riverside bank without any such mishap, and Miss Grant attended to her business while the girls waited outside. Then, very slowly, they walked the three blocks to the home of Harry Grant. "He is back!" exclaimed Mary Louise jubilantly as she recognized the battered old car in the driveway. "I didn't expect he would be. I thought he'd stay away as long as that fifty-dollar bill lasted him." "Maybe he didn't have it," remarked Miss Grant. Jane turned on her angrily. "You think we kept that, don't you, Miss Grant?" she demanded. "No, no! Nothing of the kind!" Before they had mounted the porch steps, Mrs. Grace Grant had rushed out of her house in amazement and stood gazing at her sister-in-law as if she were a ghost. She was a woman of about the same age, but much pleasanter looking, with soft gray hair and a sweet smile. As Elsie had said, nobody could believe anything bad about Mrs. Grace Grant. "Why, Mattie, this is a surprise!" she exclaimed. "It's been five years at least----" "It'll be more of a surprise when I tell you why I'm here, Grace," snapped the other, sinking into a chair on the porch with a sigh of relief. "I've got bad news. I've been robbed." "Robbed?" "Yes." In a few words the spinster told the story of her loss of thirteen hundred and fifty dollars, and of the two girls' offer of assistance in discovering the thief. "Of course, I suspected Elsie immediately," she said, "but it seems I made a mistake. Or partly a mistake, for there is still five hundred missing--all in gold. But these girls found out who took the bills and have got them all back for me--all but fifty dollars." "Who was the thief?" demanded Mrs. Grant excitedly. "_Your son Harry!_ I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Grace." "I don't believe it!" protested the other woman. "What proof have you, Mattie?" "Tell the story, Jane," said Miss Grant. "I'm too tired." She leaned against the back of her chair in exhaustion. Briefly Jane related the incidents of the previous evening, describing their perilous ride in Harry Grant's car. The story rang true; Jane repeated the very words the young man had uttered as he drove away, words which Mrs. Grant recalled easily. Before she had finished, the unhappy mother was crying softly. "What are you going to do to him, Mattie?" she asked finally. "Have him arrested?" "That depends on him," replied her visitor. "If he gives me back the other bill, maybe I'll let him go. I don't want to drag the Grant name into the papers if I can help it.... Is he home?" "Yes. He's upstairs, dressing." "Just getting up, eh?" "He was out late last night." "Carousing with my fifty dollars, I suppose." "I hope not." Mrs. Grant rose and went through the screen door. Five minutes later she returned with her son. As Elsie had remarked, Harry Grant was a good-looking man. He was stylishly dressed, in an immaculate linen suit, and he came out smiling nonchalantly at his aunt, as if the whole thing were a joke. "Well, I'll be darned!" he exclaimed, staring incredulously at Mary Louise and Jane. "Are these the girls Mother says I took for a ride last night?" "It's a terrible car," remarked Jane. Miss Grant stamped her foot to put a stop to what she considered nonsensical talk. "Tell me just how you managed to steal my money, Harry," she commanded. "And where the other fifty-dollar bill is--and my five hundred in gold." The young man's chin went up in the air. "I didn't steal your money, Aunt Mattie," he said. "I was never inside your bedroom in my life--at least, not since I was grown up!" "Don't lie, Harry! How did you get it if you didn't steal it out of my safe?" "It was given to me." "By whom?" Miss Grant looked scornful: she couldn't believe any such foolish statement. The young man hesitated. "I don't think I ought to tell that," he replied. "Oh yes, you ought! And you have to, or I'll have you arrested," threatened his aunt. "Tell the truth, dear," urged his mother. "Whoever stole that money deserves to suffer for it." "All right--I will! It was Corinne--my niece, Corinne Pearson. She took it. Eight hundred and fifty dollars in bills. She gave me eight hundred dollars--half of it to spend for her, and half for myself. I was to buy a certain evening gown and cloak in a shop in New York with which she had been corresponding. With my four hundred I was going to get a new car and drive back to Riverside and announce that I had a present for Corinne, because I was sorry for her about the party, and because I had put a good sale through. That's all.... It simply didn't work." "Corinne!" repeated Miss Grant. "I'm not surprised. I always did suspect her.... And has she the other fifty dollars?" "Yes, I believe she kept that for slippers and the beauty parlor," answered Harry. Miss Grant got up from her chair. "You surely haven't any of the gold, have you, Harry?" she inquired. "No. Corinne didn't say anything about any gold pieces. You can't use them now, anyhow." "No doubt she's keeping them put away," surmised the old lady. "Come, girls! We're going to the Pearsons' now." "Can I drive you over, Aunt Mattie?" offered Harry jovially. "I wouldn't put a foot in that rattletrap for anything in the world!" was his aunt's ungracious retort. So she hobbled down the steps with Mary Louise and Jane beside her and Silky close at their heels. CHAPTER IX _The Fifty-Dollar Bill_ The Pearsons' home, an attractive house of the English cottage type, was half a mile from Mrs. Grant's, in the best residential section of Riverside. Mary Louise, noticing Miss Grant's increasing weakness, suggested a taxicab. The old lady scorned such a proposal. "Use your common sense, Mary Louise!" she commanded, in that brusque manner which Jane so resented. "You know I've lost five hundred and fifty dollars, and now you suggest that I throw money away on luxuries like taxicabs!" "I'll pay for it," offered the girl. "I have my purse with me." "Fiddlesticks!" The hot sun of the June day poured mercilessly down upon their heads as they made their slow progress along the streets of Riverside, but Miss Grant refused to give up, although it was evident that she was suffering intensely. When they finally reached the porch of the Pearson home she almost collapsed. Corinne Pearson was sitting in the swing, idly smoking a cigarette when the little party arrived. She was a blonde, about nineteen years of age, pretty in an artificial way. Even her pose, alone on the porch, was theatrical. She rose languidly as her great-aunt came up the steps. "Mother's inside, Aunt Mattie," she said, ignoring the two girls completely. "I'll go and tell her that you are here." Miss Grant opened her eyes wide and looked sharply at Corinne. "Don't trouble yourself!" she snapped, gasping for breath. "It's _you_ I came to see, Corinne Pearson!" The girl raised her delicately arched eyebrows. "Really? Well, I am honored, Aunt Mattie." There was nothing in her manner to indicate nervousness, and Mary Louise began to wonder whether Harry Grant's story were really true. "You won't be when I tell you why I'm here! Though of course you can guess." Miss Grant paused and took a deep breath. "It's about that money you stole from my safe!" "What money?" The girl's indifference was admirable, if indeed she were guilty, as Harry Grant claimed. "You know. Eight hundred and fifty dollars in bills and five hundred in gold pieces." Corinne laughed in a nasty superior way. "Really, Aunt Mattie, you are talking foolishly. I'm sorry if you have been robbed, but it's just too absurd to connect me with it." "Stop your posing and lying, Corinne Pearson!" cried the old lady in a shrill voice. "I know all about everything. Harry Grant has confessed." Mary Louise, watching the girl's face intently, thought that she saw her wince. Anyway, the cigarette she was smoking dropped to the floor. But her voice sounded controlled as she spoke to her great-aunt. "Please don't scream like that, Aunt Mattie," she said. "The neighbors will hear you. I think you had better come inside and see Mother." "All right," agreed the old lady. Then, turning to the girls, she requested them to help her get to her feet. "I'll help you," offered Corinne. "These young girls can wait out here." "No, they can't, either! They're coming right inside with me!" Corinne shrugged her slim shoulders and opened the screen door. Her mother, a stout woman of perhaps forty-five, was standing in the living room, which opened directly on the porch. "Why, Aunt Mattie!" she exclaimed. "This is a surprise. You must be feeling better----" "I'm a lot worse!" interrupted the old lady, sinking into a chair beside the door. "Your daughter's the cause of it, too!" "My daughter? How could Corinne be the cause of your bad health, Aunt Mattie? You're talking foolishly." "Don't speak to me like that, Ellen Grant Pearson! Your daughter Corinne's a thief--and she stole my money, out of my safe. Night before last, when she went upstairs to get that old lace dress of mine." "Impossible!" protested Mrs. Pearson. "You didn't, did you, Corinne?" "Certainly not," replied the girl. "I think Aunt Mattie's mind is wandering, Mother. Send these girls home, and I'll call up Uncle John. He'll come and drive Aunt Mattie back to Dark Cedars." "You'll do nothing of the kind!" announced Miss Grant. "There's not a thing the matter with my mind--it's my side and my breathing." She turned to her two young friends. "Jane, you tell them all about everything that has happened since I was robbed." Jane nodded and again related the story, telling of their wild ride in Harry Grant's car, the capture of the satchel with the bills in it, and concluding with Harry's confession concerning Corinne's part in the crime. Mrs. Pearson leaned forward in her chair, listening to the recital with serious attention, but her daughter acted as if she were bored with such nonsense and wandered about the room while Jane was talking, rearranging the flowers on the tables and lighting herself a fresh cigarette. "It isn't true, is it, dear?" asked Mrs. Pearson eagerly. Corinne laughed scornfully. "It's just too absurd to contradict," she replied. "Uncle Harry made it all up about me just to save his own face." She turned about and faced her great-aunt. "You know yourself, Aunt Mattie, that if I had stolen that money I wouldn't pay him four hundred dollars just to buy me some clothes in New York. It's all out of proportion." Miss Grant nodded: she could see the sense to that. A hundred dollars would have been ample commission. "May I say something?" put in Mary Louise meekly. "Certainly," replied Miss Grant. The girl felt herself trembling as all eyes in the room turned upon her. But she spoke out bravely, disregarding Corinne's open scorn. "I believe I can explain why Miss Pearson divided the money evenly with Mr. Harry Grant," she said. "It was a clever trick, to throw the suspicion on him. Because you know, Miss Grant, if you saw him drive home with a new car, wouldn't you naturally jump to the conclusion that he had bought it with your money?" The old lady nodded her head: the idea sounded reasonable to her. "And as for Miss Pearson's evening dress and cloak," continued Mary Louise, "if she didn't buy them in Riverside, you'd probably never know what she paid for them, or suspect them of being particularly expensive." "That's true, Mary Louise," agreed Miss Grant. "I'd never dream anybody would spend four hundred dollars for two pieces of finery." Exasperated with the discussion, Corinne Pearson started towards the stairway. "I'm not going to listen to any more of this ridiculous babble!" she said to her mother, with a scathing glance towards Mary Louise. "You'll have to excuse me, Aunt Mattie," she added condescendingly. "I have a date." "You stay right here!" commanded the old lady. "I'm not through with you. You hand over that other fifty-dollar bill!" Corinne shrugged her shoulders and looked imploringly at her mother, as if to say, "Can't something be done with that crazy woman?" Mrs. Pearson looked helpless: she didn't know how to get rid of her aunt. The situation was apparently at a standstill. Corinne Pearson wouldn't admit any part in the theft, and Miss Grant refused to allow her to go off as if she were innocent. But Mary Louise, recalling Harry Grant's explanation of the use to which Corinne had put that last fifty-dollar bill, had a sudden inspiration. She stood up and faced Mrs. Pearson. "May I use your telephone?" she asked quietly. "Why, yes, certainly," was the reply. "Right there on the table." Again all eyes in the room were turned upon Mary Louise as she searched through the telephone book and gave a number to the operator. Everybody waited, in absolute silence. "Hello," said Mary Louise when the connection was made. "Is this the Bon Ton Boot Shop? Yes? Can you tell me whether you took in a fifty-dollar bill yesterday from any of your customers?" It seemed to her that she could actually feel the tenseness of the atmosphere in that room in the Pearsons' house while she waited for the shop girl to return with the information she had asked for. Her eyes turned towards Corinne to see how the question had affected her, but Mary Louise could not see her face from where she was seated. In another moment the voice at the other end of the wire summoned her thoughts back to the phone. And the answer was in the affirmative! "So you did take in a fifty-dollar bill?" Mary Louise repeated for the benefit of her listeners. "Could you possibly read me the number engraved on it?" Her hand trembled as she fumbled for her little notebook in which the notations were made, and Jane, guessing her intention, dashed across the room to assist her. When the salesgirl finally read out the number on the bill, Mary Louise was able to check it with the one marked "missing." It was the identical bill! "Will you keep it out of the bank for an hour or two--in case we want to identify it--for a certain purpose?" she inquired. "My name is Mary Louise Gay--Detective Gay's daughter.... Oh, thank you so much!" She replaced the receiver and jumped up from the chair, squeezing Jane's arm in delight. She noticed that Miss Grant's black eyes were beaming upon her with admiration and that Mrs. Pearson's were shifting uneasily about the room. Corinne was standing at the window with her back to the other people. Suddenly she burst into hysterical sobs. Wheeling about sharply, she turned on Mary Louise like a cat that is ready to spit. "You horrible girl!" she screamed. "You nasty, vile creature! What right have you----" "Hush, Corinne!" admonished Miss Grant. "Be quiet, or I'll send you somewhere where you will be! Dry your eyes and sit down there in that chair and tell us the truth. And throw that cigarette away!" Frightened by her great-aunt's threat, the girl did as she was told. "I suppose you won't believe me now when I tell you that I didn't take any gold pieces," she whined. "But that's the solemn truth. I admit about the bills----" "Begin at the beginning," snapped Miss Grant. "All right. It was night before last, when Mother and I walked over to ask you for money for a dress. It means so much to me to look nice at the dance on Saturday night----" "I don't care what it means to you," interrupted the spinster. "Go ahead with your story." "Well, I thought it was pretty stingy of you not to help me out, Aunt Mattie," continued Corinne. "But I never thought of taking the money till I went up in your room." "How did you get the safe open?" "That's the queer part. _It was open!_ I thought you had forgotten to close the door." Miss Grant gasped in horror. "I never forget. Besides, I saw that the lock had been picked. Somebody did break it, if you didn't, Corinne." "There wasn't a bit of gold there, Aunt Mattie. I'm willing to swear to that!" Corinne looked straight into the old lady's black eyes, and Mary Louise could see that her aunt believed her and was already trying to figure out who else was guilty. "No, you didn't have time to fiddle with a lock," she agreed. "I can believe that.... I think I was right in the beginning: Elsie must have stolen the box of gold pieces." "Of course!" cried Corinne in relief. "That would explain it perfectly. An ignorant child like her would want only the gold--that's why the paper money and the bonds were untouched. Did you lose the bonds too, Aunt Mattie?" "No, they were still there. I put them in the bank today, with the eight hundred dollars these girls got from Harry Grant.... Well, Corinne, you did give your uncle Harry that money then?" "Yes, I did. For the exact purpose he told you about." Mary Louise sighed. They were right back where they started, with only this difference: that while Elsie had been suspected of the theft of the whole amount in the beginning, now she was thought to be guilty of stealing only the gold. But stealing is stealing, no matter what the amount, and Mary Louise was unhappy. Miss Grant grasped hold of the arms of her chair and struggled to her feet. She stood there motionless for a moment, holding her hand on her side. The flush on her cheeks had disappeared; her face was now deathly white. Both girls knew that she could never make that climb in the heat to Dark Cedars. "You won't do anything to Corinne, will you, Aunt Mattie?" pleaded Mrs. Pearson fearfully. "No--I guess not. Go get me--" Mary Louise expected her to ask for aromatics, to prevent a fainting fit, but she was mistaken--"go get me--my fifty dollars--what you have left of it, Corinne. You can owe----" But she could not complete her sentence: she reeled, and would have fallen to the floor had not Mary Louise sprung to her side at that very second. As it was, Miss Grant fainted in the girl's arms. Very gently Mary Louise laid her down on the davenport and turned to Mrs. Pearson. "Water, please," she requested. But it failed to revive the patient. "I think she ought to go to the hospital, Mrs. Pearson," she said. "There's something terribly wrong with her side." Mrs. Pearson looked relieved: she had no desire to nurse a sick old lady in her house, even though she was her aunt. She told Corinne to call for an ambulance. It was not until two white-uniformed attendants were actually putting her on the stretcher that Miss Grant regained consciousness. Then she opened her eyes and asked for Mary Louise. "Come with me, child!" she begged. "I want you." The girl nodded, and whispering a message for her mother to Jane, she climbed into the ambulance and rode to the hospital with the queer old spinster. CHAPTER X _Night at Dark Cedars_ Mary Louise sat in the waiting room of the Riverside Hospital, idly looking at the magazines, while the nurses took Miss Grant to her private room. She couldn't help smiling a little as she thought how vexed the old lady would be at the bill she would get. Corinne Pearson had carelessly told the hospital to have one of the best rooms in readiness for the patient. ("But, if she had her own way, Miss Grant would be in a ward," thought Mary Louise.) However, it was too late now to dispute over details. The head nurse came into the waiting room and spoke to Mary Louise in a soft voice. "Miss Matilda Grant is your aunt, I suppose, Miss----?" she asked. "Gay," supplied Mary Louise. "No, I'm not any relation. Just a friend--of her niece." "Oh, I see.... Yes, I know your father, Miss Gay. He is a remarkable man." Mary Louise smiled. "I think so too," she said. "As you no doubt expected," continued the nurse, "an operation is absolutely necessary. The nurses are getting Miss Grant ready now." "Has she consented?" "Yes. She had to. It is certain death if the surgeon doesn't operate immediately. But before she goes under the anesthetic she wants to see you. So please come with me." A little surprised at the request, Mary Louise followed the nurse through the hall of the spotless hospital to the elevator and thence to Miss Grant's room. The old lady was lying in a white bed, attired in a plain, high-necked nightgown which the hospital provided. Her face was deathly pale, but her black eyes were as bright as ever, and she smiled at Mary Louise as she entered the room. With her wrinkled hand she beckoned the girl to a chair beside the bed. "You're a good girl, Mary Louise," she said, "and I trust you." Mary Louise flushed a trifle at the praise; she didn't know exactly what to say, so she kept quiet and waited. "Will you do something for me?" asked the old lady. "Yes, of course, Miss Grant," replied Mary Louise. "If I can." "I want you to live at Dark Cedars while I'm here in the hospital. Take Jane with you, if you want to, and your dog too--but plan to stay there." "I can't be there every minute, Miss Grant. Tomorrow I've promised to go on a picnic." "Oh, that's all right! I remember now, you told me. Take Elsie with you. But go back to Dark Cedars at night. _Sleep in my room._ And shut the door!" Mary Louise looked puzzled; she could not see the reason for such a request. "But there isn't anything valuable for anybody to steal now, is there, Miss Grant?" she inquired. "You put your money and your bonds in the bank today." The sick woman gasped for breath and for a moment she could not speak. Finally she said, "You heard about last night from Hannah? And saw the way things were upset?" "Yes. But if the burglars didn't take anything, they won't be likely to return, will they?" Miss Grant closed her eyes. "It wasn't common burglars," she said. Mary Louise started. Did Miss Grant believe in Hannah's theory about the ghosts? "You don't mean----?" "I don't know what I mean," answered the old lady. "Somebody--living or dead--is trying to get hold of something very precious to me." "What is it, Miss Grant?" demanded Mary Louise eagerly. Oh, perhaps now she was getting close to the real mystery at Dark Cedars! For that petty theft by Corinne Pearson was only a side issue, she felt sure. The old lady shook her head. "I can't tell--even you, Mary Louise! Nobody!" "Then how can I help you?" "You can watch Elsie and try to find out where she hid my box of gold pieces. You can keep your eye open for trouble at night--and let me know if anything happens.... Will you do it, Mary Louise?" "I'll ask Mother--at least, if you'll let me tell her all about what has happened. It won't get around Riverside--Mother is used to keeping secrets, you know, for my father is a detective. And if she consents, I'll go and stay with Elsie till you come home." Tears of gratitude stood in the sick woman's eyes; the promise evidently meant a great deal to her. "Yes, tell your mother," she said. "And Jane's mother. But nobody else." Mary Louise stood up. "I must go now, Miss Grant. Your nurse has been beckoning to me for the last two minutes. You have to rest.... But I'll come in to see you on Sunday." She walked out of the room, closing the door softly behind her and thinking how sad it must be to face an operation all alone, with no one's loving kiss on your lips, no one's hopes and prayers to sustain you. But, sorry as Mary Louise was for Miss Grant, she could not show her any affection. She couldn't forget or forgive her cruelty to Elsie. Her mother was waiting for her on the porch when she arrived at her house. "You must be starved, Mary Louise!" she exclaimed. "I have your lunch all ready for you." "Thanks heaps, Mother--I am hungry. But so much has happened. Did Jane tell you about Miss Grant?" "Yes. But I can't see why _you_ had to go to the hospital with her when she has all those relatives to look after her." Mary Louise shrugged her shoulders. "They don't like her, Mother--and consequently she doesn't trust them." "Do you like her?" inquired Mrs. Gay. "No, I don't. But in a way I feel sorry for her." Mary Louise followed her mother into the dining room and for the next fifteen minutes gave herself up to the enjoyment of the lovely lunch of dainty sandwiches and refreshing iced tea which her mother had so carefully prepared. It was not until she had finished that she began her story of the robbery at Dark Cedars and of her own and Jane's part in the partial recovery of the money. She made no mention, however, of the bandit who had tried to hold them up, or of the queer disturbances at night at Dark Cedars. She concluded with the old lady's request that they--Mary Louise and Jane--stay with Elsie and watch her. Mrs. Gay looked a little doubtful. "I don't know, dear," she said. "Something might happen. Still, if Mrs. Patterson is willing to let Jane go, I suppose I will say yes." Fifteen minutes later Mary Louise whistled for her chum and put the proposition up to her. Jane shivered. "I'm not going to stay in that spooky old place!" she protested. "Not after what happened there last night." "'Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf?'" teased Mary Louise. "Jane, I thought you had more sense!" "There's something uncanny about Dark Cedars, Mary Lou, and you know it! Not just that the house is old, and the boards creak, and there aren't any electric lights. There's something _evil_ there." "Of course there is. But that's the very reason it thrills me. I don't agree with Miss Grant and just want to go there because I believe Elsie is guilty of stealing that gold and that maybe we can find out where she has hidden it. Somebody else took it, I'm sure--and that somebody keeps coming back to Dark Cedars to get _something_ else. Something valuable, 'precious to me,' Miss Grant called it. And we've got to catch them!" "You didn't tell your mother that?" "No. I told her about only what has actually been stolen so far. No need to alarm her. And will you do the same with your mother?" Jane rose reluctantly. "I suppose so. If you've made up your mind to go through with it, you'll do it. I know you well enough for that. And I don't want you over there at Dark Cedars alone--or only with Elsie. Even Hannah and William are moving out, you remember.... Yes, I'll go. If Mother will let me." "You're a peach, Jane!" cried her chum joyfully. It was several hours, however, before the girls actually started to Dark Cedars. Arrangements for the picnic the following day had to be completed; their suitcases had to be packed, and their boy-friends called on the telephone. It was after five o'clock when they were finally ready. From the porch of Mary Louise's house they saw Max Miller drive up in his car. "I'm taking you over," he announced, for Mary Louise had told him that she and Jane were visiting Elsie Grant for a few days. "That's nice, Max," replied Mary Louise. "We weren't so keen about carrying these suitcases in all this heat." "It is terribly hot, isn't it?" remarked Mrs. Gay. "I'm afraid there will be a thunderstorm before the day is over." Jane made a face. Dark Cedars was gloomy enough without a storm to make it seem worse. "Come on, Silky!" called Mary Louise. "We're taking you this time." "I'll say we are!" exclaimed her chum emphatically. Elsie Grant was delighted to see them. She came running from behind the hedge attired in her pink linen dress and her white shoes. Mary Louise was thankful that Max did not see her in the old purple calico. His sense of humor might have got the better of him and brought forth a wisecrack or two. As soon as they were out of the car she introduced them to each other. "You didn't know we were coming for a visit, did you, Elsie?" she inquired. "Well, I'll tell you how it happened: Your aunt Mattie is in the hospital for an operation, and she wanted Jane and me to stay with you while she was away." The girl wrinkled her brows. "It doesn't sound like Aunt Mattie," she said, "to be so thoughtful of me. She must have some other motive besides pity for my loneliness." "She has!" cried Jane. "You can be sure----" Mary Louise put her finger to her lips. "We'll tell you all about it later," she whispered while Max was getting the suitcases from the rumble seat. "It's quite a story." "Is Hannah still here?" inquired Jane. "Or do we cook our own supper?" "Yes, she's here," answered Elsie. "She expects to come every day to work in the house, and William will take care of the garden and the chickens and milk the cow just the same. But they're going away every night after supper." Max, overhearing the last remark, looked disapproving. "You don't mean to tell me you three girls will be here alone every night?" he demanded. "You're at least half a mile from the nearest house." "Oh, don't worry, Max, we'll be all right," returned Mary Louise lightly. "There's a family of colored people who live in a shack down in the valley behind the house. We can call on them if it is necessary." "Speaking of them," remarked Elsie, "reminds me that William says half a dozen chickens must have been stolen last night. At least, they're missing, and of course he blames Abraham Lincoln Jones. But I don't believe it. Mr. Jones is a deacon in the Riverside Colored Church, and his wife is the kindest woman. I often stop in to see her, and she gives me gingerbread." Mary Louise and Jane exchanged significant looks. Perhaps this colored family was the explanation of the mysterious disturbances about Dark Cedars. Mary Louise suggested this to Elsie after Max had driven away with a promise to call for the girls at nine o'clock the following morning. "I don't think so," said Elsie. "But of course it's possible." "Let's walk over to see this family after supper," put in Jane. "We might learn a lot." "All right," agreed Elsie, "if a storm doesn't come up to stop us.... Now, come on upstairs and unpack. What room are you going to sleep in--Hannah's or Aunt Mattie's--or up in the attic with me?" "We have to sleep in your aunt Mattie's bedroom," replied Mary Louise. "I promised we would." Elsie looked disappointed. "You'll be so far away from me!" she exclaimed. "Why don't you sleep on the second floor too?" inquired Jane. "There isn't any room that's furnished as a bedroom, except Hannah's, and I think she still has her things in that. Besides, Aunt Mattie wouldn't like it." "Oh, well, we'll leave our door open," promised Jane. "No, we can't do that either," asserted Mary Louise. "Miss Grant told me to close it." "Good gracious!" exclaimed her chum. "What next?" "Supper's ready!" called Hannah from the kitchen. "So that's next," laughed Mary Louise. "Well, we'll unpack after supper. I'm not very hungry--I had lunch so late--but I guess I can eat." Hannah came into the dining room and sat down in a chair beside the window while the girls ate their supper, so that she might hear the news of her mistress. Mary Louise told everything--the capture of the bills, the part Harry Grant played in the affair, and Corinne Pearson's guilt in the actual stealing. She went on to describe Miss Grant's collapse and removal to the Riverside Hospital, concluding with her request that the two girls stay with Elsie while she was away. "So she still thinks I stole her gold pieces!" cried the orphan miserably. "I'm afraid she does, Elsie," admitted Mary Louise. "But there's something else she's worrying about. What could Miss Grant possibly own, Hannah, that she's afraid of losing?" "I don't know for sure," replied the servant. "But I'll tell you what I think--if you won't laugh at me." "Of course we won't, Hannah," promised Jane. "Well, there was something years ago that old Mr. Grant got hold of--something valuable--that I made out didn't belong to him. I don't know what it was--never did know--but I'd hear Mrs. Grant--that was Miss Mattie's mother, you understand--tryin' to get him to give it back. 'It can't do us no good,' she'd say--or words like them. And he'd always tell her that he meant to keep it for a while; if they lost everything else, this possession would keep 'em out of the poorhouse for a spell. Mrs. Grant kept askin' him whereabouts it was hidden, and he just laughed at her. I believe she died without ever findin' out.... "Well, whatever it was, Mr. Grant must have give it to Miss Mattie when he died, and she kept it hid somewheres in this house. No ordinary place, or I'd have found it in house-cleanin'. You can't houseclean for forty years, twicet a year, without knowin' 'bout everything in a house.... But I never seen nuthin' valuable outside that safe of her'n. "So what I think is," continued Hannah, keeping her eyes fixed on Mary Louise, "that Mrs. Grant can't rest in her grave till that thing is give back to whoever it belongs to. I believe her spirit visits this house at night, lookin' for it, and turnin' things upside down to find it. That's why nuthin' ain't never stolen. So anybody that lives here ain't goin' have no peace at nights till she finds it." Hannah stopped talking, and, as Jane had promised, nobody laughed. As a matter of fact, nobody felt like laughing. The woman's belief in her explanation was too sincere to be derided. The girls sat perfectly still, forgetting even to eat, thinking solemnly of what she had told them. "We'll have to find out what the thing is," announced Mary Louise finally, "if we expect to make any headway. I wish I could go see Miss Mattie at the hospital tomorrow." "Well, you can't," said Jane firmly. "You're going to that picnic. We can ask the gypsies when we have our fortunes told." "Gypsies!" exclaimed Hannah scornfully. "Gypsies ain't no good! They used to camp around here till they drove Miss Mattie wild and she got the police after 'em. Don't have nuthin' to do with gypsies!" "We're just going to have our fortunes told," explained Jane. "We don't expect to invite them to our houses." "Well, don't!" was the servant's warning as she left the room. When the girls had finished their supper they went upstairs to Miss Grant's bedroom and unpacked their suitcases. But they were too tired to walk down the hill to call upon Abraham Lincoln Jones. If he wanted to steal chickens tonight, he was welcome to, as far as they were concerned. Hannah and William left about eight o'clock, locking the kitchen door behind them, and the girls stayed out on the front porch until ten, talking and singing to Jane's ukulele. The threatening storm had not arrived when they finally went to bed. It was so still, so hot outdoors that not even a branch moved in the darkness. The very silence was oppressive; Jane was sure that she wouldn't be able to go to sleep when she got into Miss Mattie's wooden bed with its ugly carving on the headboard. But, in spite of the heat, both girls dropped off in less than five minutes. They were awakened sometime after two by a loud clap of thunder. Branches of the trees close to the house were lashing against the windows, and the rain was pouring in. Mary Louise jumped up to shut the window. As she crawled back into bed she heard footsteps in the hall. Light footsteps, scarcely perceptible above the rain. But someone--something--was stealthily approaching their door! Her instinct was to reach for the electric-light button when she remembered that Miss Grant used only oil lamps. Trembling, she groped in the darkness for her flashlight, on the chair beside her. But before she found it the handle rattled on the door, and it opened--slowly and quietly. There, dimly perceptible in the blackness of the hall, stood a figure--all in white! CHAPTER XI _The Picnic_ The figure in white remained motionless in the doorway of Miss Grant's room. Mary Louise continued to sit rigid in the bed, while Jane, who was still lying down, clutched her chum's arm with a grip that actually hurt. For a full minute there was no sound in the room. Then a flash of lightning revealed the cause of the girls' terror. Mary Louise burst out laughing. "Elsie!" she cried. "You certainly had us scared!" Jane sat up angrily. "What's the idea, sneaking in like a ghost?" she demanded. The orphan started to sob. "I was afraid of waking you," she explained. "I didn't mean to frighten you." "Well, it's all right now," said Mary Louise soothingly. "Ordinarily we shouldn't have been scared. But in this house, where everybody talks about seeing ghosts all the time, it's natural for us to be keyed up." "Why that woman doesn't put in electricity," muttered Jane, "is more than I can see. It's positively barbarous!" "Come over and sit here on the bed, Elsie, and tell us why you came downstairs," invited Mary Louise. "Are you afraid of the storm?" "Yes, a little bit. But I thought I heard something down in the yard." "Old Mrs. Grant's ghost?" inquired Jane lightly. "Maybe it was Abraham Lincoln Jones, returning for more chickens," surmised Mary Louise. "But no, it couldn't be, or Silky would be barking--he could hear that from the cellar--so it must be just the wind, Elsie. It does make an uncanny sound through all those trees." "May I stay here till the storm is over?" asked the girl. "Certainly." If it had not been so hot, Mary Louise would have told Elsie to sleep with them. But three in a bed, and a rather uncomfortable bed at that, was too close quarters on a night like this. The storm lasted for perhaps an hour, while the girls sat chatting together. As the thundering subsided, Jane began to yawn. "Suppose I go up to the attic and sleep with Elsie?" she said to Mary Louise, "if you're not afraid to stay in this room by yourself." "Of course I'm not!" replied her chum. "I think that's a fine idea, and your being there will prevent Elsie from being nervous and hearing things. Does it suit you, Elsie?" "Yes! Oh, I'd love it! If you're sure you don't mind, Mary Louise." "I don't expect to mind anything in about five minutes," yawned Mary Louise. "I'm dead for sleep." She was correct in her surmise: she knew nothing at all until the bright sunshine was pouring into her room and Jane wakened her by throwing a pillow at her head. "Wake up, lazybones!" she cried. "Don't you realize that today is the picnic?" Mary Louise threw the pillow back at her chum and jumped out of bed. "What a glorious day!" she exclaimed. "And so much cooler." Elsie, attired in her new pink linen dress, dashed into the room. "Oh, this is something like!" she cried. "I haven't heard any gayety like this for three years!" "Mary Louise is always 'Gay,'" remarked Jane demurely. "In fact, she'll be 'Gay' till she gets married." Her chum hurled the other pillow from Miss Grant's bed just as Hannah poked her nose into the room. "Don't you girls throw them pillows around!" she commanded. "Miss Mattie is that careful about her bed--she even makes it herself. And at house-cleanin' time I ain't allowed to touch it!" "It's a wonder she let you sleep on it, Mary Louise," observed Elsie. "_Made_ me sleep on it, you mean." Then, of Hannah, she inquired, "How soon do we have breakfast?" "Right away, soon as you're dressed. Then you girls can help pack up some doughnuts and rolls I made for your picnic." "You're an angel, Hannah!" exclaimed Mary Louise. To the girls she said, "Scram, if you want me downstairs in two minutes." Soon after breakfast the cars arrived. There were three of them--the two sports roadsters belonging to Max Miller and Norman Wilder, and a sedan driven by one of the girls of their crowd, a small, red-haired girl named Hope Dorsey, who looked like Janet Gaynor. Max had brought an extra boy for Elsie, a junior at high school, by the name of Kenneth Dormer, and Mary Louise introduced him, putting him with Elsie in Max's rumble seat. She herself got into the front. "Got your swimming suit, Mary Lou?" asked Max, as he started his car with its usual sudden leap. "Of course," she replied. "As a matter of fact, I brought two of them." "I hadn't noticed you were getting that fat!" "That's just about enough out of you! I don't admire the Mae West figure, you know." "Then why two suits?" inquired the young man. "Change of costume?" "One for Elsie and one for me," explained Mary Louise. "I don't believe Elsie can swim, but she'll soon learn. Will you teach her, Max?" "I don't think I'll get a chance to, from the way I saw Ken making eyes at her. He'll probably have a monopoly on the teaching." Mary Louise smiled: this was just the way she wanted things to be. The picnic grounds near Cooper's woods were only a couple of miles from Riverside. A wide stream which flowed through the woods had been dammed up for swimming, and here the boys and men of Riverside had built two rough shacks for dressing houses. The cars were no sooner unloaded than the boys and girls dashed for their respective bath houses. "Last one in the pool is a monkey!" called Max, as he locked his car. "I guess I'll be the monkey," remarked Elsie. "Because I have a suit I'm not familiar with." "I'll help you," offered Mary Louise. They were dressed in no time at all; as usual the girls were ahead of the boys. They were all in the water by the time the boys came out of their shack. The pool was empty except for a few children, so the young people from Riverside had a chance to play water games and to dive to their hearts' content. Everybody except Elsie Grant knew how to swim, and Mary Louise and several of the others were capable of executing some remarkable stunt diving. Before noontime arrived Elsie found herself venturing into the deeper parts of the pool, and, with Kenneth or Mary Louise beside her, she actually swam several yards. All the while she was laughing and shouting as she had not done since her parents' death; the cloud of suspicion that had been hanging over her head for the past few days was forgotten. She was a normal, happy girl again. The lunch that followed provided even more fun and hilarity than the swim. It seemed as if their mothers had supplied everything in the world to eat. Cakes and pies and sandwiches; hot dogs and steaks to be cooked over the fire which the boys built; ice cream in dry ice, and refreshing drinks of fruit juices, iced tea, and soda water. Keen as their appetites were from the morning's swim, the young people could not begin to eat everything they had brought. "We'll have enough left for supper," said Mary Louise, leaning back against a tree trunk with a sigh of content. "If the ants don't eat it up," returned Jane. "We better cover things up." "We'll do it right away," announced Hope Dorsey. "Come on, boys! you burn rubbish, and we girls will pack food." "I can't move," protested Max. "The ants are welcome to their share as far as I'm concerned. I don't think I'll ever eat again." "I hate _aunts_," said Elsie, with a sly look at Mary Louise and Jane. "I don't want them to get a thing, so I'll help put the food away." Max and a couple of the other lazier boys were pulled to their feet by Kenneth and Norman, and the picnic spot was soon as clean as when the party had arrived. Hope Dorsey suggested that they drive back to her home later in the afternoon and have supper on the lawn. Then they could turn on the radio and dance on her big screened porch. "When do we visit these gypsies you were talking about, Max?" demanded Jane. "I'm keen to hear my fortune." "They're back towards Riverside," replied the youth. "About half a mile from Dark Cedars," he added, to Mary Louise. "They used to camp at Dark Cedars--at least, some gypsies did," Elsie informed the party. "If they're the same ones, you'd think they wouldn't come back, after they were driven away by the police." "Is that what your aunt did?" inquired Kenneth. "Yes, so Hannah says--Hannah is the maid, you know. She says Aunt Mattie hates them." The young people piled into the cars again, and Max led the way, off the main highway to a dirt road extending behind Dark Cedars. Through the trees they could catch a glimpse of the gypsy encampment. "Has everybody some money--in silver?" inquired Max, after the cars were parked beside the road. "The gypsies insist on gold and silver." Mary Louise nodded; she was prepared for herself as well as for Elsie. "Do we all go in in a bunch?" asked Hope. "Certainly not!" replied Max. "You don't think we could tell our secrets in front of the whole bunch, do you?" "Must be pretty bad," observed Jane. "All right, then, if that's the way you feel about it, I'll go in with you!" challenged Norman. "Suits me," returned the girl, with a wink at Mary Louise. As the crowd came closer to the gypsy encampment, they saw the usual tents, the caravan, which was a motor truck, and a fire, over which a kettle was smoldering. Half a dozen children, dressed in ordinary clothing but without shoes and stockings, were playing under a tree, and there were several women about. But there did not appear to be any men at the camp at the time. One of the women, who had been standing over the fire, came forward to meet the young people. She was past middle age, Mary Louise judged, from her dark, wrinkled skin, but her hair was jet black, and her movements were as agile and as graceful as a girl's. She wore a long dress of a deep blue color, without any touch of the reds and yellows one usually associates with gypsies. "Fortunes?" she asked, smiling, and revealing an ugly gap in her front teeth, which made her look almost like a story-book witch. "How much?" asked Max, holding up a quarter in his hand. The gypsy shook her head. "One dollar," she announced. Max pulled down the corners of his mouth and looked doubtfully at his friends. "There are fourteen of us," he said. "Fourteen at fifty cents each is seven dollars. All in silver.... Take it or leave it." The woman regarded him shrewdly; she saw that he meant what he said. "All right," she agreed. "I'll go into my tent and get ready." The young people turned to Max with whispered congratulations. "She certainly speaks perfect English," remarked Mary Louise. They sat down on the grass while they waited for the gypsy woman to summon them, and when the tent flap finally opened, Jane Patterson and Norman Wilder jumped to their feet and walked over to the fortune teller first. "She'll think you two are engaged, Jane," teased Hope, "if you go in together." "Then she'll get fooled," returned the other girl laughingly. The couple were absent for perhaps five minutes. When they came out of the tent Jane dashed down the hill to the road. "The gypsy told her that her class ring is in my car," explained Norman to the others. "The one she lost, you remember? She said it's under the seat." "I could have suggested that she look there myself," remarked Max. "Only I thought, of course, that she already had.... Shall I try my luck next, or will one of you girls go?" "I'd love to go," offered Hope Dorsey. "I simply can't wait. By the way, did she think you two were engaged?" "No, she didn't. She's pretty wise, after all. She told me some astounding things. One was that a relation had just died--my uncle did, you know--and that we're going to get some money.... I hope that part's true.... You have to hand it to her. I don't believe it's all just the bunk." Hope ran into the tent, and while she was gone Jane returned triumphantly from the car with her lost ring. Mary Louise's eyes flashed with excitement: perhaps the gypsy was really possessed of second sight. Oh, if she could only solve that mystery at Dark Cedars! Mary Louise was last of all the group to enter the fortune teller's tent. The woman was seated on the ground with a dirty pack of cards in her hands. She indicated that the girl should sit down beside her and gave her the cards to shuffle. "I'm really not interested in my fortune half so much as I am in a mystery I'm involved in," explained Mary Louise. She paused, wondering whether the gypsy would understand what she was talking about. Perhaps she ought to use simpler language. "You mean you want to ask me questions?" inquired the woman. "Yes, that's it," replied Mary Louise. "I'm staying at Dark Cedars now, and there are strange things going on there. Maybe you can explain them." "Dark Cedars!" repeated the gypsy. "I know the place.... You don't live there?" "No, I don't live there. I'm just staying there while Miss Grant is in the hospital." The black eyes gleamed, and the woman held two thin, dirty hands in front of her face. "Mattie Grant is _evil_," she announced. "Keep away from her!" Mary Louise wrinkled her brows. "I'm not with her," she said. "I'm only staying at Dark Cedars while Miss Grant is away." "But why is that?" "That's just what I want to ask you! Miss Grant's money has already been stolen, and I thought maybe you could tell me what I'm supposed to be protecting--by sleeping in her bed every night." "In the old witch's bed? Oh-ho!" "Yes." It struck Mary Louise funny that this gypsy woman should call Miss Grant a witch when she herself looked much more like one. The gypsy, however, was giving her attention to the cards, shuffling them, and finally drawing one of them out of the deck. She laid it face up in Mary Louise's lap and nodded significantly. It was the eight of hearts. "Mattie Grant's treasure--is--a ruby necklace," she announced slowly, staring hard at the card. "With eight precious rubies!" She handed the card to Mary Louise. "Count them for yourself!" she said. Mary Louise gazed at the woman in amazement, not knowing whether to believe her or not. The explanation was plausible, but it seemed rather foolish to her--that the eight of hearts should mean eight rubies.... Would the ace of diamonds have indicated a diamond ring? But there was no use in questioning the gypsy's power, no point in antagonizing her. So, instead, she changed the subject by telling her that a box of gold pieces had been stolen from the safe in Miss Grant's bedroom. "Perhaps you can tell me who took them?" she suggested. The woman picked up the cards and shuffled them again, muttering something unintelligible to herself as she did it. Once more she drew out a card, seemingly at random. This time it was the queen of diamonds. "A light-haired girl--or woman," she announced. "That's all I can say." Mary Louise gasped. Elsie Grant had light hair--but, then, so did Corinne Pearson.... And Mrs. Grace Grant's hair was gray. The gypsy rose from the ground as lightly and as easily as a girl. "I think you've had more than your time, miss," she concluded. "Now, please to go!" CHAPTER XII _Bound and Gagged_ "How was your fortune, Mary Louise?" inquired Max, as the former emerged from the gypsy's tent and joined the merry group in the field. "Did she say you'd marry a tall, good-looking fellow, with lots of personality?" Mary Louise laughed. "No, she didn't. I guess I'm going to be an old maid." "Then you're the only one," remarked Hope. "All the rest of us get rich husbands and trips around the world." Elsie came up close to Mary Louise and whispered in her ear. "She told me to leave Dark Cedars," she said. "How do you suppose she knew that I lived there?" "Must have seen you around, I suppose," replied Mary Louise. "She warned me to get out too, but then I told her I was staying there.... But don't tell Jane, Elsie. She'd go in a minute if she heard that." "Hadn't we better all go--till Aunt Mattie gets back from the hospital? Wouldn't your mother let me stay at your house if I worked for my board?" "Of course she would. You wouldn't have to work any more than I do--just help Mother a little. But I promised your aunt I'd live at her place and sleep in her bed, and I'm going to stay. There's some explanation for all this superstition about Dark Cedars, and I mean to find it out!" "Stop whispering secrets!" commanded Max Miller, separating the two girls forcibly. "Of course, Ken and I know you're talking about us, and what you're saying is probably complimentary." Elsie laughed and followed Mary Louise into the car. The group drove to Hope Dorsey's, as she had suggested, and ate the rest of the picnic food for their supper. Another round of fun followed, and it was after ten when the party finally broke up. Dropping Kenneth Dormer at his own home, Max ran the three girls back to Dark Cedars. "Don't you think I better go into the house and light the lamps for you?" he inquired. "It looks so spooky in there." "Oh, we have Silky for protection," returned Mary Louise lightly. "Thank you just the same, Max." The young man waited, however, until he saw the girls unlock the front door and light the lamp in the hall. "Everything's O.K.!" shouted Mary Louise. "We'll be asleep inside of ten minutes." Max waved back again and started his engine. Elsie lighted two more lamps which Hannah had left in readiness for the girls, and all together, with Silky at their heels, they mounted the creaking staircase. "You can't sleep upstairs, Silky!" said Mary Louise to her dog. "Miss Grant would never allow that. Go down to your box in the cellar." The spaniel seemed to understand, for he stood still, wagging his tail and looking pleadingly at his mistress. "I think it's a shame to send him off by himself," remarked Jane. "So do I," agreed Mary Louise. "But it's got to be done. He'd get up on the bed, as likely as not--the way he does at home. And just imagine what Miss Grant would think of that! Her precious bed!" Turning about, she led the little dog to the cellar, and there, in a box next to the kitten's, he settled down to sleep. When she returned the girls were waiting for her in Miss Grant's bedroom. "How do we sleep tonight?" inquired Elsie. "Oh, you can have Jane again if you want her," agreed Mary Louise. "It doesn't make any difference to me." The younger girl was delighted. "Only," added Mary Louise, "if you expect to do any prowling around tonight, please shout your presence in the room." "I expect to go right to sleep," replied Elsie. "With Jane beside me, I'll feel safe." Mary Louise smiled and kissed her goodnight. In many ways Elsie Grant seemed like a child to her, in spite of her fifteen years. Alone in the room, she undressed quickly, hanging her clothing on a chair, for she could not bring herself to use that big, old closet, filled with Miss Grant's things. She was very tired, and, thankful that the night was so much cooler than the preceding one, she blew out the lamp and crawled into bed. The utter blackness of the room was rather appalling, even to a courageous girl like Mary Louise. Accustomed as she was to the street lights of Riverside, the darkness was thick and strange, for the denseness of the trees about Dark Cedars shut out even the sky, with its stars, from the windows. But Mary Louise closed her eyes immediately, resolved not to let anything so trivial bother her. The girls in the attic had quieted down; the house was in absolute silence. Mary Louise, too, lay very still. Listening.... She almost believed that she heard somebody breathing! "But that's absurd!" she reprimanded herself sharply. "It couldn't be a ghost, as Hannah insists, for ghosts don't breathe. And it couldn't be a robber trying to get into the house, or Silky would be barking. That dog has keen ears." She turned over and put the thought out of her mind by recalling the high lights of the picnic, and soon dozed off. But she knew that she had not been asleep long when she was suddenly awakened by the low, squeaking creak of a door. Thinking it was probably Elsie, restless after too much picnic food, Mary Louise opened her eyes and peered about in the darkness. Now she heard that breathing distinctly--and something big and dark seemed to be moving towards her, something blacker than the darkness of the room. No face was visible to her until the figure bent over close to her in the bed. Then she beheld two gleaming eyes! She opened her lips to scream, but at the same instant a thin hand was clapped over her mouth, making utterance impossible. Both her hands were caught and held in an iron grip, and a bag was pulled over her head and tied so tightly under her chin that she believed she would choke. Mary Louise could see nothing now, but she felt a rope being twisted around her body, tying her arms to her sides. In another second she was lifted bodily and tossed roughly into Miss Grant's closet.... The key was turned in the lock. In wild desperation Mary Louise tried to shout, but the thickness and tightness of the bag over her head muffled the sound, and the closet walls closed it in. The girls in the attic would never hear her, for they were at the back of the house, and probably sleeping soundly. So she abandoned the effort, and became quiet, twisting her hands about under the rope, and listening to the sounds from the room. Whoever, whatever it was that had attacked her was moving about stealthily, making a queer noise that sounded like the tearing of a garment. For a brief moment the thought of Corinne Pearson jumped into her mind. Had the girl come here to get revenge on Mary Louise for disclosing her guilt, and was she tearing her clothes to pieces? But such an explanation was too absurd to be possible. It couldn't be Corinne--she was at that dance with Ned Mason. But it might be Harry Grant, searching for that precious possession of his aunt Mattie's--that ruby necklace, if the gypsy was correct.... But, no, Mary Louise did not believe it was Harry--or any man. Something about the motion of the figure, the touch of its hands, proclaimed it to be feminine.... She thought of that ghost Hannah had described, the spirit of dead Mrs. Grant, looking for the hidden treasure, and she shuddered. The tearing and ripping was becoming more pronounced. Mary Louise listened more intently, still twisting her hands about in an effort to free them. She heard a chair being moved away from the window, and the screen being taken away.... She twisted her hands again.... Her right hand--was free! In spite of her terror, Mary Louise almost sang out with joy. The next sound she heard was a dear, familiar noise, a sound that sent a thrill through her whole body. It was the infuriated bark of her little dog Silky from the cellar. Mary Louise lost no time in freeing her other hand and in untying the knot about her chin which fastened the bag over her head. She was free at last--as far as her limbs were concerned. But she was still locked securely in Miss Grant's closet. Through the crack of the door she perceived a streak of light; the intruder had not worked in darkness. But in a second it was extinguished, and she heard a noise at the window. Then--utter blackness and silence again! Mary Louise raised her voice now and screamed at the top of her lungs. She was rewarded by the sound of hurrying footsteps and the incessant bark of her dog, coming nearer and nearer. In another moment she heard the girls in the room and saw the gleam of a flashlight through the crack. "I'm locked in the closet!" she shouted. "Let me out, Jane!" Her chum turned the key in the door. Thank heaven, it was still there! Blinded by the light from the flash, Mary Louise staggered out. "What happened?" demanded Jane, her face deathly pale with terror. Mary Louise stumbled towards the bed. "No bones broken, thank goodness!" she exclaimed, sitting down carefully upon the bed. But she jumped up immediately. "What's happened to this bed?" she demanded. "It's full of pins and needles!" Her chum turned the flashlight upon the ugly piece of furniture, and Mary Louise perceived at once the explanation of the ripping sound she had heard. The bed clothing was literally torn to pieces; the mattress was cut in a dozen places, and straw strewn all over the floor. No wonder it felt sharp to sit down on! "So the ruby necklace was hidden in the bed!" she muttered. "What ruby necklace?" demanded Jane. "That's what the gypsy said Miss Grant was treasuring so carefully. She probably just made a guess at it--to seem wise. It may be a diamond ring, for all I know.... Anyhow, somebody stole it. Who could it have been?" "Tell us exactly what happened," begged Jane. Briefly Mary Louise told the grim story. Elsie had lighted the lamp, and the girls sat about on chairs, listening intently. Silky, who had stopped barking now, climbed into his mistress's lap. "Funny Elsie didn't hear you try to scream the first time," remarked Jane. "She was awake." "You were?" asked Mary Louise. "What time is it?" "It's only quarter-past eleven," answered Elsie. "I couldn't go to sleep--too much chocolate cake and apple pie, I suppose." "It was Silky who waked me up," said Jane. "I heard him barking. And I looked for Elsie and saw she wasn't in bed. So I thought he was just barking at her, prowling around the house." Mary Louise opened her eyes wide. "Where were you, Elsie?" "I--was down in the kitchen, getting some baking soda." She burst into tears. "You don't think I did that fiendish thing, do you, Mary Louise?" "No, of course not." But Mary Louise knew that Miss Grant would not be so ready to accept her niece's innocence. "We better make a tour of the house," she suggested, standing up and going over to the window, where she noticed that the screen was out, lying on the floor. "I think the intruder must have gotten out this way." "But that's not the window with the porch underneath," objected Jane. "No, but he could have used a ladder," returned Mary Louise. The girls slipped coats over their pajamas and put on their shoes. With Silky close at their heels, they went downstairs and out the front door, around to the side of the house. The first thing that they spied was a ladder, lying on the ground perpendicular to the wall. "That's William's ladder," announced Elsie. "He often leaves it around. It seems to me he had it out yesterday, nailing up a board on the porch roof." "If only we could find some footprints," said Mary Louise, flashing her light on the ground. But she could see no marks. If the intruder had made off that way, he had been wise enough to walk over the rounds of the ladder. And everywhere cedar needles covered the ground, making footprints almost impossible. "Wait till Aunt Mattie hears about this!" sobbed Elsie. "It'll be the end of me." "We won't tell her till she gets better," decided Mary Louise. "Maybe by that time we'll discover a clue that will help us solve the mystery." "Oh, I hope so!" breathed the young girl fervently. All this time, however, Jane said nothing. But she was watching Elsie closely, as if she was beginning to believe that she might be guilty. "Let's go to bed," concluded Mary Louise when the tour of inspection was finished. "I'm going to sleep in Hannah's room--and I'm going to keep Silky with me this time." "I wish you had taken that precaution before," sighed Jane. "So do I. But it's too late now. Let's get some sleep, for tomorrow we have to get to work--and work fast!" CHAPTER XIII _Detective Work_ Sunday morning dawned clear and peaceful. As Mary Louise wakened to hear the birds singing in the trees outside the window of Hannah's old room at Dark Cedars, she could hardly believe in the terrifying experience of the previous night. It was just like a horrible dream, incredible in the morning sunshine. "I believe I'd like to go to Sunday school," she said to Jane at the breakfast table. "It's a lovely day, and we'd see all our friends. Don't you want to come along too, Elsie?" The young girl, still pale and nervous from the night before, shook her head. "No, thank you, Mary Louise," she replied. "I'll stay home and help Hannah." Mary Louise glanced up apprehensively. As yet the servant had not been informed of the mysterious intruder. "Will you tell her what happened last night?" she asked, in a low tone. "Or shall we?" "No, I will," agreed Elsie. "She'll be sure it was Mrs. Grant's ghost again.... And I'll help her fix up the bedroom." Mary Louise nodded. "You'll come, Jane?" she inquired. "I'm leaving--for good!" announced her chum. "I wouldn't spend another night at Dark Cedars for all the necklaces in the world!" Mary Louise said nothing: there was no use arguing with Jane. As she went out of the door with Silky at her heels she called to Hannah that she alone would be back to dinner. "About two o'clock," returned the woman. "And ain't Miss Jane comin'?" "No, Hannah," answered the girl for herself. "I shan't see you again. Good-bye." The girls were some distance beyond the hedge of Dark Cedars when Mary Louise asked her companion her reason for leaving. "Because," she added, "now that everything valuable has been stolen, I don't see what you have to fear." Jane hesitated a moment. "I hate to say it, Mary Lou, but I feel I must tell you--for your own protection. It's _Elsie_ I'm afraid of. I really believe she is guilty. I think she has those gold pieces hidden somewhere at Dark Cedars--and now the necklace. I think she's a sneak, and I believe she's planning a getaway. But if one of us should discover her theft, I'm afraid she'd do something desperate to us." An expression of pain passed over Mary Louise's face. "Go on, and tell me why you suspect her," she said. "On account of last night. Figure it out for yourself. If that had been a burglar, why wouldn't Silky have barked when he was getting into the house? Why wouldn't Elsie have heard him, if she was down in the kitchen, as she said? And how could he have gotten away so quickly? You think maybe he went out that window at the side of the house, but that's only a guess. Elsie could have _pretended_ to make an escape from the window while you were locked in the closet and then have slipped out the door and down to the kitchen." Mary Louise gasped in horror. "It doesn't sound possible," she admitted. "And the way she protested her innocence immediately," added Jane. "Remember that?" "Yes, I do. But there is a possible explanation, Jane. The burglar might have broken into the house while we were away and been hiding in the closet while I got ready for bed. I didn't open the door." "But why would he do that? Why wouldn't he finish the job and leave before we came back?" "He might have just gotten in about the time we arrived at Dark Cedars." She paused, thinking of Corinne Pearson. "Suppose it was Corinne--on her way to that dance----" Jane shook her head. "Possible, but not probable," she said. "No, I believe it was Elsie. Do you remember how pleased she was that I wasn't going to sleep with you in Miss Mattie's room? And how she sneaked in there night before last, scaring us so? Oh, Mary Lou, I think all the evidence points that way. And she's beginning to notice our suspicion. That's why she was so quiet at breakfast--and so glad to get rid of us." Mary Louise was silent; she did not tell Jane that she felt convinced that the burglar was of the feminine gender. "Well, don't say anything about our experience to anybody," cautioned Mary Louise as the girls entered the Sunday school building. "I may talk it over with Daddy, if he's home. But nobody else." Jane promised, and they both dismissed their troubles for the time being in the presence of their friends. It was eleven o'clock when the two girls came out of the building, to find Silky patiently waiting for them. "You take him home, Jane," said Mary Louise, "and I'll stop at the hospital. If I can do so tactfully, I want to find out whether it really was a ruby necklace that was hidden in the bed." But Mary Louise's visit proved a disappointment; she was told at the desk that it would be impossible for her or anyone else to see Miss Mattie Grant at the present time. "The operation was successful," the attendant stated, in that matter-of-fact tone officials so often assume, "but Miss Grant is under the influence of a narcotic. She wouldn't know anybody.... Come back tomorrow." Mary Louise nodded and walked slowly out of the door, uncertain as to what her next move should be. Still thinking deeply, she strolled down the street until she came within a block of Mrs. Grace Grant's home. Here a sudden impulse decided her to visit these relations of Miss Mattie. If anyone in the world knew about the necklace, that person would be the trusted nephew, John Grant. Mary Louise paused a moment in front of the gate, a little nervous about going in. Suppose Harry Grant were home alone and he started to tease her in that familiar way of his! John she had never seen, except that night on his porch, in the dark; and of course Mrs. Grant would be at church. But the sight of a nice-looking sedan parked in front of the house reassured her. In all probability that was John's car, she decided, for it certainly was not Harry's. Bravely she opened the gate and walked up to the porch. She had to wait several minutes before there was any answer to her ring. Then a middle-aged man, stout and rather bald, as Elsie had described John, opened the door. "Is this Mr. John Grant?" she asked, trying to make her tone sound business-like. "Yes," replied the man. "I am Mary Louise Gay," she stated. "The girl who found Miss Mattie Grant's money for her, you know." John Grant did not know; he shook his head. Evidently the story had been suppressed by his mother out of consideration for Harry. "You didn't hear about the robbery?" she inquired. "No. I only know that Aunt Mattie is in the hospital. My sister--Mrs. Pearson--phoned yesterday. But when was she robbed?" "Can you come out on the porch and talk to me for a few minutes, Mr. Grant?" asked Mary Louise. "Certainly," he answered, glancing at his watch. "I have to drive to church for Mother at half-past twelve. But that's over an hour from now." "Thank you, Mr. Grant," said Mary Louise, as she seated herself in one of the chairs. "I won't tell you the whole story--it's too long. But before your aunt went to the hospital, all her money was stolen out of her safe. My chum and I succeeded in getting most of it back--all but a box of gold pieces--and your aunt put the money and her bonds into the bank. "Then, when she had to go to the hospital so suddenly, she became panic-stricken and made me promise to sleep in her room while she was away. She had something hidden in her room, something valuable, but she wouldn't tell me what it was. I'd like to find out just what it was." "Why?" demanded the man fearfully. "Has that been taken too?" Mary Louise nodded and briefly told her story of the mysterious intruder the preceding night. "It was a ruby necklace," said John. "A necklace someone gave to my grandfather, I believe. Aunt Mattie didn't know much about how he got it, but he told her it was very valuable and that she must guard it above everything else in the world. So she had it hidden in her straw mattress, and told me where it was, because it is willed to me. Nobody else knew anything about it, to my knowledge." "A ruby necklace!" repeated Mary Louise. "That's what the gypsy said it was. I asked a fortune teller whom our crowd visited yesterday, and she told me. Claimed it was 'second sight' on her part." John Grant laughed. "More likely a rumor she had heard. The family knew there was something--I mean Aunt Mattie's family--my father and my uncle. But even they never knew where Grandfather got it or from whom. There must have been something queer about it, though, for I understood from my father that Grandmother wanted him to give it back. And then, when Aunt Mattie got hold of it, she kept it hidden." "Yes, that's what Hannah says," agreed Mary Louise. "She says all this disturbance is old Mrs. Grant's spirit trying to get it back again. But I can't be expected to believe that." "Naturally." John smiled, and Mary Louise thought what a nice, pleasant face he had. No wonder his aunt Mattie trusted him! "Miss Grant is going to blame Elsie, of course," continued Mary Louise. "She accused her of stealing the gold pieces." "Hm!" observed John, as if he too thought the idea possible. "Did she take the rest of the money?" "No, she didn't. We proved that." "Then who did?" inquired John. "I think I had better not say," answered Mary Louise. "That's over and done with. Your mother knows--if you want, you can ask her." John smiled. Mary Louise believed he had guessed the solution himself. "You don't really think Elsie would take the gold or the necklace, do you, Mr. Grant?" she asked anxiously. "Of course, you know her a lot better than I do." "I don't know. She might argue that she had a right to some of that money. It wasn't quite fair that Aunt Mattie got all of Grandfather's fortune, and Elsie's father didn't get a penny.... Yes, she might take it, while I don't believe she would ever steal anything else." Mary Louise shuddered: it seemed as if she were the only person in the world who still considered Elsie innocent. "There's a colored family who live down the hill in back of Dark Cedars. Could they know about the necklace, Mr. Grant, do you suppose?" "Abraham Lincoln Jones? Yes, they could have heard rumors about it--just as those gypsies did. But I happen to know that man, and I am sure he is thoroughly honest." "Would he steal chickens?" "Not even chickens.... Of course, his children might. Colored people love chicken, you know." "I'm going to get Elsie to take me to see them this afternoon." Mary Louise rose from her chair. "I won't take any more of your time, Mr. Grant--unless you can tell me what to do. I don't like to go to the police without Miss Grant's consent." "No, I wouldn't do that. If there is something queer about her possession of the necklace, it would be better for her to lose it than to have an old disgrace exposed. At Aunt Mattie's age, I mean. We better wait until she gets well." Mary Louise nodded: that was exactly her idea too. Unless, of course, one of the family had taken it--Corinne Pearson or Harry Grant. "But I guess it would be all right to speak to Daddy in confidence about it," she said, "and get his advice." "Your father?" "Yes. He is Detective Gay, of the police force. You've heard of him?" "Oh, yes, certainly. But tell him not to bring in the police--yet." Mary Louise held out her hand. "Thank you so much, Mr. Grant, for giving me your time," she said. "I'll get in touch with you later." Well satisfied with her interview, she left the Grants' porch and determined to do a little more investigating for herself before she consulted her father. A little farther down the street was the home of Bernice Tracey, an attractive young woman of about twenty-five, who had once been a lieutenant in Mary Louise's Girl Scout troop. To this girl she decided to go for some information concerning Corinne Pearson, for she knew that Miss Tracey was a member of the Country Club set. Miss Tracey herself answered Mary Louise's ring at the door. "Why, Mary Lou!" she exclaimed in surprise. "You are a stranger! And you almost caught me in bed, too! I just finished my breakfast. Come in--or shall I come out on the porch?" "Oh, I can only stay a minute, Miss Tracey," replied Mary Louise. "I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions, if you don't mind.... And please don't think I'm crazy." "I know there never was a girl with a more level head on her shoulders!" answered the other admiringly. "Go ahead and ask me the questions, Mary Lou." "Well--er--you went to that dance last night, didn't you, with the Country Club people? Was Corinne Pearson there?" "Yes, she and Ned Mason ate supper with us. Why?" "Please don't ask me why! What time did the dance begin?" "About eleven o'clock." Mary Louise frowned; it was possible, then, that Corinne could have been at Dark Cedars a little after ten. "And--and--can you remember what Miss Pearson wore?" "Yes. A white organdie. It was very simple, but awfully nice for a summer dance. I wish I had been as sensible." Now for the final question! Mary Louise had to summon all her courage to put forth this one. "Do you remember what kind of jewelry she had on? What color?" Miss Tracey's face lighted up with a smile. "I know why you're asking me these questions, Mary Lou!" she exclaimed. "You're a society reporter on the _Star_--aren't you? But I don't see why you don't ask me what I wore. Aren't I as pretty and as important as Corinne Pearson?" "You're twice as important and five times as pretty, Miss Tracey!" replied Mary Louise instantly. "But I'm not a reporter-or even trying to become one.... I'll explain some time later.... Just tell me about the jewelry, if you can remember." "All right, my dear. Corinne wore red with her white dress. Imitation rubies, I suppose. Earrings and necklace and two bracelets." "Oh!" gasped Mary Louise. "That's what I want to know. Thank you, Miss Tracey, thank you just heaps!" Chapter XIV _Bad News_ Mary Louise's first impulse, upon leaving Miss Tracey's home, was to rush right over to Corinne Pearson with a demand to see the necklace which she had worn at the dance the night before. But she had not taken more than a few steps before she saw the foolishness of such a proceeding. In the first place, Corinne would not be likely to show her the necklace; in the second place, Mary Louise could tell nothing by examining it. She wasn't a connoisseur in rubies; it was doubtful whether she could spot a real stone if she saw one. No, nothing was to be gained by a visit to the Pearsons' at this time. So instead she directed her course towards home, resolving to discuss the whole affair with her father, if he had returned from his business trip, as her mother had expected. She found him on the porch, reading the Sunday paper and smoking his pipe. He was a big man with a determined chin and fine dark eyes which lighted up with joy at the sight of his daughter. "Mary Lou!" he exclaimed, getting up out of his chair and kissing her. "I was so afraid you wouldn't be home to see me!" "I just had to see you, Daddy," returned the girl. "I need your help." "Sit down, dear. Your mother tells me that you are engaged in some serious business. I feel very proud of my detective daughter." "I'm afraid I'm not so good after all," she replied sadly. "Now that I'm really up against a hard problem, I don't know which way to turn. I'd like to tell you about it, if you have time." She seated herself in the hammock and took off her hat. It was lovely and cool on the shaded porch after the heat of the Riverside streets. "Of course I have time," Mr. Gay assured her. "Begin at the beginning." "I will, Daddy. Only, first of all, you must promise not to tell anybody--except Mother, of course. Miss Grant seems to dread publicity of any kind." "Why?" "The reason she gives is that she firmly believes some member of her own family to be guilty and wants to avoid scandal. But I think there's another--a deeper reason." "And what do you think that is, Mary Lou?" "A desire to keep her possession of a ruby necklace a secret. She kept it hidden in the mattress of her bed and never mentioned it to anybody except one trusted nephew." Mr. Gay wrinkled his brows. "I guess you had better tell me the facts in order, dear." Mary Louise settled herself more comfortably in the hammock, and told her story, just as everything had happened. When she finally came to the description of the robbery the previous night, and of her own shameful treatment at the hands of the thief, her father cried out in resentment. "Don't tell Mother about my being bound up and put in the closet," she begged. "It would worry her sick." "It worries me sick!" announced Mr. Gay. "And I don't want you to spend another night at that dreadful place.... In fact, I forbid it!" Mary Louise nodded: she had been expecting the command. "Then may I bring Elsie Grant home with me while her aunt is in the hospital?" she asked. "Yes, I suppose so--if your mother is willing." But his consent was rather reluctant; Mary Louise sensed his distrust of the orphan. "Daddy, do you think Elsie is guilty?" she asked immediately. "I don't know what to think. You believe that your intruder was a woman, don't you? Then, if it was a woman in Miss Grant's family, how many possible suspects have you?" Mary Louise checked them off on her fingers. "Old Mrs. Grant, Mrs. Pearson, Corinne Pearson--and Elsie." "Which are most likely to have heard about the necklace? Old Mrs. Grant and Elsie, I should say, offhand." "Yes," agreed his daughter. "And I'm sure Mrs. Grace Grant wouldn't steal. Besides, she's too old to get down a ladder." "Hold on a minute!" cautioned her father. "You're not sure that your thief got away in that manner. Suppose, as you are inclined to believe, she was at Dark Cedars when you arrived last night, and suppose she did hide in the closet until she thought you were asleep. When she finished her job, why couldn't she have walked down the stairs and out the door--it must unlock from the inside--while you were still locked in the closet?" "That's true. But wouldn't Elsie have heard her?" "Probably. But, then, she'd have been likely to hear anybody getting out of a window.... Yes, I think suspicion points to the young girl, with one possible exception." "You mean Corinne Pearson?" "No, I don't. I think the very fact that she wore a red necklace to the dance practically proves her innocence. If she even knew her aunt owned a ruby necklace, she wouldn't have done that, after she was caught in another theft." Mary Louise sighed: she felt as if her visit to Miss Tracey had been wasted time, and she said as much to her father. But he reassured her with the statement that real detectives make many such visits, which may seem to lead to nothing, but which all have their part in leading to the capture of the criminal. "Then whom else do you suspect, Daddy?" she asked. "The most obvious person of all. The person who had every reason to believe that there was something valuable hidden in Miss Grant's bed from the way the old lady guarded it. The person who made up all the stories about ghosts to throw you girls off the track. I mean Hannah, of course." "Hannah!" repeated Mary Louise in amazement. She had never thought of her as guilty since her interview with her that very first day. "You may be right, Daddy. But if she was going to steal, why did she do it at night, when we were there? She had plenty of chance all day alone at Dark Cedars--except for William, her husband." "Yes, but then you would immediately suspect her or William. This threw you off the track." Mary Louise pondered the matter seriously. "I still can't believe that, Daddy. Knowing Hannah as I do, I would stake my word on the fact that both she and old Mrs. Grant are absolutely honest." "Well, it may not have been a member of the family at all," observed Mr. Gay. "Maybe it was an outsider, someone who had heard a rumor about the necklace and visited the house systematically at night, searching for it. That would account for those strange noises and the disturbances. It might even have been the person who owned the necklace in the first place, who would know, of course, that it was still at Dark Cedars. There is only one thing to do that I can see, and that is to notify the pawnshops and jewelers all over the country." "But that would take forever," protested Mary Louise. "And besides, we couldn't mention Miss Grant's name without her permission." Mr. Gay smiled; there was a great deal for Mary Louise to learn about the detective business. "It wouldn't take any time at all," he said. "The police have a list of all such places and a method of communication. And Miss Grant's name need not be mentioned--my name is sufficient. But I wish we could get a more accurate description of the necklace." "I wish we could. I'll try to see Miss Grant again tomorrow." "It doesn't make so much difference, however," her father told her. "If the rubies are real, they can easily be detected. It isn't likely that many ruby necklaces are being pawned at the same time." "Will you do this for me, Daddy?" asked Mary Louise, rising from the hammock and opening the screen door. "I just want to say 'hello' to Mother, and then I must be on my way. I'm due back at Dark Cedars at two o'clock." Mr. Gay frowned. "Must you go, dear? I don't forbid it, in broad daylight, but I don't like it." "Yes, I must get my suitcase, Daddy. And bring Elsie back, if she wants to come." "All right, Mary Lou. I'll drive you over, if our dinner isn't ready. And I'll come back for you about five o'clock, so that I'm sure of getting you home here safely before dark." It was a simple matter for Mary Louise to gain her mother's consent to bring Elsie Grant home with her. Believing the girl to be just a poor downtrodden orphan, Mrs. Gay adopted a motherly, sympathetic attitude, totally unaware that both Jane Patterson and Mr. Gay suspected the girl of the crime. She was delighted that her daughter had decided to leave Dark Cedars. "It's bad enough to have your father away on dangerous work, without having to worry about you too, Mary Louise," she said as she kissed her daughter good-bye. "Be back in time for supper." "I will," promised the girl. "Daddy is going to drive me over and come back for me." During the short ride in her father's car the theft was not mentioned. If possible, Mary Louise wanted to forget it for the time being. She hated to go to Dark Cedars and eat Hannah's dinner as Elsie's guest and all the while suspect one or the other of them of a horrible crime. Mr. Gay left Mary Louise at the hedge, and she ran up the path lightly, just like an ordinary girl visiting one of her chums for a Sunday dinner. But Elsie did not come out to meet her, and she had to knock on the door to gain admittance. In a minute or two Hannah answered it. "Hello!" she said. "Ain't Elsie with you?" Mary Louise shook her head. "No. She said she'd stay and help you," she replied. "Didn't she tell you about what happened last night?" "No!" Hannah's eyes opened wide. "Was the spirits here again?" "Somebody was here," answered Mary Louise. "Haven't you been up in Miss Grant's room?" The woman shook her head. "No, I ain't. I've been too busy out in the garden helpin' William and gettin' dinner ready. I figured you girls'd make your own bed. Elsie always did most of the upstairs work." "Well, I couldn't very easily make the first bed I slept in," remarked Mary Louise. "Because the mattress was torn to pieces." "Miss Mattie's?" gasped Hannah, in genuine terror. She looked so frightened that Mary Louise could not believe she was acting. "Yes. Somebody bound and gagged me and locked me in the closet and then proceeded to strip the bed. They must have found Miss Grant's precious necklace--for that's what it was, John Grant said." The servant woman bowed her head. "May the Lord have mercy on us!" she said reverently. "It's His way of punishin' Miss Mattie fer keepin' the thing her dead mother warned her agin'." She looked up at Mary Louise. "Eat your dinner quick," she said. "Then let's get out of here, before the spirits come agin!" "But where's Elsie?" insisted Mary Louise, knowing that it was no use to argue with Hannah about the "spirits." "She went off soon after you girls left. I thought she changed her mind and went to Sunday school. She had on her green silk." "And hasn't she come back all morning?" demanded Mary Louise in dismay. "Nary a sign of her." Mary Louise groaned. This was bad news--just what she had been fearing ever since her conversations with Jane and with her father. If Elsie had run away, there could be only one reason for her going: she must be guilty! "I had better go right home and see my father," she said nervously. "You set right down and eat your dinner, Miss Mary Louise!" commanded Hannah. "You need food--and it's right here. You ain't a-goin' to take no hot walk on an empty stomach! Besides, Elsie may come in any minute. She probably run down to show them colored people her pretty green dress." Mary Louise's eyes brightened. "Abraham Lincoln Jones's family?" she inquired. "Yeah. Elsie's awful fond of them. They kind of pet her up, you know." Mary Louise smiled and sat down to her dinner. The food tasted good, for it was fresh from the garden, and Hannah was an excellent cook. But all the time she was eating she kept her eyes on the door, watching, almost praying that Elsie would come in. "Maybe you had better not touch that room of Miss Grant's," she cautioned Hannah. "I think it might be better to leave it just as it is--for the sake of evidence. My clothes are in your old room now, and I'll get them from there." "Don't you worry!" returned the woman, with a frightened look in her eyes. "I ain't givin' no spirits no chance at me! I'm leavin' the minute these dishes is done, and I ain't comin' back day or night. If Elsie ain't home by the time I go, you can take the key, Miss Mary Louise, and turn it over to Miss Mattie." Mary Louise nodded: perhaps this was for the best. "I'll leave my suitcase on the porch while I run down to see the Jones family," she said, as she finished her apple pie. "And you had better clear out the refrigerator and take all the food that is left, because, if I find Elsie, I'll take her home with me." "Maybe she's havin' a chicken dinner with them colored people," returned Hannah and for the first time since Mary Louise's arrival she smiled. CHAPTER XV _An Alibi_ The wooden shack where the Jones family lived was picturesque in its setting among the cedar trees behind Miss Grant's home. In summer time Mary Louise could understand living very comfortably in such a place. But, isolated as it was, and probably poorly heated, it must be terribly cold in winter. She ran down the hill gayly, humming a tune to herself and smiling, for she did not want the colored family to think that her visit was anything but a friendly one. As she came to a clearing among the cedar trees she saw two nicely dressed children playing outside the shack and singing at the top of their lungs. They beamed at Mary Louise genially and went on with their song. "Do you children know Miss Elsie Grant?" she shouted. They both nodded immediately. "Sure we know her! You a friend o' hers?" "Yes," answered Mary Louise. "I've been visiting her, up at her aunt's place. But she didn't come home for dinner, so I thought maybe she was here." "No, ma'am, she ain't," replied the older child. "You-all want to see Ma?" "Yes, I should like to. If she isn't busy." "Ma!" yelled both children at once, and a pleasant-faced colored woman appeared at the door of the shack. "Here's a frien' of Miz Elsie's!" The woman smiled. "Come in, Honey," she invited. "I just wanted to ask you whether you had seen Miss Elsie this morning," said Mary Louise. Mrs. Jones opened the bright-blue screen door and motioned her caller into her house. There were only two rooms in the shack, but Mary Louise could see immediately how beautifully neat they were, although the color combinations made her want to laugh out loud. A purple door curtain separated the one room from the other, and some of the chairs were red plush, some brown leather, and one a bright green. But there was mosquito netting tacked up at the windows, and the linoleum-covered floor was spotless. "Set down, Honey," urged the woman, and Mary Louise selected a red-plush chair. She repeated her question about Elsie. "Yes and no," replied Mrs. Jones indefinitely. "What do you mean by 'yes and no,' Mrs. Jones?" inquired Mary Louise. "I saw her but didn't have no talk wid her," explained the other. "She was all dressed up in a fine dress and had a bundle unde' her arm. I reckoned she was comin' down to visit us, but she done go off through de woods. Why you ask, Honey? She ain't lost, am she?" "She didn't come back for dinner," answered Mary Louise. "So Hannah and I were worried." Mrs. Jones rolled her eyes. "Runned away, I reckon. Miz Grant didn't treat her good." "But Miss Grant isn't there--she's in the hospital." "You don't say!" "Yes, and I wanted to take Elsie home with me while she was away. So you wouldn't think she'd want to run away now." "No, you wouldn't. Not when she's got a nice friend like you, Honey. Mebbe she was kidnaped." "Nobody would want to kidnap Elsie Grant. She's too poor--and her aunt would never pay ransom money." Mrs. Jones chuckled. "You right 'bout dat, Honey, fo' sure. Miz Grant's de stingiest white woman eve' lived. Wouldn't give away a bone to a dog if she could help he'self. Served her right 'bout dem chickens!" Mary Louise turned sharply. "Chickens?" she repeated, trying to keep her voice calm. "Yes. Her chickens is bein' stolen all de time. Half a dozen to oncet--and me and Abraham won't lift a finger to put a stop to it!" "You know who has been taking them?" asked Mary Louise incredulously. "We knows fo' sure, Honey. But we ain't tellin' no tales to Miz Grant." "Suppose she accuses your husband?" suggested Mary Louise. "Dat's sumpin' diff'rent. Den we'd tell. But it'd be safe enough by dat time. De gypsies has wandered off by now." "Gypsies!" exclaimed Mary Louise. "Did they steal the chickens?" "Dey sure did. We could see 'em, sneakin' up at night, by de light of de moon. If Miz Grant eve' catched 'em, it'd sure go right bad wid 'em. She hates 'em like pison." "But you think the gypsies have gone away, Mrs. Jones?" questioned Mary Louise. "I reckon so, or dey'd be stealin' mo' chickens. But we ain't seen nor heard 'em fo' several nights. Guess dey done cleaned out of de neighborhood." Mary Louise cleared her throat. She wanted to ask this woman what she knew about the robbery at Dark Cedars, but she did not like to seem abrupt or suspicious. So she tried to speak casually. "Since you know about the chickens being stolen, Mrs. Jones, did you happen to hear anything unusual last night at Dark Cedars?" "Lem'me see.... Las' night was Sattiday, wasn't it? Abraham done gone to lodge meetin' and got home bout ten o'clock, he said. No, I was in bed asleep, and we neve' wakened up at all.... Why? Did anything happen up there? Mo' chickens took?" "Not chickens--but something a great deal more valuable. A piece of jewelry belonging to Miss Grant." "You don't say! Was dere real stones in it--genu-ine?" "Yes." The colored woman shook her head solemnly. "Abraham always say de old lady'd come to trouble sure as night follows day. De mean life she's done lived--neve' goin' to church or helpin' de poor. She neve' sent us so much as a bucket of coal fo' Christmas. But we don't judge her--dat's de Lord's business." "Did you know she kept money and jewels in her house?" inquired Mary Louise. "No. It warn't none of our business. Abraham ain't interested in folks' money--only in der souls. He's a deacon in Rive'side Colored Church, you know!" "Yes, I've heard him very highly spoken of, Mrs. Jones," concluded Mary Louise, rising from her chair. "If you see Elsie, will you tell her to come to our house? Anybody can direct her where to find the Gays' home, in Riverside." "I sure will, Miz Gay. Dat's a perty name.... And you a perty gal!" "Thanks," stammered Mary Louise in embarrassment.... "And good-bye, Mrs. Jones." She stepped out of the shack and waved to the children as she passed them again on her way back to Dark Cedars. Glancing at her watch as she climbed the hill, she observed that it was only half-past three. What in the world would she do to pass the time until her father came for her at five o'clock? It occurred to her as she approached Miss Grant's house that she might try to interview Hannah concerning her whereabouts the preceding night, and she was thankful to catch sight of the woman in the back yard, talking to William, her husband. It was evident from both the old servants' attitudes that they were having an argument, and Mary Louise approached slowly, not wishing to interrupt. William Groben looked much older than his wife, although Hannah was by no means a young woman. Hadn't she claimed that she had done the house-cleaning for forty years at Dark Cedars? Even if she had begun to work there in her teens, Mary Louise figured that she must be fast approaching sixty. But William looked well over seventy. He was thin and shriveled and bent; what little hair he had left was absolutely white. There could be no doubt about William's innocence in the whole affair at Dark Cedars: a frail old man like that could not have managed to handle a healthy girl like Mary Louise in the manner in which the criminal had treated her. "There ain't no use sayin' another word, Hannah," Mary Louise heard William announce stubbornly. "I ain't a-goin' a-change me mind. Duty is duty, and I always say if a man can't be faithful to his employer--" "I've heard that before, never mind repeatin' it!" snapped his wife. "And nobody can say I ain't been faithful to Miss Mattie, fer all her crankiness. But we've got a little bit saved up, and we can manage to live on it, with my sister Jennie, without you workin' here. In a place that's haunted by spirits!" The man looked up sharply. "How long do you think four hundred dollars would keep us?" he demanded. "Besides, it's invested for us--to bury us. You can't touch that, Hannah. No, I want me regular wages. I like good victuals!" "So do I. But what's the use of good victuals if you're half scared of your life all the time? I'll never step inside that there house again!" William shrugged his shoulders. "Do as you're a mind to, Hannah--you always have. And I'll go on livin' over to Jennie's with you. But I'm still workin' here in the daytime. I couldn't let them chickens starve and the garden go to seed. And what would become of the cow?" "You could sell her and turn the money over to Miss Mattie." William smiled sarcastically. "And have her half kill me for doin' it? Not me! Besides, it wouldn't be fair to the poor old lady in the hospital. Dependin' on me as she is. No, siree! Duty is duty, and I always say----" "Shut up!" yelled Hannah in exasperation. And then, all of a sudden, she spied Mary Louise. "Don't you never get married, Miss Mary Louise," she advised. "I never seen a man that wasn't too stubborn to reason with. Did you find Elsie?" Mary Louise shook her head. "No. Mrs. Jones saw her cutting across the woods this morning. But she didn't stop there." "I guess she must have them gold pieces of her aunt Mattie's after all, and took her chance to clear out when the clearin' was good. Can't say as I blame her!" Mary Louise sighed: that was the logical conclusion for everybody to come to. "So I think I'll go home now, Hannah," she said. "I won't wait for my father to come for me. And shall I take the key, or will William want to keep it?" "You take it," urged the old man. "I don't want to feel responsible for it. My duty's outside the house." Hannah handed it over with a sigh of relief. "I'm that glad to get rid of it! And you tell Miss Mattie that I'm livin' at my sister Jennie's. I'll write the address down for you, if you've got your little book handy." Mary Louise gladly produced it from her pocket: this was easy--getting Hannah's address without even asking for it. "Is this where you were last night?" she inquired casually, as the woman wrote down the street and number. "Yes. At least, except while we was at the movies. My sister Jennie made William go with us--he never thought he cared about them before. But you ought to see him laugh at Laurel and Hardy. I thought I'd die, right there in the Globe Theater." William grinned at the recollection. "They was funny," he agreed. "When the show was over, I just set there, still laughin'!" "They almost closed the theater on us," remarked Hannah. "It was half-past eleven when we got home, and that's late for us, even of a Saturday night." Mary Louise chuckled. She couldn't have gotten any information more easily if she had been a real detective. Yet here was a perfect alibi for Hannah; if she had been at the movies until half-past eleven, she couldn't have stolen that necklace from Dark Cedars. Maybe that bit of detective work wouldn't make an impression upon her father! "Of course, I can check up on it at the Globe Theater," she decided in her most professional manner. She held out her hand to Hannah. "It's good-bye, then, Hannah--and thank you for all the nice things you cooked for me." "You're welcome, Miss Mary Louise. And if you come over to see me at my sister Jennie's, I'll make some doughnuts for you." "I'll be there!" promised the girl, and with a nod to William, she went around to the porch to get her suitcase. Thankful that it was not heavy, she walked slowly down to the road and on to Riverside. She had plenty of chance to think as she went along, but her thoughts were not pleasant. Hannah's alibi only made Elsie's guilt seem more assured. And how she hated to have to tell her father and Jane of the girl's disappearance! There was bound to be publicity now, for the newspapers' help would have to be enlisted in the search for the missing orphan. Miss Grant would have to know the whole story, including the theft of the necklace.... Mary Louise shuddered, hoping that she would not be the bearer of the evil tidings to the sick old lady. Chapter XVI _Spreading the Net_ Mary Louise spied Norman Wilder's car in front of Jane Patterson's house as she turned into her own street in Riverside; a moment later she recognized both Norman and Max on her chum's porch. As soon as they, in their turn, saw her, they rushed down to the gate to meet her, and Max seized her suitcase. "If you wouldn't be so doggone independent," he exclaimed, "and just let a fellow know when you needed a lift, Mary Lou, I'd have driven over for you!" "That's all right, Max," returned Mary Louise. "As a matter of fact, Dad was coming for me at five o'clock, but I didn't want to wait that long. There was nothing to do at Dark Cedars." "Nothing to do?" echoed Jane. "Are you going to stay home now and leave Elsie all alone?" "Dad wants me home," was all the explanation Mary Louise would make before the boys. Later, she would tell her chum about the girl's disappearance. "I've got to go right in now," she added. "After I have a bath and my supper, I'll join you people." "After supper!" repeated Max in disgust. "We were just considering a little picnic in the woods. It's a marvelous day for a swim." "Picnic? Why, we had one yesterday!" "And it was such fun that we thought we'd have an encore." "I'm afraid I have too much to do to be in on any picnic," answered Mary Louise. "But I'll go for a walk or a drive with you all after supper--maybe." Seeing that she was firm in her resolve, the young people released her, and she hurried into her own house. Mr. Gay was standing in the living room, holding the keys to his car in his hand and trying to persuade his wife to drive over to Dark Cedars with him. "Why, Mary Lou!" he exclaimed in surprise. "We were just getting ready to go for you. Why didn't you wait for me?" "And where is Elsie?" inquired Mrs. Gay. Mary Louise dropped despondently into a chair. "She--went away," she replied briefly. Mr. Gay turned sharply. "Where?" he demanded. Mary Louise shook her head. "I don't know. Hannah said she went out soon after Jane and I left for Sunday school this morning, and the colored woman who lives in back of Dark Cedars saw her go through the woods. But she didn't come back in time for dinner--or at all, before I left." "The poor child is lost!" exclaimed Mrs. Gay sympathetically. "If she wandered into Cooper's woods, it's no wonder." She turned to her husband. "Hadn't we better get out a searching party, dear, immediately? The Boy and the Girl Scouts, anyhow." Mr. Gay frowned. "No, my dear," he replied slowly. "I don't think Elsie Grant is lost. Neither does Mary Lou. I'm afraid she's headed straight for Harrisburg--and may have arrived by this time." "Harrisburg?" repeated Mrs. Gay. "Why, that's sixty miles away! She couldn't walk that far." "No, I don't expect her to walk. I think she took the train--not from Riverside, but from the next station." "How could she take a train? She couldn't buy a ticket, for she hasn't any money." "We are afraid, my dear, that Elsie Grant has plenty of money, though she may encounter a little difficulty in spending it, since the new law was passed. We believe that she stole those gold pieces from her aunt--and last night a necklace was taken, so it looks as if she had that too." "How terrible!" exclaimed Mrs. Gay, looking at Mary Louise as if she expected her to protest, or at least explain, her father's accusation. But the girl was sitting disconsolately with her head bowed, as if she believed that every word was true. "What shall we do, Daddy?" Mary Louise asked finally, in a hopeless tone. "Notify the railroad stations to be on watch for a girl of Elsie's description, who probably tried to buy a ticket with a gold piece. Of course, it's possible she may have stolen some change from her aunt's pocketbook and used that for carfare.... Do you happen to know what kind of dress she was wearing, Mary Lou?" "My green silk--with little flowers in it. I gave it to her." The reply was almost a sob. "I'll attend to that part, then," announced Mr. Gay. "And you will have to go over to see Mr. John Grant, Mary Lou, and tell him that Elsie has gone. It will be up to him to take charge of the affair." "Suppose he doesn't want the police notified that Elsie is missing?" asked his daughter. "It isn't his place to decide that question. If a person is missing, it's the law's duty to step in and try to find him or her. The loss of the necklace is a different matter, which concerns the Grant family alone." Mary Louise nodded and picked up her suitcase. She wanted to be alone in her own room; she felt too miserable to talk to anybody--even her father. What would be the use of telling him about her interview with Mrs. Jones, or the establishment of Hannah Groben's alibi? He no longer entertained any suspicions about these people: the finger of accusation pointed too surely at Elsie Grant. Taking off her hat and her dress, Mary Louise threw herself down upon the bed. How tired she was! And how discouraged! How dreadful it was to believe in somebody and to have that trust betrayed! Elsie Grant had appeared to be such a sweet, innocent person, so worthy of sympathy. It didn't seem possible that while she was accepting the girls' friendship and their gifts she could be plotting this wicked thing. The laughter of Mary Louise's young friends rose from the porch next door and came through the open window, but the weary girl on the bed had no desire to join them. For once in her life she felt as if she wanted to avoid Jane. She couldn't bear to tell her that her suspicions about Elsie had been as good as proved. Tired and unhappy, Mary Louise closed her eyes, and before she realized it she was fast asleep. The experience of the previous night and the strain of this day had overpowered her, and for an hour she forgot all her troubles in a dreamless rest. Her mother wakened her by announcing that supper was on the table. Mary Louise sat up and rubbed her eyes. "I'm sorry, Mother," she said. "I meant to help you. I haven't been much use to you for the last few days." "That's all right, dear," replied Mrs. Gay. "You needed the sleep, and Freckles has been fine.... Now, come to supper." Mary Louise was delighted to find that she felt much better after her nap. And much more cheerful. She no longer dreaded the coming necessary interview with John Grant, which she meant to seek after supper. However, she was saved the trouble of going to his house, for scarcely had the Gays finished eating when John Grant arrived. Mary Louise and her father received him in the living room. "I have a message for you, Miss Gay," he announced, "from my aunt." "Oh!" exclaimed Mary Louise. "You were able to see her, then?" "Late this afternoon. She seemed much better and asked the nurse to send for me. So I went over to the hospital about five o'clock." "Did you tell her about the necklace?" asked Mary Louise eagerly. "Yes, I did. I thought it would be best to get it over with. She asked me whether it was safe, and I couldn't lie. So I told her what happened last night." Mary Louise gasped. "Wasn't the shock too much for her? And wasn't she just furious at me?" "No, she stood it quite well. She said she knew something had happened because of a dream she had last night. And she said, 'Tell Mary Louise not to worry, because I don't blame her. And I want to see her myself tomorrow morning.'" "Why, that's wonderful!" exclaimed the girl, with a sigh of relief. "I had no idea she would take it so well." "Neither did I," admitted John. "There's something queer about it--but maybe she'll explain tomorrow. I wasn't allowed to stay with her long today, and she was too weak to talk much." It was Mr. Gay who put the question that was trembling on Mary Louise's lips: "Does she think her niece--Elsie Grant, I mean--stole the necklace?" "She didn't say," answered John. "But I don't believe so, because she asked whether Elsie had confessed yet about the gold pieces. That wouldn't indicate that she believed her guilty of another theft." "No, it wouldn't," agreed Mr. Gay. "But everything points that way. We have bad news for you, Mr. Grant: Elsie has disappeared." "Humph!" John Grant's grunt and his nod were significant. "I was afraid of that," he said. "I have already notified the police," announced Mr. Gay. "They are watching for her at the railroad stations, and I have wired the pawnshops and jewelers in Harrisburg and other cities nearby. We'll probably catch her by tonight." "I hope so," sighed John. "It's too bad. I feel sort of guilty about the whole thing. If we had taken the child into our home, instead of letting her go with Aunt Mattie, it would never have happened. But we were feeling the depression and didn't see how we could assume any more expense. My brother isn't earning anything, and Mother lost most of her inheritance. While Aunt Mattie, of course, had plenty.... But it was a mistake." Mary Louise looked gratefully at the man: John Grant was the only person besides herself who felt any pity for Elsie. How she wished he had been able to bring her up!... But it was too late now for regrets. "What will be done with her when they do find her?" she inquired tremulously. "Will she be sent to prison if she is proved guilty?" John shrugged his shoulders. "That will be for Aunt Mattie to decide. But you know she has talked nothing but reform school since the child came to her." "Maybe I can persuade her to give Elsie another chance," murmured Mary Louise hopefully. "Maybe," agreed John as he shook hands with Mr. Gay and departed. Mary Louise turned to her father after the man left. "I have some things to tell you, Daddy," she said. "Some clues I followed up this afternoon. Do you want to hear them?" "By all means," returned Mr. Gay. "One thing I learned is that the gypsies stole those chickens. At least--the wife of the colored man who lives in back of Dark Cedars claims that they did." Mr. Gay smiled. "You don't think that's important?" asked Mary Louise in disappointment, for she could read his thought. "It occurred to me that, if they stole the chickens, maybe it was they who stole the necklace." "I'm afraid not, daughter. If we have only a colored woman's word for it, that's no proof. She's probably shielding herself or her husband.... Besides, while gypsies might steal something on the outside, they very seldom have been known to break into people's houses." "Yes, I was afraid you would say that." "It might be worth following up as a clue if we had nothing else to go on. But now we feel pretty sure that Elsie Grant is guilty.... But did this colored woman hear them last night--the gypsies, I mean?" "No, she didn't. It was several nights ago, and about the same time that William, the hired man, reported that the chickens were gone." "What else did you learn this afternoon?" inquired her father. "I sounded this Mrs. Jones out about the necklace, and she had never heard of any jewels at Dark Cedars. I believe her--I don't think she could have stolen that necklace--or her husband, either." "I never thought they did, for a minute. If the thief had been a colored person, you would have known it, I'm sure. The hands alone are different. Didn't you say that the hand that touched you was thin?" "Yes. Almost bony. That's one reason why I didn't suspect Elsie." "And how about Hannah? Did you learn her whereabouts last night?" "Yes," answered Mary Louise, and she told of the woman's visit, with her husband and sister, to the moving-picture house--an alibi which the girl could easily check up on tomorrow. "I hear Jane's whistle!" exclaimed Mr. Gay. "The young people want you, dear. You better go out with them and forget all this sad business for the rest of the evening. I think you need a little diversion." Mary Louise thought so too, and dashed off joyously to join her friends. CHAPTER XVII _The Empty House_ Mr. Gay was seated at the telephone table in the dining room the following morning when Mary Louise came downstairs to breakfast. She waited breathlessly for the news, for she felt sure that he was talking to some of the police about the whereabouts of Elsie Grant. "That's strange," she heard him say. "I can hardly believe it.... You checked up with the bus companies as well as the railroads?... O.K., then. Keep on searching," he concluded. Replacing the receiver, he turned to his daughter. "Not a trace of Elsie anywhere," he announced. Mary Louise smiled: she was almost glad that the girl had not been found. It gave her more time to believe in Elsie's innocence. "Do you think she could have been kidnaped, Daddy?" she inquired. "People are, pretty often, nowadays." "But they're always rich or important," returned Mr. Gay. "No: that's one of the blessings of being poor--nobody would kidnap Elsie Grant unless he knew that she had the ruby necklace. Then the criminal would be much more likely to steal it and let her go." "That's what I think," agreed Mary Louise.... "What are you going to do now?" "There's nothing more I can do. I suppose you are planning to go over to the hospital to see Miss Grant?" "Yes, for a few minutes after breakfast. Then--Daddy--" Mary Louise hesitated: she didn't want her father to laugh at her next request, but she just had to ask him--"would you be willing to go on a search with me through Cooper's woods? It's just possible that all our detective work may be wrong and my unsuspecting mother right. Elsie might be lost in Cooper's woods!" "I'm not going to smile," replied her father. "Because I think your suggestion is a very good one. Elsie may even be guilty of the thefts--and have the necklace and the gold pieces with her--and still be lost or hiding in those woods. I'll be glad to go with you." Mary Louise's brown eyes sparkled. What a good sport her father was! "Don't let's take the car, Daddy," she urged. "At least, not any farther than Dark Cedars. I'd like to set out from the back of Miss Grant's yard and try to trace Elsie's steps--with Silky to help us. If I get her old calico dress and shoes and let him sniff them, I think he'd understand." Mr. Gay gazed at his daughter admiringly. "Mary Lou, that is an idea!" he cried. "You're a better detective than I am." She blushed at the praise. "Wait till we see how my plan turns out," she answered. "It may lead to nothing at all.... Still, we'll be having fun. It'll be a regular hiking trip." "Of course it will be fun," agreed her father, for he loved the out-of-doors. "And we'll carry blankets in case we stay overnight." "What's this I hear?" demanded Mrs. Gay, appearing from the kitchen with the coffee pot in her hands. "What mischief are you two up to now?" "Only an all-day hike, my dear," explained Mr. Gay calmly. "You don't mind, do you? And will you drive us as far as Dark Cedars and bring the car back?" "Certainly," replied Mrs. Gay graciously. "May I go?" asked Freckles as he came into the dining room with Silky at his heels. "I'm afraid you'll have to stay home and take care of your mother, Son, for we may be gone overnight," replied his father. "But just wait till I get my real vacation, later on. We'll have a whale of a trip. All four of us together." "Don't you expect to be home in time for supper?" asked Mrs. Gay. "That all depends upon our luck." And Mr. Gay went on to explain to his wife the nature of their excursion and the reason for making it. While he assembled the necessary equipment for the hike, Mary Louise hurried off to the hospital to see Miss Grant. It was early, but she was told that she might go up to the patient's room immediately. The old lady was expecting her. Mary Louise found her looking pale and wasted, but her black eyes beamed as brightly as ever, and she smiled faintly at her visitor. "I brought you some flowers, Miss Grant," began the girl cheerfully as she handed them to the nurse. "And I'm so glad to hear that you are better." Miss Grant nodded her thanks and indicated that she wanted Mary Louise to sit down in the chair beside her high white bed. "Any news?" she asked in a weak but eager voice. Mary Louise shook her head. "Nothing more," she replied. "Mr. John Grant told you about my awful experience on Saturday night, didn't he?" "Yes. I was afraid something like that might happen. I'm sorry, Mary Louise, and thankful that you weren't injured." "You mean you're sorrier for me than for yourself--about losing the necklace?" asked the girl incredulously. This didn't sound at all like the miser she believed Miss Grant to be. "Yes, I am. Because, somehow, I never thought that necklace would do me any good. I should have been afraid to sell it for fear it would bring up some old scandal or some disgrace about my father. I don't know how he got hold of it--I was always afraid it had something to do with gambling or a bet of some kind--but I do know that my mother never approved of his keeping it. And so I'm almost thankful it's gone." "Who do you think could have taken it?" "Either the original owner--whoever he is--or my mother's ghost. You read of queer things like that sometimes, things that never can be explained by the living. Perhaps when we are dead we shall understand.... I don't know.... I dreamed about Mother night before last, and in the dream I promised her to throw away the necklace.... So I'm almost thankful it's gone." Mary Louise let out a sigh of relief. "I'm so glad it doesn't worry you, Miss Grant. I was afraid you'd suspect Elsie." The sick woman's eyes flashed angrily. "I do still suspect Elsie of taking my gold!" The old expression of greed crossed her face. "You haven't found it for me yet, have you, Mary Louise?" "No, I haven't, Miss Grant." "Where is Elsie?" was the next question. Mary Louise hesitated: she hated to answer this. "She is--lost. She went away yesterday--Sunday morning--and hasn't come back yet." Miss Grant nodded significantly. "I was expecting it. Well, you don't believe any longer that she's innocent, do you, Mary Louise?" "I'm still hoping," replied the girl. Miss Grant was silent for some minutes, and Mary Louise felt that it was time for her to go. But before she made a move, she told the sick woman of Hannah's decision to leave Dark Cedars, and she held out the key. "But I should like to keep it today, if you don't mind, Miss Grant," she added, "so I can get some clothing of Elsie's for Silky to sniff at. I want to take him down to the woods to see whether he can get on her trail." "Keep it as long as you want it," agreed the old lady. "If Hannah is gone, I shan't return to Dark Cedars very soon. John wants me to go to his home, anyhow, when I get out of the hospital, so I suppose I had better agree." "Do you want to see William about your cow and your garden?" inquired Mary Louise. "Yes, tell him to stop in to see me here at the hospital.... And now you had better go, child.... I'm very tired." Enormously relieved that the interview had been so easy, Mary Louise left the hospital and hurried back to her home. She met Jane Patterson as she entered her own gate. "What next?" inquired her chum, who had been told the previous evening of Elsie's disappearance. "Still acting the detective?" "I should say," answered Mary Louise. "Dad and I are going off now in search of Elsie." "Where are you going? Harrisburg?" "No. Cooper's woods. Want to come along, Jane?" The other girl shook her head. "I don't believe so. I have a tennis date with Norman, and Hope Dorsey is rounding up the crowd to drive over to a country fair tonight. She'll be furious if you don't go--and so will Max. Kenneth was expecting we'd bring Elsie Grant along." "I only wish we could!" sighed Mary Louise. "But maybe we shall be able to. Maybe we'll find her and bring her back home in time for supper." "And maybe not," remarked Jane. "I've got to be off now," concluded the other, giving her chum a hasty kiss. "Wish me good luck!" "You know I do!" was the reply. Mary Louise ran into the house and found her father all ready to start. He had made up a pack for each of them to carry; his own, the heavier, included a small tent for use if they were obliged to sleep in the woods. The food and equipment were sufficient but not overabundant, for Mr. Gay was a good camper and knew just what was necessary and what could be left at home. "Get into your knickers, Mary Lou," he advised. "And bring a sweater along." "You don't think we'll be cold?" "The woods are chilly at night." "Bring me back a bearskin," suggested Freckles jokingly. "I could use one." "I don't expect to shoot anything," replied his father. "But, of course, you never can tell." Half an hour later Mrs. Gay drove the two adventurers over to Dark Cedars and let them out at the hedge. Mary Louise, with Silky at her heels, led the way up to the house. "It is a gloomy-looking place," observed her father as he followed her through the trees. "Yet it could be made very attractive." Mary Louise shuddered. "Nobody would ever want to live here after all the ghost stories get around. You know how people exaggerate, and the stories are bad enough as they are." "The porch certainly needs paint and repairs. It's a wonder Miss Grant hasn't fallen down and broken her neck." Mary Louise inserted her key in the lock and opened the heavy wooden door. Inside, the shutters were carefully closed, and the dark, somber house seemed almost like a tomb. The stairs creaked ominously as the two ascended them, and Mary Louise was thankful that she was not alone. After that one experience in Miss Grant's bedroom, she never knew what strange creature might rush at her from the big, dark closet. "I can hardly see where I'm going," remarked Mr. Gay. "You better take my hand, Mary Lou." His daughter seized it gladly; she was only too pleased to feel its human, reassuring pressure. She led the way to the rear of the second floor, up the attic steps to Elsie's room. Here they found one of the windows open, so that a subdued light brightened the attic room. But there was no sunshine, for the boughs of the cedar trees pressed against the window sill. Silky had been following them at a respectful distance, and Mary Louise lifted him up in her arms as she opened the closet door. A musty smell greeted her, but she had no difficulty in finding the clothing she wanted, and she held it close to Silky's nose. "This is Elsie's," she said, just as if the dog were human. "Elsie is lost, and you must find her." Still keeping the dog in her arms and the dress close to his nose, she carefully descended the stairs. "I'd like to see Miss Grant's bedroom," said Mr. Gay as they reached the second floor. "I want a look at the mattress." "O.K., Daddy. But you go first. And have your gun ready if you open that closet door. I think that's where the ghosts live." "Mary Lou!" cried her father in amazement. "You don't believe that stuff, do you?" "I wish I did," sighed the girl. "Because that would make Elsie innocent." "You are very fond of Elsie, aren't you, Daughter?" "She seemed so sweet. And all our crowd liked her." Mr. Gay went to the window of Miss Grant's room and threw open the shutter to let in the light. Just as Mary Louise had said, the mattress was literally torn to pieces. Piles of straw were heaped on the floor, and the ragged covering was strewn all over the room. Mr. Gay examined it, and Mary Louise walked over to the side window--the one under which William's ladder had been found. "Even a piece from the mattress is on this window ledge," she remarked as she pulled out a long strip of material. She examined it more closely. Suddenly her eyes blinked in excitement. "This isn't mattress cover, Daddy!" she exclaimed. "It's clothing material! Blue sateen! From--somebody's dress!" Mr. Gay reached the window in two quick steps. "What do you make of that, Mary Lou?" he demanded. "I think it must be a piece from the thief's clothing!" she cried in delight. "And I don't believe it's Elsie's. Unless she was wearing some old dress of her aunt's." "I hope you're right," said Mr. Gay. "Put the strip into your pocket. Crimes have been solved on slimmer evidence than that." He turned aside. "There are no ghosts in the closet, Mary Lou," he announced solemnly. "I just looked." "Then let's leave, Daddy. I'm 'rarin' to go'--because--well--because I have another reason now besides wanting to find Elsie!" "You suspect somebody definitely?" he inquired. "Yes. But don't ask me whom--yet. Just let's go." Still holding on to Elsie's calico dress, Mary Louise led the way out of the house and around to the back yard of Dark Cedars. Here they found William complacently working in the garden, as if nothing had ever happened to disturb the peace at Miss Grant's home. He looked up and smiled at Mary Louise. "Elsie didn't come back, did she, William?" asked the girl. The old man shook his head. "Nope," he replied. "Any more chickens stolen?" "Nope." "Well, we're off to hunt Elsie--my father and I," explained Mary Louise. "And, by the way, William, Miss Grant wants you to stop in to see her at the hospital." "I'll do that," agreed the man. "And good luck to ye!" "Thanks, William," returned Mary Louise. "Good-bye." She and her father walked on down the hill towards the little shack where the colored family lived, and stopped there to inquire again about Elsie. But Mrs. Jones had not seen her since the previous morning; however, she pointed out just what path the girl had taken. So Mary Louise put Silky on the trail, and the three began their search. CHAPTER XVIII _Found!_ With Silky in the lead, Mr. Gay and Mary Louise followed the path behind Dark Cedars which led directly into Cooper's woods. It was new to them both, for although they had gone to these woods many times, they had always entered from the road that ran past the creek and the swimming hole. "It's much cooler this way," observed the girl. "So nice and shady." "Silky seems to know what he's doing," remarked her father. "He's going straight ahead." "I'm afraid he's making for the swimming hole," returned Mary Louise. "He loves a swim as much as we do." "Do you want to stop for one?" "I'd like to, but I don't think we better. It would take too much time, dressing and undressing." "Maybe we can have one on our way back." "Yes, maybe," agreed Mary Louise. "I ought to have brought Elsie's suit, so that if we find her she could go with us. She loved it on Saturday." "I'm afraid you're being a little too optimistic, Daughter," replied Mr. Gay. "Don't get your hopes up too high." The path grew wide again as they approached the swimming hole, and when they arrived at the stream Mary Louise took off her pack and sat down under a tree. About a dozen children were playing about in the water, and Mary Louise threw a stick into the stream as a signal for Silky to jump in. In another minute the children were romping with him. Then they came out and crowded around Mary Louise, admiring the spaniel and asking his name. "You didn't see a girl about fifteen years old in a green silk dress, did you, children?" she inquired. They shook their heads. "Were any of you here yesterday morning?" asked Mr. Gay. Two of the older boys replied that they had been there. "Did you see the girl then?" persisted the man. One boy thought that he did remember seeing a young lady--"all dressed up in a silk dress." But she hadn't stopped at the pool; she had crossed the bridge fifty yards below and had taken the path right back into the deepest part of the woods. Mary Louise jumped to her feet. "Come on, Daddy! Let's get going!" "How about eating some of those sandwiches your mother packed for us?" suggested her father. "Oh, no--not yet!" protested Mary Louise. "It's only eleven o'clock." She turned to the boys. "Have you seen any gypsies around?" "A couple of days ago," was the answer. "I heard they moved on towards Coopersburg. A fellow I know was over there last night and saw them telling fortunes." "What's the best way to Coopersburg?" inquired Mary Louise. "Through the woods is shortest, I guess. But I don't know if there's any path. We always go around by the road." "We were going through the woods anyhow," said Mary Louise. To her father she added, "I do want to see those gypsies again, almost as much as I want to find Elsie." She whistled for Silky, and he came running out of the water, shaking himself joyously and rolling over and over on the grass. "He's forgotten all about the trail he's supposed to be following," remarked Mary Louise, producing the purple calico dress. "Come here, Silky, and sniff this again." The couple turned their steps to the bridge and soon were out of the open space, back in the cool shade of the woods. Here the path was narrow and deeply shaded, so that they had to walk single file for a long distance, sometimes picking their way carefully among the thick undergrowth. About noon they stopped to eat the sandwiches which Mrs. Gay had packed and to drink the iced-tea from the thermos bottle. "It's still a long walk to Coopersburg," sighed Mary Louise. "I'd forgotten how these woods wound around. I don't believe I ever walked this way before." "Are you tired?" inquired her father. "A little. But mostly hot. I'll soon cool off." "We won't try to walk back," replied Mr. Gay. "If we don't find Elsie, we can take a bus back from Coopersburg." "I don't think we should do that, Daddy," argued Mary Louise. "If we don't find her or the gypsies either, I think we should come back here and camp for the night. That would give us a chance to make a more thorough search of the woods tomorrow. Because we might easily miss Elsie just by keeping on this path, as we are doing now." "Why do you want to find the gypsies, Mary Lou?" "They may have seen Elsie. For fifty cents that fortune teller will give you any information you want." Mr. Gay smiled. "I'm afraid she'd make up anything she didn't know," he remarked. "Well, she was right about Jane's lost ring--and about the ruby necklace," Mary Louise reminded him. "John Grant said so." "Yes, but she used her common sense in the first case, and in the second, she may have heard a rumor about the necklace--especially if this particular band of gypsies has been coming to this neighborhood for years.... I wouldn't attach too much faith to these people, Daughter." They gathered up the remains of their picnic lunch and started forward again, with Silky in the lead. On and on they walked for several hours, talking very little, and stopping only now and then for a drink of water from a spring or two which they passed. About three o'clock they came to a widening of the path, and through the trees they could see the fields that surrounded the town of Coopersburg. With a new burst of energy Mary Louise started to run forward. "I see some tents, Daddy!" she cried. "And that caravan! Oh, I'm sure it's the gypsies." "Don't run, Mary Lou!" called her father. "With that heavy pack on your back! I'm afraid you'll hurt yourself." "I can't wait, Daddy." But she stopped and turned around, removing the pack from her shoulders. "You keep the packs, Daddy," she said when he had caught up to her, "and I'll go ahead. I'd rather see the fortune teller by myself, anyhow. But stay where I can see you--within calling distance. And if I don't come back in half an hour, come and look for me." "Mary Lou, are you expecting any trouble from these gypsies?" "You never can tell!" she laughingly replied. Blowing him a kiss with her hand, she started to run towards the encampment. When she was about fifty yards away she saw the same children whom she had noticed the day of the picnic, and she looked eagerly for the fortune teller. A few yards farther on she recognized the woman, coming from one of the tents. It seemed to Mary Louise that an expression of terror crossed the gypsy's face as the woman caught sight of her. But only for a second; in a moment she was grinning and showing all the gaps in her front teeth. "Fortune?" she asked immediately, as Mary Louise approached her. "Yes--that is--not exactly," replied the girl. However, she held up a silver half dollar in her hand, and the gypsy turned and lifted the flap of the tent. "Bring the cards out here," suggested Mary Louise, glancing back towards the woods to make sure that her father was within sight. "It's too hot to go inside." The woman nodded and took the dirty pack of cards out of the pocket of her dress. "Sit down," she commanded, and Mary Louise did as she was told. The oddly assorted pair stared at each other for a moment in silence. Mary Louise's eyes traveled slowly about the gypsy woman, from the top of her black head to the tips of her big old shoes. She examined her dress--of the same deep-blue color which she was wearing the day of the picnic--and she looked at her thin, bony, yet strong hands.... Then, very deliberately, Mary Louise reached into the pocket of her knickers and brought out the strip of blue sateen which she had taken from the window ledge in Miss Mattie Grant's bedroom at Dark Cedars. With a triumphant gleam in her eyes, she held the piece of torn material close to the gypsy's dress. Dirty and spotted as it was, there could be no doubt of its identity. It was a perfect match! A wild gasp of terror escaped from the gypsy's lips, and she made a grab at the condemning piece of evidence. But Mary Louise was too quick for her. Springing to her feet, she leaned over and hit the woman right in the mouth with her clenched fist. The gypsy groaned and rolled over in the grass. Amazed at her own action, Mary Louise stood gazing at the woman in calm triumph. It had been years since she had hit anyone; she was surprised that she had it in her to deal such a blow. But the gypsy was not knocked out--merely stunned. "Where is Miss Grant's necklace?" she demanded. The woman opened her eyes and whimpered. "It don't belong to that old witch! It's mine, I tell you! Was my mother's, and her mother's before that. Old woman Grant had no right to it." She raised herself to a sitting position, and her black eyes flashed with hatred. "You wait till my man comes back--and see what he'll do to you!" Mary Louise smiled confidently. "I don't intend to wait," she replied. "I have a member of the police force right here with me." She raised her voice and cupped her hands. "Daddy, come!" A look of awful fright crossed the gypsy's wrinkled face. "No! No! Don't put me in jail! I'll give you the necklace. But it's mine--it's mine by right, I tell you!" Mary Louise was scarcely listening, so eagerly was she watching her father's quick approach. "You can tell that to Detective Gay," she said finally. "And, by the way, where is the box of gold pieces you stole from Miss Grant?" "Gold pieces? What? Uh--I never took----" But her tone was not convincing, and seeing that Mary Louise did not believe her, she suddenly changed her story. "I'll give you the gold pieces if you let me keep my mother's necklace," she pleaded. Mr. Gay reached his daughter's side in time to overhear this last statement. His eyes were shining at his daughter in speechless admiration. "Your badge, please, Daddy," said Mary Louise calmly. "Please show it to this woman." Mr. Gay did as he was requested. "Now go and get the necklace and the gold," Mary Louise commanded the gypsy. The woman struggled to her feet. "First let me tell you about that necklace!" she begged. Her bony hands clutched Mary Louise's sleeve, and she looked imploringly into the girl's face. "It was a precious heirloom--has been in our family for years and years. We held it sacred; it brought us good luck. Oh, I can't bear to give it up now that I've got it again!" Mary Louise glanced questioningly at her father. "Sit down again," he said to the gypsy, "and tell us the story." "Thank you, sir!" exclaimed the woman, dropping down on the grass at his feet. "I'll tell you.... "It goes back fifty years," she began, talking rapidly, "in my mother's time, when we used to come here to Cooper's woods to camp every summer.... I was a child--and so was my little brother. A little fellow of six--my mother's darling.... "One day he got suddenly sick. A terrible pain in his side. My mother almost went crazy, for she felt sure he was going to die. We couldn't do a thing for him; the pain got worse and worse and worse. Then, like a burst of sunshine after a storm, Mr. Grant came riding up to us--and stopped and asked what was the matter. I can remember just how he looked--not a bit like his awful daughter Mattie! He promised to help us, to take my little brother to the hospital and get him well. "My mother agreed, and she went off with Mr. Grant and the boy. They told her there at the hospital that the child had appendicitis, and Mr. Grant ordered the best doctor in the country.... And my brother got well! "My mother was so happy that we thought she'd dance forever. She wanted to pay Mr. Grant for the expense, but he was such a generous man he wouldn't hear of it. So my mother gave him the ruby necklace to keep for her and said she'd be back every summer to see it. If ever Mr. Grant needed money, he was to borrow on it. "He promised to keep it safe for her, but he never thought of it as his. Each summer we came back and camped on his place--we were always welcome while he lived--and each year we saw the necklace, and he would ask us whether we wanted to take it back. But we said no, because it was safer there, and he was our friend, and we trusted him. "And then one summer we came back, and old Mr. Grant was gone. Dead. So we tried to tell Miss Mattie Grant about the necklace, but she shut the door in our faces and called the police. For years we couldn't even come out of Cooper's woods without meeting a policeman. "Then my mother died, and my brother died, and I decided I was going to get that necklace back. So this year we came and camped in those woods, and every night I went over to Dark Cedars. Sometimes I'd sneak in while they were eating supper; sometimes I'd climb in a window with a ladder late at night. I began in the attic and went through each room, searching for the necklace. "The first time I got into Mattie Grant's room--it was one evening last week, while they were eating supper--I opened that safe of hers. I was sure the necklace would be there. But it wasn't. I was so mad that I took that box of gold, although I hadn't stolen anything out of her house before that." While the woman paused for breath, Mary Louise recalled the evening of the theft of Miss Grant's money. This, then, was the explanation of the open safe, from which Corinne Pearson had taken the bills. And it proved, too, that Harry Grant had been innocent of any part in the actual theft. The gypsy woman continued her story: "It was you, miss, who gave me the information I wanted, the day you girls and boys had your fortunes told. You told me old Mattie asked you to sleep in her bed while she was away. So I knew that the necklace must be hidden in the mattress.... "You know the rest. I went to Dark Cedars while you were still at your picnic, and I thought I'd get the necklace before you came home. But you surprised me, and I had to hide in the closet while you got ready for bed.... I--I--didn't want to hurt you! I only wanted what belonged to me!" Tears were running out of the woman's eyes, and she rubbed her hands together in anguish, as if she were imploring Mary Louise for mercy. "What do you say, Mary Lou?" asked her father. Mary Louise hesitated. "I--I--honestly believe she has more right to that necklace than Miss Grant has," she answered finally. "So, if she will turn over the box of gold, I'm for letting her keep the necklace.... But what do you think, Daddy?" "It's your case, dear. You are to decide." "Suppose you go with her, Daddy, while she gets both things. And be sure to keep your revolver handy, too," she added shrewdly. Mr. Gay smiled: he was delighted with his daughter's keenness. The gypsy nodded and, stepping inside her tent, produced the box of gold. The identical tin box which Elsie had mentioned. The necklace she took from a pocket in her petticoat. Meekly she handed both treasures to Mr. Gay. "How beautiful that necklace is!" cried Mary Louise, in admiration of the sparkling jewels. It was the first time in her life that she had ever seen real rubies, and their radiance, their brilliance, was breath-taking. "I love them dearly," said the gypsy, in a hoarse tone, filled with emotion. Mary Louise took the necklace from her father and handed it back to its real owner. "You may have it," she said slowly. "I'll take the gold back to Miss Grant. But first I must count it." "It's all there," mumbled the woman, her hands fondling the beloved rubies. Mary Louise found her statement to be correct, and, handing the box back to her father, she turned to go. "Oh, I almost forgot!" she exclaimed, glancing at the gypsy. "Have you seen a young girl anywhere around here--or in the woods?" Before the woman could answer, Silky, who had run straight to the motor truck, began to bark loudly and incessantly. Putting his front feet on the step, he peered eagerly into the caravan, and increased his noise until it reached a volume of which a police dog might have been proud. Nor did he stop until a head showed itself from the door and a voice called him by name. Mary Louise, watching the little drama, suddenly cried out in joy. The girl coming from the caravan was none other than Elsie Grant! CHAPTER XIX _Conclusion_ Mary Louise threw her arms around Elsie and hugged her tightly. It was so good to know that she was innocent--and safe! "You've found the gold pieces!" exclaimed the girl, staring at the box in Mr. Gay's hand. "And the necklace!" she added, as the gypsy proudly put on the jewels and went off to show her people. "Yes, I'll tell you all about it later," replied Mary Louise. "But first I want to hear about you, Elsie: why you are here, and how these gypsies have been treating you." "They've been treating me splendidly! Much better than Aunt Mattie ever did. You see, they liked my father and my grandfather, and they hated Aunt Mattie. So of course they have a lot of sympathy for me." "But when did you come to them?" "Yesterday afternoon. I was perfectly miserable after Saturday night. I knew Jane suspected me of doing that terrible thing to you, and I never slept a wink the whole night. So I decided to run away. I didn't think of the gypsies at the time: I just wanted to get out of Riverside. I put on the green silk dress you gave me, and tied up my other things in a bundle, and made off through the woods so that I wouldn't meet anybody." "Mrs. Jones saw you go," said Mary Louise. "It was she who put Daddy and Silky and me on the trail." "I took some fruit and some biscuits from the kitchen at Dark Cedars," Elsie went on to explain. "I thought I'd walk to the nearest town and ask for work. Now that I have some decent clothes, I don't feel ashamed to be seen." "But you came upon the gypsies before you got to any town?" inquired Mr. Gay, who couldn't keep out of the conversation, although he had not been properly introduced. "Yes. And I was tired and hungry, so I thought maybe they'd let me stay overnight with them. They were stewing chicken, and it smelled so good." "Your aunt Mattie's chickens," explained Mary Louise laughingly. "Really?" asked Elsie in surprise. The idea had not occurred to her. "Yes. Mrs. Jones saw the gypsies stealing the chickens.... Well, did they give you some supper?" "They certainly did. Mira--she is the fortune teller--let me sleep in her tent. She said she used to play with my father when he was a little boy, when my grandfather--old Mr. Grant, you recall--let the gypsies camp at Dark Cedars. She told me I could stay with them all my life if I wanted to." "You didn't expect to do it, did you?" "I wanted to get a job. But there isn't much I can do, I'm afraid." The young girl's voice grew sad; the future looked gray to her. Mary Louise took her hand. "You're coming right back to Riverside with Daddy and me," she announced. "Your aunt Mattie will have to promise to treat you better, or else she won't get her gold pieces back!" "She'll be furious about the necklace," said Elsie. "No, she won't either. I happen to know that she'll be thankful to have the matter all cleared up. And she'll be delighted to get the money, because that is rightfully hers." Mr. Gay leaned over and picked up his pack. "You go get your things together, Elsie," he said, "and say good-bye to your gypsy friends. We'll take a bus back to Riverside from Coopersburg." "You really want me?" asked the girl. "Absolutely!" replied Mary Louise. "You're going to go to high school this fall, I hope, and belong to our crowd of young people. All the boys and girls like you." Elsie's face lighted up with a happy smile. "And I like them, too--but you and Jane will always come first. Oh, I'm so glad that Jane will believe in me again!" Ten minutes later the two girls and Mr. Gay were seated in the bus bound for Riverside. Mary Louise held Silky in her arms under her pack when she got in, and the conductor did not even notice him. She was thankful for that, because she was much too tired to walk. They went straight to the Gays' home, taking Elsie with them. Mrs. Gay was sitting on the front porch, little thinking that her two adventurers would return so soon. She jumped up in delight when she saw them coming in at the gate. "And is this Elsie?" she asked as the three tired wanderers ascended the porch steps. "Yes, Mother, this is Elsie Grant," replied Mary Louise. "We found her, and we caught the thief too. It was the gypsy fortune teller." "Well, of all things!" exclaimed Mrs. Gay. "And had she kidnaped Elsie too?" "Oh no, Elsie went there voluntarily, because everybody suspected her of the crime, and she was unhappy. But Elsie had no idea the gypsy was the thief, until she heard us accusing her." "If I'd only have been a detective like Mary Louise," the girl remarked admiringly, "I might have guessed. But I'm pretty stupid about things like that. I even ate some of Aunt Mattie's chicken for my supper last night without ever guessing that the gypsies stole it." Mrs. Gay laughed. "Well, it certainly is nice to have you all back again. We'll have a fine dinner to celebrate--I'll send Freckles for ice cream when he comes in." She stooped over and patted the little dog's head. "Silky shall have some too. He loves ice cream." Mary Louise took Elsie up to her room, and the two girls lay down on the bed to rest after they had removed their dusty clothing and cooled themselves under the shower. At five o'clock Mrs. Gay came in with the news that Jane Patterson was downstairs, asking for her chum. "Please tell her to come up, Mother," replied Mary Louise. "I can't understand why she is being so formal." "She knows Elsie is here," explained Mrs. Gay, "and thought you might not like to be disturbed." "Does she know I didn't steal the money or the necklace?" demanded Elsie eagerly. "Mary Louise's father is telling her the story now. Freckles just came in, and he had to hear all about it too. He's almost as keen to become a detective as Mary Louise is." Mrs. Gay returned to the first floor, and in a couple of minutes Jane Patterson dashed into the bedroom. She hugged both Elsie and Mary Louise at once. "You're a wonder, Mary Lou!" she cried. "Sherlock Holmes, and Philo Vance, and Spencer Dean haven't a thing on you for solving mysteries. Why, I bet your father loses his job and they hire you in his place!" "Now, Jane, be rational!" begged Mary Louise. The visitor seated herself upon the edge of the bed. "All right, I'll try.... What I came over about was to see whether you and Elsie can go with our crowd to that country fair tonight. We're leaving early after supper, and Mother and Dad are both going along. You can take Freckles too--but not Silky. He might get into a fight with the cows or pigs or something." "Don't insult my dog!" returned Mary Louise solemnly. "Silky never associates with pigs!" "O.K.... Well, can you go?" "We'd love to, but don't you think we ought to take Miss Grant's money back to her?" "Not tonight, certainly!" was Jane's emphatic reply. "Let her worry about it a little longer--it's good for her." "But shouldn't I go over to see her?" asked Elsie. "Tomorrow's time enough for that," answered Mary Louise. "You can stay all night with me tonight." Mrs. Gay heartily approved of the plan, for she felt that both her daughter and Elsie needed a little diversion, and so for the time being the adventure at Dark Cedars was completely forgotten. Early after supper the young people drove off in four cars and enjoyed themselves thoroughly until nearly midnight. But both Elsie and Mary Louise awakened early the following morning, intent upon tying up the few remaining threads of the mystery at Dark Cedars. Mary Louise had been hoping, ever since she found Elsie, that the girl would be invited to live at the home of Mrs. Grace Grant--if her aunt Mattie would agree to contribute something towards her support. With this plan in her mind, she turned Elsie over to Jane to entertain for the morning, and she herself went directly to the Grants' home in Riverside. She was fortunate in catching John Grant before he left for business, for she believed him to be an ally. He and his mother were seated at the breakfast table when she arrived. The maid brought her right into the dining room. "Good-morning, Mrs. Grant--and Mr. Grant," she began brightly. "I must apologize for this early call, but I have great news. We caught the thief!" John Grant, who had risen at Mary Louise's entrance, stepped forward excitedly. "Not really?" he demanded. "Do you mean Elsie?" "No, Mr. Grant, Elsie is not a thief. It was the gypsy fortune teller." And Mary Louise went on to explain the story of the necklace as the woman had told it to her. She concluded with the finding of Elsie. "The poor child has been perfectly miserable all the time she lived with her aunt Mattie," she said. "So I wondered--if I can make Miss Grant pay something towards her support--whether she couldn't live here. She needs someone like you, Mrs. Grant, to be a mother to her." The old lady's kind heart was touched. "Of course she can live here!" she exclaimed, "whether Mattie contributes towards her support or not. We'll manage somehow. Don't you think we can, John?" "I have thought so all along," replied her son. "Elsie should go to high school, like other normal young girls." Mary Louise seized the hands of both people at once. She was wild with joy at the success of her plan. "I'm going straight to the hospital now," she said, picking up the heavy tin box which she had laid on a small table in the dining room, "to see what kind of bargain I can drive with Miss Grant!" John laughed. "You have the gold?" he asked. "Yes. But I'm not going to give it to her till she makes me some sort of promise." "Let me drive you over," he suggested. "That box must be heavy." "It has five hundred dollars in gold in it," returned Mary Louise. "I counted it, to make sure. Probably Miss Grant will offer me ten dollars as a reward." "I can believe that," agreed Mrs. Grant. "She certainly is stingy. Poor little Elsie!" Five minutes later John Grant left Mary Louise at the entrance to the hospital, and the girl carried her heavy box up to the patient's room. But it was carefully wrapped and tied, so that Miss Grant had no idea what it contained. The old lady was looking much brighter this morning. She smiled pleasantly as her young friend entered. "Mary Louise!" she exclaimed. "Any news?" "Lots of news," replied the girl, seating herself in the chair beside the bed. "Do you feel equal to hearing it?" "I certainly do. Have you found my money?" "I want to tell you the story straight from the beginning. But before I do that, I want to assure you that Elsie is innocent. We found the real thief, and we also found Elsie. She ran away because she was unhappy." Miss Grant's eyes sparkled with eagerness. "Never mind about Elsie now. Tell me who stole my money." "One of the gypsies," replied Mary Louise. "I can give it to you if you'll promise to donate some of it for Elsie's support. Mrs. Grace Grant wants her to live with them, but you know how poor she is now." "All right, all right, I'll give you fifty dollars if you get it all back for me! Where is it?" "I'll tell you in a minute." Mary Louise couldn't help enjoying teasing the miserly woman in retaliation for the way she had treated Elsie. "But it isn't a case of giving fifty dollars now. It's rather that you pay Mrs. Grant something--say twenty dollars a month--as your share towards Elsie's support." Miss Grant groaned. "For how long?" she demanded. "Till Elsie finishes high school." "That's a lot of money.... Still, I wouldn't have to have the child around. And she does irritate me.... Yes, I'll agree. Where is my money?" Mary Louise unwrapped her box and put it down upon the white bed. Miss Grant reached for it as a child might grab at his Christmas stocking. She opened it and immediately began to count the gold pieces. "It's all here!" she cried exultantly. Mary Louise nodded. "Shall I tell you the story now--about the necklace?" she inquired. "Yes, yes. I had forgotten the necklace. Where is it?" "I'm afraid you won't get that, Miss Grant, because it never really belonged to your father." And Mary Louise went on to relate the gypsy's story. Still fingering the gold, the old lady listened intently. "Yes, that sounds right to me," she agreed, as the story ended. "I am thankful that the necklace is back with its rightful owner. That would please my mother. Maybe now Dark Cedars will be a more peaceful place to live." "I believe it will be," concluded Mary Louise as she rose to go. "Here is your key, Miss Grant--and--good-bye!" "Wait, Mary Louise! I want to give you forty dollars--in gold. You can give ten to Jane, as I promised her, but I think you deserve thirty. You're a good, clever girl!" Mary Louise shook her head. "No, thank you, Miss Grant. What I did, I did because of my love and sympathy for Elsie. If you will treat her fairly, that is all the reward I want." The old lady gazed at the girl in amazement at her refusal. But she saw that she meant what she said; perhaps Mary Louise's generosity put her to shame. "I will, Mary Louise," she promised solemnly. "I will indeed." So, well satisfied with the happy solution of the mystery at Dark Cedars, Mary Louise hurried back to tell Elsie Grant the good news about her new home and the four happy years at high school which were in store for her. * * * * * * Transcriber's note: --Retained publication and copyright information from the printed exemplar (this book is public-domain in the U.S.). --Obvious typographical errors were corrected without comment. Possibly intentional spelling variations were not changed. 
36873	----	A Fluttered Dovecote By George Manville Fenn Illustrations by Gordon Browne Published by D. Appleton and Company, New York. This edition dated 1890. A Fluttered Dovecote, by George Manville Fenn. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ A FLUTTERED DOVECOTE, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN. CHAPTER ONE. MEMORY THE FIRST--MAMMA MAKES A DISCOVERY. Oh, dear! You will excuse me for a moment? I must take another sheet of paper--I, Laura Bozerne, virgin and martyr, of Chester Square, Belgravia--for that last sheet was all spotted with tears, and when I applied my handkerchief, and then the blotting-paper, the glaze was gone and the ink ran. _Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute_, the French say, but it is not true. However, I have made up my mind to write this history of my sufferings, so to begin. Though what the world would call young--eighteen--I feel so old--ah! so old--and my life would fill volumes--thick volumes--with thrilling incidents; but a natural repugnance to publicity forces me to confine myself to the adventures of one single year, whose eventful hours were numbered, whose days were one chaos of excitement or rack of suspense. How are the scenes brought vividly before my mind's eye as I turn over the leaves of my poor blotted diary, and recognise a tear blister here, and recall the blistering; a smear there; or find the writing illegible from having been hastily closed when wet, on account of the prying advance of some myrmidon of tyranny when the blotting-paper was not at hand. Faces too familiar rise before me, to smile or frown, as my associations with them were grave or gay. Now I shudder--now I thrill with pleasure; now it is a frown that contracts my brow, now a smile curls my lip; while the tears, "Oh, ye tears!"--by the way, it is irrelevant, but I have the notes of a poem on tears, a subject not yet hackneyed, while it seems to me to be a theme that flows well--"tears, fears, leers, jeers," and so on. Oh! if I had only possessed yellow hair and violet eyes, and determination, what I might have been! If I had only entered this great world as one of those delicious heroines, so masculine, so superior, that our authors vividly paint--although they might be engravings, they are so much alike. If I had but stood with flashing eyes a Lady Audley, a Mrs Armitage, the heroine of "Falkner Lyle," or any other of those charming creatures, I could have been happy in defying the whips and stings, and all that sort of thing; but now, alas! alack!--ah, what do I say?--my heart is torn, wrecked, crushed. Hope is dead and buried; while love--ah, me! But I will not anticipate. I pen these lines solely to put forth my claims for the sympathy of my sex, which will, I am sure, with one heart, throb and bleed for my sorrows. That my readers may never need a similar expression of sympathy is the fond wish of a wrecked heart. Yes, I am eighteen, and dwelling in a wilderness--Chester Square is where papa's residence (town residence) is situated. But it is a wilderness to me. The flowers coaxed by the gardener to grow in the square garden seem tame in colour and inodorous; the gate gives me a shudder as I pass through, when it grits with the dust in its hinges, and always loudly; while mischievous boys are constantly inserting small pebbles in the dusty lock to break the wards of the key. It is a wilderness to me; and though this heart may become crusted with bitterness, and too much hardened and callous, yet never, ah! never, will it be what it was a year ago. I am writing this with a bitter smile upon my lips, which I cannot convey to paper; but I have chosen the hardest and scratchiest pen I could find, I am using red ink, and there are again blurs and spots upon the paper where tears have removed the glaze--for I always like very highly glazed note. I did think of writing this diary in my own life's current, but my reason told me that it would only be seen by the blackened and brutal printers; and therefore, as I said before, I am using red ink, and sitting writing by the front drawing-room window, where it is so much lighter, where the different passing vehicles can be seen, and the noise of those horrid men saying "Ciss, ciss," in the mews at the back cannot be heard. Ah! but one year ago, and I was happy! I recall it as if but yesterday. We were sitting at breakfast, and I remember thinking what a pity it was to be obliged to sit down, and crease and take the stiffening out of the clean muslin I wore, one that really seemed almost perfection as I came downstairs, when suddenly mamma--who was reading that horrid provincial paper--stopped papa just as he raised a spoonful of egg to his lips, and made him start so that he dropped a portion upon his beard. "Excelsior!" exclaimed mamma. "Which is?" said papa, making the table-cloth all yellow. "Only listen," said mamma, and she commenced reading an atrocious advertisement, while I was so astonished at the unwonted vivacity displayed, that I left off skimming the last number of _The World_, and listened as well while she read the following dreadful notice:-- "The Cedars, Allsham.--Educational Establishment for a limited number of young ladies"--(limited to all she could get). "Lady principal, Mrs Fortesquieu de Blount"--(an old wretch); "French, Monsieur de Tiraille; German, Fraulein Liebeskinden; Italian, Signor Pazzoletto; singing, Fraulein Liebeskinden, R.A.M., and Signor Pazzoletto, R.A.M." (the result of whose efforts was to make us poor victims sing in diphthongs or the union of vowels--Latin and Teutonic); "pianoforte, Fraulein Liebeskinden; dancing and deportment, Monsieur de Kittville; English, Mrs Fortesquieu de Blount, assisted by fully qualified teachers. This establishment combines the highest educational phases with the comforts of a home,"--(Now is it not as wicked to write stories as to say them? Of course it is; and as, according to the paper, their circulation was three thousand a week, and there are fifty-two weeks in a year, that wicked old tabby in that one case told just one hundred and six thousand fibs in the twelvemonth; while if I were to analyse the whole advertisement, _comme ca_, the amount would be horrible)--"Mrs Fortesquieu de Blount having made it her study to eliminate every failing point in the older systems of instructions and scholastic internal management, has formed the present institution upon a basis of the most firm, satisfactory, and lasting character." (Would you think it possible that mammas who pride themselves upon their keenness would be led away and believe such nonsense?) "The staff of assistants has been most carefully selected--the highest testimonials having in every case been considered of little avail, unless accompanied by tangible proof of long and arduous experience." Such stuff! And then there was ever so much more--and there was quite a quarrel once about paying for the advertisement, it came to so much-- about forks and spoons and towels, and advantages of situation in a sanitary point of view, and beauty of scenery, and references to bishops, priests, and deacons, deans and canons, two M.D.s and a Sir Somebody Something, Bart. I won't mention his name, for I'm sure he must be quite sufficiently ashamed of it by this time, almost as much so as those high and mighty peers who have been cured of their ailments for so many years by the quack medicines. But there, mamma read it all through, every bit, mumbling dreadfully, as she always has ever since she had those new teeth with the patent base. "Well, but there isn't anything about excelsior," said papa. "No, of course not," said mamma. "I meant that it was the very thing for Laura. Finishing, you know." "Well, it does sound pretty good," said papa. "I don't care so long as it isn't Newnham or Girton, and wanting to ride astride horses." "My dear!" said mamma. "Well, that's what they're all aiming at now," cried papa. "We shall have you on horseback in Rotten Row next." "My love!" "I should do a bit of Banting first," continued papa, with one of those sneers against mamma's _embonpoint_ which do make her so angry. And then, after a great deal of talking and arguing, in which of course mamma must have it all her own way, and me not consulted a bit, they settled that mamma was to write to Allsham, and then if the letter in reply proved satisfactory, she was to go down at once and see the place. If she liked it, I was to spend a year there for a finishing course of education; for they would not call it--as I spitefully told papa they ought to--they would not call it sending me back to school; and it was too bad, after promising that the two years I passed in the convent at Guisnes should be the last. Yes: too bad. I could not help it if my grammar was what papa called, in his slangy way, "horribly slack." I never did like that horrid parsing, and I'm sure it comes fast enough with reading. Soeur Celine never found fault with my French grammatical construction when I wrote letters to her, and I wrote one that very day; for it did seem such a horrid shame to treat me in so childish a way. And while I was writing--or rather, while I was sitting at the window, thinking of what to say, and biting the end of my pen--who should come by but the new curate, Mr Saint Purre, of Saint Sympathetica's, and when he saw how mournful I looked, he raised his hat with such a sad smile, and passed on. By the way, what an improvement it is, the adoption of the beard in the church. Mr Saint Purre's is one of the most beautiful black, glossy, silky beards ever seen; and I'm sure I thought so then, when I was writing about going back to school--a horrible, hateful place! How I bit my lips and shook my head! I could have cried with vexation, but I would not let a soul see it; for there are some things to which I could not stoop. In fact, after the first unavailing remonstrance, if it had been to send me to school for life, I would not have said another word. For only think of what mamma said, and she must have told papa what she thought. Such dreadful ideas. "You are becoming too fond of going to church, Laura," she said with a meaning look. "I'm afraid we did wrong in letting you go to the sisters." "Absurd, mamma!" I cried. "No one can be too religious." "Oh, yes, my dear, they can," said mamma, "when they begin to worship idols." "What do you mean, mamma?" I cried, blushing, for there was a curious meaning in her tone. "Never mind, my dear," she said, tightening her lips. "Your papa quite agreed with me that you wanted a change." "But I don't, mamma," I pleaded. "Oh yes you do, my dear," she continued, "you are getting wasted and wan, and too fond of morning services. What do you think papa said?" "I don't know, mamma." "He said, `That would cure it.'" She pronounced the last word as if it was spelt "ate," and I felt the blood rush to my cheeks, feeling speechless for a time, but I recovered soon after, as I told myself that most likely mamma had no _arriere-pensee_. If it had been a ball, or a party, or fete, the time would have gone on drag, drag, dawdle, dawdle, for long enough. But because I was going back to school it must rush along like an express train. First, there were the answers back to mamma's letters, written upon such stiff thick paper that it broke all along the folds; scented, and with a twisty, twirly monogram-thing done in blue upon paper and envelope; while the writing--supposed to be Mrs de Blount's, though it was not, for I soon found that out, and that it was written, like all the particular letters, by Miss Furness--was of the finest and most delicate, so fine that it seemed as if it was never meant to be read, but only to be looked at, like a great many more ornamental things we see every day done up in the disguise of something useful. Well, there were the letters answered, mamma had been, and declared to papa that she was perfectly satisfied, for everything was as it should be, and nothing seemed _outre_--that being a favourite word of mamma's, and one out of the six French expressions she remembers, while it tumbles into all sorts of places in conversation where it has no business. I did tell her, though, it seemed _outre_ to send me back to one of those terrible child prisons, crushing down my young elastic soul in so cruel a way; but she only smiled, and said that it was all for my good. Then came the day all in a hurry; and I'm sure, if it was possible, that day had come out of its turn, and pushed and elbowed its way into the front on purpose to make me miserable. But there it was, whether or no; and I'd been packing my boxes--first a dress, then a tear, then another dress, and then another tear, and so on, until they were full--John said too full, and that I must take something out or they would not lock. But there was not a single thing that I could possibly have done without, so Mary and Eliza both had to come and stand upon the lid, and then it would not go quite close, when mamma came fussing in to say how late it was, and she stood on it as well; so that there were three of them, like the Graces upon a square pedestal. But we managed to lock it then; and John was cording it with some new cord, only he left that one, because mamma said perhaps they had all better stand on the other box, in case it would not lock; while when they were busy about number two, if number one did not go off "bang," like a great wooden shell, and burst the lock off, when we had to be content with a strap. Nobody minded my tears--not a bit; and there was the cab at the door at last, and the boxes lumbered down into the hall, and then bumped up, as if they wanted to break them, on to the roof of the cab; and mamma all the while in a regular knot trying to understand "Bradshaw" and the table of the Allsham and Funnleton Railway. Papa had gone to the City, and said good-bye directly after breakfast; and when mamma and I went out, the first thing mamma must do was to take out her little china tablets and pencil, and put down the cabman's number; if the odious, low wretch did not actually wink at me--such insolence. When we reached the station, if my blood did not quite boil when mamma would stop and haggle with the horrible tobaccoey wretch about sixpence of the fare, till there was quite a little crowd, when the money was paid, and the tears brought into my eyes by being told that the expenses of my education necessitated such parsimony; and that, too, at a time when I did not wish for a single fraction of a penny to go down to that dreadful woman at Allsham. But that was always the way; and some people are only too glad to make excuses and lay their meannesses upon some one else. Of course, I am quite aware that it is very shocking to speak of mamma in this manner; but then some allowance must be made for my wretched feelings, and besides, I don't mean any harm. CHAPTER TWO. MEMORY THE SECOND--THE CEDARS, ALLSHAM. I sincerely hope the readers of all this do not expect to find any plot or exciting mystery; because, if they do, they will be most terribly disappointed, since I am not leading them into the realms of fiction. No lady is going to be poisoned; there is no mysterious murder; neither bigamy, trigamy, nor quadrigamy; in fact, not a single gamy in the book, though once bordering upon that happy state. Somebody does not turn out to be somebody else, and anybody is not kept out of his rightful property by a false heir, any more than a dreadfully good man's wife runs away from him with a very wicked _roue_, gets injured in a railway accident, and then comes back to be governess to her own children, while her husband does not know her again. Oh, no! there is no excitement of that kind, nothing but a twelvemonth's romance of real life; the spreading of the clouds of sorrow where all was sunshine; the descent of a bitter blight, to eat into and canker a young rose-bud. But there, I won't be poetical, for I am not making an album. I was too much out of humour, and too low-spirited, to be much amused with the country during my journey down; while as to reading the sort of circular thing about the Cedars and the plan of operations during the coming session, now about to commence, I could not get through the first paragraph; for every time I looked up, there was a dreadful foreign-looking man with his eyes fixed upon me, though he pretended to be reading one of those Windsor-soap-coloured paper-covered _Chemin-de-Fer_ novels, by Daudet, that one buys on the French railways. Of course we should not have been subjected to that annoyance--shall I call it so?--only mamma must throw the expenses of my education at my head, and more; and say it was necessary we should travel second-class, though I'm sure papa would have been terribly angry had he known. I had my tatting with me, and took it out when I laid the circular aside; but it was always the same--look up when I would, there were his sharp, dark, French-looking eyes fixed upon me; while I declare if it did not seem that in working my pattern I was forming a little cotton-lace framework to so many bright, dark eyes, which kept on peering out at me, till the porter shouted out "'sham, All--sham," where the stranger also descended and watched us into the station fly. Mamma said that if we came down second-class, we would go up to the Cedars in a decent form; and we did, certainly, in one of the nastiest, stably-smelling, dusty, jangling old flys I was ever in. The window would not stop up on the dusty side, while on the other it would not let down; and I told mamma we might just as well have brought the trunks with us, and not left them for the station people to send, for all the difference it would have made. But mamma knew best, of course, and it was no use for me to speak. But I wish to be just; and I must say that the Cedars was a very pretty place to look at, just outside Allsham town; though of course its prettiness was only for an advertisement, and not to supply home comfort to the poor little prisoners within. We entered by a pair of large iron gates, where upon the pillars on either side were owls, with outstretched wings--put there, of course, to remind parents of the goddess Minerva; but we all used to say that they were likenesses of Mrs Blount and the Fraulein. There was a broad gravel sweep up to the portico, while in front was a beautiful velvet lawn with a couple of cedar trees, whose graceful branches swept the grass. "Mrs and Miss Bozerne," said mamma to the footman, a nasty tall, thin, straggley young man, with red hair that would not brush smooth, and a freckly face, a horrible caricature of our John, in a drab coat and scarlet plushes, and such thin legs that I could not help a smile. But he was terribly thin altogether, and looked as if he had been a page-boy watered till he grew out of knowledge, and too fast; and he clung to the door in such a helpless way, when he let us in, that he seemed afraid to leave it again, lest he should fall. "This way, ladies," he said, with a laugh-and-water sort of a smile; and he led us across a handsome hall, where there were four statues and a great celestial globe hanging from the ceiling--only the globe hanging; though I'm sure it would have been a charity and a release for some young people if a few of the muses had shared the fate of the globe--at all events, that four. First and foremost of all was Clio. I wish she had been hung upon a date tree! "This way, ladies," said the tall creature, saving himself once more from tippling over by seizing the drawing-room door-handle, and then, as he turned and swung by it, sending the blood tingling into my cheeks by announcing-- "Mrs and Miss Bosom." Any one with a heart beating beneath her own can fancy our feelings. Of course I am aware that some unfeeling, ribald men--I do not include thee, oh, Achille!--would have turned the wretch's blunder into a subject for jest; but thanks to the goddess of _Bonheur_, there was none of the race present, and Mrs Fortesquieu de Blount came mincing forward, smiling most benignly in her pet turban. A dreadful old creature--I shall never forget her! Always dressed in black satin, a skin parting front, false teeth, and a thick gold chain hung over her shoulders; while the shocking old thing always thrust everything artificial that she wore right under your eyes, so that you could not fail to see how deceptive she was. She was soon deep in conversation with mamma; while I looked wearily round the room, which was full to overflowing with all sorts of fancy work, so that you could not stir an inch without being hooked, or caught, or upsetting something. There were antimacassars, sofa-cushions, fire-screens, bead-mats, wool-mats, crochet-mats, coverings for the sofa, piano, and chimney-piece, candle-screens, curtains, ottomans, pen wipers--things enough, in short, to have set up a fancy fair. And, of course, I knew well enough what they all meant-- presents from pupils who had been foolish enough to spend their money in buying the materials, and then working them up to ornament the old tabby's drawing-room. Well, I don't care. It's the truth; she was a horrible old tabby, with nothing genuine or true about her, or I would not speak so disrespectfully. She did not care a bit for her pupils, more than to value them according to how much they brought her in per annum, so that the drawing-room boarders--there were no parlour boarders there, nothing so common--stood first in her estimation. I felt so vexed that first day, sitting in the drawing-room, I could have pulled off the old thing's turban; and I'm sure that if I had the false front would have come with it. There she was, pointing out the different crayon-drawings upon the wall; and mamma, who cannot tell a decent sketch from a bad one, lifting up her hand and pretending to be in ecstasies. Do you mean to tell me that they did not both know how they were deceiving one another? Stuff! Of course they did, and they both liked it. Mamma praised Mrs Blount, and Mrs Blount praised mamma and her "sweet child"; and I declare it was just like what the dreadful American man said in his horrid, low, clever book--that was so funny, and yet one felt ashamed at having laughed--where he writes to the newspaper editor to puff his show, and promises to return the favour by having all his printing done at his office; and papa read it so funnily, and called it "reciprocity of allaying the irritation of the dorsal region," which we said was much more refined than Mr Artemus Ward's way of putting it. I was quite ashamed of mamma, that I was, for it did seem so little; and, oh! how out of patience I was! But there, that part of the interview came to an end, and a good thing too; for I knew well enough a great deal of it was to show off before me, for of course Mrs Blount had shown mamma the drawings and things before. So then we were taken over the place, and introduced to the teachers and the pupils who had returned, and there really did seem to be some nice girls; but as for the teachers--of all the old, yellow, spectacled things I ever did see, they were the worst; while as for the German Fraulein, I don't know what to say bad enough to describe her, for I never before did see any one so hooked-nosed and parroty. Then we went upstairs to see the dormitories--there were no bedrooms-- and afterwards returned to the drawing-room, where the lady principal kissed me on both cheeks and said I was most welcome to her establishment, and I declare I thought she meant to bite me, for her dreadful teeth went _snap_, though perhaps, like mamma's, they were not well under control. Then mamma had some sherry, and declared that she was more enchanted with the place than she had been at her last visit; and she hoped I should be very happy and very good, and make great progress in my studies. When Mrs Blount said she was quite certain that I should gratify my parents' wishes in every respect, and be a great credit to the establishment; and I knew she was wondering all the time how many silk dresses and how many bonnets I had brought, for everything about the place was show, show always, and I soon found out how the plainly-dressed girls were snubbed and kept in the background. As for Miss Grace Murray, the half-teacher, half-pupil, who had her education for the assistance she gave with the younger girls, I'm sure it was shameful--such a sweet, gentle, lovable girl as she was--shameful that she should have been so ill-treated. I speak without prejudice, for she never was any friend of mine, but always distrusted me, and more than once reported what I suppose she was right in calling flippant behaviour; but I could not help it. I was dreadfully wicked while at the Cedars. At last the fly bore mamma away, and I wanted to go to my dormitory, to try and swallow down my horrible grief and vexation, which would show itself; while that horrible Mrs Blunt--I won't call her anything else, for her husband's name was spelt without the "o," and he was a painter and glazier in Tottenham Court Road--that horrible Mrs Blunt kept on saying that it was a very proper display of feeling, and did me great credit; and patting me on the back and calling me "my child," when all the time I could have boxed her ears. There I was, then, really and truly once more at school, and all the time feeling so big, and old, and cross, and as if I was being insulted by everything that was said to me. The last months I spent at Guisnes the sisters made pleasant for me by behaving with a kind of respect, and a sort of tacit acknowledgment that I was no longer a child; and, oh, how I look back now upon those quiet, retired days! Of course they were _too_ quiet and _too_ retired; but then anything seemed better than being brought down here; while as to religion, the sisters never troubled themselves about my not being the same as themselves, nor tried to make a convert of me, nor called me heretic, or any of that sort of thing. All the same it was quite dreadful to hear Aunt Priscilla go on at papa when I was at home for the vacation, telling him it was sinful to let me be at such a place, and that it was encouraging the sisters to inveigle me into taking the veil. That we should soon have the Papists overrunning the country, and relighting the fires in Smithfield, and all such stuff as that; while papa used very coolly to tell her that he most sincerely hoped that she would be the first martyr, for it would be a great blessing for her relatives. That used to offend her terribly, and mamma too; but it served her right for making such a fuss--the place being really what they called a pension, and Protestant and Catholic young ladies were there together. Plenty of them were English, and the old sisters were the dearest, darlingest, quietest, lovablest creatures that ever lived, and I don't believe they would have roasted a fly, much more an Aunt Priscilla. And there I was, then, though I could hardly believe it true, and was at school; and as I said before, I wanted to get up to my dormitory. I said "my," but it was not all mine; for there were two more beds in the room. As soon as I got up there, and was once more alone, I threw myself down upon my couch, and had such a cry. It was a treat, that was; for I don't know anything more comforting than a good cry. There's something softening and calming to one's bruised and wounded feelings; just as if nature had placed a reservoir of tears ready to gently flood our eyes, and act as a balm in times of sore distress. It was so refreshing and nice; and as I lay there in the bedroom, with the window open, and the soft summer breeze making the great cedar trees sigh, and the dimity curtains gently move, I gazed up into the bright blue sky till a veil seemed to come over my eyes, and I went fast asleep. There I was in the train once more, with the eyes of that foreign-looking man regularly boring holes through my lids, until it was quite painful; for, being asleep, of course I kept them closely shut. It was like a fit of the nightmare; and as to this description, if I thought for a moment that these lines would be read by man--save and except the tradesmen engaged in their production--I would never pen them. But as the editor and publisher will be careful to announce that they are for ladies only, I write in full. First of all the eyes seemed to be quite small, but, oh! so piercing; while I can only compare the sensation to that of a couple of beautiful, bright, precious stone seals, making impressions upon the soft wax of my brain. And they did, too--such deeply-cut, sharp impressions as will never be effaced. Well, as I seemed to be sitting in the train, the eyes appeared to come nearer, and nearer, and nearer, till I could bear it no longer; and I opened mine to find that my dream was a fact, and that there really were a pair of bright, piercing orbs close to mine, gazing earnestly at me, so that I felt that I must scream out; but as my lips parted to give utterance to a shrill cry, it was stayed, for two warm lips rested upon mine, to leave there a soft, tender kiss; and it seemed so strange that my dream should have been all true. But there, it was not all true; though I was awake and there were a pair of beautiful eyes looking into mine, and the soft, red lips just leaving their impression; and as I was fighting hard to recover my scattered senses, a sweet voice whispered-- "Don't cry any more, dear, please." I saw through it all, for the dear girl who had just spoken was Clara Fitzacre; but just behind, and staring hard at me with her great, round, saucer eyes, was a fat, stupid-looking girl, whose name I soon learned was Martha Smith--red-faced and sleepy, and without a word to say for herself. As for Clara, I felt to love her in a moment, she was so tender and gentle, and talked in such a consolatory strain. "I'm so glad to find that you are to be in our room," said Clara, who was a tall, dark-haired, handsome girl. "We were afraid it would turn out to be some cross, frumpy, stuck-up body, weren't we, Patty?" "I'm sure I don't know," said the odious thing, whose words all sounded fat and sticky. "I thought you said that you wouldn't have anybody else in our room. I wish it was tea-time." "But I should not have said so if I had known who was coming," said Clara, turning very red. "But Patty has her wish, for it is tea-time; so sponge your poor eyes, and let me do your hair, and then we'll go down. You need not wait, Patty." Patty Smith did not seem as if she wished to wait, for she gave a great, coarse yawn, for all the world like a butcher's daughter, and then went out of the room. "She is so fat and stupid," said Clara, "that it has been quite miserable here; and I'm so glad that you've come, dear." "I'm not," said I, dismally. "I don't like beginning school over again." "But then we don't call this school," said Clara. "But it is, all the same," I said. "Oh, no," said Clara, kindly; "we only consider that we are finishing our studies here, and there are such nice teachers." "How can you say so!" I exclaimed indignantly. "I never saw such a set of ugly, old, cross-looking--" "Ah, but you've only seen the lady teachers yet. You have not seen Monsieur Achille de Tiraille, and Signor Pazzoletto--such fine, handsome, gentlemanly men; and then there's that dear, good-tempered, funny little Monsieur de Kittville." I could not help sighing as I thought of Mr Saint Purre, and his long, black, silky beard; and how nice it would have been to have knelt down and confessed all my troubles to him, and I'm sure I should have kept nothing back. "All the young ladies are deeply in love with them," continued Clara, as she finished my hair; "so pray don't lose your heart, and make any one jealous." "There is no fear for me," I said, with a deep sigh; and then, somehow or another, I began thinking of the church, and wondering what sort of a clergyman we should have, and whether there would be early services like there were at Saint Vestment's, and whether I should be allowed to attend them as I had been accustomed. I sighed and shivered, while the tears filled my eyes; for it seemed that all the happy times of the past were gone for ever, and life was to be a great, dreary blank, full of horrible teachers and hard lessons. Though, now one comes to think of it, a life could not be a blank if it were full of anything, even though they were merely lessons. I went down with Clara to tea, and managed to swallow a cup of the horribly weak stuff; but as to eating any of the coarse, thick bread-and-butter, I could not; though, had my heart been at rest, the sight of Patty Smith devouring the great, thick slices, as if she was absolutely ravenous, would have quite spoiled my repast. At first several of the pupils were very kind and attentive, but seeing how put out and upset I was, they left me alone till the meal was finished; while, though I could not eat, I could compare and think how different all this was from what I should have had at home, or at dinner parties, or where papa took me when we went out. For he was very good that way, and mamma did not always know how we had dined together at Richmond and Blackwall. Such nice dinners, too, as I had with him in Paris when he came to fetch me from the sisters. He said it was experience to see the capital, and certainly it was an experience that I greatly liked. There is such an air of gaiety about a _cafe_; and the ices--ah! And from that to come down to thick bread-and-butter like a little child! After tea I was summoned to attend Mrs Blunt in her study--as if the old thing ever did anything in the shape of study but how to make us uncomfortable, and how to make money--and upon entering the place, full of globes, and books, and drawings, I soon found that she had put her good temper away with the cake and wine, as a thing too scarce with her to be used every day. The reason for my being summoned was that I might be examined as to my capabilities; and I found the lady principal sitting in state, supported by the Fraulein and two of the English teachers--Miss Furness and Miss Sloman. I bit my lips as soon as I went in, for, I confess it freely, I meant to be revenged upon that horrible Mrs Blunt for tempting mamma with her advertisement; and I determined that if she was to be handsomely paid for my residence at the Cedars, the money should be well earned. And now, once for all, let me say that I offer no excuse for my behaviour; while I freely confess to have been, all through my stay at the Cedars, very wicked, and shocking, and reprehensible. "I think your mamma has come to a most sensible determination, Miss Bozerne," said Mrs Blunt, after half an hour's examination. "What do you think, ladies?" "Oh, quite so," chorused the teachers. "Really," said Mrs Blunt, "I cannot recall having had a young lady of your years so extremely backward." Then she sat as if expecting that I should speak, for she played with her eyeglass, and occasionally took a glance at me; but I would not have said a word, no, not even if they had pinched me. "But I think we can raise the standard of your acquirements, Miss Bozerne. What do you say, ladies?" "Oh, quite so," chorused the satellites, as if they had said it hundreds of times before; and I feel sure that they had. "And now," said Mrs Blunt, "we will close this rather unsatisfactory preliminary examination. Miss Bozerne, you may retire." I was nearly at the door--glad to have it over, and to be able to be once more with my thoughts--when the old creature called me back. "Not in that way, Miss Bozerne," she exclaimed, with a dignified, cold, contemptuous air, which made me want to slap her--"not in that way at the Cedars, Miss Bozerne. Perhaps, Miss Sloman, as the master of deportment is not here, you will show Miss Laura Bozerne the manner in which to leave a room.--Your education has been sadly neglected, my child." This last she said to me with rather an air of pity, just as if I was only nine or ten years old; and, as a matter of course, being rather proud of my attainments, I felt dreadfully annoyed. But my attention was now taken up by Miss Sloman, a dreadfully skinny old thing, in moustachios, who had risen from her seat, and began backing towards the door in an awkward way, like two clothes-props in a sheet, till she contrived to catch against a little gipsy work-table and overset it, when, cross as I felt, I could not refrain from laughing. "Leave the room, Miss Bozerne," exclaimed Mrs Blunt, haughtily. This to me! whose programme had been rushed at when I appeared at a dance, and not a vacant place left. Oh, dear! oh, dear! I feel the thrill of annoyance even now. Of course I made my way out of the room to where Clara was waiting for me; and then we had a walk out in the grounds, with our arms round each other, just as if we had been friends for years; though you will agree it was only natural I should cling to the first lovable thing which presented itself to me in my then forlorn condition. CHAPTER THREE. MEMORY THE THIRD--INFELICITY. AGAIN A CHILD. The next day was wet and miserable; and waiting about, and feeling strange and uncomfortable, as I did, made matters ever so much worse. We were all in the schoolroom; and first one and then another stiff-backed, new-smelling book was pushed before me, and the odour of them made me feel quite wretched, it was so different to what of late I had been accustomed. For don't, pray, think I dislike the smell of a new book--oh, no, not at all, I delight in it; but then it must be from Mudie's, or Smith's, or the Saint James's Square place, while as for these new books--one was that nasty, stupid old Miss Mangnall's "Questions," and another was Fenwick de Porquet's this, and another Fenwick de Porquet's that, and, soon after, Noehden's German Grammar, thrust before me with a grin by the Fraulein. At last, as if to drive me quite mad, as a very culmination of my miseries, I was set, with Clara Fitzacre and five more girls, to write an essay on "The tendencies towards folly of the present age." "What shall I say about it, ma'am?" I said to Miss Furness, who gave me the paper. "Say?" she exclaimed, as if quite astonished at such a question. "Why, give your own opinions upon the subject." "Oh, shouldn't I like to write an essay, and give my own opinions upon you," I said to myself; while there I sat with the sheets of paper before me, biting and indenting the penholder, without the slightest idea how to begin. I did think once of dividing the subject into three parts or heads, like Mr Saint Purre did his sermons; but there, nearly everybody I have heard in public does that, so it must be right. So I was almost determined to begin with a firstly, and then go on to a secondly, and then a thirdly; and when I felt quite determined, I wrote down the title, and under it "firstly." I allowed the whole of the first page for that head, put "secondly" at the beginning of the second page, and "thirdly" upon the next, which I meant to be the longest. Then I turned back, and wondered what I had better say, and whether either of the girls would do it for me if I offered her a shilling. "What shall I say next," I asked myself, and then corrected my question; for it ought to have been, "What shall I say first?" And then I exclaimed under my breath, "A nasty, stupid, spiteful old thing, to set me this to do, on purpose to annoy me!" just as I looked on one side and found the girl next me was nearly at the bottom of her sheet of paper, while I could do nothing but tap my white teeth with my pen. I looked on the other side, where sat Miss Patty Smith, glaring horribly down at her blank paper, nibbling the end of her pen, and smelling dreadfully of peppermint; and her forehead was all wrinkled up, as if the big atlas were upon her head, and squeezing down the skin. Just then I caught Clara's eye--for she was busy making a great deal of fuss with her blotting-paper, as if she had quite ended her task--when, upon seeing my miserable, hopeless look, she came round and sat down by me. "Never mind the essay," she whispered; "say you had the headache. I dare say it will be correct, won't it? For it always used to give me the headache when I first came." "Oh, yes," I said, with truth, "my head aches horribly." "Of course it does, dear," said Clara; "so leave that rubbish. It will be dancing in about five minutes." "I say," drawled Miss Smith to Clara, "what's tendencies towards folly? I'm sure I don't know." "Patty Smith's," said Clara, in a sharp voice; and the great fat, stupid thing sat there, glaring at her with her big, round eyes, as much as to say, "What do you mean?" Sure enough, five minutes had not elapsed before we were summoned to our places in the room devoted to dancing and calisthenic exercises; and, as a matter of course, I was all in a flutter to see the French dancing master, who would be, I felt sure, a noble-looking refugee--a count in disguise--and I felt quite ready to let him make a favourable impression; for one cannot help sympathising with political exiles, since one has had a Louis Napoleon here in difficulties. But there, I declare it was too bad; and I looked across at Clara, who had slipped on first, and was holding her handkerchief to her mouth to keep from laughing as she watched my astonished looks; for you never did see such a droll little man, and I felt ready to cry with vexation at the whole place. There he stood--Monsieur de Kittville--the thinnest, funniest little man I ever saw off the stage. He seemed to have been made on purpose to take up as little room as possible in the world and he looked so droll and squeezy, one could not feel cross long in his presence. If I had not been in such terribly low spirits, I'm sure I must have laughed aloud at the funny, capering little fellow, as he skipped about, now here and now there--going through all the figures, and stopping every now and then to scrape through the tune upon his little fiddle. But it would have been a shame to laugh, for he was so good and patient; and I know he could feel how some of the girls made fun of him, though he bore it all amiably and never said a word. I know he must have thought me terribly stupid, for there was not one girl so awkward, and grumpy, and clumsy over the lesson. But think, although it was done kindly enough, what did I want with being pushed here, and poked there, and shouted at and called after in bad English, when I had been used to float round and round brilliantly-lighted rooms in dreamy waltzes and polkas, till day-break? And I declare the very thoughts of such scenes at a time like this were quite maddening. Finished! I felt as if I should be regularly finished long before the year had expired; and, after the short season of gaiety I had enjoyed in London, I would far rather have gone back to Guisnes and spent my days with dear old Soeur Charite in the convent. After all, I fancy papa was right when he said it was only a quiet advertising dodge--he will say such vulgar things, that he picks up in the City--and that it was not a genuine convent at all. I mean one of those places we used to read about, where they built the sisters up in walls, and all that sort of thing. But there: things do grow so dreadfully matter-of-fact, and so I found it; for here was I feeling, not so dreadfully young, but so horribly old, to be back at school. The place seemed so stupid; the lessons seemed stupid; girls, teachers, everything seemed stupid. There were regular times for this, and regular times for that, and one could not do a single thing as one liked. If I went upstairs to brush my hair, and sat down before the glass, there would be a horrible, cracked voice crying, "Miss Bozerne, young ladies are not allowed in the dormitories out of hours;" and then I had to go down. For the old wretch hated me because I was young and handsome, I am sure. Yes: I was handsome then, I believe; before all these terrible troubles came upon me, and made me look so old--ah! so old. And, oh! it was dreadful, having one's time turned into a yard measure, and doled out to one in quarter-inches for this and half-inches for that, and not have a single scrap to do just what one liked with. Perhaps I could have borne it the better if I had not been used to do just as I liked at home. For mamma very seldom interfered; and I'm sure I was as good as could be always, till they nearly drove me out of my mind with this horrible school. For it was a school, and nothing else but a school; and as they all ill-used me, and trod upon me like a worm in the path, why, of course I turned and annoyed them all I could at the Cedars, and persisted in calling it school. Finishing establishment--pah! Young ladies, indeed--fah! Why, didn't I get to know about Miss Hicks being the grocer's daughter, and being paid for in sugar? And wasn't Patty Smith the butcher's girl? Why, she really smelt of meat, and her hair always looked like that of those horrible butcher-boys in London, who never wear caps, but make their heads so shiny and matty with fat. Patty was just like them; and I declare the nasty thing might have eaten pomatum, she used such a quantity. Why, she used to leave the marks of her head right through her nightcap on to the pillow; and I once had the nasty thing put on my bed by mistake, when if it didn't smell like the crust of Mrs Blunt's apple-dumplings, and set me against them more than ever. Dear, sensitive reader, did you ever eat finishing establishment "_poudings aux pommes_" as Mrs Blunt used to call them?--that is to say school apple-dumplings, or as we used to call them "pasty wasters." If you never did, never do; for they are horrible. Ours used to be nasty, wet, slimy, splashy things, that slipped about in the great blue dish. And one did slide right off once on to the cloth, when the servant was putting it upon the table; and then the horrible thing collapsed in a most disgusting way, and had to be scraped up with a spoon. Ugh! such a mess! I declare I felt as if I was one of a herd of little pigs, about to be fed; and I told Clara so, when she burst out laughing, and Miss Furness ordered her to leave the table. If they would only have boiled the dreadful dumplings in basins, it would not have mattered so much; but I could see plainly enough that they were only tied up loosely in cloths, so that the water came in to make them wet and pappy; while they were always made in a hurry, and the crust would be in one place half-an-inch, and in another three inches thick; and I always had the thick mass upon my plate. Then, too, they used to be made of nasty, viciously acid apples, with horrible cores that never used to be half cut out, and would get upon your palate and then would not come off again. Oh, dear! would I not rather have been a hermit on bread and water and sweet herbs than have lived upon Mrs Blunt's greasy mutton-- always half done--and pasty wasters! The living was quite enough to upset you, without anything else, and it used to make me quite angry, for one always knew what was for dinner, and it was always the same every week. It would have been very good if it had been nicely cooked, no doubt, but then it was not; and I believe by having things nasty there used to be quite a saving in the expenditure. "Unlimited," Mrs Blunt told mamma the supplies were for the young ladies; but only let one of the juniors do what poor little Oliver Twist did--ask for more--and just see what a look the resident teacher at the head of the table would give her. It was a great chance if she would ask again. But there, I must tell you about our living. Coffee for breakfast that always tasted like Patty Smith's Spanish liquorice wine that she used to keep in a bottle in her pocket--a nasty toad! Thick bread-and-butter--all crumby and dab, as if the servant would not take the trouble to spread the butter properly. For tea there was what papa used to tease mamma by calling "a mild infusion," though there was no comparison between our tea and Allsham tea, for mamma always bought hers at the Stores, and Allsham tea was from Miss Hicks's father's; and when we turned up our noses at it, and found fault, she said it was her pa's strong family Congou, only there was so little put in the pot; while if they used not to sweeten the horrible pinky-looking stuff with a treacley-brown sugar; and as for the milk--we do hear of cows kicking over the milking pail, and I'm sure if the bluey-looking stuff poured into our tea had been shown to any decent cow, and she had been told that it was milk, she would have kicked it over in an instant. And, oh! those dinners at the Cedars! On Sundays we had beef--cold beef--boiled one week, roast the next. On Mondays we had a preparation of brown slime with lumps of beef in it, and a spiky vandyke of toast round the dish, which was called "hash," with an afterpiece of "mosh posh" pudding--Clara christened it so--and that was plain boiled rice, with a white paste to pour over it out of a butter boat, while the rice itself always tasted of soapsuds. Tuesday was roast shoulder of mutton day. Wednesday, stewed steak--such dreadful stuff!--which appeared in two phases, one hard and leathery, the other rag and tattery. Thursday, cold roast beef always--when they might just as well have let us have it hot--and pasty wasters, made of those horrible apples, which seemed to last all the year round, except midsummer vacation time, when the stock would be exhausted; but by the time the holidays were over, the new ones came in off the trees--the new crops--and, of course, more sour, and vicious, and bitter than ever. We used to call them vinegar pippins; and I declare if that Patty Smith would not beg them of the cook, and lie in bed and crunch them, while my teeth would be quite set on edge with only listening to her. Heigho! I declare if it isn't almost as hard work to get through this description of the eatables and drinkables at the Cedars as it was in reality. Let me see, where was I? Oh, at Thursday! Then on Fridays it was shoulder of mutton again, with the gravy full of sixpences; and, as for fat--oh! they used to be so horribly fat, that I'm sure the poor sheep must have lived in a state of bilious headache all their lives, until the butcher mercifully killed them; while--only fancy, at a finishing establishment!--if that odious Patty Smith did not give Clara and me the horrors one night by an account of how her father's man--I must do her the credit of saying that she had no stuck-up pride in her, and never spoke of her "esteemed parent" as anything but father; for only fancy a "papa," with a greasy red face, cutting steaks, or chopping at a great wooden block, and crying "What-d'yer-buy--buy--buy?" Let's see--oh! of how her father's man killed the sheep; and I declare it was quite dreadful; and I said spitefully to Clara afterwards that I should write by the next post and tell mamma how nicely my finishing education was progressing, for I knew already how they killed sheep. Well, there is only one more day's fare to describe--Saturday's, and that is soon done, for it was precisely the same as we had on the Wednesday, only the former used mostly to be the tattery days and the latter the hard ones. Now, of course, I am aware that I am writing this is a very desultory manner; but after Mrs Blunt's rules and regulations, what can you expect? I am writing to ease my mind, and therefore I must write just as I think; and as this is entirely my own, I intend so to do, and those may find fault who like. I did mean to go through the different adventures and impressions of every day; but I have given up that idea, because the days have managed to run one into the other, and got themselves confused into a light and shady sad-coloured web, like Miss Furness's scrimpy silk dress that she wore on Sundays--a dreadful antique thing, like rhubarb shot with magnesia; for the nasty old puss always seemed to buy her things to give her the aspect of having been washed out, though with her dreadfully sharp features and cheesey-looking hair--which she called auburn--I believe it would have been impossible to make her look nice. Whenever there was a lecture, or a missionary meeting, or any public affair that Mrs Blunt thought suitable, we used all to be marched off, two and two; while the teachers used to sit behind us and Mrs Blunt before, when she would always begin conversing in a strident voice, that every one could hear in the room, before the business of the evening began--talking upon some French or German author, a translation of whose works she had read, quite aloud, for every one to hear--and hers was one of those voices that will penetrate--when people would, of course, take notice, and attention be drawn to the school. Of course there were some who could see through the artificial old thing; but for the most part they were ready to believe in her, and think her clever. Then the Misses Bellperret's young ladies would be there too, if it was a lecture, ranged on the other side of the Town Hall. Theirs was the dissenting school--one which Mrs Blunt would not condescend to mention. It used to be such fun when the lecture was over, and we had waited for the principal part of the people to leave, so that the school could go out in a compact body. Mrs Blunt used to want us to go first, and the Misses Bellperret used to want their young ladies to go first. Neither would give way; so we were mixed up altogether, greatly to Mrs Blunt's disgust and our delight in both schools; for really, you know, I think it comes natural for young ladies to like to see their teachers put out of temper. But always after one of these entertainments, as Mrs Blunt called them--when, as a rule, the only entertainment was the fun afterwards-- there used to be a lecture in Mrs B.'s study for some one who was charged with unladylike behaviour in turning her head to look on the other side, or at the young gentlemen of the grammar-school--fancy, you know, thin boys in jackets, and with big feet and hands, and a bit of fluff under their noses--big boys with squeaky, gruff, half-broken voices, who were caned and looked sheepish; and, I declare, at last there would be so many of these lectures for looking about, that it used to make the young ladies worse, putting things into their heads that they would never have thought of before. Not that I mean to say that was the case with me, for I must confess to having been dreadfully wicked out of real spite and annoyance. CHAPTER FOUR. MEMORY THE FOURTH--A TERRIBLE SURPRISE. I don't know what I should have done if it had not fallen to my lot to meet with a girl like Clara Fitzacre, who displayed quite a friendly feeling towards me, making me her confidante to such an extent that I soon found out that she was most desperately--there, I cannot say what, but that a sympathy existed between her and the Italian master, Signor Pazzoletto. "Such a divinely handsome man, dear," said Clara one night, as we lay talking in bed, with the moon streaming her rays like a silver cascade through the window; while Patty Smith played an accompaniment upon her dreadful pug-nose. And then, of course, I wanted to hear all; but I fancy Clara thought Patty was only pretending to be asleep, for she said no more that night, but the next day during lessons she asked me to walk with her in the garden directly they were over, and of course I did, when she began again,-- "Such a divinely handsome man, dear! Dark complexion and aquiline features. He is a count by rights, only he has exiled himself from Italy on account of internal troubles." I did not believe it a bit, for I thought it more likely that he was some poor foreigner whom Mrs Blunt had managed to engage cheaply; so when Clara spoke of internal troubles, I said, spitefully,--"Ah, that's what mamma talks about when she has the spasms and wants papa to get her the brandy. Was the Signor a smuggler, and had the troubles anything to do with brandy?" "Oh, no, dear," said Clara, innocently, "it was something about politics; but you should hear him sing `_Il balen_' and `_Ah, che la morte_'. It quite brings the tears into my eyes. But I am getting on with my Italian so famously." "So it seems," I said, maliciously; "but does he know that you call him your Italian?" "Now, don't be such a wicked old quiz," said Clara. "You know what I mean--my Italian lessons. We have nearly gone through `_I Miei Prigioni_', and it does seem so romantic. You might almost fancy he was Silvio Pellico himself. I hope you will like him." "No, you don't," I said, mockingly. "I'm sure I do," said Clara; "I said _like_, didn't I?" I was about to reply with some sharp saying, but just then I began thinking about the Reverend Theodore Saint Purre and his sad, patient face, and that seemed to stop me. "But I know whom you will like," said Clara. "Just stop till some one comes--you'll see." "And who may that be, you little goose?" I cried, contemptuously. "Monsieur Achille de Tiraille, young ladies," squeaked Miss Furness. "I hope the exercises are ready." Clara looked at me with her handsome eyes twinkling, and then we hurried in, or rather Clara hurried me in; and we went into the classroom. Almost directly after, the French master was introduced by Miss Sloman, who frowned at me, and motioned to me to remain standing. I had risen when he entered, and then resumed my seat; for I believe Miss Sloman took a dislike to me from the first, because I laughed upon the day when she overset the little table while performing her act of deportment. But I thought no more of Miss Sloman just then, for I knew that Clara's eyes were upon me, and I could feel the hot blood flushing up in my cheeks and tingling in my forehead; while I knew too--nay, I could feel, that another pair of eyes were upon me, eyes that I had seen in the railway carriage, at the station, in my dreams; and I quite shivered as Miss Sloman led me up to the front of a chair where some one was sitting, and I heard her cracked-bell voice say,-- "The new pupil, Monsieur Achille: Miss Bozerne." I could have bitten my lips with anger for being so startled and taken aback before the dark foreign gentleman of whom I have before spoken. Oh, me! sinner that I am, I cannot tell much about that dreadful afternoon. I have only some recollection of stumbling through a page of Telemaque in a most abominable manner, so badly that I could have cried--I, too, who would not condescend to make use of Mr Moy Thomas as a translator, but read and revelled in "_Les Miserables_" and doated on that Don Juan of a Gilliat in "_Les Travailleurs de Mer_" though I never could quite understand how he could sit still and be drowned, for the water always seems to pop you up so when you're bathing; but, then, perhaps it is different when one is going to drown oneself, and in spite of the horrors which followed I never quite made up my mind to do that. There I was, all through that lesson--I, with my pure French accent and fluent speech, condemned to go on blundering through a page of poor old Telemaque, after having almost worshipped that dear old Dumas, and fallen in love with Bussy, and Chicot, and Athos, and Porthos, and Aramis, and D'Artagnan, and I don't know how many more--but stop; let me see. No, I did not like Porthos of the big baldric, for he was a great booby; but as for Chicot--there, I must consider. I can't help it; I wandered then--I wandered all the time I was at Mrs Blunt's, wandered from duty and everything. But was I not prisoned like a poor dove, and was it not likely that I should beat my breast against the bars in my efforts to escape? Ah, well! I am safe at home once more, writing and revelling in tears--patient, penitent, and at peace; but as I recall that afternoon, it seems one wild vision of burning eyes, till I was walking in the garden with Clara and that stupid Patty Smith. "Don't be afraid to talk," whispered Clara, who saw how _distraite_ I was; "she's only a child, though she is so big." I did not reply, but I recalled her own silence on the previous night. "You won't tell tales, will you, Patty?" said Clara. "No," said Patty, sleepily; "I never do, do I? But I shall, though," with a grin lighting up her fat face--"I shall, though, if you don't do the exercise for me that horrid Frenchman has left. I can't do it, and I sha'n't, and I won't, so now then." And then the great, stupid thing made a grimace like a rude child. It was enough to make one slap her, to hear such language; for I'm sure Monsieur de Tiraille was so quiet and gentlemanly, and--and--well, he was not handsome, but with such eyes. I can't find a word to describe them, for picturesque won't do. And then, too, he spoke such excellent English. I suppose I must have looked quite angrily at Patty, for just then Clara pinched my arm. "I thought so," said she, laughing; "you won't make me jealous, dear, about the Signor, now, will you, you dear, handsome girl? I declare I was quite frightened about you at first." "Don't talk such nonsense," I said, though I could not help feeling flattered. "Whatever can you mean?" "Oh, nothing at all," said Clara, laughing. "You can't know what I mean. But come and sit down here, the seat is dry now. Are not flowers sweet after the rain?" So we went and sat down under the hawthorn; and then Clara, who had been at the Cedars two years, began to talk about Monsieur Achille, who was also a refugee, and who was obliged to stay over here on account of the French President; and a great deal more she told me, but I could not pay much attention, for my thoughts would keep carrying me away, so that I was constantly going over the French lesson again and again, and thinking of how stupid I must have looked, and all on in that way, when it did not matter the least bit in the world; and so I kept telling myself. "There!" exclaimed Clara, all at once; "I never did know so tiresome a girl. Isn't she, Patty, tiresome beyond all reason?" But Patty was picking and eating the sour gooseberries--a nasty pig!-- and took not the slightest notice of the question. "It is tiresome," said Clara again; "for I've been talking to you for the last half-hour, about what I am sure you would have liked to know, and I don't believe that you heard hardly a word; for you kept on saying `um!' and `ah,' and `yes'; and now there's the tea-bell ringing. But I am glad that you have come, for I did want a companion so badly. Patty is so big and so stupid; and all the other girls seem to pair off when they sleep in the same rooms. And, besides, when we are both thinking-- that is, both--both--you know. There, don't look like that! How droll it is of you to pretend to be so innocent, when you know all the while what I mean!" I could not help laughing and squeezing Clara's hand as I went in; for somehow I did not feel quite so dumpy and low-spirited as I did a few hours before; and, as I sat over the thick bread-and-butter they gave us--though we were what, in more common schools, they would have called parlour boarders--I began to have a good look about me, and to take a little more notice of both pupils and teachers, giving an eye, too, at Mrs Fortesquieu de Blount. Only to think of the artfulness of that woman, giving herself such a grand name, and the stupidity of people themselves to be so taken in. But so it was; for I feel sure it was nothing else but the "Fortesquieu de Blount" which made mamma decide upon sending me to the Cedars. And there I sat, wondering how it would be possible for me to manage to get through a whole year, when I declare if I did not begin to sigh terribly. It was the coming back to all this sort of thing, after fancying it was quite done with; while the being marched out two and two, as we had been that day, all round the town and along the best walks, for a perambulating advertisement of the Cedars, Allsham, was terrible to me. It seemed so like making a little girl of me once more, when I was so old that I could feel a red spot burning in each cheek when I went out; and I told Clara of them, but she said they were caused by pasty wasters and French lessons, and not by annoyance; while, when I looked angrily round at her, she laughed. It would not have mattered so much if the teachers had been nice, pleasant, lady-like bodies, and would have been friendly and kind; but they would not, for the sole aim of their lives seemed to be to make the pupils uncomfortable, and find fault; and the longer I was there the more I found this out, which was, as a matter of course, only natural. If we were out walking--now we were walking too fast, so that the younger pupils could not keep up with us; or else we were said to crawl so that they were treading on our heels; and do what we would, try how we would, at home or abroad, we were constantly wrong. Then over the lessons they were always snapping and catching us up and worrying, till it was quite miserable. As to that Miss Furness, I believe honestly that nothing annoyed her more than a lesson being said perfectly, and so depriving her of the chance of finding fault. Now pray why is it that people engaged in teaching must always be sour and disappointed-looking, and ready to treat those who are their pupils as if they were so many enemies? I suppose that it is caused by the great pressure of knowledge leaving room for nothing mild and amiable. Of course Patty Smith was very stupid; but it was enough to make the poor, fat, pudgy thing ten times more stupid to hear how they scolded her for not doing her exercises. I declare it was quite a charity to do them for her, as it was not in her nature to have done them herself. There she would sit, with her forehead all wrinkled up, and her thick brows quarrelling, while her poor eyes were nearly shut; and I'm sure her understanding was quite shut up, so that nothing could go either in or out. Oh! I used to be so vexed, and could at any time have pulled off that horrid Mrs Blunt's best cap when she used to bring in her visitors, and then parade them through the place, displaying us all, and calling up first one and then another, as if to show off what papa would call our points. The vicar of Allsham used to be the principal and most constant visitor; and he always made a point of taking great interest in everything, and talking to us, asking us Scripture questions; coming on a Monday--a dreadful old creature--so as to ask us about the sermon which he preached on the previous morning. They were all such terrible sermons that no one could understand--all about heresies, and ites, and saints with hard names; and he had a bad habit of seeing how many parentheses he could put inside one another, like the lemons from the bazaars, till you were really quite lost, and did not know which was the original, or what it all meant; and I'm sure sometimes he did not know where he had got to, and that was why he stopped for quite two minutes blowing his nose so loudly. I'm afraid I told him very, very wicked stories sometimes when he questioned me; while if he asked me once whether I had been confirmed, he asked me twenty times. I'm sure I was not so very wicked before I went down to Allsham; but I quite shudder now when I think of what a wretch I grew, nicknaming people and making fun of serious subjects; and oh, dear! I'm afraid to talk about them almost. The vicar sat in his pew in the nave in the afternoon, and let the curate do all the service; and I used to feel as if I could box his ears, for he would stand at the end of his seat, half facing round, and then, in his little, fat, round, important way, go on gabbling through the service, as if he wasn't satisfied with the way the curate was reading it, and must take it all out of his mouth. He upset the poor young man terribly, and the clerk too; so that the three of them used to tie the service up in a knot, or make a clumsy trio of it, with the school children tripping up their heels by way of chorus. Then, too, the old gentleman would be so loud, and would not mind his points, and would read the responses in the same fierce, defiant way in which he said the Creed in the morning, just as if he was determined that everybody should hear how he believed. And when the curate was preaching, he has folded his arms and stared at the poor young fellow, now shaking his head, and now blowing his nose; while the curate would turn hot, and keep looking down at him as much as to say, "May I advance that?" or "Won't that do, sir?" till it was quite pitiful. The vicar used to bring his two daughters with him to the Cedars, to pat, and condescend, and patronise, and advise: two dreadful creatures that Clara called the giraffes, they were so tall and thin, and hook-nosed, and quite a pair in appearance. They dressed exactly alike, in white crape long shawls and lace bonnets in summer; and hooked on to their father, one on each arm, as the fat, red-faced, little old gentleman used to come up the gravel walk, he was just like a chubby old angel, with a pair of tall, scraggy, half-open wings. But though the two old frights were so much alike in appearance, they never agreed upon any point; and the parishioners had a sad time of it with first one and then the other. They were always leaving books for the poor people's reading, and both had their peculiar ideas upon the subject of what was suitable. They considered that they knew exactly what every one ought to read, and what every one else ought to read was just the very reverse of what they ought to read themselves. But there, they do not stand alone in that way, as publishers well know when they bring out so many works of a kind that they are sure customers will buy--not to read, but to give away--very good books, of course. It was all very well to call them the giraffes, and that did very well for their height; but as soon as I found out how one was all for one way, and the other immediately opposed to her sister, declaring she was all wrong, I christened them--the Doxies--Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy. It was very dreadful--wasn't it?--and unladylike, and so on; but it did seem to fit, and all the girls took it up and enjoyed it; only that odious Celia Blang must tell Miss Furness, and Miss Furness must tell Mrs Blunt, and then of course there was a terrible hubbub, and I was told that it was profane in one sense, bad taste in another, and disgusting language in another; for the word "doxy" was one that no lady should ever bring her lips to utter. When if I did not make worse of it--I mean in my own conscience--by telling a most outrageous story, and saying I was sorry, when I wasn't a bit. Oh, the visitors! I was sick of them; for it was just as if we girls were kept to show. I used to call the place Mrs Blunt's Menagerie, and got into a scrape about that; for everything I said was carried to the principal--not that I cared, only it made me tell those stories, and say I was sorry when I was not. The curate and his poor unfortunate wife came sometimes. A curious-looking couple they were, too, who seemed as if they had found matrimony a mistake, and did not approve of it; for they always talked in a quiet, subdued way, and walked as far apart from one another as they could. The curate had not much to say for himself; but he made the best he could of it, and stretched his words out a tremendous length, saying pa-a-ast and la-a-ast; so that when he said the word everlasting in the service, it was perfectly terrible, and you stared at him in dismay, as if there really never would be an end to it. We used to ask one another, when he had gone, what he had been talking about; but we never knew--only one had two or three long-stretched-out words here, and a few more there. But it did not matter; and I think we liked him better than his master, the vicar. As for his wife, she had a little lesson by heart, and she said it every time she came, with a sickly smile, as she smoothed one side at a time of her golden locks, which always looked rough; and hers were really golden locks--about eight-carat gold, I should say, like Patty Smith's trumpery locket; for they showed the red coppery alloy very strongly--too strongly for my taste, which favours pale gold. Pray do not for a moment imagine that I mean any vulgar play upon words, and am alluding to any vegetable in connection with the redness of the Mrs Curate's hair; for she was a very decent sort of woman, if she would not always have asked me how I was, and how was mamma, and how was papa, and how I liked Allsham, and whether I did not think Mrs de Blount a pattern of deportment. And then, as a matter of course, I was obliged to tell another story; so what good could come to me from the visits of our vicar and his followers? CHAPTER FIVE. MEMORY THE FIFTH--I GET INTO DIFFICULTIES. I declare my progress with my narrative seems for all the world like papa carving a pigeon-pie at a picnic: there were the claws sticking out all in a bunch at the top, as much as to say there were plenty of pigeons inside; but when he cut into it, there was just the same result as the readers must find with this work--nothing but disappointing bits of steak, very hard and tiresome. But I can assure you, like our cook at home, that all the pigeons were put in, and if you persevere you will be as successful as papa was at last, though I must own that pigeon is rather an unsatisfactory thing for a hungry person. Heigho! what a life did I live at the Cedars: sigh, sigh, sigh, morning, noon, and night. I don't know what I should have done if it had not been for the garden, which was very nice, and the gardener always very civil. The place was well kept up--of course for an advertisement; and when I was alone in the garden, which was not often, I used to talk to the old man or one of his underlings, while they told me of their troubles. It is very singular, but though I thought the place looked particularly nice, I learnt from the old man that it was like every garden I had seen before, nothing to what it might be if there were hands enough to keep it in order. I spoke to papa about that singular coincidence, and he laughed, and said that it was a problem that had never yet been solved:--how many men it would take to keep a garden in thorough order. There was one spot I always favoured during the early days of my stay. It was situated on the north side of the house, where there was a dense, shady horse-chestnut, and beneath it a fountain in the midst of rockery--a fountain that never played, for the place was too oppressive and dull; but a few tears would occasionally trickle over the stones, where the leaves grew long and pallid, and the blossoms of such flowers as bloomed here were mournful, and sad, and colourless. It seemed just the spot to sit and sigh as I bent over the ferns growing from between the lumps of stone; for you never could go, even on the hottest days without finding some flower or another with a tear in its eye. I hope no one will laugh at this latter conceit, and call it poetical or trivial; for if I like to write in a sad strain, and so express my meaning when I allude to dew-wet petals, where is the harm? But to descend to everyday life. I talked a great deal just now about the different visitors we had, and the behaviour of our vicar in the church; and really it was a very nice little church, though I did not like the manners of some of the people who frequented it. Allsham being a small country town, as a matter of course it possessed several grandees, some among whom figured upon Mrs Blunt's circular; and it used to be so annoying to see about half-a-dozen of these big people cluster outside the porch in the churchyard, morning and afternoon, to converse, apparently, though it always seemed to me that they stood there to be bowed to by the tradesmen and mechanics. They never entered the church themselves until the clergyman was in the reading-desk, and the soft introductory voluntary was being played on the organ by the Fraulein, who performed in the afternoon, the organist in the morning. Then the grandees would come marching in slowly and pompously as a flock of geese one after another into a barn, proceeding majestically to their pews; when they would look into their hats for a few moments, seat themselves, and then stare round, as much as to say, "We are here now. You may begin." It used to annoy me from its regularity and the noise their boots made while the clergyman was praying; for they might just as well have come in a minute sooner; but then it was the custom at Allsham, and I was but a visitor. I did not get into any trouble until I had been there a month, when Madame Blunt must give me an imposition of a hundred lines for laughing at her, when I'm sure no one could have helped it, try ever so hard. In the schoolroom there was a large, flat, boarded thing, about a foot high, all covered with red drugget; and upon this used to stand Mrs Blunt's table and chair, so that she was a great deal higher than anyone else, and could easily look over the room. Then so sure as she began to sit down upon this dais, as she used to call it, there was a great deal of fuss and arranging of skirts, and settling of herself into her chair, which she would then give two or three pushes back, and then fidget forward; and altogether she would make more bother than one feels disposed to make sometimes upon being asked to play before company, when the music-stool requires so much arranging. Now, upon the day in question she had come in with her head all on one side, and pulling a sad long face, pretending the while to be very poorly, because she was half-an-hour late, and we had been waiting for the lesson she was down in the table to give. Then, as we had often had it before, and knew perfectly well what was coming, she suddenly caught sight of the clock. "Dear me, Miss Sloman! Bless my heart, that clock is very much too fast," she would exclaim. "It cannot be nearly so late as that." "I think it is quite right, Mrs de Blount," Miss Sloman would say, twitching her moustache. "Oh, dear me, no, Miss Sloman; nothing like right. My pendule is quite different." Of course we girls nudged one another--that is not a nice word, but kicked or elbowed seems worse; and then, thinking I did not know, Clara whispered to me that her ladyship always went on like that when she was down late of a morning. But I had noticed it several times before; while there it was, always the same tale, and the silly old ostrich never once saw that we could see her when she had run her stupid old head in the sand. Well, according to rule, she came in, found fault with the clock, but took care not to have it altered to match her gimcrack French affair in her bedroom, which she always called her pendule. Then she climbed on to the dais; and, as usual, she must be very particular about the arrangement of the folds of her satin dress, which was one of the company or parent-seeing robes, now taken into everyday use. "Look out," whispered Clara to me. "What for?" I said, in the same low tone. But instead of answering she pretended to be puzzled with something in her lesson, and got up to go and ask Miss Furness what it meant. All this while Mrs Blunt was getting up and sitting down, and rustling about like an old hen in a dust-bath, to get herself in position; when quite suddenly there was a sharp scream and a crash; and, on jumping up, I could see the lady principal upon the floor behind the dais where she had pulled over the table, and the ink was trickling down upon her neck. Of course, any lady in her senses would have got up directly, and tried to repair the mischief; but not she: for there she lay groaning as if in terrible pain, as Miss Furness and Miss Sloman, one at either hand, were trying to raise her, the Fraulein the while dragging off the table, and exclaiming in German; but not the slightest impression was made upon the recumbent mass--which seems to me the neatest way of saying "lying-down lump." Clara ran out of the room, holding her handkerchief to her mouth, but pretending all the while to be frightened out of her wits; and then what a fuss there was getting the fallen one into her seat again--but not on the dais--bathing her face, chafing her hands, sprinkling her with _Eau de Cologne_, holding salts to her nose; and it was just as she was groaning the loudest and sighing her worst that Clara came back, and began to look in her droll, comical way at me. I had not seen through the trick at first; but all at once I recalled that wicked girl's "Look out!" when it flashed through my mind in an instant that she had moved back the chair and table upon the dais, so that at the first good push back of her chair the poor woman fell down; and so, what with the thoughts of the wicked trick, and Mrs Blunt's long-drawn face, and Clara's droll eyes peering at me so saucily, I could not help it, but burst out into a loud laugh. Talk of smelling-salts, and bathing, and chafing, why, they were as nothing in comparison with that laugh. Poor Mrs Blunt! I dare say she did hurt herself, for she was stout and heavy; but she was well again in an instant, and looked at me in a horribly furious manner. But I did not care--not a bit; and I could not help it, for it was not my fault I could see though, that she thought that it was, as she burst out,-- "Miss Bozerne!" "Such unladylike behaviour," chimed in Miss Furness. "So cruel!" exclaimed Miss Sloman. "Ach ten!" ejaculated the Fraulein; while I caught sight of Miss Murray looking quite pained at me. "I did not think that a young lady in my establishment would have been guilty of such atrocious conduct," exclaimed Mrs Blunt furiously. "No, indeed," said Miss Furness. "Something entirely new," exclaimed Miss Sloman, tossing her pretty head. And there stood poor Miss Bozerne--poor me--feeling so red and ear tingling; for though I said that I did not care, I did, and very much too; but nothing should have made me confess that I knew the cause of the accident; and though all the while I was sure that dreadful Mrs Blunt thought I had moved her chair, I bore it, determined not to betray Clara, little thinking the while that the time would come when, upon a much more serious occasion, I should be dependent upon her generosity. But it really did seem too bad of the tiresome thing, who was holding down her head, and thoroughly enjoying the whole scene; and no doubt it was excellent fun for her, but it was very hard upon poor me. "Leave the room, Miss Bozerne, and retire to your dormitory," exclaimed Mrs Blunt at last, in a very awful tone of voice, and putting on every scrap of dignity she could command. I felt just as if I should have liked to have said "I won't;" but I controlled myself, and, making a sweeping curtsey, I went out, feeling very spiteful. And then, when I was upstairs and had received my hundred-line French imposition, I commenced work by writing a cross letter to mamma, and telling her that I would not stay in the nasty school any longer; and declaring that if she did not come soon and fetch me, I should run away. But though it was a very smartly-written, satirical letter, I tore it up afterwards; for something seemed to whisper to me that--that--well, that--But if those who have read so far into my confessions will have patience, and quietly keep on reading leaf after leaf, trying the while to sympathise with me, no doubt they will form a judgment for themselves of the reason which prevented me from sending the letter to mamma, and made me try to put up with the miseries of that select establishment for young ladies--the Cedars, Allsham. CHAPTER SIX. MEMORY THE SIXTH--GERMS THAT BUD. One long, weary, dreadful drag, but somehow or another time slipped away; though I shudder now when I recall that during that lapse of time I was growing more and more wicked every day; and matters were slowly progressing towards the dire hour when my happiness was wrecked for ever--buoyant bark though it was--upon the shoals and quicksands surrounding the fair land of love and joy. It would, perhaps, look particular, or I would repeat that last musical sentence, which seems to describe so aptly my feelings. But to resume. One could not help liking French lessons when one had such a teacher; and, oh, how I used to work to get my exercises perfect! Clara began to laugh and tease, but then I could fight her with her own weapons. I did not mind her beginning to say the verb _aimer_, because I always used to retaliate with something Italian, and she was beaten directly; for any one with half an eye could see why she was so fond of that especial study. How the monster with the short, crisp beard used to stare at me! Just as he did at the very first, when mamma was with me; and for a long time I used to fancy that every teacher and pupil must see how his eyes were directed at me, though I suppose really there was nothing for any one to see. But, oh, what a battle I used to have when lessons were over, and I had settled down into a quiet, dreamy way. Then would come the face of the Reverend Theodore Saint Purre, our curate in town, to look at me reproachfully, so sadly that I used to have many a good cry; and I hardly knew how to bear it. And certainly before I left London, I used to think a great deal of Mr Saint Purre; and I'm sure no young lady was more regular at church than I was. I was there every morning at eight, at the prayers, when really it was such a job in the cold weather to get up and be dressed--nicely dressed--in time. Then, I never missed one Wednesday or Friday, nor a saint's day; and as to Sundays, I went three times as a matter of course. Of course papa was, as you know, wicked enough to hint that so much going to church did not constitute true religion, and he did not believe in it. Wasn't it shocking? I did ask myself once, though, whether I should have gone so often if there had been a different curate. I must own that I certainly did think a great deal of Theodore Saint Purre before I left London, as I said before; but then it was not my wish to leave--I was forced away, and I had not dreamed of the noble exile then: the tender chords of sympathy for others' sorrows had not then been touched. I had not learned to pity one who was driven by a cruel tyrant from home and estate to gain his bread upon a cold shore by imparting the "_langue douce_" of his "_chere patrie_." I had not then seen the stern but handsome refugee--so handsome as, after all, I am compelled to think him; so interesting even in the little errors of pronunciation of our tongue. I always thought French a great bother until I heard him speak it, and then I grew to quite idolise the bright, sparkling idioms. Shakespeare was, of course, soon banished to make way for Moliere; and then after reading to him, Monsieur Achille would perhaps say a few words of praise, every one of which would make my face tingle so that I felt red right up to the roots of my hair. But the Cedars was, after all, a dreadfully tiresome place, and seemed made up of aggravation. What was the use of having a lawn for tennis, with the nets all so ostentatiously displayed, as if the young ladies could always enjoy a little recreation there, when, so sure as one had a racquet in hand and any one began to serve, squeak, screech, or croak came the voice of Miss Furness, Miss Sloman, or the Fraulein, to announce some new lesson, when, of course, we had to go in? I declare if I did not, over and over again, say that vulgar, wicked word that I had learned of papa, and tried so hard to break myself of, though it seemed of not the slightest use, and the more I tried the metre it would keep forcing itself into my mind--I declare if I did not, over and over again say "Jigger the lessons!" What it meant, I never knew; and to be candid, I have always been afraid to ask for fear of its being unladylike and strange. I used to get up every morning sighing and declaring that I would not stay, till I took hold of the books to prepare my French exercises, when somehow I glided into a better frame of mind; for they seemed to cheer me up, and render the place a little less distasteful. I know very well now that my conduct afterwards was very sad, and that I can offer no defence; but when there is any scandal, and things that were untrue have been said, of course I feel bound to speak up; and, whether out of place or not, I mean to say here that, whether it was to tease me, or whether she meant it, all that Clara hinted was untrue. Why is it that girls delight so much in making the course of--I mean have such a strong desire to hint, and laugh, and look as if saying, "I know." I never once wrote Monsieur Achille's name upon my blotting-paper, for I would not have been guilty of such bold, outrageous conduct; but the tiresome creature would persist in saying that I did, and, as a matter of course, it was of no use to try and stop her. But I could not help feeling how shocking it was, and how wrong for Monsieur Achille to take advantage of his position as a teacher to behave as he did. He must have been very badly taught himself; and yet it did seem so sweet when one was banished in this way from home, joined to him, as it were, by those before-mentioned chords of sympathy--to him, another exile from home; and it was such nonsense to say Mrs Blunt's establishment embraced all the comforts of a home, when one never saw a single comfort: if it did, they must have been embraced so tightly that they were all smothered--it seemed so sweet to have one to take an interest in every word and look, as Monsieur Achille soon showed that he did. And we had no pets--neither bird nor dog; and what could I do but set to loving something? I may be wrong, but it seems to me only natural that we should have something on which to bestow our love; and if that is taken away upon which one wishes to bestow it, why it must gush over upon some other object. Of course, I loved Clara; but, then, she loved something else, and one did not get a fair exchange for one's affection; and I wanted a great deal of devotion to comfort me then, and make up for what I was suffering. So at last, giving way the least, little, tiniest morsel at a time, I began to feel that I should some day love Monsieur Achille very passionately; and--oh, how wicked!--I was first quite sure of it at church one Sunday, when that dreadful curate was preaching at the old vicar, and Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy were saying it over to themselves with their eyes shut, and one's heart was out in the green fields and woods and far away, and as wicked as a heart can be. Oh, yes, wicked--wicked--wicked as could be--dreadfully wicked! But it was all mamma's fault. I had many a good cry about it, but I could not help it all; and after walking two and two to church together, like little girls--it did seem such a relief to have some one in the building who did not look upon one as a child. For there _he_ used to sit, Sunday after Sunday, behaving so hypocritically, for all the while he was a Roman Catholic; only he came to church to please Mrs Blunt, though I sometimes fancy it was to please himself as well. But it was upon this one Sunday that I seemed to notice it so particularly. Just for want of something better to do, I suppose, I had been taking the greatest of pains with myself; and I must have looked nice, or else Clara would not have stood and clapped her hands when I was ready. Then we went off, and no sooner were we well outside the great iron gates than there just before us we could see Monsieur Achille and the Signor, arm in arm, going towards the church, and having evidently just before been taking a walk in the bright, free, green fields from which I was prisoned. I saw them look very hard towards us when they turned round, and Clara whispered that she knew why they had come, and where they were going; for previous to this, I suppose, they had very seldom been in the church--at least, we had never hardly seen them. But it was plain enough where they were going, for they went in just before us; and as they stood in the porch waiting for the pew-opener, the Signor commenced crossing himself just as if it were a regular Roman Catholic chapel, till I saw Monsieur Achille pinch his arm and whisper something, so that he dropped his hand to his side and looked quite horrified. Then I saw Monsieur Achille whisper to the pew-opener, and they disappeared within the great swing, red-baize doors, and we went upstairs to fill the long pews in the gallery. It was only natural that we should look round the church after being comfortably seated, when there, in one of the sideway seats were the two masters, casting an eye up towards us every now and then, and looking so hard that I felt quite ashamed, and was afraid it would be observed; but I soon remembered that our three Graces were sitting in the pew behind, and I knew they felt sure that the glances were directed at them. Poor things! And then it was that I had that thought come into my head, forcing its way in as if to make its abode there, although I shut my eyes tightly, and determined not to think of anything of the kind. People take opiates for pains bodily; but why, oh! why do not Savoury and Moore, or Godfrey and Cooke, or somebody or another bring out an opiate for pains mental? What would I not have given that day to have lulled the excitement of my feelings, and to have attended quietly to my duties as I ought? Tiresome, tiresome, tiresome!--oh, how tiresome it was, day after day, to go back to all the old school ways and habits--writing exercises, learning lessons, saying them, and being corrected and snubbed; heard to read, one's emphasis here, there, and everywhere found fault with, when I'm sure I read far better than those who heard me. Then my writing was not in accordance with Mrs Blunt's ideas of penmanship. There were no novels to read; no _Times_, with its mysterious advertisements, that seem to mean such a deal; no morning concerts, no walks or rides--only exercise, two and two, as walking advertisements of the Cedars. I declare at last, in spite of the French lessons--or perhaps partly owing to the whirl within me, and the dreadfully worried state I was in--I grew quite low-spirited, and could not eat, and used to sit and mope, and I could see that I was getting paler and paler every day. This sort of thing, though, would not do for Mrs Blunt, who saw in it the probable loss of a pupil and plenty of pounds a year; and one morning there was a summons for me to go into the drawing-room, where I found Mrs Blunt and a gentleman in black--so prim, so white-handkerchiefed and gold-sealed! All his grey hair was brushed up into a point, like an ice-mountain on the top of his head; while, whenever he spoke, his words came rolling out like great sugar-coated pills--so soft, so sweet, so smooth, you might have taken him for a great mechanical bon-bon box, and the hand he gently waved for the spring that set him in motion. I knew well enough that he was a doctor, as soon as I went in, and that he had been sent for to see me. "Miss Bozerne, Dr Boole," said Mrs Blunt. And then, after ever so much bowing and saluting, there was the horrid old wretch, screwing his face up, and wagging his head, and peeping at me out of his half-shut eyes; and he felt my pulse and told me to put out my tongue. While directly after he drew in a long breath and pinched his lips together, as if he knew all about my complaint, and could see through it in a moment. But he did not know that I was mentally delivering him a homily upon hypocrisy, of which dreadful stuff it seemed to me there was an abundance at Allsham, it being about the place like an epidemic--or I suppose I ought to say it was in the place like an epidemic. And I must confess I had caught the complaint very badly, though Dr Boole was no use for that, seeing that he could not cure himself. Oh! if everybody troubled with hypocrisy would only call in the doctor, what a fortune each medical man would soon make! Well, the doctor left hold of my wrist, after putting it down gently, as if it were something breakable, and put his gold eyeglasses up for another inspection. Was not my appetite rather failing? Did I not have a strong inclination to sigh? Did I not feel low-spirited, and wake of a morning unrefreshed? Why, of course I did. And so would any one who had been treated as I had, and so I felt disposed to tell him; but it would have been of little use. So I let them say and think what they liked; and when the interview was over, the doctor rose and walked out of the room, bowing in a way that must have delighted Mrs Blunt's ideas of deportment; for he had written something upon a half-sheet of note-paper, and left orders that the prescription should be immediately made up. "Of course," said Mrs Blunt, "I shall write to your dear mamma by the next post, Miss Bozerne; but she need be under no concern, for the kindness of a home will be bestowed upon you. And now you had better return to the pursuance of your course of studies." I took the extremely polite hint; but I did not take the medicine when it was sent in. What did I want with medicine? Why, it was absurd. I used to pour it out into the glass, and then take it to the open window and throw it as far out as I could, so as to make a shower of fine physic fall upon the grass and pathway--such small drops that no one could see it had been thrown out. And, after all, I'm sure it was only a little bitter water, coloured and scented, and labelled to look important. At the doctor's next visit I was horribly afraid that he would ask me whether I had taken the medicine; and sure enough he did, only Mrs Blunt directly said "Yes," and he was satisfied, and said I was much better, though he did not quite like my flushed, feverish-looking face. So he wrote another prescription for that, when I was only colouring up on account of being asked about his nasty stuff. CHAPTER SEVEN. MEMORY THE SEVENTH--FRENCH WITH A MASTER. That dreadful man had pronounced me to be decidedly better, and had been and gone for the last time, while I felt quite sorry as I thought of the expense, and of how it would figure in the account along with the books and extras. The creature had rubbed his hands and smiled, and congratulated me upon my improved looks and rapid return to health. But really I did feel decidedly better, though it was not his doing; and if any prescription at all had done me good, it was a tiny one written in French. And now, somehow, I did seem to find the Cedars a little more bearable, and my spirits were brighter and better; but not one drop of the odious medicine had I taken. Clara had more than once seen me throw it away, and had said "Oh!" and "My!" and "What a shame!" but I had thrown it away all the same, except twice or three times when I got Patty Smith to take it for me, which she did willingly, upon my promising to do her exercises; and I really think she would have taken quarts of the odious stuff on the same conditions, for she could eat and drink almost anything, and I believe that she was all digestive apparatus instead of brains. Pasty wasters, fat, sour gooseberries, vinegar pippins, it was all the same to her; and she used to be always having great dry seed-cakes sent to her from home, to sit voraciously devouring at night when we went to bed; and then out of generosity, when I had helped her with her exercises--which I often did as I grew more contented--she would cut me off wedges of the nasty, branny stuff with her scissors, which was a lucky thing for the sparrows, who used to feast upon seed-cake crumbs from morning to night, for I never ate any. And now I began to pay more attention to the lessons: singing with the Signor or the Fraulein, who had one of the most croaky voices I ever heard, though she was certainly a most brilliant pianiste. Her name was Gretchen, but we used to call her Clarionette, for that seemed to suit best with her horrid, reedy, croaky voice. Then, too, I used to practise hard with my instrumental music; but such a jangly piano we had for practice, though there was a splendid Collard in the drawing-room that it was quite a treat to touch. But only fancy working up Brinley Richards, or Vincent Wallace, or Czerny upon a horrible skeleton-keyed piano that would rattle like old bones, while it was always out of tune, had a dumb note somewhere, and was not even of full compass. Then I tried hard to take to the dancing, and to poor little Monsieur de Kittville--droll little man!--who always seemed to have two more arms than belonged to him; and there they were, tight in his coat sleeves, and hung out, one on each side, as if he did not know where to put them; and he a master of deportment! I had quite taken the turn now, and was trying to bear it all, and put up with everything as well as I could, even with the horribly regular meals which we used to sit down to at a table where all the knives and forks were cripples--some loose in their handles, some were cracked, some were bent, and others looked over their shoulders. One horrid thing came out one day, and peppered my dinner with rosiny dust; and there it was--a fork--sticking upright in a piece of tough stewed steak, although two of the prongs were bent; and when some of the girls tittered, Miss Furness said that I ought to have known better, and that such behaviour was most unladylike and unbecoming. But there, she was naturally an unpleasant, crabby old thing, and never hardly opened her lips to speak without saying words that were all crooked and full of corners. She once told Celia Blang--the pupil she petted, and who used to tell her tales--that she had been considered very handsome, and was called the "flower of the village;" but if she was, they must have meant the flower of the vinegar plant--for it is impossible to conceive a more acid old creature. In church, too, it was enough to make one turn round and slap her; for if she did not copy from the vicar, and take to repeating the responses out quite terribly loud, and before the officiating priest, so as to make believe how devout she was, when it really seemed to me that it was only to make herself conspicuous. And then, to see the way in which the vain old thing used to dress her thin, straggley hair! I do not laugh at people because their hair is not luxuriant or is turning grey, but at their vanity, which I am sure deserves it; and anybody is welcome to laugh at mine. As for Miss Furness's hair, there was a bit of false here and another bit there, and so different in shade and texture to her own that it was quite shocking to see how artificial she looked; while, to make matters ten times worse, she could not wear her hair plain, but in that old-fashioned Eugenie style, stretching the skin of her face out so tightly that her red nose shone, and she was continually on the grin. And yet I've caught her standing before the glass in the drawing-room, to simper and smile at herself, as if she were a goddess of beauty. After a time the Eugenie style was dismissed to make way for a great pad; when, very soon, her light silk dress was all over pomatumy marks between the shoulders, though she rubbed it well with bread-crumbs every night. I was so annoyed that I curled my hair all round, and next day wore it hanging in ringlets; and this was the day upon which I received the prescription written in French, which did me so much good. It was French lesson day, and while my exercise was being corrected and I was trying to translate, I felt something pressed into my hand; and somehow or another--though I knew how horribly wicked it was--I had not the heart to refuse it, but blushed, and trembled, and stood there with my face suffused, blundering through the translation, until the lesson was ended, and without daring to look at the giver, I rushed away upstairs and devoured those two or three lines hastily scribbled upon a piece of exercise paper. No! never, never, never will I divulge what they were! Enough that I say how they made my cheeks burn, my heart throb, and the whole place turn into an abode of bliss. Why, I could have kissed Mrs Blunt and all the teachers that evening; and when, at tea-time, as I sat thoughtful and almost happy--I think that I was quite happy for a little while--Miss Furness said something spiteful and cross, I really don't think I minded it a bit. It did not last long--that very bright rose-colour medium; but there was something of it henceforth to make lessons easy, and the time to pass less dolefully. I did not answer the first note, nor the second, nor yet the third; but I suppose he must have seen that I was not displeased, or he would not have written so many times; but at last I did dare to give him a look, which brought note after note for me to devour again and again in solitude. I quite tremble now I write, when I think of the daring I displayed in receiving them; but I was brave then, and exultant over my conquest in holding for slave that noble-looking French refugee, whose private history must, I felt, be such a romance, that I quite felt as if I grew taller with importance. Every note I received was written in his own sweet, sparkling, champagne-like language; and, oh! what progress I made in the tongue, though I am afraid I did not deserve all the praise he bestowed upon me. Times and times he used to pray for an interview, that I would meet him somewhere--anywhere; but of course I could not yield to any such request, but told him to be content with the replies I gave him to his notes. But still, plan after plan would he propose, and all of them so dreadfully imprudent, and wild, and chivalrous, that nothing could be like it. I know that he would have been a knight or a cavalier had he lived earlier; while as to his looks!--ah, me! I fear that there must be truth in mesmerism, for I felt from the first that he had some terrible power over me, and could--what shall I say?--there, I cannot think of a better simile--turn me, as it were, round his finger; and that is really not an elegant expression. But then, he was so calm, so pensive-looking, and noble, that he might have been taken for one of Byron's heroes--Lara, or Manfred, or the Giaour. Either or all of these must have been exactly like him; while to find out that I, Laura Bozerne, was the sole object of his worship--Oh! it was thrilling. I do not know how the time went then, for to me there seemed to be only one measurement, and that was the space between Monsieur Achille's lessons. As to the scoldings that I was constantly receiving, I did not heed them now in the least; for my being was filled by one sole thought, while the shadowy, reproachful face of Theodore Saint Purre grew more faint day by day. It must have been weeks--I cannot tell; months, perhaps--after my entrance as pupil at the Cedars that I retired on some excuse one afternoon to my dormitory, with a little, sharp, three-cornered note, and tremblingly anxious I tore it open, and read its contents. And those contents? I would not even hint at them, if it were not that they are so necessary to the progress of my confessions. He said that he had implored me again and again to meet him, and yet I was relentless and cruel; and now he had come to the determination to wait night by night under the great elm-trees by the side wall, when, even if I would not meet him, he would still have the satisfaction of stilling the beatings of his aching heart by folding his arms about it, leaning against some solitary, rugged trunk, and gazing upon the casket which contained his treasure. I might join him, or I might leave him to his bitter solitude; but there he would be, night after night, as a guardian to watch over my safety. It was a beautiful note, and no amount of translating could do it justice; for after the glowing French in which it was written, our language seems cold and blank. What could I do? I could not go, and yet it was impossible to resist the appeal. How could I rest upon my pillow, knowing him to be alone in the garden watching, with weary, waiting eyes, for my coming?--for him to be there hour after hour, till the cold dawn was breaking, and then to turn away, with Tennyson, slightly altered, upon his lips,-- "_She_ cometh not, _he_ said." It was too much! I fought as I had fought before, over and over again, thinking of how it would be wicked, wrong, imprudent, unmaidenly. Oh, what dozens of adjectives I did slap my poor face with that afternoon, vowing again and again that I would not heed his note. But it was unbearable; and at last, with flushed cheeks and throbbing pulses, I plunged the note beneath the front of my dress, exclaiming,-- "Come what may, I will be there!" CHAPTER EIGHT. MEMORY THE EIGHTH--ONE OF MY SINS. A day had passed--a long, long, dreary day, and a weary, weary night-- during which I kept on starting up from sleep to think that I heard a voice whispering the word "Come!" Come, come, come--ah! the number of times I seemed to hear that word, and sat up in bed, pressing my hair from my ears to listen, to lie down again with a sigh--for it was only fancy. How could I go? What could I do? I dare not try to meet him, even though I had vowed that I would. I kept calling myself coward, but that was of no use, for I only owned to it and made no reply; though towards morning, after I had been picturing to myself his weary form leaning watchingly against a tree for hours, and then seemed to see him slowly going disappointed away, I made another vow that, come another night, spite of cowardice and anything else, I would go. And then, while I lay thinking of how shocking it would be, and all that sort of thing, I dropped off asleep to be awakened by a curious buzzing noise, which was Patty Smith humming a tune--like some horrible great bluebottle--as she was dressing, for the bell had rung some time before. And now the next night had come. It was so hot that I could scarcely breathe, and the tiresome moon would shine so dreadfully bright that it was like a great, round eye peering between the edge of the blind and the window-frame to watch my proceedings. Clara was soon in bed, and breathing hard; while as for Patty Smith, she snored to that degree that I quite shivered. It must have been her snoring that made me shiver, for as to what I was about to venture, now that I could feel my mind fully made up, I was quite bold, though my heart would beat so loudly that it went "thump, thump," under the heavy clothes. I had hurried upstairs first, and was lying in bed quite dressed, though I lay wondering whether those two would notice that my clothes were not there by the bedside. I thought it would never be twelve o'clock, and I tried to think what Achille would be doing. It was so romantic, now that I had passed the first feeling of dread, and seemed so much nicer than sitting up in bed in the dark to have a supper of cakes, sweets, and apples, as we used to at the old school when I was young. Ah, yes, when I was young!--for I felt old now. In another hour I should be down in the side walk, where the wall skirted the road. But suppose I were heard upon the stairs, or opening the side door, or Clara should wake, or-- "Oh, you goose!" I exclaimed at last; "pray don't go if you are so much afraid." But really it was enough to make any maiden's heart beat. I had changed his note about from place to place, for I could not part with it, and I sighed at the very idea of locking it up in my box with the others; but I had it now, and I could feel the sharp corner prick every time I moved. I knew it every word by heart, down even to where it said, "Thine for ever;" and as I whispered it over to myself, I grew more and more excited, and longed for the time to slip by faster. At last, when it seemed as though it would never come, I heard the church clock faintly striking twelve; and then I shivered again horribly with that dreadful Patty's snoring, for it was not likely I should have any foolish fancies about witching hours of midnight, or anything of that kind; and then I softly glided out of bed, and stood quite still for nearly five minutes, when, all remaining quiet, and the breathing of Clara and Patty sounding regular, I stepped on one side of the bright pathway made by the moonbeams, made my way to the door, and gently turned the handle. I never knew that door to be so noisy before, and I now really trembled; for, as the tiresome thing creaked, I could hear either Clara or Patty turn in bed, and I stopped quite short, expecting every moment to hear my name pronounced. But no--all was silence and snore. I gently closed the door after me, and stood in the dark passage, with my heart almost failing; for I hardly dared stir a step farther, knowing, as I did, that in the next room slept the Fraulein, while the other two Graces were only a few steps farther down the passage. Somebody was breathing so hard that it was almost a snore, and it was not Patty Smith now; and more than once I was for going back, but I stole on at last, and reached the great staircase, where the moon was shining right through the skylight, and making queer shadows upon the wall. But I glided down, and was nearly at the bottom, when, looking up, I felt almost ready to sink--for, in the full glare of the moonlight, there stood a tall figure gazing down at me. I did not shriek, nor turn to run away, for I had self-command enough to govern the emotions struggling for exit; though I wonder that I did not go mad with fear from the terror which came upon me, as I saw the tall, white figure come slowly gliding down--nearer, nearer, nearer; now in the moonlight, now in the deep shade. Oh, it was fearful! And, after all, to be candid, I believe the reason I did not scream out was because I could not; for my mouth felt hot and parched, and at times my head seemed quite to swim. As I stood on one of the landings, and backed away from the coming figure, I felt the door of the little room where we hung our garden hats and mantles give way behind me, when I backed slowly in, pushed the door softly to, and then crept tremblingly into a corner, drawing a large shawl before me, but not without knocking down a hat from one of the pegs, to fall with, oh! such a noise, seeing that it was only straw. There I stood, almost without breathing, hoping that I had not been seen, and that the figure, whatever it was, would go by. Every second seemed turned into a minute, and at last I began to revive; for I felt that, whatever the figure was, it had passed on; and I drew a long breath of relief, thinking now that I must gain my own room at any cost, and the sooner the better, for of course any meeting was quite impossible. I was just going to sigh deeply for poor Achille, when I felt, as it were, frozen again; for the door began to glide slowly open, rustling softly over the carpet--for everything sounded so horribly distinct--and there at last stood the tall white figure, while, as I felt ready to die, I heard my name pronounced, in a low whisper, twice,-- "Laura! Laura!" For a moment or two I could not reply, when the call was repeated; and, irresistibly attracted, I went slowly forward from my hiding-place, to feel myself caught by the arm by Clara, who had been watching me. "You cruel, wicked girl!" I exclaimed in a whisper. "How could you frighten me so?" "Serve you right, too, you wicked, deceitful thing," she said. "Why could you not trust me? But I don't care. I know. I can see through you. I know where you are going." "That you do not," I said, boldly; for I felt cross now the fright was over, and I could have boxed the tiresome creature's ears. "You'd better not talk so loudly," she said with a sneer; "that is, if you do not want Lady Blunt to hear your voice." "There," I said, spitefully, "I thought you did not know." "Under the tall elms by the garden wall," whispered Clara, laughing, and translating one of the sentences in the very note I had in my breast; and then I remembered that I had left it for about a quarter of an hour in my morning-dress pocket, before I ran up after changing and fetched it down; though I never should have thought she would have been so treacherous as to read it. But there, she had me in her power, and however much I might have felt disposed to resent her conduct, I could do nothing then, so-- "Hush!" I said, imploringly. "Pray, do not tell, dear!" "Ah," said the nasty, treacherous thing, "then you ought to have told me, and trusted me with your secret. But did you think that I was blind, Laura Bozerne, and couldn't see what was going on? And you never to respond to my confidence, when I always trusted you from the very first. I did think that we were friends." "Oh, pray don't talk so," I exclaimed; "nor make so much noise, or we shall be heard." For it was not I who spoke loudly now. "Well, and suppose we are," she said, coolly. "I can give a good account of my conduct, I think, Miss Bozerne." "Oh, pray don't talk like that, dear," I said--"pray, don't." And then, feeling that all dissimulation was quite useless, I cast off the reserve, and exclaimed, catching her by both hands--"Oh, do help me, there's a darling; for he has been waiting for two nights." "Yes, I dare say he has," said the deceitful creature; "but I don't mean to be mixed up with such goings on." A nasty thing!--when I found out afterwards that she had more than once been guilty of the same trick; and all the while professing to have placed such confidence in me. If I had been free to act, I should have boxed the odious thing's ears; but what could I do then, but crave and pray and promise, and beg of her to be my friend, till she said she would, and forgave me, as she called it; and then I watched her go slowly upstairs till she was out of sight; for whatever she might do in the future, she declared that she would not help me that night. And there I stood, in a state of trembling indecision, not knowing what to do--whether to go after her, or steal down to the side door; and at last I did the latter, if only out of pure pity for poor Achille, and began slowly to unfasten the bolts. The nasty things went so hard that I broke my nails over them, while I turned all hot and damp in the face when the cross bar slipped from my fingers, and made such a bang that I felt sure it must have been heard upstairs. And there I stood listening and trembling, and expecting every moment to hear a door open and the sound of voices. It was only the romantic excitement, or else sheer pity, which kept me from hurrying back to my own room, to bury my sorrows in my soft pillow. I waited quite five minutes, and then tied my handkerchief over my hat, and raised the latch. The next moment I stood outside in the deep shadow, with the water-butt on my right and the wash-house door on my left; and then, with beating heart, I glided from shrub to shrub, till I reached the wall, beneath whose shadow I made my way to the path that runs under the tall elms, where the wall was covered with ivy. In spite of my fluttering heart, and the knowledge I possessed of how I was committing myself, I could not help noticing how truly beautiful everything looked--the silvery sweet light, glancing through the trees; the deep shadows; and, again, the bright spots where the moon shone through the openings. And timid though I was, I could not help recalling Romeo and Juliet, thinking what a time this was for a love-tale, and regretting that there were no balconies at the Cedars. Then I paused, in the shade of one of the deepest trees, holding my hand to my side to restrain the beating of my heart, as I listened for his footstep. "I'll only stay with him one minute," I said to myself, "and then run in again, like the wind." A minute passed: no footstep. Two minutes, five, ten; and then I stole to the end of the walk. But there was no one; and I began to tremble with fear first, and then with excitement, and lastly with indignation; for it seemed to me that I was deceived. "The poor fellow must have gone back in despair, believing that I should not come. Ah! he does not know me," I muttered at last. "Perhaps I am too soon," I thought a few minutes later, "and he may yet come." For I would not let the horrible feeling of disappointment get the upper hand. And then I crept closer to the wall, and waited, looking out from an opening between the trees at the moonlit house, and wondering whether Clara was yet awake. All was still as possible. Not a sigh of the night wind, nor a footstep, nor even the rustle of a leaf; when all at once I nearly screamed, for there was a sharp cough just above my head. And as my heart began to beat more and more tumultously than ever, there was a rustling in the ivy on the top of the wall, and a dark figure leaped to the ground, where I should have fallen had it not caught me in its arms. I shut my eyes, as I shivered, half in fear and half with pleasure; and then I let my forehead rest upon my hands against his manly breast--for even in those moments of bliss the big buttons on his coat hurt my nose. And thus we stood for some few moments, each waiting for the other to speak; when he said, in a whisper,--"Better now?" "Oh, yes," I replied; "but I must leave thee now. Achille, _a demain_." "Eh?" he said, with a huskiness of tone which I attributed to emotion. "I must leave thee now," I said. "How did you get out?" he whispered. "By the side door," I said, trembling; for an undefined feeling of dread was creeping over me. "Any chance of a taste of anything?" he whispered. "Good heavens!" I ejaculated, opening my eyes to their widest extent, "who are you?" And I should have turned and fled, but that he held me tightly by the wrist. "Well, perhaps, it don't matter who I am, and never mind about my number," said the wretch. "I'm a pleeceman, that's what I am, county constabulary. Will that soot yer?" "Oh, pray release me!" I said, "oh, let me go!" I gasped; for I thought he might not understand the first, these low men are so ignorant. "Pray go to Monsieur de Tiraille, and he will reward you." "That's him as I ketched atop of the wall, I suppose," said the creature. "My, how he did cut when I showed him the bull's-eye! Thought it was a cracking case, my dear; but I'm up to a thing or two, and won't split. But I say, my dear, how's Ann? And so you took me for him, did you? Well, I ain't surprised." And then if the wretch didn't try to draw me nearer to him: but I started back, horrified. "Well, just as you like, you know," exclaimed the ruffian. "But, I say, you'll let me drink your health, you know, won't you?" "Oh, yes," I exclaimed, interpreting his speech into meaning "Give me a shilling," which I did, and he loosed my arm. "That's right," he said. "I thought you were a good sort. Feel better, don't you?" "Oh, yes," I exclaimed. "Please let me go now." "Let you go," he said; "to be sure. I was just going to offer you my advice, that you'd better step in before the old gal misses you. He won't come again to-night now, I scared him too much; so ta-ta, my dear--I won't spoil sport next time." And then, almost before the wretch's words had left his lips, I fled, nor ceased running until I reached the side door, which I entered, closed, and fastened again; and then glided upstairs to my room, where Patty still snored and Clara watched; but my acts seemed all mechanical, and I can only well recollect one, and that was my throwing myself upon her breast, and bursting into tears. At last I was once more in bed, my heart still beating tumultuously; and directly after Clara crept in to my side, when it was of no use, I could not keep it in, for it did seem so kind and sympathising of her, though I believe it was only to satisfy her curiosity. So I had a thorough good cry in her arms, and told her of all the terrors of that dreadful night; when instead of, as I expected, trying to console me, the nasty thing had the heart to say,-- "Well, dear, it's all very fine; but I should not like to be you!" CHAPTER NINE. MEMORY THE NINTH--A GUILTY CONSCIENCE. I suppose it comes natural to people to feel sleepy at night; for I did not mention it before, but I had terribly hard work to keep awake on that night when I had such a horrible adventure, while soon after telling that unfeeling Clara all about it I fell asleep, and they had such a task to wake me when the bell rang. But I'm sure any one might have pitied my feelings upon that terrible morning. When I was thoroughly awake it was just as if there was a weight upon my mind, and for some time I could not make out what was the matter. Then came, with a rush, the recollection of my adventure, so that I first of all turned crimson with shame, and then as white as a dreadful marble statue. For somehow things do look so very different of a night to what they do by broad daylight, and I do believe that, after all, one of the greatest of missionary efforts would be a more general diffusion of gas and electric lights; for I'm sure if people are all made like me, we should not have been half so wicked if we had two suns instead of a sun and a moon, and that last half her time making no shine at all. I believe it's night that makes most people wicked; for fancy me going to meet Achille under the elms in broad daylight! Why, the idea is preposterous! But oh! how bad, and wicked, and ashamed, and repentant, and conscience-smitten I did feel. It was dreadful only to think of it, for months after. It seemed so horrible to me, how that I had rested my head against the buttons of that shockingly low wretch of a policeman's coat and not known the difference; while what Achille would have thought had he but known, I could not--nay I dare not--think. Then there was that Clara looking at me with such a dreadful mocking smile, that I felt as if I could have turned her into stone--for she was oozing all over with triumph; and yet all the time I was so angry with myself, for I knew that I was completely in her power, as well as in that of the constable--a low wretch!--who might say anything, and perhaps tell the servants. And, by the way, who was Ann, that he had asked me about? "Why," I exclaimed, trembling, "it must be Sarah Ann, the housemaid; and I shall never dare to look her in the face again. Oh, Laura Bozerne," I said, "how you have lowered yourself!" I had a quiet cry, and was a little better. But I felt very guilty when I went down, and every time I was addressed I gave quite a start, and stared as if expecting that whoever spoke knew my secret; while during lessons, when a message came from Mrs Blunt that she wanted to see me in the study, I felt as if I should have gone through the floor; and on turning my eyes to Clara, expecting sympathy, there she was actually laughing at me. "If this is being in love," I said to myself, "I mean very soon to be out of it again;" and then I stood trembling and hesitating, afraid to stir. "Did you hear the lady principal's summons, Miss Bozerne?" said that starchy Miss Furness, in her most dignified style. I turned round, and made her a most elaborate De Kittville obeisance, and I saw the old frump toss her head; for I know she always hated me because I happened to be nice-looking--mind, I don't say I was nice-looking, for I am merely writing down now what people said who were foolish enough to think so. Achille once said I was--but there, I will not be vain. So I crossed the hall, then to the study door, and stood with my hand raised to take hold of the white china handle; but just then I heard Mrs Blunt give one of her little short, sharp, pecking coughs, such as she gave when muttering to herself to make up a scolding for some one. No sooner did I hear that cough than I dropped my hand down to my side, and stood hesitating upon the mat, afraid to enter; for who could help feeling a coward under such circumstances, I should like to know? It was very dreadful; and though I kept telling myself that I was not a bit afraid of Mrs Blunt, yet somehow I seemed to be just then. However, I kept trying to make up my mind to bear it all, and to ask her pardon, and to promise that it should not occur again if she would not write to mamma; but my tiresome mind would not be made up, but kept running about from one thing to another, till I declare I almost felt ready to faint. "Oh, Achille, Achille!" I murmured, "I must give you up. What I suffer for your sake! _Oh, mon pauvre coeur_!" I felt better after that, for it seemed that I was to return to my old quiet state of suffering; and the determination not to run any more risks began to nerve me to bear the present suffering; almost as much as the rustle of the Fraulein's silk dress upon the stairs. And of course I would not allow her to see me waiting at the door, and afraid to go in; so I tapped, and entered. There sat the lady principal, writing a letter, and frowning dreadfully--though she always did that when there was a pen in her hand; and as she just looked up when I entered, she motioned me to a chair with the feather end of the bead and silk adorned quill she held. "Take a seat, Miss Bozerne," she muttered, between her patent minerals, as we used to call them; and there I was, sitting upon thorns, metaphorically and really--for the chair I took had the seat all worked in roses and briars and cactus, while there was that tiresome old thing with the little glass dew-drop knobs at the end of the sprays in her cap, nodding and dancing about every time she came to a hard word. "She is writing home, I know," I said to myself, "and then she means to take me back; for it must all be found out--and, oh dear! oh dear! what shall I do?" The scene there would be at home came up before me like a vision, and I fancied I could hear papa storming, though he is not very particular, and his rage is soon over, just like a storm, and he is all sunshine after. But mamma. Ah! how she would go on, and tell me that I had been sent down to cure me of my _penchant_ for the curate, to descend so low as a policeman. "Just like a common cook in an area!" I seemed to hear her say. But it was only Mrs Blunt mumbling to herself as she sat writing. And then I half felt as if I should like to run away altogether; and next I thought that if some one had been there all ready with a fly or a post-chaise, I would have gone with him anywhere. Directly after I gave such a jump, for there was the crunching of a step upon the gravel sweep, and I felt the blood all flush up in my face again; for it was his step--his, and it seemed that he was to be brought in, and we were to be confronted, and there would be quite a _denouement_; but then I felt as brave as could be, for was not he close at hand to take my part? And I felt ready to say things that I could not have uttered, and to hear scoldings that would have killed me five minutes before. I was just feeling ready to sink through the carpet when the old wretch raised her head. "Ah! there's Monsieur Achille," she cried in a decisive tone, and now I felt as if it must be coming. But no, the tiresome old thing still kept me upon the thorns of suspense; while I heard the front door squeak and his step in the hall, the opening and closing of a door, and I felt as if I could have rushed to meet him and tell him of the horrible state of fear that I had been in; besides which, I knew that he would have a _corrected exercise_ to return me, and I was burning to see what he would say. "And now, Miss Bozerne," said Mrs Blunt, laying down her pen, and crossing her hands upon the table, so as to show her rings, while she spoke in the most stately of ways--"and now Miss Bozerne, I have a crow to--er--er--I have, that is to say, a few words to speak to you concerning something that has lately, very lately, come to my ears; and you know, my dear, that I have extremely long ears for this sort of thing." And then she tried to draw herself up, and look august; but the vulgar old thing only made herself more common and obtrusive, while I began to tremble in the most agitated manner. "Miss Furness tells me, Miss Bozerne--" she continued. "Oh, how came she to know, I wonder?" I thought to myself. "Miss Furness tells me," she said again, "of various little acts of insubordination, and want of attention to lessons and the instruction she endeavours to impart--to impart, Miss Bozerne; and you must understand that in my absence the lady assistants of my establishment are to have the same deference shown them as I insist upon having paid to myself." And then she went on for ever so long about delegated authority, and a great deal more of it, until she had worked herself into a regular knot, with her speech all tangled; when she sent me away to the French lesson. And how can I describe my feelings! I don't remember who that was that put iron bands round his heart to keep it from breaking with sorrow, while they all went off, crack! crack! one after another afterwards, from joy; but I felt when I left Mrs Blunt's room, precisely as that somebody must have felt at that time. To have seen the dignified salute which was exchanged, no one could have thought it possible that a note had ever passed between Monsieur Achille and poor me. When I took my seat at the bottom of that long table, being the last arrival, not a look, not a glance--only a very sharp reprimand, which brought the tears in my eyes, because my exercise was not better; while my translation of English into French was declared to be _affreux_. Oh! it did seem so hard, after what I had risked for him the night before; but I soon fired up, as I saw Miss Furness looking quite pleased and triumphant; for I'm sure the old thing was as jealous as could be, and watched me closely, and all because I would not creep to her, and flatter and fawn, like Celia Blang. So I would not show how wounded I was, nor yet look at Achille when he went away, and there was no communication at all between us that day. I felt very much hurt and put out, for that Miss Furness spared no pains to show her dislike to me; and she must have had some suspicion of me, for during many lessons I never had an opportunity of enjoying further communication with dear Achille than a long look. Miss Sloman, as I have said before, had always hated me; but she was too much of a nobody to mind. However, I would not notice Miss Furness's cantankerousness, for I really did not mind a bit about her having told Mrs Blunt, so delighted was I to feel that the other matter had not been found out; and I went on just the same as usual, and really worked hard with my studies. One morning--I can't say when, for though I have tried I really can't recollect, and the time, names, and things are so mixed up together-- however, it was a fine morning, and we were going for one of those dreary morning two-and-two walks, crawling in and out of the Allsham lanes like a horrible Adam-tempting serpent. I had taken great pains with my dress, for I thought it possible that we might pass Achille's lodging; and, as I fancied he had been unnecessarily angry and cool with me at the last lesson, I wished him to feel a little pain in return, for I was determined not to give him a single look. Mamma had just sent me down one of the prettiest straw-coloured flowery bonnets imaginable--a perfect zephyr, nothing of it at all hardly--and it matched capitally with my new silk; while the zebra parasol seemed quite to act as a relief. So I put them on with new straw-kid gloves, took the parasol, and then--call it vanity if you like--I stopped and had one last, triumphant glance in the mirror that hangs at one end of the long passage before I went down. Mrs Blunt was going with us that day; and, in spite of the late scolding I had received, she was quite smiling and pleasant with me, and I saw her bestow one or two satisfied glances upon my attire--for she never found fault with her pupils for dressing too well. But I did not take pains with myself so as to please her, and act as show-card for her nasty old establishment; so I would not look pleased, but pretended that I had not yet got over the scolding, and was dreadfully mortified, as I went and took my place beside Clara. As we were the two tallest girls, we always went first, and had our orders to walk slowly, once more, on account of half-a-dozen children who came last with the teachers and Mrs Blunt herself, and so we filed out of the gates and along the winding, green lane. No one could help feeling happy and light-hearted upon such a beautiful bright morning, especially as we turned through the fields, and went across towards the river. The trees were all green, and the grass shining with flowers, birds singing, the sky above a splendid azure, and all around looking quite lovely; while the soft, delicious air fanned one's cheek, so that I could not help agreeing with Clara when, after a long silence, she heaved a deep sigh, and said,-- "Oh, how delightful it is to feel young and be in love." Though, after all, I was not so sure about the last part, for I did not feel half satisfied concerning my _affaire de coeur_, and was strolling somewhat listlessly along, when Clara pinched my arm. "Here they come," she whispered. And sure enough, there were Achille and the Signor coming towards us; when, I could not help it, all my ill-humour seemed to dart out of my eyes in a moment, and I could do nothing but sigh, and feel that I was a hopeless captive. As I said before, I could not help it, and was obliged to close my eyes, when a horrible jerk brought me to myself; when there, if Clara had not let me step right into the ditch beside the path--a dreadful stinging-nettley place--instead of quietly guiding me, when she might have known that my eyes were shut; while before I could extricate myself, if Achille was not at my side, helping me out and squeezing my hand, so that really, out of self-defence, I was obliged to return the pressure. "Miss Bozerne!" exclaimed Lady Blunt, pressing up to me, "how could you?" I did not know, so I could not reply; while there were Miss Furness and the Fraulein--fat, hook-nosed old owl--looking as spiteful as could be. "She did it on purpose," I heard Miss Furness whisper; while the Fraulein nodded her head ever so many times, so that she looked like a bird pecking with a hooked beak. "Mademoiselle is not hurt, _I hope_?" said Achille, in his silkiest, smoothest tones; and there was so much feeling in the way he spoke, that I quite forgave him. "Oh, no, not at all, Monsieur Achille," said Lady Blunt. And then, after a great deal of bowing, we all fell into our places again. "Won't there be a scolding for this!" whispered Clara. "We shall both have impositions." "I don't care," I said, recklessly. "I should not mind if I slipped again." "Slipped!" said Clara, satirically; "that was a pretty slip, certainly. I never saw so clumsy a one, but it answered capitally." "What do you mean?" I said, innocently. "Oh, of course, you don't know, dear," said Clara, growing more and more satirical. "But there, never mind, I have both the notes." "What notes?" I ejaculated, with my heart beginning to beat--oh, so fast! "Now, don't be a little stupid," said Clara, "when you know all the time. The Signor dropped them into my parasol, as I held it down half shut, and there they are--for I have not dared to take them out yet." And there, sure enough, were two tiny brown paper squares, looking for all the world like packets of garden seeds, so as not to catch any one's eye when they were delivered--tied up, too, with little bits of string, so as not to be in the least like what they were. Though, really, it was too bad to try and make out that the whole thing was planned, and that I had slipped on purpose. Now, was it not? "Why, what dear, lovable ingenuity," I could not help exclaiming. "And is one for you then, dear?" "And why not, pray?" exclaimed Clara; "why should not I have notes as well as somebody, who has her meetings as well?" "I'm sure I don't," I exclaimed. "How can you say so? Why, you know I did not meet him." "Not your fault, my dear," said Clara, sarcastically. "But there, I'm not complaining; but when I am so open and confidential, I'm sure you need not be so close." "Now, did you not promise to forget all that?" I said. "Well, yes, so I did," she replied; "and I won't say any more about it. But this was clever, wasn't it; and I'm sure I give you every credit for managing that slip so well." "Indeed--indeed--indeed--indeed!" I said, "it was an accident." But it was no use whatever; and the more I protested, the more the tiresome thing would not believe me; till I grew so cross I could have pinched her, only that I could not afford to quarrel just then. By means of changing parasols, I obtained possession of my note; and then, how long the time did seem before we received our orders to turn back! But I learnt, though, from Clara, that Achille had made quite a confidante of the Signor, and that they were both planning together for us to have a long meeting. "But how do you get to know all this?" I said. "Do you suppose, miss, that no one else but you can manage to pass and receive notes so cleverly?" she replied. I could not make any answer, for somehow or another Clara generally managed to get the better of me. What would I not have given to have been alone for one five minutes beneath the deep green shady trees, for it seemed ages since I had had a letter from Achille. But it was of no use to wish; and I'm sure that it was quite three-quarters of an hour before Clara and I were up in our bedroom together, trying to get rid of Patty Smith. She was such a stupid girl, and the more you gave her hints to go the more she would persist in stopping, for she was as obstinate as she was stupid; and I'm sure, if that's true about the metempsychosis, Patty Smith, in time to come, will turn into a lady donkey, like those grey ones that are led round Chester Square of a morning, and are owned by one of the purveyors of asses' milk. We tried all we could to get rid of her, but it was of no use; and at last, when we were ready to cry with vexation, and about to give it up and go down to dinner without reading our notes, some one called out-- "A letter for Miss Smith." And then away ran the tiresome thing, and we were quite alone. CHAPTER TEN. MEMORY THE TENTH--THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE. The first thing that Clara and I did was to tear up the brown paper wrappers into tiny little bits, all but where the directions were written, and those we chewed up quite small, to throw out of the window with the other pieces. And oh, how nasty brown paper is to chew!--all tarry and bitter, like cold sailors must be when they eat one another in those dreadful boats that have not enough provisions, and when there's "water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink." Then I tore open the tiny note, and Clara did the same; and I had just read two lines, when I _felt_ that I was watched, and looking up, there stood that horrid Miss Furness, just like some basilisk, or gorgon, or cockatrice, or dreadful thing of that kind. Of course Miss Furness couldn't have been a cockatrice, but we were so badly taught at that wretched Mrs Blunt's, that I have not the most remote idea what is the feminine of the extinct fabulous creature, and henatrice sounds so horribly-absurd. Anyhow, she was a wretch--a nasty despicable, hateful, horrible wretch, whom it could not be a sin to hate. "The bell has rung for dinner, young ladies," she said, with her eyes devouring my note. How I did tremble! but I knew that if I was not careful I should betray poor Achille; while, fortunately, Clara had been sitting so that she was not visible from the door, and had time to slip her note into her pocket, while she pretended to have one of her boots off. For a moment or two I was so scared that I did not know what to do. If I tried to hide the note, I knew that she would suspect that there was something wrong, while she would have been well aware whether there was a letter for me from home, since she always had the opening of the bag. What could I do? For a moment, I was about to crumple the paper up in my hand; but fortunately I restrained myself, and holding the paper boldly in my hand, I pretended that I had been writing out the aliquot parts of a shilling; and, as I doubled the note up slowly, I went on saying,-- "Coming directly, ma'am--one farthing is one forty-eighth; one halfpenny is one twenty-some-thingth--oh, fourth. Oh, dear! oh, dear! how hard it is, to be sure." "You seem to have grown very industrious, Miss Bozerne," said Miss Furness, looking very doubtfully at the paper; and I was afraid that she would smell it, for it was quite strong of that same scent that Achille always used. "Yes, isn't she?" said Clara, coming to the rescue; "but I do not think it will last, ma'am." I could have hugged her for that; for I knew that the tiresome old thing suspected something to be wrong, and was mixing it up with the morning's adventure. But nothing more was said, and we descended to dinner, and there I was with that note burning in my pocket, and not a chance could I get to read it; for so sure as I tried to be alone, go where I would, there was that Miss Furness's favourite, Celia Blang, after me to see what I was doing. At last, during the afternoon lessons, I could bear it no longer; so I went and sat down by the side of Clara. "What does he say, dear?" I whispered. "Wants me to meet him to-night," she wrote on her slate, and rubbed it out directly. For we actually used common slates--noughts-and-crosses slates--just like charity-school children. But I had my revenge, for I dropped and cracked no less than ten of the nasty things, though I am afraid papa had to pay. And then again she wrote, "What does he say, dear?" "I have not had a chance to see yet," I dolefully replied. "There's the raging Furnace watching me, so pray don't look up. She suspects something, and I can't move without being spied." "Poor old darling!" wrote Clara on her slate. "I'm going to trust you, my dear," I said. "When I push my Nugent's Dictionary over to you, take it quietly, for my note will be inside. And I want you to take it, and go away somewhere and read it, and then come and tell me what he says; for the old thing is so suspicious, and keeps looking in my direction--and I dare not attempt it myself." So I managed to pass the note to Clara, who left the room; and then I wrote down the aliquot parts of a pound, and folded it ready so as to pull out next time. I saw Miss Furness watching me; and there I sat, with my cheeks burning, and wondering what was in my note, and whether, after all, I had done foolishly. For was Clara to be trusted? "But she is so mixed up with it herself," I thought, "she dare not play me false." So there I sat on and on, pretending to be studious, and wondering what kept Clara so long, would have gone after her, only I knew that Miss Furness was keeping an eye upon me; and sometimes I half thought that she must know something about the night when I went down to the elms; but directly after I felt that she did not, or she would have told my Lady Blunt directly. But the fact of the matter was, she felt suspicious about the note, and all because I was so clumsy in trying to throw dust in her eyes. Five minutes--ten minutes--a quarter of an hour had passed, and still no Clara. Then another quarter of an hour, and still she did not come. "Whatever shall I do?" I thought to myself--"surely she is not deceiving me?" And then, just as my spirits were regularly boiling over, heated as they were by impatience and vexation, in she came, with the note in her hand; and I saw her laugh maliciously, and cross over to Patty Smith. "Oh," I said to myself, "I shall die of shame." And I'm sure no one can tell what agony I suffered while the creature was reading something to Patty, when they both had a hearty laugh; after which Clara began to double the note up, as, with eyes flashing fire, I sat watching that deceitful creature, not daring to move from my seat. "Miss Fitzacre, bring me that piece of paper you have in your hand," squeaked Miss Furness, who had been watching her like a cat does a mouse. Oh, if I could but have screamed out, or fainted, or seized the paper, and fled away! But I could not move, only sit suffering--suffering horribly, while Clara gave me another of her malicious smiles, as she crossed sulkily over to Miss Griffin's table, drew the paper from her pocket, laid it down, and then our _chere_ institutrice laid a paper-weight upon it, for she had a soul far above curiosity, while Clara came and sat down by me--poor me, who trembled so with fear and rage that my teeth almost chattered; for I could think of nothing else but Mrs Blunt and the Furness reading poor Achille's note. I did not know how to be angry enough with myself, for being so simple as to trust Clara; and I'm sure I should not, only I fancied her truthful and worthy; but now, I could have killed her--I could, I was so enraged. "You horribly treacherous, deceitful thing!" I whispered; "when, too, I trusted you so fully." "Why, what is the matter?" she said, quite innocently. "Don't look at me like that," I whispered. "How could you be so false?" "Oh, that's what you mean, is it?" she said. "Serve you right for not trusting me fully from the first, as I did you." "Worthy of trust, are you not?" I said angrily. "Will you be quite open with me for the future, then?" she said. "Open!" I hissed back. "I'll go to Mrs Blunt, and tell everything, I will--everything; and won't spare myself a bit, so that you may be punished, you wicked, good-for-nothing, bad-behaved, deceitful and treacherous thing, you!" "Take breath now, my darling," she said, tauntingly. "Breath," I said--"I wish I had none. I wish I was dead, I do." And I could not help a bit of a sob coming. "Poor Achille!" she whispered. "What would he do then?" "Oh, don't talk to me--don't," I said, bending down my burning face over a book, not a word in which could I see. "It did tease you, then, did it?" said Clara, laughing. "Tease me, you heartless thing you," I said. "Hold your tongue, do! I'll never forgive you--never, Clara!" "Less talking there," said Miss Furness--the Griffin. "Ugh! you nasty old claw-puss," said Clara, in an undertone. After a few minutes' silence, I began again. "I did not give you credit for it, Clara," I said. "Thought you were not going to speak to me any more," she said. "Oh, it's too bad," I whispered; "but you will be sorry for it some day." "No, I sha'n't, you little goose you. It was not your note at all," she said. "I only did it to tease you, and serve you out for trying to deceive me, who have always tried to be a friend to you from the very first." "Oh, my own, dear, darling Clara," I cried, in a whisper, "is this true? Then I'll never, never do anything without you again, and tell you everything; and am not cross a bit." "But I am," she cried; "see what names you have been calling me." "Ah, but see how agonising it was, dear," I whispered. "Only think of what you made me suffer. I declare I shall burst out into a fit of hysterical crying directly." "No, no, don't do that," said Clara. "Then make haste, and tell me what he said, so as to change my thoughts." "Guess," said Clara, sliding my own dear little note into my hand once again. "Oh, pray, pray tell me," I whispered. "Don't, whatever you do, don't tease me any more. I shall die if you do." "No, don't," she said, mockingly, "for poor Achille's sake." "I would not serve you so, Clara," I said, humbly, the tears the while gathering in my eyes. And then she began to tell me that the note was very long, and stated how he had been interrupted by the policeman, and had not ventured since; but that he and the Signor had arranged to come that night, and they would be under the end of the conservatory at eleven, if we could contrive to meet them there. "And of course we can," said Clara. "How they must have been plotting together!" "But we never can manage it," I whispered, with a strange fluttering coming over my heart. "I can, I can," whispered Clara, squeezing my hand; "but be careful, for here comes the Griffin, and she's as suspicious as can be." We were supposed to be busy preparing lessons all this time; for this was one of the afternoons devoted to private study, two of which we had every week, instead of what Mrs Blunt called the vulgar institution of half-holidays. "If I have to speak again about this incessant talking, Miss Fitzacre, your conduct will be reported to the lady principal," said Miss Furness. "And as for you, Miss Bozerne, be kind enough to take a seat in another part of the room. There is a chair vacant by Miss Blang." Miss Furness did not hear what Clara said in an undertone, or she would have hurried off posthaste to make her report. But as she did not, she returned to her seat, and soon after we were summoned to our tea--I mean anti-nervous infusion. CHAPTER ELEVEN. MEMORY THE ELEVENTH--A CATASTROPHE. I used to get quite vexed with the tiresome old place, even if it was pretty, and you could sit at your open window and hear the nightingales singing; and even though some other bird had made me hear its singing, too, and found its way right to my poor heart. There was so much tiresome formality and niggling; and if one spoke in a way not according to rule, there was a fine or imposition, or something of that kind. We never went to bed, we never got up--we retired to rest, and arose from slumber; we were summoned to our lessons, dinner was always announced, we pursued or resumed our studies, we promenaded daily, or else took recreation in the garden; and did everything, in short, in such a horrible, stiff, starchy way, that we all seemed to be in a constant state of crackle; and every variation was looked upon as so much rumpling, while I'm sure our _lady_ principal could not have been more vulgar if she had tried. The meeting appointed in the last chapter was repeated again and again at the end of the conservatory; for we had only to slip down into the drawing-room quietly, open the shutters, pass through the French window in among the geraniums, draw the shutters after us or not, and then raise one of the sash windows at the end, where we could stand and talk. For the gentlemen never once came in, for fear that their footsteps should show upon the beautiful, clean, white stones. One meeting was so much like another, that it is hardly worth while to describe them; while no incident worthy of notice occurred until one night. And oh! how well can I recall everything in connection with that disastrous occasion! We had been for a walk that evening, and I had been most terribly scandalised by the encounter we had had with a policeman. We were just outside the town, when all at once I felt my cheeks flush, as they always do now at the sight of a constable; for there was one coming along the road in front, and something seemed to whisper that we had met before. It was misery and ruin to be recognised, and I set my teeth hard, and tried not to see him; but do what I would, my eyes seemed determined to turn towards the wretch; and they did, too, just as we were passing, and it was he--and the odious creature knew me directly, and pushed his tongue into his cheek in the most vulgar way imaginable. Clara saw it, and gave me a push with her elbow; but, fortunately, I do not think any one else saw the dreadful fellow. We had to hurry back, too, for a storm came on, and the big drops were plashing heavily upon our parasols before we reached the Cedars; while just as we were safely housed, the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled incessantly. I was not afraid of the storm, for I was humming over the "Tempest of the Heart," and wondering whether it would be over soon enough to allow of our assignation being kept; while I grew quite nervous and fidgety as the evening wore on. However, the rain ceased at last, and the thunder only muttered in the distance, where the pale summer lightning was glancing; and when at last we retired to our rooms, and looked out of the open window, the fresh scent which came up from the garden was delicious. The moon shone, but with a pale, misty, and sobered light; while the distant lightning, which played fitfully at intervals, seem to make the scene quite sublime. After sitting looking out for a while, we closed the windows with a sigh, for we knew we should be reported to Mrs Blunt if our lights were not out; and then, as we had often done before, we pretended to undress, listening all the while to the senseless prattle of Patty Smith, which seemed to us quite childish and nonsensical. "I wonder your mars," she said, "don't send you each a cake sometimes. It would be so nice if they did; and I always do give you a piece of mine." "There, don't talk so, pray, Patty," I said, after listening to her hungry chatter for ever so long. "Pray be quiet, and I will give you a shilling to buy a cake." "No, you won't," said Patty. "Yes, I will indeed," I said, "if you will be a good girl, and go to sleep." "Give it me now, then," said the stupid thing. And I did give her one, and if she did not actually take it, though I believe she was quite as old as Clara or I; but all the while so dreadfully childish, anyone, from her ways, would have taken her for nine or ten--that is, if they could have shut their eyes to her size. However, at last she fell asleep, and we sat waiting for the trysting-hour, "Do you know," said Clara, in a whisper, "I begin to get tired of spoiling one's night's rest for the sake of meeting them. It was all very well at first, but it's only the same thing over and over again. I know all about beautiful Italy now, and its lakes and vineyards, and the old tyrant Austrian days, and the Pope, and patriotism, and prisons, and all that sort of thing; while he seems to like to talk about that more than about you know what, and one can't help getting a little too much of it sometimes." "Oh, for shame, Clara!" I said; "how can you talk so? It is not loyal. What would some one say if he knew?" "I don't know, and I don't--" "Oh, hush! you sha'n't say so," I exclaimed; "for you do care--you know you do." And then I sat silent and thinking for some time; for it was as though something began to ask me whether I also was not a little tired of hearing about "_ma patrie_" and "_la belle France_" and whether I liked a man any the better for being a patriot, and mixed up with plots for restoring the Orleans family, and who made a vow to spit--_cracher_--on Gambetta's grave. I should not have thought anything of the kind if it had not been for those words of Clara, and I soon crushed it down; for I was not going to harbour any such cruel, faithless thoughts as that I had told Achille again and again that I loved him very dearly; and of course I did, and there was an end of it. But still, though I bit my lips very hard, and tried not to think of such things, it did seem tiresome, I must own, to have to sit up waiting so long; and, like Clara, I did begin to long for a change. If we could have met pleasantly by day, or had a quiet evening walk, and all on like that, it would have been different; but, after the first flush of the excitement and romance, it began to grow a little tame. "Heigh--ho!--ha!--hum!" said Clara, interrupting my reverie by a terrible yawn, so that had it been daylight I'm sure any one might have seen down her throat, for she never attempted to put her hand before her mouth. But I could not tell her of it; since I had only the minute before been yawning so terribly myself that I was quite ashamed. For really there seemed to be so little romance about it. "Let's go to bed in real earnest," said Clara. "I'm sure I will, if you'll agree." "For shame!" I exclaimed. "What would they say?" "Oh, I don't know," said Clara; "they've disappointed us before now." "But then they could not help it," I replied. "No, nor I can't help it now," said Clara; "for I'm so sleepy." "But it would look so," I said, repressing another yawn; for I, too, was dreadfully tired. "I don't care," said Clara. "I don't want to hear about the revolution to-night, and what Garibaldi once did. I don't care. Red shirts are becoming, but one gets tired of hearing about them. It is such dull work, all four of us being together, and watching every movement. It isn't as if we were alone." "I do declare I'm quite ashamed of you," I said. "Why, it would not be prudent for us to go alone." "Oh, no, of course not," said Clara, mockingly. "Nobody you know ever went down to the elms all alone by herself." "But you knew of it," I said. "No thanks to you, miss, if I did; so come, now," replied Clara. I saw that it was of no use to dispute with her, so I let the matter drop; and then, opening the window, I leaned out, when I heard voices whispering in what seemed to be the shrubbery, just beyond the conservatory cistern; and, withdrawing my head, I hastily told Clara. "Why, they are soon to-night," she whispered, as, carefully closing the window, I then opened the door, and we stood at the top of the great staircase, after going on tiptoe past the Fraulein's room. We listened patiently for some time, as we stood hand in hand; while neither of us now seemed disposed to yawn. Then we quickly and quietly descended; but before we reached the bottom I recollected that I had left our door open, and it would be a great chance if some one did not hear Patty snoring. "Go back and shut it, there's a dear," I said, in a whisper. "No, you go, dear," said Clara. "I'll wait for you." But I did not like going alone; neither did she. So we went together and shut it; and at last we stood listening at the foot of the stairs, for I half fancied I heard the click of a door-handle. But it was not repeated; and feeling sure that it was only fancy, we quietly unlocked the drawing-room door, glided in, closed it after us, and then unfastened the shutters of the French window, when we stood in the conservatory, at the end of which was the sash, giving, as Achille called it, upon the rain water tank--whose very broad edge was covered with ivy, upon which they used to climb from the low terrace wall that ran down to the little fountain of which I have spoken before, and then stand in the empty cistern. "I always put on my old sings when I come, _chere_ Laure," poor Achille used to say to me, which of course was not very complimentary; but, then, all his estates had been confiscated, and my Lady Blunt was too fond of money to part with much for her teachers. When we peeped out of our window there was no one there; so we pulled up the sash very gently, and stood waiting till, in each of our cases, Romeo came. It had turned out a lovely night, rather dark, for the moon had sunk into a bank of vapour in the far west, while the varied scents of nature seemed sweeter than ever; but one could not help thinking how wet the gentlemen would get amongst the ivy, and I quite shivered as I thought about the great cistern being quite full with the heavy rain. For if they did not recollect this, as they had generally stood upon the lead bottom, how shocking would be the result! Once again I fancied that I heard a slight noise; but this time it was from the leads by the back staircase window; and upon whispering to Clara, she called me a stupid, nervous thing, and I heard it no more; but directly after, the rustling we heard told who were coming. Five minutes passed and there was more rustling amongst the leaves--an ejaculation in French--an expression in Italian--and a loud splash, as if a leg had fallen into the water; while directly after we could see them quite plainly, crawling along like two great tom-cats upon the edge of the lead cistern, till they were close under the window, in dreadfully awkward positions; for the big cistern had never had water in before all through the summer, on account of a little leak, and now-- though, doubtless, the great place would be quite empty next day, it was brimful in consequence of the storm. Yes, I remember perfectly fancying that they looked like cats, and I felt ashamed of myself for thinking so disrespectfully of them, and determined to be extra kind to Achille so as to mentally apologise--poor fellow! Of course they could not stand up to their waistcoats in soft water, so they had to stay on the edge, and, as we found out afterwards, they did come off so black--oh, so terribly black!--upon us, just as if we had had visits from the sweeps. It was poor Achille who put his leg in the tank; and every time he moved I could hear the water make such a funny noise in his boot, just as if it was half full; and, oh, poor fellow, he was obliged to move every minute, and hold on by the window-sill as he knelt there, or else he would have had to stand up, and, being so much higher than where we where, I should have had to talk to his knees. It was just as bad for the poor Signor and Clara; and I certainly should have been imprudent enough to have asked them in, if I had not known how Achille would have dripped on the stones, and so betrayed us. I could not help thinking about what Clara had said that evening, and it really did seem so tiresome; for there we all four were, if anything more close together than ever, and it grew thoroughly puzzling sometimes to know who was meant when Pazzoletto whispered "_Cava mia_," or "_Bellissima_," or "_Fanciullina_," or "_Carissima_;" or Achille murmured "_Mon amie_," "_Ma petite_," or "_Beaux yeux_;" and I often started, and so did Clara, at such times. But there, who could expect to enjoy the roses of love without the thorns? And yet, I don't know how it was, there seemed to be something wrong altogether that night; for I heard Clara gape twice, and I had to cover my mouth to stay more than one yawn, while I'm sure the gentlemen both wanted to go; though, of course, I could make plenty of excuses for poor Achille--he must have been so wet and uncomfortable--though I did offer to lend him my handkerchief to wipe away some of the water. I should think that we had been carrying on a whispered conversation for about a quarter of an hour, when all at once I exclaimed in a deep whisper-- "Hush!--what was that?" We all started; for as I spoke, startled by the click as of a window fastening, there was the sound of an opening sash. A light flashed out above our heads, and shone upon the skylight, the leads, and the back staircase window, when if there, quite plain, was not a policeman standing by a figure at the latter. Then there was a hurrying scramble, and the shutting of a sash; and we could hear voices, while we all stood in the shade, silent as mice, and trembling so that the gentlemen had to hold us tightly. "Von sbirro veseet de maiden," said the Signor, in a whisper. "Oh! what shall we do?" gasped Clara. "_Taisez_!" hissed Achille, who seemed to come out nobly in the great trouble--"_taisez_, and all shall be well; my faith, yes--it is so." "They will us not see," whispered the Signor. "_Mais non_!" ejaculated Achille. "But that police? What of him? We must wait." "Oh, yes," I said, "pray do not move. It is one of the servants who has been discovered. I am sure that we shall be safe if we keep quite still." But the words were no sooner out of my mouth than there was a burst of light through the half-closed shutters behind us, a buzz of voices, and Lady Blunt, the four teachers, and several of the pupils, hurried into the drawing-room; and then, seeing the partly closed shutters, stood for a moment as if afraid to come any further. I darted from _pauvre_ Achille, giving him a sharp jerk at the same moment; and, as my elbow crashed through a pane of glass, and I slipped behind the great green blind in the corner, I heard an exclamation in French. There was a great splash, followed by a noise as of some large body snorting and floundering in the great tank; and my blood ran cold, as I wanted to run out, but felt chained to the spot where I was concealed. "I have murdered him, I know!" I gasped. At the very same moment there was a fearful scream from poor Clara, as the light of half-a-dozen candles shone upon her smutty face, where there was the mark of a hand all down one cheek. And, frightened though I was, I seemed to notice everything, as if my senses were all sharpened; and, at one and the same time, I saw my own trouble, Clara, and my poor Achille drowning in the great tank. Poor Clara covered her face in an instant, and a loud rustling of the ivy on the edge of the cistern, the sound of a body falling, and then came retreating feet along the gravel. "Escaped," I muttered; and then a sigh came with a great gasp, as I exclaimed, "Oh! if Clara will only not betray me, I shall be safe, too." But, oh, what a tableau was there!--night-caps, dressing-gowns, flannel garments, every token of hurried half-dressing; while the light from candle after candle streamed down upon poor Clara, prone upon the white stones of the conservatory. "Good heavens!" I heard Mrs Blunt exclaim, "that it should have come to this!--that my establishment should be debased by the presence of such a creature. Abandoned, lost girl, what will become of you?" Oh, how my poor teeth did chatter! "Dreadful!" squeaked Miss Furness. "Shocking!" echoed Miss Sloman. "_Ach ten, bad madchen_" croaked the Fraulein; while Miss Murray and the pupils present sighed in concert. "Lost one!" began Mrs Blunt again. Crish! crash! crash! came the sound of breaking glass upon the leads; the girls shrieked, and, in an agony of fear, the whole party dashed back to the drawing-room door; while, in the dim light given by a fallen candle, I saw poor Clara slowly raise her head and look towards the open window--our window. But there was no other sound; and at last, after quite five minutes' pause, came the lady principal's voice from the drawing-room, in awful tones-- "Miss Fitzacre; come in directly, and close the window after you." "For goodness' sake, don't fasten it," I whispered; "and oh, Clara, pet, don't--pray, don't--betray me!" "Hush!" whispered the poor darling, rising up like a pale ghost. And as I stood, squeezed up in the corner, trembling ever so, she closed the conservatory window, looking out as she did so; then entered the drawing-room, clattered the shutters to; and then, by the sound, I knew that they had all entered the breakfast-room, so I stole out of my hiding-place, and tried the window. At first my heart sank, for I thought it was fastened; but, no, it yielded to my touch, and as I pushed, the shutters slowly swung open, to show me the room all in darkness. Stepping quickly in, I closed window and shutters, and then stole over to reach the door where I could hear the buzz of voices, and Mrs Blunt scolding fearfully. I crossed the room as quietly as I could, feeling my way along in the darkness--for Clara had trampled out the fallen candle--when all at once I gave myself up for lost I had knocked over one of the wretched little drawing-room chairs; and I stood trembling and stooping down, meaning to creep under the large ottoman if I heard any one coming. But they did not hear the noise; and, after waiting awhile, I ventured to open the door, when I could hear plainly poor Clara sobbing bitterly in the breakfast-room; and I was filled with remorse, as I felt how that I ought to be there to take my share of the blame. But I could not--no, I could not, I must own--summon up courage enough to go in and avow my fault. I had hardly closed the drawing-room door, when I heard a hand rattle the door of the breakfast-room, as if some one was about to open it, so I bounded along the hall to the back staircase; and hardly in time, for the breakfast-room door opened just as I was out of sight, and I heard Mrs Blunt's voice, in loud tones, to the teachers, I suppose-- "Ladies, be kind enough to see that the drawing-room window is properly secured." Up I darted to reach my own room, and it was well that I made for the back staircase; for there, regularly fringing the balustrade of the best staircase, were all the younger pupils and the servants looking down and listening; while I could hear the sounds coming up from the hall, as my Lady Blunt and the teachers began again to storm at the poor silent girl, who never, that I could hear, answered them one single word, and in the act of slipping into my room, I nearly brushed the dress of one of the pupils. And now, if Clara would only be a martyr, I felt safe, as I stood inside our room, and listened for a few moments to the words which came up quite plainly in the still night. "Once more, I insist upon knowing who it was," shrieked Mrs Blunt, while her satellites added their feeble echoes. "Tell, directly!" screamed Miss Sloman. "Bad gell--bad gell!" croaked the Fraulein. "You must confess," cried Miss Furness, in shrill, treble tones. "Who was it, Miss Fitzacre?" cried Mrs Blunt. And then there was a stamp upon the floor, but not a word from Clara; and I dared stay for no more, but closed the door, listened to Patty snoring more loudly and ever, and then dashed to the washstand, recalling poor Clara's smutty face, and sponged my own quickly. Then I slipped on my _bonnet de nuit_, and undressed quicker than I ever before did in my life. Then just as I had finished, I heard them coming up the stairs--scuffling of feet and shutting of doors as the pupils hurried into their rooms, some skirmishing at a terrible rate past my door; so I slipped into bed with my head turned towards the window, and lay there with my heart beating tumultuously. "Now, if they only did not come here first, I'm safe," I muttered. I felt how exceedingly fortunate it was for me that Patty slept so soundly: for not only had she not seen me enter, but if she had slept all through the disturbance, and had not heard Clara go, why should I not have done the same? And I felt that it would help to remove suspicion from me. They seemed a terribly long time coming, but I kept telling myself that Clara would not betray me; and I recalled with delight now that I had suffered punishment for her trick, when she moved the lady principal's chair to her fall. "But there," I said to myself, "they shall tear me in pieces before they know anything I don't, want to tell. But, oh, did poor Achille escape? and what was that fearful crash? I do hope it was the Signor, for poor Achille's sake. But how wet whoever it was must have been!" "And you will prepare your things for leaving early in the morning, Miss Fitzacre," exclaimed Mrs Blunt, angrily, as she opened the door of the bedroom, and the light shone in. "Now, go to bed immediately. Is Miss Bozerne here?" "Yes, ma'am," I replied, just raising my head from the pillow. "Oh! that is right," said her ladyship; "and Miss Smith?" There was no answer. "Miss Smith! where is Miss Smith?" shrieked Lady Blunt from the door, evidently thinking that poor Patty was in the plot. "Miss Smith! Miss Smith!" she shrieked again. "D-o-o-o-n't--Be quiet!" muttered the sleepy-headed little thing. "Oh! that will do," said Mrs Blunt. "Don't wake her. Miss Bozerne, you must excuse me for locking you in during the rest of the night; but if you object, perhaps Fraulein Liebeskinden will allow you to sleep with--" "Oh no, thank you, ma'am," I said, hastily; "I shall not mind." "Good night, then, Miss Bozerne," she said, very shortly; while I felt such a hypocrite that I hardly knew what to do. "Lost girl!" she continued, as she shut the door, and turned the key, which she took away with her, leaving poor Clara standing, pale and motionless, in the centre of the room; but no sooner had the light disappeared, and shone no more in beneath the crack at the bottom of the door, than she gave one great sob-- "Oh! Laura," she exclaimed; and then, throwing herself into my arms, she cried and sobbed so wildly and hysterically, that I was quite frightened. For she was now giving vent to the pent-up feelings of the last quarter of an hour; but after awhile she calmed down, and with only a sob now and then to interrupt us--for, of course, I too could not help crying-- we quietly talked the matter over. "No; not a word," said the poor girl, in answer to a question of mine-- which, of course, you can guess--"not a word; they may send me away and punish me as they like, but not a word will I ever say about it." "Then they know nothing at all about me, or--" I stammered and stopped. "You ought to have more confidence in me than to ask such a thing," cried Clara, passionately, as she began to sob again. "You would not have betrayed me if you had been in my position; now, would you?" I did not know. While, being naturally nervous, I was afraid perhaps I might, if put to the test; but I did not say so. "What could have made that horrible crashing noise?" said Clara at last; "do you think it was the policeman, dear?" "Perhaps it was," I said; "but I know poor Achille went into the cistern. I pushed him in; and I'm afraid he must have been drowned, for I'm not sure that I heard him crawl out. Oh, dear! oh, dear!" I said at last, "what a passion is this love! I feel so old, and worn, and troubled I could die." "It would be ruin to the poor Signor to be found out," murmured Clara-- thinking more of her tiresome, old, brown Italian than of poor Achille. "Oh me! I know it was all my fault; but then how odd that the policeman should have had a meeting too! Or was he watching? Poor Giulio! would that I had never let him love me. I declared that I did not like him a bit to-night when we were together, and I had quite made up my mind never to meet him any more without he would talk of something else than beautiful Italy. Bother beautiful Italy! But now I half think I love him so dearly that I would dare anything for him. That I would." Poor girl! she grew so hysterical again, that I quite grieved for her, and told her so; and then, poor thing, she crept up close to me; and really it did seem so noble of her to take all the blame and trouble upon herself, while she was so considerate over it, that I could not help loving her very, very, very much for it all. But at last we both dropped off soundly asleep, just as the birds were beginning to twitter in the garden; and, feeling very dull and low-spirited, I was half wishing that I was a little bird myself, to sit and sing the day long, free from any trouble; no lessons to learn, no exercises to puzzle one's brain, no cross lady principal or teachers, no mamma to send me to be finished. And it was just as I was half feeling that I could soar away into the blue arch of heaven, that I went into the deep sleep wherein I was tortured by seeing those eyes again--always those eyes--peering at me; but this time out of the deep black water of the cistern. By that I knew that I had drowned poor Achille, and that was to be my punishment-- always to sit, unable to tear myself away, and be gazed at by those dreadful eyes from out of the deep, black water of the tank. CHAPTER TWELVE. MEMORY THE TWELFTH--THAN NEXT MORNING. I have often awoke of a morning with the sensation of a heavy, pressing-down weight upon my mental faculties; and so it was after the dreadful catastrophe narrated in the last chapter. I opened my eyes, feeling--no, let me be truthful, I did not wake, for Patty Smith brought me to my senses by tapping my head with her nasty penetrating hair-brush--feeling, as I said before, feeling that the dull pressure upon me was caused by the dread truth that poor Achille really was drowned; while it was the Signor whom I had heard escaping. And so strong was the impression, and so nervous and so low did I feel with the adventures of the past night, that I turned quite miserable, and could not keep from crying. The morning was enough to give anybody the horrors, for it rained heavily; and there were the poor birds, soaking wet, and with their feathers sticking close to their sides, hopping about upon the lawn, looking for worms. All over the window-panes, and hanging to the woodwork, were great tears, as if the clouds shared my trouble and sorrow; while all the flowers looked drooping and dirty, and splashed and miserable. Then I began to think about Achille, and his coming to give his lesson that morning; and then about his being in the cistern, with those wonderful eyes looking out at me; when, there again, if there was not that tiresome old Tennyson's poem getting into my poor, weary head, and, do what I would, I could not keep it out. There it was--buzz, buzz, buzz--"Dreary--and weary--and will not come, she said;" till at last I began to feel as if I was the real Mariana in the Moated Grange. To make me worse, too, there was that poor Clara--pale-faced, red-eyed, and desolate-looking--sitting there dressed, and resting her hot head upon her hand as she gazed out of the window; and though I wished to comfort her, I felt to want the comfort more myself. At last I could bear it no longer, and, in place of weeping gently, I was so nervous, and low, and upset with the night's troubles, that I sat down and had a regular good cry, and all the while with that great, stupid, fat, gawky goose of a Patty sitting and staring at me, with her head all on one side, as she was brushing out half of her hair, which she had not finished in all the time I had taken to dress. "Don't, Patty!" I half shrieked, at last--she was so tiresome. "Well, I ain't," said Patty. "But please don't, then!" I exclaimed, angrily. "Don't what?" said the great, silly thing. "Don't stare so, and look so big and glumpy!" I exclaimed; for I felt as if I could have knocked off her tiresome head, only it was so horribly big; and I don't care what anybody says, there never were anywhere before such a tempting pair of cheeks to slap as Patty's--they always looked so round, and red, and soft, and pluffy. "You ain't well," said the nasty, aggravating thing, in her silly, slow way. "Take one of my Seidlitz powders." "Ugh!" I shuddered at the very name of them. Just as if one of the nasty, prickly-water, nose-tickling things was going to do me any good at such a time as this. It really was enough to make one hit her. I never did take a Seidlitz powder but once, and then it was just after reading "Undine" with the Fraulein, and my head was all full of water-nymphs, and gods, and "The Mummelsee and the Water Maidens," and all sorts. And when I shut my eyes, and drank the fizzing-up thing, it all seemed to tickle my nose and lips; and I declare if I did not half fancy I was drinking the waters of the sparkling Rhine, and one of the water-gods had risen to kiss me, and that was his nasty prickly moustache I had felt. But to return to that dreadful morning when Patty wanted me to take one of her Seidlitz powders. "Mix 'em in two glasses is best," she went on, without taking any notice of my look of disgust--"the white paper in one, and the blue paper in the other, and then drink off the blue first, and wait while you count twenty, and then drink off the white one--slushions they call 'em. It does make you feel so droll, and does your head ever so much good. Do have one, dear!" I know that I must have slapped her--nothing could have prevented it--if just then the door had not been unlocked, and that horrible Miss Furness came in. "When you are ready, Miss Smith, you will descend with Miss Bozerne--I will wait for you," said the screwy old thing; but she took not the slightest notice of poor Clara, who sat there by the window, with her forehead all wrinkled up, and looking at least ten years older. It was of no good for one's heart to bleed for her, not a bit, with Miss Furness, who had undertaken to act the part of gaoler, there; so I gave the poor, suffering darling one last, meaning look, which was of no use, for it was wasted through the poor thing not looking up; and then I followed Miss Furness out of the room, side by side with Patty Smith, whose saucer eyes grew quite cheese-platish as she saw the door locked to keep poor Clara in; and then the tiresome thing kept bothering me in whispers to know what was the matter, for she was quite afraid of Miss Furness. However, I answered nothing, and went into the miserable, dreary, damp-looking classroom with an aching heart, and waited till the breakfast bell rang. For there was a bell rung for everything, when there was not the slightest necessity for such nonsense, only it all aided to make the Cedars imposing, and advertised it to the country round. But when I went into the hall, to cross it to reach the breakfast-room, there were a couple of boxes and a bundle at the foot of the back stairs, and the tall page getting himself into a tangle with some cord as he pretended to be tying them up. Just then the drawing-room door opened, and I heard Mrs Blunt say-- "And don't apply to me for a character, whatever you do;" whilst, very red-eyed and weeping, out came Sarah Ann, the housemaid. "Once more," said Mrs Blunt, "do you mean to tell me who it was that I distinctly saw, with my very own eyes, standing upon the leads talking to you?" But Ann only gave a sob and a gulp, and I knew then that they did not know who had come to see her; whilst I felt perfectly certain that it was _the_ policeman, and, besides, the Signor and Achille must have seen what he was. I was standing close to Miss Furness, who, as soon as she saw Ann, began to bridle up with virtuous indignation; and then set to and hunted the girls into the breakfast-room. "Is Ann going away?" said Patty Smith, in her dawdly, sleepy way. "I like Ann. What's she going away for, Miss Furness, please?" "Hush!" exclaimed Miss Furness, in a horrified way. "Don't ask such questions. She is a very wicked and hardened girl, and Mrs Fortesquieu de Blount has dismissed her, lest she should contaminate either of the other servants." "I'll tell you all about it, presently," whispered Celia Blang; but not in such a low voice but that the indignant Miss Furness overheard her. "You will do nothing of the kind," said the cross old maid, "and I desire that you instantly go back to your seat. If you know anything, you will be silent--silence is golden. Such things are not to be talked about, Miss Blang." Celia made a grimace behind her back, although she was said to be Miss Furness's spy, and supposed to tell her everything; so Patty's curiosity remained unsatisfied, while of course I pretended to know nothing at all about what had been going on. Directly after breakfast, though, Patty had it all by heart, and came red-hot to tell me how that Clara had been caught trying to elope out of the conservatory, whilst Ann was talking from the tall staircase window, when Miss Sloman happened to hear a whispering--for she was lying awake with a bad fit of the toothache. So she went and alarmed the lady principal; and then, with Miss Furness and the Fraulein, they had all watched, and they found it out. Some one, too, had been in the tank, and the conservatory windows were broken, and that was all, except that Mrs Blunt had been writing to Lady Fitzacre--Clara's mamma--and the poor girl was to be expelled; while for the present she was to be kept in her room till her mamma came, unless she would say who was the gentleman she was about to elope with--such stuff!--and then, if she would confess, she was to sit with Mrs Blunt, under surveillance, as they called it. When, leaving alone betraying the poor Signor, of course Clara preferred staying in her own room. Such a miserable wet morning, and though I wanted to, very badly indeed, I could not get into the conservatory to set my poor mind at rest by poking down into the cistern with a blind lath; for if I had gone it might have raised suspicions. Could he still be in the tank, and were my dreams in slumber right? "Oh, how horrible!" I thought; "why, I should feel always like his murderer." But, there, I could not help it--it was fate, my fate, and his fate--my fate to be his murderess, his to be drowned; and I would have given worlds, if I had had them, to be able to faint, when about eleven o'clock the cook came to the door, and asked Mrs Blunt, in a strange, mysterious way, to please come into the conservatory. For the man servant had not come back from the station, and taking Ann's boxes. "Oh, he's there, he's there!" I muttered, as I wrung my hands beneath the table, and closed my eyes, thinking of the inquest and the other horrors to come; and seeing in imagination his wet body laid upon the white stones in the conservatory. Oh, how I wanted to faint--how I tried to faint, and go off in a deep swoon, that should rest me for a while from the racking thoughts that troubled me. But I could not manage it anyhow; for of course nothing but the real thing would do at such a time as this. Out went Mrs Blunt, to return in five minutes with what I thought to be a terribly pale face, as she beckoned out the three teachers who were most in her confidence, Miss Murray being considered too young and imprudent. There! I never felt anything so agonising in my life--never; and I could not have borne it any longer anyhow. I'm sure, in another moment I must have been horribly hysterical and down upon the floor, tapping the boards with my heels, as I once saw mamma--and of course such things are hereditary--only I was saved by hearing a step upon the gravel. Then my heart leaped just after the fashion of that gentleman's who wanted Maud to come into the garden so very badly. For there I could see the real eyes coming along the shrubbery, peeping over the fur collar of a long cloak, which hung down to the heels. And I felt so relieved, that a great heavy sob, that had been sticking in my throat all the morning, leaped out suddenly, and made Patty Smith look up and stare. Then came tramping in Mrs Blunt and the three teachers, and as they whispered together, I was quite startled, for they talked about something being dragged out of the cistern with the tongs. And now I knew it could not be Achille, but made sure it was the poor Signor; when I felt nearly as bad as before, though I kept telling myself that it was quite impossible for them to have lifted the poor, dear, drowned dead man out with a pair of tongs--even if he was not so very stout. But there, my misery was again put an end to by the Fraulein, who said, out loud,-- "Oh, yes, it was. I see de mark--C. Fitzacre." And then I knew that it must have been one of Clara's handkerchiefs that had been fished out, and "blessed my stars that my stars blessed me" by not letting it be my handkerchief that they had discovered. There was a step in the hall, and how my heart fluttered! "Monsieur Achille de Tiraille for the French lesson," squeaked Miss Furness. And soon after we were busy at work, going over the irregular verbs, and I could see Achille's eyes wandering from face to face, as if to see whether there were any suspicion attaching to him. Then followed the reading and exercise correcting, while I could see plainly enough that he was terribly agitated--so much so, that he made at lest four mistakes himself, and passed over several in the pupils. And when he found that I did not give him a note with my exercise--one that should explain, I suppose, all that had since passed--when I had not had the eighth part of a chance to write one, he turned quite cross and pettish, and snapped one, and snubbed another. As for poor me, I could have cried, I could, only that all the teachers and Mrs Blunt were there, and Miss Furness looking triumphant. As a rule, all the teachers did not stay in the room while the French lessons were progressing, and this all tended towards making poor Achille fidgety and cross; but he need not have behaved quite so unkindly to me, for I'm sure I had been suffering quite enough upon his account, and so I should have liked to have told him if I had had the opportunity; while now that all this upset had come, I felt quite sorry for the disloyal thought that I had had, and should have been ready to do anything for his sake. The lessons were nearly over, when all at once the door opened suddenly, and I saw poor Achille jump so that the pen with which he was correcting Patty Smith's exercise made a long scrawling tail to one of the letters; but he recovered himself directly. Well, the door opened suddenly, and the cook stood there, wiping her floury hands, for it was pasty-waster day, and she exclaimed loudly,-- "O'm! please'm! the little passage is all in a swim." "C-o-o-o-k!" exclaimed Mrs Blunt, in a dreadful voice, as if she meant to slay her upon the spot. "O'm! please'm!" cried the cook again. "Why, where is James, cook?" said Mrs Blunt, sternly. "Cleaning hisself, mum," said cook; "and as Hann's gone, mum, I was obliged to come--not as I wanted to, I'm sure," and cook looked very much ill-used. Mrs Blunt jumped up, as much to get rid of the horrible apparition as anything; while cook continued,-- "There, do come, mum; it's perfeckly dreadful!" and they went off together; when such a burst of exclamations followed that the three lady teachers rose and left the room, and I took the opportunity of Miss Murray's back being turned to exchange glances with poor Achille, who had, at the least, been wet; while I longed, for poor Clara's sake, to ask him about the Signor. But to speak was impossible, and there were too many eyes about for the glance to be long. So I let mine drop to my exercise, and then sat, with a strange, nervous sensation that I could not explain creeping over me, and it seemed like the forerunner of something about to happen. Just then Miss Furness hurried in and out again, leaving the door ajar, so that from where I sat I could command a view of the little passage, and saw Mrs Blunt walk up, jingling her keys, and stepping upon the points of her toes over a little stream of water that was slowly flowing along. Then going up to the store-room door, I heard the key thrust in, as impelled by I know not what, I left my seat, and formed one of the group which stood looking upon the little stream that I could now see came from beneath the store-room door. "The skylight must have been left open," exclaimed Mrs Blunt, flinging open the door, and at the same moment the recollection of the crash flashed across my mind; for, as she flung open the door, in her pompous, bouncing way, and was about to step in, oh!--horror of horrors! how can I describe it all? There was the floor of the little room covered with broken glass, water, bits of putty, wood, and a mass of broken jam pots; and the little table, that had evidently stood beneath the skylight, had two of its legs broken off, and had slid its saccharine burden (that is better than saying load of jam) upon the floor in hideous ruin. Some pots were broken to pieces, some in half; while others had rolled to the other end of the room, and were staining their paper covers, or dyeing the water with their rich, cloying contents. But worse, far worse than all, with his face cut, scratched, and covered with dry blood, his shirt front and waistcoat all jam, crouching back in the farthest corner, was the poor Signor--regularly trapped when he had fallen through the skylight; for it was impossible for any one to have climbed up to the opening, through which the rain came like a shower bath, and there was no other way of exit. The lady principal shrieked, the lady teachers performed a trio of witch-screams--the most discordant ever uttered--and my Lady Blunt would have plashed down into the puddle, only, seeing how wet it was, she only reeled and clung to me, who felt ready to drop myself, as I leaned against the wall half swooning. Alarmed by the shrieks, Achille came running out, looking, as I thought, very pale. "Ladies, ladies!" he ejaculated, "_ma foi, qu'est ce que c'est_?" "Help, help! Monsieur Achille," gasped Mrs Blunt. He hurried forward, and relieved me of my load. "Fetch the police," cried Miss Furness. "_Nein, nein_--it is a mistake," whispered the Fraulein, who had a penchant, I think, for the poor Signor. "Signor Pazzoletto, it is thou!" exclaimed Achille, with an aspect of the most profound amazement as he caught sight of his unfortunate friend--an aspect which was, indeed, truthful. For, as he afterwards told me, he had been so drenched in the cistern, and taken up with making his own escape, that he had thought no more of the poor Signor; while, being a wet morning, he had not sought his lodging--which was some distance from the town--before coming, though he was somewhat anxious to consult him upon the previous night's alarm, and hardly dared to show himself. So-- "Signor Pazzoletto, it is thou!" he exclaimed, regularly taken aback, as the sailors say. "_Altro! altro_!" ejaculated the poor man, who sadly wanted to make his escape, but could see no better chance now than there had been all the night. For the passage was blocked, while in the hall were collected together all the pupils and the servants--that gawky James coming back and towering above all, like a horrible lamp-post in a crowd. "My vinaigrette," murmured Madame Blunt. When if that dreadful Achille did not place another arm around her; and that nasty old thing liked it, I could see, far more than Miss Furness did, and hung upon him horribly, pretending to faint; when I could have given anything to have snatched her away. "_Pauvre chere dame_" murmured Achille, giving me at the same moment a comical look out of the corner of his eye. "Oh! Monsieur Achille," said Mrs Blunt, feebly, "oh, help! Send away that wretch. _Otez moi cet homme la_." "_Aha! yais! mais oui_!" exclaimed Achille--the base deceiver, to play such a part!--"Sare, you are not business here. Madame dismiss. Take away yourself off. Cut yourself! Go!" I give this just as Achille spoke it; for I cannot but feel angry at the deceitful part he had played. The Signor looked at Achille, and gave him a diabolical grin--just as if he would have liked to stiletto him upon the spot, with one of the pieces of broken glass. Then he looked at me, bestowing upon me a meaning glance, as he made a rush past us all, and escaped by the front door; but not without splashing right through the puddle, and sending the water all over the Fraulein, so that she exclaimed most indignantly, until the front door closed with a heavy bang. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. MEMORY THE THIRTEENTH--SO VERY WICKED. It was such a relief to know that the Signor was gone, and that, too, without betraying any one. I could see, too, that Achille revived, now that he felt that he was safe for the present, and redoubled his attentions to Mrs Blunt. I declare I believe he would have stood there holding her for an hour, and she letting him, if Miss Furness had not very officiously lent her aid as well; when the lady principal grew better at once, and allowed herself to be assisted into the breakfast-room, where, after much pressing, she consented to partake of a glass of sherry. "Oh, Monsieur Achille," she gasped, "such a serious matter--reputation of my establishment! You will be silent? Oh, dear me, what a dreadful upset." "Silent? Ma foi, oui, Madame Bloont. I will be close as box," and he gave his shoulders a shrug, put his fingers to his lips, half-shut his eyes, and nodded his head a great many times over. "I knew you would," murmured Mrs Blunt; "and as to my lady assistants, I feel assured that I can depend upon them." "Oh, yes," cried all these, in chorus. "And you had better now return to the classroom, Miss Bozerne," said Miss Furness, who had seemed in a fidget ever since I had followed them into the place. "Ah, yes--please leave us now, Miss Bozerne," said Mrs Blunt. "Of course we can depend upon you, my child?" I promised all they wished, and was going across the hall, when I met James, with a piece of paper in his hand. "Please, miss, where's Monser Tirrel?--a boy just brought this for him." "I'll take it in to him," I said, with the blood seeming to run in a torrent to my heart; and there I stood, with the piece of a leaf of a pocket-book in my hand. It was not doubled up, and as I glanced down upon it I could see that it was scribbled over, evidently hastily, in pencil. I was about to carry it into the breakfast-room, when a word caught my eye; and telling myself it was not dishonourable, and that I had some right to know the secrets of Achille, I felt that I must read it through. "He says that I am his own, so that I have a right to see his correspondence," I said to myself, trying to find an excuse for the deceitful act; and then trembling all over, I read, hastily scrawled-- "Monsieur,--Vous m'avez insulte affreusement. Si vous n'etes pas poltrone, vous serez, sans ami, dans les prairies au moulin a une heure. "Giulio Pazzoletto." "Oh, horror!" I ejaculated, "it is a challenge; and if I give it to him, that horrid Italian will shoot or stab to death my poor Achille! What shall I do--what shall I do?" There I stood, racked with anguish, till I heard footsteps approaching, when I fled into the schoolroom, where there was such a noise, and all the pupils flocked round me directly, to ask no end of questions; but I was so agitated that I could not speak. However, the first thing I did was to spitefully bite the wicked, murderous note into fragments, and scatter them about the place; and then, recalling Mrs Blunt's last words, I was so retentive of the information the girls were all eager to acquire, that they one and all sided against me, and said I was "a proud, stuck-up, deceitful crocodile." "I don't care, children," I said, haughtily--for I was more at ease now that I knew he would not get the note--"I don't care, children, Mrs Blunt said that I was not to talk about it." "Children, indeed!" exclaimed little pert Celia Blang--"why, that's the very thing that would make you tell us all! 'Tisn't that: it's because you are so stuck-up, you and Clara Fitzy; but she's shut up now, and is going to be sent away, and a good thing too; and now you'll only have Patty Fatty to talk to, and I hope you'll like it." "Hold your tongue, you pert, ill-natured thing," I said; "I don't believe that she will be sent away." "She will, though," said Celia; "you see if she isn't. But we don't want you to tell us anything--we know all about it, don't we, girls?" "Know all about what?" I said, very coolly and contemptuously--for they all seemed quite girlish and childish to me, now that I was the repository of all that secrecy. "Why all about _it_" said Celia--"about Ann, and some one at the window. Molly told me, and ever so much more that she heard from Ann before she went; and Ann was going to tell her something about some one in the garden--Clara Fitzy, or some one else--only she had not time before they bundled her off. But, there: I sha'n't tell you any more." My ears tingled, as they say, when I heard that latter part about the garden. What an escape it seemed, to be sure! But I passed it all off, and took not a mite of notice; and just then, who should come in but Miss Furness, as I heard a well-known step go crunching along the gravel. Then it was lessons, lessons, till dinner-time; and lessons, lessons, till tea-time; and then lessons again, for the weather was too wet for a walk. I only saw Clara of a night after that, and, poor thing, she was kept upon prison fare; for a letter came down from Lady Fitzacre, saying that she was too ill to travel at present, and that she left the punishment of the foolish, disobedient child entirely in the hands of Mrs Blunt. So there wasn't a word said more about expelling her, for Mrs B. was too fond of the high terms and extras she was able to charge for parlour boarders. But they kept the poor thing a close prisoner upstairs for a week; and, to make her position more bearable, I bought her a cheap edition of "Moths," and smuggled it up. Then I managed "In Maremma;" and whenever I went out, and could get to the pastrycook's, I filled my pockets full of queen cakes, and sausage rolls, and raspberry jam tarts, and got the inside of my pocket of my silk dress in such a sticky mess, that I declare every time I put my hand in, it made me think of the poor Signor. Of course, I told Clara everything that happened downstairs as soon as Patty was asleep, though she frightened me terribly by almost going into hysterics the first night, when I told her about the Signor being in the store-room; but I did not mention the jam then, for fear of hurting her feelings. She said I did quite right about the note; for she could never have been happy again if the Signor had killed Achille--just as if Achille was not a deal more likely to have killed the Signor! I don't know how the maids knew, but Molly told us that the Signor had quite left the place, and had not paid his lodging nor yet his washing bill; though I don't want to be spiteful, but I don't think that last could have been much, for I never caught sight of anything washable but a tiny bit of turn-down collar. And Molly knew--for James told her when he took the packet--that Mrs Blunt sent what salary was owing the same day, while I afterwards learned from Achille that they never met again; and really it was a very good thing for all parties concerned that the poor man went. Yes! No! Let me see--yes, he told me upon the day I enclosed him the half-sovereign for the poor refugee family whose troubles in London Achille used to paint so vividly I remember he told me, too, that Signor Pazzoletto had gone away in his debt too, and that he was afraid the Signor was not an honourable man. My poor Achille was very charitable, and kept himself terribly poor that way; but I could not help admiring his generosity towards his fellow exiles, and I used to give him, regularly, all I could from my pocket-money, after he had called my attention to these poor people's condition; and I must say that papa was very liberal to me in that way, and I could always have a sovereign or two for the asking. Achille used to tell me that he added all he could, and that the poor people were so grateful, and used to write of me to him as "la belle ange." He said that the mother was going to write and thank me some day, but she never did; while, I suppose from motives of delicacy, Achille never told me their names. He was really exceedingly charitable, and was often finding out cases where a little money would be well bestowed; and once or twice I wanted to call myself, and see the poor creatures; but his diffidence was so great, that he would not tell me of their places of abode, for he would not be seen moving in such matters, preferring to perform his acts of kindness in secret. Poor Clara was down and amongst us once more; while, as I before said, there was no more talk of her being expelled, for since the Signor had gone, Mrs Blunt thought that all would be right, and she would have no more trouble. And I must say that, for a long time Clara would never help me a bit in any way, now that she had lost her Giulio, but moped terribly, and seemed quite an altered girl--even going so far as to say bitter, cruel things. One day she quite upset me by declaring that Achille only wanted the money for himself, and that I had better be like her--give up all such folly and love-making: a most cruel, unjust, sour-grapey speech; for as to giving up her black-bearded, Italian-organ looking man, there was little giving up in the case. At last, down came Lady Fitzacre, and there was such a to-do in the drawing-room; but Clara was so penitent that she was quite forgiven. And then I was had in to be introduced, and, of course, I expected that a lady with such a name would take after her daughter or that her daughter took after her--it don't matter which--and be tall, aristocratic, and imposing; but, instead, she was a little, screwy, pale, squeezy body, with her upper teeth sticking out quite forward, so as to make her look ugly. But she was very pleasant and good-tempered, and made a great fuss over me, and told Mrs Blunt that she would sooner keep a powder magazine than have a troop of such man-killers to manage. Then she kissed Clara, and said she was afraid that the poor thing was "a naughty, naughty girl," and that it was "so shocking." "But very natural, Mrs de Blount," I heard her whisper, and it set me thinking about what mamma would say when she found me out. For I was not going to break with Achille just because there were obstacles thrown in our way. Of course, there were no more meetings to be held in the conservatory, and for a long time, a very long time, we had to be content with notes, and they could not always be delivered. As I hinted before, Clara would not help me a bit. She said she had promised her mamma that she would not engage in anything of the kind again, and she did not mean to break her word. Certainly, she said, she might perhaps come with me some night, or perhaps aid me a little; but it would not be at present, until she had quite got over her late shock. And then the stupid, romantic girl used to talk about her heart being a desert, and asked all sorts of questions about the convent at Guisnes, just as if she had serious thoughts of entering, and turning nun altogether; for she said there seemed no hope for her in the future. There certainly was not much temptation for her to break her word to her mamma with the new Italian master, Signor Pompare. For of all the frights--oh, dear me! A great, overgrown, stuffy, fat pig; and instead of being dark-eyed, and with beautiful, glossy, black hair, he was actually quite sandy--bird-sandy--and very bald-headed; while his face, where the beautiful, silky, black beard should have been, was all close shaved, and soapy and shiny. And then, too, he used to take such lots of snuff; and there was a crinkly little hole in his upper lip, where he could not shave, and this was always half full of brown powder, so that we decided to call it the reservoir. When he breathed, you used to see the snuff puff out of the place in little tiny, tiny clouds, and fall in a brown bloom over his closely-shaven chin. Not much fear of any of the pupils taking a fancy to him, you would have thought; though I declare if Patty Smith did not say he was a very nice-looking man. But not that that meant anything, for the highest love to which Patty could ascend was love for something tasty to eat. Actually, two months had passed since we had had an interview, and not one plan could I hit upon, though I had tortured my poor head until I grew quite desperate. Of course, I saw Achille every week for lessons, and twice on Sundays. But, then, all that seemed to count for nothing; and once more I was beginning to grow so miserable and dejected, a state from which his letters hardly seemed to revive me. Any disloyal thoughts I may have had were thoroughly chased away by the difficulties we had encountered. But, still, leading such a quiet, regular life as we lived, it seemed very hard work to find words and remarks with which to fill up one's notes. I declare that if they did not grow to be as difficult to write as Miss Furness's essays; and I had to use the same adjectives over and over and over again, till I was quite ashamed of them, and almost wondered that they did not turn sour even though they were meant to be sweet and endearing. As for Achille's notes--heigho! I could excuse him, knowing how difficult it was to find words myself; but towards the latter part of our dear intimacy, his letters grew to be either political, or else full of the sorrows of the poor people whose cause he espoused, and whose sufferings he tried, to use his own words, "to make a little softer." Of course it was too bad to gape, and keep his notes in one's pocket until they grew quite worn before I opened them, and then to feel that I knew by heart all that he was going to say; but I could not help it, though I tried hard to love and appreciate the things which interested him, and pinched myself terribly to send him half-sovereigns for his "chers pauvres." But, I don't mind owning to it, I did not care a single button or pen nib for the French Royal family, though I did not like to tell him so when he asked me to subscribe for the poor descendants of the noblest of "la belle France." I'm afraid I was not so patriotic as I should have been. I could not help it. I did try; and no doubt in time I should have grown to have loved the same things as he did; but I did wish that he would have made his notes a little more--more--well, what shall I say?--there, less matter of fact and worldly, when I wanted them to be tender, and sympathising, and ethereal. Yes--I grew quite disgusted, in spite of Clara's nasty badinage; for she had recovered her spirits as I lost mine, and used to tell me to try her recipe, and I should soon be well again. But, of course, I treated her remarks as they deserved; and grew paler every day in spite of the pleasant country walks, though they were totally spoiled by our having to tramp along like a regiment of soldiers. For my part, I should have liked to go wandering through the woods, spending ten minutes here and ten minutes there; now stopping to pluck a flower, and now to sit down upon some mossy fallen tree; or else to have lost myself amongst the embowering leaves. In short, I should have liked to do just as I pleased; while all the time the rule seemed to be that we should do just as some one else liked; and "some one else" was generally that detestable, screwy, old Miss Furness, with her "Keep together, young ladies," or "Now, a little faster," or "Straightforward," or "To the right" Oh! it was so sickening, I declare that I would rather have sat up in the dormitory--pooh, such nonsense!-- in the bedroom, and watched and envied the birds in the long, wavy boughs of the beautiful cedars. I know I could have contrived several meetings if it had not been for Miss Furness, who was always prying and peering about, as suspiciously as possible, though half of that was on purpose to annoy me, and because she knew that I did not like it. But though Clara had at one time vowed that she would not help me, she never, in the slightest degree, went against any of my plans; but even went so far as to allow herself to be turned into a passive post-office--if I may use the expression--by holding a note for Achille in her French grammar, and bringing back another when she had had her regular scolding--for she certainly was very stupid over her French, though at one time she had manifested considerable ability over her Italian, while she sketched beautifully. I managed the place for a meeting, at last; though, after all, it was but a very tiresome place, but, under the circumstances, better than nothing. There was no going out of a night now, even if we had felt so inclined; and, really and truly, after what we had gone through, I felt very little disposed to attempt such a thing again; for Miss Furness used to collect regularly every night all the downstairs keys in a basket, and then take them up to Mrs Blunt's room; and I feel convinced that those four old tabbies used to have something hot in one of the bedrooms. Clara used to say that she could smell it; and yet they would all make a fuss at dinner about never touching ale or porter. All I know is, that Miss Furness's nose never would have looked so red if she only drank water always. They used to think that we did not know of their sitting up of a night; but Clara and I soon found that out, for we began to lie and listen, and could tell well enough that the Fraulein was not in her own room; while every now and then, from some other part, we could hear her blowing her nose with a noise loud enough to alarm the whole house. There never was such a woman before for blowing noses, I'm sure. Why, she could blow her nose as loud as a churchwarden, or a Poor Law guardian, who, as it is well known, can, after county magistrates on the bench, make more noise than any one upon that particular organ. It was quite dreadful to hear the Fraulein trumpeting about, like one of those horrid brass things the soldiers play in the bands--stretching out, and pulling in, and working about, and looking so dangerous. And now I am going to tell you about my plan for an interview; though I might have spared my poor brains all the trouble, for it never did either of us a bit of good, in spite of all my scheming and management I told you that the downstairs doors were always locked now of a night, and that Miss Furness collected all the keys, so that it was quite out of the question to think of trying to get into either of the lower rooms to talk out of the window; so I thought, and thought, and thought, and puzzled, and puzzled, and puzzled, and bored my poor brains, till at last I remembered the empty room at the end of the passage. "Well, but how ever could he get up there to talk to you?" said Clara; "it's a second floor window." "Why, come up a ladder, of course," I said. "But how is he to get one there?" said Clara. "Bring some bricklayers and scaffold poles, and have a scaffold made on purpose?" "Why, a rope ladder, goosey," I said. "Don't you see?" But Clara said she could not see, and that she believed that, excepting in ships, there were no such things as rope ladders, and all those that you read of in books were manufactured in people's brains, and never helped anybody yet up to a window; while as to ladies eloping down them, that was all nonsense, for she did not think the woman was living who could get either up or down one of the swingle-swangle things. And then she said that it would not be safe; but I knew better, and told her so, for I was not going to have my plan set aside for a trifle. So then I set to and wrote a letter to Achille. Since Clara had laughed so terribly, I had not liked to send money in the notes by her; and poor Achille had sent me such a despairing note, telling me how that he must see me--one of the most grievous, broken-hearted notes possible. I declare I don't know what he did not say he would do if he could not see me soon. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. MEMORY THE FOURTEENTH--ANTICIPATED JOYS. I wrote and told Achille all my plans, using the top of the drawers for a writing desk, and letting Patty Smith think that I was doing an exercise; for I was so horribly deceitful, writing upon exercise paper, and referring now and then to dictionary and grammar, as if for different words. I told him he was to get hooks made that would fit over the inside of the window-sill, and he was to buy a rope ladder, and I would let down a string and draw it up, and hook it on, when he could easily run up and stand upon the great, wide ledge beneath the second floor windows--a large, ornamental cornice that ran nearly round the house--and there stop and talk to me whenever it was a dark night. I soon managed, through Clara, for him to have the note; and the next time he came he was quite radiant with joy, and praised all the girls' exercises, though some of them were really execrable I would not look at him, but soon after he was gone Clara slipped a note into my hand, which said that he would be under the window that night at half-past twelve, and that I was to be sure and have a ball of string ready to let down and draw up the ladder, which he had been obliged to make himself; for though he could buy cord enough everywhere in London, there was not such a thing as a rope ladder to be got. "There, I told you so," said Clara, laughing. "Rope ladder, indeed. I don't believe people ever did sell such things; and you see now if he don't stick halfway up, like a great fly in a spider's web, till Lady Blunt comes, as the spider, and sticks a great knitting needle into his body to kill him. And then she'll call all the other spiders, and all four of them will set to and devour your poor Achille--for they are almost ready to eat him every day, as it is." "Don't talk such stuff," I said pettishly, though I could not help thinking of Miss Furness and her penchant for Achille, though I knew he hated her. It did sound so romantic and chivalrous, in spite of Clara's ill-natured prattle, having one's lover coming up a ladder of ropes in the stilly midnight hour, when all were dreaming around. It put me in mind of ladies' bowers, and knights, and cavaliers, and elopements; and dreaming, as I did, I almost began to fancy myself a damsel in distress about to be rescued. I stood there, in our room, in such a sweet, rapt meditation--such a blissful, dreamy, musing fit--when that Clara brought me right down out of the I don't know how manyeth heaven, by saying-- "And where's your string?" I had not thought of that, and it was a puzzle. I had plenty of crochet cotton, and bobbin, and Berlin wool; but then, they were none of them strong enough. Time to buy any there was none; for he was coming that night loaded with his dear ladder; while if I tried to get any from the kitchen, some one would be sure to ask what it was wanted for, then what could I say? And, besides, I had told so many dreadful stories already, and prevaricated so much, that I was quite ashamed. The first thing I determined upon was to make a long plait of my coloured wools; but I soon found that there would not be one quarter enough; then I thought of the girls' slate strings, which held the sponges, and determined to make a raid into the schoolroom and cut them all off, though I felt sure they would not be enough. If I could only have gone out and bought a ball, or sent James, it would have been all right; but that was impossible without first asking Mrs Blunt. Only the week before, a stupid boy's kite came flapping over into the garden, with no end of string, which I might have cut off with my scissors; but I never imagined then that I should want any. However, I did what I generally do when I want to think deeply, I took some eau de Cologne and bathed my temples, and then sat down before the glass, with my hair all thrown back, and my head resting upon my hand, trying to solve the problem, and wondering what Achille could see in me to like; while just then I remember wondering what had become of poor Mr Saint Purre. What was I to do? that was the question. I might have cut ever so many strings off my clothes, but then I was sure they would not make half enough; and, after boring my poor brains all sorts of ways, I was quite in despair--for it did seem too bad to be put off by such a beggarly little trifle as a bit of string, when two or three of those little, cheating penny balls, that are made so big by winding a very little string round a very big hole would have set me up for good. I wanted Clara to smuggle the clothes line from the laundry, which would have done admirably; but the nasty thing would not, and tried to make fun of it all by declaring that it was in use; and she would not stir a peg. I could not go myself to see if what she said was true--at least, I dare not; and, there, if it was not tea-time, and we should be rung down in a few minutes. Once I thought of tearing up something into long shreds, and tying them together; and it seemed at last that that would be the plan, and I should have put it into execution, if all at once I had not had a bright thought flash through my head, and felt disposed to call out "Excelsior?" like mamma did when she saw Mrs Blunt's horrid advertisement, and meant "Eureka" all the time. And what do you think the happy thought was? Why, the lumber-room, where the girls' school boxes were put, along with their cords; and I was just going to hurry off and collect a number, when clatter went the tea-bell, and we were obliged to go down. I could not eat any of their odious bread and butter--thick and patchy-- while the tea was as weak as weak. I declare I was so nervous that I never felt the place to be so vexatious before; and for the least provocation I should have burst out crying. I couldn't help there being nothing to cry about--all I know is, that I felt in a regular crying fit; and the more of the nasty, mawkish warm tea I drank, the worse I was, for it all seemed changed into tears directly, and to be flooding my head; when, if it had been proper tea, of course my poor nerves would have been solaced. Clara saw how put out I was, and kept treading on my foot, wanting me to look at Mrs Blunt's front, which was all put on sideways; but I declare I could not have laughed if she had put it on backwards. Then that stupid Miss Sloman must go, seeing that I did not eat anything, and tell Mrs Blunt; and, of course, when she asked me, I was obliged to say I was not quite well, when the tiresome old thing must promise to send for Dr Boole if I were not better in the morning. A stupid old thing: she did not know that a dozen yards of good stout string would have made me feel quite in ecstasy. Bed-time at last; and, as a matter of course, because we wanted her to go to sleep soon, Patty Smith began to write a letter home for another cake and a bottle of currant wine; but Miss Furness must come prowling about and see the light, and she soon put a stop to that; when poor simple Patty did get such a scolding that she sobbed, and cried, and boo-ood, and said it was only for a cake she was writing. Then Miss Furness--a nasty, aggravating old puss--must turn round and scold Clara and me, as she said, for encouraging her, so as to get part of the cake ourselves. Couldn't I have given her a shaking, that's all! Why, it was enough to make anyone feel vicious. At last, we lay there, listening to the different noises dying out in the house; and I could do nothing but cry for poor Achille's disappointment--for the way to the lumber-room was through the one in which the cook slept, and of course it was impossible to get any cord; and I dare not throw a note out of the window to Achille, for fear that he might not find it in the dark, and if it fell into wrong hands all would have been made known. So there I lay, crying for some time, till the noises in the house one by one died out, and all was still, when I pictured poor Achille watching and waiting, and accusing me of perfidy and cruelty, for making him come and then disappointing him--for he never would imagine that I had been stopped for want of a piece of string. Then came the sound of an owl, hooting and screeching as if in contempt of me for going to bed; and I declare, at last, I was about to creep away to the empty room, and add to the poor fellow's disappointment by opening the window and whispering to him--though I'm sure he could not have heard; when a strong feeling of stupor seemed to creep over me--a feeling that I could not fight against--while soon all was, as it were, a blank. The next morning when I talked about it to Clara, she said it showed how much I cared for him to fall asleep. Just as if it was sleep, and I did not know the difference. But there, she always was so absurd! And poor Achille was disappointed, and we had to make another assignation. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. MEMORY THE FIFTEENTH--'TWIXT CUP AND LIP. Night again; and Achille--poor faithful, charitable, patient Achille--to be there once more watching in the dark that one blank window, that he hoped to see open. I could analyse his feelings as well, perhaps, as he could mine; and how I did pity him for his many disappointments! For nights and nights had passed without the rope ladder having been made available. Still, though, we were hopeful, and thought of others who had been long and patient sufferers for the same cause; while now, in the hope of a meeting, we waited once more. All was still within doors, and everything seemed propitious, for the night was excessively dark. The last door had shut some time before, and within the house the only thing stirring must have been a mouse or else, with our strained ears, as Clara and I lay waiting, dressed in bed, we must have heard it. But though all was so still in the house, it was not so out of doors. First of all there was a horrible cat "tuning its lay," as Clara called it; and then she said its lay was terribly out of tune to want so much screwing up. Then the dog in the next yard must hear it, and begin to resent the disturbance, and bark at the cat, till I felt sure that pauvre Achille would not come, for the noise was dreadful--rest cat, bark dog; rest dog, howl cat, and so on. There was the chain rattling in and out of the kennel at a most terrible rate, while the creature barked furiously till it was tired, without having the slightest effect upon the cat, or cats, which kept on with the hideous howling, till the dog, evidently worn out, went to sleep. Oh, it was uncomfortable lying there, so hot and tired with the exertion of dressing under the bed-clothes while lying down, so that Patty Smith should have no suspicion of what was going on and because we thought her awake; when, just as we had finished, she must begin to snore in the most vulgar, horrible way imaginable. "That nasty cat is just under our window," I whispered to Clara. "He'll never come if there's this noise." "I'll serve it out," whispered Clara; "only be quiet." "What are you going to do?" I said, but she would not answer; and I heard her get out of bed and go to the washstand, and pour ever so much water into the basin. "Oh, pray don't make any noise, dear. What are you going to do with that water?" "Wait a bit, and you'll see," she whispered, tittering; and then she went and gently opened the window, when the noise of the nasty cat came up worse than ever. "You had better not throw out that water, dear," I whispered; but she only giggled, and then I heard the water go down splash on to the gravel walk, and directly after-- "Oh!" exclaimed Clara. As she spoke up came the sounds of the falling basin, as it struck upon the gravel walk, and was shivered to atoms. Then came the sound of a hurried step upon the path, the rush of a heavy body through the shrubbery, all as plain as could be in the still night, and I knew that Clara had very nearly thrown the basin on poor Achille's head, and it might have killed him. When as if that was not enough to frighten him away, there were two windows thrown open on the first floor, and at one was Miss Furness, ringing a bell and Miss Sloman screaming, and at the other my Lady Blunt, springing a watchman's rattle, and making the most horrible din imaginable. "Well, I really did not mean to do it, dear," said Clara, as coolly as could be; "you see, the basin was soapy, and slipped." "What did you do it at all for, when you were asked not?" I gasped angrily; for it was really enough to drive any one out of her senses to be disappointed like this, time after time. All I hoped was, that poor Achille had escaped safely, and did not know from which window the missile came; for, only fancy, he might have thought that I had thrown it, and never forgiven me. You never could have imagined such a disturbance to have proceeded from so small a cause. There were doors opening and shutting, girls screaming, bells ringing; and there we all were, at last, trembling and shaking upon the staircase and landings--all but Patty Smith, who would not get out of bed. "Dere's de police!" exclaimed the Fraulein, all at once; and directly after we could hear Mrs Blunt and Miss Furness talking to some one out of their windows; while now there was a profound silence fallen upon the shivering group, and I shuddered as I recognised the deep-toned voice out of doors, and knew it to be that of one familiar with the interior of the grounds. "Search the garden thoroughly, policeman," cried Mrs Blunt, from one window. "Who's there?" squealed Miss Furness, loudly. "Why, it's me, mum," said the policeman. "Oh, yes--I know, my good man," said Miss Furness; "but I mean who was out there?" "I'm going to look, aint I?" growled the man. "But there aint nobody out here now, even if there was at all. I aint seen anybody in the road." I did feel so glad to hear what he said, for I was all in a shiver lest my poor boy should be caught. "He's gone, mum," said the low fellow, after he had been away about five minutes. "Aint not a soul 'cept me in the garding. What had he been up to, mum?" "Oh, it was a dreadful noise out there," cried Mrs Blunt, from behind the curtains. "It sounded like some one smashing in the dining-room windows. Pray look, policeman." All this conversation sounded quite plain to us on the stairs, for Mrs Blunt's door and window were both open; and then I could hear the policeman's heavy step on the gravel, crunching and crackling as he trod on and began kicking about the pieces of Clara's broken basin. "Why, here's some one been shying the chayney outer window," said the policeman. "Here's most half a wash-hand basin and a whole stodge of bits squandered all over the gravel walk. That's what you heerd, mum. The window is right enough." "It did sound like that," squeaked Miss Furness. "And that's what it was, mum, if there was none of this here out afore." "Oh, no, my good man," cries Mrs Blunt, getting less fearful and more dignified every moment--"the paths were quite clear this evening." "Then it's some of your young ladies been a havin' a lark," said the low fellow. I turned round to whisper to Clara, but she was gone. Directly after, though, she slipped back to my side, and I whispered to her, laying my hand upon her arm-- "Had you not better tell? Say that it was an accident." "Hold your tongue," she whispered, pinching me. Then we shrank into the background, for I was afraid some one would notice how bulky our dressing-gowns looked; for, of course, we had not had time to undress again. We heard the policeman promise to keep an eye on the place, and to call in the morning. Then we heard his footsteps on the gravel, and the pieces of china cracking, windows shut down, and orders for us to go back to our rooms, as there was nothing to fear; when, as we were ascending the stairs, Mrs Blunt's nightcapped head was thrust out of the door, and we heard her exclaim-- "I'll investigate this disgraceful trick in the morning, young ladies." I trembled for poor Clara--almost as much as I did for Achille; for it seemed as though the poor girl was always to act as scapegoat; though, certainly, she really deserved to be in disgrace this time, for I begged her most earnestly not to throw out the water. I would have given Clara half my basin with pleasure, if I could; but then, that would have been of no service. Judge, then, of my surprise when, after looking at Patty, fast asleep as if nothing had been the matter, I turned to Clara's washstand, there was her basin, safe and sound, and the jug was standing in it! As we upon the second floor all had small washstands and jugs and basins of the same pattern, I thought that, after all, she had taken mine; but she had not, nor yet Patty's; and as she saw what I was looking at, she burst out laughing, and said-- "I slipped up and into the Fraulein's room, and took hers; and now they may find out if they can. Of course, you won't tell, darling? Promise me that." I felt so cross that I was ready to say I would; for I was disappointed, and though the thoughts of the meeting had taken away my appetite, now that it was not to be, I felt as hungry as possible. But it would have been cruel to have said anything, so, of course, I promised. "Another disappointment for the poor French Verb," whispered Clara, laughing. "For shame," I said, "to speak in so disrespectful a way." "But it does not much matter," she said; "for he would have been afraid to climb up, when he found out really how high it was." "Don't talk stuff!" I said; "he would get up if it were twice as high, for my sake. Why, look how Leander swam the Hellespont." "And I say," cried Clara--laughing, and seeming in the highest of glee, which was too bad--"how cold and shivering he must have been when he got across. Bo-o-o-h?" she said, shuddering, "what a cold frog of a lover! I shouldn't have liked that." "No," I said, "you have no romance in your composition." "Haven't I," she said, "you don't know; but I'm not so head over ears in love as you are." "Perhaps not," I said, spitefully; "because you have no chance." "Pooh!" said Clara. "Why, I might have had Achille long before you came, if I had liked." "Perhaps, miss," I exclaimed, with nothing more than reasonable anger, "the next time you mention that gentleman's name you will prefix the Monsieur." "Certainly, ma'am," said Clara, aggravating me with her mock courtesy. "And whatever you do," I said, "if you must tease, tell the truth." "That was the truth," she replied. "Don't be such a wicked story," I exclaimed. "I don't believe it." I could not help thinking, after, that in my childish anger I had made use of childish language. "I don't care what you believe, and what you don't believe," said Clara, coolly; "and I've got--" "If you young ladies are not silent this minute," said Miss Furness, outside the door, "I shall be compelled to summon Mrs de Blount." As I lay wondering whether she had heard anything of our conversation, and what it was that Clara had got, and whether it was a letter Achille had sent her before I came, which I did not believe, and did not much care if he had, for he had not seen me then--Miss Furness stood listening at the door, while Clara would not answer my whispered questions, pretending to be offended; and I believe I heard Miss Furness sniff out in the cold passage just as I dropped off to sleep. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. MEMORY THE SIXTEENTH--PANGS. I meant in the last chapter to have told a great deal more; but so many of my troubles and misadventures kept creeping in, that I did not get in one-half of what I intended. What pains I took to gain an interview-- or, rather, to grant the poor fellow an interview, though it would have been to me the reaching of a green oasis in my journey across life's desert, when, for a short time, the gentle palm branches would have waved, as it were, in gentle motion above our heads, while our cheeks would have been fanned by the gentle breath of love. Of course there was a terrible to do about the basin in the morning, but it so happened, luckily, that the cat was not beneath our window, but beyond the Fraulein's; so that in trying to reach it, Clara had thrown the basin for some distance, and right past our neighbour's window. The Fraulein declared that she had never opened hers; and, poor woman, she opened her mouth into quite a round O when told that she must have thrown it out. There was nothing to cast suspicion upon us, for it was more likely to have been Celia Blang, on the other side of the Fraulein; and so, at last, the matter dropped, and we heard no more of it then. But I had such a delightful treat two days after; for while we were going down the High Street, Miss Furness must turn faint, and have to be helped into the first house at hand, to sit down and rest, and that was Mrs Jackney's, the milliner's; and there we were, four or five of us at once, in the little parlour--dear Achille's "apartment meublee," as he called it. He was from home, giving lessons somewhere, no doubt; but while they were bathing Miss Furness's face, and giving her sniffs of salts, and glasses of water to drink, I had such a look round the place, and saw his dear old boots in one corner--the pair, I was sure, he must put on for ease and comfort of a night; and I was so glad to see them, for, if, instead, I had caught sight of a nice, handsomely worked pair of slippers, they would have given me quite a pang. Now I felt that the task--no, the pleasure--was left for me. Then there was a dear, duck of an old coat hanging behind the door; and such nice, funny little holes in the elbows, where he had rested his arms upon the table while he studied; and there was his pipe, and two bits of cigars, and a few yellow paper-covered books, and one thing which did, I must own, make me feel a little uncomfortable, a scarlet and black smoking cap--at least, it had been scarlet once, and had evidently been made by a lady, and, of course, one would have liked to have known who was the maker. At first, in remembrance of her bitter, teasing words, I thought that it might have been Clara; but it did not look new enough; for the scarlet was fast verging upon the black, and, no doubt, in a short time it would have been impossible to make out the pattern. But I was glad to see it; for it was a hint that Achille would soon require a new one, and I knew who would make it. However, I did not much care; and taking advantage of there being no one looking, I contrived to drop my handkerchief inside it; but directly after I trembled, and wanted to have it back again, for there was my name marked upon it in full, in ink, and I was afraid that his landlady, Mrs Jackney, might see it. I had a good look at her, to see whether I need feel jealous, and found, to my great delight, that I need not; for she was worse in appearance than Miss Furness, but evidently a very pleasant body; though, all the same I should not have liked her to find my handkerchief. However, there was no getting it back; for Miss Furness was now able to sit up, and I was one of the first to be obliged to leave the room, and stand agonised in the passage, lest any one should find out what I had done. But nothing was seen, and I heard afterwards from Achille, in one of his notes--the best, I think, that he ever wrote to me--how fondly he prized the treasure; and I mentally declared that it was not a bad way of laying out the value of a pocket-handkerchief, and that he should soon have another. It was all so horribly unfortunate. If we made an engagement to meet, something was sure to happen; while, in spite of the time that had now passed since the poor Signor left, not one short five minutes had poor Achille and I had together. It was enough to make me ever so fond and devoted; and though I might be trembling a little in my allegiance at one time, I was ready to become a martyr now for his sake. But, as I said before, the very fact of an assignation being made was the signal for, or precursor of, something to happen; so that, I'm sure, I was quite in a tremble, a few days after Miss Furness's faint, when Achille gave me a few lines inside De Porquet, telling me, in a few simple words, that he was again that night about to try his fortune, when he hoped I should be able to assist him to benefit the poor exiles, who were now in a great state of distress. No one, to have found that scrap of paper, would have imagined that it was anything more than a piece torn off to act as book-mark, and he gave me the book with it standing right out, so that Miss Furness could see it quite plainly as he passed it right under her nose, saying-- "I have put a piece of paper where you shall go on, Miss Bozerne." When I looked at it there was only hastily scrawled-- "Mercredi, une heure," and "the poor suffer want--les pauvres ont besoin." That was all, and it really seemed to be a bit of exercise, and nothing else. But then, I had the key in my heart, and could read it as he meant; though truly it was an exercise for me to find means to overtop all difficulties and meet him. I knew what he meant well enough--just as well as if he had written four pages, crossed, in his own niggling, little, scrimply, unintelligible, Frenchy hand. So I sat thinking of the six box cords tied together and hidden away in the bottom drawer, underneath my green silk, and tightly locked up to keep them from prying eyes. Well, of course, I told Clara--though I may as well own that I really should not if I could have helped it. For she was anything but what I should have liked; and, of course, I did not care to be so teased. And there was my appetite so spoiled again that I could not eat, and poor me in such a fidget for the rest of the day, that I did not know what to do. I slipped upstairs three times to see if the cord was all right, and the knots tightly tied; and then, the last time, if I did not hear Miss Furness calling me, and come down in a flurry and leave the key in the drawer. I turned quite hot all over when I felt for it in my pocket, and was sure I had lost it somewhere; when if I could not get some more cord I should be stopped again. All at once I remembered that the thing must be stuck in the keyhole. So, as soon as the lesson with Miss Furness was over, I slipped to the back staircase, and was about halfway up, when I must meet that tiresome, fat, old Fraulein. "Vots for you heere, Mees Bozerne?" croaked the tiresome old English killer. "Young ladies 'ave no beesness upstaer in de afternoon. Go you down." Of course I had to go down again, for I was breaking rules, and ought to have been at work at private study in the schoolroom till half an hour before tea-time. "It's too bad," I muttered, as I began to descend--"too bad to send me to a place like this, where one may not even go up to one's bedroom. I'm sure, I don't feel in the least bit like a school-girl." Just then I heard Miss Sloman calling the Fraulein to "Come here, dear!" They always called one another, "my love," and "dear," in private, though I'm sure no one could have been more unamiable, or looked more ready to scratch and call names. So the Fraulein again ordered me to go down, and then turned back, evidently to go to Miss Sloman: so, seizing the opportunity, I slipped down into the hall, and began bounding up the front stairs like lightning, when if I did not literally run up against Mrs Blunt, and strike her right in the chest with my head, just as she had come out of her room--for I was not looking, but, with head down, bounding up two stairs at a time. It was a crash! Poor woman, she could not get breath to speak for some time. But, there, she was not the only one hurt; for that horrible twisted vulcanite coronet was driven right into my poor head, and pained me terribly. "Ach ten!" cried the Fraulein, who had heard the crash and exclamation on both sides, and now came waddling up; "I told you go down, ten, Miss Bozerne, and you come up to knock de lady principal." So I was, without a word to say in defence, sent down in the most dreadful disgrace. But there was some fun in it, after all; for Clara vowed that the poor woman received such a shock that two of her bones-- stay bones--were broken, and she nearly swallowed her teeth. But that Clara always would exaggerate so dreadfully; and, of course, that was not true. I was not going to be threatened with medicine this time because my appetite was bad, so I kept one slice of bread and butter upon my plate to bite at, though it was almost enough to choke me; and then I managed to draw two more slices over the edge of my plate into my lap, where my pocket-handkerchief was spread all ready; and then I wrapped them up, when I thought that no one was looking, and put them in my pocket; and so tea was got over, and I thought what a long time it would be till midnight. We were all standing in the middle of the classroom before getting our books out for the evening studies, when if Patty Smith did not come up to me, and, without waiting to see whether I would or not, exclaimed-- "Lend me your handkerchief, Laura, dear--I won't keep it a moment!" Seizing one end, which stuck out of my pocket, she gave it a snatch, when away it flew, and one piece of bread and butter was slung across the room, and struck Miss Furness in the face; while the other went flop up against the window behind her, stuck upon the pane for a moment, and then fell--leaving a buttery mark where it had been, as a matter of course. I declare I never felt so much ashamed in my life; while there were all the girls tittering and giggling, and Miss Furness wiping her face and scolding terribly about my dreadfully unladylike behaviour, though nothing could have been more humiliating than what followed, for I'm sure I wished there was not such a thing as a piece of bread and butter upon the face of the earth; for said Miss Furness-- "And now, Miss Bozerne, come and pick up those pieces." I would have given anything to have been able to refuse; but what could I do? I do not see how I could have helped it, for I really felt obliged; and there I was kneeling down, humbled and penitent, to pick it up; and there were the tiresome, buttery pieces, all broken up into crumbs here and crumbs there, all over the place. "For your sake, Achille?" I murmured to myself; and that made me bear it until I had picked up all I could, and held the scraps upon a piece of exercise paper, wondering what I had better do with them. "You had better wipe the butter off that window with your handkerchief, Miss Bozerne," said Miss Furness, stiffly. "Oh! and it's of no use for you to make up those indignant grimaces, and look like that, Miss Bozerne," she continued, in her nasty, vinegary way. "If young ladies are so forgetful of decorum, and cannot be content with a fair share of food at the tea table, but must gluttonously stoop to steal pieces off the plate to devour at abnormal times, they must expect to be spoken to." Just as if I had taken the horrid stuff to eat, when so great was my agitation that I could partake of nothing. So there I was, with my face and neck burning in a most "abnormal" way, as Miss Furness would have called it, wiping and smearing the butter about over the pane of glass, and hardly seeing what I was doing for the tears; when there was that Patty Smith staring at me with her great saucer eyes, and her mouth made round and open, as if it had been another eye, and Clara the whole time enjoying it all, and laughing at my discomfort. It was really much too bad, for it was all her fault: the wicked, mischievous, impish creature had seen me put the pieces of bread and butter into my pocket, and had actually set Patty to snatch the handkerchief out. "The plan succeeded beyond my expectations, darling," she exclaimed afterwards, when we were alone; and I did not slap her--which, without boasting, must, I think, show how forgiving a spirit I possess. But, to return to the scene in the room. When I had finished smearing the window with my pretty little cambric handkerchief, I threw open the sash, and was going to fling out the little pieces of bread-crumbs for the poor little birds-- "Miss Bozerne!" exclaimed Miss Furness, "what are you about?" "Going to give the crumbs to the birds, ma'am," I said, humbly. "Oh, dear me, no," exclaimed the old puss, seizing upon what she considered a good opportunity for making an example of me, and giving a lesson to the other girls--for that seemed one of the aims of her life: to make lessons out of everything she said or did, till she was a perfect nuisance. "Oh, dear me, no--such waste cannot be allowed. Go and put the fragments upon one of the plates, which James or the cook will give you, and ask her to save them for your breakfast." I could have cried with vexation; but I did not, though it was very, very, very hard work to keep the tears back. "Oh, Achille! Achille!" I murmured again, "c'est pour toi!" I walked out, like a martyr, bearing the pieces, with bent-down eyes, and gave them to the cook, telling her she was to throw them to the chickens. For I would not have given Miss Furness's message if she had stood behind me. Oh, yes, it was nice fun for the other girls, and dearly they used to enjoy seeing me humbled, because I always was rather distant, and would not make confidantes of ever so many; and when I went back, there they were upon the giggle, and Miss Furness not trying to check them one bit, as she would have done upon another occasion--which shows how partial and unjust she could be when she liked. But I soon forgot it all, engrossed as I was with the idea of what was coming that night. As to my next day's lessons, after sitting before them for an hour, I believe that I knew less about them than when I took out my books; for right up at the top of one of the panes in the buttery window there was a spider spinning its net, and that set me thinking about poor Achille hanging in a web, and the four old lesson grinders being spiders to devour him. For there was the nasty creepy thing hanging by one of its strings ever so far down, and that made me think about the coming night and the rope ladder, till I could, in my overwrought fancy, imagine I saw poor Achille bobbing and swinging about, and ready to go through one of the window-panes every moment. Sometimes the very thought of it made my face burn, and my hands turn hot and damp as could be inside, just as they felt when one had shaken hands with Miss Furness, whose palm, in feel, was for all the world like the tail of a cod-fish. Sometimes during that evening I felt in misery, and, I believe, all owing to that spider, and thinking of the danger of the feat to perform which I had lured poor Achille. I would have given anything to have been able to beg of him not to attempt it. "Poor fly," I thought--"poor, beautiful, fluttering, brightly painted fly; and have I been the means of weaving a net to lure thee to destruction? Oh, wretch that I am!" And so I went on for some time, just as people do in books when they are very bad in their emotions; and that is one advantage in reading, only emotions are so much more eloquent than they would be, say, in an ignorant, unlettered person; and really, be it pleasure or pain, it is as well to be refined and make a grand display; for it is so much more satisfactory, even if the audience consists of self alone. At times, though, I was so elated that I could feel my eyes flash and sparkle with the thoughts that rushed through my brain; when, as if reading my heart, Clara would creep close, and nip my arm, and keep on whispering-- "I'll tell--I'll tell." CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. MEMORY THE SEVENTEENTH--IN DREADFUL DARING. Bed-time at last, and me there, close shut up in our own room; but not before I had run to the end of the passage and tried the end door to see if it was open; and it was--it was! Clara was, after all said and done, nearly as much excited as poor I; and once she sighed, and said that she could almost have wished for the poor Signor to have been there, but I did not tell her I was very glad that he would not be. Then Miss Patty must want to know what we were whispering about, and declare that she would tell Miss Furness, for we were making fun of her; and turn huffy and cross, till she got into bed, and then lie staring with wide-open eyes at the window, just because we wanted her to go to sleep. "Ma's going to send me a cake on Toosday," she said at last, after I had kissed and told her we were not laughing at her; and I must do her the credit of saying that she always was a most good-tempered creature, and never out of humour for long together. "And when my cake comes," she continued, after five minutes' thought, "I'll spend fourpence in ginger beer, if you will each spend the same, and we'll have a supper." "I do wish you would go to sleep, instead of keeping on bothering," cried Clara. "I dare say you do, Miss Consequence," said Patty; "but I shall go to sleep when I like." And then, if she did not lie awake until nearly twelve, though we pretended to be both fast asleep, and would not answer any of her foolish, chattering questions, when, as usual, she began to snore; and after waiting until I felt quite sure that she was asleep, I jumped out of bed, and began to dress myself as quickly and quietly as possible. As soon as I had finished and then lain down once more, Clara got up too, and followed my example, even to the lying down again when she had finished; for it was too soon to go yet, and we both felt that it would be safer the nearer we were to the middle of the night; and of course one felt determined to do nothing this time to frustrate one's designs. We had tried more than once dressing in bed under the clothes, and, of course, lying down; but that really is such terribly hard work, as any one will find upon testing it, that we both soon gave it up, and waited till we felt sure of Patty being sound asleep; and she really was the heaviest sleeper I ever knew. So we both dressed in the dark; and that is bad enough, I can assure you--dreadfully awkward, for one gets one's strings so crossed, and tied wrong, and in knots, and muddled about, till one is horribly uncomfortable, besides being twice as long as at any other time. At last, I whispered to Clara that it was time to go, but there was no answer; and on getting off the bed and touching her, she quite started. For she had been asleep, and when I reproached her-- "Well, of course," she said, peevishly; "it's sleeping time, is it not?" But she roused up directly after, and stood by my side, as I went down upon my knees by the bottom drawer, and tried to pull it out very gently, without making any noise, so as to get at the cord. For the key was in it all right when I came up, and I thought that I would leave it there, though I was all in a fidget for fear any one had been in and looked and seen the cord, while Patty was so curious that I dare not look to see; though if any one had taken it away, what should I have done? "Cree-ea-ea-ea-eak," went the drawer as soon as I pulled it, after the lock had shot back with a loud noise like a small pistol; and at this dreadful sound I stopped and turned cold all down my back; for I felt sure that the Fraulein would hear it. So there I knelt upon the floor, trembling like a leaf, and not daring to move; for Clara cried "Hush!" very loudly, and I'm sure I did not know what would come next. In fact, I almost expected to see the bedroom door open, and the Fraulein standing there. "You should have put some soap upon it," whispered Clara. "Yes, same as you did upon the basin," I said, viciously, and that silenced her; though I believe the mischievous thing was chuckling to herself all the while. At last, after five minutes had passed, which seemed like as many hours, everything was quite still, so I gave the drawer another pull. "Craw-aw-aw-aw-awk," it went, louder than before, and as if on purpose to annoy me; but I was so desperate that I gave the thing a horrible snatch, and pulled it out far enough, when I pushed in my hand and drew out the cord, hardly expecting to find it; but there it was, all right, and holding it tightly, I still knelt there trembling. "Er-tchisher--er-tchisher," came now, as loudly as possible, from Patty Smith's bed; and then we heard the tiresome thing turn on one side. We waited a little, and then I rose, and stood close to the door, waiting for Clara to join me; when if the stupid thing did not forget all about my open drawer, which I dare not attempt to close, and went blundering over it, making such a dreadful noise, that I rushed into bed and covered myself up; and, from the scuffling noise, I knew that she had done the same, for it was too dark to see. "Oh, my shins!" said Clara, in a whisper. Then I could hear her rubbing and laughing, not that I could see anything to laugh at; while if the Fraulein did not tap at the wall because we were so noisy, and with disappointment gnawing me, I knew that we must not stir for at least another half-hour, when it was quite late enough as it was. "Oh, what a comfort it is that Patty is such a sleeper!" I thought to myself. And there I lay--wait, wait, wait, until I felt that we dared move, when I again cautiously slipped to the door, and, as I had taken the precaution of rubbing it well with pomatum, the lock went easy. Clara joined me, and then, drawing the door after us, we glided along the passage, hand in hand, listening at every step until we reached the end, where the empty room door was ajar, just as I had left it when we came up to bed. Then we slipped in so quietly that we hardly heard ourselves, and, pushing-to the door, I tried to secure it, but it would not fasten without making a noise; so, as we were right away from the other rooms, I left it, and went across and tried the window. The hasp went rather hard, but I soon had it gliding up; and then I stood looking out into the dark night, and listening, till I heard a little soft cough from below, which I answered; when my heart began to beat very fast, for I knew that, after all, we were not too late, and he was there. But there was no time to lose, and, as fast as I could, I undid the nasty tangley cord, which would keep getting itself in knots, and rustling about upon the floor, like a great, long, coiling snake. But I managed at last to have it hanging down, and began fishing about, like I used at Teddington, with papa, till I got a bite; for, after a bit, I felt it softly tugged at--just like the eels under the fishing punt-- then it went jig, jig, two or three times, as it was shaken about, and then there was a long jerk, and a soft cough, as if for a signal; and I began to pull up something which grew heavier every moment. It seemed very long, and I could have fancied that I had pulled all the cord in twice over; but more still kept coming, and I must have had it all close to the window, when Clara suddenly cried "Oh!" when, of course, I started and let go, and down it all went with a rush in amongst the carnations at the bottom. "Oh, his poor head?" I thought, as I turned sharply round; when, what a task I did have to keep from shrieking!--for there, dimly seen in the open doorway, stood a figure in white, staring at us in the most dreadful way imaginable. There was something so still, and tall, and ghastly about the figure, seen there in the gloom, that I could not stir, neither could poor Clara, as we held tightly by one another while the thing glided softly into the room, closed the door, and stood there staring. If I could only have sunk through the floor, I would not have cared. One moment I thought of rushing into one of the empty beds in the room; but I restrained myself, because there were no clothes upon them in which to bury oneself. The next moment I was for jumping out of the window to Achille; but it was too far; and we neither of us dared to go into hysterics and scream for help. So that we stood, frightened to death, till Clara sank down at my feet and buried her face in my lap, while I stood staring at the figure, which now came closer and closer as I walked away, Clara shuffling upon her knees to keep up to me. For a moment I thought that it might have been a teacher _en deshabille_; but the horrible silence soon showed that it was not. And at last, when I felt that I could bear no more, but must scream, having been walked right up to the wall by the hideous thing, it spoke, and the words seemed to act upon us both like magic, sending the blood coursing through our veins, making our hearts throb, and a warm glow to return where a moment before all was frozen and chilling; for just as I was sinking--feeling myself gliding slowly down upon kneeling Clara--I started up, for it said, in a loud, thrilling whisper-- "What are you two a-doing of?" Then it sneezed. Of course it was Patty Smith, who had pretended to be asleep, and watched all the time, following us along the passage, and thoroughly upsetting all one's plans again. She could see plainly enough that we had the window open, and knew pretty well what was taking place; so we had to make a virtue of necessity, and tell her, in as few words as possible, all about it. Not that I think she would have told tales, even if we had not enlightened her; but we knew she would watch us, and find out for herself; so upon the principle of its being better to make a friend than an enemy, she was told all. "Won't you make your cold worse, dear?" said Clara. "You are not dressed." "I don't care," said the stupid thing; and then she stopped, while I went to the window again; and though I had lost my string, and knew that it was of no use to try any more that night, I gave a gentle cough and then waited a moment. I was about to cough again, but Patty, who was close behind me, sneezed once more loudly; and at last, after waiting a few minutes and coughing again and again, Clara and Patty both grumbled so about the cold that I was obliged reluctantly to close the window. After waiting for awhile, we one by one stole back to the bedroom, where Patty declared that it was such good fun, and that she would go with us next time--just as if we wanted her; while poor I laid my cheek upon my pillow, disappointed, disconsolate, and upset to such a degree that I could do nothing else but have a good quiet cry for I don't know how long; but I know how wet my pillow grew, so that at last I was obliged to turn it before I could get to sleep. And what was the use of going to sleep, to be in such trouble that I did not know what to do--dreams, dreams, dreams, and all of such a horrible kind! Now it was Achille in danger, now it was the white figure coming in at the door, and one moment Patty Smith, and then changing into Mrs Blunt and Miss Furness, Miss Sloman and the Fraulein; while, last of all, if it was not mamma, looking dreadfully cross, and then scolding me for my bad behaviour. Oh, it was terrible! And I don't think that I ever before passed such a night. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. MEMORY THE EIGHTEENTH--IN TERRIBLE SUSPENSE. My spirits rose a little after breakfast the next morning, though I only smiled sadly as I thought of my many disappointments; but we had had a long talk with Patty, and she had faithfully promised never, upon any consideration, to divulge one of our secrets. Of course I did not like making another confidante; but, under the circumstances, what could one do? "Ah!" said Patty; "but it was a great shame that you did not tell me before." "Why, we should have told you," said Clara--a wicked storyteller--"only you do sleep so soundly, dear." Though, after all, perhaps that was nearly the truth; for, if she had not slept so soundly, we should have been obliged to let her into our secrets sooner. This satisfied her, but it did not satisfy me; for the stupid creature must go about looking so knowing, and cunning, and deep, and laugh and leer at Clara, and nod and wink at me, all day long, till it was dreadfully aggravating, and enough to make anybody suspicious; and I almost wonder that one of the watchful dragons did not have something to say about it. "Why, we shall be obliged to have her in the room all the time," I said to Clara, as I was thinking of my next interview with Achille; that is, if I ever was to have another. "Never mind, dear," replied Clara; "it cannot matter much. She is very stupid, and I daresay that I can keep her in order." I contrived to let Achille know all when he came the next day, and gave him to understand that he might try again upon any night he liked; for the last was only a false alarm, and all would have gone well had I but only held tightly by the cord. I gave him the information, written in French, at the top of my exercise, while Miss Furness was in the room, when if he had not the audacity to call me up to his elbow--for he had seen it all in an instant--and if he did not point out and mark two or three mistakes in the note I had scribbled so hastily at the top about the last meeting. However, I suppose he wished me to speak his own language correctly; and none but the brave deserve the fair. There was one thing, though, in our correspondence which I did not like--poor Achille never could take any interest in our English poets; so that, if one quoted a bit of Byron or Moore to him, it was good for nothing, while he, the tiresome man, was always filling up his notes with scraps of Moliere, and I am sure I always praised them, and said that they were very beautiful. And now once more came the night for meeting, with all its heart-throbbing flurry and excitement; but this time, apparently, without any of the terrible contretemps that had previously troubled us. Patty was in high glee, and sat on the edge of her bedstead, munching an Abernethy biscuit, and grinning; while her great eyes, instead of half closing, like anybody else's would when they were laughing, became more round and wide open than ever. It seemed to be capital fun to her, and over and over again, when I glanced at her, she was giggling and laughing; and I do believe that, if I had not been there, she would have got up and danced about the room. But it was time to start at last, and upon this occasion I had no noisy drawer to open, for I had a ball of new, stout string in my pocket. So, one at a time, we glided along the passage, Clara going first, Patty second, and I followed behind, to close our door as quietly as was possible. "Pat, pat, pat," and, with a gentle rustle, we passed along the passage, and stood at last in the little end room, while I am sure that no one could have heard our footsteps. Clara made one effort to get rid of Patty before we started, but it was of no avail. "Arn't you afraid of catching a worse cold?" she said; "hadn't you better stay in the bedroom, dear?" For really she had a most miserable cold, and her eyes and nose looked as red as red. "I sha'n't catch any more cold than you will," she cried, just as she had once before upon a similar occasion--"I want to see all the fun." Fancy calling it fun! So we were obliged to suffer her presence; but I am afraid that I was uncharitable enough to wish that she might catch a bad sore throat for her pains, or else something that would keep her from coming again. However, there we all were; and as soon as ever we were all in the little room, I secured the door with a fork that I had brought for the purpose, and then, pulling out my string, I unfastened the window, when, fortunately, it glided up beautifully. Clara was the first to look out, and it not being a dark night, she popped in again directly, saying in a whisper-- "There he is. I can see him." "Let me look," cried Patty Smith, quite out loud; and then, when her head was out of the window, if she did not give quite a loud cough, in not only a most indiscreet way, but, really, one that was most reprehensible. I pulled her back as quickly as I could, and, in a whisper, gave her a good scolding. Then I tied my scissors to the end of the string, to make it go down quickly, and swinging them over the great ledge, I looked down; but I could not see poor Achille, for he had come close up to the house, and was, of course, out of sight beneath the cornice. "But I shall see him soon," I said to myself; and went on letting down the scissors till the string felt slack, and I knew that they touched the ground, when, just as before, I felt the string seized and jerked about, as if being attached to something; and well I knew what, though a half-fear took hold upon me now lest it should break the string, which was not so strong as I could have wished. But now there was the signal; and I began to pull up the heavy rope ladder, cutting my poor little fingers with the string. At first it came up pretty quickly, but soon slower, for again it began to grow heavier; and at last, when I made sure that it must be nearly up, if it must not turn contrary against us, and catch against the cornice, and remain immovable. What was I to do? It was of no use to pull and jerk; for, if we had pulled any harder, I'm sure that the string must have broken. If it had not been for Clara, I should have climbed out of the window, and stood upon the cornice, to set it at liberty, for she could easily have held my hand, so that I should really have been quite safe. But she would not hear of this, and I don't know what I should have done if I had not thought of lowering the ladder down a little way, and then trying again, when, to my great delight, up it came, and Clara soon had hold of a pair of great iron hooks, just the sort of hooks I expected to see; and on fixing them upon the sill, my side, we found that they fitted beautifully; so I threw myself upon them to hold them in their places, lest they should slip. Just after that there was a sharp rustle of the rope, and then it was pulled tight; while now, making Clara hold one hook and Patty the other, I strained out as far as I could reach, so that I could see Achille mounting, slowly ascending, the dangerous thing; and, although we all held on as tightly as we could, when he was about a dozen feet from the ground the tiresome rope began to twist and spin round and round, so that the poor fellow was twisting just as if he was being roasted, and I'm sure he must have been as giddy as giddy. Fortunately for him, he did not always go the same way round, but twisted back again, or else he must have dropped off. It was not as if he had been close up to the house, for then he could have touched the wall and stopped himself; but the cornice, which was a good width, kept him away, so that he swung clear. And perhaps, after all, it was quite as well, for he might else have gone right through one of the windows. It was very shuddery and dreadful; but we poor girls could do nothing but grasp the rope and hold our breath, and, as Clara said, hold our tongues; though Patty would keep letting go, and staring out of the window when she was not wanted to. "Won't I tease him about this," she said. "Only see, the first time he finds fault with my exercises." "Hush! you foolish child," I exclaimed. "Good gracious me! you must never say a word to him about it, under any consideration." "Mustn't I?" said Patty, as innocently as could be. "No, of course not," cried Clara; "that would ruin everything." For I was now reaching as far as could be out of the window, to see what poor Achille was about; for the rope seemed to be doing nothing, and did not jerk as if he was getting higher and higher. And then, oh, dear! if I could not just see one of his feet where his head was last time I looked; for he was sitting upon the sill of the first floor window--the best bedroom, which was, of course, empty--and, I suppose, resting himself. All at once, though, I heard him whisper-- "Is de ting sauf?" "Yes, yes," I whispered in reply. And then the rope crunched upon the cornice, as if he had again committed to it his weight, when I drew in my head and waited, trembling, for him to reach the window; and it did seem such a long time to come so short a distance; but, as he told me afterwards, the loops would keep slipping away when he wanted to put his feet in them, besides the rope spinning him round until he was giddy. At last I looked out again, and then drew back my head in agony; for if he was not hanging by one leg, head downwards, just like my poor Dick, the canary, did in London, when it caught its claw in the wire of the cage and could not get loose. As I said, I drew in my head, quite in an agony of fear; but the rope jerked about so that I was obliged to gaze once more, and then I ejaculated, quite loudly-- "Oh, Achille!" "Eh, yais, oui," he exclaimed. "I 'ave put in mine's foot." "In what--in what, mon cher?" I whispered. "Oh," he gasped, in a thick voice, "mais je suis giddy. I 'ave puts my foot trou de loops, and cannot get him back." "Oh, pray come in!" cried Clara, who had heard every word, and seemed quite horrified--"pray come in and shut the window. Let's go away." "Oh, nonsense," I said, "he will be hung: he will die! His head is hanging down, and his leg sticking up in the rope. He has slipped. Whatever shall we do?" "Why don't you cut the rope?" said Patty; but of course no one took any notice of her. "Let's unhook the things," whispered Clara, "and then drop him down into the laurustinus." "Oh, how can you be so stupid!" I panted. "It would kill him: he's right above the first floor window-sill." "Well, but we can't shut the window with those things there," said Clara; "and it will not do to be found out." I looked again, and there he still was twirling round just as if he was being roasted, and the rope shaking so that I thought it must break. I kept whispering to him, but he did not hear me; and just dim and indistinctly as he was seen, I could make out that he was trying to double himself up and get his hands to the rope. I never, I'm sure, felt anything so dreadful before in my life as those few moments when he was struggling there, and me unable to help him; for, in addition to the horror, there was the pricking of my conscience, as it told me that this was all my fault, and that if he was killed I should have murdered him. Which was very dreadful, you know, when that last affair of the cistern, which he escaped from with a fearful drenching, ought to have been a warning to me to have spared him from running any more risks on my behalf. I declare that I should have tried to slide down the rope to help him, or else to share his fate, if Clara had not restrained me once more; but she kept tightly hold of my waist, till there came up a sound like the gnashing together of teeth, the rope gave a terrible shake, and the iron hooks fell jingling upon the floor. There was a crashing and rustling of leaves and branches, as if a heavy body had fallen amongst trees, and then all was still, except for a deep groan--a French groan--which came up, thrilling us all horribly; for the rope had come unfastened, and had slipped through the round rings of the hooks. We all stood aghast for a few minutes; but at last I summoned up courage enough to lean out, and whisper loudly-- "Achille! mon ami Achille!" when, as if in answer, came a most doleful "H-ooo, o-o-o, ho-o-o-o!" which made one's very blood run cold. "That's only an owl," said Clara, the next minute. "A howl!" said Patty; "that it wasn't, it was a groan, just the same as the pigs give when they're dying in our slaughter-house at home." I leaned out of the window as far as I could, once more, and was trying to pierce the darkness below, when all at once I heard a window to the right opening very gently, and squeaking as it ran up, and that window, I felt sure, was the lady principal's; so, recollecting the night of the alarm from Clara's basin--agonised though I was--I felt obliged to close ours quietly, pick up the two hooks, and then we all three glided back to our room--my heart chiding me the while for forsaking poor Achille in such a time of dire distress. But what could I do? To stay or to raise an alarm was to be found out, and perhaps--ay, perhaps!--poor fellow, he was not hurt, after all. It was just as well that we did slip back, for we had hardly closed the door before the alarm bell on the top of the house began to ring, and we heard the Fraulein spring out of bed with a regular bump upon the floor. We were not many seconds scuffling into bed; and, just as we lay down, we heard the Fraulein's door open, and then there were voices talking and a good deal of buzzing about, for quite half an hour. But we thought it better not to go out; for, when Clara took a peep, Miss Furness was hunting several of the girls back into their rooms with-- "Nothing the matter, young ladies. Back to your dormitories." So we lay quite still, and listened; while I essayed to allay my horrible fears about poor Achille, and tried to fancy that every sigh of the wind among the branches was him stealing--no, I won't say stealing, it looks so bad--hurrying away. Then we heard the Fraulein come in, and her bed creak loudly as she lay down; and once more all was quiet, and I felt sure that they could not have seen or heard anything, but I dared not get up once more to see. Clara said she was sure she heard Mrs Blunt talking to the policeman out of the window again. Perhaps she did, but I did not; though it was most likely, after the ringing of the alarm bell. "What are you sobbing for?" said Clara, all at once. "Oh, I know he's killed," I said. "Pooh, nonsense," she replied, in her unfeeling way, "he only went plop among the bushes; and they say exiles always manage to fall on their feet when they come to England, just like cats. He is not hurt, unless he has scratched that beautiful face of his a little bit." "Then you don't think he is killed, dear?" I said, seeking for comfort, alas! where I was but little likely to find it, I'm sorry to say. "Not I," said Clara; "it was not far enough to fall." "I sha'n't go no more," drawled Patty; "it ain't half such fun as I thought it was. Why didn't he come right up?" "Don't be such a goose!" cried Clara to the noodle. "Why, didn't he get his leg caught, and then didn't the rope give way?" "I'm sure I dunno," said Patty, yawning; and then, in spite of all the trouble, we all dropped off fast asleep. CHAPTER NINETEEN. MEMORY THE NINETEENTH--OUR NEW GUARDIAN. For a few moments after I woke I could not make out what made me feel so heavy and dull. Of course, it was partly owing to their ringing that stupid bell down in the hall so early, for fear we should have a morsel too much sleep; but all at once, as upon other occasions, I remembered about the previous night and poor Achille; when, of course, the first thing I did was to rush to the window and throw it up, to try and catch a glimpse of the scene of the last night's peril, when the first thing my eyes rested upon was that horrid Miss Furness taking her constitutional, and, of course, as soon as she saw me she must shake her finger angrily, because I appeared at the window with my hair all tumbled. I never saw anything like that woman. I always did compare her to an old puss, for she seemed as if she could do without sleep, and always got up at such unnatural hours in the morning, even when the weather was cold and dark, and wet, when it seemed her delight to go out splashing and puddling about in her goloshes; and somehow, or another, she never seemed to catch cold as anybody else would if she had acted in the same way. It must have cost her half her salary for green silk umbrellas; for James generally managed to spoil every one's umbrella when they were given him to dry, and Miss Furness never would use any but the neatest and most genteel-looking parapluies, being the only thing in which she displayed good taste. Of course I had a good look out as soon as I was quite ready to go down, when I could see that the flower bed was a great deal trampled, one of the bushes was quite crushed, so that I knew there would be a terrible to do about it as soon as it was noticed. "Well, is he there?" said Clara, "or is it only his pieces? Do make haste down, and run and secure his heart, before they pick it up, and put it on a barrow to wheel away." "La!" said wide-open-mouthed Patty, staring; "he would not break, would he?" "Oh, yes," replied Clara. "French gentlemen are very fickle and brittle, so I should not at all wonder if he broke." "Better break himself than the jam pots," I said, spitefully, when Clara coloured up terribly, as she always did when the Signor was in any way alluded to; for though I did not like to hurt her feelings about the jam when she was shut up, of course, she had not been at liberty long before she heard all about it I know it was mean on my part to retaliate as I did, but then she had no business to speak in that way; for it was too bad to make fun out of such trouble. Then, of course, she must turn quite huffy and cross, and go down without speaking; for some people never can bear to be joked themselves, even when their sole delight consists in tormenting other people. I could not but think that poor Achille had escaped unhurt, though at times I went through the same suffering as I did on the morning after the discovery in the conservatory;--and really, when one comes to think of it, it is wonderful that no suspicion ever attached to either Achille or myself over that dreadful set-out. Breakfast over, I seemed to revive a little; though I must confess that what roused me more than anything was Miss Furness finding out that I looked pale and red-eyed, and saying that she thought I required medicine. "For you know, Miss Bozerne, a little foresight is often the means of arresting a dangerous illness; so I think I shall call Mrs de Blount's attention to your state." "Oh, please, don't, ma'am," I said. "I assure you that I feel particularly well this morning." But she only gave one of her self-satisfied smiles and bows; when in came the tall footman to say that the gardener wished to speak with "missus." "Missus" was not there, so the footman went elsewhere to find her; but the very mention of that gardener brought my heart to my mouth, as people say; though I really wonder whether that is true--I should like to know. Then I had a fit of trembling, for I made sure that he had found poor Achille, lying where he had crawled, with all his bones broken, in some out-of-the way corner of the garden; perhaps, possibly, to slake his fevered thirst in my favoured spot, close by the ferns, and the miserable fountain that never played, green and damp beneath the trees. But I could not afford to think; for just then the door was opened, and Mrs Blunt stood with it ajar, talking to the gardener in the hall, and of course I wanted to catch what he said; when, just as if out of aggravation, the girls made a terrible buzzing noise. But I heard enough to tell me that it was all about the past night, and I caught a word here and there about bushes broken, and big footsteps, and trampled, and so on; while, as a conclusion to a conversation which had roused my spirits by telling me that poor Achille had not been found, Mrs Blunt placed a terrible damper upon all by saying-- "It must have been the policeman, gardener; and he shall be spoken to respecting being more careful. But for the future we'll have a big dog, and he shall be let loose in the garden every night." I could have rained down tears upon my exercises, and washed out the ink from the paper, when I heard those words; for in imagination, like some gladiator of old, in the brutal arena, gazed upon by Roman maids and matrons, when battling with some fierce wild beast of the forest, I saw poor Achille struggling with a deep-mouthed, fang-toothed, steel-jawed bloodhound, fighting valiantly to have but a minute's interview with me; while, dissolving-view-like, the scene seemed to change, and I saw him, torn and bleeding, expiring fast, and blessing me with his last words as his eyes closed. Then I was planting flowers upon his grave, watering them with my tears, and plaiting a wreath of immortelles to hang upon one corner of the stone that bore his name, ere I departed for Guisnes to take the veil and shut myself for ever from a world that had been to me one of woe and desolation. "Oh, Achille! beloved, martyred Achille!" I muttered, with my eyes closed to keep in the tears, when I was snatched back to the realities of the present by the voice of Miss Furness, who snappishly exclaimed-- "Perhaps you had better go and lie down for an hour, Miss Bozerne, if you cannot get on with your exercise without taking a nap in between the lines." I sighed--oh, so bitter and despairing a sigh!--and then went on with my task, sadly, sorrowfully, and telling myself that all was indeed now lost, and 'twere vain to battle with fate, and I must learn to sit and sorrow till the sun should shine upon our love. The dog came. Such a wretch! I'm sure no one ever before possessed such a horrible, mongrel creature. Instead of being a large, noble-looking mastiff or hound, or Newfoundland dog, it was a descendant, I feel convinced, of the celebrated Snarleyyow that used to bite poor Smallbones, and devour his dinner. It was one of those dogs that you cannot pet for love, because they are so disagreeable, nor from fear, because they will not let you; for every advance made was met by a display of teeth; while if you bribed it with nice pieces of bread, they were snapped from your hand, and the escapes of your fingers were miraculous. I should have liked to have poisoned the nasty, fierce thing; but, of course, I dared not attempt such a deed. And what surprised me was Mrs Blunt being able to get one so soon, though the reason was plain enough--the wretch had belonged to a neighbour who was only too glad to get rid of it, and hearing that Mrs Blunt wanted a dog, jumped at the chance, and I know he must have gone away laughing and chuckling. We used to call the horrid wretch Cyclops, for he had only one eye; but such an eye! a fiery red orb, that seemed to burn, while the wretch was as big almost as a calf. I knew that poor Achille would never dare any more adventures now for my sake; and it did seem such cruel work, for a whole fortnight had passed since I had heard from or seen him, for when the lesson was due after our last adventure, there came a note from Mrs Jackney's, saying that Monsieur de Tiraille had been taken ill the night before, and was now confined to his bed. Only think! confined to his bed, and poor Laura unable to go to him to tend him, to comfort him, and smooth his pillow, at a time when he was in such a state of suffering, and all through me--all for my sake! I'm sure I was very much to be pitied, though no one seemed to care; while as for Clara, she grew unbearable, doing nothing but laugh. Oh, yes, I knew well enough what was the matter, and so did two more; but, to make matters ten hundred times more aggravating, that lean Miss Furness must go about sighing, and saying that it was a bilious attack, and that England did not agree with Monsieur Achille like la belle France; and making believe that she was entirely in his confidence, when I don't believe that he had done more than send word to Mrs Blunt herself. And then, as if out of sympathy, Miss Furness must needs make a fuss, and get permission to take the French class--she with her horrid, abominable accent, which was as much like pure French as a penny trumpet is like Sims Reeves's G above the stave. "Oh, yes," she said, "she should be only too happy to take the class while poor Monsieur Achille was ill." And one way and another, the old fright made me so vexed that I should have liked to make her jealous by showing her one of Achille's letters. So, as I said before we had a dog in the place; and, oh, such a wretch! I'm sure that no one ever before saw such a beast, and there it was baying and howling the whole night through. The very first day he came to inhabit the smart green kennel that Mrs Blunt had had bought, he worked his collar over his ears and got loose, driving the gardener nearly mad with the pranks he played amongst the flowers; when who should come but poor meek, quiet, innocent, tame Monsieur de Kittville. The wretch made at him, seizing him by the leg of his trousers; but how he ever did it without taking out a bit of his leg I can't make out, for his things were always dreadfully tight; and there was the wretch of a dog hanging on and dragging back, snarling the while, and the poor little dancing master defending himself with his fiddle, and shrieking out-- "Brigand! Cochon! Diable de chien! Hola, ho! Au secours! I shall be dechire! Call off te tog!" And at every word he banged the great beast upon the head with the little fiddle, till it was broken all to bits; but still the dog held on, until the gardener and James ran to his assistance. "He won't hurt you, sir," said the great, tall, stupid footman, grinning. "But he ayve hurt me, dreadful," cried the poor dancing master, capering about upon the gravel, and then stooping to tie his handkerchief over his leg, to hide the place where the dog had taken out a piece of the cloth, and was now coolly lying down and tearing it to pieces. "I am hurt! I am scare--I am fright horrible!" cried poor Monsieur de Kittville; "and my nerves and strings--oh, my nerves and strings--and my leetle feetle shall be broken all to pieces. Ah, Madame Bloont, Madame Bloont, why you keep such monster savage to attack vos amis? I shall not dare come for give lessons. I am ver bad, ver bad indeed." "Oh, dear, oh, dear! how can I sufficiently apologise?" exclaimed Mrs Blunt, who had hurried up, and now began tapping the great dog upon the head with her fan. "I am so extremely sorry, Monsieur de Kittville. Naughty dog, then, to try and bite its mistress's friends." "Aha, madame," said the poor little man, forgetting his trouble in his excessive politeness and gallantry--"mais ce n'est rien; just nosing at all; but I am agitate. If you will give me one leetle glass wine, I shall nevare forget your bonte." "Oh, yes, yes--pray come in," said Mrs Blunt. And then we all came round the poor, trembling little martyr; and although we could not help laughing, yet all the while we pitied the good-tempered, inoffensive little man, till he had had his glass of wine and gone away; for, of course, he gave no lesson that day, and I must chronicle the fact that Mrs Blunt gave him a guinea towards buying a new instrument. "But, oh, Clara," I said, when we were alone, "suppose that had been poor Achille?" "Oh, what's the good of supposing?" said Clara, pettishly. "It was not him, and that ought to be enough." "But it might have been, though," I said; "and then, only think!" "Think," said Clara, "oh, yes, I'll think. Why, he is sure to have him some day." "Don't dear, pray," I said. "And then," continued Clara, "he'll fight the dog, and kill him as King Richard did the lion." "Oh, please, don't tease," I said humbly; "I wonder how he is." "Miss Furness says he is better," said Clara. "How dare Miss Furness know?" I cried, indignantly. "Dear me! How jealous we are!" she said, in her vulgar, tantalising way. "How should I know?" And, for the daughter of a titled lady, it was quite disgusting to hear of what common language she made use. "I don't believe that she knows a single bit about it at all," I said, angrily; for it did seem so exasperating and strange for that old thing to know, while somebody else, whom he had promised to make--but there, I am not at liberty to say what he had promised. "You may depend upon one thing," said Clara, "and that is that your Achille will not be invulnerable to dogs' bites; though, even if he is, he will be tender in the heel, which is the first part that he will show Mr Cyclops, if he comes. But you will see if he does not take good care not to come upon these grounds after dark--that is, as soon as he knows about the dog. By-the-by, dear, what a dislike the dog seems to have to anything French." "I'd kill the wretch if it bit him," I said. Clara laughed as if she did not believe me. "I would," I said; "but I'll take care somehow to warn him, so that he shall run no such risks. For I would not have him bitten for the world." "Of course not--a darling?" said Clara, mockingly. And then no more was said. But matters went unfortunately, and I had no opportunity for warning poor Achille, who was attacked in his turn by the wretch of a dog--who really seemed, as Clara said, to have a dislike to everything French; while, by a kind of clairvoyance, the brute must have known that poor Achille was coming. For, by a strange coincidence--not the first either that occurred during my stay at the Cedars--the creature managed to get loose, and lay in wait just outside the shrubbery until _he_ came, when he flew at him furiously, as I will tell. CHAPTER TWENTY. MEMORY THE TWENTIETH--THE NEW PRISONER. I had no idea that Achille was well enough to go on with the lessons, neither had anybody in the house; for Miss Furness had just summoned us all to the French class, and my mind was, to a certain extent, free from care and pre-occupation, when I heard a most horrible snarling and yelling, and crying for help. Of course I darted in agony to the window, when it was just as I had anticipated--just as I knew, by means of the electric current existing between our hearts--Achille was in peril; for the horrible dog had attacked him, and there he was in full flight. As I reached the window, the wretch leaped upon him, seizing his coat, and tearing away a great piece of the skirt; but the next moment poor Achille made a bound, and caught at one of the boughs of the cedar he was beneath; and there he hung, with the horrible dog snapping and jumping at his toes every time they came low enough. It was too bad of Clara, and whatever else I may look over, I can never forgive this; for she laughed out loudly in the most heartless way, and that set all the other girls off wildly, though Miss Furness, as soon as she saw what had happened, began to scream, and ran out of the room. Only to think of it, for them all to be laughing, when the poor fellow must have been in agony! Now he contracted, now he hung down; then he drew himself up again, so that the dog could not reach him; but then, I suppose, from utter weariness, his poor legs dropped down again, and the vicious brute jumped at them, when of course poor Achille snatched them up again--who wouldn't?--just as if he had been made of india-rubber, so Clara said. Such a shame, laughing at anyone when in torment! It was quite excruciating to see the poor fellow; and if I had dared I should have seized the poker and gone to his assistance. But, then, I was so horribly afraid of the wretched dog myself that I could not have gone near it; and there poor Achille still hung, suffering as it were a very martyrdom, with the dog snap, snap, snapping at his toes, so that I felt sure he would either be killed or frightfully torn. All at once, for I really could not keep it back, I gave a most horrible shriek, for though James was running to get hold of the dog, he was too late. The beast--the dog I mean, not James--had taken advantage of poor Achille's weariness, leaped up and seized him by one boot, when nature could bear no more weight, and I saw the unhappy sufferer fall right upon the dog; when there was a scuffle and noise of contention, and the cowardly animal ran yelping and limping off upon three legs; while Achille, looking pale and furious, stood straightening and brushing his clothes, and trying to put himself in a fit state to pay his visit. That was the last I saw; for the next thing I remember is Mrs Blunt calling me a foolish, excitable girl; and they were sopping my face with cold water, making my hair all in such a wet mess, and the salts they held close to my nose were so strong that they nearly choked me. "There, leave her now, young ladies, she is getting better," said Mrs Blunt; for the horrible sick sensation was certainly going off, and I began to awaken to the feeling that Achille was safe. Then it struck me all at once that I must have fainted away from what I had seen, and the thoughts of those around being suspicious nerved me to rouse myself up and hide my confusion. They wanted me to give up my French lesson that morning, but I declared that I was so much better that they let me go in, and I really did expect just a glance; but, no, he was like a piece of marble, and took not the slightest notice either of Clara or poor me. Then, too, he was as cross and snappish as could be, and found great fault, saying everything was disgracefully done, and that every one had been going back with the French ever since he had been away. But I did not mind that a bit; for I saw how it was making Miss Furness's ears tingle, which was some consolation, seeing how hard she had been working us, and what a fuss she had been making, as if she were Monsieur Achille's deputy; and really I was getting jealous of the tiresome old thing. I took my snubbing very patiently; but I could not help feeling terribly angry when he rose to go, and, with an affectation of bashfulness, Miss Furness followed, simpering, looking, or rather trying to look, in our eyes, as if she were engaged. But I followed too, almost as soon as the door was closed; and to my rage and disgust I found the hall empty, with Achille's hat still standing upon the table, so that he could not have gone. "They must have gone into the drawing-room," I muttered. And then once more my head began to swim, for I felt raging--jealous; and it did seem a thing that, after all I had suffered and done for his sake, I was to be given up for a dreadful screwy thing, old enough to be my mother at the very least. But I would not faint this time, I was too angry; and stepping across the hall, I opened the drawing-room door, softly and quickly, and walked in just in time to see that base deceiver, Achille, kissing the hand of the old hypocrite. And how they did both flinch and cower before my indignant glance! Miss Furness was, of course, the first to recover herself, and step forward in a vixenish manner, just as if she would have liked to bite. "And pray, Miss Bozerne, what may be your business?" she exclaimed. "Oh, I merely came for my wool-work," I replied, in a tone of the most profound contempt; and, sweeping across the room, I fetched a piece of work that I knew to be under one of the chair cushions, and then I marched off, leaving Achille the very image of confusion, while as for Miss Furness, she was ready to fly at me with spite and anger. I kept it up till I was outside the room, and had given the door a smart bang, when I rushed upstairs, and past Mrs Blunt, who called to me in vain to stop, and then to my bedroom, where I locked myself in, and had such a cry, as I dashed down the wool-work, and threw myself upon the bed, to lie with my burning cheek upon my pillow, and water it with my tears. Rage, vexation, disappointment, love--I'm sure they were all mingled together, and sending me half wild. Only to think of his turning out a deceiver!--to leave me and go and pay court to a woman of forty, with a yellow skin, scraggy neck, and a temper of the most shrewish! I was so passionate then, that I jumped off the bed and ran to the glass, and if it too was not a deceiver, and did not tell me a story, I was handsome. But I vowed that I would be revenged for it all; and I stamped up and down the room, thinking of what would be the best way; but, somehow, I could not think of a plan then, so I lay down once more, and had another good cry. "Never mind," I said. Then I raised myself upon my elbow, and just at that moment some one knocked. "What is it?" I cried, after whoever it was had knocked four times, and would not go away. "Mrs de Blount says that she requests you to descend directly," said one of the younger pupils. "Tell her I have a very bad headache," I said, which really was a fact; and then I would not answer any more questions, for I was determined not to go down until all the marks of my crying had faded away, which I knew would not be for some time. "Miss Furness won't make me afraid of her any more," I said to myself. "I've mastered her secret; and Achille dare not tell of me, for fear of betraying himself. I'll serve them both out." I lay nursing up my wrath, till I felt obliged to cry again; and then, when I had done crying, I again picked up my wrath and nursed it; and so on, backwards and forwards, till all at once I started up, for there was one of those hideous German brass bands. A set of towy-headed, sleepy-faced boys were blaring out "Partant pour la Syrie" in the most horribly discordant manner, till James was sent to order them out of the grounds, when, to get the dreadful discords out of my head, and my mind more in tune, I took advantage of a permission lately given me by Mrs Blunt, and slipped quietly down into the drawing-room, which was now empty. Sitting down to the piano, I rattled away at "La Pluie de Perles" until my fingers ached again, when I took up something of Talexy's, and I suppose it was all emotional, for I'm sure I never played so brilliantly before in my life--the notes seemed quite to sparkle under my fingers, and I kept on rattling away till I was tired, and dashed off the great finishing chords at the end. Then I slammed down the piano, spun myself round upon the stool, and jumping up, I was about to make a pirouette, and what we girls, in happy, innocent, thoughtless days, used to call a cheese, when I gave a start, for Mrs Blunt was standing there with a lady in walking costume, who was smilingly inspecting me through a great gold eyeglass, just as if I were some curiosity; and, of course, instead of the pirouette, I made one of the spun-out, graceful obeisances so popular at the Cedars. "One of our pupils," said Mrs Blunt, in her most polite tones. "Mrs Campanelle Brassey--Miss Bozerne. Young and high-spirited, you see," she continued, smiling benignantly upon me, just in the way that she had done when mamma was with me, and never since. "Young, happy, and light-hearted. Just at that age when life has no cares,"--couldn't I have pinched her. "She adores melody--quite a daughter of the Muses." "Charming gyirl," said the lady, smiling. "Sweetly featured--so gazelle-eyed. Most unaccountably like my Euphemia." "Indeed!" said Mrs Blunt. "How singular! They will, no doubt, be like sisters." "Charming for Euphemia, to be sure," said Mrs Campanelle Brassey. "It will make the change from home so pleasant, and she will not pine." "No fear of that," said Mrs Blunt--"ours is too home-like an abode." "No doubt," said Mrs Campanelle Brassey. "And then there is that other charming gyirl--the one with the sweet, high-spirited features--the one you just now showed me. Lady--Lady--Lady Somebody's daughter." "Lady Fitzacre's," said Mrs Blunt. "To be sure," said Mrs Campanelle Brassey. "Why, your establishment will be most enviable, Mrs Fortesquieu de Blount; for I'm sure that you will have the Three Graces within your walls." "Oh, fie!" exclaimed Mrs Blunt, playfully; "you are bringing quite a blush to the face of our young friend." My cheeks certainly were tingling, but it was only to hear them talk such twaddle; and I knew well enough now that they must have been looking on for some time, while Mrs Blunt only let me keep on strumming to show off before the visitor; for if it had been one of the girls who played badly, she would have been snubbed and sent off in a hurry for practising out of her turn. For a moment, though, I felt a pang shoot through me--a jealous pang--as I thought that, if this new pupil came, she might bear off from me my Achille; while the next moment I was ready to laugh scornfully from the recollection that I had no Achille, that he was already another's, that men were all false and deceivers, and that I could now turn satirical, and sympathise with Clara. However, I showed none of the painful emotions sweeping through my breast, but took all in good part, and allowed Mrs Campanelle Brassey to tap me with her eyeglass, and kiss me on the cheek, which kiss was, after all, only a peck with her hooky nose; and then she must take what she called a fancy to me, and march me about with them all over the place, and call me "My love," and "My sweet child," and all that sort of stuff, when she was seeing me now for the first time; but, if I had been the most amiable of girls, but plain, like Grace Murray, instead of showy and dashing, she would not have taken the least mite of notice of me. Yes: really, this is a dreadfully hypocritical world! "My Euphemia will be charmed to know you, my love," said Mrs Campanelle Brassey, looking at me as if I were good to eat, and she were a cannibal's wife--"charmed, I'm sure." "I sha'n't be charmed to know her," I said to myself, "if she is as insincere as you." "I'm sure that you will soon be the best of friends. It will be so nice for her to have one to welcome her directly she leaves home, and, of course, we shall have the pleasure of seeing you on a visit at the Belfry during the vacation." Of course I thanked her, and thought that if I liked Euphemia I should very likely go home with her for a while, since all places now seemed the same to me, and I should require some _delassement_. "This is one of our classrooms, my dear madam," said Mrs Blunt, opening the door where all the girls were sitting, and just then Clara came across from the practice-room, with her music-book beneath her arm, for Mrs Blunt had taken care that Mrs Campanelle Brassey should not stand and hear her hammer away at the old ting-tang. Clara told me afterwards that she stopped as soon as the door opened. But then Clara never could play a bit, and I must say that she knew it, though, as I before said, her sketches were lovely. "Charming, indeed," said Mrs Campanelle Brassey, inspecting the girls through her glass, just as if it were a lens, and they were all so many cheese-mites. Just then I exchanged glances with Miss Furness, but I was not going to be stared down; for feeling, as I did, fierce and defiant, I just contemptuously lowered my lids. Next moment the door was closed, and we went into the dining-room, and then upstairs to the dormitories. "What a charming little nest!" exclaimed Mrs Campanelle Brassey, when we entered our room at last, after inspecting, I think, every chamber in the place--for everything really was kept beautifully nice, and neat, and clean; and, though plain, the furniture and carpets were tasty and nice--"what a charming little nest! Three beds, too! And pray who sleeps here?" "Let me see," said Mrs Blunt, affecting ignorance, "this is your room, is it not, my dear? Ah! yes, I remember; and you have Miss Fitzacre with you, and who else?" "Miss Smith, ma'am," I said, quietly. "Ah, to be sure, Miss Smith," said Mrs Blunt. "Not a very aristocratic name," said Mrs Campanelle Brassey, smiling, and twirling her eyeglass about. "Pity, now, that that bed is not at liberty; it would have been so charming for the three girls to have been together night and day. I suppose that you could not manage to change the present order, Mrs de Blount?" "Shall I give up my bed, ma'am?" I said, quietly. "Oh, dear me, no--by no means," said Mrs Campanelle Brassey. "I thought, perhaps, as I had seen Lady Fitzacre's daughter and yourself, and you seemed so much of an age, that it might have been possible for the young person of the name of--er--er--" "Smith," suggested Mrs Blunt. "Yes--er--for her to be exchanged into another room." Mrs Blunt thought that perhaps if her young friend did not object to being separated she might possibly manage it. And really I hoped she would; for any one, even Celia Blang--little spy that she was--would have been better than poor Patty. "But I really should not like to introduce my dear child here at the expense of doing violence to anybody's feelings," said Mrs Campanelle Brassey. "Oh, no! I know you would not wish that," said Mrs Blunt; "and really, if Miss Smith objected at all to being removed, I don't think I could-- er--I should like to--to--" "I see, perfectly," said Mrs Campanelle Brassey; "and I quite admire and appreciate your system, Mrs de Blount. But what does my young friend here say--would she object to such a change being made? Would she not miss her friend, the young person of the name of--er--Jones?" "Smith," corrected Mrs Blunt; for somehow the vulgarity of the name seemed too much for Mrs Campanelle Brassey. "I should be very glad to see the change," I said. "And about Miss Fitzacre?" said Mrs Blunt, with such an air of hypocritical interest, looking all the while so innocent. "Oh, I'm certain that she would be glad," I rejoined. "In fact, ma'am, I have heard her say so. Miss Smith is very young, ma'am," I said, modestly, "and has never been a companion or friend to us." And then I felt very much afraid lest Patty should hear of what I had said, and repay me by telling all she knew. "No; I should never have expected that from what I have seen of your two charming pupils. Mrs de Blount, that they would have had feelings, sentiments, or emotions in common with a young person of the name of-- Jones." "Then, if your daughter wishes it, my dear madam," said Mrs Blunt, "I think we may venture to say that the matter is settled to your satisfaction. You see," she continued, "that when a new pupil arrives, I look upon mine as quite a maternal charge--one that embraces all that a mother owes to her child, with that of the teacher and trainer of the young and budding intellect." "Exactly so," said Mrs Campanelle Brassey, nodding her head. "And therefore," continued Mrs Blunt, apparently much encouraged--"therefore, my dear madam, I try to study pupils' comfort and wishes, even in those which some people might consider trivial things. I study, as far as I can, the present as well as the future; so that when, strong-winged, these young birds take flight, they may always in their happy futures--" "Certainly--happy futures," said Mrs Campanelle Brassey, nodding her head; "certainly, after such training." "Happy futures, look back," continued Mrs Blunt, "to the days when they were at the Cedars, and feel a tear dim their eye's brightness--a tear, not of sorrow, but of regret." "Very true," said Mrs Campanelle Brassey. "I quite agree with you, Mrs de Blount. Charming sentiments." "And therefore, you see, had there been any dislike to the alteration upon our young friend's part," said Mrs Blunt, "I should not have liked to make the change." Yes: she actually said all that, just as if she believed it, and even smiled at me as she spoke; while, I declare, I almost felt dumb-founded to hear what she said. The Cedars certainly must have been a most delightful place to motherly eyes, for at every turn go where we would, Mrs Campanelle Brassey was lost in admiration, and found everything charming; and she did not scruple to say so, and to such an extent that I grew tired of hearing her. But that did not matter, for there was no getting away; and I had to go with her, into the dining-room again to have some cake and wine, which I had to ring for, and then go and sit down by the side of the visitor, who seemed to know by instinct which would be the softest couch. James brought in the wine, and when I was asked, as a matter of course, I ought to have declined, and said, with a display of Cedar deportment, "No, thank you;" but I did not intend anything of the sort, and said "Yes," for I knew that Mrs Blunt always had the best sherry brought out for the visitors, and was in consequence terribly stingy over it. So I said, "Yes, if you please," and took a glass, while she was obliged to smile all the time; for I did not mean to be walked about, and talked at, and talked to all day for nothing. But at last I was set at liberty, and went off to the schoolroom to discuss the coming of the new girl, who was so handsome and charming in every respect, till Miss Furness returned from the drawing-room, where she had been to be introduced, and desired us to pursue our studies, when, of course, we were all very industrious for quite five minutes. CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. MEMORY THE TWENTY-FIRST--I SUFFER. "I can't think how mammas can be so silly as to believe all that is said by these lady principals," said Clara. "And so there's another new girl coming, just my age? I wonder how she will like Cedar mutton--all gristle and tiff-taff. I wish I was out of it, I do! And so it's all off between you and Monsieur Achille, is it, dear? Well, I'm very glad, for it had got to be dreadfully tiring, really. Now, tell the truth, ain't you glad yourself?" "N-n-no, I don't think I am," I said. "It will be so dull now, with nothing to look forward to; and--heigho!--who would have thought that he would be so false?" "Anybody, everybody," said Clara; "and yet you were highly offended because I said French gentlemen were fickle and brittle. Never mind, dear, there will be some one else some day, and I shall be bridesmaid, after all." "Don't talk such stuff," I said, dolefully; while from the far distant past there seemed to rise up the reproachful countenance of Mr Saint Purre, as I had seen him last, and I could not help sighing; while if any one had asked me whether I was sighing about Monsieur de Tiraille or Theodore Saint Purre, I really don't think that I could have told them. Time slipped on--I can hardly tell you how, but it really did pass. I had been home for the Christmas vacation, and tried hard to keep from going back to the Cedars, but in vain. Mamma declared that it was all for my good, and was what she called inflexible. So, after a regular round of gaiety, I was back at the hateful place once more, with the old routine wheel going round, and round, and round, and seeming to grind all the skin off my temper, so that I grew cross, and fretful, and peevish. Forming our minds, indeed! They did form our minds there, and a very bad shape they made them into. I know I was one of the most amiable of girls when I went down there; while at home now I am melancholy, and irritable, and--and--well, I don't know what. Time went on--cold winterly days, when we could hardly smell the fire; and as to warming ourselves, we had better have been guilty of high treason. Mrs Blunt was better, and loved a good fire, getting quite close to it; but Miss Furness had a theory that too much warmth was unwholesome, and that after coals had been put on, a fire ought never to be poked; and I declare if that tiresome old thing used not to lock up the fire-irons in the book cupboard when she left the room, so that we should not touch the grate; and there we used to be, poking it with pieces of slate pencil till they broke, or burning the end of the big ruler by hammering the burning coals with that. Wet days, when there was no walking. Northeasterly windy days, when Miss Furness's nose turned more red than ever, and her eyes watered with the bleak breezes that she would face. Health was everything, she used to say, and perhaps she was right; but I know I would rather be poorly and comfortable than healthy and always in misery and pain. Dull, dreary days, with lessons from this one and lessons from that one. Italian I made some progress with, and music I always did love; but as for French, of late that had been sadly neglected. I really blushed at times to take up my exercises to Monsieur de Tiraille; but he never uttered a word of praise or blame, but always sighed softly as he looked over them, while I was stern and obdurate as fate itself. No, I could not forgive him; and note after note that he would have had me take I pretended not to see, while as to those which he sent by Clara, I returned them unopened. I repeat I could not forgive; for he had wounded me deeply, and in my tenderest sensibilities, and I showed him always that I was entirely changed. I was sorry for him, for he looked very unhappy. Yes, I pitied him, and pitied his weakness that had tempted him to forsake me for Miss Furness. I could have suffered anything else at his hands--neglect, scorn, contempt; but to forsake me for her--oh, it was too bad! But I was resigned: might they be happy! Yes, I said so; and then I smiled in bitter mockery, as I looked upon Miss Furness's vinegary aspect, thought of her early morning walks, and cold, uncomfortable ways, and asked myself what there was in her to make a man happy, when, like a flash, the answer came--_money_! For I recollected the hints I had heard dropped of Mrs Blunt being sometimes in pecuniary difficulties, and borrowing of Miss Furness, who had been very saving, and had had one or two legacies left her; so that really, and truly, the establishment was more hers than Mrs Blunt's; and if she had liked she could have laid claim to the concern, but perhaps was waiting her time. Yes, that must be the secret; and Achille must know it. Why, of course she had told him, and they had made their plans together. I had quite given him up; but somehow the idea of those two scheming and plotting for their future angered me terribly, and whenever I had such thoughts I used to be obliged to shed a few bitter tears; so that I grew quite to sympathise with Mrs Blunt, and could see plainly enough now why Miss Furness was allowed to assume so much, and to sleep on the first floor, besides being taken into consultation upon every important occasion, when the other teachers were nowhere, or only admitted upon sufferance. How the romance of one's life seemed to have passed away, while one was really living under a cloud!--and I knew now the meaning of the expression. And yet there was something resigned in my feelings, and I did not mind it so very much; for I was waiting for the end of my sojourn here. I had learned the truth of there being something pleasant in melancholy, and I was always repeating the words of the old song-- "Go! You may call it madness, folly, You shall not chase my grief away; There's such a charm in Melancholy, I would not, if I could, be gay." I'm not sure whether that is quite right, but it is as I recollect from very, very long--ages ago; and it was about this time that I began to feel--oh, so old, and worn, and weary. Yes, Achille tried hard to obtain my forgiveness; but I would not notice. He whispered to me more than once, over the lessons, that it was from motives of policy that he had so acted; but I would not hear him. And it was about this time that mamma began to send me word of how frequently Theodore Saint Purre used to call at Chester Square, and how kindly he always inquired after me; and it really was very kind of him, and almost looked as if he took an interest in me. But then, what interest could he feel in the poor, weak school-girl that I was? So I only sighed when mamma wrote, and tried, by being good friends with the new pupil, Euphemia Campanelle Brassey, to keep from being miserable about Monsieur de Tiraille--for I made a vow never to call him Achille any more. Then he must try to pique me by taking more notice of Clara and Euphemia; but he gained nothing by that movement, for I saw Miss Furness look crochet needles at him--which, I mean to say, is a far better simile than daggers, for they are old, exploded things that have gone off without noise; while crochet needles are things of the present, equally sharp, and more vicious, from being barbed. And then, too, I told Euphemia all about his treatment of me, while Clara already knew it, and laughed in his face, making him look so ashamed, when he had been trying to be so--so--so--well, what's that word?--empresse; whilst the next time he came, Euphemia, who had felt a little flattered, regularly turned up her nose at him. Of course, I am speaking metaphorically, for Patty Smith was the only big girl who really could do that literally, but then it came natural to her. And it was such a good thing that we had got rid of Patty; for, as I have said before, I think, I never could look upon her, big as she was, as anything but a child; while she acted as a regular check upon all our little chats. No, Monsieur de Tiraille gained nothing by that movement, only the holding of himself up to the scorn of the three eldest girls in the establishment; and after that it was that he took to sighing softly, and assuming the martyr, for he attacked the citadel of my poor heart in every conceivable way. But I fortified it with thoughts of the past, and regularly set him at defiance, my only regret--I think, I will not be sure upon that point--my only regret being that the poor exiles of whom he had written to me would suffer from this estrangement, for I knew that he could not do a great deal for them. And when I wondered whether Miss Furness would be generous, and help them out of her store, my heart whispered No, and I felt so pained and sorry, that I enclosed two sovereigns, all I had saved up, in a piece of paper, with the words--"For the poor exiles," written inside, and gave it to him in that dear old, dog's-eared, thumbed Nugent--dear to me from a thousand recollections! The next time he came he was radiant with hope, but the arrows of his dark eyes glanced from the cold mail of pride with which I was armed now. I was as iron itself, while he seemed perfectly astounded. But he was mistaken: for the money sent was not in token of reconciliation, but so that others who were deserving should not suffer from our estrangement; and I can assure you that I felt very proud of my ability to crush down the love that, I am afraid, still burned in my breast. In other respects matters went on very quietly at the Cedars; from being so fierce and snappish, Miss Furness was now quiet, and amiable, and smiling; and though I hated her most horribly, I tried to crush all my dislike down, and make the best of things. I found, too, now, that I was invited occasionally to take tea in the drawing-room, when Mrs Blunt had a few particular friends; and, altogether, they seemed to treat me differently to the way from which I suffered when I first came. Then, too, Euphemia Campanelle Brassey being in our room made it a little better; but, for all that, I was dull, and wretched, and miserable. You know, it was so tiresome in the old days with Patty; we did not want to be always drinking Spanish liquorice water, and eating sour apples, and cakes, and gooseberries in bed--it was so childish. It was all very well sometimes; but then Patty was so ravenous, thinking of nothing else but eating, and always wanting to have what she called a feast, and making the room smell horribly of peppermint--which, in its way, is really as bad as onions. But Effie Campanelle Brassey really was a nice girl, and sensible; and, of course, as we were allowed no suppers, it was nice to have a little in our bedrooms; so we had one box that we used to call the larder, and took it in turns to keep it replenished. Sometimes we used to have sausage rolls, sometimes pork pies, and little tartlets that there was an old woman in the town used to make so nicely. But our greatest difficulty used to be about something to drink; for though we could bring home a paper bag in one hand and a parasol in the other, of course we could not carry a bottle, and you may be sure that we did not care for Spanish liquorice water, nor yet for lemonade. I should have liked bottled stout, though I did take almost a dislike to it after Patty Smith proposed to give me a Seidlitz powder, for the effervescence put me in mind of it. But, as a rule, we used to have wine--sherry or claret--in a dear, nice, champagney-looking bottle, with a silvery top, and a blue heraldic dragon sitting in a castle, with his head out of the top and his tail sticking out of the bottom--a scaly-looking dragon, like Richard Coeur de Lion's legs in the old pictures; while the tail was all barbed like a crochet needle tied back to back to another crochet needle. And, oh, it was such fun! I believe those were the only merry times we had. The new servant always got the wine for us from a man in the town, and we used to lend her the key to put the bottle in the larder when she went up to make the beds; and I'm afraid to tell you how many bottles we drank, for it would be too shocking. Effie Campanelle Brassey was a really dear girl, and could enter into matters so much better than Patty Smith, and it was a pleasure to sit in the dusk of a night and tell her all about our disappointments--for, of course, they were disappointments, the poor Signor being found out, and Achille proving so utterly lost to all proper feeling, and acting as he did with Miss Furness. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. MEMORY THE TWENTY-SECOND--WEAK WOMAN. They say that it is natural for women to be weak, and of course they who said so must know best about it. So if woman is naturally weak, I do not think I need be very much ashamed of owning that I was the same as the rest of my sex, and willing at last to forgive poor Achille; for really he did begin to look so pale and distressed, so worn, and sallow, and miserable, and seemed so to humble himself before me, that I began to be afraid he was contemplating something dreadful. He appeared so dejected, and bent, and old, and directed at me such penitent looks, that no one with a heart beating within her breast could have resisted for long; and by degrees his sorrow began to melt away the hard, cold, icy armour in which I was encased, to sap the walls of the citadel of stone I had built round my heart, and one day--I could not help it--I could not resist the piteous look he directed at me, but forgave him with one quick, sharp glance, which brought almost a sob from his breast; while, though his eyes were cast down, I could see him swelling almost, as it were, with emotion, and I escaped from the room as soon as I possibly could, to try and calm the wild, fluttering sensation that pervaded my very being. Then Clara laughed at me, and sneered, and flouted, and jeered; but I did not care, for something seemed always telling me that I loved him very dearly. But I made up my mind to refrain from all meetings, and to do nothing clandestine, except the correspondence with a few notes; though I knew that it was nonsense to think for a moment that papa or mamma would ever give their consent to my loving and being espoused by a French master. And then began the notes again; while now that I think of it all, it seems perfectly wonderful that we were not found out, over and over and over again, for Achille grew so terribly barefaced--I mean in his ways, for of course he did not remove his beautiful beard. Sometimes it was Clara who had a note for me, sometimes Euphemia; and then I did not like it, for it did not seem nice for them to be the bearers of the notes; and if the thing had been possible, I declare that at such times I should have felt jealous; for I could not help thinking it possible that he had squeezed their hands when he had delivered the notes; and, as a matter of course, such a thing was too dreadful to contemplate for more than about half a minute at a time. You may be sure I never asked them if such had been the case; but I know that I used to be snappish, and not like to say "thank you" for the missives, however welcome they might be. But they never knew the reason, only thought that perhaps something had put me a little out of temper. And what notes those used to be!--all bewailing his inability to meet me; for it was quite out of the question to make any appointments, with that horrible dog ranging and roaming about like a fierce wolf, night after night; nearly driving the poor old gardener mad, too, with the mischief he did. "I declare, miss," the old man said to me, "I'd sooner set up and watch in the garden myself night after night, than hev that there blessed beast a-destroying of everythink. Certainly, there ain't such a deal jest now; but what it will be when we comes to verbenas and bedding plants saints knows. Ribbon gardening, indeed!--the whole blessed garden's torn to ribbons already. If some one would only poison him!" "If some one would only poison him!" I mentally said, after him. But no one did, and we had to content ourselves with notes. Yes, such notes!--not what they were of old--full of patriotism; but all the same, pressing me to fly with him, to be his, to leave this land of cold and fogs for his own sunny south, where all would be smiles, and beauty, and love, and blue skies, and emerald verdure, and sunshine. Oh, what a future he painted! It was quite enough to destroy one's sleep for the night, for one could do nothing but lie in the wild waking dream of an excited imagination. And then, after such waking hours, there was a violent headache in the morning. What could I do, being so weak, and leaning towards him as I did then? I knew how wicked it was, and how grievous; but then, it all seemed like fate--like something that was to be; and I used to think that all would come right in the end, when mamma and papa would forgive me, and we should all be happy together. "He knows that you will have a nice little sum of money when you come of age," said Clara, spitefully. "That I'm sure he doesn't," I said. "How can you talk such nonsense? Why, he don't know anything about our position at home." "Why, how can you say so?" replied Clara, "when you told him in my hearing, one night down in the conservatory, months ago." And that was right, though I had not recalled it at the time; but it was too bad of Clara to try and make out that Achille was prompted by mercenary motives, when he was the very soul of generosity, and kept himself horribly poor by the amounts he gave away. And, besides, he was too much of a gentleman to care for money, except as regarded the good it would do to his fellow creatures. But there, as it must have been seen all along, Clara always was petty, and spiteful, and full of little remarks of that sort, which she would throw at you, when they would come round, and hard, and prickly, just like one of those nasty, spikey chestnut shucks that will not bear to be handled. So I grew not to mind what she said; and when I told Achille, he used to laugh, and say that she was "une drole de fille," and, like me, he took no further notice of it. I would not consent for such a time--months, and months, and months; but I knew that at last I should be compelled to yield, and go with him. "But not yet," I said, "not yet," and I drove it off as long as I could; but at last I gave up, and promised to be his--the promise that should make me another's! And then began a week of such nervous excitement as was almost unbearable. Such foolish ideas, too, came into my head--some of them so childish that I was almost ashamed of them; such as wishing, like I had read of somewhere, to save up pieces of bread and butter, and to purchase a suit of boy's clothes. In short, it seemed as if nothing but absurdities would come into my head. I should have gone on as comfortably again if I could have taken Clara and Euphemia into my confidence; but upon this most momentous of undertakings I felt, and Achille agreed with me, that I should confide in no one; for this was, indeed, too serious a matter to trust to another. In fact, at times I felt that I could hardly trust myself; for I used to be like the wife of King Midas, and I declare that the knowledge was such a burden that it would have been a relief to have put one's head down by the river, and whispered the secret. Every lesson day came a note; and there was the night settled, and everything arranged, before I could bring myself to believe that it was true; while all around me seemed strained, changed, and unnatural, and sometimes I really used to feel as if I were dreaming. CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. MEMORY THE TWENTY-THIRD--THE HORROR OF MY BLIGHTED LIFE. The night before the one appointed for my flight with Achille, I sat down and wrote two letters home--one the usual weekly affair, the other a tear-bedewed prayer for pardon. In it I detailed the full particulars of the step which I had taken, pointing out at the same time the uselessness of attempting pursuit; for long before I could be discovered I should be the wife of the man who possessed my heart, truly and thoroughly. Yes; that letter was tear-bedewed, and there was something very mournful in writing home upon such an occasion. But the die was cast, and I felt quite relieved when I had placed both letters in their envelopes; and then, leaving one for enclosure in the letter-bag of the house, I secured the other in my bosom, and soon after retired to rest. Yes, I retired to rest, but not to sleep, and rose the next morning pale and dejected; while how I went through my lessons that day I cannot think now. However, to keep suspicion entirely at a distance, when Achille came we took not the slightest notice of one another; and, so that there should be no miscarriage of our undertaking, not so much as a single line passed from one to the other. But just as he was going I gave him one look, to show him that I was worthy of his trust, and, come what would, I should keep my word. The time had already been fixed for twelve, so that with a carriage in waiting we could be driven across the country, twelve miles to the neighbouring town, where the main line of railway passed--ours at Allsham being but a branch. There we could catch the night mail as it whirled through--or rather, as it stopped; and then, conveyed to London, we could leave by an early train the same morning for Scotland. All this had been fixed by Achille, and conveyed to me in a note at his last lesson. And how deliciously romantic it all seemed, and how elated I felt, in spite of my trepidation! Away to Scotland, to be his--his own. And then, perhaps in sunny France, live a life like some golden dream, from which we could look back to the days of slavery at the Cedars. Oh, it was too much!--the thoughts of it even made me tremble; and as I lay pretending to be asleep that night, I thought my heart would have burst with its emotions, as it beat and bounded trying to be free. Is it always so, that people will talk and do the very opposite to that which you wish? Upon other nights, when I wished for half an hour's chat with Clara or Effie, they would be too sleepy to talk; but this night they seemed to be horribly wakeful, while the noises in the house went on as if they would never be still. I had been in quite a flutter for some time, owing to my having somehow mislaid the last note Achille had sent me. Where it could be I knew not, unless it had slipped down through my clothes; but that I looked at as impossible, and I lay hoping that it was still somewhere in my things. Every other letter, after ten readings, I had carefully destroyed; but this one I dared not burn, for fear that it should contain instructions that I might forget. Even though I had carefully learned it by heart, I still fancied that I might again wish to refer to it. The very thought of its being found put me in a cold perspiration; but things all grew so quiet at last, that my courage revived, and feeling now so thoroughly embarked in the undertaking, I summoned all my strength of mind and waited. Twelve o'clock, and not a sound to be heard--not even the baying of the dog, which, in the excitement of the preparations, I had forgotten; and now it seemed that he would be the only stumbling-block in my way. But I was prepared to meet every danger; and slipping out of bed, I crept out of the room to the empty place at the end of the passage, where I had conveyed what few things I should require, for, of course, I had not undressed. And now--bonneted, shawled, and gloved, and with my reticule bag in my hand--I stood listening with beating pulses to the faint sounds yet to be heard in the house. Now it was the ticking of the clock, now the chirping of the crickets in the kitchen; while above all, heavily and loudly, came the beating of the rain upon the skylight, telling of how bitter a night it was, and I shuddered as I thought of poor Achille standing in the wet. Our plans had been well made; and, screwing up my courage, I stepped along the passage, down to the first floor, and reached the large staircase window in safety, slided it up, and, to my intense joy, there was poor, wet Achille standing at the top of a strong step-ladder, ready to assist me down. "Enfin, mon ange," he whispered, as I climbed tremblingly upon the sill as quickly as possible; for I had heard words spoken at the foot of the stairs, and I knew directly what they meant, as dining-room and drawing-room doors were thrown open, and lights streamed out. Yes, I knew what Clara afterwards told me was the case--Miss Furness had picked up the note, and they were all collected in the hall and passage, ready to capture me when I descended, little thinking that the window mentioned meant that upon the first floor. "Now dis foot--now dat," he hissed through his teeth; and, somehow, I don't know in what way, he guided me down the ladder, to which I clung tightly, wet as it was; and, as lights and faces appeared at the open window, Achille dragged the ladder down, and we were in full flight across the lawn; where he supported me with one hand, and trailed the ladder after us with the other. "Dere goes de confound bell," cried Achille. "No, no," he whispered, "not yet--don't faint, mon ange." "But the dog? Where is the dog?" I exclaimed. "Having one great pound of steaks and two mutton bones," he replied. And then, with the murmur of voices behind, and the bell ringing loudly, we hurried through the wet bushes to the wall, where he placed the ladder, and this time nerving myself, I mounted it boldly, and before I knew where I was I found myself helped down into a carriage drawn close up at the side--that is to say, into the cart; for Achille had been so unfortunate that he could not procure a post-chaise. There, with an umbrella to protect me from the inclemency of the weather, I sat upon the hard seat between Achille and the rough man who was the driver. "That ere was the pleeceman as we passed," growled the latter, directly after we had started. "P'raps they shall want him at de house," replied Achille, laughing. Away onward we tore, for fully an hour and a half, through the dark night, and through the rain, which would keep coming, blown by the gusts, right underneath the umbrella, in spite of all _he_ did to protect me. And in spite of all my efforts and the tender words of Achille--whispered to me in his own dear tongue--I could not keep from shivering; for somehow all this did not seem so very nice, and romantic, and pleasant. Oh, that night! I shall never forget it, though it all seems whirled up together in one strange, gloomy dream of rain, and darkness, and wind, and cold, and a stumbling horse, and a rough, stably-smelling, wet driver, smoking a strong pipe, and shouting to the horse to "Harm!" Of wet straw, and Achille without a great coat, and the umbrella so blown by the wind that it took two hands to hold it, and the points would go into the driver's eye and make him swear. Then there was poor Achille, wet and suffering from the cold and waiting in the rain; and his hands so cramped with holding the umbrella; and the dreary, miserable station fire so low that it would not warm him. And after he had dismissed the man, he was too cold to get out his purse; but fortunately I was able to pay for the two first-class tickets to London. And then almost directly there was a vision of steam, and lights, and noise, and the fast train dashed into the wet station, where the rain kept flying from the wind, which seemed to hunt it along; and then we were inside one of the dark blue cloth lined carriages, where I could see by the dim light of the thick, scratchy, bubble lamp that there were two gentlemen. I felt so ill, and cold, and shivery, I should not have known how to keep up, if one them, seeing my wet state, had not kindly passed a little flask of sherry to Achille, who made me drink some. How I trembled, and felt that they were looking me through and through; and I felt sure that I had seen them both before, and that they knew me, and would go straight off and tell papa; but fortunately they both seemed sleepy, and curled up in their wrappers in the two corners, after one of them had insisted upon lending us a great skin thing, which was nice and warm and comfortable. But they say that there are a great many hidden things in nature that yet remain to be explained; and really this must be one of them, this which I am now about to mention. Something would keep trying the whole time to make me believe that all this was not very nice, and that I would much rather have been back at the Cedars, snug in my own bed. It was, of course, all nonsense--only a weak fancy prompted by my disordered mind; but still it would keep coming back and back, in spite of all Achille's whispers and tender words, till at last I really think I had forgotten all about the "sunny South" in the miseries of the present. But I crushed all those thoughts at last, down, down into the dark depths of oblivion; for I was allowing Achille to hold my cold hand in his, as I tried to make out what the train kept saying, for as distinctly as could be in the noise and rattle, and whirl and rush, there were certain words seeming to be formed, and it sounded to me as if those words were--"Blind, conceited, foolish girl!--blind, conceited foolish girl!" over and over again, till I would not listen to them any longer, as we sped on and on, nearer and nearer to great London. I supposed that my note had been found, but I felt that it must have been too late to do us any harm; for I knew that the telegraph clerk left Allsham Station at eight o'clock, through Mrs Blunt once wanting to send a message to one of the girls' parents when she was ill, and they could not have it until the next morning, which was not so soon as they could get a letter. So I felt quite at rest upon that score; while now, thanks to the sherry and the skin rug, I began to get rid of the miserable shivering that had made me feel so wretched. Only to think of it!--on and on, towards London, where papa and mamma were lying calmly asleep. The thoughts of them, and their peace, and unconsciousness of what was happening, made me recall the letter I had written, and draw it from its hiding-place to hand to Achille to see that it was posted. But before I passed it over to him, I felt that I could not send it as it was. I must insert one tender word, one more kind sentence. So, taking out my pencil, I screwed up the point, and then, with very little difficulty, raised the lappel of the envelope-- for really our gummed envelopes are so very insecure--while I knew that we must stop at some hotel in London where I could obtain wax or a fresh envelope. So I took out the note, and prepared to write upon the palm of my hand; but seeing what I meant to do, Achille lent me his hat, upon the crown for desk, I laid my note as, by the light of the dim lamp, I began to trace in pencil a second--let me see; no, I remember it was a fourth--loving, prayerful postscript. Tiresome light! How terribly it began to dance about! I thought that part of the line must be much out of repair, for the carriage wobbled excessively. My eyes, too, were dim as the light, and I had to try again and again to read the postscript which met my frightened gaze: "Mrs Fortesquieu de Blount desires her best respects and compliments, and--" "Qu'est ce que c'est, mon ange?" murmured Achille, as I dropped the fatal letter, and nearly swooned away; for--oh, how could I have been so foolish!--I had marked the envelopes so as not to make any mistake, and yet had put in the wrong letters, sending word home that I had eloped, and giving them ample notice of my intentions. I caught the letter up again, and tried to pass it off as nothing--only a sudden pang, for I dare not tell Achille; but who can imagine my agony as we sped on for the rest of our journey? For we could not converse, on account of the other passengers, and my brain was in a whirl. All at once the train began to slacken, and, in the comparative quiet, I hoped and thought possible a dozen things: the letter might have miscarried, or been sent wrong; it might have been lost; papa and mamma might have been out--plenty of things might have happened in my favour; and then we drew up at another dismal station, whose bleared lights we could see through the rain spotted windows. Here the tickets were collected, and I felt sure that the ticket collector looked suspiciously at both Achille and me; while, as we waited, I could hear them clanking in the milk tins into the great wild beast cage upon wheels that they have upon the night trains of that and, I suppose, all railways. At last, just as we were about to start, the door opened again, and a wet man jumped in, and sat there staring at us all the rest of the way. London at last, in the darkness and misery of the early morning! It was of no use to try and keep them back, the tears would come, and even the reassuring pressure of Achille's hand was of no avail to cheer me; for, oh! it did look so very, very, very miserable in the dark, cheerless, wet time, and I hardly knew how to stand. "This way, sir," said a man who appeared to be one of the guards, for he was dressed just like one. "Cab all ready, sir." "Merci," replied Achille; and I clung to his arm as we followed the civil guard under the long row of dismal hanging lamps, some alight and some out, past the hissing engine, with its bright light, and warm, ruddy, glowing fire; and at that moment I did so wish that I was a happy, careless engine driver, warming myself in the cheery heat-- anything but what I then was; for I was dreadfully unhappy, and, I am afraid, even a little disappointed that my fears had no suite, so strange a contradiction is a woman's heart. However, on we went to where another man was waiting by a cab, and as soon as we approached he opened the door. Weak, faint, and miserable, I hurried in, and leaned back trembling in a corner, expecting Achille the next moment would be at my side; but, to my horror, I saw a slight scuffle take place, and Achille dragged off. The guard-like man jumped in, shut the door after him, and pulled up the glass; while at the same moment the horrid wet cab jangled off, and the creature lowered the front window and gave some instructions to the driver. "Oh, stop, stop!" I cried, in agony, as I jumped up. "There is some mistake. Where is Monsieur Achille--the gentleman who was with me?" "That clinches what didn't want no clinching, my dear," said the horrid wretch, shouting at me, for the cab made so much noise--"that clinches it, my dear. I hadn't a doubt before; and as to now, why, it's right as right, and there's no mistake. Now sit down, my dear. I shan't hurt you, so don't be frightened; and it's of no use for you to try and jump out, because I don't mean to let you. There now, see what you've done-- you've broke the window! Not very surprising, though, for they always makes cab windows of the thinnest glass they can get hold of for the benefit of their fares. Make a handsome thing out of the profits, some owners do, being mostly broken by noisy swells who can pay up. Helps the shoeing bill, you know, my dear. Now, do sit still. What a struggling little bird it is!" I was horrified and mad; for the wretch had caught me in his arms as I started from my seat and beat at the window till it fell shattered to pieces; but in spite of my struggles he held me down upon the seat by his side. "It's all right, my dear Miss Laura Bozerne. And you needn't be in the least bit afraid of me; for I'm an old married man, sent by some one you know very well, working under the advice of my wife, and I'm to be depended upon. So sit still, my little dove, you're saved out of the hawk's claws this time." What could I do but sink back with a hysterical sob, my mind in a state of chaos? I really, I'm sure, did not know then whether I was pleased or sorry, though I had felt it incumbent upon me to struggle a little at first. I'm sure my brains were all anyhow, as I wondered who the man was by my side, and where he was taking me. Had Achille betrayed me and fled? Oh, no--impossible! Papa must have taken steps to stop us; and this wretch by my side was, I felt sure, a detective. Up and down street after street, all dark, dismal, and deserted, as I could see when the wretch rubbed the steaming glass with his sleeve. The lamps were all burning; and here and there we passed a policeman, and, every time the light shone upon their wet capes, fresh tears gushed from my eyes as I thought of Achille and his probable fate. Then, too, I thought again of where they were bearing me. Was I to be imprisoned-- taken before a magistrate? Oh, it was horrible! and the long, jangling ride seemed as though it would never end. "Now, that's what I call sensible, my dear," said the wretch, all at once--shouting so that I'm sure the driver could almost have heard. "Some people, you see, never do know when they're took, but keep on fighting agen it when there's no more chance of getting away than flying. That's right, take it coolly, and a good cry will do you no end of good, I dare say." Then, finding me quiet and resigned, my captor appeared to take but little more notice of me, only turning his head my way from time to time as we passed a lamp. I would have given anything to have known where we were going; but, of course, under the circumstances, I could not summon courage enough to ask; but at last I seemed to recognise places that we passed, first one and then another becoming familiar, till it seemed almost like returning home from a ball. And--yes--no--yes--no--yes, it was our own house before which we had driven up, and the driver was ringing furiously at the bell! Oh, yes, it was all plain enough now. I had been entrapped and brought home, and I knew that I had betrayed myself by my own folly. "Oh, Achille, Achille!" I murmured. "He's all right, miss, I dare say," said my captor, who certainly possessed a preternatural sharpness of hearing; "and I should think that we had better sit here in the dry till the door opens, though I dare say that won't be long, for they expex us." And he was right; for, with swimming eyes, I saw the flash of light, while I could not help blessing the darkness of the cold, winterly morn, which hid me from the gaze of the vulgar. The people on either side were doubtless asleep, and there was no one visible but a policeman, who helped to carry me over the wet pavement into the hall, where, trembling and dizzy, I stood for a moment before papa in his dressing-gown, and then really and truly I fainted dead away. CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. MEMORY THE TWENTY-FOURTH--FATE. I never saw Achille again, and I never once dared to ask either mamma or papa about his fate; for they were both so kind and tender all the time that I was seriously ill from the cold, exposure, and agitation to which I had been subjected. It was quite a month before I was able to go out again; while now--heigho!--would that I had never had a heart! No: I never saw Achille again; but never, oh never will I believe that newspaper report, though papa marked it all round thickly with a quill pen, and left it where I could not avoid seeing it! It was in one of the horrible evening papers, and said that one Achille de Tiraille had been committed for trial upon a charge of swindling; but, even if it were true, it could not have been my Achille--the soul of truth, honour, and chivalry, whom I had once known. Shall I ever be happy again? I feel seared and blighted; and, except that pink is pleasing, I care little for dress. Papa is very kind, so is mamma, and they have never even hinted at the past; while as for the Cedars, such a place might never have been in existence. They take me to all the operas, but "Trovatore" seems to be my favourite, since I cannot help comparing the sorrows of two real individuals known to the reader with those of the fictitious people of the opera. Yes--the sorrows of Leonora and her poor Trovatore seem quite to refresh me, though the sole pleasure of my life of late has been the committing of these tear-bedewed confessions to paper, for the benefit of all who may read them. I have written again to Soeur Charite, and she sends me in return such kind, loving words. I know she would be glad were I once more beneath the shelter of her dove-like wings; but neither papa nor mamma would, I am sure, ever again listen to any proposition for me to leave home. So I practise self-denial, and try to improve upon the lessons inculcated by Mr Saint Purre, who often calls, mamma being very fond of his society. POSTSCRIPT. "Eldersmere, _June 4th_, 1800. "My dearest Laura--Pray excuse haste, for we are just off to `Parigi O cara,' to see the Exposition--papa, mamma, your humble servant, and Effie Campanelle Brassey. I will write at length from there. But just a line to say that we are delighted to hear of your engagement, and Effie and I will be doubly delighted to be bridesmaids. What fun, though, to think of all the school frolics, and--and--but there, I won't say a word; only mind this, I mean to come and stay for months with you when you are Mrs Saint Purre. And so he is to have a living down in the country? My! what fun, to see the saintly Laura attending, basket in hand, to her poor, and her Sunday school children! Heigho! and poor me without so much as an offer yet. Do, there's a dear, have a few nice fellows at the wedding, just out of pity, you know; for, only think, both Effie and I will soon be eighteen! You say that the Cedars is never to be mentioned; but I must tell you that in the advertisements it is now, `Lady Principals, Mrs Fortesquieu de Blount and Miss Furness.' Goodbye, my own dear, dear pet, sweet, darling Laura; and I am, as I always shall be, in spite of hundreds of tiffs, your affectionate friend,-- "Clara Fitzacre." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The End. 
43583	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 43583-h.htm or 43583-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43583/43583-h/43583-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43583/43583-h.zip) Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). [Illustration: _The canoe rounded a bend in the river and came within full view of the burning resort._ (Page 64) (THE MYSTERY OF THE FIRES)] The Mary Lou Series THE MYSTERY OF THE FIRES by EDITH LAVELL A. L. Burt Company Publishers New York Chicago The Mary Lou Series by EDITH LAVELL The Mystery at Dark Cedars The Mystery of the Fires The Mystery of the Secret Band Copyright, 1935, by A. L. Burt Company Printed in the United States of America _To My Friend_ Suzanne Simonin [Illustration: Map of Shady Nook] Contents CHAPTER PAGE I The Burnt Bungalow 13 II Clifford's Story 29 III The Ditmars 42 IV Another Fire 54 V Freckles' Story 68 VI More Suspects 79 VII The Crazy Woman 97 VIII Danger 103 IX The Arrest 114 X The Visit with Rebecca 128 XI Adelaide Ditmar's Plan 139 XII Getting Business 151 XIII The Threat 163 XIV The Search 177 XV Captive 190 XVI Weary Waiting 205 XVII Release 218 XVIII Return 233 XIX Conclusion 244 Characters Mary Louise Gay a girl detective. Jane Patterson her chum. Mr. Gay, Mrs. Gay her parents. Joseph (Freckles) Gay her brother. Silky her dog. David McCall a young insurance agent, visiting Shady Nook. boy-friends. Max Miller Norman Wilder _Residents of Shady Nook_ Reeds two adults and five young people. Hunters mother and son. Partridges four adults. Mr. and Mrs. Flick owners of the inn. Robinsons two adults and two boys. Smiths two adults and three children. Mr. and Mrs. Ditmar a young married couple. Adams a farmer with three grown-up children. Mr. and Mrs. Frazier owners of the Royal Hotel. Eberhardt a village storekeeper. CHAPTER I _The Burnt Bungalow_ "For the whole month?" Jane Patterson's eyes sparkled with anticipation as she repeated the invitation her chum had just extended. "Yes," replied Mary Louise Gay. "You see, we never could invite you before, because the bungalow is so small, and there's just room enough for our own family. But Dad will be out West all of August. He doesn't expect to be back until Labor Day." "On a case?" inquired Jane, for Mr. Gay was a detective on the police force. Mary Louise nodded. "Yes. An important one. I almost wish I could go with him--it sounds so thrilling." "Didn't you have enough excitement and mystery at Dark Cedars?" demanded Jane. "I never have enough," returned the other girl. "Well, please don't dig up anything to spoil our vacation at Shady Nook. Still, I don't really suppose you could if you tried. The very name implies peace." "It is a peaceful spot," agreed Mary Louise. "Not a bit like a big summer resort. Just the mountains and the woods and the lovely Hudson River. Only half a dozen bungalows, so that everybody knows everybody else. It's all so friendly and nice." "Then I shan't need any fancy clothes--like dance dresses?" Jane's tone held a faint note of disappointment. She loved outdoor sports, but she was equally fond of parties. "You better take a couple along," replied the other girl. "Across the river from Shady Nook there's a big modern hotel where we often go for dinners and dances. Everybody wears their best clothes there. But most of the time we eat at Flicks' Inn. It's just a bigger bungalow, where they have a dining room for the Shady Nook people and a few boarders. Very nice and informal." Jane jumped up and started down the steps, across the lawn that separated the Gays' house from the Pattersons'. "I must go tell Mother all about it," she explained, "and begin to get my clothing ready. What time do we start?" "Seven o'clock tomorrow morning. Rain or shine." Left alone, Mary Louise opened the screen door and went into her own house. Her father, with his suitcase on the floor beside him, was saying good-bye to her mother and to his young son Joseph, whom everybody called "Freckles." Mr. Gay put his hand upon his daughter's shoulder and said to his wife: "I am counting on Mary Louise to take care of you, dear. After the way she mastered that situation at Dark Cedars, I feel that she is capable of almost anything. Far above and beyond most girls of sixteen!" "She is!" agreed Mrs. Gay proudly. "But I am not expecting any trouble at Shady Nook. I'm more worried about what may happen to you before you catch those criminals!" "I'll be all right," her husband assured her. "Wire for me if you need me--and I'll come back by airplane." Mrs. Gay nodded, little thinking that she would have to follow his advice before the month was over. As soon as he was gone, the other three members of the family returned to the business of packing. Silky, Mary Louise's little brown spaniel, trotted around after them, sniffing at everything and looking serious and important, as if he were doing most of the work. "I'm thankful your father left us the car," remarked Mrs. Gay, as the suitcases and packages were piled up near the back door. "We'll need it." "Shady Nook is so far from the Junction," added Mary Louise. "Yes, we're lucky. And isn't it nice I have my license, so you won't have to drive all the way?" "It certainly is," agreed her mother. "You've always been a big help to me, Mary Louise. And so have you, Freckles," she added to the boy. At last everything was finished, in time to allow them all a good sleep before their trip. Shady Nook was almost a day's journey from Riverside, if they took it in a leisurely manner, driving slowly enough to enjoy the beautiful Hudson River, and stopping at noon at some pleasant inn to eat lunch and rest. Jane was on hand early, helping the Gays to stack the luggage in the back seat and on the rack provided at the rear of the car. "Don't forget to leave a corner for Silky!" Freckles reminded the girls, "He can't be left behind!" "As if I could forget him!" returned his sister, picking up the little spaniel and giving him a hug. "Didn't he save our lives that night we rode in Harry Grant's car?" Jane shuddered; she could never forget the horror of that dark night or the terror she had experienced when the tramp commanded, "Hands up!" Good old Silky, biting a piece out of the thug's leg while the girls made their escape! "Who's driving first?" she asked, as the last bundle was stored away. "I am," answered Mary Louise. "You and Silky in front with me, and Mother and Freckles in back. We'll shift places after lunch." It was a lovely clear day, not so hot as it often is in August, and the whole party was in the gayest of spirits. Mary Louise loved to drive, and she did it well. She would not have minded if she had been kept at the wheel all day. Nevertheless, after their pleasant lunch at a quaint little tea room on the roadside, she was perfectly willing to exchange places with her mother and enjoy the better opportunity to look at the scenery. Jane, however, was more interested in Shady Nook than in the country through which they were passing. She asked innumerable questions. "How many bungalows did you say there are, Mary Lou?" she inquired. "There were six last year, counting Flicks' Inn. But I understand that there were two new ones put up this spring." "And are there plenty of young people?" "Not so many at the cottages, but it doesn't matter, because we have just as much fun with the middle-aged people. Everybody swims and paddles and dances and plays tennis. Besides, there are always extra young people boarding at Flicks' for shorter vacations. And sometimes we meet the people at the Royal Hotel." "Is that where they hold the dances?" inquired Jane. "When we wear our flossy dresses?" "Yes. That's the place. Across the river from Shady Nook." "Tell me some of the people's names," urged Jane. "Well, next door to us--only it really isn't next door, because there's quite a little woods between--is the loveliest cottage at Shady Nook. It was built by a man named Hunter, who was very rich. He bought all the land around there on our side of the river and sold it to people he knew and liked. But he died last year, so only his wife and son came back this summer." "A son?" repeated Jane, rolling her eyes. "Not a babe in arms, I hope!" "A sophomore at Yale," replied Mary Louise. "Rather homely, but awfully nice--and piles of fun." "What's the youth's name?" "There you go! Putting him down in your notebook already! His name's Clifford. We all call him Cliff." "Naturally. But if he's your property, Mary Lou, just say the word, and I'll keep off." Mary Louise laughed. "Nobody's my special property," she said. "Not even Max Miller," she added, mentioning her particular boy-friend in their home town of Riverside. "Though he sometimes acts as if he believed I were his! I like Cliff Hunter a lot--everybody does. But we don't pair off much at Shady Nook, except sometimes to go canoeing. Most of the time we're just one big family." "Who else are there besides the Hunters?" inquired the other girl. "I mean, what other families with young people?" "The Reeds are about the jolliest family at Shady Nook," answered Mary Louise. "There are five children, and the father and mother are just as much fun as the kids. The two oldest girls--Sue and Mabel--are twins about our age. Seventeen, I believe, to be exact. Then there are two younger boys that Freckles chums up with, and a little girl." "I'm afraid I'll never be able to keep all those names straight," sighed Jane. "Wait till we get there and you meet them one at a time," advised the other. "It's so much easier to remember people after you've seen them." This advice sounded sensible, and Jane settled back in her corner to enjoy the remainder of the ride. The time passed quickly; at five o'clock they crossed the railroad junction and turned into the private road that led to Shady Nook. The trees were thick on one side of the road, but on the other they could see the lovely Hudson River, gleaming blue in the August sunlight. Jane went into ecstasies over the beauty of the spot. "Here we are!" announced Mrs. Gay as she turned off to a dirt driveway and brought the car to a stop at a tin garage. "Our back door!" "Why, we're right in the woods!" cried Jane, still unable to see the Gays' cottage. "Wait till you see the bungalow!" returned Mary Louise. "It's like a little dream house. You can borrow it for your honeymoon, if you like--provided you don't get married in the summer time." "Thanks a lot! But I think I'll wait a few years before I accept your kind offer." In another moment they were all out of the car, following Mrs. Gay around to the front of the cottage, up to the screened porch, from which they had a good view of the river. As Mary Louise had said, the bungalow was charming. Built entirely of logs, it combined the picturesqueness of olden times with the conveniences of the modern day. A huge fireplace covered one entire wall of the living room, and the chairs were big and soft and comfortable. A drop-leaf table at one end of the room was sometimes used for meals, because there was no dining room. But the spotless kitchen contained a breakfast nook where the Gays always ate their first meal of each day. Two bedrooms branched off from the living room, with a white bathroom between them. "A little bit too civilized for me," said Freckles, in a most superior manner. "I sleep out back in a tent." "In good weather," amended Mrs. Gay. "Now, girls, suppose we just unpack one suitcase apiece and get ready for dinner. We're going over to Flicks', of course." "I got to have a swim!" announced Freckles. "All right, if you'll be quick about it. And don't go in all by yourself." The group gathered together again at half-past six and started down the private road to Flicks' Inn, where they would have their supper. Mary Louise and Jane had both put on light summer dresses and looked as rested and refreshed as if they had been at Shady Nook all summer. "And where is our next-door neighbor's cottage?" inquired Jane, peering through the trees on the road. "Or do the Hunters live on the other side of you?" "No, the Reeds live on the other side. Theirs is the last bungalow. The Hunters' is right in here." She paused at a path between two big oak trees. Jane stepped to her side and looked in among the foliage. "I don't see it," she said. "It's been burnt down!" cried Freckles, dashing up behind the girls. "I didn't have a chance to tell you. About a week ago, Larry Reed said. Awful mysterious. In the night." "Burned down!" repeated Mary Louise, rushing in through the trees beside the path. "Honestly?" "See for yourself!" replied her brother. A few steps more, and they saw for themselves that it was only too true. The blackened trunks, the dry, scarred grass, and the faint smoky odor confirmed his statement. The beautiful cottage was gone forever. Nothing remained but the charred stones of its foundation. "Boy, don't I wish I'd been here!" exclaimed Freckles regretfully. "It must have been some fire. But they say nobody saw it. It was practically out when they discovered it." "Lucky that it was!" said Mrs. Gay. "Suppose ours had caught too!" Mary Louise shuddered; such an idea was too dreadful to contemplate. "Do you know any of the details, Freckles?" asked his mother, as the party turned back to the road again. "No, I don't. Nobody does. It just happened, at night, while everybody was over at a dance at the Royal Hotel across the river." "Maybe we'll hear more about it at Flicks'. Come on, let's hurry." They passed one bungalow on the way to the inn, which Mary Louise pointed out to Jane as belonging to the Partridges--all middle-aged people, she explained--so that her chum was not interested. Nobody over twenty-five was any use to Jane Patterson. The inn, a large square frame building, was completely surrounded by porches on which tables were placed where people were already eating their dinners. Of the eight families at Shady Nook, all except one took their lunches and suppers at Flicks'. Besides them, there were at least half a dozen boarders. Roughly, Mary Louise estimated there were about thirty-five people at the inn. They all seemed to know the Gays, for everybody was bowing and smiling as the little party opened the screen door of the front porch. Mrs. Flick, a fat, good-natured woman of about fifty, came forward to welcome them. "My, it's good to see you all back again!" she exclaimed, with genuine pleasure. "But where is Mr. Gay?" "He had to go to California on business," explained Mrs. Gay. "So we brought Mary Louise's friend, Jane Patterson, in his place. Mrs. Flick, this is Jane." "Happy to meet you, Miss Jane," returned the landlady as she led the Gays to their accustomed table. When they were seated, she pulled up a chair beside them to talk for a few minutes with Mrs. Gay. "Tell us about the Hunters' bungalow!" begged Mary Louise immediately. "There isn't much to tell. Nobody knows much.... Oh, here's Hattie to take your order." And the newcomers had to exchange greetings with the waitress, the daughter of a farmer named Adams who lived a couple of miles from Shady Nook. When the order had been given, Mary Louise repeated her question. "It happened a week ago--on a Saturday," explained Mrs. Flick. "Mr. Clifford had four college boys visiting him, and they all went across the river that evening to a dance at the Royal Hotel. Mrs. Hunter went along with 'em. When they came back, the place was burned to the ground." "Didn't anybody see the flames--or smell the smoke?" "No. The wind was the other way from the hotel, and there wasn't anybody at Shady Nook to notice. Everybody, except Pa and me, went to the dance. And we were sound asleep." Hattie came back with the soup, and Mrs. Flick rose from her chair. "I'll see you later," she said as she hurried into the house. "It sounds very mysterious," muttered Mary Louise. "Oh, there's probably some simple explanation," replied Jane lightly. "We'll have to ask Clifford Hunter. Where is he, Mary Lou? Do you see him?" The other girl glanced hastily about the big porch and shook her head. "Not here," she answered. "But he may be inside. There's another dining room in the bungalow." "This isn't Clifford?" asked Jane, watching a tall, good-looking, dark-eyed young man coming out of the door. Mary Louise turned around and smiled. "No. That's David McCall. He usually comes up just for two weeks' vacation and stays here at Flicks'." A moment later the young man reached the Gays' table and was introduced to Jane. But he merely nodded to her briefly: his eyes seemed to devour Mary Louise. "I thought you'd never come, Mary Lou!" he exclaimed. "A whole week of my vacation is gone!" "But you have another week, don't you, David?" "Yes. A measly seven days! And then another year to wait till I see you again!" His tone was not bantering, like the boys at home. David McCall was serious--too terribly serious, Mary Louise sometimes thought--about everything. "May I come over to see you after supper?" he pleaded. "Of course," agreed Mary Louise lightly. "And then you can tell us about the fire. You were here when it happened?" "No. I didn't get here till Sunday. But I can tell you something about it, all right!" Mary Louise's eyes opened wide with interest. "Somebody set it on fire--on purpose, you mean, David?" "Yes." "Who?" The young man leaned over and whispered in her ear: "Clifford Hunter himself!" Mary Louise gasped in amazement. "But why?" she demanded. "To collect the insurance!" was the surprising reply. And, turning about, David McCall went back into the boarding house. CHAPTER II _Clifford's Story_ "What did he say?" demanded both Jane and Freckles the moment David McCall was out of hearing distance. Mary Louise leaned forward and lowered her voice. "He said Cliff Hunter set the place on fire himself--to get the insurance. Now that his father is dead, the bungalow belongs to him." "How awful!" exclaimed Jane. "Do you believe that, Mary Lou?" "No, I don't--knowing Cliff as I do. Do you, Mother?" "Certainly not," replied Mrs. Gay emphatically. "It's just David's jealousy. He's poor himself, and he has a sort of grudge against all rich people." "Maybe," admitted Mary Louise. "David never did like Cliff, all the summers they've both been coming up here to Shady Nook." "I wish I could meet this young Hunter," lamented Jane. "I'm keen to get a look at him." "Maybe he isn't here any more," remarked Mary Louise. "Since the bungalow is gone, where would he stay?" "The Hunters are living over at the Royal Hotel, I think," Freckles informed them. "Seems to me that's what Larry Reed said." "Then Cliff will be over to see you," observed Mrs. Gay confidently. Her supposition proved correct: no sooner had the Gays returned to their own bungalow after supper than a motorboat chugged its way across the river and anchored at their dock. A moment later Clifford Hunter stepped out. As Mary Louise had said, he was not a good-looking young man. His height was only medium, and he was so thin that even expensive tailoring could not make his clothes look well. But his big nose and his sandy complexion were offset by a pleasant smile and attractive gray eyes, which somehow made you feel as if you had known Cliff Hunter all your life. "Hello, Mary Lou!" he called as he came towards the porch. "Heard you were here!" He whistled a gay tune as he ascended the steps, and smiled. "Not so homely after all," Jane thought as she looked into his pleasant face. And his white flannels and dark blue coat were certainly becoming. They evidently did not wear sweaters at the Royal Hotel. "Hurry up!" returned Mary Louise. "We're dying to hear the news!" "Yes, of course." He shook hands with Mary Louise and her mother and was introduced to Jane. "Sit down, Clifford," urged Mrs. Gay. The young man fumbled in his pocket and produced a pack of cards. "In a minute, thank you, Mrs. Gay," he replied. "But first--take a card, Mary Lou. I know some bully new tricks." Mary Louise burst out laughing. "Haven't you gotten over that fad yet, Cliff?" she asked. He regarded her reprovingly. "Don't talk so lightly about my profession!" he said. "I'm going to be a magician. Now--I'll explain the trick. You can look at the pack----" "Oh, but we want to hear about the fire," interrupted Mary Louise. "Take a card!" was his only reply. There was nothing to do but humor him. Jane was delighted: she loved card tricks and listened eagerly. But Mary Louise was more interested in the burning of the bungalow. At last, however, Clifford sat down beside Jane on the couch-hammock and began to talk. "You saw the ruins?" he inquired. "Yes. But nobody over at Flicks' seemed to know how it happened." "Most amazing thing you ever heard of! It was last Saturday night. I had four fellows from the fraternity here for the week-end, and about nine o'clock we all piled into the boat and went over to the Royal Hotel to dance. There happened to be a bunch of girls staying there that we knew, so we were sure of a swell time. The whole gang from Shady Nook went across too--the Reed family, the Partridges, the Robinsons--practically everybody except the Flicks. So you see Shady Nook was deserted. "We danced till around twelve o'clock and had something to eat. Then the fellows suggested we all get into the launch and go for a ride. Mother was game: she went along too, and so did a couple of the girls. By the time we took them back to the hotel and came home, it must have been two o'clock." "Hadn't you seen any flames?" interrupted Jane. "From the river, I mean?" "Not a flicker! But we had been motoring in the other direction, and you know the hotel isn't right across from our bungalow, so we shouldn't have been likely to notice when we were dancing. What wind there was blew the other way." "Even when you reached your own dock, didn't you smell smoke?" demanded Mary Louise. "Yes, we did then. But the flames were all out. The bungalow was gone--but the trees hadn't caught fire." "That was queer," remarked Mrs. Gay. "Unless somebody put out the fire." "Nobody did, as far as we know," replied Clifford. "But it was out all right. And the bungalow gone, all but the foundation stones!" "What in the world did you do?" asked Jane. "Went over to the Partridges'--they're the people who live next to us on the other side," he explained to Jane. "Fortunately they were still up, but they hadn't noticed the smoke for the trees; they had been at the dance themselves till about one o'clock. Well, they gave Mother their one extra bedroom, and we fellows slept in the living room. That was O.K., but it was pretty ghastly, losing everything at once. Especially the clothes and things that belonged to our guests. If it was going to happen, I don't see why it couldn't have burned down when we didn't have any company." "Yes, that must have been embarrassing," agreed Mary Louise. She was thinking of David McCall's accusation--that Clifford set the bungalow on fire himself to get the insurance--and it seemed absurd to her. He certainly would have chosen a more convenient time. "What did you do the next day?" she inquired. "Mother and I went to our New York apartment, and the fellows went home. I put in a claim for the insurance, and after we had bought new summer outfits, we came back here and took a suite at the Royal. We expect to stay there all summer." "Why not Flicks'?" was Mary Louise's next question. "Everybody goes there." "That's just why we didn't. They're so overcrowded, and Mother likes plenty of room. We sure get that at the Royal. The hotel's practically empty; I don't see how poor Frazier can pay his taxes." "He charges too much," said Mary Louise. "If he'd be content to make a small profit, the way Mr. Flick does, he'd probably fill his hotel." "Well, it's an expensive place to keep up. Mother feels sorry for him, so she's entertaining a lot to bring him some business." "I don't feel sorry for him! I don't like him. Remember that time we wanted to give an entertainment for the Red Cross and he tried to charge us fifty dollars for using his dining room? So we held it outdoors instead!" Clifford nodded. "Yes. But he says he's poor." "So poor he can't pay his waitresses a living wage! Hattie Adams--you remember, Jane, the girl who waited on our table at Flicks'?--said he tried to pay her two dollars a week and excused himself by telling her she'd make a lot on tips! She gets ten at Flicks'!" "A man like that deserves to fail," agreed Jane. "To get back to the subject of the fire," said Mary Louise, in her usual practical way whenever there was a mystery to be solved, "what is your idea of the way it started, Cliff?" "I believe it was just an accident," replied the young man. "Maybe it was some tramp or those kids. You know the Smith boys and a few others. Not the Reeds, for they were at the Royal. But they're all full of mischief. Maybe they were smoking corn silk in our garage." "Oh, I hope not!" exclaimed Mrs. Gay, for her son played a great deal with the Smith boys. "Tell Freckles to snoop around a bit and keep his eyes and ears open," suggested Clifford. "Maybe he'll learn something. He'll enjoy being a detective." Mary Louise smiled; the young man did not know that she had proved herself a very good detective earlier in the summer. "What does your mother think?" she inquired. Clifford frowned. "Mother's suspicious. She believes there's been dirty work. Actually thinks the place was set on fire--on purpose! By Ditmar." "Ditmar! Who is he? I never heard of him." "Probably not. But you soon will. He's a young architect who used to plan a lot of houses for my father before he died. You know the two new bungalows that were put up here this year--beyond Flicks'?" "I heard there were two. But we haven't seen them yet." "Well, Ditmar drew plans for them both. And he and his young wife live in one of them." "I see. But why would your mother suspect Mr. Ditmar of setting fire to her cottage?" asked Jane. "That's easy," replied Mary Louise. "So Ditmar would get the job of designing a new one! But that seems dreadful. Is this man the criminal type, Cliff?" The latter shrugged his shoulders. "How can anybody tell who is the criminal type nowadays, when every day we read in the newspapers about senators and bankers stooping to all sorts of despicable tricks?" "True," agreed Jane. "And is your mother going to rebuild?" "It wouldn't be Mother--it would be I who would do it," explained Clifford. "Because Dad left the place to me, and all this land up here at Shady Nook that hasn't been sold yet. But I don't expect to do anything for a while. Mother's comfortable at the Royal, and I don't mind. Though I do like the people at Shady Nook a lot better." "Oh, well, you can come over as much as you like," said Mary Louise. "Which is just what I intend to do! And that reminds me, one of the things I came to talk to you about: a swell shindig for Monday night!" "Oh, what?" gasped Jane in delight. "A party down on the island. Everybody goes in some kind of boat--naturally--all dressed up. I mean, the boats are to be all dressed up, you understand. With a prize for the best decorated of each kind. Then we'll have a feed and play games." "That's great!" cried Jane enthusiastically. "What'll we go in, Mary Lou? The canoe?" "I thought maybe you girls would come in my motorboat----" "And lose the chance of winning a prize?" interrupted Mary Louise. "Thanks just the same, Cliff, but I've got an idea already." David McCall was coming up the porch steps just in time to hear the refusal, and he grinned broadly. This was just as it should be, he thought, looking possessively at Mary Louise. Tall and dark and handsome, David McCall was indeed a contrast to Clifford Hunter in appearance. But Jane had already decided that she did not like him. Nobody twenty-two years old had any right to be so serious, even if he had been supporting himself for five years! Mary Louise was a trifle embarrassed as she greeted him, wondering how he and Cliff would get along together. But Cliff spoke to him cordially. "Hello, Dave," he said. "Sit down. I've got a brand-new trick. You take a card----" Jane giggled. How could anybody help liking a boy like Cliff? "Don't let's waste our time on card tricks," was David's reply. "The light's fading. We ought to be out on the river. Or in it, if you prefer," he added, addressing Mary Louise. Clifford, disappointed, put his cards away. "You can show me all your tricks tomorrow," whispered Jane sympathetically. "I love them!" "It's a date!" exclaimed Cliff eagerly. Mary Louise stood up, to conceal her nervousness at the sharp way in which David had spoken. "O.K.," she said. "Let's go somewhere. Where?" "In my motorboat?" suggested Cliff. Everybody agreed, and the arrangement proved satisfactory, for the boat was large enough for Jane and Cliff to be together at the wheel, and David and Mary Louise off in another corner. Silky sat upright in the middle of the boat, as if he believed he were the chaperon and it was his sacred duty to keep his eye on everybody. The evening passed pleasantly, for the stars were out, and the breeze over the river delightfully cool, and the boat itself in perfect condition. Even David forgot his grudge against rich young Hunter and under the magic spell of the night joined happily in the singing. Mary Louise, however, insisted that they come home early, for though they hardly realized it, both girls were tired from their long trip. "It's been a glorious day!" exclaimed Jane, after the boys had gone home, and the girls were preparing for bed. "I'm crazy about Shady Nook." "I think it's pretty nice myself," returned the other, with a yawn. "If only poor Cliff's bungalow hadn't burned down." "Tell me," urged Jane, "which boy you really like best--Cliff Hunter or David McCall or Max Miller?" Mary Louise laughed. "I don't know. Max, I guess. Now you answer a question for me: Who do you think set the Hunters' bungalow on fire--Cliff himself, or that Mr. Ditmar, the architect, or the kids?" "There you go!" cried Jane. "Being a detective instead of a normal girl on her vacation. Who cares, anyhow? It doesn't hurt anybody but the insurance company, and I guess they can afford it." "Oh, but I'd like terribly to know!" "Well, don't let's waste our wonderful month being detectives," pleaded Jane. "But it may be important," Mary Louise pointed out. "If it was done intentionally, there will probably be more fires. Don't forget--our cottage is next door to Hunters'!" Jane opened her eyes wide in alarm. "I never thought of that," she admitted. "I've got to think of it," said Mary Louise. "Daddy is trusting me to look after things, and I can't fall down on my job. Nothing like that must happen." "What can you possibly do about it?" "Investigate, of course." "How?" "I'll begin by talking to Freckles tomorrow and see whether he's found out anything from the boys. Then I'll make it a point to meet Mr. Ditmar--and follow up every clue I can get hold of." "You would!" yawned Jane as she crept sleepily into her cot. CHAPTER III _The Ditmars_ "Freckles!" exclaimed Mary Louise as she entered the kitchenette of the bungalow the following morning. "Where are you going?" The boy grinned mysteriously. "Can't tell you that, Sis," he replied. "It's a secret." "But I wanted to talk to you. And it's only a little after eight o'clock." "I know, but I'm a busy guy. Important affairs!" "With whom?" Freckles hesitated; then he decided to tell part of his secret. "The fellows up here have a secret band. It's called the 'Wild Guys of the Road.' I was initiated last night." Mary Louise burst out laughing. She couldn't help it. "The 'Wild Guys of the Road'!" she repeated. "Regular hold-up men?" "Well, not exactly," replied her brother. "But we've got some exciting adventures on." "Who is the leader?" "Robby Smith. He's got some swell ideas." Mary Louise's eyes narrowed. "Does burning people's houses come into his plan?" "Gosh, no! We're not really bad, Sis. We wouldn't do anything like that." "Do you make fires at all?" "Sure we make fires. We've got to cook our camp meals, haven't we? And have our ceremonies." "I see." She was thinking. "And sometimes those fires spread farther than you want them to?" "No, course not! Now, don't you go blaming us guys for Hunters' bungalow burning down!" "I'm not blaming _you_, Freckles--you weren't even here. But I'm not so sure about those Smith boys. They are pretty wild, once they get started. Remember the time they locked that little boy in the boathouse and almost left him there all night?" "Gee whiz, Sis! They wouldn't have left him there. They just wanted to scare him." "I'm not so sure. They're spoiled kids. I wish you wouldn't play with them." "Now, Sis, don't be silly! Everybody's in the gang together. I've got to play with the Smith boys or else stay home by myself." With a yell of good-bye for his mother, the boy was off. Mary Louise and Jane sat down to their breakfast. Mrs. Gay, who had eaten hers with Freckles, came in to talk to them. "What have you on the program for today?" she inquired. "Oh, the usual things," answered her daughter. "Tennis with the bunch this morning, and I suppose everybody will go in swimming about eleven o'clock. David is coming over to talk about fixing up our canoe for the contest tomorrow night." Jane coughed nervously. "I--uh--sort of promised Cliff I'd go in his motorboat, Mary Lou," she said. "Would that be all right?" "Sure it's all right," agreed her chum. "It'll be even better, because the less weight we have in our canoe, the more decoration we can put on. And there's a prize for each type of boat, you know." "Then I shan't be competing against you if I go in Cliff's launch?" "Oh no, we are in separate classes." After the girls had finished washing the dishes for Mrs. Gay, they started off for a little walk, with Silky at their heels. "Why not stop for the Reed girls?" suggested Jane, mentioning the twins who lived in the cottage on the far side of the Gays. "I'm crazy to meet them." "You'll meet them when we go swimming later on," replied Mary Louise. "But just now I want to go in the other direction. To call on the Ditmars." "The Ditmars?" For the moment Jane had forgotten who these people were, for she had heard so many new names the night before. "Yes. Don't you remember? The young architect that Cliff told us about. The man Mrs. Hunter thinks set her bungalow on fire." "Oh, yes, of course! In other words--a suspect." "That's right," agreed Mary Louise. "But how can we call on him if we don't know him?" asked Jane. "We'll find a way!" "Oh, sure we will!" teased Jane. "Trust the girl detective for that!" "Sh! Please don't call me that in front of anybody, Jane. If people think I am snooping, they'll shut up like clams and won't tell me anything." Although there were only eight cottages at Shady Nook, the distance from the Reeds' on one end to the Ditmars' on the other was over a mile. Cliff's father, Mr. Hunter, who had planned the little resort, knew that even in a small friendly community like this, people still liked privacy, so he had left a small strip of woods between every two cottages. The girls walked along slowly, Mary Louise pointing out the bungalows as they passed by. "That's where the Hunters' was, of course," she said to her chum. "And now we're coming to the Partridges'. Next is Flicks' Inn." "Yes, I remember this much from last night," nodded Jane. "But that's as far as we got. Are there many cottages on the other side of Flicks'?" "Only the Smiths' and the two new ones. The Smiths don't actually live on the river road, and you can't call their place a cottage. It's really the grandest house around here. Much bigger than the Hunters' was. They have three children and a lot of servants. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are usually off traveling somewhere, and even when they're here, they don't eat at Flicks'." "So we can't count on them for any fun?" "No. Freckles plays with the boys, but except for that, we never see them." A little farther on, the girls came to the two new bungalows, set right in the heart of the woods. They were both perfectly charming; it was evident that young Mr. Ditmar was an architect with both taste and ideas. "Don't you love it?" whispered Jane, as the two girls approached the Ditmars' rose-trellised bungalow. "It looks like 'Honeymoon Cottage' in a jig-saw puzzle!" "I understand the Ditmars are practically a bride and groom," returned Mary Louise.... "Oh, there she is, in the garden! Pretty, isn't she?" An attractive young woman in a pink dress looked up as the girls came nearer. She smiled pleasantly. "Good-morning," said Mary Louise. "You are Mrs. Ditmar, aren't you? Everybody knows everybody else here at Shady Nook, so we'll introduce ourselves. This is my chum, Jane Patterson, and I'm Mary Louise Gay." The young woman nodded cordially. "I'm awfully glad to meet you both," she said. "This is a friendly place--I like it a lot. If only my husband did----" "Doesn't Mr. Ditmar like Shady Nook?" asked Mary Louise in surprise. "No, he doesn't. But I guess it's just because he hasn't enough to do. You know how men are when they haven't any work: full of gloom." "Well, things will be better this fall," remarked Jane optimistically. "I don't know," replied Mrs. Ditmar. "At least--for architects. Their work comes slowly. It was fine all spring, while Horace had this bungalow to build, and the Robinsons' next door. But now he can't get a thing." "Maybe the Hunters will rebuild," suggested Jane openly. Mrs. Ditmar shook her head. "We did hope so. We went over to see them at the Royal Hotel soon after their house burned down, but Mrs. Hunter wasn't very nice to us. She almost acted as if it were our fault!" Jane suppressed a giggle and muttered under her breath, "The plot thickens." "Oh, I guess she was just all upset," remarked Mary Louise nervously. "She'll get over that." She smiled. "Anyway, you don't have to be gloomy, Mrs. Ditmar. Can't you get your tennis things on and play with us this morning?" "Thanks awfully, but I don't think I had better leave Horace here alone." "Bring him along!" "He wouldn't come. No, I better not. But perhaps I'll see you in swimming later on in the morning. It's awfully nice of you girls to be so friendly." "We'll look for you in the water, then.... And, by the way, you'll come to the party on the island tomorrow night, won't you?" Again the young woman refused. "No, we really can't afford that. It's two dollars for the supper, you know, and besides that; we'd have to hire one of Mr. Frazier's canoes." "Couldn't you borrow one?" suggested Jane. "No--I'm sorry--Horace refused to go." Mary Louise sighed, as if to say how thankful she was that she wasn't married to a grouch like that. So the girls said good-bye and walked slowly back to their cottage. "She can't be over twenty, if she's that," surmised Mary Louise. "I certainly feel sorry for her." "So do I," agreed Jane. "Do you really think her husband is guilty, Mary Lou?" "I don't know. He sounds queer." She lowered her voice: there did not appear to be anybody around, but you never could tell, with all those thick trees to conceal possible eavesdroppers. "And if he believes it's his right to have work, he may try burning other cottages. That's what worries me." "Well, he surely wouldn't pick on yours, Mary Lou," was Jane's comforting assurance. "He'd select somebody's who was rich--like the Smiths', or some place that was absolutely necessary, like the Flicks'." The girls were passing the inn at this moment, and as they looked up they saw David McCall in his tennis clothes coming out of the door. "I was over at the bungalow looking for you girls," he said. "The Reed girls are on the court, but they wouldn't let me play until I found a partner. So please hurry up!" "O.K.," agreed Mary Louise. "Walk back with us, Dave. I want you to tell me why you think Cliff Hunter set his own bungalow on fire--at such an inconvenient time. When they had company, I mean." David smiled knowingly. "That's his alibi, of course. What did he care about those four fellows? It didn't hurt them. You see, Mary Lou, I'm an insurance agent, and I'm up to all these tricks. The Hunters' place was insured for ten thousand dollars, and if it had been offered for sale, Cliff couldn't have gotten more than a couple thousand at a time like this." "But the Hunters are rich," objected Mary Louise. "They don't need the money." "Everybody needs money. And I happen to know that Cliff wants to go around the world this fall." "He wouldn't give up college?" "No. There's a college course in the bargain. They study and travel at the same time. It costs a small fortune." "I don't believe he set that bungalow on fire," announced Jane. "He's too honest. He just couldn't do a thing like that!" "Besides," added Mary Louise, "we have another suspect." And she told David what she had just learned about Horace Ditmar. "I'm just as sure that Ditmar didn't do it as you are that Cliff Hunter didn't," replied David when she had finished. "Probably nobody set it on fire," concluded Jane. "Just an accident. Let's forget it. Come on in, Mary Lou, and we'll put on our sneaks. We'll be ready in a minute, Dave." True to their promise, the girls returned a moment later, with Silky at their heels, and all three young people made their way to the tennis court. There was only one court at Shady Nook--which the boys themselves had made--but there was another across the river on the hotel grounds. However, nobody ever seemed to mind waiting or taking turns, so the crowd usually stayed together. Jane was introduced to the Reed twins, who looked and dressed so exactly alike that she had not the faintest idea which was Mabel and which was Sue after a couple of minutes had elapsed. Then there were three other young people who were staying at the inn for a short time, besides David McCall and themselves. To her dismay, Cliff Hunter did not come across the river to join the party. The whole crowd went in swimming about eleven o'clock, and here their elders joined them, with some of the younger children. Not Freckles, however, or the Reed boys or the Smiths: they had gone off hiking for the day. Again Jane did not see Cliff Hunter, and she was giving all her attention to a young man named Stuart Robinson, who lived in the new bungalow next to the Ditmars', when she heard her name shouted from the shore. "Jane! Oh, Jane!" Raising her head from her swimming position and treading water, she peered towards the shore. It was Cliff Hunter--but not attired in a bathing suit. "Come on out!" he called. Jane swung into the crawl, and reached the young man in a couple of minutes. He was grinning broadly. "Take a card," he said. Jane burst out laughing. "How can I?" she asked. "I'm soaked." "Oh, that's all right. I've got plenty of packs. This is a swell trick. I've been studying it all morning." Jane dropped down on the grass and listened to his trick. The young man was enchanted. She stayed with him until Mary Louise literally dragged her back into the water. "How anybody could believe Cliff Hunter guilty of a despicable crime," she said later to her chum, "is beyond me. He's as innocent as a child." "I hope so," returned Mary Louise. "Time will tell." CHAPTER IV _Another Fire_ Everybody at Shady Nook worked all day Monday on the decorations for the boats. Everybody, that is, except Mr. and Mrs. Flick and a few of the older people, who were preparing the food for the supper on the little island that night. Jane was helping Clifford Hunter paint pieces of wood which were intended to transform his launch into an auto-giro, and David McCall and Mary Louise picked flowers and leaves all afternoon to make festoons for her canoe. "I do think Freckles and those other kids might have helped us," she remarked as she tied on the last cluster of sunflowers. "Oh, we didn't need them," returned David, smiling. He had enjoyed having Mary Louise to himself all afternoon. "It's five o'clock now. We'll have to hurry and wash and dress. Don't forget supper at Flicks' is half-past tonight." The young man nodded. "I'll be ready, Mary Lou." Mrs. Gay's voice interrupted them from the inside of the bungalow. "Has anybody seen Freckles?" she called. "Not since this morning," replied her daughter. "I tried to get him to help us, but he said he was off for the day with his gang." "Yes, I know that. I gave him some lunch. But he ought to be home by now." "He'll probably be along in a minute." But he did not come. David went back to the inn, and Mrs. Gay and the two girls dressed for the picnic, but still Freckles did not appear. "We can't go off and leave him without any supper," said Mrs. Gay. "Because Mrs. Flick is going to close the dining room and lock up at six-thirty." "If we could only phone the Smiths," sighed Mary Louise. "He's probably over there with the boys.... Suppose Jane and I run over?" "It's too far. It will make you late for supper." "Not very late. We'll hurry. Come on, Jane. We'll be back in ten minutes. But you go on down to the inn, Mother, and order the dinner." Mrs. Gay nodded, immensely relieved. What a comfort Mary Louise was! You never had to ask her to do anything for you. The two girls hurried away along the private road beside the river, past the Flicks' and the Robinsons', then turned up the hill to the Smiths' house beyond. It was Jane's first sight of the imposing-looking place at close range. She exclaimed in admiration. "What a marvelous house! They must be awfully rich!" "They are," replied Mary Louise. "But they don't appreciate this place a bit. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are hardly ever here at all in the summer. Those two boys just run wild. There's a nurse to look after the little girl--she's only four years old--but the boys do pretty much as they please and boss the servants around. That's why Mother and I feel worried about Freckles when he's with them." A sedate-looking butler answered the girls' ring at the door. "No, miss," was his reply to Mary Louise's question, "the boys haven't been here all day." "Did they expect to go to the picnic tonight on the island?" "Yes, miss. Steve, the chauffeur, was to take them." Mary Louise sighed. There was nothing she could do. "Well, if my brother comes back here, will you please send him right over to the inn?" she asked. "And tell him to hurry." The girls turned away and started back. "It's going to spoil Mother's evening," remarked Mary Louise disconsolately. "Oh, he'll be sure to turn up soon," returned Jane reassuringly. "I know, but even if he does, he won't be able to get to the island. All the boats at Shady Nook are being used. Even the rowboats. Everybody's going except the Ditmars." "Poor Adelaide Ditmar!" sighed Jane. "Imagine missing all that fun just because of a grouchy husband! I'm glad I'm single." Mary Louise laughed. "All men aren't alike, Jane. You know Cliff Hunter would never miss any fun. Or Max or Norman," she added, mentioning their two best friends in Riverside. Mrs. Gay looked up hopefully as the girls entered the inn, but her expression changed immediately. She could tell from their faces that they had not been successful. After supper was over, all was bustle and excitement as the people got into the boats and pushed them out into the river. There were six canoes, four rowboats, and three motorboats, all decorated beautifully or fantastically, according to the taste of the owners. Three prizes were to be awarded for the cleverest boat of each type, and everybody was to vote on the style in which he or she was not competing. Mary Louise and David McCall stepped into their flower-covered canoe; Mrs. Gay joined the Partridges in a rowboat, and Jane waited for Cliff Hunter's motorboat to come puffing across the river. It arrived at the same time as the Fraziers' rather seedy launch, and Jane was introduced to them and to Mrs. Hunter. "You'll walk away with the motorboat prize, Cliff," called Mary Louise to the young man at the wheel. She lowered her voice. "Poor old Frazier's launch is pathetic, and Stuart Robinson's is just funny!" "I hope the prize is a deck of cards," returned Cliff. "Mine are wearing out." Mary Louise laughed and dipped her paddle into the water. Her canoe did look pretty, and it was a heavenly night. If only Freckles were there! The boats began to move off, the launches puffing ahead, the canoes gliding gently behind them, and the rowboats progressing more ponderously. Somebody began to play a ukulele, and gay voices took up the tune. The island, a small oblong strip of land, was situated about two miles down the river from Shady Nook. Several years ago someone at the resort had discovered it, and everybody had taken a hand at fixing it up for picnic purposes. There was a glorious stone fireplace, and a large spot had been cleared for dancing and games. Seats had been scattered about, and a couple of board tables had been erected near the fireplace. Tonight the whole island was alight with Japanese lanterns, giving it a gay and festive air. When the last rowboat had finally reached its destination, the crowd all gathered together on the grass near the shore to record their votes. The two Robinson boys went about collecting them. Mary Louise was sitting close to her mother, watching her intently. "The Reed boys aren't here either," whispered Mrs. Gay. "I was just talking to Mrs. Reed, and she said she hasn't seen Larry or George since morning. But she doesn't seem much worried." "Freckles must be all right if he's with the whole bunch," Mary Louise assured her. "Nothing much could happen to five boys together." Mrs. Gay forced herself to smile. "I'll try not to worry, dear.... Oh, listen! Mr. Robinson is going to announce the winners!" The jovial-faced man, Stuart's father, stepped forward. "First prize for rowboats goes to Sue and Mabel Reed," he said. "Come forward, girls, and get your prize. It's a box of tennis balls." The twins, dressed exactly alike in blue dimity, came up together, bowing and expressing their thanks. "The prize for canoes--to Mary Louise Gay," continued Mr. Robinson. "More tennis balls!" David McCall clapped loudly, and everybody else joined in the applause. Mary Louise was a general favorite at Shady Nook. "The prize for motorboats goes to my son Stuart for his funny-looking contraption!" Everybody clapped but Jane; she was terribly disappointed. She didn't see why Cliff's clever idea hadn't taken the honors. But glancing at the young man she could detect no resentment in his face. He was a wonderful sport. After the prizes had been disposed of, the games began, and continued until dark. Almost everyone joined in the fun--even the middle-aged people. All except a few who were helping Mrs. Flick prepare the refreshments, and Mrs. Hunter and the Fraziers, who were too stiff and dignified. "How do you like Mrs. Hunter?" whispered Mary Louise once when the two chums found themselves hiding side by side in a game. "Kind of stuck up," replied Jane. "But she's better than those Fraziers. He's positively oily!" "Didn't I tell you? I wouldn't stay in his hotel if our bungalow burned down--no matter how much money we had." "Mrs. Hunter seems to like him. But I think it's Frazier who put the idea into her head that Ditmar set her cottage on fire. Because I heard him say to her, 'I wonder whose place will burn down tonight. Ditmar stayed home!'" "Oh, how awful!" "Sh! Oh, gosh, we're caught! Why must girls always talk?" lamented Jane. The moon came up in the sky, making the night more enchanting, more wonderful than before. The games broke up, and Mrs. Flick called the people to refreshments. "Sit with me, Mary Lou," urged David, jealously touching her arm. "We must find Mother," returned the girl. "She's over there with Mrs. Hunter and the hotel bunch. You don't want to be with them, do you?" "Not particularly. But I do want to be with Mother and Jane and Cliff. So come on!" David closed his lips tightly, but he followed Mary Louise just the same. Mrs. Gay made a place for them, and the young couple sat down. "You're not still worried, are you, Mother?" asked Mary Louise as she passed the chicken salad. "I'm afraid I am, dear. If we could only see Shady Nook from here, perhaps the boys would flash their lights." "They're surely all right," put in Mrs. Hunter consolingly. "They're big enough to take care of themselves." "I'll say they are," remarked Mr. Frazier. "I caught them cutting my yew tree to make bows. There's nothing they can't do!" Mary Louise regarded the hotelkeeper with contempt, thinking again how stingy he was. Anybody else would be glad to give the boys a branch of a tree! "So long as they don't set anything on fire," observed Cliff lightly. "Oh, Cliff!" exclaimed Mary Louise in horror. David McCall nudged her meaningly. "Criminals always try to cover up their crimes by laying the suspicion on somebody else," he whispered. "But only a cad would blame innocent children." Mary Louise cast him a withering look. She was beginning to despise David McCall. When the whole party had eaten all they possibly could, somebody started to play a ukulele, and the young people danced on the smooth grass that had been worn down by so many picnics. Nobody apparently wanted to go home, except Mrs. Gay. Finally Mrs. Reed, beginning to be anxious about her own two boys, seconded the motion for departure. "Let's give the rowboats twenty minutes start," suggested Cliff Hunter. "And the canoes ten. We'll beat you all at that!" "If our engines don't give out," put in Stuart Robinson doubtfully. He never felt confident about his ancient motorboat. "Suits me fine!" cried Jane, realizing that the arrangement gave her twenty extra minutes to dance. The rowboats pushed off, and ten minutes later Mary Louise and her mother and David stepped into their canoe. It was a light craft, built for speed, and both she and David were excellent paddlers. In no time at all they were leading the procession. It was David's sharp eyes which first detected signs of a disaster. "There's a fire at Shady Nook!" he cried breathlessly. "Oh!" gasped Mrs. Gay in horror, and turning about swiftly, Mary Louise thought that her mother was going to faint. But she didn't; she pulled herself together quickly and sat up very straight. "It's true," agreed Mary Louise, her voice trembling with fear. Suppose it were their own cottage--and--and--Freckles! The canoe rounded the bend in the river and came within full view of the little resort. The Reeds' house was visible now--yes--and the Gays'! Thank heaven it was unharmed! "It's either the Partridges' or Flicks'," announced David. "And my bet is that it's Flicks'. I was expecting it." "You were expecting it, David?" repeated Mrs. Gay in consternation. "What do you mean by that?" "Because Cliff Hunter holds a big mortgage on Flicks' Inn," replied the young man. "It means ready cash for him." "Don't be absurd!" commanded Mary Louise. "How could Cliff have anything to do with it when he was with us all evening?" "Haven't you ever heard of a bribe, Mary Lou?" he asked. The girl did not answer. The increasing noise of the engines behind them told them that the motorboats had caught up with them. Everybody knew about the disaster now; Mrs. Flick was crying, and Mr. Flick was yelling and waving his arms wildly, calling upon everybody to help him. He was out of his boat first--he happened to be riding in the Robinsons' launch--and he dashed madly through the trees that stood between his inn and the river. In his excitement, he almost knocked over a small boy carrying a pail of water from the river. "Freckles!" cried Mrs. Gay, in a tone of both relief and fear: relief that her child was safe, fear that he had had something to do with the fire. "What are you doing?" "Trying to save the trees," explained the boy. "The inn was gone when we got here, but us guys kept the fire from spreading." He looked up proudly, as if he expected a medal for his bravery. "I don't believe a word of it!" thundered Mr. Flick. "I believe you boys set the place on fire. And now you're trying to lie out of it!" "I wouldn't put it past 'em," muttered Mr. Frazier, at his side. The Fraziers had landed at Shady Nook instead of crossing to the hotel's shore. "Tell the truth, boys!" urged Mrs. Gay, for by this time both the Smiths and the two young Reeds had joined Freckles. "We came along here about dark," said Larry Reed, who was the oldest of the group, "and smelled smoke. Course, we investigated. The inn was gone. But the ashes were still smoldering, and there was smoke coming out from the bushes. So we ran over to Gays' and to our house and got buckets and carried water from the river. It's about out now." "You're sure that's the truth?" demanded Mr. Reed. "On my honor, Dad!" replied the boy solemnly. "Did you see anybody in the woods or around Shady Nook?" inquired Mrs. Flick. "Yeah. A big guy who looked like a tramp from the woods--it was too dark to see his face--and a funny-looking woman in a gray dress with a big pitcher under her arm." "Together?" asked Mary Louise. "No. The big guy was in the woods. And the woman was running along the road that leads to Four Corners." "Nothing but a made-up yarn!" denounced Mr. Flick. But the fire was really out; there was nothing anybody could do. Frazier suggested that the Flicks and their guests come over to his hotel, and the latter accepted. But the Flicks, realizing that this was not a real invitation, that the hotelkeeper would present them with a bill later on, chose to stay with the Partridges. So at last the group dispersed for the night. Mary Louise, however, was so exasperated with David McCall that she never even answered his pleasant "Good-night!" CHAPTER V _Freckles' Story_ "What in the world are you doing?" asked Jane when she came out on the porch the following morning to find her chum studiously poring over a notebook. "You must think school has begun!" Mary Louise looked up. "It's harder than school--but it's more fun," she replied. "I'm working on the mystery of the fires." "Mystery? You really don't think the Flicks' Inn was just an accident?" "No, I don't. If it were the first fire, I might believe that. But with the Hunters' a week or so ago, the whole thing looks sinister to me. I'm frightened, Jane. Ours may be the next. We haven't any insurance to speak of. Besides, something dreadful might happen to Mother. People are burned to death sometimes, you know." "Yes, that's true," replied Jane seriously. "But what are you going to do?" "Treat it just like a case, as I did Dark Cedars. List all the possible suspects and search the neighborhood for desperate characters." "Such as gypsies?" "No, not gypsies. They wouldn't have any motive this time. But somebody must have a motive--unless it's a crazy person who is responsible." Jane's eyes opened wide. "That's an idea, Mary Lou! There are people like that--crazy along just one particular line. They feel they simply have to light fires. Firebugs, you know." "Incendiary is the correct term, I believe," said Mary Louise. "Oh, so you've already thought of it and looked up the word!" "Yes, I've thought of it. Who wouldn't have? It's the first explanation that jumps into your head when you hear of a fire. They say lighted cigarettes start them too, and small children." "Small children? But not boys as big as Freckles and the Smiths?" An expression of pain passed over Mary Louise's face. "I'm afraid everybody suspects the boys. Especially Mr. Flick.... I'm going to call Freckles now and ask him just exactly what he did yesterday. Then, if you're interested, Jane, I'll read you all my list of suspects." "Sure I'm interested. I love to play the part of Watson to the great Sherlock Holmes Gay!" Mary Louise stuck out her tongue. "Don't be so fresh!" she said, but she was pleased and flattered to be called Sherlock Holmes. Freckles, eating a bun and followed by Silky, came leisurely through the screen door. Mary Louise asked him to sit down and talk to her. "Can't long," was the reply. "Have to go see old man Flick." "Don't speak of Mr. Flick in that disrespectful way!" said Mary Louise disapprovingly. "I will, though. I hate him. He thinks us guys set his old inn on fire, and we really saved his trees. Sweatin' like horses, carryin' water from the river, and that's all the thanks we get!" "Freckles," said his sister seriously, "you must tell me all about what you did yesterday. Everything! No secrets. Because this is important. It may save somebody innocent from imprisonment--and help spot the real criminal." "O.K., I will, Sis." He sat down on the hammock, and Silky jumped up beside him. He gave the little dog a piece of his bun, and then he began. "Up in the woods beyond Shady Nook--past the Ditmars', you know, and all the cottages--we're building a shack. A clubhouse for the 'Wild Guys of the Road.' So yesterday we took our lunch--the two Smiths, the two Reeds, and I--to set to work." "Did you make a fire?" demanded Mary Louise. "Sure we made a fire. We got to have a fire. But don't you go thinking that fire spread to Flicks'. If it had, why wouldn't Ditmars' and Robinsons' cottages have been burned? They're in between." "Yes, that's true. Did you stay there in the woods all day?" "Yeah. Cooked some hot dogs for our supper, and Larry Reed had a can of baked beans. Boy, we had a swell feed! And never thought a thing about the picnic on the island till it started to get dark. Then we put out the fire, packed our stuff away, and made tracks for home." "About what time was that?" asked Mary Louise. "I mean, when you finally left your camp?" "Nine-thirty or ten, maybe. I don't know." "And you saw two people on your way back, you said?" "Four people, really, because the Ditmars were taking a walk in the woods. They were quarreling, I'm sure. She was mad at him. Said she thought he was positively cruel!" "What!" exclaimed Jane. "Looks as if Horace Ditmar might have set the place on fire himself--just as Mr. Frazier was expecting!" Mary Louise wrote something in her notebook, and Freckles continued: "Then, a little farther on, we met a tramp. At least, we think he was a tramp, though it was too dark to see his face. He was a big man in shabby old clothes. Overalls, I think. He was coming towards us--away from Shady Nook. We think he's the man you want!" "Had you ever seen him before?" "I don't think so, but I wouldn't want to be sure. After we passed him, we saw the funny-looking woman with the big pitcher under her arm. The moon was out then, and we got a good look at her. We all think she was crazy--kind of talking to herself as she went along. "Then, as we came nearer to Shady Nook, we smelled smoke and found out it was Flicks'. The inn was burned down by then--it was all wood, you know--but there was plenty of fire smoldering around. So we got some buckets at our own houses and began carrying water from the river. We must have worked a couple of hours.... Till you came along.... That's all." "You're going to tell this story to Mr. Flick?" "It's not a story!" cried the boy indignantly. "It's the truth!" "Oh, I didn't mean it that way," Mary Louise hastened to assure him. "I believe you, Freckles. But I do wish you had someone to swear to the truth of it--for the people who may not believe you. Some witness, I mean. Did the Ditmars see you boys in the woods?" "No. When we heard their voices--and I told you she was good and mad--we beat it around another path. Women murder their husbands sometimes, you know!" he added solemnly. "I don't believe Mrs. Ditmar would commit murder," replied his sister. "We met her yesterday morning, and she seemed awfully nice." Freckles stood up. "Guess I better be on my way. Old man Flick's got an awful temper." "Well, be sure to keep yours," Mary Louise warned him as he walked down the steps. She turned to Jane. "What do you think about it?" she asked. "I think it's a mess. But I don't believe anybody's guilty. Probably just some careless servant girl." "I don't know. I'm going over to see Mr. Flick this morning. I'll have a good reason now that Freckles is sort of involved. "Now I'll read you my list of suspects and their motives, and you tell me what you think and whether you can add any names: "'Horace Ditmar--motive, to make work for himself. "'Mr. Flick and Cliff Hunter--owners, to collect insurance. "'Tramp and queer-looking woman--firebugs. "'Careless servants--and "'The boys.'... Now, can you think of anybody else?" "It looks like Mr. Ditmar to me--or else the careless servants," replied Jane. "I'd never believe it was Cliff Hunter. Or Mr. Flick. Why, Mr. Flick was making money this summer--he'd be a fool to set his place on fire. Besides, he was at the picnic. How could he?" "Things like that can be arranged," replied Mary Louise, thinking of David McCall's accusation. "That tramp, for instance, might have been bribed." "Well, I'm sure he wouldn't want to. Now, if it were that man Frazier's place, the Royal Hotel, I mean, it would be possible. You know what Cliff said about the way he's losing money. The hotel is practically empty, except for the Hunters and their friends." "Maybe it will give Mr. Frazier an idea," remarked Mary Louise, "and his hotel be the next to burn!" "You seem to feel sure that something is coming next!" "I'm afraid so. And I only hope it won't be our bungalow!" Mary Louise sighed and closed her notebook. "It's much more difficult than that mystery at Dark Cedars," she said. "Because there you had only one place to watch. If I knew which cottage would be the next to burn, I could hide there and spy. But Shady Nook's a mile long, and I can't be everywhere." "No," agreed Jane. "And you don't like to stay home from all the parties just on a chance that there will be a fire. Has it occurred to you, Mary Lou, that both fires started when everybody from Shady Nook was off on a party?" "Yes, it has. That's why it seems like a planned crime to me--not just an accident. As if the criminal picked his time carefully." The familiar "chug-chug" of a motorboat interrupted the girls' discussion. Clifford Hunter shut off his engine and threw the rope around the Gays' dock. "Hello, girls!" he called, with his usual grin. "I haven't had time to work up any new card tricks, but I hope I'll be welcome just the same." "Oh, we have more serious things to think about than tricks," responded Mary Louise. "You mean that now you have to turn in and do the cooking since Flicks' Inn is gone?" "I really hadn't thought of that," answered Mary Louise. "Though of course we shall have to do that very thing. We aren't rich enough to eat at the Royal Hotel." "It's not so steep, considering the service you get. Maybe Frazier will lower his prices, for he sure needs the business. But, of course, you have a large family. It would be kind of expensive." "Where can we buy food?" inquired Jane. So far, the Gays' breakfasts had consisted of supplies they brought along with them, with the addition of milk, butter, and eggs from a farmer who stopped daily at Flicks'. "There's a store over at Four Corners," replied her chum, naming the nearest village--about five miles away. "We usually drive over once a week for supplies. I suppose I better go in now and ask Mother how soon she wants me to go." "Be my guests tonight at the Royal for dinner," suggested Cliff. "Then you won't have to bother about buying stuff." "Thanks, Cliff, but there are too many of us. Besides, I'd have to go to the store anyway. We'll need things for lunch. You know how hungry we are when we come out from swimming." "By the way," asked Jane, "where is David McCall staying? And the other people who were boarding at Flicks'?" "They're all over at the hotel," answered Cliff. "Makes the place seem quite lively. Frazier's stepping around at a great rate, looking pleased as Punch." "Oh!" exclaimed Mary Louise significantly, and she wrote another name into her notebook. She ran inside the cottage and five minutes later returned with her mother's list of groceries and the keys to the car. "I'm going over to Four Corners now, Jane," she announced. "Will you come with me or play around with Cliff?" Her chum stood up. "I'll go with you," she said. "If you'll excuse me, Cliff." The young man made a face. "Jane only likes me for my card tricks," he whined. "If I can't amuse her, I'm no use." Both girls burst out laughing. "Work up a new one while we're gone," advised Jane. "And we'll see you in swimming." CHAPTER VI _More Suspects_ "I told Mother we girls would take every other day at the housekeeping," said Mary Louise as she backed the car out of the garage and onto the road behind the cottages. "That will give her a chance to get some rest from cooking--some vacation. You don't mind, do you, Jane?" "Course I don't mind!" replied her chum. "Maybe the family will, though!" "Don't you believe it! We're swell cooks, if I do say it myself." She drove the car along past the backs of the cottages, turning at the road beyond Ditmars in the direction of the little village of Four Corners--a place not much bigger than its name implied. It was a still, hot day; all the vegetation looked parched and dried, and the road was thick with dust. "I wish it would rain," remarked Mary Louise. "If we should have another fire, it might spread so that it would wipe out all of Shady Nook." "Oh, let's forget fires for a while," urged Jane. "You're getting positively morbid on the subject!... Is this the grocery?" she asked as her companion stopped in front of a big wooden house. "It looks more like a dry-goods store to me. All those aprons and overalls hanging around." "It's a country store," explained the other girl. "Wait till you see the inside! They have everything--even shoes. And the storekeeper looks over his glasses just the way they always do in plays." The girls jumped out of the car and ran inside. Jane found the place just as Mary Louise had described it: a typical country store of the old-fashioned variety. "Hello, Mr. Eberhardt! How are you this summer?" asked Mary Louise. "Fine, Miss Gay--fine. You're lookin' well, too. But I hear you had some excitement over to Shady Nook. A bad fire, they tell me. Can you figure out how it happened?" "No, we can't," replied the girl. "You see, everybody was away at the time--at a picnic on the little island down the river." "Looks like spite to me," observed the storekeeper. "Bet Lemuel Adams or his good-fer-nuthin' son done it!" "Lemuel Adams?" repeated Mary Louise. "Who is he? Any relation to Hattie Adams, who always waited on the table at Flicks' Inn?" "Yep--he's her father. You ought to know him. He's a farmer who lives up that hill, 'bout a couple of miles from Shady Nook. Well, he used to own all this ground around here, but he sold it cheap to a man named Hunter. The one who started the settlement at Shady Nook." "Yes, I knew him," said Mary Louise. "He was Clifford Hunter's father. But he died not long ago." "So I heard. Anyhow, this man Hunter got fancy prices for his building lots, and naterally old Lem Adams got sore. Always complainin' how poor he is and how rich old Hunter got on his land. Reckon it got under his skin, and mebbe he decided to take revenge." "Oh!" Mary Louise wanted to write the name of Lemuel Adams into her notebook then and there, but she didn't like to. Should she add Hattie's name too? Had the girl taken any part in the plot? "What sort of looking man is Mr. Adams?" she inquired, thinking of the "tramp" whom the boys had mentioned seeing in the woods. "Old man--with white hair. Has a bad leg--rheumatism, I reckon. He walks with a limp," explained the storekeeper. Mary Louise sighed: this couldn't be the same person, then, for the boys would surely have noticed a limp. "Here's my list," she said, handing her mother's paper to Mr. Eberhardt. "Do you think you have all those things?" "If I ain't, I can get 'em fer you," was the cheerful reply. The girls wandered idly about the store while they waited for their order to be filled. Jane had a wonderful time examining the queer articles on display and laughing at the ready-made dresses. At last, however, a boy carried their supplies to the car, and Mary Louise asked for the bill. "Nine dollars and sixty-two cents," announced Mr. Eberhardt, with a grin. "You folks sure must like to eat!" "We do," agreed Mary Louise. "I suppose this will mean more business for you. Or did the Flicks buy groceries from you anyhow?" "No, they didn't. They got most of their stuff from the city.... Yes, in a way it's a streak of luck fer me. The old sayin', you know--that it's an ill wind that brings nobody luck!... Yes, I'll have to be stockin' up." Mary Louise and Jane followed the boy to the car and drove away. As soon as they were safely out of hearing, Mary Louise said significantly, "Two more suspects for my notebook!" "Two?" repeated Jane. "You mean Lemuel Adams and his son?" "I wasn't thinking of the son," replied Mary Louise, "Though, of course, he's a possibility. No, I was thinking of Mr. Eberhardt, the storekeeper." "The storekeeper! Now, Mary Lou, your ideas are running wild. Next thing you'll be suspecting me!" "Maybe I do," laughed her chum. "No, but seriously--if Dad is working on a murder case, he always finds out immediately who profited by the victim's death. That supplies a motive for the crime. Well, it's the same with a fire. Didn't this storekeeper profit--by getting extra business--because Flicks' burned down?" "Yes, he did," admitted the other girl. "But, on the other hand, it didn't do him a bit of good for the Hunters' bungalow to be destroyed." "No, of course not. But, then, that may have been an accident." "Yet this Lemuel Adams might have been responsible for both fires. He seems a lot guiltier to me. If he hated Mr. Hunter particularly, he'd naturally burn his cottage first. Then he'd go about destroying all the rest of Shady Nook." "Your reasoning sounds good to me, Jane," approved Mary Louise, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement. "And we've got to make a call on Mr. Adams right away. This very afternoon!" "Not me," said Jane. "I'm going canoeing with Cliff Hunter." Mary Louise looked disappointed. "Suppose Watson had told Sherlock Holmes that he had a date with a girl and couldn't go on an investigation with him when he was needed?" "Watson was only a man in a book who didn't make dates. I'm a real girl who's full of life. I came up here for some fun, not just to be an old character in a detective story! And besides, Mary Lou, you have a date too. I heard you promise David McCall you'd go canoeing with him today." "I'm mad at David," objected Mary Louise. "He certainly made me furious last night." "What did he do?" Mary Louise frowned, but she did not tell Jane what the young man had said about Cliff Hunter. No use getting her chum all excited, so she merely shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, just some remarks he made," she replied. "But I really had forgotten all about the date. When did I promise him?" "Yesterday afternoon, before I went off with Cliff. Oh, come on, Mary Lou! Go along with us. Let's pack a supper--it'll be easy with all that food we brought back from the store. Maybe your mother and Freckles will go along." "No, I really can't, Jane. I don't want to be rude to you--you are my guest, I know--but honest, this is important. That I go see old Mr. Adams, I mean. If he has made up his mind to burn down the entire settlement at Shady Nook, our cottage will be included. I've just got to do something to save it--and everybody else's. You know--Dad's counting on me!" "Yes, I understand how you feel, Mary Lou. But you may be all wrong--these two fires may just have been accidents--and then you'll be wasting your perfectly good vacation for nothing." "Oh, but I'm having fun! There's nothing I love better than a mystery. Only this one does scare me a little, because we may actually be involved in it." "Well, you do whatever you want," Jane told her. "Just regard me as one of the family, and I'll go my own way. I know everybody here now, and I'm having a grand time. Only don't forget you have David McCall to reckon with about breaking that date!" They drove up to the back door of the cottage, and Freckles, who had returned home by this time, helped carry in the boxes. Mary Louise asked him how he had made out with the Flicks. "Not so good," was the reply. "He's sore as anything. Still believes we had something to do with starting the fire, though he admits he doesn't think we did it on purpose. They're going away today." "Oh, that's too bad!" exclaimed Mary Louise. "I was hoping they would build some kind of shack and continue to serve meals." "Nope, they're not going to. They've decided to go right back to Albany, where they live in the winter." "Where are they now?" demanded Mary Louise. She realized that she must hurry if she meant to interview them before they left Shady Nook. "Mr. Flick's on his lot, and Mrs. Flick is over at the Partridges'. They stayed there all night, you know, Sis." As soon as the supplies from the store were carefully stored away, the two girls walked over to the spot where the Flicks' Inn had stood. The charred remains were pitiful to see; the fire had been much harder on the Flicks than the Hunters' disaster had been for them, because the innkeeper and his wife were poor. And what they made in the summer went a long way toward supporting them all the year round. Mary Louise felt sorry for them, but nevertheless she resented their laying the blame upon her brother. The girls found Mr. Flick standing under a tree talking to some men in overalls--working men, whom Mary Lou remembered seeing from time to time around the hotel across the river. "May I talk with you for a moment, Mr. Flick?" inquired Mary Louise, as the former turned around and spoke to her. "Yes, of course, Mary Louise," he replied. "I'll be with you in a minute." "You really don't think the boys are responsible, do you, Mr. Flick?" she asked directly, when he joined the girls. "I don't know what to think," replied the man. "It may have been an accident. That one servant girl we have is awfully careless." "Which one?" "Hattie Adams. The one who waits on your table and washes the dishes." "Hattie Adams!" repeated Mary Louise. "Lemuel Adams' daughter!" "Yes. And Tom Adams' sister." He lowered his voice. "That's Tom over there--remember him?--he does odd jobs for both me and Frazier sometimes." Mary Louise nodded and glanced at the young man. He was a big fellow with a somewhat sullen expression. He looked something like Hattie. "How do you know Lem Adams?" inquired Mr. Flick. "I don't," replied Mary Louise quietly. "But the storekeeper over at Four Corners told me about him. How he used to own all this land and sold it cheap to Mr. Hunter. So he thinks maybe Mr. Adams is burning the cottages to spite the Hunters." "But Hunter is dead!" objected Mr. Flick. "And it doesn't spite the Hunters one bit, because they are fully insured. That's the worst of it for me. My insurance only covers my mortgage--which Cliff Hunter happens to hold. I'm as good as wiped out." "Oh, I'm so sorry," said Mary Louise sympathetically. "Not half as sorry as I am." He scowled. "And when I get to Albany I'm going to hunt up a lawyer. If those Smith kids did it, their parents can pay for the damage!" "Oh, but they didn't!" protested Mary Louise. "It's too bad if your brother was in it too. But if he was, he ought to be punished--though I blame that Robby Smith as the ringleader. Boys like those aren't safe to have around. They don't have anybody to control them. They ought to be locked behind the walls of a reform school." There was nothing Mary Louise could say: the man was far too wrought up to listen to reason. So she and Jane merely nodded goodbye and turned away. They stopped at the Partridges' cottage to see Mrs. Flick and found her much calmer. "I blame the Adams girl," she said. "Hattie's so careless! And she was the last one at the inn. I never should have left her alone. But my other waitresses wanted to get back to their hometown, and they left early--before we did. So I can't lay the blame on them." "You really don't think the boys did it, do you, Mrs. Flick?" inquired Mary Louise anxiously. "No, I don't," was the reassuring reply, "even if my husband does!" "Thank goodness for that!" exclaimed the girl in relief. "Well, I'm going to call on the Adams family this afternoon and find out all I can. I'll pump Hattie, and old Mr. Adams too." "Good luck to you, my dear!" concluded Mrs. Flick. CHAPTER VII _The Crazy Woman_ Jane went off early after lunch in Cliff Hunter's canoe, and Mary Louise sat on the porch waiting for David McCall. She was still angry at him for the way he had accused Cliff to her the night before, but a promise is a promise, and she meant to see him. If she had had a chance to go swimming that morning, she might have tried to break the date. He came along about half-past two, smiling shyly, as if he were not quite sure how he stood with Mary Louise. "You're not still mad at me, Mary Lou, are you?" he asked, looking straight into her eyes. "Yes, I am," replied the girl. "I'm disappointed that a boy with your brains can't reason more intelligently. The finest detective in the world wouldn't be sure that one certain person was guilty of a crime until he had made some investigations." "But it's so obvious, Mary Lou! Hunter holds a big mortgage on one place and big fire insurance on another. He can't sell either of them, and he needs the money. So he sets them both on fire and collects that way! What could be simpler?" "There are lots of other people, besides Cliff, who profited from those two fires. In fact," concluded Mary Louise, "the thing that worries me is that there are so many suspects. It's terribly confusing." David opened his eyes wide in amazement. "I don't see who----" he began. "Oh, don't you!" snapped the girl. "Then just listen to this bunch of names!" She opened her notebook and read him the list: "'Horace Ditmar, Lemuel Adams, Eberhardt'--the storekeeper--'Frazier, a tramp the boys saw in the woods, and a queer-looking woman.' Not to mention the boys, because I really don't think they did it." David shook his head. "All possible, of course, but not any of them probable. Of course, I understand you have reasons for suspecting Ditmar, and I admit he is a queer cuss. Still, I don't think he'd do a thing like that. But tell me why you suspect men like Adams--I suppose he's the farmer, isn't he?--and Frazier and Eberhardt. Sounds silly to me." "Frazier and Eberhardt both gained something by the fires: more business. And Dad always tells me to hunt for motives." "They didn't get enough business to go to all that trouble," remarked David. "I'm not so sure. Then, the storekeeper told me that Lemuel Adams felt spiteful towards the Hunters because they made so much money out of his land. So Adams may be doing it for revenge." "Hardly likely, when the fires actually put money into the Hunters' pockets." "Well, I don't know. Anyway, I'm going to do my best to find out who did it--to clear Freckles, for one reason, and to prevent our own bungalow from burning down, for another." "You needn't worry about your bungalow," said David stubbornly. "Cliff Hunter hasn't any mortgage on it." Mary Louise gave him a scornful look. She stood up. "I can't go canoeing with you, David," she announced. "I'm driving over to Adams' farm. You can come along with me if you want to," she added grudgingly. The young man looked disappointed. "You are mean, Mary Lou," he said. "My vacation's nearly over." "I'm being a lot nicer to you than you deserve," she replied. "Letting you in on all the thrills of solving a real mystery.... Well, are you coming or not?" "Sure I'm coming," he muttered disconsolately. But he gazed longingly at the river and wished it were a canoe, and not a car, in which they were to spend the afternoon. Remembering the farmhouse where Hattie Adams had said she lived, Mary Louise turned off the drive beyond Shady Nook into a dirt road which wound around to the top of a hill. She was going slowly--in second gear--when a strange-looking creature in a gray dress darted out from the bushes into the direct path of the car. With a gasp of horror, Mary Louise ground down her brakes, missing the woman by only a couple of inches. "What did you do that for?" shouted David. The woman looked up and smiled innocently at the two young people in the car. Her eyes were vacant and expressionless; her gray hair hung about her face in tangled curls, tied with a faded blue ribbon, in a childish fashion. And under her arm she lugged an immense china pitcher--the kind that is used in the country for carrying water to the bedrooms. She was indeed a strange-looking person--probably the same woman the boys had noticed on the road the night before. "You better move out of the way!" called David. The woman wagged her head confidently: evidently she had no idea of the danger she had just escaped. "I'm looking for well water," she said. "Well water to put out the dreadful fires." "Fires?" repeated Mary Louise sharply. "Yes, fires. The Lord said in His holy Book that He would burn down the cities of pleasure because of the sins of the people. But I am sorry for the little children. I must help put out the fires with pure water from a well. I am Rebecca--at the well!" Mary Louise was horror-stricken. This woman might indeed be the "firebug" whom she and Jane had considered as a possibility. Although she seemed to want to put fires out, perhaps she lighted them first for that very purpose. "I'm sorry, but we don't know where there is a well," she replied. "But tell us where you live, Rebecca. We'll take you home." The woman shook her head. "No, no, I can't go home. I must find water. There will be a fire tonight, and I must be ready to put it out. I must go." "Where will the fire be tonight?" demanded Mary Louise apprehensively. "I don't know. One of those wicked cottages, where the people go about half clad, and where they dance and feast until past midnight. I can't tell you upon which the Lord's anger will descend, but I know it will come. I know it. I must get water--pure water. I can't have innocent children burned to death." "But who are you?" repeated Mary Louise. "I am Rebecca. And I am going to meet my bridegroom at the well. My Isaac!" Her eyes gleamed with happiness as she trotted off down the hill, carrying that ridiculous pitcher in her hand. David and Mary Louise sat still, looking at each other in speechless wonder, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry at the poor deluded woman. "But she seems happy," remarked David. "So I guess we needn't pity her." "She's like that bride in the Dickens book," said Mary Louise. "The woman who was deserted on her wedding day and wore her wedding dress all the rest of her life, expecting her bridegroom to come back. Remember? That always gave me the creeps." "But this woman is happier. She's sure she's going to meet her Isaac at a well." He laughed. "No, I think we're more to be pitied than she is. For if she goes around setting fire to people's places----" "She ought to be locked up! Yet that seems a shame, if she does happen to be harmless." Mary Louise stepped on the starter. "Well, let's go on up to the Adams'. Maybe they can tell us who she is." They continued on up the hill to the farm and left the car at the entrance to the front yard, just outside the picket fence. The Adams place was a neat-looking frame house, painted white, and pleasant to look at. A big porch surrounded it on all sides, and here they saw Hattie Adams, seated in a rocking chair, sewing. She waved to Mary Louise. "Hello, folks!" she called genially. "Come on up! Any news?" "No, we haven't," replied Mary Louise as she sat down. "But I did want to ask you what you knew about the fire, Hattie, because Mr. Flick is sort of blaming my brother and the other small boys, and I know they didn't start it. So will you tell us when you left Flicks'--and all you know about it?" Hattie nodded solemnly. "Well, let me see," she began. "We had supper at half-past five last night, didn't we? And everybody was through eatin' about quarter to seven. Even Mis' Flick. The other two hired girls helped me wash some of the dishes, and then Mr. Flick drove 'em over to the Junction. He come back for Mis' Flick about half-past seven, I reckon. They put the car away and went to the picnic in a boat. I was just finishin' washin' dishes." "Did you see the boys or anybody around at all?" questioned Mary Louise. "Nary a soul. Everybody went to the picnic, as far as I know. I expected to go home, get fixed up, and get my brother Tom to row me over. But he wasn't anywhere around when I got back, and I didn't feel like gettin' the boat and goin' all by myself, so I just stayed home with Dad. I never knew a thing about the fire till I went over this mornin' as usual to work at Flicks'." "Your brother--or your father--didn't know anything about it, either?" "Dad didn't. I don't know about Tom. I didn't see him. He was off milkin' the cows when I got up, and I left before he come in for his breakfast. I usually get it and set it on the table and then run down to Flicks' quick as I can. But Mis' Flick never cares if I don't get there early, because we haven't many people for breakfast." "And that's all you know?" "Yes. Except what I heard this mornin' at Shady Nook--same as you heard." Mary Louise sighed. She didn't feel as if she were making any progress. She wanted to ask more about Hattie's father--Lemuel Adams--but she didn't know how. And about this brother Tom, too. If he had been away from the farm last night, maybe he was responsible for setting the inn on fire. Instead, however, she inquired about the strange creature who wandered about the countryside with her big pitcher under her arm. "Do you know a woman with gray hair who calls herself Rebecca, Hattie?" she asked. "We almost ran over her half a mile down the road. She stepped right in front of our car." The other girl laughed. "Rather!" she said. "Rebecca's my sister. She's never been right. But she's perfectly harmless, so we let her wander about as she wants. She wouldn't hurt a kitten." "But do you think she could be setting the places on fire?" "No," replied Hattie positively. "Rebecca's afraid of fires. She always wants to put 'em out. No, I wouldn't blame her." Mary Louise sighed and stood up. "I certainly wish we could find out what is the cause before anything else happens," she said. "I wouldn't worry about it if I was you," returned Hattie. "They can't do anything to your brother without proof.... It's lots worse for me. I've lost my job. And so has my brother Tom. He used to pick up a lot of work at odd times for Mr. Flick." Mary Louise stared in surprise; she had never thought of this angle of it. Here were two people who actually lost out by the fire! Surely this fact proclaimed the innocence of the entire Adams family, with the possible exception of Rebecca. "Did you need the work, Hattie?" she asked, gazing around at the big farm land that stretched out on all sides of the house. "Oh, we won't starve without it! But it meant spendin' money for Tom and me. And extra clothes. Besides, I liked it. It's awful dull livin' on a farm with only the chores to do. I'd go to the city and get a job if there was any. But I know there ain't." "Maybe Mr. Frazier will give you a job at the Royal Hotel," suggested Mary Louise. "Now that he has more business. Because I understand that most of the Shady Nook people are going to eat there." Hattie wrinkled her nose. "I hate that guy. But I suppose I will ask him--it's better than nuthin'. Tom goes every other day with butter and eggs and milk, so it would be easy to get there." "Well, good luck to you!" was Mary Louise's parting hope. "We'll be getting on. I'd like a swim this afternoon." David McCall's eyes brightened. They were going to have some fun, after all! "We'll get into our suits and go out in the canoe," said Mary Louise as she directed the car towards Shady Nook. "Maybe we can find Jane and Cliff and all go in together." The young man sighed: always this Clifford Hunter had to share his good times! But it was better than nothing, and later on, when the couple found not only Jane and Cliff, but the Robinson boys and the Reed twins, he had to admit that his afternoon had turned out pleasantly after all. CHAPTER VIII _Danger_ "Freckles," said Mary Louise at supper that evening, "will you lend us your tent tonight? Jane and I want to sleep outside." Jane raised her eyebrows. She couldn't remember expressing any such desire. But she said nothing: she wanted to see what Mary Louise was up to now. For her chum must have some purpose in the request: something to do with the mystery of the fires. It couldn't be just a desire for fresh air! "I suppose so," agreed her brother. "But you know my cot isn't very wide." "Oh, we'll manage all right," returned Mary Louise. "And thank you very much." It was not until after supper, while the girls were waiting for their boy-friends to come, that Jane had a chance to ask Mary Louise why she wanted to sleep outdoors tonight. "I want to sleep in my clothing, Jane," was the surprising reply. "Remember the scout motto, 'Be prepared'? That's ours for tonight." "Prepared for what?" "For a fire. I think there's going to be one. I'm only hoping that it won't be our cottage. But you never can tell." "What makes you think there will be one tonight?" demanded Jane. "From something I learned this afternoon from that Adams family. You remember hearing Freckles describing a queer creature he saw last night on his way home from the woods? Well, we almost ran over her this afternoon! With her pitcher, looking for well water! 'To put out the fires which the Lord sends upon the wicked' were her words." Jane giggled. "You think we're as wicked as that, Mary Lou?" she asked. "You know I don't believe that, Jane." "Then what do you believe? Why do you think that there will be another fire?" "I think that either this crazy woman sets the cottages on fire herself, believing that she is appointed by the Lord, or else that somebody she knows is doing it, and she has inside information somehow." "More likely she's just prattling," remarked Jane. "I hope so. But, anyhow, I want to be prepared to jump up at the first sign of smoke. I'm going to rig up a hose with the river, so that I can put it out if it does happen around our cottage." "You sound almost as crazy as the old lady, Mary Lou! Next thing you'll be taking your pitcher out for river water!" "Now, Jane, be yourself! You'll sleep out with me, won't you?" "I suppose so. But let's keep Silky with us, in case one of those gypsies comes along and grabs you, the way she did at Dark Cedars." "There aren't any gypsies anywhere around here," Mary Louise assured her. "No, but there's a tramp. Freckles saw him. And a crazy woman. And from the way Mr. Flick was carrying on this morning, he'll soon be crazy." "He's gone to Albany. And the crazy woman is harmless. But you're wise about Silky: he will protect us from any tramps that might show up." To Mary Louise's delight, Mrs. Gay raised no objection to the plan. After all, her daughter had often slept outdoors before. So, after a pleasant evening of games and dancing at the Reeds' cottage, the two girls went out to the tent. "You forgot your pajamas, Mary Louise!" called Mrs. Gay as she fixed up the girls' room for Freckles. "Oh, of course," replied her daughter. No need to alarm her mother by telling her that they intended to sleep in their clothing. They took off their shoes, changed into sweaters and skirts, and climbed into the cot. Silky lay down on the rug beside it. "It is close quarters," whispered Jane. "But nothing like that could keep me awake." "Me either," returned Mary Louise, with a yawn. Five minutes later they were both sound asleep, entirely forgetful of fires or danger. But their rest was short. About one o'clock Mary Louise was awakened by a soft growl from Silky. Instantly she sat up and peered out into the darkness. It was utterly black at the opening of the tent, for the night was starless, and the trees closed out all view of the sky. Yet she perceived something light--something white--coming towards her. For one wild moment a terrible thought took possession of her imagination: Was this indeed the angel of wrath, coming to destroy their house--as that queer woman had predicted? But, no: common sense came to her rescue and assured Mary Louise things like that didn't happen nowadays. There must be some other explanation. It must be---- A horrible inane laugh burst upon the silence of the night, wakening Jane with a cry of terror on her lips. A long arm reached through the opening of the tent, touching the girls' cot, snatching at their feet. Then another laugh, followed by hysterical sobbing. Mary Louise reached for the flashlight underneath her pillow. But she was calm now; she was sure of the identity of the intruder. It must be the crazy woman. She flashed the light into the creature's face, and the woman gasped in fear. "Don't harm me! Please!" she begged. "I'm the Lord's messenger. To tell you that the Smith's house is on fire. There are little children to be rescued. Go! Run! I'll follow as soon as I can fill my pitcher." Jane and Mary Louise looked at each other in wonder. Was what she said the truth, or only a figment of her crazy brain? But they did not dare take a chance. As the poor woman said, there were children at Smiths' big house on the hill: three children, two boys and a little girl, with only servants to look after them. And servants, unlike parents, too often think of their own safety first. "We'll go right away, Rebecca," Mary Louise assured her as she stepped into her pumps. "We're all ready." Taking only their flashlight for protection, she and Jane ran off as fast as they could go, with Silky faithfully following them. As soon as they had passed the ruins of Flicks' Inn, they could see the smoke rising from the hill beyond. There could be no doubt about it. Rebecca was right: the Smiths' house was on fire. The girls redoubled their pace and tore up the hill. As they came nearer they saw the flames and heard wild shouts of excitement. Then they met the Smith boys and several of the servants racing madly about. "How did it start?" demanded Mary Louise breathlessly as she almost bumped into Robby Smith. "Don't know. In the back, somehow. That's all wood, you know." "Can they save it?" "Doin' our best. All us men are working!" He stuck out his chest proudly, evidently enjoying the adventure immensely. Money was never a thing to the Smith boys. "Where's your sister?" demanded Mary Louise. "Around somewhere. Everybody got out safe." "With her nurse?" inquired Jane. "No. Nurse took the canoe across to the Royal--to phone to Four Corners for the fire engine." "Then we better hunt up little Ethel and take care of her," asserted Mary Louise. The child was only four--anything might happen to her. Flames were rising upward from behind the house, lighting up the scene vividly, showing the chauffeur, the gardener, and two maids desperately pouring water from buckets and pails. But Mary Louise did not see little Ethel. "Ethel! Ethel!" she cried wildly, raising her voice above the shouts of the men. "Where are you?" "Here me is!" came a plaintive reply, and a tiny head leaned out of a second-story window. "I comed up for my dolly!" A cold chill of horror crept over Mary Louise as she realized the dreadful peril of the child. But without a thought for her own danger she dashed through the front door and up the wide, smoke-filled staircase. "Come to the steps, Ethel!" she shrieked, her throat choking with smoke. "Come here--I'll get you." "Tan't. Too smoky," replied the little girl, beginning to sob. Mary Louise took one desperate leap and dashed through the upstairs hall to the nursery. Grabbing the child in her arms she groped her way back to the head of the stairs. She never knew how she reached the bottom of those steps. With her hand on the railing and her eyes tightly closed, she somehow made her slow progress. All she could remember was Jane's voice at the door as she lifted the child from her arms. Then darkness--choking for breath--silence, and blessed unconsciousness! When Mary Louise finally came to, Rebecca was giving her water out of her huge pitcher and patting her shoulder gently. "Speak, Mary Lou!" cried Jane frantically. "Oh, say you're still alive!" "I'm all right," replied her chum, managing a smile. "And little Ethel?" "She's fine. With her nurse. She's back from across the river now." Mary Louise turned her head and saw the woman at her side, clutching the child in her arms and sobbing hysterically. Other people had arrived by this time. Mr. Frazier had come over from the Royal Hotel, accompanied by Cliff Hunter, David McCall, and several other young people who were staying there, and Mr. Reed and all the Robinsons had gathered from Shady Nook. In another minute the fire engine from Four Corners came, and the volunteers got the flames under control. The front of the house was saved; only the wooden structure at the back was completely destroyed. "How did it happen?" Frazier was asking the Smiths' chauffeur, half an hour later, when the crowd had finally gathered about Mary Louise. "Nobody knows," replied the man. "Everybody here was in bed and asleep. No signs of any prowler, either. The fire just started with the back shed--and spread. I was the first to wake up." David McCall looked knowingly at Mary Louise. "No signs of anybody?" he asked the chauffeur. "No clues at all?" "Maybe this is a clue," interrupted one of the volunteer firemen, coming forward with a small box in his hand. "I found this pack of cards right where the fire must have started. But it had dropped into a pail of water--that's why it wasn't burned." "Maybe the boys were playing cards and smoking corn silk," suggested Cliff Hunter lightly. The chauffeur took the box from the fireman. "No, they ain't our cards," he said as he examined them. "I know ours, because I've bought them for the kids." David McCall stepped nearer and uttered a sudden exclamation of surprise. "Gosh!" he said solemnly. "Recognize them, McCall?" inquired Frazier. "I sure do. They're Cliff Hunter's. Nobody else around here can afford to pay a dollar a pack. Look--they're monogrammed!" Mary Louise glanced apprehensively at Cliff. He was holding the cards in his hand, nodding his assent. "Sure they're mine. The kids must have swiped them--or maybe I lost them and they found 'em. I myself haven't been up here to Smiths' once this summer before tonight." "Sez--you!" muttered David McCall under his breath. But not too low for Mary Louise to hear him and be genuinely frightened! CHAPTER IX _The Arrest_ When the girls came home from the fire that night they found Mrs. Gay and Freckles both awake and dressed. The boy was pleading with his mother to be allowed to go to the Smiths'. "The fire's out," announced Jane, sinking wearily into the swing on the porch. "Mary Lou passed out for a few minutes, too." Mrs. Gay uttered an exclamation of alarm. "Oh, but I'm all right now, Mother," her daughter hastened to assure her. "Only I would like something hot to drink. And my own bed to sleep in, if Freckles doesn't mind changing again." "A hot drink?" repeated her brother, in amazement. "Why hot?" Briefly Jane told the story of Mary Louise's daring act of heroism, and Mrs. Gay hurried off to make her daughter comfortable for the night. In their own soft bed again, the girls slept soundly until nearly noon the following day. Mary Louise was vexed with herself for wasting so much time when she saw the lateness of the hour. For if she was to do anything about solving the mystery of the fires she hadn't a single minute to lose. "Have you heard any news this morning?" she demanded of her brother as the family all ate their breakfast-lunch together. "Not much," replied the boy. "We went over to see the place, of course, as soon as we were up this morning. It must have been some fire! What's left of the house isn't fit to live in.... Gee, Sis, you and Jane were lucky to be in on it!" "Lucky for the Smiths!" amended Mrs. Gay. "I shudder every time I think of what might have happened to little Ethel." "Where are the Smiths now?" inquired Jane. "Moved over to the hotel. The chauffeur telegraphed Mr. Smith, and he and Mrs. Smith are coming this afternoon, with clothes and stuff." "Did you see the boys this morning?" questioned Mary Louise. "Yeah," replied the boy. "I took the canoe across the river, where they were in swimming early, with the chauffeur." "And couldn't they tell you anything more about the fire?" "Nope. Robby said he never wakened up till he heard the chauffeur yelling at them. Then they all grabbed their clothes and ran. The nurse was sleeping in the same room with little Ethel, and she saw to it that the kid got out safely." "And she went back for her dolly!" whispered Mrs. Gay, with a catch in her voice. "Mother, please stop thinking about that!" begged Mary Louise. "Everything came out all right--so do try to forget it." "I will, dear. But I think I've had enough of Shady Nook for one summer. I've about decided to pack up and go home tomorrow." "Oh, no!" protested Mary Louise, aghast. "We can't--run away!" "If only your father were here, he'd find out what's the cause of all these disasters. But I feel so unsafe--so helpless without him!" "I'm going to find out!" announced Mary Louise, with determination in her voice. "Just stay a little while, till we have a chance to see what develops!" "I won't promise. By the way, I've decided that we'll all go over to the Royal Hotel for dinner tonight. It will be a nice change--and you girls can dance afterwards, because practically everybody from Shady Nook eats there now." "Everybody except the Ditmars," said Mary Louise, with a significant look at Jane. She said nothing further about the young couple now, but an hour later, when the two girls were getting into their bathing suits, she mentioned the Ditmars again. "I've come to the conclusion that the criminal, the person responsible for the fires, is one of two people," she said, "with the possible chance of a third." "You suspect Horace Ditmar, of course?" asked Jane. "Yes. I think everything points to him. First, he has the _motive_. To get work for himself--to plan new houses to take the place of those that have been destroyed. If you've noticed, Jane, the three places that have been burned have all been big, expensive ones. The finest at Shady Nook! The Smiths and the Hunters are rich people, well able to afford to rebuild. And Flicks' was such a flourishing business that anybody would naturally expect them to want to start it up again. "Next, Horace Ditmar had the _opportunity_. He was absent from the two parties which were going on when the Hunters' and Flicks' places burned, and he could easily have slipped out last night and set Smiths' on fire. "And last--and most important of all, Dad often says--Ditmar's the kind of man who could do it. Quiet, almost sullen, I think, and deceitful. I've never spoken two words with him, but that's my opinion." Jane nodded solemnly: her chum's logic appeared sound. "But still," she remarked, "Horace Ditmar isn't profiting any by these fires. Nobody seems a bit inclined to rebuild." "No. Not yet. But wait till the Smiths come, and see whether Horace Ditmar tries to chum up with them. You know Adelaide Ditmar admitted that they went over to call on Mrs. Hunter after their fire and the woman almost snubbed her." "True.... Who's your other suspect, Mary Lou? Is it--Cliff?" "No. Positively not Cliff! In spite of that pack of cards they found over there last night. Imagine Cliff Hunter setting fire to a house that had three children asleep in it! It's unthinkable." Jane breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm glad to hear you say that," she said. "The other person I suspect strongly is Rebecca Adams," continued the young detective. "I hate to, for she seems harmless, but you just never can tell about a half-witted person like that. She wanders around at such queer times, and then her coming here last night, after predicting a fire in the afternoon, looks bad. She's got to be watched." "Right again," agreed the other girl admiringly. "But go on, 'Spencer Dean'! Who's your third suspect--the one you called a possible chance?" "The hotelkeeper, Frazier. It's meant a lot to his business. He has the motive all right, but I just can't see how he could have actually accomplished setting the places on fire. He was with us all evening the night Flicks' burned down, and Cliff says he was at the hotel when the Hunters' cottage burned. Still, Frazier's sly. He might have managed it." "I'll have to take a good look at him tonight when we go over to dinner," observed Jane, "and try to size up his character." Mary Louise reached for her beach robe and stepped into her slippers. "Come on, Jane," she said. "We've got to hurry, or the crowd will go home before we get there." They ran out to the canoe and jumped in, paddling down the river half a mile to the spot which was generally accepted as the best swimming place near Shady Nook. Here they found about twenty-five people gathered on the shore, all talking in the wildest excitement. And not a single person was in the water! "What's happened?" demanded Jane. "Anybody drowned?" "Another fire?" asked Mary Louise. "Neither," explained Sue Reed, turning to the newcomers. "But something almost as bad. A detective arrived from Albany and arrested Cliff Hunter! As an incendiary, I believe he said. A person who sets things on fire." "No!" gasped Jane in horror. "But how could he?" cried Mary Louise incredulously. "I mean, how could a detective from Albany know about the fires here at Shady Nook--let alone suspect Cliff?" "Somebody wired," said Sue. "Who?" demanded both girls in the same breath. Nobody seemed to be able to answer that question. All anyone knew was that Cliff had gone off in the detective's car and that his mother had insisted upon going with him. Mrs. Hunter was positive that it was all a put-up job, a plot of some kind to kidnap her son. The talking died down at last, and the crowd dispersed into the water. But nobody seemed to enjoy the swim that day. Discouraged and worried, Mary Louise and Jane decided to paddle back home in their canoe. "All your detective work gone for nothing!" lamented Jane miserably. "I'd just like to know, who's responsible for that arrest! It was such a dirty trick. I wonder if it was one of the Smiths' servants." "I don't know, but I'm going to find out tonight," returned Mary Louise. "Thank goodness we're going to the Royal to dinner, where we'll see everybody! Keep your eyes and ears open, Jane." As soon as the girls reached their cottage they told Mrs. Gay the startling news about Cliff Hunter. She was as much distressed as they were over the announcement, for she had known the young man so long that he seemed almost like a son. And, like the girls, she was positive of his innocence. "Let's get dressed early and go over to the hotel. Maybe we can find out something there," she suggested. "That's just what we're hoping," replied Jane. "And believe me, if we find that the Smith chauffeur is responsible--or that sneaky Frazier----" "It wasn't Mr. Frazier, I can assure you," interrupted Mary Louise. "He'll be losing money without the Hunters and their friends. No--but maybe----" "Maybe what?" "Nothing. No use of making guesses in the dark. We'll wait and see." The girls went into their room to dress. Mary Louise was surprised to see Jane take a simple white voile out of the closet. "Why, Jane, we're going to the Royal Hotel! To dine and dance. Don't you want to wear your pink georgette?" Her chum shook her head. "No. White's more appropriate for the way I feel tonight. I'm not in a party mood. Maybe I'd wear black, if I had it!" Mary Louise lowered her voice. "Do you care that much about Cliff, Jane?" she asked seriously. "I don't know about that part of it, Mary Lou--but I do feel dreadfully. Cliff was always so care-free and happy--just like a child with his card tricks. And then for somebody to pounce down on him like that and carry him off without any chance to defend himself----" "Don't worry about that, Jane," interrupted Mary Louise. "Don't forget that the Hunters are rich, and Mrs. Hunter will hire the best lawyer in the whole state of New York to defend him." "Well, that's comforting! But, just the same, it was a mean trick. And I'm going to miss Cliff dreadfully.... By the way, where was David McCall today? I didn't see him in swimming." Mary Louise frowned. "Neither did I," she muttered. Jane swung about sharply. "Mary Lou, you think David sent that wire, don't you?" she demanded. "I'm trying not to think so!" responded her chum. "But we'll find out tonight." The girls were ready in a few minutes, but they waited for Mrs. Gay and Freckles. They had expected to go across the river in the canoes, but Stuart Robinson stopped in to invite them to join their family in the motorboat, so that there was further delay. Instead of getting off early, the party did not leave until after six. Naturally, everybody talked of the arrest on the way over, but none of the Robinsons knew who was responsible for it. Stuart blamed it upon the Smiths' servants. When they reached the porch of the hotel, they found it deserted. Everybody ate early at the resort. The large dining room, with its pale yellow walls, its long screened windows, and its snow-white tables, was certainly a pleasant-looking place. The floors were of polished hardwood, so that when these same tables were removed the room was fine for dancing. The space was ample, too, for it was intended to accommodate a couple of hundred people at a meal. Tonight it looked fairly well filled, with all the guests from Shady Nook in addition to the regular diners. Mr. Frazier himself came up and found two tables for the Gays and the Robinsons. The little man looked happy and confident tonight, pleased, no doubt, that business was more flourishing. "Is David McCall here, Mr. Frazier?" asked Jane abruptly. "Yes," was the reply. "He's sitting with the Smiths this evening. Mr. and Mrs. Smith arrived this afternoon." "Thank you," answered Jane, without going into any explanation. Mary Louise smiled. "Nothing like going right to the point, Jane," she remarked when the hotelkeeper had turned away. "I mean to ask David point-blank! I hope I can make him ashamed of himself, if he did cause Cliff's arrest!" "I'm afraid you can't do that," put in Mrs. Gay wisely. "These self-righteous people who feel that it is their duty to tell on others----" She stopped, wondering whether she was hurting Mary Louise's feelings by speaking thus about David McCall, but her daughter was scarcely listening. "I think he'll come over to see us," Mrs. Gay concluded as she gave her order to the waitress, "with the Smiths." Mrs. Gay was correct in her surmise: when the Smiths had finished their dinner, they came straight to the Gays' table. Mrs. Smith, a well-dressed woman of perhaps thirty-five--though she looked much younger--put her hand on Mary Louise's arm. "I can never thank you enough for saving my baby, Mary Louise," she said. "All my life I'll be grateful to you!" Mary Louise smiled. "I'm thankful I was there in time, Mrs. Smith," she said. "Ethel is such a darling." "I wish we could do something for you, Mary Lou," put in her husband. "Can't you think of something you want?" He was too well bred to offer her a reward in money, the way old Miss Mattie Grant at Dark Cedars had done. "All I want is to find out who really did start that fire at your house," replied the girl. "Because I'm sure Cliff Hunter didn't!" She was staring past Mrs. Smith right at David McCall as she said this, with scorn in her eyes. Jane couldn't keep quiet any longer. She turned angrily to the young man. "Are you responsible for Cliff's arrest, David McCall?" she demanded. "I am," he stated calmly. "I did it to protect our insurance company. It just happens that our company holds most of the insurance up here at Shady Nook. And they've paid enough already--or will pay. So I don't want any more fires. It's my duty to protect their interests." "Oh, yeah?" retorted Jane, hot with fury. "Well, you're not doing it! Cliff Hunter never started those fires, and you'll find out soon he's innocent!" "How?" demanded David. "There will be another fire, just the same. We haven't got the guilty person yet. I know it!" Mrs. Gay shuddered. "Oh, I hope not!" she exclaimed. "But I believe we'll go home tomorrow." "We're planning to stay on here at the Royal while we see about repairing the damage," said Mrs. Smith. "But if it isn't safe----" "I guess the hotel's safe enough," put in her husband. "It's practically fireproof." David turned nonchalantly to Mary Louise. "Will you dance with me after supper, Mary Lou?" he asked. "It's my last night here. I'm going to Albany tomorrow." "I don't believe I care to dance," replied the girl icily--to Jane's infinite delight. "Jane and I are going to stay with Mother this evening." The party moved on, and Jane reached for her chum's hand under the table. "That's telling him!" she murmured in deep satisfaction. CHAPTER X _The Visit with Rebecca_ The following morning Mrs. Gay relented from her decision to pack up the family's things and go home immediately. It was such a perfect day; the river sparkled beautifully in the sunlight, the birds sang sweetly in the trees beside the cottage, and her children seemed happy. Yes, it would be absurd to run away from all this beauty. Mary Louise was overjoyed at her mother's decision. Immediately she began to make important plans for the day. She would go over to Adams' farm and find out where Rebecca was. If necessary, she could have the boys trail her during the day, in case the crazy woman might be planning another fire for tonight. Then she would call on the Ditmars and make it a point to talk to the man himself. Maybe she'd run over to Eberhardt's store at Four Corners, later in the afternoon, just to check up on his business. Oh, it promised to be an interesting day for Mary Louise! "Where will the 'Wild Guys of the Road' be today?" she asked her brother at breakfast. "Over at our cabin, I guess," replied Freckles. "Why?" "I may want to call on you for some sleuthing," explained Mary Louise. "I am a little suspicious about Rebecca Adams--that queer-looking woman you boys saw the night Flicks' Inn burned down. Remember her?" "Sure I do! Nobody'd forget a scarecrow like that!" "Well, you stay around here, where I can get hold of you, while I drive over to Adams' farm right after breakfast. If I can locate her, I'd like you boys to keep your eyes on her all day." Freckles' face lighted up with excitement. "You can count on us, Sis!" he assured her. "Thanks a lot. Now, you help Mother with the dishes, and I'll run along. Want to come with me, Jane?" "Yes, I do," replied her chum. "I'm really interested in the mystery of the fires. I admit now that they couldn't all be accidents." "And you'd kind of like to prove Cliff Hunter is innocent, wouldn't you, Jane?" teased Freckles. "Naturally! Who wouldn't?" was the retort. Mary Louise backed the car out of the garage and followed the same road she and David McCall had taken on their first visit to Adams' farm. She drove very cautiously now, almost as if she expected Rebecca Adams to dart out again from the bushes into the path of her car. But nothing happened, and the girls reached the top of the hill in safety. An old man was sitting out on the porch with one leg propped up on a chair. A young man was standing on the steps talking to him. He was a big fellow in overalls; Mary Louise remembered seeing him at Flicks' the day after the fire. He must be Hattie's brother Tom. The girls left the car at the fence and approached timidly, not quite sure how they would be received. "Good-morning," began Jane briskly, to hide her nervousness. "Is Hattie home today?" The old man looked questioningly at his son. "Have you seen her since breakfast, Tom?" he inquired. "Yeah," replied the young man. "She's still in the kitchen, or else upstairs with Rebecca.... Well, I'll be movin' on, Dad. I'll be away all afternoon--the hired man'll have to look after things." "Where you goin'?" "Four Corners." "What for?" Tom shrugged his shoulders: he wasn't going to tell his business in front of strangers, Mary Louise decided. Then he shuffled off. "See that you get back in time for the milkin'," was his father's command. "And stop around at the back now and call to Hattie. Tell her she's got visitors." Mary Louise and Jane sat down on the step and waited. "Too bad about that fire night before last," remarked the old man. "Lucky thing they saved the little girl." "It was Mary Louise who did that," announced Jane proudly, nodding towards her chum. "Hm! You don't say!" returned Mr. Adams. "Well, I reckon girls are braver'n boys nowadays. My Hattie's a good girl, too. Can't say anything ag'in' her." "Oh yes, everybody likes Hattie," agreed Mary Louise instantly. She wished that she could ask Mr. Adams about his other daughter--Rebecca--but she didn't know just how to begin. Jane, however, came bluntly to the point, as usual. "Mr. Adams," she said, "may I ask a question? You wouldn't mind--if it was something about your family?" The old man grinned. "I know what it is, miss. It's about my daughter Rebecca, ain't it? Yes, go ahead. I ain't sensitive about her--we ought to be used to her by now!" "That's right," agreed Jane. "Do you think she could be starting the fires? Do you know, she warned Mary Louise day before yesterday there would be another fire? And of course there was. And then she came to our tent that night and wakened us up to tell us that Smiths' house was on fire." Mr. Adams nodded. "I can believe it. But I don't think Rebecca would ever set anything on fire. She's afraid of 'em. She won't even light the stove or do any cookin' for that very reason. Many's the time she's come in with her pitcher of water and poured it right on the coals in the stove. It's aggravatin' if you're ready to get dinner. Hattie and me have both slapped her for doin' it, but she keeps right on.... No, I don't see how we could lay the blame on poor old Rebecca." "I'm glad to hear you say that," said Mary Louise. "She seems like such a happy, harmless creature that it would be a shame to shut her up somewhere or accuse her of a crime." "Didn't you say she is home now?" inquired Jane. "She's upstairs in bed with a sore throat," replied Mr. Adams. "That's why Hattie's stayin' around--and because my rheumatism is bad ag'in. Otherwise I reckon she'd be over to the Royal trying to get work. She was sorry to lose her job at Flicks'." "Yes, she told us." The girl herself appeared in the doorway. "Oh, hello, girls!" she exclaimed. "Glad to see you. Come on into the kitchen. I'm fixin' some broth for Rebecca. She's upstairs sick." The two girls entered the old farmhouse and followed Hattie through the hall, back into the old-fashioned kitchen. It was a large room, with several chairs near the windows, and Mary Louise and Jane sat down. "I am going to be frank with you, Hattie," began Mary Louise, "and tell you why we've come. You've heard, I suppose, that they arrested Cliff Hunter on the charge of burning three houses, and Jane and I believe he's innocent. So we want to find out who really is responsible. We thought there might just be a chance that it was Rebecca." "I don't blame you for thinking that," agreed the girl. "But I'm sure she couldn't be guilty of that particular thing. She's crazy enough to do it--only she's scared of fires." "Yes, so your father said. But she must know something, or how could she predict when they are going to occur?" "She's always predicting them," laughed Hattie. "Even when there aren't any. And sometimes when it's just a fire to toast marshmallows she gets all excited and swears it's the wrath of heaven descending on Shady Nook." "She came and warned us about the Smiths'," put in Jane. "She probably saw the flames. Sometimes she gets up in the middle of the night and goes out with her pitcher. She was probably wandering around that night. I guess that's how she caught her sore throat." Mary Louise nodded. "Could we go upstairs and see her when you take up her broth?" she inquired. "Sure. But I'm afraid you won't get much sense out of her today. She has a slight fever, and her mind's wandering a lot." Nevertheless, the girls followed Hattie up the carpeted staircase to a room on the second floor. The blinds at the windows were pulled down, but they could see Rebecca's face, surrounded by its tangled gray curls, on the pillow. She was muttering to herself when they entered the door. "Here's some chicken broth for you, Rebecca," said Hattie cheerfully. "And a couple of visitors." The woman stared at the girls blankly, and then shook her head. "Don't know them," she remarked. "Of course you do!" insisted Hattie, pulling up the window shade. "These are the girls who saved the little child at the Smith fire the other night." Rebecca sat up and peered at them. Suddenly a smile broke over her face. "Yes, oh, yes!" she exclaimed. "I do remember. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are wicked people, traveling off and leaving their children alone, and the Lord sent a fire to punish them. But I put the fire out with my well water, and these girls saved the baby. Yes, yes, I remember." Hattie straightened her sister's pillow and handed her the tray. "Get me my well water," commanded the woman, indicating the familiar pitcher which she always carried with her about the countryside. "Can't you tell us where you were when that fire started?" asked Mary Louise. "Didn't you go to bed that night?" The woman sipped her broth slowly. "No, I didn't," she said finally. "I was sittin' on the porch till Tom come home. About midnight, I guess you call it. And then it seemed as if I could see smoke over at Shady Nook. We're high up here on the hill; we can look down on the wickedness of you people in the valley." Jane repressed a giggle. Without noticing it, Rebecca continued: "So I picked up my pitcher and ran down the hill to Shady Nook to warn the people. I saw Smiths' house burnin' then, and I heard folks shoutin'. So I run along and tried all the doors at Shady Nook. All of 'em was locked. Then I looked in that tent and found you girls sleepin' and give you the warnin'." Apparently exhausted with the effort of eating and talking, she dropped over on her pillow asleep. Hattie picked up the tray, and the girls followed her out of the room. "I wish we could talk to your brother," remarked Mary Louise as they reentered the kitchen. "If he was out late that night, maybe he saw the fire start. Maybe he knows something----" "Maybe he wasn't out at all," laughed Hattie. "You can't depend on what Rebecca says. For the most part she's sensible, but sometimes she gets sadly muddled. Especially about fires. That's the one subject in particular that she's hipped about." "Well, I guess we better be going, Hattie," concluded Mary Louise, "if we want a swim this morning. Why don't you come over and go in with the crowd, now that you haven't any job? We'd like to have you." "Thanks awfully," returned the girl, "but I've got to stay here. Tom's gone off in the Ford, and I have to look after things. Dad can't even cook his lunch, on account of his rheumatism." "Where did your brother go?" inquired Mary Louise. "Four Corners, I think. He likes to play cards over there. I'm afraid he gambles. Dad doesn't know about it." No sooner were the girls out of the gate than Jane asked her chum why she had shown any interest in Tom Adams' whereabouts. "You don't suspect him, do you?" she questioned. "I suspect everybody," returned the other girl laughingly. "No, I really don't," she corrected, "because Tom Adams lost a job by Flicks' burning down. That won't be so nice for him, especially if he likes to gamble and needs the money to pay his debts. But I just thought he might know something, if he really was out till after midnight the night before last. He might even be protecting somebody!" "So I suppose we have to go to Four Corners this afternoon?" sighed Jane. "Not till after we call on the Ditmars," replied Mary Louise. "And a swim and a lunch come before that!" CHAPTER XI _Adelaide Ditmar's Plan_ "There are four new young men at the Royal," announced Jane as she set the table for lunch after their swim that morning. "Who? How do you know?" demanded Mary Louise. "Sue Reed told me. She says they used to come to Flicks' every summer for two weeks' vacation. So instead they are staying one week at the Royal Hotel. I don't know their names." Her chum nodded. "I know now. I can't think of their names either, but they'll probably come to me. They're Harrisburg people.... But, Jane, how can you take an interest in men when your own boy-friend is in such trouble? Last night you seemed so sad!" "You can't be sad all the time," replied the other girl. "It doesn't help Cliff any. Besides, I wasn't engaged to him, so I can get a kick out of meeting new men. Can't you, Mary Lou?" "I don't believe I can at the present moment. I've too much else to think about. But what do you want me to do about them, Jane? Have a party and invite them over?" "Oh no, nothing like that. Sue asked me to come to her cottage this afternoon to meet them. She said to tell you to come along, in case she didn't see you to invite you herself." "You go by yourself." Mary Louise set a plate of chicken salad on the table. "It does look good, doesn't it?" she remarked--"if I do say it myself!" "Yum! Yum!" agreed Jane. "But what makes you think you don't want to go over to the Reeds' with me?" "Because--I have other plans for this afternoon." "The mystery of the fires!" cried Jane, rolling her eyes. "Oh, Mary Lou, forget it for a while and have some fun!" "No, I can't. I've got to have a talk with the Ditmars." "You better stay away from them!" warned Jane. "You never can tell what that man might do if he got desperate!" Nevertheless, Mary Louise was firm in her resolution not to join the young people, and she was thankful that she had stayed home, for no sooner had Jane gone to the Reeds' and her mother to the Partridges' than Mrs. Ditmar herself came to the Gays' bungalow! "Oh, Mary Louise, I'm so glad to find you alone!" exclaimed the young woman. "Have you any engagement, or can I talk to you for a while?" "I haven't a thing to do but knit," replied Mary Louise, smiling to herself. "Jane has gone over to the Reeds' to dance, but I was sort of tired, so I thought I'd just take it easy. And I'll be delighted to have you, Adelaide." She addressed Mrs. Ditmar by her first name, for though she had a prefix of "Mrs.," she was, after all, hardly more than a girl. And Mary Louise wanted to make her feel at home. "Oh, thank you!" replied the visitor, sinking into a chair with a sigh of content. "You see, I haven't any friends up here at Shady Nook," she explained. "Nothing's turned out right. I thought Horace and I would have a lovely time with the young people--belong to the crowd and have lots of fun. But everybody avoids us. It's all Horace's fault, of course, for people were friendly at first. But when you repeatedly turn down invitations and are grouchy when you do go anywhere, naturally nobody invites you again." "It's a wicked shame--for you, I mean!" exclaimed Mary Louise. "And yet I can't blame Horace entirely. It's circumstances. Nothing turned out right," she repeated. "Tell me how you happened to come here, Adelaide," urged Mary Louise. She wanted to hear the story from the girl's own lips, to see whether it coincided with Cliff Hunter's. "Well, Horace is an architect, you know," began Adelaide. "And he did some work for Mr. Hunter last fall, just before we were married and before Mr. Hunter died. Mr. Hunter was so pleased with it that he gave Horace a little piece of land up here as an extra bonus, to build a cottage for ourselves, and he got Mr. Robinson to let him design his too. "We got married, and everything went finely until Mr. Hunter died. Then Horace didn't have much work. But Mr. Hunter had indicated that it would be good business for us to live up here during the summer and meet wealthy people." "Some of us are far from wealthy!" put in Mary Louise. "We didn't know that. We judged everybody to be like the Hunters. Besides, Mr. Hunter said that he owned a lot more land around Shady Nook, and as he sold it off in lots, he'd see that Horace got the contracts to design the new cottages. "We came up early in the spring, and Horace enjoyed designing our bungalow and the Robinsons'. We had enough money left to see us through the summer, but no prospects for the fall, unless something unexpected turned up.... Then Horace began to worry.... "Naturally, we thought Mrs. Hunter would be nice to us, but she was horrible. Just icy. I really think she believes Horace started that fire just to get the contract to build her a new cottage!" Mary Louise flushed. It was amazing to have Adelaide Ditmar calmly state the suspicion which was being whispered behind her back. It almost proved her husband's innocence, she thought. Evidently Adelaide did not notice Mary Louise's embarrassment, for she continued her recital in the same tone of voice. "I hate to tell you so much of my troubles, Mary Louise," she said, "but there's a reason for it. I have a plan, and I thought maybe you'd help me carry it out. You're so popular that anything you took a hand in would be sure to be a success." "Popular?" repeated Mary Louise in amazement. Even if she were, she wondered how popularity could help solve Adelaide Ditmar's worries. "I want to make some money to help Horace, and I think I see a way. Before I was married, I took a course in home economics, and I was assistant director of a Y.W.C.A. dining room. So you see I really do know something about food." Still Mary Louise did not see what on earth she was driving at. "So I'd like to start a dining room here at Shady Nook, now that the inn has been destroyed. No boarders, like Flicks', but just lunch and dinner service. I believe we could do it by using our living room and dining room and porch. That young Adams man--Tom, I believe his name is--could knock together some benches and tables for us, and we could gather up enough dishes, I think. Would you--go into it with me, Mary Louise?" Mary Louise was startled by the suggestion. What an idea! Yet she could not help admiring Adelaide's courage. "You really are serious?" she asked. "It would mean an awful lot of work." "Oh, I know that! But I don't have enough to do now.... Yes, I've thought it all out. We could hire Hattie Adams to wash dishes, and I could cook, and you and Jane could wait on the tables.... Would you, Mary Louise?" "I don't know," replied the other hesitatingly. "Maybe--if Mother is willing.... Does your husband approve, Adelaide?" "Oh, yes, he's keen about it! He has promised to do anything he can to help me. Buy all our supplies for us, and keep accounts, and even take turn in washing dishes, if we need him.... Oh, Mary Louise, please!" Adelaide seized her hand excitedly, and Mary Louise could not bear to refuse point-blank. "Mr. Frazier won't like it," she said. "Who cares about that old stiff?" returned the other girl. "He has no business to charge such terrible prices. I'll bet the people of Shady Nook will be glad to get out of paying them!" Still Mary Louise hesitated. Was this plan just another proof of the Ditmars' guilt in the burning of the cottages? No; that didn't seem possible. Whatever crime Horace Ditmar might commit, Mary Louise felt sure that his charming wife could have no part in it. And she longed dreadfully to help her out. "I'll talk it over with Mother and Jane," she finally agreed, "and let you know tonight after supper. Will you be home then?" "Yes, indeed! Horace and I will be waiting for you on the porch of our bungalow.... And now I must go, Mary Louise, and talk over the plans with him. I'm really thrilled about it--it'll give us a new interest in life. Oh, I do hope you'll decide to help me!" And, pressing Mary Louise's hand affectionately, she darted off down the steps. For a long time Mary Louise sat still, her knitting lying forgotten in her lap, while she thought over Adelaide's startling proposition. Maybe it was the best thing in the world that could have happened; perhaps fate was playing right into her hands. The opportunity to know and to watch Horace Ditmar would be perfect; if he really were guilty, she surely ought to be able to find it out upon such close association. But, on the other hand, the work would take a great deal of time. Time from recreation, time from following up other clues that might transpire concerning other suspects. Her mother would probably disapprove, and no doubt Jane would object. Well, she wouldn't insist upon Jane's helping her; no doubt Mabel Reed would jump at the chance of making some extra money, for she expected to earn her own way through college. She'd give it a try, she finally decided as she folded up her knitting and put it back into her bag. Now she must turn her attention to other matters. She wanted to drive over to Four Corners and ask the storekeeper some questions about Tom Adams. And possibly have a talk with the young man himself. She wished she had kept Freckles with her, even though she didn't need him to trail Rebecca Adams. With Jane over at the Reeds', she would have to drive to Four Corners alone. But, after all, it wasn't much of a trip--only four or five miles at the most. She found a list of needed groceries on a pad in the kitchen which her mother kept for that very purpose, and took her own pocketbook. Twenty minutes later she drew up at the entrance to the store. As Jane had remarked, Eberhardt's looked like anything but a grocery store. It was an old-fashioned country house with a wide front porch, and although Mary Louise had never noticed it before, there was a screened-in porch around at the side, partially hidden by a huge elm tree. As she locked her car she heard voices from this porch: men's voices; and the remark which one of them made caused her to listen in astonishment. "I'm sick of your card tricks, Tom Adams!" he sneered. "Think you'll make me fergit them hundred berries you owe me? Well, I ain't a-goin' a fergit it! You pay me by tonight, or I'll----" "You'll what?" drawled Tom Adams in a voice which Mary Louise instantly recognized from having heard it that morning. "Beat me up?" His laugh was contemptuous. Evidently the other fellow was a little man, Mary Louise decided. "I'll see that nobody ever plays another game with you, Tom Adams, that's what I'll do! A liar and a cheat----" "Hold on there!" interrupted the other. "I'm a-goin' a pay you, Bill! Don't I always square up my debts?" "You always win," returned his accuser. "This is my first streak of luck in a year!" "I'm payin' you tomorrow, after I collect a little bill a guy owes me!" "A little bill? Who around here could owe you a hundred smackers?" "None of your business----" A voice from the store interrupted this argument. "Boys, boys! Not so much noise!" called the storekeeper. Mary Louise, realizing that she had been sitting in her car for several minutes, got out and went into the store. "Quite a card party you have out there, Mr. Eberhardt," she remarked. The man's face flushed. "Yeah. Those boys are gettin' too old fer that sort of thing. I let 'em play games there when they was nuthin' but kids, but now they're growed up, and it gives my store a bad look. Harmless, of course, but I reckon I better put a stop to it." "Not so harmless if they gamble to the extent of owing each other a hundred dollars," remarked Mary Louise shrewdly. "Oh, you must be mistaken about that, Miss Gay. That was only their little joke. Nobody round here has a hundred dollars to throw away." Mary Louise smiled and pretended not to have any further interest in the matter. Nor did she ask Mr. Eberhardt any questions about Tom Adams--for it wasn't necessary. She had learned plenty about the young man for herself! So she merely handed the storekeeper her list, paid her bill, and departed. "So Tom Adams does card tricks!" she muttered to herself as she started the car. "With Cliff Hunter's cards, no doubt!" She smiled with satisfaction: she'd write that fact to Cliff tonight.... "But who," she asked herself, "could be paying Tom Adams a hundred dollars--and for what? Surely not for the odd jobs he did for the people of Shady Nook, or for Frazier at the Royal Hotel!" At last, she believed, she was on the right trail in solving the mystery of the fires! CHAPTER XII _Getting Business_ No one was at home when Mary Louise returned from her visit to the store at Four Corners. What a splendid chance it was to write to Clifford Hunter to tell him about Tom Adams' card tricks! With this piece of evidence, a clever lawyer ought to be able to clear Cliff of all suspicion. "Tom Adams probably left that pack of cards at the Smiths' deliberately," she wrote. "I feel almost positive now that he is the person who is starting the fires. He had the _opportunity_; each time one occurred, he was nowhere to be found. I think he is doing it at somebody else's orders--for a sum of money. But I can't find out who is paying him, and I feel rather certain it isn't his father. "I intend to watch Tom Adams like a hawk for the next twenty-four hours, and as soon as I can find out who is responsible, I'll wire the police. But in the meantime, Cliff, I think you ought to be freed, and I wish you and your lawyer would come back to Shady Nook." She signed and sealed the letter and took it immediately to the box at the entrance to Shady Nook, where the rural postman collected mail each day. Then, feeling that a fine piece of work had been accomplished, she put away the groceries and started the evening meal. But Mary Louise made no mention of her suspicions to the family that evening, nor did she say anything about her letter to Cliff. She'd tell Jane later, when they were alone, for there was no need of bringing up the subject of the fires again in front of her mother. If Cliff did return, it would be a pleasant surprise for Mrs. Gay--and the other inhabitants of Shady Nook. Mary Louise's only regret would be David McCall's absence: she would love to have the pleasure of saying, "I told you so!" to that cocksure youth. There was plenty to talk about at the supper table that evening, without bringing up the mystery of the fires. Jane had to tell all about the new young men she had met and the fun they had had over at the Reeds'. She thought it was a crime for Mary Louise to have missed it all. "But I had a caller," announced her chum. "In a different way, my afternoon was just as thrilling as yours!" "You don't mean David McCall, do you?" snapped Jane. "Oh no. He's gone home. No--not a man. A girl. Adelaide Ditmar." "Adelaide Ditmar! What in the world did she want?" "I'll tell you," replied Mary Louise. "And you must listen, too, Mother, for I want your advice." And she proceeded to outline the proposition which the young woman had made to her. "I want to go into it," she concluded. "I think it means everything to Adelaide. Lots of people have been poorer than the Ditmars at one time or another, but I don't believe anybody has ever been much more desperate." Jane frowned. "I don't see why _we_ have to give up our vacation and work hard just because a married couple can't get on!" she objected. "You don't have to," replied Mary Louise. "But it happens I want to. And I think Mabel Reed will be keen to help--if you don't want the job, Jane. So, if you don't mind, I'll run right over there after supper." "Of course I don't mind," laughed Jane. "Anybody that's ambitious has a right to work! But you better wait a while, Mary Lou. The Reeds may be over at the hotel, eating their dinner." "No, they're not," put in Mrs. Gay. "Mrs. Reed told me herself that they couldn't afford to go over there oftener than once a week--with all that family." "You don't mind my doing it, Mother?" inquired Mary Louise. "No, dear--provided you don't get too tired. But if you do, you can easily stop. Will you promise me that?" "Of course I will, Mother," agreed the girl as she started to gather up the dishes. "Stop that!" protested Jane. "I may not be ambitious, but I'm not going to let you get the supper and wash the dishes both. Freckles and I are clearing up tonight. You run along, Mary Lou!" "Suits me!" agreed her chum as she hurried off to the Reeds' cottage. Mabel Reed listened to the proposition with delight and immediately consented to help. "Let's go right around Shady Nook now," she suggested, "and get the people to sign up for the meals. Then we'll have something definite to take to Adelaide." "You are a business woman, Mabel!" exclaimed Mary Louise admiringly. "But we'd have to quote prices, wouldn't we?" "Make it the same as Flicks' used to be--forty cents for lunch and sixty for dinner. The Royal charges a dollar for lunch and a dollar and a half for dinner. So everybody would save a dollar and a half a day by eating with us!" "Frazier is going to hate us," remarked Mary Louise. "Of course he is. But who cares?" "He'll huff and he'll puff----" muttered Mary Louise, half to herself. "Well, come on--let's go. I've got a pencil and paper." "You always have a pencil and paper with you," observed Mabel. "Is that because you expect to become a writer?" "No, I don't believe I'll ever be a writer, Mabel. I'd rather _do_ things than write about them." She wished she might tell the other girl what she had accomplished earlier in the summer at Dark Cedars with the help of her notebook and pencil, but that would seem too much like bragging. Besides, the only way to succeed in life is to forget about the past and keep looking forward. "Write down seven Reeds and four Gays," said Mabel. "And two Ditmars. That makes thirteen already." "But four of those won't eat till the others are served, so we'll need only nine chairs so far.... Now, let's see. Where shall we go first?" "Let's go right up the line of the cottages. Hunters' is gone, of course, so we'll try the Partridges. They have four in their family." "Mrs. Partridge is a great friend of mother's," observed Mary Louise. "I think they will sign up." The two girls walked a quarter of a mile up the private road that wound along beside the river, past the Hunters' grounds, on to the pleasant five-room cottage that belonged to the Partridges. As there were no young people in this family, Mary Louise did not know them so well, but she felt sure that they would like the idea of having their meals on this side of the river. Mr. and Mrs. Partridge, and the two sisters who spent the summer with them, were just coming across the river in Mr. Frazier's launch when the girls reached the scene. The hotelkeeper himself was running the motorboat. Mary Louise smiled at them and waited until the launch had puffed off before she explained her plan. Mrs. Partridge was delighted. "Of course we'll come--for our dinners," she agreed immediately. "My husband is going back to the city, except for week-ends, and we three women would just as soon have a bite of lunch at home. But I hate this bothering with a boat every night for dinner, although Mr. Frazier has been most kind." "Then we can count on you three?" asked Mary Louise in delight. "Yes--and Mr. Partridge too on Saturdays and Sundays," added the woman. Mary Louise marked down the names, and the two girls continued on their way, pleased with their success. "That's three more paying guests," she said, "totaling twelve!" "It's thrilling!" exclaimed Mabel. It was even more thrilling to find the Robinsons just as enthusiastic about the plan, adding four more names to their list. "That's all!" sighed Mabel. "Unless we go over to the Royal and try to get the Smiths." "They wouldn't come," returned Mary Louise, "because they'd have nowhere to sleep. And besides, they don't care about economy. They have piles of money." "True. But I'll tell you whom we can get, Mary Lou: those four Harrisburg boys. They can put up tents in the woods and eat at Ditmars'. They'll love it, and besides, it will make it possible for them to stay at Shady Nook a lot longer. Their money will go so much farther than it would at the Royal." "That is an idea, Mabel!" cried Mary Louise. "And maybe they'd be willing to eat at a second table, so we shouldn't have to get extra chairs." "The very thing. Sixteen chairs isn't so bad. I guess the Ditmars have four, and we each have a card-table set. I suppose the Robinson boys can knock together a bench and some chairs for a porch table." "Adelaide Ditmar suggested getting Tom Adams to do it." "Then we'd have to pay him! No, I think we better ask the Robinson boys or Horace Ditmar." The girls reached the bungalow and found the young couple waiting for them on the porch. Horace Ditmar was a good-looking man of perhaps twenty-five--not much older than David McCall, Mary Louise thought--and Adelaide was scarcely twenty. They were a handsome pair: it was too bad if they weren't happy. Adelaide's eager blue eyes were gazing into Mary Louise's as if she could not wait for her answer. "Mabel and I have decided to help you, Adelaide," announced Mary Louise immediately. "We just stopped at all the bungalows to find out how many people we can get to promise to come to the meals. We have sixteen for dinners and thirteen for lunches--besides all of us who will be working." "Sixteen!" repeated the young woman in delight. "Oh, Mary Lou, I knew everybody adored you! If I'd asked them myself they would all have refused." "Now, dear!" remonstrated her husband, with such an affectionate look at his wife that Mary Louise was surprised. Maybe Horace Ditmar was all right after all! The girls sat down on the porch and plunged right into the discussion of all the details of carrying out the plan. The young man was surprisingly helpful and resourceful. As Adelaide had said, he was keenly interested. He not only promised to provide the needed tables and chairs, but he drew plans for placing them and for arranging the kitchen to utilize every bit of its space. He knew how to make home-made ice cream, he said, and he would drive over for all the supplies twice a week. In fact, he took so much of the work upon his own shoulders that the girls felt as if there was little for them to do in advance. They were to open for business the day after tomorrow. "And all we have to do is borrow some silverware and dishes," remarked Mabel as the girls rose to go. "And engage Hattie Adams to wash them," added Adelaide. "But I wish you wouldn't go home yet, girls. I was hoping we might play a little bridge." Her tone was wistful. Mary Louise knew how eager she was to make friends. "We'll be over tomorrow," replied Mabel, "but I think we ought to go now, because those Harrisburg boys are over at our bungalow, and I want to see whether I can't get them to camp over here in the woods and take their meals with us. There are four of them." "Good girl!" approved Horace. "Go right after the business!" So the girls said good-night and hurried off, full of excitement over their new adventure. All the young people who had gathered at the Reeds' were enthusiastic too: they were tired of dressing up and going to the Royal Hotel, and enjoyed the informal intimacy of a small boarding house like Flicks'. The four young men from Harrisburg were only too glad to adopt Mabel's suggestion, and planned to borrow the tents and start camping out the same day that the dining room was to open. During the entire evening the mystery of the fires was not mentioned. Indeed, nobody thought of them until Jane and Mary Louise were alone again, getting ready for bed. Then the former referred to them casually. "I guess you won't have time for solving any more mysteries now, Mary Lou," she remarked, "with this dining room on your hands." "On the contrary," returned her companion, "that is just one reason why I wanted to go into the thing. I was anxious to get to know Horace Ditmar better. And I'm practically convinced that he had nothing to do with the fires!" "Then who?" inquired Jane. "Rebecca Adams?" "No, not Rebecca. But I did get a new clue this afternoon, Jane. I learned something that made me suspicious about her brother Tom!" "Tom Adams? Why, Mary Lou, I thought you dismissed him long ago. When we learned that the Adams family are losing jobs by these fires." "Yes, I know. But there's something we don't understand yet. Anyhow, Tom Adams does card tricks." "Card tricks?" "Yes. He probably learned them from Cliff, and maybe swiped his cards to do them!" Jane's eyes opened wide with understanding. "That pack of cards at the Smith fire!" she cried. Mary Louise nodded. "Exactly! That's just what I've been thinking. So I wrote to Cliff this afternoon and told him about it." Jane threw her arms around her friend and hugged her. "You are a wonder, Mary Lou!... But--but--can you prove anything?" "Not yet. But I mean to watch Tom Adams and see whether I can't learn some more." "If he really is guilty and finds out that you suspect him," observed Jane, "he'll take out his spite by setting fire to this bungalow. You better be careful, Mary Lou!" "I expect to be," was the reply. "I'm looking for trouble!" But she hardly expected it in the form in which it came the following day. CHAPTER XIII _The Threat_ "Is there anything I can do to help you people?" inquired Jane of Mary Louise the following morning at the breakfast table. "Pare potatoes--or something?" "No, thanks, Jane," returned her chum. "We're getting along fine. I would like to have you pull a load of dishes over to the Ditmars' for me, Freckles," she added, turning to her brother, "in your wagon." "O.K., Sis," was the cheerful reply. They left soon after breakfast, promising to be back again in time for lunch. It was a beautiful day, and Mary Louise was in high spirits, anxious to get everything arranged for the opening of the dining room the following morning. Naturally, she expected Adelaide Ditmar to feel the same way; she was therefore taken aback when the young woman came to the door with a distressed expression on her face and actual tears in her eyes! "That husband of hers has done something," Mary Louise thought resentfully. "Oh, why can't he behave himself?" "Come in, Mary Lou," invited Adelaide, repressing a sob. "You too, Freckles, if you can keep a secret." "Of course I can!" replied the boy proudly. They entered the charming little house, and their hostess closed the door behind them. Then she reached into the pocket of her apron and took out a coarse piece of paper which she handed to Mary Louise. "Read that," she said. Mary Louise held the paper in front of her so that her brother could see it at the same time. The message was printed in pencil, and the words were misspelled, but there could be no mistaking its meaning: "_Clos up your place rite away, or expeck FIRE!_" Mary Louise read it twice before she handed it back to Adelaide Ditmar. "How did this come?" she demanded. "I found it under the back door," replied the young woman in a hoarse whisper. "But you didn't see anybody?" "No." "When did you find it?" "Early this morning. About half-past seven." "Did you show it to your husband?" asked Freckles. "Not yet," replied Adelaide. "He's been so nervous, you know, and this work has just been wonderful for him. Oh, I can't bear to give it up! It means more than money to us--it means an occupation for Horace, saving him from melancholia, perhaps. Mary Lou, what can we do? Isn't there some policeman we can get to watch our house?" "Shady Nook never had one," replied the other girl. "I certainly do wish my Dad were here!" "Your father? What could he do?" "He's a detective," explained Mary Louise. "The best detective in the world!" added Freckles. "Oh, where is he?" sobbed Adelaide. "Can't we send for him?" "I'm afraid not. He's out West somewhere, on a case. No, I don't see what we can do except watch. Never leave the house." She turned to her brother. "You boys scan the woods for suspects, Freckles--and keep a hidden guard around the cottage.... I'm going to look for Tom Adams--something made me suspicious of him yesterday. Don't let him into the place, Adelaide.... And you'll have to tell Horace, because he will need to be on guard too--especially at night." "It's the work of a maniac, I'm sure," said Adelaide. "Nobody else would want to burn down all these cottages." "Of course, it may be," agreed Mary Louise. "But I don't believe it's Rebecca Adams who's doing it. She's sick in bed.... Of course, she might be up and around by this time--but I don't think so. Anyway, I'm going over there this afternoon to engage Hattie for the job here, and I'll make it a point to find out about Rebecca then. In the meantime, let's get on with our work." Adelaide dried her eyes, and Freckles rushed off to round up his gang. Mary Louise settled down to work; when Mabel Reed came over an hour later, and Horace Ditmar returned in the car with his purchase of supplies, they were both amazed at the progress which had been made. The little house had been transformed into a tea room! With trembling hands Adelaide showed the threatening message to her husband. She chose a time when Mabel Reed was out of the room, for Mary Louise had urged secrecy. No use frightening people away from the dining room! Horace Ditmar did not appear to be alarmed. "I think it's just a practical joke on the part of those Smith kids," he said, "or maybe those Harrisburg boys. The best thing we can do is ignore it. I don't think we need to worry." And he smiled so confidently that Mary Louise wondered for a moment whether Horace Ditmar could have set those other cottages on fire himself and because of this fact feel perfectly safe about his own? But, no, that wasn't possible, she felt sure. She had a new clue now: someone was objecting to the serving of meals to Shady Nook people. The same person who had destroyed Flicks' Inn by fire--the only person who could possibly resent the project. It was Frazier, she thought, Frazier who was guilty. The hotelkeeper could not bear to lose his business, and he was bribing Tom Adams to start the fires.... But how could Mary Louise possibly prove this fact? However, she said nothing of her suspicions to the Ditmars or to Freckles, but she warned the boy not to mention the threat at home, for fear of alarming her mother. So the Gay family had a pleasant lunch that day, little thinking of the danger that was lurking so terribly near. They talked happily of the opening of the dining room on the morrow and of their plans for that afternoon. "We're all going to play tennis on the hotel court after lunch," announced Jane. "The boys said they wanted to use it while they have the chance, because they're going to put up their tents over here tomorrow morning. And Frazier will probably be so mad about losing them that he'll refuse us all the use of the court." "We've got a court of our own," observed Mary Louise. "Yes, but it's not so good as the Royal's. Still, it will do," agreed Jane. "I don't suppose you'd have time to play with us this afternoon, would you, Mary Lou?" "I don't know," replied her chum. "I have to hunt up Hattie Adams--or we'll have to do all the dish-washing ourselves tomorrow at the dining room. I'll paddle across the river with you--she may be working at the Royal Hotel. If she isn't, I'll have to come back and go see her at the farm." "You certainly do like to work on a hot day," yawned Jane. "After all, it's not nearly such hot work as tennis--with those strenuous boys," returned Mary Louise. "Well, if you do go to Adams' farm, be sure to get back in time for a swim," urged Jane. About an hour later the two girls put their tennis rackets into the canoe and paddled across the river. The tennis court was around behind the hotel, away from the shore. Here they found half a dozen young people, four of whom were playing doubles. The two extra boys on the bench moved over and made room for Jane and Mary Louise. "They'll be through in a minute--the score's five-two now," announced one of the young men. "Then we four will have a set." "I don't believe I had better play now," replied Mary Louise, "because I have to go hunt up Hattie Adams." "Who's she?" "A girl we want to get to wash dishes at our dining room. She may be working here now. Or perhaps I can find her brother. Do you happen to know Tom Adams? A fellow who does odd jobs around the hotel sometimes?" The boy nodded. "Yes, I know the guy you mean. Big brute with light hair? I think he's back in the garage now, fixing up Frazier's truck." Mary Louise jumped to her feet: this was just the information she wanted. She would rather see Tom Adams than his sister, although she didn't actually want to talk to him. Just to check up on his movements! "Be back in a few minutes!" she called as she disappeared through the clump of bushes behind the tennis court. In her sneakers she skipped along noiselessly, unconscious of the fact that an outsider might regard her actions as "snooping." Yet when she stopped just outside of the garage door because she heard men's voices inside, she realized then that she was really eavesdropping. Immediately she identified the voices as belonging to Mr. Frazier and Tom Adams. The latter was evidently changing a tire on the truck. "I tell you I've got to have that money tonight!" snarled Tom Adams. "I owe a guy a hundred bucks, and I need the rest myself." "I can't pay it all now," whined Frazier. "I just haven't got it. I can let you have three hundred and the rest when the job is finished." "Oh, yeah? Well, the job ain't a-goin' a be finished till you cough up! All the dough." Frazier's tone became more whining. "Business isn't any too good----" "What would it have been without me to help?" retorted the younger man. "Did I--or did I not put money in your pocket?" "Oh, sure you did. And I'm willing to pay you for it." There was silence for a moment, while Mary Louise waited breathlessly. She could not see the men's faces, but she had no difficulty in following their conversation. She heard the rattling of paper money and knew that Frazier must be paying Tom something. "Want a receipt?" demanded Tom presently. "Good Lord, no!" cried the other. "Nothing in writing, Tom. It might be used against us. Guess I can trust you." "We've got to trust each other," sneered the younger man. "That's why I say you have no right to hold out on me. I'm doin' the dirty work." Mary Louise felt that she had heard enough. Everything was perfectly clear to her. The only thing required was to wire the Albany police. Forgetful of her own danger and her need for secrecy until her discovery could be announced, she ran across the front of the garage to the kitchen door of the hotel. But not lightly enough: both Frazier and Tom heard her and stepped out of the garage to see who she was. "What do you want, Mary Louise?" demanded Frazier, wondering whether or not she could have overheard their conversation. "Lost a tennis ball?" "No--no--I'm--looking for Hattie. Hattie Adams." Her voice was trembling; she did her best to make it sound unconcerned. "Hattie doesn't work here," replied Mr. Frazier. "Hasn't for a long time. What gave you that idea?" "I thought maybe she would, after she lost her job with Flicks'." "Well, she doesn't. And I'd thank you to keep out of my kitchen and other places where you don't belong, Miss Mary Louise Gay!" returned Frazier. Like all guilty people, he was angry at the innocent, and he glared at the girl with hate in his eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Frazier," replied Mary Louise. Turning to Tom she asked, "Is Hattie over at the farm?" "Reckon so," muttered the young man. Mary Louise turned about and went back to the tennis court. Another set was in progress. Jane was playing now, and Mary Louise did not like to interrupt the game. So she merely picked up her tennis racket and told the young people on the bench that she was going home. "I'll have to take the canoe," she said. "But I guess some of you people can see that Jane gets across the river in case I don't return in time." "O.K.," agreed the boys. Mary Louise walked rapidly toward the river, trying to formulate a plan as she went. But it was very difficult. Since there were no police at Shady Nook, and the only telephone anywhere near was at the Royal Hotel, she didn't know how to proceed. There could be no doubt that Frazier and Tom Adams were guilty of starting the fires at Shady Nook, but what were the first steps she should take in having them arrested? Whom should she inform first? Oh, if her father were only here to help her! "They'll burn the Ditmars' down if I'm not quick," she thought. "And they may do something to me, because I think both men suspect that I overheard that conversation. Oh, what shall I do?" She paddled across the river and tied the canoe to the dock. Then she went inside the bungalow, debating whether or not to take her mother into her confidence. But that question was answered for her. Mrs. Gay was not at home, so there was no opportunity to tell her. Mary Louise sat down at the little desk in her bedroom and took out her notebook. While the conversation between the two men was fresh in her mind she'd write it down, to show to the police when they arrived. Word for word, just as Frazier and Tom Adams had spoken. After she had finished that, she sat still for a while, thinking. At last she decided upon a plan. "I'll go to Adams first and make sure Hattie will be over tomorrow," she thought. "Because I mustn't let Adelaide down. Then I'll drive on to the railroad station and wire the police in Albany. Maybe I'll send Mrs. Hunter a telegram too, so that she can help me out on the other end." She glanced at her costume--a red-and-white sports dress, which she usually wore for tennis because of its short, full skirt. That would do, although it was a little conspicuous--easy for Tom Adams to identify in case he wanted to know what she was doing. She'd change her shoes, however, for she liked pumps better than sneakers. Ready at last, she went through the back door of the bungalow to the garage. But here she met with a disappointment she had not expected. The car was not there! Then she remembered. Her mother had promised to take Mrs. Partridge and her sisters to a country fair that afternoon and would be gone until six o'clock! "So there's nothing for me to do but walk," she concluded. "Oh, if Cliff were only here so I could borrow his!" But if Cliff were here and his house had not been burned, there would be no necessity of sending that wire. She started at once, cutting across a field and walking as fast as she could, in spite of the heat, for it was almost four o'clock now, and she and Jane had promised her mother that they would prepare the supper. But Jane was a good scout, Mary Louise thought; she'd go ahead just the same if she were alone, so that part needn't worry her. The important thing was to get that telegram to Albany before anything disastrous happened. Yet her fears were entirely for the Ditmars as she trudged up the long hill to the Adams farm. Never once was she afraid for her own sake--not until her own horrible fate descended upon her with the suddenness of a clap of thunder. Then, and then only did she realize what a risk she had taken by coming to this lonely place by herself. Away from her friends, her family--everybody--alone, with a cruel enemy and a crazy woman! For Mary Louise Gay was forcibly prevented from going to the station that afternoon to send the wire to the police in Albany! CHAPTER XIV _The Search_ Jane Patterson finished her tennis match and came back across the river in a canoe belonging to one of the boys, just as Mary Louise had suggested. Although she had hoped that her chum would return in time for the afternoon swim, she was not surprised when Mary Louise failed to appear. Adams' farm was farther off than you thought--when you had to go the whole distance on foot. Jane remembered that Mrs. Gay had taken the car to the fair. She managed to find Freckles in the water and asked him to come right back to the bungalow after the swim. "Mary Lou has gone to Adams' farm to see Hattie," she explained. "She had to walk, so she'll be all in when she gets back. Your mother will be tired too. So let's have supper ready, Freckles. You can set the table and crack the ice for the tea." "O.K., Jane," agreed the boy. "I'll be with you as soon as I can dress." The two young people worked fast: at six o'clock, when Mrs. Gay drove back from the fair, they had the meal on the table. "It certainly smells good, girls!" she exclaimed as she came through the kitchen door from the garage. "Girls nothing!" retorted Freckles. "You mean 'girl and boy,' Mother. I did a lot of work for this meal." "That's fine, dear," replied Mrs. Gay. "But where's Mary Lou?" "She went over to Adams' farm to see Hattie," answered Jane. "And she hasn't come back yet." "In all this heat? Oh, that's too bad! She should have waited till I got home with the car. I didn't know she was going." "She wasn't sure of it herself. She was hoping to find Hattie over at the hotel. But evidently she didn't, for she didn't wait to play any tennis." "Well, I guess she'll be along soon," remarked Mrs. Gay cheerfully. "We'll keep a plate hot for her. But let's eat. We're all hungry, and this food is too good to spoil by drying up." The meal passed off pleasantly; nobody thought of being worried by Mary Louise's absence. But as the minutes went by and she did not come, Freckles was the first to become anxious. For he remembered the threat to the Ditmars on that coarse piece of paper that morning, and he knew that Mary Louise was involved in that same business. When seven o'clock struck and still his sister had not put in an appearance, he suggested that his mother take the car and drive over to Adams'. "It's such a lonely road up to that farm," he explained, "that if Mary Lou had sprained her ankle or hurt herself on the way, nobody might pass by for hours to give her help." Mrs. Gay was startled. It had not occurred to her that anything might have happened to her daughter. Mary Louise was always so self-reliant, and Shady Nook was such a safe place. "You two people go," said Jane. "I'll stay here and wash the dishes. I want to squeeze some lemons, because some of the bunch are coming over here tonight--if that's all right with you, Mrs. Gay." "Certainly it's all right, dear. And Mary Lou will be delighted, too--I'm sure." Mrs. Gay backed the car out of the garage with Freckles in the seat beside her and drove slowly up the dirt road which led to Adams' farm. The boy kept a sharp watch on both sides of the road, to make sure that his sister was not lying helpless along the way. Twice his mother stopped the car; and they both called Mary Louise's name. But there was no response. "She may just have stayed for supper with Hattie," remarked Mrs. Gay. "And of course, since neither of us has a telephone, she couldn't let us know. She'd think we wouldn't worry so long as she got home before dark." "Oh, sure," muttered the boy. But he was anxious: his mother didn't know what had happened that morning. They reached the Adams' gate at last and got out of the car. Old Mr. Adams was sitting alone on the porch with one leg propped up on a chair. "Good-evening, Mr. Adams," began Mrs. Gay. "Is Mary Louise here? I'm her mother." "No, she ain't," replied the old man, taking the pipe out of his mouth. "Has she been here?" "Not as I know of. Hattie and I have been to the fair all afternoon. If your daughter was here, she must have turned right around and gone home again. Nobody was home all afternoon except poor Rebecca. And she's sick abed." A feeling of alarm crept over Mrs. Gay. What could have happened to Mary Louise? "Was Tom home?" demanded Freckles, remembering his sister's warning. "Don't reckon so. He was workin' over to the hotel today, after he helped our hired man this mornin'." "Is he here now? Could we ask him?" The old man shook his head. "Tom packed up and left tonight, right after supper. Hattie drove him down to the Junction to catch the train. He's got a friend out West somewhere who owns a ranch. So Tom decided all of a sudden to go there. I tried to stop him, for we need him here, as I'm all crippled up with rheumatism half the time. But he wouldn't listen to me. Pig-headed, that's what I call it!" Freckles' eyes opened wide with terror. It sounded as if Mary Louise had been right in assuming Tom's guilt in connection with the fires at Shady Nook. Running away proved it! But what had he done to Mary Lou first? "Could we talk to Rebecca?" inquired Mrs. Gay. "Sure," agreed Mr. Adams. "But it probably won't do no good. She can't remember things straight, you know." "She might remember seeing Mary Louise, if she had stopped in," replied Mrs. Gay. "Anyhow, it's worth trying." "Go right up," said the old man. "Room at the back of the house. You won't have no trouble finding it. Sorry I can't go with you, but my leg's pretty bad tonight." "Oh, that's all right!" responded Mrs. Gay. "I'll find the way by myself. You better stay here, Freckles." The boy looked disappointed; he would have liked to take another look at that queer creature and size her up for himself. Maybe she had done something to Mary Lou! But he sat down on the steps as his mother advised and waited patiently. Mrs. Gay hurried on up to Rebecca's room, and found the woman in bed, as she had expected, with her tangled gray hair spread over the pillows. She stared blankly at her visitor. "I am Mary Louise's mother, Rebecca," announced Mrs. Gay. "You remember Mary Louise? The girl who saved the Smith baby in the fire?" The woman nodded. "Yes, I know Mary Louise. She came to see me today. Got me a drink of water. It wasn't well water, but it tasted good. She is a fine girl. I like Mary Louise." "What time was she here?" "I don't know. I can't tell time. It's all the same to me--except day and night. She was here in daytime." Mrs. Gay sighed. "Where was she going after she left you?" she asked. "Did she happen to say?" "No, she didn't.... I heard a car outside--I think it was my brother Tom's. But I don't know if Mary Louise had gone before that or not. I can't remember." Her voice trailed off as if she were half dreaming. "She said she'd look for well water for me, because I'm sick. She said she'd come again. Oh, Mary Louise is a good girl." Mrs. Gay walked to the doorway. There was nothing more to be learned from Rebecca. She wasn't even sure that the woman knew what she was talking about. If only she could talk to the brother! But it was too late now; the only thing to do was to wait for Hattie to return from the Junction and see whether she had any news. "Rebecca says that Mary Louise was here this afternoon," she told Mr. Adams and Freckles when she returned to the porch. "I'm afraid that don't mean nothin'," remarked the old man. "Like as not, Rebecca's confusing today with yesterday or even last week. She ain't got no memory at all." "Do you think Hattie will be back soon?" "I reckon so. Sounds like the Ford now, at the bottom of the hill. But she was away all afternoon, you recollect, at the fair." "I know," agreed Mrs. Gay. "But Rebecca seems to remember a car arriving about the time Mary Louise left, and she thought it was your son's. So maybe he saw Mary Louise and mentioned it to Hattie." Freckles' heart stood still at these words. Tom Adams, with a car! What had he done to Mary Lou? But he did not say anything; he waited for Hattie Adams to drive her car into the garage. In another moment the girl appeared on the porch and nodded pleasantly to Mrs. Gay and Freckles. "Where's Mary Lou?" she inquired immediately. "That's just what we want to know!" cried Freckles. "She's--lost! Did Tom say anything about seeing her?" "No, he didn't. He never mentioned her. Why?" Mrs. Gay explained again what Rebecca had said, but Hattie was just as doubtful as her father had been about the veracity of any of Rebecca's statements. "I wouldn't go by that," she said. "But Mary Lou may be home by this time, waiting for you. Don't worry till you find out." This sounded like good advice, so Mrs. Gay and Freckles got into their car and drove as quickly as possible back to Shady Nook. Jane, the Reed twins, Stuart Robinson, and the four new boys were all waiting anxiously on the Gays' porch. But Mrs. Gay knew immediately from their expressions that Mary Louise had not returned. "Get the boys together at once, Freckles," commanded Stuart Robinson, "and we'll search the woods thoroughly. Two of you fellows paddle across to the island, and two more go over to the hotel and hunt around there. Mary Lou may have sprained her ankle somewhere and be waiting for help." Mrs. Gay went inside the cottage, into her bedroom, and sat down, making a desperate effort to control her fears. But she couldn't help thinking of all the dreadful stories she had read in the newspapers--stories of kidnaping and sudden death. Oh, if only her husband were here! She picked up his last letter from the bureau. He was in Cleveland now and hoped to be with them soon. Soon! She must have him immediately. She remembered the promise she had given him when they said good-bye--to send for him if she needed him. Yes, she would wire tonight! She'd paddle across the river to the hotel and send a telegram over the phone. Coming out of the door again she almost ran into Horace Ditmar, with Freckles beside him. "We're afraid this is serious, Mrs. Gay," he said. "Freckles said Mary Louise suspected Tom Adams of starting the fires at Shady Nook and writing us a threat, which we found under our door this morning. And now your boy tells me that Tom Adams has run away.... So we're afraid that he may have done something to Mary Louise." "Oh no!" cried Mrs. Gay, aghast. "Oh, it just isn't possible!" "But it is, Mother," said the boy. "And Mr. Ditmar thinks we should send for the police immediately. He'll go over to the hotel and send a wire now." Mrs. Gay sank unsteadily into a chair. For an instant she thought she was going to faint. But she made a desperate effort to control herself; she realized that she needed all her powers in this terrible emergency. "Yes, go, Mr. Ditmar," she said. "And telegraph to my husband at the same time." She scribbled a message on the envelope with Mr. Gay's address and handed it to the young man. Mr. Ditmar left immediately, and Freckles brought his mother a glass of water. She drank it gratefully. "Here comes Mrs. Reed," he announced cheerfully. "Have her stay with you while I join the boys, Mother," he said, bending down and kissing her. "For I can't leave you alone." In these last two hours the boy had suddenly seemed to grow up. His mother realized the fact, and, in spite of her trouble, she was grateful and proud. "I'll be all right, dear," she replied. "And you go along. Mary Lou knows your whistle better than anything else, and if she is somewhere in the woods, you'll surely find her.... Go, dear!" Freckles ran off, and a systematic search of all the country around Shady Nook began: with lanterns and flashlights and whistles, interspersed by frequent calls from the boys and girls. But as the darkness grew deeper and the silence of the woods more intense, an increasing sense of alarm took hold of all the searchers. Joking and laughter ceased; the only singing that broke out was forced, because someone thought it might help find Mary Louise. But it was all in vain. Midnight came, and the various groups made their way back to Shady Nook, tired, hungry, and disheartened. Mrs. Gay and Mr. and Mrs. Reed and the three Partridge women were all still sitting on the Gays' porch, hopefully waiting for news. But they knew from the slow, silent manner of the young people's return that they had not been successful. "Make us some coffee, and we'll begin all over again," said Stuart Robinson. "Mary Lou must be somewhere!" Mrs. Gay shook her head. "No, I think you better all go to bed. The children must have their sleep. In the morning the police will come. Perhaps they will have some news for us." "If only we hadn't let Tom Adams get away from us!" muttered Horace Ditmar. "We went back to Adams' and got the old man out of bed to try to learn Tom's address. But he said he didn't know it, and I'm inclined to believe he was speaking the truth." Even in her half-frenzied state, Mrs. Gay looked at the young architect and thought what an admirable man he was. How anyone could have thought him guilty of any crime was more than she could understand. He was more help to her in the crisis than anyone else--except Freckles. So, accepting Mrs. Gay's advice, the group dispersed to their own cottages, intending to continue the search the following morning. CHAPTER XV _Captive_ Mary Louise was not far away from Shady Nook in the matter of miles, but she felt as if she were worlds away. Everything was strangely different from anything she had ever known--grotesque and terrible. For the place she was taken to was an asylum for the insane! Little did she think as she entered the Adams' farmhouse that afternoon that her freedom was to be snatched from her. That she was to be held in hopeless captivity, without any means of communication with the outside world. A prisoner in a house that was far worse than a jail, enduring a life that was living death! When no one answered her knock at the Adams' door that afternoon, she opened the screen and walked in, calling first Hattie and then Rebecca by name. Finally the latter replied. "I'm up here, sick abed!" called the woman. "Who be you?" "It's Mary Louise," she answered. "May I come up and see you, Rebecca?" "Yes, yes. Come! Have you found a well of clear water?" Mary Louise laughed to herself as she ran up the stairs. She wished that she could find some well water for the poor deluded woman, but there was none in the vicinity. She wondered what Rebecca would do if she ever did discover a well. She entered the bedroom, smiling and shaking her head at the poor eager creature. "No, Rebecca--not yet. But I'll find you one some day. How are you feeling?" "I'm better. I want to get out soon. Will you get me a drink of water, Mary Louise?" "Certainly," replied the girl. "From the kitchen?" "Yes. From the kitchen." The woman sank back on her pillow, and Mary Louise went for the water. When she returned, Rebecca was half asleep. "Here's your water, Rebecca," she said. "But where is Hattie?" "I don't know. Gone away, I guess. They've all gone away.... Soon I'll go too...." Her voice trailed off as if she were half dreaming, and Mary Louise walked to the door. She heard the sound of a car in the driveway below, and hoping that it might be Hattie, she went down the stairs. But the car standing in front of the house was not the dilapidated Ford that belonged to the Adams family. It was a big black limousine which reminded Mary Louise of a hearse or a funeral carriage, and she shuddered. It might have been an ambulance, but ambulances were usually white. She wondered what a car like that could be doing at the Adams farm. Two men got down from the driver's seat in front, and Tom Adams came and joined them at the porch steps. They talked in low tones to each other. Mary Louise opened the screen door and came out on the porch. Suddenly she heard her own name mentioned, and a cold chill of horror crept up her spine. What were they planning to do to her? "She says she's Mary Louise Gay," remarked Tom. "Insists on it. And she does look like a girl by that name. But don't believe her. She's my sister Rebecca." He raised his eyes and looked straight at Mary Louise. "Hello, Rebecca!" he said. "We're going to take you for a ride!" Mary Louise's brown eyes flashed in anger. "Rebecca's upstairs, sick in bed," she retorted. "Go and see for yourselves." Suddenly, with the agility of panthers, the two men sprang forward and grabbed Mary Louise's wrists. "Come along, Rebecca," one of them said. "No use struggling. We're taking you to a nice farm." With a desperate effort to free herself from the men's grasp, Mary Louise kicked one of her captors in the leg. He let go of her hand, but the other man held her tightly. "Wild little beast," he remarked. "Now, sister, you take it easy. We ain't going to hurt you. You'll like it where you're going--you'll get better care than you do here. Your brother says there's nobody here to look after you now that your mother's gone." "He's not my brother!" shouted Mary Louise. "And I can prove it! Just drive down to Shady Nook--a couple of miles--and ask anybody!" But the men preferred to ignore this challenge; they picked Mary Louise up bodily and thrust her into the back of the limousine, shutting the door and turning the key in the lock! She found herself sitting on a long seat that ran the length of the car. There were no windows on the side; only two tiny oval glasses in the back door permitted a little light to enter the enclosure. Before she could utter another sound she heard the engine start, and the vehicle went into motion. Over the rough, stony driveway, onto the dirt road that led away from the farm, in the opposite direction from Shady Nook. Mary Louise's first impulse was to scream as loudly as she could in the hope of attracting the notice of the occupants of some passing car or of some farmer working in his field. But second consideration told her that such a proceeding would do her no good at all. As soon as those men in the front seat explained that she was a crazy person being taken to an insane asylum, nobody would believe anything she said. The realization of this fact brought a deathly hopelessness to her whole body. Her arms and legs felt inert, her head sank back against the cushion as if her very spirit were flowing away. Leaving her helpless--and finished with life. For perhaps ten minutes she sat thus, unmindful of the country through which she was being driven. As if she had been stunned by a physical blow and no aid were near. Then suddenly she thought of Tom Adams, and a fierce anger took possession of her, reviving her spirits, bringing her back to life. She would not give up! She would fight to the bitter end; she'd make him pay--and pay heavily--for his diabolical cruelty! She moved along the seat to the far end of the car and peered through the tiny window. The road over which they were passing was narrow and rough; the country unfamiliar. It was not a main highway, Mary Louise instantly concluded, and she wondered in which direction it lay from Shady Nook. She wished now that she had watched it from the beginning. She did not even know whether they had crossed the river or not. "Still, I suppose that doesn't really matter," she thought. "Because, if I can manage to get away at all, I can easily find my family. They'll be hunting for me." Tears of distress came to her eyes as she pictured her mother's anguish. And her father was so far away! "Why did I ever try to be a detective?" she groaned. "The punishment is too horrible. Mother and Daddy would rather lose their cottage and have the whole settlement at Shady Nook burned than have me endure torture like this!" On and on they went through the lonely, unpopulated country. Time seemed to stand still; it was as if the afternoon were to last forever. Yet when Mary Louise glanced at her wristwatch she saw that it was not yet five o'clock! They crossed over a little stream, and the car turned at an angle and climbed a hill. Up, up they went, until they reached a narrow road at the summit. Looking down into the valley below Mary Louise could see a stream--not as wide as the river--winding its peaceful way in the summer sunshine. It was a beautiful spot--if you could enjoy beauty. But it meant nothing at all to the unhappy girl. "That looks like a main road across the valley on the opposite side of the stream," she thought. "If I can escape, I'll make for that. Thank goodness I know how to swim!" She wished that she had thought to glance at her watch when the car started, so that she could roughly judge the distance from Shady Nook by the time it took to cover it. But she had been so miserable that she could not tell whether she had been riding twenty minutes or a couple of hours. At last, however, the car came to a stop at a high iron gate which reminded Mary Louise of a penitentiary. So this was the way they guarded feeble-minded people! One of the men got down from his seat, took a key from his pocket to unlock the gate, and swung the heavy iron doors open. When the car had gone through he locked them securely behind him. A shiver of horror passed over Mary Louise as she heard that final click. A sense of hopelessness overpowered her to such an intense degree that she felt physically sick. A life of utter emptiness was closing her in, as if her mind and her soul had been extracted from her body. How much more fiendish her existence would be than that of any ordinary victim of kidnapers! But then, Tom Adams had not kidnaped her because he wanted a ransom, but only because he desired to get rid of her. Well, he had succeeded! Nobody in the whole world would think of looking for her in an insane asylum. The car wound around a lovely driveway, shaded by trees, and stopped in front of a long, low plaster building that appeared to be at least a hundred years old. A man and a woman came out of the ivy-covered door as the driver unlocked the back of the limousine. With her head held high in defiance, Mary Louise stepped out. "How do you do, Rebecca," greeted the woman, a plain-faced person of about fifty, in a gray dress. "There has been a ghastly mistake!" announced Mary Louise, trying to keep her tone dignified. "Tom Adams is a criminal, and because I found him out he has sent me here, calling me his feeble-minded sister. I am not Rebecca Adams--but Mary Louise Gay!" The man and the woman exchanged significant glances. "Mr. Adams warned us that you would say that," replied the man. "He said you do look like a girl named Mary Louise Gay. But try to forget it, Rebecca. We have your papers, signed by your own brother and your cousin, so there is nothing you can do about it but submit." "My cousin!" repeated Mary Louise, thinking of her aunt's children, aged nine and six. How could they commit anybody to an insane asylum? "Yes. Stanfield Frazier." "Frazier!" she cried in scorn. "He's not my cousin! He's no relation. He's a crook too, like Tom Adams." "Now, now, Rebecca, calm yourself," advised the woman, taking Mary Louise's arm. "And just come along with me. You don't want to make trouble! Wouldn't you rather walk by yourself than have these men carry you?" Tears of anguish came to the girl's eyes; she looked desperately about at the group of people who were surrounding her, searching for some spark of sympathy or understanding. But the men were all regarding her with an amused expression of tolerance, as if her action were just what they had expected. "Isn't there some way I can prove that I'm sane?" she demanded. "Some test I can take?" "Oh, don't get yourself all worked up, Rebecca," answered the woman. "Your brother told us you were all right most of the time and that you probably wouldn't give us any trouble. We're not going to put you into chains. You'll like it here." Mary Louise groaned. There was nothing she could do or say so long as they believed that wicked Tom Adams. So she meekly followed the woman into the house. Its large hall and big reception room were plain and old-fashioned, with very little furniture in them, but she noticed that everything was scrupulously neat and clean. For that much she was thankful. Often, she had read, the places where kidnapers confined their victims were filthy and germ laden. She need have no fear of disease here--except disease of the mind! A younger woman in the white uniform of a nurse came into the hall to meet them. "This is Miss Stone, Rebecca," announced the older woman. "She will help you and take care of you. Now go with Miss Stone to your room." "Didn't you bring any bag, Rebecca?" asked the nurse, as she led Mary Louise up a flight of stairs to a long corridor. Mary Louise smiled grimly. "Kidnapers don't usually allow their victims time to pack their suitcases," she said. "And if you don't mind, Miss Stone, will you call me by my right name? It's Mary Louise Gay." The young woman nodded solemnly. "Certainly, Mary Louise," she replied. Mary Louise looked at the nurse hopefully, wondering whether she was really finding a friend. Did the nurse believe her? All the doors along the corridor were closed, but Mary Louise had no way of telling whether they were locked or not until, down near the end, she suddenly heard a loud pounding. Miss Stone stopped and, taking a key from her chain, unlocked the door. A mild-faced woman of about thirty-five came out. "I just wanted to see who was coming," she said. "Ah! A pretty girl." Miss Stone paused and introduced them courteously. The patient was dressed in the blue calico of the institution, but there was nothing queer or odd about her looks. She appeared to be much more normal than Rebecca Adams. "This is Mary Louise Gay," said Miss Stone. "She has come to live with us. And this, Mary Louise, is Joan of Arc. The girl who saved France, you remember?" "Oh!" gasped Mary Louise, in amazement. Was Miss Stone joking, or did the patient really believe she was Joan of Arc? The woman in calico smiled proudly. "Yes," she said. "I rode right at the head of my soldiers. I told them God was on our side. And we won! But they are going to burn me at the stake for being a witch if they ever find me. That's why I stay here. I'm safe here. Aren't I, Miss Stone?" "Yes, dear, you're safe," was the nurse's gentle assurance. A lump came into Mary Louise's throat. The pathos of it all! Yet how kind and sweet Miss Stone was. Oh, but--ghastly thought--the nurse was being kind to Mary Louise in the same way! That was why she humored her by calling her "Mary Louise." And all the time she believed her to be Rebecca Adams! Three doors farther down the nurse stopped and unlocked another door. "This is to be your room, Mary Louise," she said. "It'll be nicer when you put some flowers in it. We have a lovely garden, and most of the patients have their own special flower beds. You can grow whatever you like best." Mary Louise looked about her. Never in her life had she seen such a plain room. It contained only a bed and a washstand and one chair. Not even a bureau or a table! The window was high and uncurtained. To her horror Mary Louise saw that it was protected by iron bars! "You take off your clothing now and have a bath. You can put your own things in the drawer of that washstand, and I'll bring you fresh clothing. Everybody wears blue here." "Where do I take my bath?" asked Mary Louise dully. Not that she cared in the least, except that it would be something to do. "I'll take you to the showers when I come back with your new clothing," replied Miss Stone. And to Mary Louise's dismay the nurse locked the door from the outside as she departed. The next twelve hours seemed to Mary Louise the longest she had ever lived through. After her bath she was told to lie down until supper time. She was entirely alone in that bare room until six o'clock, with nothing to do but think. Finally an attendant brought her a tray of food, well cooked and wholesome but far from dainty. Nevertheless, Mary Louise ate it, for she knew that she must keep up her strength if she ever hoped to make an escape. Another attendant removed the tray, and she was left alone again until eight o'clock. Then Miss Stone returned. "We have a little vesper service in the reception room, Mary Louise," she said. "Would you like to come and join us?" The girl jumped up eagerly. Anything would be better than this dreadful idleness. "Don't your patients have anything to do?" she inquired as she went down the hall with the nurse. "This doing nothing is enough to drive anybody crazy!" She smiled to herself at the use of the common expression and wondered whether Miss Stone noticed it. But the nurse gave no sign of any amusement. "Oh, yes, Mary Louise," she replied, "there will be lots for you to do tomorrow. Everybody takes some share in the work, if possible. Unless they are too ill. And we go for walks around the grounds and work in the garden. But we thought you'd be too tired tonight and would just want to rest." They joined a group of perhaps twenty people in the reception room for the singing of hymns, and the same woman who had met Mary Louise at the door of the building read the Bible. Mary Louise looked about curiously at her fellow inmates and did not find them particularly strange-looking. One or two of them had queer, staring eyes like Rebecca Adams, but for the most part they appeared normal. Which fact made it all the harder for Mary Louise to prove anything about herself to the caretakers! At nine o'clock the service was over and everybody went to bed. But, exhausted as she was, Mary Louise could not go to sleep. She tried over and over to formulate some plan of escape, but with the locked doors, the constant supervision of nurses and attendants, and that high stone wall, it seemed absolutely hopeless. It was only when the first gray light of dawn broke in the sky that she finally dozed off and then fell into a deep, heavy sleep. CHAPTER XVI _Weary Waiting_ Like her daughter, Mrs. Gay did not go to sleep until dawn of the following morning. Her mental torture was even keener than Mary Louise's, for her imagination suggested all sorts of horrible fates, worse than the one the girl was actually enduring. Physical violence, association with hardened criminals, hunger, thirst--and--death. That was the most terrifying thought of all--the fear that Mary Louise might already be dead! Like her daughter's, too, Mrs. Gay's suffering was all the more intense because she had to bear it alone through the long, silent night. Freckles and Jane, tired out from their vigorous search, had fallen instantly asleep. There was nobody to sympathize with the poor frenzied mother. She swallowed dose after dose of aspirin, until finally, with the first gray streaks of dawn, she at last fell asleep. Freckles was the first person awake in the household the next morning, and he immediately started the breakfast. Jane, arriving on the scene fifteen minutes later, was surprised and delighted at the boy's progress. "We better not waken Mother," he said. "I don't suppose she got much sleep last night." "I'm afraid not." Tears came to Jane's eyes as they rested on the forlorn little dog sitting so disconsolately in the corner of the kitchen. "Freckles, what do you think could have happened to Mary Lou?" she asked. "I think Tom Adams did something to her. Kidnaped her, probably. But I had one idea this morning, Jane, while I was making the coffee. Maybe he hid her in his own house somewhere! We never thought to search that." "Bright boy!" exclaimed Jane, so loudly as to awaken Mrs. Gay, who heard her from her bedroom. For one ecstatic moment the woman hoped that her daughter had been found. But Freckles' next remark dispelled any such idea. "It's worth looking into," he continued. "But I don't really think she's there, or Hattie would come and tell us. I can't believe Hattie is an enemy--or on Tom's side. She's too fond of Mary Lou." Mrs. Gay, attired in a kimono and looking white and exhausted, peered in at the kitchen door. "That coffee smells so good," she said, "that I just can't wait for a cup of it." Freckles grinned in delight and poured out the steaming liquid. It seemed to revive his mother, and she drank it eagerly. But she could not eat any breakfast. "We're going up to Adams' first," announced the boy. "I'll get Stu Robinson to drive us in his car--and we'll take Silky along. If Mary Lou should be hidden there, Silky'd find her.... And, Mother--if the police come, be sure to have them talk to Horace Ditmar and get a look at that threat he found shoved under his door yesterday!" "I will, dear," returned Mrs. Gay, smiling to herself at the idea of taking orders from her small son. But the boy was proving himself both practical and businesslike in the management of the whole affair. "I wonder whether Adelaide Ditmar will open her dining room today as she planned," remarked Jane. A lump came into Mrs. Gay's throat, but she managed to reply calmly: "I think so. She has all her food bought, and besides, the people are expecting it. Mrs. Reed told me last night that Sue and Mabel are both going to help her--if--if--Mary Lou doesn't come back in time. You had better tell Hattie Adams to come down to the Ditmars' as soon as she can, though I don't believe Adelaide is planning to serve lunch." Jane nodded, and finished her breakfast. After she and Freckles and the little dog had gone, the people from the other bungalows began to arrive at the Gays', to start upon a new search for the missing girl. Horace Ditmar sent them off in various directions while he and several of the older women stayed behind to help and to advise Mrs. Gay. At nine-thirty a small red car drove into Shady Nook and stopped at the Gays' bungalow. Three plainclothes men got out, displaying their badges for identification. "We want the whole story," they said. "So far we know nothing--except that Mary Louise Gay, of Riverside and Shady Nook, is missing." "We don't know much more ourselves," sighed Mrs. Gay. Then she proceeded to tell the story of the girl's disappearance the preceding afternoon. "As far as we know, the last person who saw her alive is Rebecca Adams, a feeble-minded woman who lives over at a farm where we know that Mary Louise started to go. Nobody saw her after that." "Have you any suspicions at all?" inquired the detective. Horace Ditmar answered that question by telling about the three fires at Shady Nook and by showing the paper which had warned him of the possibility of a fourth. "Mary Louise suspected Tom Adams--the brother of this feeble-minded woman--though we don't know yet upon what clues she based her suspicions," he concluded. "But it looks as if Adams was guilty, for he ran away. He didn't take Mary Louise with him--we know that, because his sister drove him to the Junction--but we're afraid he did something to her first." "So our first duty is to find this Tom Adams," announced the detective, rising. "Can you take us over to the farm now, Ditmar? Or rather, just one of us, for the other two better stay here and investigate that threat. And we want a picture of Miss Mary Louise Gay. We'll get one of Adams and print them both in every newspaper in the country." "But that's not the only clue we'll work on," put in another of the men. "That may be entirely wrong, and Miss Gay may just have met with an accident, or even lost her memory. There are many cases of that, you know." Mrs. Gay nodded. That was just the trouble: so many dreadful things might have happened to Mary Louise! However, she resolved to keep up her spirits until she actually heard bad news. She could endure the tension in the daytime, she thought, by keeping herself active; perhaps, before night, her husband would come. So she hunted out some pictures of Mary Louise for the detectives and answered their questions for an hour. Just as the two men left to go to Ditmars, to investigate the threat and guard Adelaide, the roar of an airplane in the sky drew Mrs. Gay's attention. It was an auto-giro, fluttering over a near-by field where there did not happen to be any trees. Breathlessly she waited while it made its landing. But the motor did not stop, and only one man got out of the cockpit. Then, as the auto-giro speeded away, the man on the field began to run towards Shady Nook. In another moment she identified him as her husband--Detective Gay, of the police force! He took the porch steps two at a time and, out of breath as he was, lifted his trembling wife into his arms. For the first time since the disaster Mrs. Gay broke down and sobbed. But what a relief it was to give way to her feelings at last! Her husband shared her anguish and understood, comforting her as best he could with words of assurance. "We'll find her, dear, I'm sure we will!" he said. "Mary Lou isn't a baby: she'll show lots of pluck and courage. I'm counting on that daughter of ours every time!" "Have you any plans at all, dear?" she inquired. "Yes. Lots. I'm going to do a lot of telegraphing as soon as I get the whole story. I was never so thankful before that I'd chosen the detective profession." "Have you had anything to eat?" Mr. Gay smiled. "Now that you mention it, I don't believe I have. You might fix me some coffee while you tell me just what happened." Freckles and Jane returned while Mr. Gay was eating his meal, but they had nothing to report. Hattie was sure that Tom could not be guilty; she believed that he was running away from his gambling debts. Nevertheless, she had consented immediately to a thorough search of the house and barn for the missing girl. Yet even Silky's sharp nose could not find her. The boy was delighted to find his father at home; he felt immediately that a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. For, like Mary Louise, he believed that his father could almost accomplish the impossible. "We're going over to the other shore after lunch--with Silky," he said, "and hunt some more." "That's right, Son," approved Mr. Gay. "We'll never give up till we find Mary Lou!" None of the other searchers returned with any news all that afternoon. The day was hot and sultry, and to Mrs. Gay, interminable. Everything was so strangely quiet at the little resort; no radios played, no young people shouted to each other or burst into singing. Even the birds seemed hushed, as if they too sensed the tragedy of the usually happy little colony. Late in the afternoon the four girls who were working at the Ditmars' went into the river to cool off with a swim, and Mr. Gay decided to join them. But it was more like a bath than a swim, and nobody seemed to enjoy it. Mr. Gay dressed and joined his wife on the porch, waiting for the detectives to return. Suddenly a noisy car came towards them--a bright green roadster which was somehow familiar yet did not belong at Shady Nook. It was dusty and dirty; its two occupants wore goggles, as if they had been participating in a race, and until they spoke neither of the Gays recognized them. Then they identified them instantly as Max Miller and Norman Wilder, from Riverside. "Any news yet?" demanded Max eagerly as he jumped out of the car. "No, not a bit," replied Mr. Gay. "How did you boys find out about it? Is it in the papers?" "It's in the afternoon edition," replied Norman, handing a newspaper to the other. "But of course we started before that. There was a wire to the Riverside police last night, that we got wind of. So we started early this morning." "I think it's fine of you both to come," said Mrs. Gay, though she could not at the moment see what possible help they might afford. "We're going to have a swim, clean up our car, and eat," announced Max; "then we're going to drive all around here within a radius of a hundred miles, tooting our horn and going slowly." "I didn't know you boys knew how to drive slowly," remarked Mr. Gay teasingly. "Well, we really won't need to toot our horn," returned Norman in the same light manner, "because the color of our car is loud enough to shriek for us!" Mabel and Sue Reed, passing by the bungalow on their way back to the Ditmars', stopped in and met the boys. Mrs. Gay asked them to put two extra places at the dinner table for them. Gradually the searchers returned--without any success--and everybody went to Ditmars to dinner. It was a lovely meal. Adelaide Ditmar proved that she knew how to prepare food and serve it attractively, and, in spite of their anxiety, everybody enjoyed it. Everybody except Mrs. Gay, who could only pick at her food. True to their resolve, Max and Norman drove off in their car immediately after supper, with Freckles and Jane along with them. The rest of the inhabitants of Shady Nook settled down to a quiet evening of waiting. Waiting and hoping for news. About eight o'clock Mr. and Mrs. Frazier came over from the hotel to offer their sympathy to the Gays. "I don't want to alarm you, Gay," said Frazier, "but I think you haven't given enough thought to the river. Mary Louise was playing tennis on our court early in the afternoon, and the most natural thing in the world would be for her to take a swim afterwards. You know yourself that even the best of swimmers have cramps." Mrs. Gay clutched her husband's arm tightly in an effort to control herself. What a horrible suggestion! "Terrible as it is, drowning is better than lots of things that might happen," remarked Mrs. Frazier. Mrs. Gay glared at the woman with hatred in her eyes. How could she sit there and talk like that? She rose abruptly. "You'll have to excuse us now, Mrs. Frazier," she said unsteadily. "My husband and I have things to do." The hotelkeeper and his wife got up from their chairs just as the detectives' car stopped at the bungalow. Everybody waited tensely. "No news of your daughter, Mrs. Gay," announced one of the detectives, immediately. "But we are on Adams' trail. He's been spotted, speeding across the country in a stolen car. This afternoon they found the car, abandoned near a woods. Undoubtedly he's guilty." Frazier's white face became even more pasty-looking. Nobody noticed it, except Mr. Gay, who made it his business to watch people's reactions. "If I may say something," put in the hotelkeeper, looking straight at the detective, "I think you're on the wrong track. Adams is guilty of a small theft--he stole two hundred dollars from me, and he left some gambling debts. That's why he's running away. But I believe your real criminal is right here at Shady Nook!" "Who?" demanded all the detectives at once. "Ditmar. Horace Ditmar. These fires have proved to be a good thing for him. Ditmars took over all that boarding-house trade after Flicks' Inn burned down. Mary Louise was on the inside, so they were probably afraid she'd find out too much--and--disposed of her." "I don't believe a word of it!" cried Mrs. Gay angrily. "I'd trust both Adelaide and Horace anywhere. And how about that threat they got? You saw that?" she asked the detectives. "That was just a clever trick," explained Frazier lightly, "to throw off suspicion. You notice it has not been carried out!" Almost in hysterics, Mrs. Gay felt that she could not bear those dreadful Fraziers another minute. Desperately she clung to her husband's arm for support. "Will you men come inside?" suggested Mr. Gay, realizing how his wife was suffering. "Good-night, Mrs. Frazier. Good-night, Frazier." And so another long night passed without any news of Mary Louise. But it was not so terrible for Mrs. Gay as the first one, because her husband was with her. And Max Miller and Norman Wilder comforted her with the assurance that they were going to find Mary Louise the following day. Somehow, by intuition, perhaps, Mrs. Gay believed them! CHAPTER XVII _Release_ While her parents and her friends at Shady Nook were imagining all sorts of horrors for Mary Louise, the day actually passed peacefully for her. It was a terrible shock to waken up in that bare little bedroom with the iron bars at the window, but after the first realization of it was over, she found comfort in work. For, unlike the previous night, she was not allowed to be idle. Miss Stone came in at seven o'clock with a tray of breakfast in her hands. "And how do you feel today, dear?" she inquired cheerfully. Mary Louise opened sleepy eyes and looked about her, trying to remember where she was. For one ghastly moment she felt as if she would scream as the horror of the whole thing came back to her. But, realizing that such an act would only help to confirm her nurse's belief in her insanity, she managed to control herself. The sun was shining, Miss Stone was kind--surely Mary Louise would find a way out. So she smiled back at the woman. "I'm fine, Miss Stone," she said. "Am I supposed to get dressed?" "Eat your breakfast first," was the reply. "After today you'll probably eat with the other patients. But the doctor is coming in to make an examination this morning." Mary Louise nodded. "And then what do I do?" "You tidy up your own room and then take some part in the household duties. You may have your choice of cleaning, cooking, washing dishes, or sewing. Then you'll eat lunch in the dining room and spend an hour outdoors in the garden. After that there is a rest period, when you may read or sew, if you like. We have a small library, and there is a class in knitting too, if you prefer. Then supper--and vespers." "It sounds fine--so much better than doing nothing," replied Mary Louise. "I think for my particular work I'll choose cooking. I'm pretty good at cakes and pies." "That's nice, dear," concluded Miss Stone, turning towards the door. "Be ready to see the doctor in about an hour." "May I have a shower?" "Yes. I'll come back in fifteen minutes to take you." "But I'm not a baby!" protested Mary Louise. "I'm quite used to giving myself baths." "I know, dear, but it's a rule. Sometimes patients drown themselves if we don't watch them. Maybe--later on----" She did not finish the sentence, but left the room, locking the door behind her. It was very like a nightmare, Mary Louise thought, as she picked up her tray--a dream in which you found yourself locked up somewhere without any means of escape. But she meant to get away just the same, if she had to climb that ten-foot wall to accomplish it! She decided immediately that she would be an exemplary patient, that she would work hard and do everything she was told to do. Gradually, perhaps, her liberty would be increased as the attendants learned that she could be trusted. In spite of her blue calico uniform, Mary Louise looked exceedingly pretty that morning when the doctor came in to see her. Her cheeks were glowing with perfect health, and her dark eyes were smiling. The room, as well as her person, was meticulously neat. She identified the doctor immediately as the man who had received her the day before at the door of the institution. "Good-morning, Miss Adams," he said, regarding her with admiration. "You're looking well today." "I'm fine," replied Mary Louise. "Only my name doesn't happen to be Miss Adams," she couldn't help adding. The physician smiled, and she detected a shade of pity in his expression. Something like that in Miss Stone's face when she had humored that patient by calling her "Joan of Arc." But he made no reply and went ahead with the examination. When Miss Stone returned he told her that Miss Adams was in perfect physical condition. "It's only the brain," thought Mary Louise in secret amusement. How often she and her young friends had made that remark to each other! She resolved never to speak jokingly of insanity again. After the doctor's visit her day proceeded in the orderly manner which Miss Stone had outlined. She cooked and washed dishes and ate lunch with the patients. Then she went out in the garden, where she was assigned a flower bed of her own. But Mary Louise was not interested in flower beds at the moment. She pretended to work, all the while looking about her at the grounds around the asylum, at the high stone wall below and into the valley beyond. Across this valley, on a level with the institution, she could see a white road that ran like a ribbon along the hill in the distance. This road, she decided, must be a main highway, or at least a drive frequented by automobiles--otherwise it would not be so smooth and white.... Staring at this road in silence, an inspiration came to Mary Louise. An idea that might bring about her longed-for release! She waited eagerly for the nurse to come over to where she was working, but she was careful to keep her tone matter-of-fact when she did make her request. Miss Stone must not guess her hidden purpose! "May I break off two sticks from some bush?" she asked indifferently. "I'd like to practice my semaphore." "What's that, dear?" inquired Miss Stone skeptically. "Is it anything dangerous?" Mary Louise smiled. "Oh, no. It's just part of a Girl Scout's training. You've heard of Girl Scouts, haven't you?" "Yes, I believe I have. Anyway, I've heard of Boy Scouts, so I suppose the Girl Scouts is an organization like theirs--for girls." "That's right," agreed Mary Louise. "And I have always been very much interested in it. I don't want to forget all that I have learned. So if I had a couple of sticks and a needle and thread, I could make a pair of flags and--and--practice every day." She uttered the last sentence haltingly, fearful lest Miss Stone might guess her reason for wanting them and refuse. But as the nurse had no idea that semaphore meant signaling messages, she was entirely unsuspicious. And it had always been her policy to humor her patients in pursuit of any harmless amusements. So that afternoon she brought Mary Louise needles and cotton and scissors and sat with her while she cut up her red-and-white sports dress for the flags. It seemed a pity, Miss Stone thought, to destroy such a pretty dress, but it was not likely that Mary Louise would ever need it again. It was a sad fact that few of their patients ever returned to the outside world! Mary Louise finished her flags just before supper and laid them carefully away behind the washstand. Tomorrow--oh, happy thought!--she would try her luck. Hope is indeed a great tonic. Mary Louise went right to sleep that night and slept soundly until morning. She performed her duties so quickly and with such intelligence that even Miss Stone began to wonder whether there had not been some mistake in confining the girl to the institution. But as they did not take a daily paper at the asylum, and as they were entirely cut off from the outside world, she had no way of knowing about the desperate search that was going on all over the country for Mary Louise Gay. "Now that I have finished my work, may I go out into the garden and practice my semaphore for an hour before lunch?" the girl asked her nurse. "Yes, certainly," agreed Miss Stone. "I'll go with you, because I want to spray the rose bushes." Mary Louise was not so pleased to be accompanied, but after all, Miss Stone's presence would mean freedom from other attendants. Nobody would molest her while her own nurse was with her. She selected a spot high up on the terrace, from whence she could plainly see the ribbon of white road across the valley. Then she began to signal her message: "I AM MARY LOUISE GAY. HELP!" Over and over again she repeated the same letters, hope coming into her heart each time a car swung into view, despair taking possession of her when it failed to stop. Perhaps, she thought, she was too far away to be seen. She glanced behind her, at the green bushes, and moved along where she might have the gray wall of the institution for her background. Red and white should show up brilliantly in contrast to somber gray. Half an hour passed, during which perhaps a dozen cars went by without stopping, and Mary Louise's arms became weary. But she did not give up. Sometimes, she was certain, one of her own friends' cars would come over that hill--and stop. Miss Stone, watching the girl out of the corner of her eye, nodded sadly to herself. She must be crazy after all, she decided, to go through that silly routine over and over again. Intelligent on most subjects as she had discovered Mary Louise to be, she must be unbalanced on this particular obsession. Still Mary Louise went on trying. "I AM MARY LOUISE GAY. HELP!" she signaled again, for the twenty-fourth time, as a small, bright car appeared on the road. The car was proceeding very slowly; it looked as if it could scarcely climb the hill. Then, to the girl's intense joy, she watched it stop. Perhaps it was only because of a faulty engine or a puncture--but--oh--it was stopping! Her heart beat so fast and her hands trembled so that she could hardly repeat the message. But she forced herself to go through it again. This might be her one chance--her vital hope of escape! She knew now what it must feel like to be abandoned at sea and all at once to glimpse a sail on the empty waters, bringing hope, and rescue, and life--if it stopped. But, oh, the utter despair if it continued on its course unheeding! Two figures which looked like little dwarfs in the distance jumped out of the car and stood still, evidently watching Mary Louise's motions. Frantic with excitement, she spelled the message again, this time very slowly, forming the letters carefully and pausing a long second between each word: "I AM MARY LOUISE GAY. HELP HELP HELP!" The two tiny figures waited until she had finished and then waved their arms frantically. She watched them in feverish anguish as they returned to the car and took something from the back of it. For five long minutes they busied themselves in some way which she could not understand, while she waited, tense with emotion. Miss Stone strolled over and spoke to her, startling her so that she almost dropped her flags. "Tired, dear?" inquired the nurse sympathetically. "No! No!" protested Mary Louise. "Let me stay fifteen minutes more. Please!" Her eyes were still fixed upon the car across the valley. One of the men was stepping away from it now, holding up both arms, which waved two dark flags. Made from clothing, perhaps, on the spur of the moment. And then he began to signal. Breathlessly Mary Louise watched the letters as they came, spelling out words that brought floods of joy to her heart. Overwhelming her with happiness such as she had never known before. For the message which she read was this: "WE ARE COMING MARY LOU. MAX AND NORMAN." Great tears of bliss rushed to her eyes and rolled down her cheeks; her hands trembled, and her arms grew limp. In the exhaustion of her relief she dropped down weakly to the ground. Miss Stone came and bent over her anxiously, fearing that some curious spell had come over Mary Louise. A fit, perhaps, which would explain why her brother had wished to confine this girl in the asylum. "I'll help you up, dear," the nurse said, "and we'll go into the house. You had better lie down for a while." "But I'm all right!" exclaimed Mary Louise, jumping happily to her feet. "My friends are coming for me, Miss Stone!" She threw her arms around the woman and hugged her. "Two boys from my home town--in Riverside." "Yes, yes, dear," agreed Miss Stone, sure now that Mary Louise was raving. "But come inside now and rest." "No, I don't want to rest," objected the girl. "You said I could stay out till lunch, and there's still ten minutes left. I want to wait for Max and Norman." "All right, dear, if you'll promise to calm yourself. Sit down there on the step while I finish these rose bushes." Mary Louise did as she was told, keeping her eyes fixed on the gate, wondering how long it would take for the boys to get across that valley, hoping that they wouldn't get lost. She picked up her home-made flags and touched them lovingly. "Suppose I had never joined the Girl Scouts--and suppose I had never become an expert signaler!" she thought. She shivered at the very idea. She did not have to wait long, however. In less than ten minutes she saw the gardener unlock the big iron gate and a dear, familiar green roadster speed up the hill and stop at the door of the asylum. In an instant both boys were out of the car. Max was the first to reach Mary Louise. Without any question of permission, he took her into his arms and kissed her again and again. Then Norman kissed her too, not quite so ardently as Max. Finally she freed herself laughingly from their embraces and introduced them to Miss Stone. The boys looked questioningly at the woman. If she had been responsible for the kidnaping of Mary Louise, why was the girl so polite to her? Max took a revolver from his pocket, just to be prepared in case of violence. Mary Louise laughed merrily. "You don't need that, Max," she said. "Miss Stone won't do anything desperate. She is a nurse." "A nurse? Is this a hospital?" Alarm crept into Max's voice. "Oh, Mary Lou, you're not hurt, are you?" "No, not a bit. Don't you know what kind of place this is, Max? It's an asylum for the insane! I'm supposed to be crazy." Horrified, Max sprang forward and seized Miss Stone by the arm. "What kind of diabolical plot is this?" he demanded. "Whose accomplice are you?" He pulled a newspaper out of his pocket and shook it in the nurse's face. "The whole country's frantic over the disappearance of Mary Louise Gay!" Miss Stone gazed at the picture in the paper with increasing fear. Had she--and the rest of the staff at the asylum--been accomplices to a hideous crime? But Mary Louise replied for her reassuringly. "Miss Stone's innocent, Max," she explained. "Please let her go. So are the others here. They're just obeying orders. Tom Adams put me in here, calling me his feeble-minded sister Rebecca. He really does happen to have one, you may have heard, and I understand her papers for confinement were filed once before. Mr. Frazier signed my commitment too, pretending to be a cousin. Those two men are the only guilty ones." "Tom Adams!" repeated Max and Norman at the same time, and Norman added: "Yes, that's what Freckles said. They're looking for Tom Adams. He ran away from Shady Nook--or wherever it is he lives. The police are after him." "How about Frazier?" demanded Mary Louise. "Is he guilty?" asked Max. "More so than Tom," replied the girl. "Oh, I must get back to tell the police before Frazier sneaks away!" She turned to the nurse. "May I go with the boys now?" "I'll have to ask the doctor," replied Miss Stone, hurrying inside to the office. It took no persuasion at all, however, to obtain the doctor's consent. As soon as he read the account in the newspaper and saw that Tom Adams was a fugitive from the law, he gladly agreed to let Mary Louise go free. In fact, he was anxious that she should, lest he be blamed for participation in the crime. So Mary Louise jumped into the car between the two boys, and in less than an hour she saw the dear familiar trees of Shady Nook in the distance. As the car approached her own bungalow, she could distinguish her mother--yes, and her father--sitting on the porch in an attitude of hopeless despair. Oh, what fun it was going to be to surprise them so joyfully! CHAPTER XVIII _Return_ Both Mr. and Mrs. Gay looked up disconsolately as the green car approached. Suddenly their expressions of listlessness changed to incredulity--then to rapture. Mary Louise was home! In another second the girl had flown up the steps and was hugging both parents at once. Mrs. Gay could only gasp in her happiness. It was Mr. Gay who asked his daughter whether she was unhurt and unharmed. "I'm fine!" returned Mary Louise joyfully. "And, oh, so happy!" "Darling!" murmured her mother, her voice choked with emotion. "Now praise these wonderful boys," insisted the girl. "My rescuers." Max and Norman tried to look modest and to wave aside their accomplishment with a gesture. But Mr. Gay seized their hands in a fervor of gratitude. "I can't find words to tell you what it means to us!" he said. "You two boys have succeeded where four professional detectives failed. It's--it's marvelous." "Oh, it wasn't anything at all, except persistence on our part," explained Max. "The real credit goes to Mary Lou. It was a swell idea she had." "What idea?" demanded Mr. Gay. "Signaling for help. With semaphore flags--just as we all used to do in the Scouts." "But where were you, Mary Lou?" asked her father. "Sit down and tell us all about it." "First tell me whether you're hungry," put in her mother. "No, not specially," replied Mary Louise. "They fed us pretty well at the insane asylum." It was fun to watch her parents' startled expressions at this announcement--fun now that the experience was all over. "Insane asylum!" they both repeated in horror. And then for the first time they noticed her blue calico dress. Mary Louise nodded and proceeded to tell her story. Briefly and quickly, for she remembered that she wanted to catch the two criminals. "Has Mr. Frazier run away too?" she inquired, when she had finished. "No, he's over at his hotel," replied Mr. Gay. "I saw him this morning." "You must arrest him, Daddy!" cried the girl. "He was the cause of the three fires at Shady Nook. I know it!" "But how do you know, Mary Lou?" asked her father. "What proof have you?" "I overheard him and Tom Adams talking in the hotel garage. They didn't actually mention fires, but I'm sure they meant them. I have their conversation down in my notebook. I left it in my desk. It's probably still there." "Suppose," suggested Mr. Gay, "that you tell us the story of your suspicions--and clues--from the beginning." "While I'm getting lunch," added Mrs. Gay. Mary Louise ran into her bedroom and found the little notebook. "I'll just change my dress," she called laughingly, "and be with you in a minute.... But tell me where Jane and Freckles are." "Out hunting for you. With Silky!" was the reply. A couple of minutes later she returned to the porch, looking more like herself in her own modern clothing. She sat down on the swing and opened her notebook. "I first suspected Tom Adams the day after Flicks' Inn burned down," she began. "All of the people of Shady Nook were over on the little island that night on a picnic, and Hattie Adams told me she expected to have Tom take her. But he wasn't anywhere to be found. And the boys saw a big fellow in the woods who answered his description. "But I sort of gave up the idea of his being guilty when I heard he had lost some work by Flicks' Inn burning down. It threw me off the track for a while; I really suspected his feeble-minded sister Rebecca. "Then the Smiths' house caught fire, and Rebecca gave us a warning--so I suspected her all the more. Finding that pack of Cliff's cards in the can of water didn't prove a thing to me. I never believed he was guilty." "It was absurd to arrest him," commented Mr. Gay. "The blundering idiot who caused it----" Mary Louise's laugh ran out merrily. "You and Jane will have to get together, Dad," she said. "You agree so perfectly about David McCall!" "Never did care for the fellow," her father muttered. "Give me men with brains--and sense!" He looked admiringly at Max and Norman. "But get on with the story, Mary Lou." "It was the day after the Smiths' fire that I really seriously suspected Tom Adams," she continued. "I trailed him to the store at Four Corners and found him gambling. He told a man that he'd pay him a hundred dollars, which he expected to collect immediately. And that set me thinking." "Why?" inquired Max. "Because a farmhand doesn't earn a hundred dollars so easily, especially from tightwads like Frazier. Everybody knows that man pays miserable wages.... Then, besides that, I overheard Tom Adams explaining a card trick, and that fact made me guess that he had gotten hold of one of Cliff's decks of cards and either accidentally or purposely dropped them at the Smiths'." Mr. Gay nodded approvingly. He loved to watch the logical working of his daughter's mind. "So I began to put two and two together," she went on. "Somebody was paying Tom a lot of money--lots more than a hundred dollars, I learned--for doing something. What, I asked myself, could the job be except setting those houses on fire? And who wanted them burned down except Frazier, or possibly Horace Ditmar, who, as you know, is an architect?" "So you narrowed your suspects down to two people--besides Tom Adams?" inquired Mr. Gay admiringly. "Yes. And when Adelaide Ditmar got that threat I was positive Frazier was responsible. He wanted the business, and he was doing everything he could to get it. But even then I had no proof." "So what did you do?" asked Max. "And why did Tom Adams suspect that you knew anything?" "It was all because of this conversation," answered Mary Louise, opening her notebook. "I overheard it near Frazier's garage, and then I was stupid enough to let them see me. I even told them I was going over to the farm to talk to Hattie." "That was a mistake," remarked Mr. Gay. "A mistake I paid for pretty dearly," agreed the girl. "But it's all right now, so it really doesn't matter.... Now let me read you the conversation between Frazier and Tom Adams on the afternoon I was taken away." Quickly, in the words of the two men, she read to her listeners of Tom's demand for money and Mr. Frazier's reluctant compliance with his claims. When she had finished she looked eagerly at her father. "Isn't Frazier guilty?" she asked. "Of course he's guilty," agreed the detective. "But he won't ever admit it. He'll squirm out of it, because we haven't got proof in so many words. He'll say he was talking about something entirely different to Tom Adams." "But can't he be arrested?" persisted Mary Louise, a note of disappointment creeping into her voice. "I don't see how--until we find Tom Adams. He'll establish Frazier's guilt, all right. I can't see Adams shouldering the blame alone." Mary Louise frowned; she hated the idea of the hotelkeeper's freedom, even though it might be only temporary. But suddenly her face lighted up with inspiration. "I have it!" she cried. "He can be arrested for signing that paper confining me to the insane asylum, can't he, Dad?" Mr. Gay looked startled. "What paper?" he demanded. Mary Louise explained that, since the commitment had to be signed by two relatives of the patient, Mr. Frazier had posed as her cousin. That was enough, Mr. Gay said immediately: all that they needed as evidence was the paper itself. They would drive over to the institution that afternoon and secure it. Luncheon was indeed a happy meal in the Gay household that day. Although Freckles and Jane did not return, the two boys and Mary Louise kept up a constant banter of laughter and merriment. Mr. and Mrs. Gay were quieter, but a light of rapture shone in their eyes. Just at the conclusion of the meal Mrs. Hunter and Cliff arrived. Prepared to enter a house of misery and fear, they could not believe their ears as they heard the gayety from within. "Mary Lou!" cried Cliff incredulously. "Cliff!" exclaimed the girl, jumping up and running to the screen door. "You're free!" "And you're home!" returned the young man, seizing both of her hands. In spite of his arrest, Clifford Hunter was the same care-free young person. In a few minutes he was showing his card tricks to Max and Norman, delighted to find a new audience. When the whole story had been retold to the Hunters, with the caution that they say nothing of it to Mr. Frazier, Mary Louise and the three boys walked around the little resort to tell everybody there the glad news. Then she and her father and Max took the car and drove to the Adams farm. Mr. Gay thought it would be wise to take old Mr. Adams with them to visit the asylum, and Mary Louise thought it would be interesting to bring Rebecca--just to let Miss Stone and the other attendants meet the real Rebecca Adams! With Max at the wheel they had no difficulty in finding the asylum. What fun it was, Mary Louise thought, to pass through those iron gates now--knowing that she was safe! Yet instinctively she reached for her father's hand and held it securely as the car proceeded up the long driveway. The same doctor and the same head nurse came out to receive them as upon Mary Louise's first visit. Mr. Gay displayed his badge at once and explained his errand. The woman nodded and hurried into the office for the paper. While she was gone, Rebecca Adams, growing restless, stepped out of the car, lugging her heavy water pitcher in her arms. At the same moment Miss Stone, Mary Louise's special nurse, came out of the building. "Miss Stone, I want you to meet the real Rebecca Adams," said Mary Louise, with a twinkle in her eye. Rebecca turned eagerly to the nurse. "Can you show me where there is a well of clear water?" she asked immediately. "Yes," replied Miss Stone gravely. "Back of the building. We have a fine well." "Oh!" cried the woman in ecstasy. "At last!" She looked over at her father, and there were tears of earnestness in her eyes. "Let me stay here, Father! This is my home, where I want to live!" Her voice grew more wistful. "A well of clear water!" she repeated. "Please take me to it, kind lady!" "Perhaps it is for the best," agreed old Mr. Adams. "There's nobody to take good care of Rebecca at home now that her mother's dead and I'm crippled up with rheumatism. She can stay if she wants to." And so, at her own request, Rebecca Adams took up her life at the quiet institution, and the rest of the party, with the paper which was to be used as evidence against Frazier in their hands, drove back to Shady Nook. Mary Louise went into her bedroom and put on her prettiest dress, awaiting the arrival of Jane and Freckles and her friends. What a glorious evening it was going to be for them all! CHAPTER XIX _Conclusion_ Mary Louise was putting the last dabs of powder on her nose when she heard a car stop at the porch steps. Peering through the screened window of her bedroom she immediately decided that it must be the detectives. Yes--and, oh, joy of joys!--they had Tom Adams with them! In another moment the men were out of the car and up on the porch, where her father joined them. "Congratulations!" exclaimed Mr. Gay. "I see that you got Tom Adams. I remember him now." "Yes," answered one of the men. "But he won't admit a thing about your daughter. He says he never saw Mary Louise after she went back to the tennis court that afternoon." "On what grounds could you arrest him, then?" demanded Mr. Gay. "He stole a car on his way to the West." Mary Louise repressed a giggle and turned away from the window. Her father evidently meant to find out what he could before he announced his daughter's return. "You have a sister Rebecca, haven't you, Adams?" he inquired. The young man nodded. "Yes. She's feeble-minded. Why?" "We know that Mary Louise saw her the afternoon she disappeared. Rebecca told us so, and she also said that you came home that afternoon just as my daughter started to leave the farm." "Rebecca's mind wanders a lot," muttered Tom. "She don't know what she's talkin' about half the time." He shifted his feet uneasily. "You--have been thinking of putting Rebecca into an asylum?" persisted Mr. Gay. "Yeah. We considered it. Why?" "Because she's in one now," announced Mr. Gay calmly. "Of her own free will. An asylum about twenty miles from here. A Dr. Fetter, I believe, is the head of the institution." He paused and gazed intently at Tom. The young man's jaw dropped, his face grew white, and his hands trembled. Mr. Gay burst out laughing, and Mary Louise came to the screen door. "Hello, Tom," she said quietly. The young man started as if he had seen a ghost. But he managed to stammer a reply. "Hello, Miss Gay," he said. All three of the plainclothes men stepped forward in amazement. "You found her, Gay?" they demanded of Mary Louise's father. "No," answered Mr. Gay. "To be frank, I didn't. Two of her young friends from Riverside did. She was confined in an insane asylum about twenty miles from Shady Nook, under the name of Rebecca Adams!" All of Tom's pretence fell away from him at this announcement. He knew his game was up. His limbs grew weak; he groveled at the men's feet. "Don't send me to the chair!" he cried. "I didn't harm her. She's all right, ain't she?" "We'll let the judge and the jury decide that," replied Mr. Gay. "Now, suppose you sit down there and tell us the truth, Adams. You might as well, for we know most of it already!" The young man crawled into a seat, but he made no attempt to tell his story. "We know that you burned three houses here at Shady Nook," said Mr. Gay. "We know, too, that you did it because you were bribed by Frazier. Didn't he pay you a certain sum of money to start those fires?" "Yes, he did," acknowledged Tom. "He gave me five hundred dollars." "Why did he want them burned down?" asked one of the plainclothes men. "He figured that he'd get five hundred at least from the Hunters during the summer, entertaining their friends and all. Then Flicks' fire turned out to be better business yet. All the folks from Shady Nook, except the Ditmars, begun eatin' at the hotel, once the inn was gone. And Smiths' burnin' down brought all them children and servants and even the Ma and Pa over to the Royal." "Did Frazier expect to burn any more cottages?" was the next question. "No, he wasn't plannin' on it. Only, when Mrs. Ditmar started up a boardin' house and took his business away from him, that made him sore. But I wasn't goin' a do no more dirty work. I figured I'd just get my money and clear out. I never did expect to burn Ditmars'--only threaten 'em." "But what made you do that dreadful thing to Mary Louise?" demanded Mr. Gay. "I wanted to get rid of her till I made my get-away. Frazier and me was scared she was onto somethin' and would send for you, and you'd figure it all out, Mr. Gay. Frazier thought, if I was gone, he'd be safe. He'd just deny everything. The idea of callin' Mary Louise 'Rebecca' just popped into my head when she told us she was goin' over to the farm to see Hattie that afternoon. I knew Hattie and Dad was off to the fair. So I jumped in my car and run over to the asylum and made the arrangements. We just got back in time to nab her." One of the men stood up. "Detective Gay," he Said, "I think you and I had better go over and arrest Frazier now. These other two men can take charge of Adams." He turned to Mary Louise, who was still standing in the doorway. "Is there any question you want to ask this criminal, Miss Gay, before we take him away?" "Yes," answered Mary Louise, stepping through the doorway. "I would like to know how that pack of cards came to be dropped at the Smiths' the night of their fire--how Tom happened to have them in his possession." The young man flushed. "One day I was watchin' Hunter do a trick on the hotel porch. I noticed he put the cards in his coat pocket. Later on, he hung the coat over the back of a chair while he went off to play tennis. So I sneaked up and took 'em out of his pocket, to use to show the trick to the boys. I thought they was marked, but they wasn't. Hunter sure is clever at tricks. "Then when I heard people was suspectin' him of burnin' his own cottage down for the insurance, I thought I might as well help that suspicion along. So I dropped his pack of cards into that can of water at the Smiths'. And sure enough, it worked!" Mary Louise's eyes were filled with contempt, but she did not put her feeling into words. Instead, she nodded to the detectives, and the men all left the porch. Fifteen minutes later Frazier's arrest was accomplished, and the three plainclothes men started for Albany with both criminals in their custody. Mary Louise and her parents watched them go with a sigh of relief. "That's that," said her father, with a smile. "Now, if only Jane and Freckles would come," added her mother, "we could be perfectly happy. It's time to go to dinner." In a couple of minutes Mrs. Gay's wish was granted. Down the road half a dozen young people came running, for they had just heard the wonderful news that Mary Louise was back. Silky reached his mistress first, then Freckles arrived, with Jane and four of the boys close behind. Never, if she lived to be a hundred, would Mary Louise forget that wonderful dinner at the Ditmars'. The joy of being back home again, the happiness of her friends, the companionship of her father--oh, everything seemed perfect that night to the lovely brown-eyed girl. And not least of it all was the satisfaction of knowing that the mystery of the fires was solved at last! Shady Nook was safe again for everybody--to enjoy for many, many summers to come! * * * * * * Transcriber's note: --Retained publication and copyright information from the printed exemplar (this book is public-domain in the U.S.). --Obvious typographical errors were corrected without comment. Possibly intentional spelling variations were not changed. 
4987	----	This eBook was produced by Jim Weiler, xooqi.com The Outdoor Girls At Rainbow Lake or The Stirring Cruise of the Motor Boat Gem by Laura Lee Hope, 1913 _________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER I A GRAND SURPRISE "Girls, I've got the grandest surprise for you!" Betty Nelson crossed the velvety green lawn, and crowded into the hammock, slung between two apple trees, which were laden with green fruit. First she had motioned for Grace Ford to make room for her, and then sank beside her chum with a sigh of relief. "Oh, it was so warm walking over!" she breathed. "And I did come too fast, I guess." She fanned herself with a filmy handkerchief. "But the surprise?" Mollie Billette reminded Betty. "I'm coming to it, my dear, but just let me get my breath. I didn't know I hurried so. Swing, Grace." With a daintily shod foot-- a foot slender and in keeping with her figure-- Grace gave rather a languid push, and set the hammock to swaying in wider arcs. Amy Stonington, who had not joined in the talk since the somewhat hurried arrival of Betty, strolled over to the hammock and began peering about in it-- that is, in as much of it as the fluffy skirts of the two occupants would allow to be seen. "I don't see it," she said in gentle tones-- everything Amy did was gentle, and her disposition was always spoken of as "sweet" by her chums, though why such an inapt word is generally selected to describe what might better be designated as "natural" is beyond comprehension. "I don't see it," murmured Amy. "What?" asked Grace, quickly. "I guess she means that box of chocolates," murmured Mollie. "It's no use, Amy, for Grace finished the last of them long before Betty blew in on us-- or should I say drifted? Really, it's too warm to do more than drift to-day." "You finished the last of the candy yourself!" exclaimed Grace, with spirit. If Grace had one failing, or a weakness, it was for chocolates. "I did not!" snapped Mollie. Her own failing was an occasional burst of temper. She had French blood in her veins-- and not of French lilac shade, either, as Betty used to say. It was of no uncertain color-- was Mollie's temper-- at times. "Yes, you did!" insisted Grace. "Don't you remember? It was one with a cherry inside, and we both wanted it, and---- " "You got it!" declared Mollie. "If you say I took it---- " "That's right, Grace, you did have it," said gentle Amy. "Don't you recall, you held it in one hand behind your back and told Billy to choose?" Billy was Mollie's "chummy" name. "That's so," admitted Grace. "And Mollie didn't guess right. I beg your pardon, Mollie. It's so warm, and the prickly heat bothers me so that I can hardly think of anything but that I'm going in and get some talcum powder. I've got some of the loveliest scent-- the Yamma-yamma flower from Japan." "It sounds nice," murmured Betty. "But, girls---- " "Excuse me," murmured Grace, making a struggle to arise from the hammock-- never a graceful feat for girl or woman. "Don't! You'll spill me!" screamed Betty, clutching at the yielding sides of the net. "Grace! There!" There would have been a "spill" except that Amy caught the swaying hammock and held it until Grace managed, more or less "gracelessly," to get out. "There's the empty box," she remarked, as it was disclosed where it had lain hidden between herself and Betty. "Not a crumb left, Amy, my dear. But I fancy I have a fresh box in the house, if Will hasn't found them. He's always-- snooping, if you'll pardon my slang." "I wasn't looking for candy," replied Amy. "It's my handkerchief-- that new lace one; I fancied I left it in the hammock." "Wait, I'll get up," said Betty. "Don't you dare let go, Amy. I don't see why I'm so foolish as to wear this tight skirt. We didn't bother with such style when we were off on our walking tour." "Oh, blessed tour!" sighed Mollie. "I wish we could go on another one-- to the North Pole," and she vigorously fanned herself with a magazine cover. Betty rose, and Amy found what she was looking for. Grace walked slowly over the shaded lawn toward her house, at which the three chums had gathered this beautiful-- if too warm-- July day. Betty, Amy, and Mollie made a simultaneous dive for the hammock, and managed, all three, to squeeze into it, with Betty in the middle. "Oh, dear!" she cried. "This is too much! Let me out, and you girls can have it to yourselves. Besides, I want to talk, and I can't do it sitting down very well." "You used to," observed Amy, smoothing out her rather crumpled dress, and making dabs at her warm face with the newly discovered handkerchief. "The kind of talking I'm going to do now calls for action-- 'business,' as the stage people call it," explained Betty. "I want to walk around and swing my arms. Besides, I can't properly do justice to the subject sitting down. Oh, girls, I've got the grandest surprise for you!" Her eyes sparkled and her cheeks glowed; she seemed electrified with some piece of news. "That's what you said when you first came," spoke Mollie, "but we seemed to get off the track. Start over, Betty, that's a dear, and tell us all about it. Take that willow chair," and Billy pointed to an artistic green one that harmonized delightfully with the grass, and the gray bark of an apple tree against which it was drawn. "No, I'm going to stand up," went on Betty. "Anyhow, I don't want to start until Grace comes back. I detest telling a thing over twice." "If Grace can't find that box of chocolates she'll most likely run down to the store for another," said Amy. "And that means we won't hear the surprise for ever so long," said Mollie. "Go on, Bet, tell us, and we'll retell it to Grace when she comes. That will get rid of your objection," and Mollie tucked back several locks of her pretty hair that had strayed loose when the vigorous hammock-action took place. "No, I'd rather tell it to you all together," insisted Betty, with a shake of her head. "It wouldn't be fair to Grace to tell it to you two first. We'll wait." "I'll go in and ask her to hurry," ventured Amy. She was always willing to do what she could to promote peace, harmony, and general good feeling. If ever anyone wanted anything done, Amy was generally the first to volunteer. "There's no great hurry," said Betty, "though from the way I rushed over here you might think so. But really, it is the grandest thing! Oh, girls, such a time as may be ahead of us this summer!" and she pretended to hug herself in delight. "Betty Nelson, you've just got to tell us!" insisted Mollie. "Look out, Amy, I'm going to get up." Getting up from a hammock-- or doing anything vigorous, for that matter-- was always a serious business with quick Mollie. She generally warned her friends not to "stand too close." "Never mind, here comes Grace," interrupted Amy. "Do sit still, Mollie; it's too warm to juggle-- or is it jiggle?-- around so." "Make it wiggle," suggested Betty. "Do hurry, Grace," called Mollie "We can't hear about the grand surprise until you get here, and we're both just dying to know what it is." "I couldn't find my chocolates," said Grace, as she strolled gracefully up, making the most of her slender figure. "I just know Will took them. Isn't he horrid!" "Never mind, did you bring the talcum?" asked Amy. "We can sprinkle it on green apples and pretend it's fruit juice." "Don't you dare suggest such a thing when my little twins come along, as they're sure to do, sooner or later," spoke Mollie, referring to her brother and sister-- Paul and Dora-- or more often "Dodo," aged four. They were "regular tykes," whatever that is. Mollie said so, and she ought to know. "If you gave them that idea," she went on, "we'd have them both in the hospital. However, they're not likely to come to-day." "Why not?" asked Betty, for the twins had a habit of appearing most unexpectedly, and in the most out-of-the-way places. "They're over at Aunt Kittie's for the day, and I told mamma I shouldn't mind if she kept them a week." "Oh, the dears!" murmured Amy. "You wouldn't say so if you saw how they upset my room yesterday. I like a little peace and quietness," exclaimed Mollie. "I love Paul and Dodo, but-- and she shrugged her shoulders effectively, as only the French can. "Here's the talcum," spoke Grace. "I'm sorry about the chocolates. Wait until I see Will," and she shook an imaginary brother. "Never mind, dear, it's too hot for candies, anyhow," consoled Betty. "Pass the talcum," and she reached for the box that Mollie was then using. "It has the most delightful odor, Grace. Where did you get it?" "It's a new sample lot Harrison's pharmacy got in. Mr. Harrison gave me a box to try, and said---- " "He wanted you to recommend it to your friends, I've no doubt," remarked Mollie. "He didn't say so, but I haven't any hesitation in doing so. I just love it." "It is nice," said Amy. "I'm going to get some the next time I go down-town." The spicy scent of the perfumed talcum powder mingled with the odor of the grass, the trees, and the flowers, over which the bees were humming. "Come, come, Betty!" exclaimed Mollie, vigorously, when shining noses had been rendered immune from the effects of the sun, "when do we hear that wonderful secret of yours?" "Right away! Make yourselves comfortable. I'm going to walk about, and get the proper action to go with the words. Now, what did I do with that letter?" and she looked in her belt, up her sleeve, and in the folds of her waist. "Gracious, I hope I haven't lost it!" she exclaimed, glancing about, anxiously. "Was it only a letter?" asked Mollie, something of disappointment manifesting itself in her tones. "Only a letter!" repeated Betty, with proper emphasis. "Well, I like the way you say that! It isn't a common letter, by any means." "Is it from that queer Mr. Blackford, whose five hundred dollar bill we found when we were on our walking trip?" asked Amy, with strange recollections of that queer occurrence. "No, it was from my uncle, Amos Marlin, a former sea captain," was the answer "A most quaint and delightful character, as you'll all say when you meet him." "Then we are going to meet him?" interjected Grace, questioningly. "Yes, he's coming to pay me a visit." "Was that the grand surprise?" Amy wanted to know. "Indeed not. Oh, there's the letter," and Betty caught up a piece of paper from underneath the hammock. "I'll read it to you. It's quite funny, and in it he says he's going to give me the grandest surprise that ever a girl had. It---- " "But what is the surprise itself?" inquired Mollie. "Oh, he didn't say exactly," spoke Betty, smoothing out the letter. "But I know, from the way he writes, that it will be quite wonderful. Everything Uncle Amos does is wonderful. He's quite rich, and---- " "Hark!" exclaimed Amy. A voice was calling: "Miss Ford! Miss Ford!" "Yes, Nellie, what is it?" asked Grace, as she saw a maid coming towards her, beckoning. "Your brother wants you on the telephone, Miss Ford," answered the maid, "he says it's quite important, and he wants you to please hurry." "Excuse me," flung back Grace, as she hurried off. "I'll be back in a minute. I hope he's going to confess where he put those chocolates." CHAPTER II AFTER THE PAPERS "Hello, is this you, Will?" "Yes, this is Grace. What did you do with my chocolates? The girls are here, and-- Never mind about the chocolates? The idea! I like---- . What's that? You want to go to the ball game? Will I do your errand for you? Yes, I'm listening. Go on!" "It's this way, Sis," explained Will over the wire from a down-town drug store. "This morning dad told me to go over to grandmother's and get those papers. You know; the ones in that big property deal which has been hanging fire so long. Grandmother has the papers in her safe. The deal is to be closed to-day. I promised dad I'd go, but I forgot all about it, and now the fellows want me to go to the ball game with them. "If you'll go over to grandmother's and get the papers I'll buy you a two-pound box of the best chocolates-- honest, I will. And you can get the papers as well as I can. Grandmother expects one of the family over after them to-day, and she has them all ready. "You can go just as well as I can-- better, in fact, and dad won't care as long as he gets the papers. You're to take them to his office. Will you do it for me, Sis? Come on, now, be a sport, and say yes." "But it's so hot, and Betty, Amy, and Mollie are here with me. I don't want to go all the way over to grandmother's after some tiresome old papers. Besides, it was your errand, anyhow." "I know it, Sis, but I don't want to miss that game. It's going to be a dandy! Come on, go for me, that's a good fellow. I'll make it three pounds." "No, I'm not going. Besides, it looks like a thunder storm." "Say, Sis, will you go if I let you ride Prince?" "Your new horse?" asked Grace, eagerly. "Yes, you may ride Prince," came over the wire. Will was a good horseman, but for some time had to be content with rather an ordinary steed. Lately he had prevailed on his father to get him a new one, and Prince, a pure white animal, of great beauty, had been secured. It was gentle, but spirited, and had great speed. Grace rode well, but her mount did not suit her, and Mr. Ford did not want to get another just then. Will never allowed his sister to more than try Prince around the yard, but she was eager to go for a long canter with the noble animal. Now was the chance she had waited for so long. "You must want to see that ball game awfully bad, to lend me Prince," said Grace. "I do," answered Will. "But be careful of him. Don't let him have his head too much or he'll bolt. But there's not a mean streak in him." "Oh, I know that-- I can manage." "Then you'll get those papers from grandmother for me, and take them to dad?" "Yes, I guess so, though I don't like leaving the girls." "Oh, you can explain it to them. And you can 'phone down for the chocolates and have them sent up. Charge them to me. The girls can chew on them until you come back. It won't take you long on Prince. And say, listen, Sis!" "Yes, go on." "Those papers are pretty valuable, dad said. There are other parties interested in this deal, and if they got hold of the documents it might make a lot of trouble." "Trouble?" "Yes. But there's not much chance of that. They don't even know where the papers are." "All right, I'll get them. Have a good time at the game, Billy boy." "I will, and look out for Prince. So long!" and Will hung up the receiver, while Grace over the private wire, telephoned to the groom to saddle Prince. Then she went out to tell her friends of her little trip. And while she is doing this, I will interject a few words of explanation so that those who did not read the first volume of this series may have a better understanding of the characters and location of this story. The first book was called "The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale; Or, Camping and Tramping for Fun and Health." In that is given an account of how the four chums set off to walk about two hundred miles in two weeks, stopping nights at the homes of various friends and relatives on the route. At the very outset they stumbled on the mystery of a five hundred dollar bill, and it was not until the end that the strange affair was cleared up most unexpectedly. The four girls were Betty Nelson, a born leader, bright, vigorous and with more than her share of common sense. She was the daughter of Charles Nelson, a wealthy carpet manufacturer. Grace Ford, tall, willowly, and exceedingly pretty, was blessed with well-to-do parents. Mr. Ford being a lawyer of note, who handled many big cases. Mollie Billette, was just the opposite type from Grace. Mollie was almost always in action, Grace in repose. Mollie was dark, Grace fair. Mollie was quick-tempered-- Grace very slow to arouse. Perhaps it was the French blood in Mollie-- blood that showed even more plainly in her mother, a wealthy widow-- that accounted for this. Or perhaps it was the mischievous twins-- Dodo and Paul-- whose antics so often annoyed their older sister, that caused Mollie to "flare up" at times. Amy Stonington was concerned in a mystery that she hoped would some day be unraveled. For years she had believed that John and Sarah Stonington were her father and mother, but in the first book I related how she was given to understand differently. It appears that, when she was a baby, Amy lived in a Western city. There came a flood, and she was picked up on some wreckage. There was a note pinned to her baby dress-- or, rather an envelope that had contained a note, and this was addressed to Mrs. Stonington. Amy's mother was Mrs. Stonington's aunt, though the two had not seen each other in many years. Whether Amy's parents perished in the flood, as seemed likely, or what became of them, was never known, nor was it known whether there were any other children. But Mr. Stonington, after the flood, was telegraphed for, and came to get Amy. He and his wife had kept her ever since, and shortly before this story opens they had told her of the mystery surrounding her. Of course it was a great shock to poor Amy, but she bore it bravely. She called Mr. and Mrs. Stonington "uncle" and "aunt" after that. I described Deepdale and its surroundings in the previous book, so I will make no more than a passing reference to it here. Sufficient to say that the town nestled in a bend of the Argono River, a few miles above where that stream widened out into beautiful and picturesque Rainbow Lake. Then the river continued on its way again, increasing into quite a large body of water. On the river and lake plied many pleasure craft, and some built for trade, in which they competed with a railroad that connected with the main line to New York. In Rainbow Lake were a number of islands, the largest-- Triangle-- obviously so called, being quite a summer resort. Our four girls lived near each other in fine residences, that of Mollie's mother being on the bank of the river. Deepdale was a thriving community, in the midst of a fertile farming section. The summer sun glinted in alternate shadows and brilliant patches on Grace Ford as she hurried out to her friends on the lawn, after receiving the message from her brother Will. "What happened?" asked Mollie, for it was evident from the expression on the face of the approaching girl that something out of the ordinary had been the import of the message. "Oh, it was Will. He---- " "Did he 'fess up' about the chocolates?" inquired Mollie. "No, but he's going to treat us to a three-pound box. I 'phoned down for them. They'll be here soon, and you girls can enjoy them while I'm gone." "Gone!" echoed Betty, blankly. "Where are you going, pray tell?" "Oh, Will forgot to do something father told him to, and he wants me to do it for him. Get some rather important papers from Grandmother Ford. I'm going to ride Prince. I wish you all could come. Will you be angry if I run away for a little while? I shan't be more than an hour." "Angry? Of course not," said Amy, gently. "Besides, it's important; isn't it?" "I imagine so, from what Will said. But he has the baseball fever, and there's no cure for it. So if you don't mind I'll just slip into my habit, and canter over. Oh, I just love Prince! He's the finest horse!" "I'm afraid of horses," confessed Amy. "I'm not!" declared Betty, who was fond of all sports, and who had fully earned her title of "Little Captain," which she was often called. "Some day I'm going to prevail on daddy to get me one." "I should think you'd rather have an auto," spoke Mollie. "I may, some day," murmured Betty. "But hurry along, Grace. It looks as though it might storm. We'll save some of the candy for you." "You'd better!" The chocolates came before Grace was ready to start after the papers, for she discovered a rent in her skirt and it had to be mended. Then, too, Prince proved a little more restive than had been anticipated, from not having been out in two days, and the groom suggested that he take the animal up and down the road on a sharp gallop to give the excess spirit a chance to be worked off. So Grace saw to it that she had at least part of her share of chocolates before she left. "And I have just time to hear the rest about the grand surprise," she said to Betty, who had been turning and creasing in her hand the letter her uncle had written. "I'm afraid I can't go as much into detail as I thought I could," confessed Betty. "But I'll read you the letter my old sea-captain uncle sent me. It begins: 'In port; longitude whatever you like, and latitude an ice cream soda.' Then he goes on: "'Dear messmate. Years ago, when you first signed papers to voyage through life, when you weren't rated as an A. B., you used to have me spill sea-yarns for you. And you always said you were going to be a sailor, shiver my timbers, or something like that,-- real sailor-like, so it sounded. "'I never forgot this, and I always counted on taking you on a voyage with me. But your captain-- that is to say your father-- never would let me, and often the barometer went away down between him and me. "'Howsomever, I haven't forgotten how you liked the water, nor how much you wanted a big ship of your own. You used to make me promise that if ever I could tow the Flying Dutchman into port that you could have it for a toy. And I promised. "'Well, now I have the chance to get the Flying Dutchman for you, and I'm bringing it home, with sails furled so it won't get away. I'm going to give you a grand surprise soon, and you can pass it on to your friends. So if you let me luff along for a few more cable lengths I think I'll make port soon, and then we'll see what sort of a sailor you'll make. You may expect the surprise shortly.' "That's all there is to it," concluded Betty, "and I've been puzzling my brains as to just what the surprise may be." "He's going to take you on a voyage," said Amy. "He's bought you some toy ship," was the opinion of Mollie. "Oh, if he'd only bring a real boat that we could make real a trip in!" sighed Grace. "That would be-- lovely!" "Betty Nelson! Write to your uncle right away!" commanded Mollie, "and find out exactly what he means." "I can't," sighed Betty. "He's traveling, and one never knows where he is. We'll just have to wait. Besides, he is so peculiar that he'd just as likely as not only puzzle me the more. We'll just have to wait; that's all." "Well, if it should be some sort of a boat, even a big rowboat, we could have some fun," asserted Grace. "Yes, for mine isn't much account," remarked Mollie, who owned a small skiff on the river. "I was so excited and amused when I got uncle's letter," said Betty, "that I didn't know what to do. Mamma puzzled over it, but she couldn't make any more out of it than I could. So I decided to come over here." "I'm glad you did," spoke Grace, holding up her long habit in one hand and delicately eating a chocolate from the other "There comes James with Prince. Oh, he's run him too hard!" she exclaimed as she noted the hard-breathing animal. "Oh, no, Miss," said the groom, who heard her. "That was only a romp for him. He'll be much easier to handle now." He gave Grace a hand to help her mount to the saddle, and adjusted the stirrups for her. "Good-bye!" she called, as she cantered off. "Save some of the chocolates for me," and the others laughingly promised, as they went back to the shade, to rest in the hammock or lawn chairs. CHAPTER III THE RUNAWAY Grace cantered along the pleasant country road on the back of Prince. The noble animal had lost some of his fiery eagerness to cover the whole earth in one jump, and now was mindful of snaffle and curb, the latter of which Grace always applied with gentle hand. Prince seemed to know this, for he behaved in such style as not to need the cruel gripping, which so many horsemen-- and horsewomen too, for that matter, needlessly inflict. "Oh, but it is glorious to ride!" exclaimed the girl, as she urged the animal into a gallop on a soft stretch of road beneath wonderful trees that interlaced their branches overhead. "Glorious-- glorious!" "I hope those papers are not so valuable that it would be an object for-- for some one to try to take them away from me," she mused. Instinctively she glanced behind her, but the peaceful road was deserted save for the sunshine and shadows playing tag in the dust. Then Grace looked above. The sky was of rather a somber tint, that seemed to suggest a storm to come, and there was a sultriness and a silence, with so little wind that it might indicate a coming disturbance of the elements to restore the balance that now seemed so much on one side. "But if any one tries to get them away from us, we-- we'll just-- run away; won't we, Prince?" and she patted the neck of the horse. Prince whinnied acquiescence. "Grandmother will be surprised to see me," thought Grace, as she rode on. "But I'm glad I can do as well as Will in business matters. I hope papa won't be too severe with Will for not attending to this himself." She passed a drinking trough-- a great log hollowed out, into which poured a stream of limpid water coming from a distant hill through a rude wooden pipe. It dripped over the mossy green sides of the trough, and Prince stretched his muzzle eagerly toward it. "Of course you shall have a drink!" exclaimed Grace, as she let him have his head. Then she felt thirsty herself, and looked about for something that would serve as a mounting block, in case she got down. She saw nothing near; but a ragged, barefooted, freckled-faced and snub-nosed urchin, coming along just then, divined her desire. "Want a drink, lady?" he asked, smiling. "Yes," answered Grace, "but I have no cup." "I kin make ye one." Straightway he fashioned a natural flagon from a leaf of the wild grape vine that grew nearby, piercing the leaf with its own stem so that it formed a cup out of which a Druid might have quaffed ambrosia. "There's a cup," he said. "I allers makes 'em that way when I wants a drink." He filled it from the running water and held it up. Grace drank thirstily, and asked for more. "And here is something for you," she said with a smile, as she passed down some chocolates she had slipped into a small pocket of her riding habit. "Say, is it Christmas, or Fourth of July?" gasped the urchin as he accepted them. "Thanks, lady." Grace again smiled down at him, and Prince, having dipped his muzzle into the cool water again, for very pleasure in having all he wanted, swung about and trotted on. The distance was not long now, and Grace, noting the gathering clouds, was glad of it. "I'm sure I don't want to be caught in a storm," she said. "This stuff shrinks so," and she glanced down at her velvet skirt. "I wouldn't have it made up again. I hope the storm doesn't spoil Will's ball game," She urged Prince to a faster pace, and, cantering along a quiet stretch of road, was soon at the house of Mr. Ford's mother. "Why Grace!" exclaimed the elderly lady, "I expected Will to come over. Your father said---- " "I know, grandma, but Will-- well, he is wild about baseball, and I said I'd come for him." "That was good of you." "Oh, no it wasn't. I don't deserve any praise. Chocolates and Prince-- a big bribe, grandma." "Oh, you young folks! Well, come in. Thomas will see to Prince." "I can't stay long." "No, I suppose not. Your father wanted these papers in a hurry. He would have come himself, but he had some matters to attend to. And, its being rather a family affair, he did not want to send one of his law clerks. Those young men tattle so." "I wonder if they are any worse than girls, grandma?" "Oh, much-- much! But come in, and I will have Ellen make you a cup of tea. It is refreshing on a hot day. Then I will get you the papers. It is very warm." "Yes, I think we will have a shower." "Then I must not keep you. Is everyone well?" "Yes. How have you been?" "Oh, well enough for an old lady." "Old, grandma? I only hope I look as nice as you when I get---- " "Now, my dear, no flattery. I had my share of that when I was younger, though I must say your grandfather knew how to turn a compliment to perfection. Ah, my dear, there are not many like him now-a-days. Not many!" and she sighed. Tea was served in the quaint old dining room, for Mrs. Ford, though keeping up many old customs, had adopted some modern ones, and her house was perfection itself. "I suppose your brother told you these papers were rather valuable; did he not?" asked Mrs. Ford a little later, as she brought Grace a rather bulky package. "Yes, grandma." "And if they should happen to fall into other hands it might make trouble-- at least for a time." "Yes. I will take good care of them." "How can you carry them?" "In the saddle. Will had pockets, made especially for his needs. They will fit nicety. I looked before starting out." "Very good. Then I won't keep you. Trot along. It does look as though we would have a storm. I hope you get back before it breaks. I would ask you to stay, but I know your father is waiting for those papers." "Yes, Will said he wanted them quickly. Oh, well, I think I can out-race the storm," and Grace laughed. She found that she really would have to race when, a little later, out on the main road, the distant rumble of thunder was heard. "Come, Prince!" she called. "We must see what we can do. Your best foot foremost, old fellow!" The horse whinnied in answer, and swung into an easy gallop that covered the ground well. The clouds gathered thicker and faster. Now and then their black masses would be split by jagged flashes of lightning, that presaged the rumbling report of heaven's artillery which seemed drawing nearer to engage in the battle of the sky. "Prince, we are going to get wet, I'm very much afraid," Grace exclaimed. "And yet-- well, we'll try a little faster pace!" She touched the animal lightly with the crop, and he fairly leaped into greater speed. But it was only too evident that they could not escape the storm. The clouds were more lowering now, and the bursts of thunder followed more quickly on the heels of the lightning flashes. Then came a few angry dashes of rain, as though to give sample of what was to follow. "Come, Prince!" cried Grace. Suddenly from behind there came another sound. It was the deep staccato of the exhaust of an automobile, with opened muffler. It was tearing along the road. Grace glanced back and saw a low, dust-covered racing car, rakish and low-hung, swinging along. It was evident that the occupants-- two young men-- were putting on speed to get to some shelter before the storm broke in all its fury. Prince jumped nervously and shied to one side at the sound of the on-coming car. "Quiet, old fellow," said Grace, soothingly. The car shot past her, and at the same moment Prince waltzed to one side, or else the car swerved, so that only by the narrowest margin was a terrible accident averted. Grace heard the men shout, and there was a wilder burst of the opened muffler. Then she felt a shock, and she knew that the machine had struck and grazed Prince. She glanced down and saw a red streak on his off fore shoulder. He had been cut by some part of the car. The next moment, as the racing auto swung out of sight around a bend in the road, Prince took the bit in his teeth and bolted. With all her strength Grace reined him in, but he was wildly frightened. She felt herself slipping from the saddle. "Prince! Prince!" she cried, bracing herself in the stirrups, and gripping the reins with all her might. "Prince! Quiet, old fellow!" But Prince was now beyond the reasoning power of any human voice. The thunder rumbled and crashed overhead. Grace, above it, could hear the whining decrease of the exhaust of the big car that had caused her steed to run away. "Prince! Prince!" she pleaded. He did not heed. Farther and farther she slipped from the saddle as his wild plunges threw her out of it. Then there came a crash that seemed to mark the height of the storm. A great light shone in front of Grace. Myriads of stars danced before her eyes. She flashed towards a house. From it ran two little tots, and, even in that terror she recognized them as Dodo and Paul, the two Billette twins. They were visiting a relative who lived on this road, she dimly recalled hearing Mollie say. Evidently the children had run out in the storm. A nursemaid caught Paul, but Dodo eluded the girl, and ran straight for the road along which Grace was plunging. "Go back! Go back!" screamed Grace. "Go back, Dodo!" But Dodo came on. The next moment the child seemed to be beneath the feet of the maddened horse, which, a second later, slipped and fell, throwing Grace heavily. Her senses left her. All was black, and the rain pelted down while the lightning flashed and the thunder rumbled and roared. CHAPTER IV THE MISSING DOCUMENTS "How do you feel now? Do you think you can drink a little of this?" Faintly Grace heard these words, as though some one, miles away, was repeating them through a heavy fog. Myriads of bells seemed ringing in her ears, and her whole body felt as though made of lead. Then she became conscious of shooting pains. Her head ached, there was a roaring in it. This was followed by a delicious drowsiness. "Try and take a little of this. The doctor does not think you are badly hurt. Fortunately the horse did not fall on you." Again it seemed as though the voice came from the distant clouds. Grace tried to think-- to reason out where she was, and discover what had happened; but when she did, that same ringing of bells sounded in her ears, her head ached and she felt she was losing that much-to-be desired drowsiness. "Try and take it." She felt some one raise her head, supporting her shoulders. She struggled with herself, resolving not to give way to that lethargy. She opened her eyes with an effort, and looked about her in wonder. She was in a strange room, and a strange woman was bending over her, holding a glass of some pleasant-scented liquid. "There, you have roused up, my dear, try to take this," said the woman, with a smile. "The doctor will be back to see you in a little while." "The doctor," stammered Grace. "Am I hurt? What happened? Oh, I remember, Prince was frightened by the auto, and ran away. Where is he?" she asked in sudden terror, as a thought came to her. "He got up and ran off after he fell with you," said the woman, as she held the glass for Grace to drink. "We had no time to try and catch him, for there were others to attend to." "Oh, but Prince must be caught!" cried Grace, trying to rise from the couch on which she was lying, but finding it too much of an effort. "He will be, my dear," said the woman. "Don't fret about the horse. He did not seem to be hurt." Oh, it isn't so much Prince himself, though Will would feel very badly if anything happened to him. It is---- " Then Grace recalled that to mention the papers in the saddle bag might not be wise, so she stopped. "There now, don't worry, my dear," spoke the woman, soothingly. "Some one will catch the horse," "Oh, he must be caught!" cried Grace. "You say the doctor was here to see me?" "Yes, we sent for one soon after a passing farmer carried you in here when you fell and fainted. You were lying out in the rain-- insensible. We managed to get off your wet dress, and I just slipped this dressing gown of mine on you." "You were very kind. I can't seem to think very clearly," and poor Grace put her hand to her head. "Then don't try, my dear: You'll be all right in a little while. Just rest. I'll see if the doctor can come to you now." "Why is he here-- in the house-- is some one else ill?" asked Grace, quickly. "Yes, my dear. Poor little Dodo was knocked down by the horse, and we fear is badly hurt." "Dodo?" and the voice of Grace fairly rang at the name. "Yes, little Dora Billette. This is her aunt's house. She and her brother Paul are visiting here." "Yes, yes! I know. They live near me in Deepdale. Their sister Mollie is one of my best friends. I am Grace Ford." "Oh yes, I know you now. I thought I recognized your face. I have seen you at Mollie's house. I am a distant relative. But rest yourself now, and the doctor will come to you as soon as he can. He has to attend to Dodo first, the little dear!" "Oh! Dodo, Dodo!" cried Grace, much affected. "You poor little darling, and to think that it was my fault! I must go to her. Mollie will never forgive me!" She tried to rise. "Lie still," commanded the woman, but gently. "It was not your fault. I saw it all. The twins persisted in running out in the storm. The girl could not stop them. Dodo got away and ran directly for the horse." "Yes, I saw that. I thought she would be terribly hurt. Oh, to think it had to be I and Prince who did it!" "It was not at all your fault. If anyone is to blame it is those autoists for going so fast, and passing you so closely. There was no excuse for that. The road was plenty wide enough and they scarcely stopped a moment after you went down, but hurried right on. They should be arrested!" "Oh, but poor Dodo! poor Dodo!" murmured Grace. "Is she much hurt?" "The doctor is not sure. He is afraid of internal injuries, and there seems to be something the matter with one of her legs. But we are hoping for the best. Here, take some more of this; the doctor left it for you." Grace was feeling easier now. Gradually it all came back to her; how she had raced to get home before the storm broke-- the pursuing auto, the injured horse and then the heavy fall. She had no recollection of the passing farmer carrying her into the house. The doctor came into the room. "Well, how are we coming on?" he asked, cheerfully. "Ah, we have roused up I see," he went on, as he noted Grace sitting up. "I guess it is nothing serious after all. Just a bump on the head; eh?" and he smiled genially, as he took her hand. "Yes, I feel pretty well, except that my head aches," said Grace, rather wanly. "I don't blame it. With that fall they say you got it is a wonder you have any head left," and he put out his hand to feel her pulse, nodding in a satisfied sort of way. "How-- how is little Dodo?" faltered Grace. Dr. Morrison did not answer at once. He seemed to be studying Grace. "How is she-- much hurt?" Grace asked again. "Well, we will hope for the best," he answered as cheerfully as he could. "I can't say for sure, but her left leg isn't in the shape I'd like to see it. I am afraid the horse stepped on it. But there, don't worry. We will hope for the best." "Little Dodo's sister is my best chum," explained Grace, the tears coming into her eyes. "Oh, when I saw her running toward Prince I thought I would faint! Poor little dear! I called to her, but she would not mind." "That was the trouble," explained Mrs. Watson, who had been ministering to Grace, "she seemed just wild to get out in the rain." "Well, it may yet come out all right," said Dr. Morrison, "but it is not going to be easy. I don't believe you need me any more-- er---- " He paused suggestively. "Miss Ford is my name," Grace supplied. "Ah, yes, I am glad to know you. Now I must go back to the little one." "Could I see her?" asked Grace, impulsively. "I had rather not-- now." Grace caught her breath convulsively. It was worse than she had feared-- not to even see Dodo! "But you can talk to Paul," went on the physician. "Probably it will do him good to meet a friend. He is rather upset. His aunt, Mrs. Carr, with whom the children were staying for a few days, has telephoned to Mrs. Billette about the accident. Word came back that Nellie-- is that the name-- the larger sister---- " "Mollie," said Grace. "Well, then, Mollie is to come to take Paul home. We cannot move Dodo yet." "Oh, is Mollie coming here?" "Yes. You can arrange to go home with her if you like. I believe Mrs. Carr asked for a closed carriage." "Then, I will go home with Mollie and Paul. Oh, will they ever forgive me?" "It was not your fault at all!" insisted Mrs. Watson." I saw the whole thing. Please don't worry." "No, you must not," said the physician. "Well, I will go back to my little patient," and he sighed, for even he was affected by Dodo's suffering. Grace sought out Paul, who was with his aunt, whom Grace knew slightly. Mrs. Carr greeted her warmly, and put her arms about her in sympathy. Paul looked up at the familiar face and asked: "Oo dot any tandy?" "No, dear," said Grace, gently, "but I'll get you some soon. Mollie will bring some, perhaps." With this promise Paul was content, and Mrs. Carr left him with Grace. Poor Grace! With all the whirl that her head was in, feeling as wretched as she did, one thought was uppermost in her mind-- the papers in the saddlebag. So much might happen to the valuable documents that were needed now-- this very instant, perhaps-- by her father. She almost wanted to go out in the storm and search for Prince. "But perhaps he ran straight home to the stable," she reasoned. "In that case it will be all right, if only they think to go out and get them from the saddle, and take them to papa. Oh, if only Will were home from that ball game. What can I do? The telephone! They will be worried when they see Prince come home, cut, and will think I am badly hurt. I must let them know at once." Mrs. Carr took her unexpected guest to the telephone, and Grace was soon talking to her mother. "Don't worry, Momsey," she said. "Prince ran away with me-- an auto hit him-- now don't faint, I am all right. I'm at Mollie's Aunt Kittie's. Poor Dodo is hurt, I'll tell you about that later. But, listen. Go out to the stable-- I suppose Prince ran there: Get those papers from the saddle, and send them to papa at once. Grandma's papers. They are very important. What? Prince has not come home? Oh, what can have become of him? Those missing papers! Oh, telephone to papa at once! He must do something," and Grace let the receiver fall from her nerveless hand as she looked out into the storm. The rain, after a long dry spell, was coming down furiously. CHAPTER V THE GEM Grace and Mollie were riding home in the carriage that had been sent to bring Mrs. Billette to the home of her relative, for the anxious mother, on hearing that Dodo could not be moved, had come to look after the injured child. Paul went home with his sister. He was munching contentedly on some candy, and all thought of the recent accident and scare had vanished in the present small and sweet happiness. "Oh, it must have been perfectly dreadful, Grace," said Mollie, sympathetically. "Perfectly terrible!" "It was! And are you sure you don't feel resentful toward me?" "The idea! Certainly not. It was poor Dodo's fault, in a way; but I blame those motorists more than anyone else. They should be found." "They certainly made a lot of trouble," admitted Grace. "But I would rather find Prince than them. I wonder where he could have run to?" "Oh, probably not far, after he got over being frightened. Doubtless you'll hear of his being found, and then you can send for him, and recover the papers." "If only the saddle doesn't come off, and get lost," said Grace. "That would be dreadful, for there would be no telling where to look for it." "Most likely it would be along some road. Prince would probably keep to the highways, and if the girth should break and the saddle come off it would be seen. Then, by the papers in the pockets, persons could tell to whom it belonged." "That is just it. Papa doesn't want anyone to see those papers. Some of them have to be kept secret. Oh, I know he will feel dreadful about the loss, and so will Grandma! It was partly her property that was involved in the transaction." "But they can't blame you." "I hope not. I'll never be forgiven by Will for letting Prince throw me and run away, though. He'll never let me take him again." "It was partly Will's fault for not doing the errand himself," declared Mollie, with energy. "Then this might not have happened. Of course I don't mean," she added hastily, "that I blame him in the least for what happened to Dodo. But I mean the papers might not have been lost, for he would likely have carried them in his coat pocket, and not in the saddle." "That is what I should have done, I suppose," spoke Grace with a sigh. "But my riding habit had no pocket large enough. Oh, dear! I'm afraid it will be spoiled by the mud and rain," for she had left it at Mrs. Carr's and had borrowed a dress to wear home in the carriage, a dress that was rather incongruous in conjunction with her riding boots and derby hat. "It can be cleaned," consoled Mollie. "No, Paul, not another bit of candy. Don't give him any, Grace. He'll be ill, and as I'll have to look after him when mamma is away I don't want to have it any harder than necessary." "Me ikes tandy," remarked Paul. "Dodo ikes tandy too. Why not Dodo come wif us?" His big eyes looked appealing at his sister, and her own filled with tears, while those of Grace were not dry. "Poor little Dodo," said Mollie. Then with a smile, and brushing away her tears, she spoke more brightly, "but we must not be gloomy. I just know she will be all right." "I shall never cease praying that she will," spoke Grace, softly. They were splashing home through the mud. The rain was still coming down, but not so hard. The long, dry spell had broken, and it seemed that a continued wet one had set in. Grace was left at her house, where she found Amy and Betty ready to sympathize with her. Her father was there also, and Will. Both looked grave. Seeing that family matters awaited discussion, Amy and Betty soon took their leave, after being assured that Grace was all right, except for a stiffness and a few cuts caused by the fall. A carriage took the two girls to their homes. Mollie had gone on with Paul. "What will happen if we can't find the papers?" asked Grace of her father, when she had explained everything. "Well, there will be a lot of trouble," he said, "and of course the whole matter will have to be held up. In the meanwhile, even if the other interests do not get the documents, they may make it unpleasant for us. I wish, Will, that you had done this errand yourself-- not that I blame you Grace," he said quickly, "but Will knew how very important it was." "I'm very sorry, Dad. I'll never cut business for a ball game again, and I'll do all I can to help out. I'm sure Prince will soon come home, though, and it will be all right. I'll go out to the stable now, and if he isn't there I'll saddle Toto and go hunting. I'll start from where the accident happened, and trace Prince. Lucky he's pure white, he'll show up well, even in the dark." "No, I don't want you to do that," objected Mr. Ford. "You may go to the stable, if you like, but don't start any search until morning. In the meanwhile we may hear something, or he may come back. It's too bad a night to go out. But let this be a lesson to you, Will." "I will; yes, sir. Poor little Sis, I can't tell you how sorry I am. Are you much hurt?" and Will laid his hand tenderly on her head. She winced, for he had touched a bruised place. "Don't worry," she said, as brightly as she could. "I am all right, and the papers may be found. It is poor little Dodo I feel so badly about. She-- she may be a cripple, the doctor says." "No!" exclaimed Will, aghast. "It seems terrible, but that is his opinion." "Oh, they can do such wonderful things in surgery now a-days," said Mrs. Ford, "that I'm sure, in such a young child, there are many chances in her favor. Don't worry, daughter dear. Now you must go to bed, or you will be ill over this. Those motorists ought to be punished, if any one is." "Yes," agreed Mr. Ford. "Now I must see what I can do to offset this loss. You don't suppose, do you Grace, that those men could have had any object in getting those papers away from you?" "What do you mean?" asked Grace, in wonderment. "I mean, did they seem to follow you-- as if they had knowledge that the papers would be transferred to-day, and were determined to get them?" "I don't think so, Daddy. I'm sure they didn't follow me. They just seemed to come out of the storm-- trying to get away from it-- as I was doing. I'm sure it was all an accident-- just carelessness. "Very likely. I was foolish to suggest it, but so much depends on those papers that I don't know just what to think. But there, Grace," as he kissed her, "you must rest yourself. I will think of a way out, I'm sure. Will, come with me. I may need you to make some memoranda while I telephone," and he and his son went to the library. Morning did not see Prince in the stable, and all that day Will searched without result. Many had seen the white horse flying wildly past, but that was all. Some said the saddle was still on, others that it had come off. Mr. Ford was much exercised over the loss of the papers. He did what he could to hold back the business, but there was a prospect of loss and considerable trouble if the documents were not eventually found. The opposing interests learned of the halt, and tried to take advantage of it. They were, however, only partly successful. In the meanwhile, after several days had passed, Dodo grew well enough to be brought home. The chief injury was to her leg, and there was grave danger of it being permanently lame. As soon as she was in better condition it was decided to have a noted specialist treat her. Prince remained missing, nor was there any report of the saddle being located, though Mr. Ford offered a liberal reward for that, or the return of the horse. Betty had telephoned for her three friends. Her voice held in it the hint of pleasure and mystery both, but to all inquiries of what was wanted she returned only the answer: "Come and see. I want you to meet some one." It was two weeks after the accident, and, in a great measure, the bitter memories of it had passed. Dodo was doing as well as could be expected, and, save for a slight limp, Grace had fully recovered. The three chums-- "graces" Will called them-- arrived at Betty's house at the same time. With sparkling eyes she led them into the parlor. "But what is it?" whispered Amy. "If it's a strange young man, I'm not going to go and meet him," said Mollie, with quick decision. "It's a man, but not young, and I think you'll be glad to meet him," answered Betty. Grace instinctively looked at her dress. "Oh, you're all right!" cried Betty. Then she threw open the parlor door. "Here they are, Uncle Amos!" she cried, gaily, and the girls beheld a rather grizzled, elderly man, with tanned face and hands, and wrinkled cheeks, like an apple that has kept all winter, with the merriest blue eyes imaginable, and when he spoke there sounded the heartiest voice that could well fit into the rather small parlor. "Avast there!" he cried, as he saw the girls. "So these are your consorts; eh, Bet? They do you proud! May I be keel-hauled if I've seen a prettier set of sails on a craft in a long while. It's good rigging-- good rigging," and he glanced particularly at the dresses. Betty presented her friends in turn, and Mr. Martin had something odd to say to each as he shook hands heartily. "Uncle Amos has brought the-- surprise," said Betty. "But even yet he won't tell me what it is." "If I did it wouldn't be a surprise!" he protested. "But I'm all prepared to pilot you down to where she is. She's in the offing, all fitted for a cruise. All she needs is a captain and crew, and I think Bet here will be the one, and you girls the other. I may ship as cook or cabin boy, if you'll have me, but that is as may be. Now, if you're ready we'll go down to the dock and see how the tide is." "But we have no tide here, Uncle Amos," spoke Betty. "What! No tide! What sort of a place is it without a tide? I'm disappointed, lass, disappointed!" "We'll try and have one made for you," said Mollie, with a laugh. "That's it! That's the way to talk. Salt water and a tide would make any place, even a desert-- er-- er-- what is it I want to say, Bet?" "I don't know, Uncle, unless that it would make the desert blossom like the rose." "That's it-- a rose. You luffed just at the right time. Well, ladies, all hands have been piped to quarters, so we'll start. It's nearly four bells, and I told the mate I'd be there by then. Let's start." And start they did. On the way toward the river, whither Mr. Marlin insisted on leading the girls, Betty explained how her uncle had arrived unexpectedly that day, and had talked mysteriously about the surprise. "It's a boat-- I'm sure it is," said Mollie. "Oh, he'd talk that same way about an automobile or an airship," said Betty. "He calls everything, 'she,' and if it was an auto he'd 'anchor' it near the river just to be close to the water he loves so much." "What if it's an airship?" asked Amy. "I shall-- learn to run it!" declared Betty. "Never!" "Yes I shall." "Let us hope it is but a rowboat then," sighed Amy. They went out on the public dock in the Argono River. At the string piece was tied what the girls saw was one of the neatest motor boats that, as Will said afterward, "ever ate a gasoline sandwich." There was a trunk cabin, an ample cockpit at the stern, a little cooking galley, a powerful motor, complete fittings and everything that the most exacting motor boat enthusiast could desire. "There she is!" cried Mr. Marlin. "There's the surprise, Bet. I got her for you! I named her the Gem-- for she is a gem. Aside from an ocean steamer there's no better boat built. I saw to it myself. I've been planning that for you for years. And there you are. The Gem is yours. I want you girls to take a cruise in her, and if you don't have a good time it will be your own fault. There's the Gem for you, Betty. Let's go aboard and see if that rascally mate has grub ready. There's the Gem!" and he led the way toward the beautiful boat. The girls simply gasped with delight, and Betty turned pale-- at least Grace said so. CHAPTER VI READY FOR A CRUISE "What a pretty cabin!" cried Mollie. "And see the places to put things!" exclaimed Betty. "Places to put things!" fairly snorted Mr. Marlin, or to give him his proper title, Captain Marlin. "Places! Huh! Lockers, young ladies! Lockers! That's where you put things. The aft starboard locker, the for'd port locker. You must learn sea lingo if you're to cruise in the Gem." The girls were still aboard the new motor boat. They could not seem to leave it since Betty had been told that it was a gift from her uncle. They inspected every part, turned the wheel, daintily touched the shining motor, and even tried the bunks. "There is room for five in the cabin," said Betty, looking about. "If we wanted to take another girl with us we could, when we go cruising." "Or a chaperone," added Grace. "We may have to do that, you know." "Well, we can," admitted Betty. "The question is, shall we go on a cruise?" "Ask us!" exclaimed Mollie with a laugh. "Just ask us!" "I do ask you," retorted the little captain of the Gem. "Girls, you are hereby invited to accompany me on a cruise to go-- Oh, where can we go?" "To Rainbow Lake, of course," said Grace, promptly. "We can go down the river into the lake, motor about it, go out into the lower river if we want to, camp on an island or two, if we like, and have a general good time." "That's the way to talk!" cried Captain Marlin. "And I'll come with you part of the time. There's some extra bunks back here maybe you didn't see," and he showed them three folding ones in the cockpit back of the trunk cabin, where awnings could be stretched in stormy weather, enclosing that part of the craft. "But what makes the boat go?" asked gentle Amy. "The motor makes it 'mote,'" spoke Betty. "It's up in front; isn't it, Uncle Amos?" "Up in front! There you go again, Bet. Up in front! You mean for'ard; up for'ard!" "That's right, Uncle, I forgot. Come, we'll show these girls where the motor is," and she led the way to where the machinery was enclosed in a large compartment in the bow, close by hinged wing-covers. The motor, one of three cylinders, was a self-starter, but by means of a crank and chain could be started from the steering platform, just aft of the trunk cabin, in case of emergency. There was a clutch, so that the motor could be set in motion without starting the boat, until the clutch, set for forward or reverse motion, had been adjusted, just as the motor of an automobile can be allowed to run without the car itself moving. "And what a dear little stove in the kitchen!" exclaimed Betty, as the girls looked in the cooking compartment-- it was not much more than a compartment. "Kitchen!" cried Captain Marlin. "That isn't a kitchen!" "What is it?" Amy wanted to know. "The galley, lass, the galley. That's where we cook aboard a ship, in the galley. There's an alcohol and oil stove combined. You can have chafing dish parties-- is that what you call them? and he laughed. "That's right, Uncle," cried Betty. "And see the-- what are we supposed to call these?" and she pointed to pots, pans, dishes and other utensils that hung around the galley. "Oh, call 'em galley truck, that's as good a name as any," said the old captain. "Do you like this, Bet?" "Like it, Uncle Amos! It's the dearest little boat in the world. I don't deserve it. You are so good to get it for me, and it was such a surprise." "Yes, I calculated it would be a surprise, all right. But I didn't forget that you always wanted to be a sailor, and so when I got the chance, I made up my mind I'd get you something worth while before I got sent to Davy Jones' locker." "Where is that?" asked Amy, innocently. "Oh, he means before he got drowned, or something like that," explained Betty. "Oh, Uncle Amos, you're a dear!" and she kissed him, somewhat to his confusion. "So I got a man to build this boat to suit my ideas," went on the old seaman. "It's equipped for salt water, if so be you should ever want to take a trip to sea." "Never!" cried Mollie. "Well, you never can tell," he said sagely. "After she was finished I had him ship her here, and then I got her into the water. I will say, that, for her size, she is a sweet little craft. And I hope you'll like her, Bet." "Like her! Who could help it? Uncle you're a---- " "No more kissing, Bet. I'm too old for that." "The idea! Oh, girls, aren't the bunks too cute for anything!" and Betty sat down on one. "And the dining room-- may I call it that?" Grace timidly asked of the captain. "Well, saloon is a better word, but let it go," he murmured. "Now, what do you say to a little run down the river? It will give you an idea of how to handle her." "Oh, how lovely!" cried Betty. "Let's go, girls." "That man is from the firm that built the craft," went on the former sailor. "He'll show you all the wrinkles," and he motioned to a man standing near. Lines were cast off, the motor started, the clutch thrown in and then, with Captain Betty at the wheel, her uncle standing near to instruct her, the Gem started down the stream, attracting not a little attention. "This is a sea wheel," explained the captain. "That is, you turn it the opposite way to what you want the boat to go. I wouldn't have a land-lubber's wheel on any boat I built. So don't forget, Bet, your boat shifts opposite to the way you turn the wheel." "I'll remember, Uncle." With dancing eyes and flushed faces, the girls sat in the cockpit back, or "aft," of the trunk cabin, and watched Betty steer. She did very well, for she had had some practice in a small motor boat the girls occasionally hired. "Oh, I couldn't have had anything in the world I wanted more than this!" she cried to her uncle. "It is just great!" "And you think you girls will go for a cruise?" "I am sure we will, and as soon as we can. It will be the very thing for the hot summer." "Wouldn't Will just love this?" sighed Grace. "Perhaps Betty will invite him and Allen Washburn and Percy Falconer to come along on a trip or two," said Mollie, with a wink at her chums as she mentioned Percy's name. The latter was a foppish young man about town, who tried to be friendly with Betty; but she would have none of him. "Never Percy!" she declared. "I'll ask Will, of course, and Frank Haley, but---- " "Not Allen?" inquired Amy, mischievously, for it was no great secret that Betty really liked Allen, a young law student, and that he was rather attentive to her. "Which way shall I steer to pass that boat, Uncle?" asked Betty, to change a subject that was getting too personal. "Port," he answered briefly. "And that is----" she hesitated. "The left," he answered quickly. "It's easy if you think that the letter L comes before the letter P and that L is the beginning of left. Port means left, always." "I'm sure it's easy to say left and right," commented Grace, who was eating a chocolate. "Hum!" exclaimed the old captain, disapprovingly. The Gem proved worthy of her name. The girls made a little trip about the river, and then Captain Marlin, on learning that there was a boat house and dock on the property of Mollie's mother, steered the craft there, where it would be tied up until the girls started on their cruise. And that they would cruise was fully decided on in the next few days. Now that the great surprise was known, plans were made to spend some time on the lake and river in the new craft. The wonder and delight of it grew. Each day the girls discovered something different about Betty's boat. It was most complete, and practical. The boys were in transports over it, and when Will and his chum Frank Haley were allowed to steer they could not talk enough about it. Preparations for the cruise went on apace. Captain Marlin oversaw them at odd times, for he was in business, and made trips between New York and Deepdale. In the meanwhile Grace fully recovered from the runaway accident. Not so poor Dodo, however, and it was feared that the little girl would have to be operated on. "When?" asked Betty, thinking that this would spoil Mollie's trip. "Oh, not for some time," was the answer. "They are going to try everything else first." Some of the mothers arranged to go along on part of the cruises, and other married ladies volunteered for the remaining days, so the girls would be properly chaperoned. Then began the final preparations. "And if you see anything of Prince on your wanderings, don't fail to catch him," begged Will, a few nights before the day set for the start. "We will," promised Grace. The telephone rang-- they were all at Grace's house. She answered. "Yes, yes. This is Mr. Ford's residence. What's that-- you have a stray white horse? Oh, Will, maybe it's Prince!" and she turned eagerly to her brother. "A man from Randall's livery stable is on the wire. He says they have a white horse that was just brought in. A farmer says he found him wandering about the country. Hurry down there!" CHAPTER VII STOWAWAYS "Then he isn't your horse, Will?" It was Mr. Randall, the livery stable keeper who asked this question as Grace's brother critically inspected an animal that was led out for view in the stable. "No, that isn't Prince," was the answer. "He looks enough like him, though, to be his brother. I'm much obliged for calling me up." Will had hastened down after the receipt of the message Grace had taken over the telephone, for Randall's, as had all livery stables in the vicinity, had been notified to be on the lookout for the strangely missing animal, who might be wandering about the country carrying valuable documents in the saddle pocket. "Two young fellows drove in here with this horse, and asked if they could put him up for a while," went on the livery man. "I didn't like the way they acted, but I didn't see how they could do me any harm, so I said they could. Then I got to thinking about your horse, and I called up. I'm sorry to disappoint you." "I'm sorry myself, Mr. Randall. I can't imagine where Prince can be." "Oh, some one has him, you may be sure of that. A valuable horse like that wouldn't go long without an owner. Maybe some one has changed his color-- dyed him, you know. That has been done. Of course the dye doesn't last forever, but in this case it might hold long enough for the excitement to subside." "Well, if they'll send back the papers, they can keep the horse, as much as I like Prince," Spoke Will, as he started home to tell his sister and the girls the details of the unsuccessful trip. He had already briefly telephoned to them of his disappointment. "Oh, isn't it too bad!" cried Horace, as Will came back. "Do you really think, Will, that some one has Prince and the papers?" "It looks so, Sis. Has dad said anything lately?" "No, I believe the other side hasn't done anything, either, which might go to show that they haven't the papers. But it's all so uncertain. Well, girls," and she turned to her guests, "I guess we can finish talking about what we will wear." "Which, means that I must become like a tree in Spring," sighed Will. "How is that?" asked Amy. "Is it a riddle?" "He means he must leave-- that's an old one," mocked Mollie. "Any candy left, Grace?" and Mollie, who had been artistically posing on a divan, crossed the room to where Grace sat near a table strewn with books and papers, a box of chocolates occupying the place of honor. "Of course there are some left," answered Grace. "Which is a wonder!" exclaimed Will, as he hurried out of the room before his sister could properly punish him. "Will we wear our sailor costumes all the while?" asked Betty, for the girls, as soon as the cruise in the Gem had been decided on, had had suits made on the sailor pattern, with some distinctive changes according to their own ideas. Betty had been informally named "Captain," a title with which she was already more or less familiar. "Well, of course we'll wear our sailors-- middy blouses and all-- while we're aboard-- ahem!" exclaimed Betty, with exaggerated emphasis. "Notice my sea terms," she directed. "Oh, you are getting to be a regular sailor," said Mollie. "I've got a book home with a lot of sea words in. I'm going to learn them, and also how to tie sailor knots." "Then maybe your shoe laces won't come undone so easily," challenged Grace, and she thrust out her own dainty shoe, and tapped the patent leather tip of Mollie's tie. "It is not!" came indignantly from Billy. "It is loose, and it may trip you," advised Amy, and Mollie, relinquishing a candy she had selected with care, bent over. The moment she did so Grace appropriated the Sweetmeat. "As I said," went on Betty, "we can wear our sailor suits when aboard. When we go ashore we can wear our other dresses." "I'm not going to take a lot of clothes," declared Grace, getting ready to defend herself against Mollie when the latter should have discovered the loss of the tidbit. "One reason we had such a good time on our 'hike,' was that we didn't have to bother with a lot of clothes. We shall enjoy ourselves much more, I think." "And I agree with you, my dear," said Betty. "Besides, we haven't room for many things on the Gem. Not that I want to deprive you of anything," she added, quickly, for she realized her position as hostess. "But really, to be comfortable, we don't want to be crowded, and if we each take our smallest steamer trunk I think that will hold everything, and then we'll have so much more room. The trunks will go under the bunks very nicely." "Then we'll agree to that," said Mollie. "Two sailor suits, so we can change; one nice shore dress, if we are asked anywhere, and one rough-and-ready suit for work-- or play." "Good!" cried Amy. "As for shoes---- " "Who took my candy?" cried Mollie, discovering the loss of the one she had put down to tie her lace. "It was the only one in the box and---- " Grace laughed, and thus acknowledged her guilt. "I've got another box up stairs," she said. "I'll get it," which she proceeded to do. "Grace, you'll ruin your digestion with so much sweet stuff," declared Betty, seriously. "Really you will." "I suppose so, my dear; but really I can't seem to help it." "As captain of the Gem I'm going to put you on short rations, as soon as our cruise begins," said Betty. "It will do you good." "Perhaps it will," Grace admitted, with a sigh. "I'll be glad to have you do it. Now, is everything arranged for?" "Well," answered Betty, "This is how it stands: We are to start on Tuesday, and motor down the river, taking our time. Aunt Kate will go with us for the first few days, and, as you know, we have arranged for other chaperones on the rest of the cruise. We will eat aboard, when we wish to, or go ashore for meals if it's more convenient. Of course we will sleep aboard, tying up wherever we can find the best place. "I plan to get to Rainbow Lake about the second day, and we will spend a week or so on that, visiting the different points of interest-- I'm talking like a guide book, I'm afraid," she apologized with a smile. "That's all right-- go on, Little Captain," said Amy. "Well, then, I thought we might do a little camping on Triangle, or one of the other islands, say, for three or four days." "Don't camp on Triangle," suggested Grace. "There are too many people there, and we can't be free. There'd always be a lot of curious ones about, looking at our boat, and our things, and all that." "Very well, we can pick out some other island," agreed Betty. "You know there is to be a regatta, and water sports, on Rainbow Lake just about the time we get there, and we can take part, if we like." "Do! And if we can get in a race we will!" cried Mollie, with sparkling eyes. "Uncle Amos has promised to be with us some of the time," went on Betty. "And I suppose we will have to invite the boys occasionally, just for the day, you know." "Oh, don't make too much of an effort," exclaimed Mollie. "Allen Washburn said he might be going abroad this summer, anyhow." "Who said anything about him?" demanded Betty, with a blush. "No one; but I can read-- thoughts!" answered Mollie, helping herself to another candy. "I meant Will and Frank," went on Betty. "They would like to come." "I'm sure of it," murmured Grace-- literally murmured-- for she had a marshmallow chocolate between her white teeth. "How about Percy Falconer?" asked Amy, mischievously. "I am sure he would wear a perfectly stunning-- to use his own word-- sailor suit." "Don't you dare mention his name!" cried Betty. "I detest him." "Let us have peace!" quoted Mollie. "Then it's all settled-- we'll cruise and camp and---- " "Cruise again," finished Betty. "For we have two months, nearly, ahead of us; and we won't want to camp more than a week, perhaps. We can go into the lower river, below Rainbow Lake, too, I think. It is sometimes rough there, but the Gem is built for rough weather, Uncle Amos says." The girls discussed further the coming trip and then, as each one had considerable to do still to get ready, they went gaily to their several homes. Will came in later, looked moodily into an empty candy box, and exclaimed: "You might have left a few, Sis." "What! With four girls? Will, you expect too much." "I wonder if I'll be disappointed in expecting a ride in Betty's boat?" "No, we are going to be very kind and forgiving, and ask you and Frank. I believe Betty is planning it." "Good for her. She's a brick! I wish, though, that we could clear up this business about the papers." "So do I. Wasn't it unfortunate?" "Yes. How is little Dodo coming on?" "Not very well, I'm afraid," and Grace sighed. The injury to the child hung like a black shadow, over her. "The specialist is going to see her soon again. He has some hopes." "That's good; cheer up, Sis! Come on down town and I'll blow you to a soda." "'Blow'-- such slang!" "It's no worse than 'hike.'" "I suppose not. Wait until I fix my hair." "Good night!" gasped Will. "I don't want to wait an hour. I'm thirsty!" "I won't be a minute." "That's what they all say." But Grace was really not very long. In answer to a telephone message next day the three chums assembled at Betty's house. "I think we will go for a little trip all by ourselves on the river this afternoon," she said. "Every time so far Uncle Amos, or one of the boys, has been with us. We must learn to depend on ourselves." "That is so," agreed Mollie. "It will be lovely, it is such a nice day." "Just a little trip," went on Betty, "to see if we have forgotten anything of our instructions." Just then a clock chimed out eight strokes, in four sections of two strokes each. "Eight o'clock!" exclaimed Amy. "Your timepiece must be wrong, Betty. It's nearer noon than eight." "That's eight bells-- twelve o'clock," said the pretty hostess, with a laugh. "That's a new marine clock Uncle Amos gave me for the Gem. It keeps time just as it is done on shipboard." "And when it's eight o'clock it's twelve," murmured Grace. "Do you have to do subtraction and addition every time the clock strikes?" "No, you see, eight bells is the highest number. It is eight bells at eight o'clock, at four o'clock and at twelve-- either at night, or in the daytime." "Oh, I'm sure I'll never learn that," sighed Amy. "It is very simple," explained Betty, "Now it is eight bells-- twelve o'clock noon. At half-past twelve it will be one bell. Then half an hour later, it will be two bells-- one o'clock. You see, every half hour is rung." "Worse and worse!" protested Mollie. "What time is it at two o'clock?" "Four bells," answered Betty, promptly. "Why, I thought four bells was four o'clock," spoke Grace. "No, eight bells is four o'clock in the after-noon, and also four o'clock in the morning. Then it starts over again with one bell, which would be half-past four; two bells, five; three hells, half-past five, and---- " "Oh, stop! stop! you make my head ache!" cried Grace, "Has anyone a chocolate cream?" They all laughed. "You'll soon understand it," said Betty. "It's worse than remembering to turn the steering wheel the opposite way you want to go," objected Mollie. "But we are young-- we may learn in time." The Gem was all ready to start, and the girls, reaching Mollie's house, in the rear of which, at a river dock, the boat was tied, went aboard. "Have you enough gasoline?" asked Amy, as she helped Betty loosen the mooring ropes. "Yes, I telephoned for the man to fill the tank this morning. Look at the automatic gauge and see if it isn't registered," for there was a device on the boat that did away with the necessity of taking the top off the tank and putting a dry stick down, to ascertain how much of the fluid was on hand. "Yes, it's full," replied Amy. "Then here we go!" cried Betty, as the other girls shoved off from the dock, and the Little Captain pushed the automatic starter. With a throb and a roar the motor took up its staccato song of progress. When sufficiently away from the dock Betty let in the clutch, and the craft shot swiftly down the stream. "Oh, this is glorious!" cried Mollie, as she stood beside Betty, the wind fanning her cheeks and blowing her hair in a halo about her face. "Perfect!" echoed Amy. "And even Grace has forgotten to eat a chocolate for ten minutes." "Oh, let me alone-- I just want to enjoy this!" exclaimed the candy-loving maiden. They had been going along for some time, taking turns steering, saluting other craft by their whistle, and being saluted in turn. "Let's go sit down on the stern lockers," proposed Grace after a while, the lockers being convertible into bunks on occasion. As the girls went aft, there came from the forward cabin a series of groans. "What's that?" cried Mollie. "Some one is in there!" added Grace, clinging to Amy. Again a groan, and some suppressed laughter. "There are stowaways aboard!" cried Betty. "Girls, we must put ashore at once and get an officer!" and she shifted the wheel. CHAPTER VIII A HINT OF GHOSTS "Who can they be?" "It sounds like more than one!" "Anyhow, they can't get out!" It was Betty who said this last, Grace and Mollie having made the foregoing remarks. And Betty had no sooner detected the presence on the Gem of stowaways than she had pulled shut the sliding door leading into the trunk cabin, and had slid the hatch cover forward, fastening both with the hasps. "They'll stay there until we get an officer," she explained. "Probably they are tramps!" "Oh, Betty!" It was a startled trio who cried thus. "Well, maybe only boys," admitted the Little Captain, as a concession. "They may have come aboard, intending to go off for a ride in my boat, and we came just in time. They hid themselves in there. That's what I think about it." "And you are exactly right, Betty!" unexpectedly exclaimed a voice from behind the closed door. "That's exactly how it happened. We're sorry-- we'll be good!" "Dot any tandy?" came in childish accents from another of the stowaways. The girls looked at one another in surprise. Then a light dawned on them. "Don't have us arrested!" pleaded another voice, with laughter in it. "That's Will!" cried Grace. "And Frank Haley!" added Amy. "And Paul!" spoke Mollie. "Little brother, are you in there?" They listened for the answer. "Ess, I'se here. Oo dot any tandy?" "The boys put him up to that," whispered Grace. Betty slid open the door, and there stood Will and Frank, with Paul between them. The boys looked sheepish-- the child expectant. "I ought to put you two in irons," spoke Betty, but with a smile. "I believe that is what is done with stowaways." "Couldn't you ship us before the mast?" asked Will, with a chuckle. "That is the very latest manner of dealing with gentlemen who are unexpectedly carried off on a cruise." "Unexpectedly?" asked Grace, with meaning. "Certainly," went on her brother. "We just happened to come aboard to look over the boat, Frank and I. Then Paul wandered down here, and before we knew it we heard you coming. For a joke we hid under the bunks, and thought to give you a little scare. We didn't think you were going for a spin, but when you started we just made up our minds to remain hidden until you got far enough out so you wouldn't want to turn back. That's what stowaways always do," he concluded. "I'm glad you do things as they ought to be done," remarked Betty, swinging the wheel over. She had changed her mind about going ashore after an officer. "Dot any tandy?" asked Paul again. "Do give him some, if you have any," begged Will. "We bribed him with the promise of some to keep quiet. Surely he has earned it." "Here," said Grace, impulsively, as she extended some to the tot, who at once proceeded to get as much outside his face as into his mouth. Then she added rather sternly: "I don't think this was very nice of you, Will. Betty didn't invite you aboard." "Oh, that's all right!" said Betty, good-naturedly. "I'm glad they're here now-- let them stay. I'm so relieved to find they aren't horrid tramps. Besides, the motor may not-- mote-- and we'd need help-- We will make them work their passage." "Aye, aye, sir!" exclaimed Frank, pulling his front hair, sailor-fashion. "Shall we holystone the decks, or scrub the lee scuppers? You have but to command us!" and he bowed exaggeratedly. "You may steer if you like," said Betty, graciously, and Frank and Will were both so eager for the coveted privilege that they had to draw lots to settle who should stand the first "trick." For Betty's boat was a beauty, and the envy not only of Will and Frank, but of every other boy in Deepdale. So it is no wonder these two stowed themselves away for the chance of getting a ride in the fine craft. "Let's go down as far as one of the lake islands," suggested Will, who was now at the wheel, his turn having come. "Can we get back in time?" asked Betty. "The river is high now, after the rains, and there's quite a current." "Oh, the Gem has speed and power enough to do it in style," declared Frank. "We'll guarantee to get you back in time for supper." "All right," agreed the captain, who had gone into the cabin with the other girls. "And perhaps we can pick out a good place to go camping," added Grace. The boys directed the course of the boat, while the girls looked after Paul. "We must stop at some place where there is a telephone," said Mollie, "and I'll send word to mamma that Paul is with me. She may be worried." "Yes, do," suggested Betty. A little later the girls saw that the boys were approaching a dock, the main one of a small town just below Deepdale. "Where are you going?" asked Grace of her brother. "Going to tie up for a minute. Frank and I want to make amends for sneaking aboard, so we thought you'd like some soda. There's a grocery store here that keeps pretty good stuff." "Oh, yes, I know Mr. Lagg!" exclaimed Mollie. "Barry Lagg is his name. He's real quaint and jolly." "Then let's go ashore for the soda ourselves, and meet him," suggested Grace. "I am very thirsty. What is Mr. Lagg's special line of jollity?" she asked Mollie. "Oh, he makes up little verses as he waits on you. You'll see," was Mollie's answer. I often stop in for a little something to eat when I am out rowing. He is a nice old gentleman, very polite, and he has lots of queer stories to tell." "Has he dot any tandy?" inquired Paul, eagerly. "Oh, you dear, of course he has!" cried his sister. "You are getting as bad as Grace," and she looked at her chum meaningly. Will skillfully laid the Gem alongside the dock and soon the little party of young people were trooping up to the store, which was near the river front. "Ah, good day to you all-- good day, ladies and gentlemen, every one, and the little shaver too!" cried Mr. Lagg, with a bow as they entered his shop. "What will you please to buy to-day? If it's coffee or tea, just walk this way," And, with this charming couplet Mr. Lagg started toward the rear of his store, where the aromatic odor of ground coffee indicated that he had spoken truly. "We'd like some of your good soda," spoke Will. "Ha, soda. I don't know that I have anything in the line of soda." "No soda?" exclaimed Frank. "I mean I haven't made up any poetry about that. I have about almost everything else in my store. Let me see-- soda-- soda---- " He seemed searching for a rhyme. "Pagoda! Pagoda!" laughed Betty. "That is it!" exclaimed Mr Lagg. "Thank you for the suggestion. Let me see, now. How would this do? "If you wish to drink of Lagg's fine soda, Just take your seat in a Chinese pagoda!" "Very good," complimented Will. "We'll dispense with the pagoda if you will dispense the soda." "Ha! Good again! You are a punster, I see!" Mr. Lagg laughed genially, and soon provided the party with bottles of deliciously cool soda, and straws through which to partake of it, glasses being voted too prosaic. There came a protest from Paul, who was sharing the treat. "I tan't dit no sody!" he cried. "It all bubbles up!" "No wonder! You are blowing down your straw. Pull up on it, just as if you were whistling backwards," said Mollie. "Whistling backwards is a distinctly new way of expressing it," commented Frank. "I dot it!" cried the tot, as the level of his glass began to fall under his efforts-- successful this time. Then, having finished that, he fixed his big eyes on Mr. Lagg, and demanded: "Oo dot any tandy?" "Candy!" cried the eccentric store keeper. "Ha, I have a couplet about that. "If you would feel both fine and dandy, Just buy a pound of Lagg's best candy!" "That is irresistible!" exclaimed Will. "Trot out a pound of the most select." "With pleasure," said Mr. Lagg. Merrily the young people wandered about the store, the girls buying some notions and trinkets they thought they would need on the trip, for Mr. Lagg did a general business. "What are all you folks doing around here?" asked the storekeeper, when he had waited on some other customers. "Getting in practice for a cruise," answered Mollie. "Betty, here, is the proud possessor of a lovely motor boat, and we are going to Rainbow Lake soon." "And camp on an island, too," added Amy. "I know I shall love that." "Any particular island?" asked Mr. Lagg. "Elm is a nice one," remarked Will "Why don't you girls try that? It isn't as far as Triangle, and it's nearly as large. It's wilder and prettier, too." "Know anything about Elm Island, Mr. Lagg?" asked Frank, as he inspected some fishing tackle. "Well, yes, I might say I do," and Mr. Lagg pursed up his lips. "Is it a good place?" "Oh, it's good all right, but----" and he hesitated. "What is the matter?" demanded Betty quickly. She thought she detected something strange in Mr. Lagg's manner. "Why, the only thing about it is that it's haunted-- there's a ghost there," and as he spoke the storekeeper slipped a generous slice of cheese on a cracker and munched it. CHAPTER IX OFF ON THE TRIP The girls stared blankly at one another. The boys frankly winked at each other, clearly unbelieving. "Haunted?" Betty finally gasped. "A ghost?" echoed Amy, falteringly. "What-- what kind?" Grace stammered. "Why, the usual kind, of course," declared Will. "A ghosty ghost, to be sure. White, with long waving arms, and clanking chains, and all the accessories." "Stop it!" commanded his sister. "You'll scare Paul," for the child was looking at Will strangely. "Oh, it's white all right," put in Mr. Lagg, "and some of the fishermen around here did say they heard clanking chains, but I don't take much stock in them. Tell me," he demanded, helping himself to another slice of cheese, "tell me why would anything as light as a ghost-- for they're always supposed to float like an airship, you know-- tell me why should they want to burden themselves with a lot of clanking chains-- especially when a ghost is so thin that the chains would fall right through 'em, anyhow. I don't take no stock in that!" "But what is this story?" asked Betty. "If we are thinking of camping on Elm Island, we do not want to be annoyed by some one playing pranks; do we, girls?" "I should say not!" chorused the three. "Well, of course I didn't see it myself," spoke Mr. Lagg, "but Hi Sneddecker, who stopped there to eat his supper one night when he went out to set his eel pots-- Hi told me he seen something tall and white rushing around, and making a terrible noise in the bushes." "I thought ghosts never made a noise," remarked Grace, languidly. She was beginning to believe now that it was only a poor attempt at a joke. "Hi said this one did," went on Mr. Lagg, being too interested to quote verses now. "It was him as told me about the clanking chains," he went on, "but, as I said, I don't take no stock in that part." "I guess Hi was telling one of his fish stories," commented Frank. "Oh, Josh Whiteby seen it, too," said Mr. Lagg. He was enjoying the sensation he had created. "Is he reliable?" asked Will. "Well, he don't owe me as much as some," was the judicious answer. "Josh says he seen the white thing, but he didn't mention no chains. It was more like a 'swishing' sound he heard. "Dot any more tandy?" asked Paul, and the laugh that followed in a measure relieved the nerves of the girls, for in spite of their almost entire disbelief in what they had heard, the talk bothered them a little. "There are no such things as ghosts!" declared Betty, with excellent sense. "We are silly to even talk about them. Oh, there is something I want for my boat," and she pointed to a little brass lantern. "It will be just fine for going up on deck with," she proceeded. "Of course the electric lights, run by the storage battery, are all right, but we need a lantern like that. How much is it, Mr. Lagg?." "That lantern to you Will cost-- just two!" "I'll take it," said Betty, promptly. "Dollars-- not cents," said the storekeeper, quickly. "I couldn't make a dollar rhyme in there, somehow or other," he added. "You might say," spoke Will, "''Twill cost you two dollar, but don't make a holler.'" "That isn't my style. My poetry is always correct," said Mr. Lagg, somewhat stiffly. The lantern was wrapped up and the young people got ready to go down to the boat. "Say, Mr. Lagg," asked Will, lingering a bit behind the others, "just how much is there in this ghost story, anyhow?" "Just what I told you," was the answer. "There is something queer on that island." "Then the girls will find out what it is!" declared Will, with conviction. "If they could find the man who lost the five hundred dollar bill, they're equal to laying the ghost of Elm Island. I'm not going to worry about them." "Let's go down a little way farther and have a look at the haunted island," proposed Grace, when they were again on board the Gem. "Have we time?" asked Betty. "Lots," declared Will. The motor boat was headed for the place. The island was of good size, well wooded, and the shore was lined with bushes. There were a few bungalows on it, but the season was not very good this year, and none of them had been rented. The girls half-planned to hire one to use as headquarters in case they camped on the island. "It doesn't look very-- ghostly," said Betty, as she surveyed it from the cockpit of her craft. "No, it looks lovely," said Grace. "Is the ghost going to keep us away?" asked Mollie. "Never!" cried the Little Captain, vigorously. "Hurray!" shouted Will, waving the boat's flag that he took from the after-socket. They made a turn of the island, and started back up the river for Deepdale, reaching Mollie's dock without incident. Busy days followed, for they were getting ready for the cruise. Uncle Amos went out with Betty and the girls several times to offer advice, and he declared that they were fast becoming good sailors. "Of course not good enough for deep water," he made haste to qualify, "but all right for a river and a lake." The girls were learning to tell time seaman fashion. Betty fairly lived aboard her new boat, her mother complained, but the Little Captain was not selfish-- she invited many of her friends and acquaintances to take short trips with her. Among the girls she asked were Alice Jallow and Kittie Rossmore, the two who had acted rather meanly toward our friends just prior to the walking trip. But Alice was sincerely sorry for the anonymous letter she had written, giving a hint of the mystery surrounding Amy Stonington, and the girls had forgiven her. Betty's Aunt Kate arrived. She was a middle-aged lady, but as fond of the great out-doors as the girls themselves. She was to chaperone them for a time. The final preparations were made, the sailor suits were pronounced quite "chicken" by Will-- he meant "chic," of course. Trunks had been packed, some provisions put aboard, and all was in readiness. Uncle Amos planned to meet the girls later, and see that all was going well. The boys were to be given a treat some time after Rainbow Lake was reached, word to be sent to them of this event. "All aboard!" cried Betty on the morning of the start. It was a glorious, sunshiny day, quite warm, but there was a cool breeze on the river. "All aboard!" "Oh, I just know I've forgotten something!" declared Grace, "Your candy?" questioned Mollie. "No, indeed. Don't be horrid!" "I'm not. Only I thought---- " "I'm just tired of thinking!" returned Betty. "Shall I cast off?" asked Will, who, with Frank, had come down to the dock to see the girls start. "Don't you dare!" cried Mollie. "I'm sure I forgot to bring my---- " She made a hurried search among her belongings. "No, I have it!" and she sighed in relief. She did not say what it was. "All aboard!" cried Betty, giving three blasts on the compressed air whistle. "Don't forget to send us word," begged Frank. "We want to join you on the lake." "We'll remember," promised Betty, with a smile that showed her white, even teeth. All was in readiness. Good-byes had been said to relatives and friends, and Mrs. Billette, holding Paul by the hand, had come down to the dock to bid farewell to her daughter and chums. "Have a good time!" she wished them. A maid hurried up to her, and said something in French. "Oh, the doctor has come!" exclaimed Mollie's mother. "The doctor who is to look at Dodo-- the specialist. Oh, I am so glad!" "Shall I stay, mother?" cried Mollie, making a move as though to come ashore. "No, dear; no! Go with your friends. I can send you word. You may call me by the telephone. Good-bye-- good-bye!" The Gem slowly dropped down the stream under the influence of the current and her own power, Betty having throttled down the motor that the farewell calls might be better heard. Mrs. Billette, waving her hand, hastened toward the house, the maid taking care of little Paul, whose last request was: "Brin' me some tandy!" CHAPTER X ADRIFT "Well, Captain Betty, what are your orders?" asked Amy, as the four girls, and Aunt Kate, stood grouped in the space aft of the trunk cabin, Betty being at the wheel, while the Gem moved slowly down the Argono River. "Just make yourselves perfectly at home," answered Betty. "This trip is for fun and pleasure, and, as far as possible, we are to do just as we please. You don't mind; do you, Aunt Kate?" "Not in the least, my dear, as long as you don't sink," and the chaperone smiled indulgently. "This boat won't sink," declared Betty, with confidence. "It has water-tight compartments. Uncle Amos had them built purposely." "It certainly is a beautiful boat-- beautiful," murmured Mollie, looking about as she pulled and straightened her middy blouse. "And it was so good of you, Bet, to ask us on this cruise." "Why, that's what the boat is for-- for one's friends. We are all shipmates now." "'Strike up a song, here comes a sailor,'" chanted Grace, rather indistinctly, for she was, as usual, eating a chocolate. The girls, standing there on the little depressed deck, their hair tastefully arranged, topped by natty little caps, with their sailor suits of blue and white, presented a picture that more than one turned to look at. The Gem was near the shore, along which ran a main-traveled highway, and there seemed to be plenty of traffic this morning. Also, a number of boats were going up or down stream, some large, some small, and often the occupants turned to take a second look at the Outdoor Girls. Certainly they had every appearance of living the life of the open, for they had been well tanned by the long walk they took, and that "berry-brown" was being added to now by the summer sun reflecting from the river. "Is this as fast as you can go?" asked Mollie, as she looked over the side and noted that they were not much exceeding the current of the river. "Indeed, no! Look!" cried Betty, as she released the throttle control that connected the gasoline supply with the motor. At once, as when the accelerator pedal of an auto is pressed, the engine hummed and throbbed, and a mass of foam appeared at the stern to show the presence of the whirling propeller. "That's fine!" cried Grace, as Betty slowed down once more. "I thought we'd take it easy," the Little Captain went on, "as we don't want to finish our cruise in one day, or even two. If I drove the Gem to the limit, we'd be in Rainbow Lake, and out of it, in too short a time. So I planned to go down the river slowly, stop at noon and go ashore for our lunch, go on slowly again, and tie up for the night." "Then we're going to sleep aboard?" asked Grace. "Of course! What would be the fun of having bunks if we didn't use them? Of course we'll sleep here." "And stand watches-- and all that sort of thing, the way your uncle told of it being done aboard ships?" Mollie wanted to know. "There'll be no need of that," declared Betty. "But we can leave a light burning." "To scare away sharks?" asked Amy, with a laugh. "No, but if we didn't some one passing might think the boat deserted and-- come aboard to take things." "I hope they don't take us!" cried Mollie. "I'm going to hide my new bracelet," and she looked at the sparkling trinket on her wrist. "Amy, want to steer?" asked Grace, after a while, and the girl of mystery agreed eagerly. But she nearly came to grief within a few minutes. A canoeist rather rashly crossed the bows of the Gem at no great distance. "Port! Port!" cried Betty, suddenly, seeing the danger. "Which is port-- right or left? I've forgotten!" wailed Amy, helplessly. "To the left! To the left!" answered Betty, springing forward. She was not in time to prevent Amy from turning the wheel to the left, which had the effect of swinging the boat to the right, and almost directly toward the canoeist, who shouted in alarm. But by this time Betty had reached the wheel, and twirled it rapidly. She was only just in time, and the Gem fairly grazed the canoe, the wash from the propeller rocking it dangerously. "We beg your pardon!" called Betty to the young man in the frail craft. "That's all right," he said, pleasantly. "It was my own fault." "Thank you," spoke Amy, gratefully. "Here, Bet, I don't want to steer any more." "No, keep the wheel. You may as well learn, and I'll stand by you. No telling when you may have to steer all alone." They stopped for lunch in a pretty little grove, and sat and talked for an hour afterward. Mollie hunted up a telephone and got into communication with her house. She came back looking rather sober. "The specialist says Dodo will have to undergo an operation," she reported. Grace gasped, and the others looked worried. "It isn't serious," continued Mollie, "and he says she will surely be better after it. But of course mamma feels dreadful about it." "I should think so," observed Betty. "They never found out who those mean autoists were, did they?" "No," answered Grace, "and we've never gotten a trace of Prince, or the missing papers. Papa is much worried." "Well, let's talk about something more pleasant," suggested Betty. "Shall we start off again?" "Might as well," agreed Grace. "And as it isn't far to that funny Mr. Lagg's store, let's stop and---- " "Get some candy and poetry," sniped Amy, with a laugh. "I was going to say hairpins, as I need them," spoke Grace, with a dignity that soon vanished, "but since you suggested chocolates, I'll get them as well." They found Mr. Lagg smiling as usual. "This fine and beautiful sunny day, what will you have-- oats or hay?" Thus he greeted the girls, who laughingly declined anything in the line of fodder. "Unless you could put some out as a bait for our horse Prince," spoke Grace. "It's the queerest thing where he can have gone." "It is strange," admitted the genial storekeeper, who had heard the story from Will. "But if I hear of him I'll let you know. And, now what can I do for you? "I've razors, soap and perfume rare, To scent the balmy summer air," He bowed to the girls in turn. "How about chewing gum?" asked Betty. "Oh, would you?" asked Grace, in rather horrified tones. "Certainly, aboard the boat where no one will see us." "Gum, gum; chewing gum, One and two is a small sum," Mr. Lagg thus quoted as he opened the showcase. The girls made several purchases, and were treated to more of the storekeeper's amusing couplets. Then they started off again, having inquired for a good place at which to tie up for the night. Dunkirk, on the western shore, was recommended by Mr. Lagg in a little rhyme, and then he waved to them from the end of his dock as the Gem was once more under way. "Look out for that big steamer," cautioned Betty a little later, to Grace, who was steering. "Why, I'm far enough off," answered Grace. "You never can tell," responded the Little Captain, "for there is often a strong attraction between vessels on a body of water. Give it a wide berth, as Uncle Amos would say." That Betty's advice was needed was made manifest a moment later, for the large steamer whistled sharply, which was an intimation to the smaller craft to veer off, and Grace shifted the wheel. They reached Dunkirk without further incident, except that about a mile from it the motor developed some trouble. In vain Betty and the others poked about in the forward compartment trying to locate it, and they might not have succeeded had not a man, passing in a little one-cylindered boat, kindly stopped and discovered that one of the spark plug wires was loose. It was soon adjusted and the Gem proceeded. "I'll always be on the lookout for that first, when there is any trouble after this," said Betty, as she thanked the stranger. "Oh, that isn't the only kind of trouble that can develop in a motor," he assured her. But Betty well knew this herself. They had passed Elm Island soon after leaving Mr. Lagg's store, but saw no sign of life on it. They intended to come back later on in their cruise and camp there, if they decided to carry out their original plans of living in a tent or bungalow. "That is, if the ghost doesn't make it too unpleasant," remarked Betty. They ate supper aboard the boat, cooking on the little galley stove. Then the work of getting ready for the night, washing the dishes, preparing the bunks, and so on, was divided among the five, though Aunt Kate wanted the girls to go ashore and let her attend to everything. "We'll take a little walk ashore after we have everything ready," suggested Betty. The stroll along the river bank in the cool of the evening, while the colors of the glorious sunset were still in the sky, was most enjoyable. "Gracious! A mosquito bit me!" exclaimed Grace, as she rubbed the back of her slim, white hand. "That isn't a capital crime," laughed Mollie. "No, but if there are mosquitoes here they will make life miserable for us to-night," Grace went on. "I have citronella, and there are mosquito nettings over the bunks," said Betty. "Don't worry." They went back to the boat, and the lanterns were lighted. "Oh, doesn't it look too nice to sleep in!" exclaimed Amy, as they gazed into the little cabin, with its tastefully arranged berths. "I'm tired enough to sleep on almost any thing," yawned Mollie. "Let's see who'll be the first to---- " "Not snore, I hope!" exclaimed Betty. "Don't suggest such a thing," came from Amy. "We are none of us addicted to the luxury." But, after all, tired as they were, no one felt like going to sleep, once they were prepared for it. They talked over the events of the day, got to laughing, and from laughing to almost hysterical giggling. But finally nature asserted herself, and all was quiet aboard the Gem, which had been moored to a private dock, just above the town. It was Betty, rather a light sleeper, who awoke first, and she could not account at once for the peculiar motion. It was as though she was swinging in a hammock. She sat up, and peered about the dimly lighted cabin. Then the remembrance of where she was came to her. "But-- but!" she exclaimed. "We're adrift! We're floating down the river!" She sprang from her berth and awakened Grace by shaking her. CHAPTER XI IN DANGER "What is it? Oh, what has happened?" Grace cried half hysterically as she saw Betty bending over her. The others awakened. "Why, we're moving!" exclaimed Amy, in wonderment. "What did you want to start off for, in the middle of the night?" Mollie asked, blinking the sleep from her eyes. "I didn't," answered Betty quickly. "We're adrift! I don't know how it could have happened. You girls tied the boat, didn't you?" "Of course," answered Grace. "I fastened both ropes myself." "Never mind about that," broke in Aunt Kate. "I don't know much about boats, but if this one isn't being steered we may run into something." "That's so!" cried Betty. "But I didn't want to go out on deck alone-- slip your raincoats on, girls, and come with me! There may be-- I mean some one may have set us adrift purposely!" "Oh, don't say such things!" pleaded Grace, looking at the cabin ports as though a face might be peering in. Quickly Betty and Mollie got into their long, dark coats, and without waiting for slippers reached the after deck. As they looked ahead they saw a bright light bearing directly for them. It was a white light, and on either side showed a gleam of red and green. Then a whistle blew. "Oh, we're going to be run down!" cried Mollie. "A steamer is coming directly for us, Betty!" "We won't be run down if we can get out of the way!" exclaimed Betty, sharply. "Push that button-- the automatic, I mean-- and start the motor. I'll steer," and Betty grasped the wheel with one hand, while with the other she pulled the signal cord, sending out a sharp blast that indicated her direction to the oncoming steamer would be to port. The steamer replied, indicating that she would take the same course. Evidently there was some misunderstanding. "And we haven't our side lamps going!" cried Betty, in alarm, as she realized the danger. "Quick, girls, come up here!" she called to Grace and Amy. "One of you switch on the electric lamps. At least they can see us, then, and can avoid us. Oh, I don't know what to do! I never thought of this!" A sudden glow told that Amy had found the storage battery switch, for the red and green lights now gleamed. Again the on-coming steamer whistled, sharply-- interrogatively. Betty answered, but she was not sure she had given the right signal. "Why don't you start the motor?" she called to Mollie. "I can't! It doesn't seem to work." "The switch is off!" exclaimed Grace, as she came out of the cabin. With a quick motion she shoved it over. "How stupid of me!" cried Betty. "I should have seen to that first. Try again, Mollie!" Again Mollie pressed the button of the self-starter, but there was no response. The Gem was still drifting, seemingly in the very path of the steamer. "Why don't they change their course?" wailed Amy. "Can't they see we're not under control? We can't start! We can't start!" she cried at the top of her voice, hoping the other steersman would hear. "The steamer can't get out of the channel-- that's the reason!" gasped Betty. "I see now. It's too shallow for big boats except in certain places here. We must get out of her way-- she can't get out of ours! Girls, we must start the motor!" "Then try it with the crank, and let the automatic go," suggested Aunt Kate, practically. "Probably it's out of order. You must do something, girls!" "Use the crank!" cried Betty, who was hobbling the wheel over as hard as she could, hoping the tug of the current would carry the Gem out of danger. But the craft hardly had steerage way on. Mollie seized the crank, which, by means of a long shaft and sprocket chain, extending from the after cabin bulkhead to the flywheel, revolved that. She gave it a vigorous turn. There was no welcome response of throbbing explosions in the cylinders. "Try again!" gasped Betty, "Oh, all of you try. I simply can't leave the wheel." The steamer was now sending out a concert of sharp, staccato blasts. Plainly she was saying, loudly: "Get out of my way! I have the right of the river! You must get out of my way! I can't avoid you!" "Why don't they stop?" wailed Grace. "Then we wouldn't bump them so hard!" As if in answer, there came echoing over the dark water the clang of the engine-room bell, that told half-speed ahead had been ordered. A moment later came the signal to stop the engines. "Oh, if only Uncle Amos-- or some of the boys-- were here!" breathed Betty. "Girls, try once more!" Together Mollie and Grace whirled the crank, and an instant later the motor started with a throb that shook the boat from stem to stern. "There!" cried Betty. "Now I can avoid them." She threw in the clutch, and as the Gem shot ahead she whistled to indicate her course. This time came the proper response, and a little later the motor boat shot past the towering sides of the river steamer. So near had a collision been that the girls could hear the complaining voice of the pilot of the large craft. "What's the matter with you fellows?" the man cried, as he looked down on the girls. "Don't you know what you're doing?" Clearly he was angry. "We got adrift, and the motor wouldn't start," cried Betty, in shrill tones. "Pilot biscuit and puppy cakes!" cried the man. "It's a bunch of girls! No wonder they didn't know what to do!" "We did-- only we couldn't do it!" shouted Betty, not willing to have any aspersions cast on herself or her friends. "It was an accident!" "All right; don't let it happen again," cried the steersman, in more kindly tones. And then the Gem slipped on down the river. "What are we going to do?" asked Mollie, as Grace steered her boat. "If we're going to stay out here I'm going to get dressed," declared Grace. "It's quite chilly." Can you find your way back to the dock?" Aunt Kate inquired. "Can you do it, Betty?" "I think so. We left a light on it, you know. I'll turn around and see if I can pick it out. Oh, but I'm all in a tremble!" "I don't blame you-- it was a narrow escape," said Mollie. "I don't see how we could have gone adrift, unless some one cut the ropes," remarked Grace. "I'm sure I tied them tightly enough." "They may have become frayed by rubbing," suggested Betty. "We'll look when we get a chance. What are you going to do, Amy?" for she was entering the cabin. "I'm going to make some hot chocolate," Amy answered. "I think we need it." "I'll help," spoke Aunt Kate. "That's a very sensible idea." "I think that is the dock light," remarked Betty a little later, when the boat was headed up stream. "Anyhow, we can't be very far from it," observed Grace. "Try that one," and she pointed to a gleam that came across the waters. "Then there's another just above." The first light did not prove to be the one on the private dock where they had been tied up, but the second attempt to locate it was successful, and soon they were back where they had been before. Betty laid the Gem alongside the stringpiece, and Grace and Mollie, leaping out, soon had the boat fast. The ends of the ropes, which had been trailing from the deck cleats in the water, were found unfrayed. "They must have come untied!" said Grace. "Oh, it was my fault. I thought I had mastered those knots, but I must have tied the wrong kind." "Never mind," said Betty, gently. CHAPTER XII AT RAINBOW LAKE Once the Gem was securely tied-- and Betty now made sure of this-- the tired and rather chilly girls adjourned to the cabin, and under the lights had the hot chocolate Aunt Kate and Amy had made. "It's delicious," spoke Betty. "I feel so much better now." "We must never let on to the boys that we came near running down a steamer," said Grace. "We'd never hear the last of it." "But we didn't nearly run down a steamer-- she came toward us," insisted Betty, not willing to have her seamanship brought into question. "If it had been any other boat, not drawing so much water, she could have steered out of the way. As it was we, not being under control, had the right of way." "It wouldn't have done any good to have insisted on it," remarked Grace, drawlingly. "No, especially as we couldn't hoist the signal to show that," went on Betty. "Uncle Amos told me there are signals for nearly everything that can happen at sea, but of course I never thought of such a thing as that we'd get adrift. I must be prepared next time." "I can't understand about those knots," spoke Grace. "Where is that book?" "What book?" "The one showing how to tie different kinds of knots. I'm going to study up on the subject." "Not to-night," objected Aunt Kate. "It's nearly morning as it is." "Well, the first thing to-morrow, then," declared Grace. "I'm going to make up for my blunder." "Oh, don't be distressed," consoled Betty. "Any of us might have made the same mistake. It was only an accident, Grace dear." "Well, I seem fated to have accidents lately. There was poor little Dodo---- " "Not your fault at all!" exclaimed Mollie, promptly. "I'll not allow you to blame yourself for her accident. It was those motorists, if any-one, and I'm not sure they were altogether to blame. Anyhow, I'm sure Dodo will be cured after the operation." "I hope so," murmured Grace. The appetizing odor of bacon and eggs came from the little galley, mingled with the aromatic foretaste of coffee. Aunt Kate was busy inside. The girls were laughing out in the cabin, or on the lowered after-deck. It was the next morning-- which makes all the difference in the world. "I'm afraid we're going to have a shower today," observed Amy, musingly, as she looked up at the sky. A light fog hung over the river. "Will you ever forget the awful shower that kept us in the deserted house all night?" asked Betty, as she arranged her hair. "I mean when we were on our walking trip," she added, looking for a ribbon that had floated, like a rose petal, under her shelf-dresser. "Oh, we'll never get over that!" declared Mollie, who was industriously putting hairpins where they would be more serviceable. "And we couldn't imagine, for the longest time, why the house should be left all alone that way." "Now I'm going to begin my lesson," announced Grace, who, having gotten herself ready for breakfast, took up the book showing how various sailor knots should be made. With a piece of twine she tied "figure-eights," now and then slipping into the "grannie" class; she made half-hitches, clove hitches, a running bowline, and various other combinations, until Amy declared that it made her head ache to look on. The girls had breakfast, strolled about on shore for a little while, and then started off, intending to stop in Dunkirk, which town lay a little below them, to get some supplies, and replenish the oil and gasoline. It was while Betty was bargaining for the latter necessaries for her motor in a garage near the river that she heard a hearty voice outside asking: "Have you men seen anything of a trim little craft, manned by four pretty girls, in the offing? She'd be about two tons register, a rakish little motor boat, sailing under the name Gem and looking every inch of it. She ought to be here about high tide, stopping for sealed orders, and---- " "Uncle Amos!" cried Betty, hurrying to the garage door, as she recognized his voice. "Are you looking for us?" "That's what I am, lass, and I struck the right harbor first thing; didn't I? Davy Jones couldn't be any more accurate! Well, how are you?" "All right, Uncle. The girls are down in the boat at the dock," and she pointed. "The man is going to take down the oil and gasoline. Won't you come on a trip with us? We expect to make Rainbow Lake by night." "Of course I'll come! That's why I drifted in here. I worked out your reckoning and I calculated that you'd be here about to-day, so I come by train, stayed over night, and here I am. What kind of a voyage did you have?" "Very good-- one little accident, that's all," and she told about getting adrift. "Pshaw, now! That's too bad! I'll have to give you some lessons in mooring knots, I guess. It won't do to slip your cable in the middle of the night." The girls were as glad to see Betty's uncle as he was to greet them, and soon, with plenty of supplies on board, and with the old sea captain at the wheel, which Betty graciously asked him to take, the Gem slipped down the river again. At noon, when they tied up to go ashore in a pleasant grove for lunch, Mr. Marlin demonstrated how to tie so many different kinds of knots that the girls said they never could remember half of them. But most particularly he insisted on all of them learning how to tie a boat properly so it could not slip away. Betty already knew this, and Mollie had a fairly good notion of it, but Grace admitted that, all along, she had been making a certain wrong turn which would cause the knot to slip under strain. They motored down the river again, stopping at a small town to enable Mollie to go ashore and telephone home to learn the condition of little Dodo. There was nothing new to report, for the operation would not take place for some time yet. Grace also called up to ask if anything had been heard of the missing horse and papers, but there was no good news. However, there was no bad news, Will, who talked to his sister, reporting that the interests opposed to their father had made no move to take advantage of the non-production of the documents. "Have a good time, Sis," called Will over the wire. "Don't worry. It doesn't do any good, and it will spoil your cruise. Something may turn up any time. But it sure is queer how Prince can be away so long." "It certainly is," agreed Grace. "And so you expect to make Rainbow Lake by six bells?" asked Betty's uncle, as he paced up and down the rather restricted quarters of the deck. "Yes, Uncle, by seven o'clock," answered Betty, who was at the wheel. "Six bells-- six bells!" he exclaimed. "You must talk sea lingo on a boat, Bet." "All right, Uncle-- six bells." "Where's your charts?" he asked, suddenly. "Charts?" "Yes, how are you sailing? Have you marked the course since last night and posted it? Where are your charts-- your maps? How do you expect to make Rainbow Lake without some kind of charts? Are you going by dead reckoning?" "Why, Uncle, all we have to do is to keep right on down the river, and it opens into Rainbow Lake. The lake is really a wide part of the river, you know. We don't need any charts." "Don't need any charts? Have you heaved the lead to see how much water you've got?" "Why, no," and she looked at him wonderingly. "Well, well!" he exclaimed. "Oh, I forgot this isn't salt water. Well, I dare say you will stumble into the lake after some fashion-- but it isn't seaman-like-- it isn't seaman-like," and the old tar shook his grizzled head gloomily. Betty smiled, and shifted her course a little to give a wide berth to some boys who were fishing. She did not want the propeller's wash to disturb them. They waved gratefully to her. The sun was declining in the west, amid a bank of golden, olive and purple clouds, and a little breeze ruffled the water of the river. The stream was widening out now, and Betty remarked: "We'll soon be in the lake now." "The boat-- not us, I hope," murmured Grace. "Of course," assented Betty, "Won't you stay with us to-night, Uncle Amos?" she asked, as she opened the throttle a little wider, to get more speed. "You can have one of the rear-- I mean after, bunks," she corrected, quickly. "That's better," and he smiled. "No, I'll berth ashore, I guess. I've got to get back to town, anyhow. I just wanted to see how you girls were getting along." The Gem was speeding up. They rounded a turn, and then the girls exclaimed: "Rainbow Lake!" In all its beauty this wide sheet of water lay before them. It was dotted with many pleasure craft, for vacation life was pulsing and throbbing in its summer heydey now. As the Gem came out on the broad expanse a natty little motor boat, long and slender, evidently built for speed, came racing straight toward the craft of the girls. "Gracious, I hope we haven't violated any rules," murmured Betty, as she slowed down, for she caught a motion that indicated that the two young men in the boat wished to speak to her. As they came nearer Grace uttered an exclamation. "What is it?" asked Mollie. "Those young men-- in the boat. I'm sure they're the same two who were in the auto that made Prince run away! Oh, what shall I do?" CHAPTER XIII CRACKERS AND OLIVES Betty grasped the situation, and acted quickly, as she always did in an emergency. "Are you sure, Grace?" she asked. She could speak without fear of the men in the racing boat overhearing her, for they had thrown out their clutch, a moment later letting it slip into reverse, and the churning propeller, and the throb of the motor, made it impossible for them to hear what was said aboard the Gem. "Are you sure, Grace?" repeated Betty. "Well, almost. Of course I only had a glimpse of them, but I have good cause to remember them." "Don't say anything now, then," suggested Betty. "We will wait and see what they say. Later we may be able to make sure." "All right," Grace agreed, looking intently at the two young men. They seemed nice enough, and were smiling in a pleasant, frank manner at the outdoor girls and Aunt Kate. The two boats were now slowly drifting side by side on Rainbow Lake, the motors of both stilled. "I beg your pardon," said the darker complexioned of the two men, "my name is Stone, and this is my friend, Mr. Kennedy. We are on the regatta committee and we'd like to get as many entries for the water pageant as we can. Is your boat entered yet?" He gazed from one girl to another, as though to ascertain who was in command of the newly arrived craft, which seemed to have attracted considerable attention, for a number of other boats were centering about her. "We have just arrived," spoke Betty in her capacity as captain. "We are cruising about, and we haven't heard of any regatta or pageant, except a rumor that one was to be held some time this summer." "Well, it's only been in process of arrangement for about a week," explained Mr. Stone. "It will be the first of its kind to be held on the lake, and we want it to be a success. Nearly all of the campers and summer cottagers, who have motor boats, have agreed to enter the parade, and also in the races. We'd like to enter you in both. We have different classes, handicapped according to speed, and your craft looks as though it could go some." "It can," Betty admitted, while Grace was intently studying the faces of the two young men. The more she looked at them, the more convinced she was that they were the ones who had been in the auto. "We saw you arrive," said Mr. Kennedy, who, Mollie said afterward, had a pleasant voice, "and we hurried over to get you down on the list the first thing." "Don't disappoint us-- say you'll enter!" urged Mr. Stone. "You don't know us, of course, but I have taken the liberty of introducing myself, If you are acquainted with any of the cottagers on the lake shore, or on Triangle Island, you can ask them about us." "Oh, we are very glad you invited us," replied Betty, quickly. She did not want the young men to think that she resented anything. Besides, if what Grace thought about them was so, they would want a chance to inquire about the young men more closely, perhaps, than the young men themselves would care to be looked after. For Betty recalled what Grace had said-- that her father had a faint idea that perhaps the motorists might have acted as they did purposely, to get possession of the papers. "Then you'll enter?" asked Mr. Kennedy. "We can't be sure," spoke Betty, who seemed to be doing all the talking. "Our plans are uncertain, we have no very definite ones, though. We intended merely to cruise about, and perhaps camp on one of the islands for a few days. But if we find we can, we will at least take part in the water pageant-- that is, in the parade with the other boats." "And we'd like you to be in the races," suggested Mr. Kennedy. "Your boat has very fine lines. What horse power have you?" "It is rated twenty," answered Betty, promptly, proud that she had the knowledge at her tongue's end, "but it develops nearer twenty-five." "Then you'd go in Class B." said Mr. Stone. "I will enter you, tentatively at least, for that race, and if you find you can't compete, no harm will be done. There are some very handsome prizes." "Oh, do enter, Bet!" exclaimed Mollie in a whisper, for she was fond of sports of all kinds. "It will he such jolly fun!" Betty looked at her aunt. Racing had not entered into their plans when they talked them over with the folks at home. "I think you might; they seem very nice, and we can easily find out if other girls are to race," said Aunt Kate, in a low voice. "You may enter my boat, then," said Betty, graciously. "Thank you!" exclaimed Mr. Stone. "The Gem goes in, and her captain's name-- ?" "Miss Nelson." "Of-- ?" again he paused suggestively, pencil poised. "Of Deepdale." "Oh, yes, I have been there. I am sure you will not regret having decided to enter the regatta. Now if you would like to tie up for the night there are several good public docks near here. That one over there," and he pointed, "is used by very few other boats, and perhaps you would like it. Plenty of room, you know." "Thank you," said Betty. "We shall go over there." "I will send you a formal entry blank to-morrow," said Mr. Stone, as his companion started the motor, and a moment later they were rushing off in a smother of foam thrown up by the powerful racing craft. "Well, what do you think of that?" gasped Mollie, when they had gone. "No sooner do we arrive than we are plunged into the midst of-- er-- the midst of-- what is it I want to say?" She laughed and looked about for assistance. "Better give it up," said Amy. "But what Grace said surprises me-- about those two young men." "Well, of course I can't be sure of it," said Grace, as all eyes were turned in her direction, "but the more I look at those two the more I really think they are the ones. I wonder if there isn't some way I could make sure?" "Yes," said practical Betty, "there is. That is why I decided to enter the Gem in the regatta. It will give us a chance to do a little quiet investigating." "But how?" inquired Grace, puzzled. "Well, if we make some inquiries, and find out that they are all right to talk to-- and they may be in spite of the mean way they acted toward you-- why, then, we can question them, and gradually lead the talk around to autos, and racing, and storms, and all that. They'll probably let out something about having been caught in a storm once, and seeing a horse run away. Then we will be sure they are the same ones, and-- well, I don't know what would be the best thing to do then, Grace." "Grace had better notify her father or brother if she finds out these are the men," suggested Aunt Kate. "They would be the best ones to act after that." "Surely," agreed Grace. "That's what I'll do. And now let's go over to the dock, and see about supper. I'm as hungry as a starved kitten." "And with all the candy she's eaten since lunch!" exclaimed Mollie. "I didn't eat much at all!" came promptly from Grace. "Did I, Amy?" "I wasn't watching. Anyhow, I am hungry, too." "I fancy we all are," spoke Betty. "Well, we will soon be there," and she started the motor, and swung the prow of the Gem over toward the dock. There were one or two small open motor boats tied there, but they were not manned. The girls made sure of their cable fastenings, and soon the appetizing odor of cooking came from the small galley. The girls donned long aprons over their sailor costumes, and ate out on the open deck, for it was rather close in the cabin. "It is as sultry as though there were going to be a storm," remarked Betty, looking up at the sky, which was taking on the tints of evening. "I am glad we're not going to be out on the lake to-night." "Aren't we ever going to do any night cruising?" asked Mollie, who was a bit venturesome at times. "Oh, of course. Why, the main water pageant takes place at night, one of those young men said, and we'll be in that. Only I'm just as glad we're tied up to-night," spoke Betty. Near where they had docked was a little colony of summer cottages, and not far off was an amusement resort, including a moving picture show. "Let's go, girls!" proposed Grace after supper, "We don't want to sit around all evening doing nothing. The boat will be safe; won't it, Betty?" "Don't say 'it'-- my boat is a lady-- speak of her as such," laughed the Little Captain. "Yes, I think she will be safe. But I will see if there is a dock watchman, and if there is I'll engage him." There proved to be one, who, for a small fee, would see that no unauthorized persons entered the Gem. Then the girls, attiring themselves in their "shore togs," as Betty expressed it, went to see the moving pictures. "What will we do to-morrow?" asked Grace, as they came out, having had two hours of enjoyment. "I was thinking of a little picnic ashore," answered Betty. "There are some lovely places on the banks of the lake, to say nothing of the several small islands. We can cruise about a bit, and then go ashore with our lunch. Or, if any of you have any other plan, don't hesitate to mention it. I want you girls to have a good time." "As if we weren't having it, Little Captain!" cried Mollie with an impulsive embrace. "The picnic by all means, and please let's take plenty of crackers and olives." "Talk about me eating candy," mocked Grace, "you are as bad on olives." "Well, they're not so bad for one as candy." "I don't know about that." "Oh, don't argue!" begged quiet little Amy. "Let's talk about the picnic." It was arranged that they should have an informal one, and the next morning, after an uneventful night-- save that Grace awakened them all by declaring someone was coming aboard, when it proved to be only a frightened dog-- the next morning they started off again, leaving word with the dock watchman, who did boat repairing, that they would be back late that afternoon. They had made some inquiries, and decided to go ashore on Eel Island, so named from its long, narrow shape. There was a small dock there, which made it easy for the Gem to land her passengers, since she drew a little too much water to get right up to shore. The girls cruised about Rainbow Lake, being saluted many times by other craft, the occupants of which seemed to admire Betty's fine boat. In turn she answered with the regulation three blasts of the air whistle. At several private docks, the property of wealthy cottagers, could be seen signs of preparation for the coming water carnival. The boat houses were being decorated, and in some cases elaborate schemes of ornamentation were under way for the boats themselves. "It looks as though it would be nice," remarked Mollie. "Yes, I think we shall enjoy it," agreed Betty. They stopped at one cottage, occupied by a Mrs. Ralston, whom Betty knew slightly. Mrs. Ralston wanted the girls and Aunt Kate to stay to lunch, but they told of their picnic plans. They wanted to inquire about Mr. Stone and Mr. Kennedy, and they were all glad to learn that the two young men were held in the highest esteem, and were given a great deal of credit for their hard work in connection with the lake pageant. "And to think they could be so unfeeling as to make Prince run away and cause all that trouble," observed Mollie, as they were again aboard the boat. "Perhaps it was not they, or there may be some explanation of their conduct," suggested Betty. "We must not judge too hastily." "That's Betty Nelson-- all over," said Amy. Eel Island proved to be an ideal picnic place, and there were one or two other parties on it when the girls arrived. They made the Gem secure, and struck off into the woods with their lunch baskets, Betty having removed a certain patented spark plug, without which the motor could not be started. It was not likely that anyone would be able to duplicate it and make off with the craft in their absence, so they felt it safe to leave the boat unguarded. "Pass the olives, Grace my dear," requested Mollie, when they were seated on a grassy knoll under a big oak tree. "I have the crackers beside me. Now I am happy," and she munched the appetizing combination. "Crackers and olives!" murmured Betty. "Our old schoolday feast. I haven't gotten over my love for them, either. Let them circulate, Mollie." The girls were making merry with quip and jest when Grace, hearing a crackling of under brush, looked back along the path they had come. She started and exclaimed: "Here come those two young men-- Mr. Stone and Mr. Kennedy." "Don't notice them," begged Amy, who was not much given to making new acquaintances. "Too late! They see us-- they're coming right toward us!" cried Grace, in some confusion. CHAPTER XIV THE REGATTA The two young men came on, apparently with the object of speaking to the girls. Evidently they had purposely sought them out. "Oh, it is Miss Nelson, and her friends from the Gem!" exclaimed Mr. Stone, which might indicate that he had expected to meet some other party of picnic lovers. "I hope we are not intruding," said Mr. Kennedy, "but we want to borrow some salt, if you have any." Betty looked at them curiously. Was this a subterfuge-- a means to an acquaintance? Her manner stiffened a trifle, and she glanced at Aunt Kate. "You see we came off on a little picnic like yourselves," explained Mr. Stone, "and Bob, here, forgot the salt." "You told me you'd put it in yourself, Harry!" exclaimed the other, "and of course I thought you did." "Well, be that as it may," said his friend, "we have no salt. We heard your voices over here and decided to be bold enough to ask for some. Do you remember us, Miss Nelson?" "Oh, yes." Betty's manner softened. The explanation was sufficient. Clearly the young men had not resorted to this trick to scrape an acquaintance with the girls. "Is there anything else you'd like?" asked impulsive Mollie. "Grace has plenty of candy, I think, and as for olives----" she tilted one empty bottle, and smiled. Mr. Kennedy smiled back in a frank manner. Betty decided that introductions would be in good form, since they had learned that the young men were "perfectly proper." Names were exchanged, and Mr. Kennedy and his friend sat down on the grass. They did not seem in any special hurry about the salt, now that it was offered. "We hope you haven't changed your minds about the race and regatta," spoke Mr. Stone, after some generalities had been exchanged. "By the way, I have the entry blanks for you," and he passed the papers to Betty, who accepted them with murmured thanks. "We shall very likely enter both the pageant and the race," she said. "When do they take place?" "The pageant will be held two nights hence. That will really open the carnival. The boats, decorated as suit the fancies of the owners, will form in line, and move about the lake, past the judges' stand. There will be prizes for the most beautifully decorated boat, the oddest, and also the worst, if you understand me. I mean by the last that some captains have decided to make their boats look like wrecks, striving after queer effects." "I should not like that," said Betty, decidedly. "But if there is time, and we can do it, we might decorate?" and she looked at her chums questioningly. "Surely," said Grace, and Mollie took the chance to whisper to her: "Why don't you start some questions?" "I will-- if I get a chance," was the answer. Betty was finding out more about the carnival when the start would be made, the course and other details. The races would take place the day after the boat parade. "There will be canoe and rowing races, as well as tub and 'upset' events," said Mr. Stone. "We are also planning to have a swimming and diving contest the latter part of the regatta week, but I don't suppose you young ladies would care to enter that." "We all swim, and we have our bathing suits," said Mollie, indefinitely. "Mollie dives beautifully!" exclaimed Amy. "I do not-- that is, I'm not an expert at it," Mollie hastened to say. "But I love diving." "Then why not enter?" asked Mr. Kennedy. "I am chairman of that committee. I'll put the names of you girls down, if you don't mind. It doesn't commit you to anything." The girls had no formal objections. "You are real out-door girls, I can see that!" complimented Mr. Stone. "You must like life in the woods and on the lake." "Indeed they do," spoke Aunt Kate. "They walked-- I think it was two hundred miles, just before coming on this cruise; didn't you, Betty?" "Yes, but we took it by easy stages," evaded the Little Captain. "That was fine!" exclaimed Mr. Kennedy. "Well, Harry, if we're gong to eat we'd better take our salt and go." "Won't you have some of our sandwiches?" asked Mollie, impulsive as usual. "We have more than we can eat," for they had brought along a most substantial lunch. Mollie looked at Betty and Aunt Kate. They registered no objections. "You are very good," protested Mr. Kennedy, "but really we don't want to deprive you---- " "It will be no deprivation," said Betty. "We will be glad not to have them wasted---- " "Oh, then by all means let us be-- the wastebaskets!" exclaimed Mr. Stone, laughing. "Oh, I didn't mean just that," and Betty blushed. "I understand," he replied, and Aunt Kate passed over a plate of chicken sandwiches. Under cover of opening another bottle of olives, Mollie whispered to Grace: "Ask him some questions-- start on motoring-- ask if they ever motored near Deepdale." "I will," whispered Grace, and, as the two young men ate, she led the topic of talk to automobiles. "Do you motor?" she asked, looking directly at Mr. Stone. She was certain now that at least he had been in the car that caused Prince to run away. "Oh, yes, often," he answered. "Do you?" "No, but I am very fond of horseback riding," she said. She was certain that Mr. Stone started. "Indeed," said he, "that is something I never cared about. Frankly, I am afraid of horses. I saw one run away once, with a young lady, and---- " "Do you mean that time we were speeding up to get out of the storm?" his friend interrupted, "and we hit a stone, swerved over toward the animal, and nearly struck it?" "Yes, that was the time," answered Mr. Stone. Grace could hardly refrain from crying out that she was on that same horse. "I have always wondered who that girl was," Mr. Stone went on, "and some day I mean to go back to the scene of the accident, and see if I can find out. I have an idea she blames us for her horse running away. But it was an accident, pure and simple; wasn't it, Bob?" "It certainly was. You see it was this way," he explained, and Grace felt sure they would ask her why she was so pale, for the blood had left her cheeks on hearing that the young men were really those she had suspected. "Harry, here, and myself," went on Mr. Kennedy, "had been out for a little run, to transact some business. We were on a country road, and a storm was coming up. We put on speed, because we did not want to get wet, and I had to be at a telegraph office at a certain time to complete a deal by wire. "Just ahead of us was a girl on a white horse. The animal seemed frightened at the storm, and just as we came racing past our car struck a stone, and was jolted right over toward the animal. I am not sure but what we hit it. Anyhow the horse bolted. The girl looked able to manage it, and as it was absolutely necessary for us to keep on, we did so." "I looked back, and I thought I saw the horse stumble with the girl," put in Mr. Stone, "but I was not sure, and then the rain came pelting down, and the road was so bad that it took both of us to manage the car. We were late, too. But we meant to go back and see if any accident happened." "Only when we got to the telegraph office," supplied his friend, "we were at once called to New York in haste, and so many things have come up since that we never got the chance. Tell me," he said earnestly, "you girls live in Deepdale. This happened not far from there. Did you ever hear of a girl on a white horse being seriously hurt?" Grace made a motion to her chums to keep silent about the whole affair, and let her answer. She had her reasons. "There was no report of any girl being seriously hurt at the time you mention," she said, a trifle coolly, "but a little child was knocked down by a horse-- a white horse. It may have been the one you scared." "But unintentionally-- unintentionally! I hope you believe that!" said Mr. Stone earnestly. "Oh-- yes-- of course," and Grace's voice was not quite so cold now. She could readily understand that the accident could have happened in just that way, and it was beginning to look so. Certainly, not knowing the girls, the young man could have no object in deceiving them, "A little child knocked down, you say!" exclaimed Mr. Kennedy. "I hope it was not badly hurt. Who was it?" "My----" began Mollie, and she was on the point of saying it was her sister Dodo, when from the lake there sounded the cry of: "Fire! Fire! Fire!" Then came a sharp explosion. Everyone arose, and Mr. Kennedy exclaimed excitedly: "That must be an explosion on a motor boat. Come on, Harry. We may he needed!" They rushed through the bushes toward the place whence the alarm came, the girls following as fast as they could. "Don't let him know it was I, or that it was your sister who was hurt!" Grace cautioned her chums. "I am going to write to papa, and he can make an investigation. Their explanation sounds all right, but they may have the papers after all. I'm going to write to-day." "I would," advised Aunt Kate." "It may amount to nothing, but it can do no harm to let your father know. And I think it wise not to let these young men know that you were in that runaway. If they really were not careless, as it seemed at first, you can tell them later, when you see how the investigation by Mr. Ford turns out." "That will be best," spoke Betty. "Oh, see, it is a boat on fire!" They had reached a place where they could see a small motor boat, not far from shore, wrapped in a pall of black smoke, through which could be observed flickering flames. "There-- he's jumped!" cried Mollie, as a figure leaped from the burning craft. "He's safe, anyhow." "There go Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Stone in their boat!" exclaimed Grace, as the slender racing craft shot out from shore. Whatever may have been the faults of the young men as motorists, they knew how to act promptly in this case. As they passed the man who had leaped from the burning boat they tossed him a life preserver. Then, nearing the burning boat, they halted their own, and began using a chemical extinguisher-- the only safe thing save sand with which to fight a gasoline blaze. The fire did not have a chance to get much headway, and it was soon out, another boat coming up and lending aid. The man who had jumped was taken aboard this second boat, and his own, rather charred but not seriously damaged, was towed to shore. Later the girls learned that there had been some gasoline which leaked from his tank. He had been repairing his motor, which had stalled, when a spark from the electric wire set fire to the gasoline. There was a slight explosion, followed by the fire. "And it came just in time to stop me from telling what might have spoiled your plans, Grace," said Mollie, when they went back to gather up their lunch baskets. "Well, I haven't any plans. I am going to let father or Will make them, after I send the information," she answered, "But I think it best to let the two young men remain in ignorance, for a while." "Oh, I do, too!" exclaimed Betty. "They will probably not refer to it again, being so busy over the regatta." There was a busy time for the girls, too. They finally decided to convert the Gem, as nearly as possible under the circumstances, into a Venetian gondola. By building a light wooden framework about it, and tacking on muslin, this could be done without too much labor. Betty engaged the help of a man and boy, and with the girls to aid the work was soon well under way. The girls saw little of Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Stone-- save passing glimpses-- after the picnic. Grace telephoned to her father, who promised to at once look into the matter. "I do hope we win a prize!" exclaimed Mollie, on the evening of the regatta. "The Gem looks lovely!" "Yes, I think it is rather nice," admitted Betty. The muslin, drawn tightly over the temporary frame, had been painted until in the dark the boat bore a striking resemblance to a gondola, even to the odd prow in front. It was arranged that Grace should stand at the stern with a long oar, or what was to pass for it, while Betty would run the motor and do the real steering. Mollie, Amy, and Aunt Kate were to be passengers. Mollie borrowed a guitar and there was to be music and singing as they took part in the water pageant. "Well, it's time to start," announced Betty after supper. "We'll light the Chinese lanterns after we get to our place in line," for the boats were to be illuminated. The Gem started off, being in the midst of many craft, all more or less decorated, that were to take part in the affair. CHAPTER XV THE RACE Like the scene from some simulated fairyland, or a stage picture, was the water pageant on Rainbow Lake. In double lines the motor boats moved slowly along from the starting point toward the float where the judges were stationed to decide which craft was entitled to the prize in its own class. "Oh, I'm so glad we entered!" cried Betty, as she stood at the wheel. Because of the cloth side of the "gondola" it appeared that she was merely reclining at her ease, as did the Venetian ladies of old, for a seat with cushions had been arranged near the steering wheel. "Oh, see that boat-- just like an airship!" exclaimed Mollie, as they saw just ahead of them a craft so decorated. "And here's one that looks just like a floating island, with trees and bushes," added Amy. "That ought to take a prize." "We ought to take one ourselves!" exclaimed Mollie. "We worked hard enough. My hands are a mass of blisters." "And my back aches!" declared Grace. "But it was worth while. I don't see any boat just like ours," and she glanced along the line of craft ahead of them, and to those in the rear, as they were making a turn just then. "Oh, there's one of the lanterns gone out!" cried Mollie. "I'll light it," and she proceeded to do so, taking it into the cabin because of the little breeze that blew over the lake. There was a band on one of the larger boats, and this played at intervals. "Let's sing!" proposed Grace, and, with guitar accompaniment, the girls mingled their voices in one of the many part songs they had practiced at school. Applause followed their rendition, for they had chosen a time when there was comparative quiet. Around the course went the flotilla of boats, past the judges' float, and back to the starting point. Then the parade was over, but a number of affairs had been arranged-- dances, suppers and the like-- by different cottagers. The girls had been invited to the dance at the headquarters of the Rainbow Lake Yacht Club, and they had accepted. They had dressed for the affair, and tying their boat to the club dock they went into the pretty little ballroom with Aunt Kate. "Congratulations!" exclaimed Mr. Kennedy, stepping up to Betty as she entered with her chums. "For what?" "Your boat won first prize for those of most original design. It is a beautiful silver cup." "Oh, I'm so glad! Girls, do you hear? We won first prize in our class!" "Fine!" cried Mollie. "Oh, isn't it nice?" said Amy. "Did we really?" asked Grace, somewhat incredulously, "You really did. I just heard the decision of the judges. Harry and I are out of it, though. We tried in the 'wreck' class, but the Rabbit, which was rigged out like the Flying Dutchman, beat us." "That's too bad," said Mollie, sympathetically. "Never mind, we've had our fun," said Mr. Stone, coming up at this point. "You girls certainly deserved the prize, if anyone did. And now I hope your dance cards aren't filled." They were not-- but they soon were, and the evening passed most delightfully. "Who said breakfast?" yawned Grace the next morning, as she looked from her bunk down on Betty. "I ate so much lobster salad last night I don't want anything but a glass of water on toast," murmured Mollie. "Oh, but we had a lovely time!" and she sighed in regret at its departure. "And those young men were lovely dancers," said Betty. "And wasn't it nice of Will, Frank, and Allen to come?" spoke Amy, for Grace's brother, and his two friends, had arrived most unexpectedly at the Yacht Club ball. Will had come to tell his sister certain things in regard to the missing papers, and had met a friend who belonged to the club. Naturally there was an invitation to the dance, which was quite informal in a way, and so the three boys from Deepdale had also had a good time. They were put up at the club over night. It developed that Mr. Ford had investigated certain matters in regard to Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Stone, and had learned that by no possibility could they have secured the missing papers. There would have been absolutely no interest in the documents for them. It was merely a coincidence that they had been on the scene. And this news made their explanation about the auto accident most plausible. Will had come to Rainbow Lake to tell his sister this, to relieve her mind. When he mentioned coming he had told Frank and Allen, asking them to go with him. All the boys expected to do was to spend the evening on board the Gem with the girls, but when they arrived, and learned of the pageant, and Will met his club friend, the plans were changed. "Too bad Percy Falconer didn't come," remarked Grace, as she slipped into her dressing gown. "Don't spoil everything," begged Betty. "You know I detest him!" Gradually the girls got breakfast, talking of the events of the night before. "I wonder when we will get our prize?" said Betty. "I am wild to see it. I hope it's that oddly shaped cup we so admired when we looked at the prizes." It proved to be that one, the trophy being sent over to the dock where the Gem was tied, by a special messenger. It was given the place of honor in the cabin. Will and his two chums went home rather late that day. "Is father much worried about the missing papers?" asked Grace, as she parted from her brother. "He sure is. He's afraid the other side may spring something on him any minute." "You mean-- take some action to get the property?" "Yes." "It's too bad. But I don't see what we can do." "Neither do I. I wish I could find Prince. I think that's the queerest thing about him." "It certainly is. Say, Will, how is poor little Dodo getting on?" "Oh, as well as you can expect. They're going to operate soon, I heard. How is Mollie standing it, Grace?" "Fairly well. Isn't it strange that we should meet the two autoists?" "Yes. Have you put them wise yet?" "Wise? What do you mean? Such slang!" "I mean told 'em who you are?" "No, and we're not going to for a while yet. We don't want to make them feel bad." "All right, suit yourselves. We're coming up and see you when you get in camp." "Yes, do. We'll write when we're settled." Preparations for the race were going on, and the Gem, as were the other boats, was being groomed for the contest. She had been converted into her own self again, and Betty had engaged a man to look over the motor, and make a few adjustments of which she was not quite capable. Uncle Amos came to Rainbow Lake to see the girls and the boat. He was not much impressed with the sheet of water, large as it was, but he did take considerable interest in the coming race, and insisted on personally doing a lot of work to the boat to get her "ship-shape." So that when the Gem was ready to go to the starting line she was prepared to make the "try of her life," as Betty expressed it. There were six boats in the class that included the Gem. Some were about the same size, one was larger and one was smaller. In horse power they rated about the same, but some handicapping had been done by the judges. The Gem was to start four minutes after the first boat got away, and of course she would have to make up this time to win. "But we can do it!" declared Betty, confidently. As they were on their way to the starting line the girls noticed two boys rowing along the shore, looking intently as they proceeded. "Say, you haven't seen a big green canoe, with an Indian's head painted in red on each end; have you?" asked one of the lads. "No; why?" asked Grace. "Someone took ours last night," spoke the other boy. "We were going in the races with it, too. It was a dandy canoe!" and he seemed much depressed. "That's too bad," spoke Betty sympathetically. "If we see anything of your canoe we'll let you know." "Just send word to Tom Cardiff, over at Shaffer's dock!" cried the elder boy eagerly. "There's a reward of two dollars for anyone who finds it." "Poor fellows!" said Betty as they rowed off. "I'd give two dollars of my own now if we could find their canoe for them. They must be dreadfully disappointed. Well, shall we start?" "Yes, let's get it over with," replied Grace, nervously. Grace and Amy were selected to look after the motor, they having been "coached" by Uncle Amos for several days. They were to see that it did not lack for oil, and if anything got out of adjustment they could fix it. They would be stationed well forward in the cabin, and the bulkhead being removed, they could easily get at the machinery. Betty and Mollie would be at the wheel. Aunt Kate declined to take part in the race, and Uncle Amos was not eligible under the rules, this being strictly a race for girls and women. Several events were run off before the Class B race was called. Then the boats, including the Gem, moved up, and were formally inspected to make sure that all the rules and regulations had been complied with. No fault was found. "Are you all ready?" asked the starter. "Ready," was the answer, and the first boat shot away. It was nervous waiting for Betty and her chums-- those four minutes-- but they finally passed. "Ready?" asked the starter again. "Ready," answered Betty, her voice trembling in spite of herself. There was a sharp crack of the pistol, and the Gem shot ahead, as Betty let the clutch slip into place. The race was on! CHAPTER XVI FIGHTING FIRE "Betty, do you think we can win?" It was Mollie who asked this as she stood beside her chum at the wheel of the Gem. The boat was churning through the water, gradually creeping up on the craft that had gotten away ahead of her. Behind came other boats, starting as the crack of the official pistol was heard. "Of course we'll win!" exclaimed Betty, as she changed the course slightly. She wanted to keep it as straight as possible, for well she knew that the shortest distance between any two points is in a straight line. "We wouldn't miss that lovely prize for anything," called Grace from up forward, where she was helping Amy look after the laboring motor. A number of prizes had been provided by the regatta committee; the chief one for this particular race was a handsome cut-glass bowl, that had been much admired when on exhibition at the club house. The course was a triangular one of three miles, and now all the craft that were competing were on the last "leg" of the triangle. "We're creeping up on her!" whispered Amy, as she directed the attention of Grace to the boat just ahead of them. It was a light, open affair, with a two-cylinder motor, but speedy, and two girls in it seemed to be working desperately over their machinery. Something seemed to have gone wrong with one of the cylinders, for Betty could detect a "miss" now and then. "Yes, we're coming up," admitted Grace, as she skillfully put a little oil on a cam shaft. "If we can only hold out!" "Oh, trust Betty for that." "It isn't that-- it's the motor. One never knows when they are not going to 'mote.' But this one seems to be coming on well," and Grace glanced critically at the various parts. They were well out in Rainbow Lake now, and many eyes were watching the race. One of the last boats to get away had given up, for the girls in charge could not remedy the ignition trouble that developed soon after they started. This left five. The Gem was second in line, but behind her a very powerful boat was gradually creeping up on her, even as she was overhauling the boat that got away first. "Can't you turn on a little more gasoline?" asked Mollie. "I think I can-- now," spoke Betty. "I wanted to give it gradually." She opened the throttle a little more, and advanced the spark slightly. The result was at once apparent. The Gem shot ahead, and the girls in the leading boat looked back nervously. "One of them is that pretty girl Will danced with so often at the ball," said Mollie, as she got a glimpse of the rival's face. "Yes, and the other is her cousin, or something," spoke Betty. "I was introduced to her. It's mean, perhaps, to beat you, girls," she whispered, "But I'm going to do it." The chugging of many motors-- the churning to foam of the blue waters of the lake-- a haze of acrid smoke hanging over all, as some cylinder did not properly digest the gasoline vapor and oil fed to it, but sent it out half consumed-- spray thrown up now and then-- the distant sound of a band-- eager eyes looking toward the stake buoys-- tense breathing-- all this went to make up the race in which our outdoor girls were taking part. Foot by foot the Gem crept up on the Bug, which was the name of the foremost boat. Drop by drop Betty fed more gasoline to her striving motor. The other girls did their duty, if it was only encouragement. Those in the Bug worked desperately, but it was not to be. The Gem passed them. "We're sorry!" called Betty, as she flashed by. The other girls smiled bravely. The Gem was now first, but the race was far from won. They were on the last leg, however, but in the rear, coming on, and overhauling Betty and her chums as they had just overhauled the others, was the speedy Eagle. She had been last to get off, but had passed all the others. "They are after us," spoke Mollie, as she held the wheel a moment while Betty tucked under her natty yachting cap some wind-tossed locks of hair. "But they shan't get us," declared the Little Captain grimly. "We haven't reached our limit yet." Once more she gave more gasoline, but the rivals in the rear were settling down now to win the race for themselves. The Eagle came on rapidly. The finish line was near at hand, but it seemed that Betty and her chums had the upper hand. Suddenly Grace cried: "One of the wires is broken. It's snapped in two, and it's spouting sparks!" There came a noticeable slowing down to the speed of the motor. The Gem lagged. The Eagle was in hot pursuit. Betty acted quickly. "Put on those rubber gloves!" she ordered. "Take a pair of pliers, and hold the ends of that wire together. That will make it as good as mended until after the race. Amy, you help. But wear rubber gloves, and then you won't get a shock. Quick, girls!" The breaking of the wire threw one cylinder out of commission. The Gem was one third crippled. There came a murmur from the pursuing boat. There was a commotion in the forward engine compartment of Betty's boat. This was caused by Grace and Amy seeking to repair the damage. A moment later the resumption of the staccato exhaust of the motor told that the break had been repaired-- temporarily, at least. The boat shot ahead again, at her former speed, and only just in time, for her rival was now on even terms with her. "Oh, Betty, we can't do it!" Mollie said, pathetically. "We're going to lose!" "We are not! I've got another notch I can slip forward the gasoline throttle, and here it goes! If that doesn't push us ahead nothing will-- and---- " "We don't get that cut glass," finished Mollie. But just that little fraction was what was needed. The Gem went ahead almost by inches only, but it was enough. The Eagle's crew of three girls tried in vain to coax another revolution out of her propeller, but it was not to be, and the Gem shot over the line a winner. A winner, but by so narrow a margin that the judges conferred a moment before making the announcement. But they finally made it. The Gem had undoubtedly won. "Oh!" exclaimed Grace as she climbed out into the cabin, and thence to the deck, followed by Amy. "Oh, my hand is numb holding the ends of that wire together. I didn't dare let go---- " "It was brave of you!" exclaimed Betty, patting Grace on the shoulder. "If you had let go we would have lost. We'll bathe your hand for you in witch hazel." "Oh, it is only cramped. It will be all right in a little while." "What a din they are making!" cried Amy, covering her ears with her hands. "They are saluting the winner," said Mollie, as she noted the tooting of many boat whistles. Betty slowed down her boat, and saluted as she swept past the boat of the judges. "Well, I'm glad it's over," sighed Grace. "It was nervous work. I'm going to make some chocolate, and have it iced. It was warm up there by the motor." "And you both need baths," remarked Mollie with a laugh. "You are as grimy as chimney sweeps." "Yes, but we don't mind," said Amy. "You won, Betty! I'm so glad!" "We won, you mean," corrected the Little Captain. "I couldn't have done it except for you girls," Many craft saluted the Gem as she came off the course. "I wish Uncle Amos could have seen us!" exclaimed Betty. "He would have been proud." The girls remained as spectators for the remainder of the carnival, and then, the day being warm, they went to their dock. Near it was a sandy bathing beach, and soon they were swimming about in the limpid waters of Rainbow Lake. "Here goes for a dive!" cried Mollie, as she climbed out on the end of the pier, and mounted a mooring post. She poised herself gracefully. "Better not-- you don't know how deep it is," cautioned Betty. "I'm only going to take a shallow dive," was the answer and then Mollie's slender body shot through the air in a graceful curve, and cut down into the water. A second later she bobbed up, shaking her head to rid her eyes of water. "That was lovely!" cried Grace. "Did I splash much?" "Not at all." "It's real deep there," said Mollie. "Some day I'm going to try to touch bottom." The girls splashed about, refreshing themselves after the race. Then came calm evening, when they sat on deck and ate supper prepared by Aunt Kate. "Now you girls just sit right still and enjoy yourselves," she told them, when they insisted on helping. "You don't win motor boat races every day, and you're entitled to a banquet." That night there was another informal dance at the Yacht Club, and the girls had a splendid time. Mr. Stone and Mr. Kennedy exerted themselves to see that our friends did not lack for partners, and Grace was rather ashamed of the suspicions she had entertained concerning the twain. The carnival came to an end with a series of water sports. There were swimming races for ladies, and Mollie won one of these, but her chums were less fortunate. The carnival had been a great success and many congratulations were showered on Messrs. Stone and Kennedy for their part in it. "We are glad it is over," said Mr. Stone, as he and his chums sat on the deck of the Gem one evening, having called to ask the girls to go to another dance. But Betty and her chums voted for staying aboard, and proposed a little trip about the lake by moonlight. Soon they were under way. It was a perfect night, and the mystic gleam of the moon moved them to song as they swept slowly along under the influence of the throttled-down engine. Suddenly Mr. Kennedy, who was sitting well forward on the trunk cabin with Grace, sprang to his feet, exclaiming: "What's that?" "It looks like a fire," said Grace. "It is a fire!" cried Mr. Stone. "Say, it's that hay barge we noticed coming over this evening, tied up at Black's dock. It's got adrift and caught fire!" "Look where it's drifting!" exclaimed Betty. "Right for the Yacht Club boathouse!" added Mollie. "The wind is taking it there. Look, the fire is increasing!" "And if it runs against the boat house there'll be no saving it!" said Mr. Kennedy. "There's no fire-boat up here-- there ought to be!" "Girls!" cried Betty, "there's just a chance to save the boat house!" "How?" demanded Amy. "If we could get on the windward side of that burning barge, throw a line aboard and tow it out into the middle of the lake, it could burn there without doing any damage!" "By Jove! She's hit the nail on the head!" declared Mr. Stone, with emphasis. "But dare you do it, Miss Nelson?" "I certainly will dare-- if you'll help!" "Of course we'll help! Steer over there!" The burning hay, fanned by a brisk wind, was now sending up a pillar of fire and a cloud of smoke. And the barge was drifting perilously near the boathouse. Many whistles of alarm smote the air, but no boat was as near as the Gem. CHAPTER XVII ON ELM ISLAND "Have you a long rope aboard, Miss Nelson?" asked Mr. Stone, when they had drawn near to the burning load of hay. "Yes, you will find it in one of the after lockers," answered Betty, as she skillfully directed the course of her boat so as to get on the windward side of the barge. "And have you a boathook? I want to fasten it to the rope, and see if I can cast it aboard the barge." "There is something better than that," went on the Little Captain. "I have a small anchor-- a kedge, I think my Uncle Amos called it." "Fine, that will be just the thing to cast! Where is it?" "In the same locker with the rope. Uncle insisted that I carry it, though we've never used it." "Well, it will come in mighty handy now," declared Mr. Kennedy, as he prepared to assist his chum. "You girls had better get in the cabin," he added, "for there is no telling when the wind may shift, and blow sparks on your dresses. They're too nice to have holes burned in them," and he gazed, not without proper admiration, at Betty and her chums. Even in this hour of stress and no little danger he could do that. "We'll put on our raincoats," suggested Mollie. "The little sparks from the hay won't burn them. Or, if they do, we can have a pail of water ready." "That's a good idea," commented Mr. Stone, who was making the kedge anchor fast to the long rope. "Have several pails ready if you can. No telling when the sparks may come aboard too fast for us." "And we have fire extinguishers, too," said Betty. "Grace, you know where they are in the cabin. Get them out." "And I'll draw the water," said Mr. Kennedy. "I can help at that," added Aunt Kate, bravely. "I know where the scrubbing pail is." She had insisted on making it one of her duties to scrub the deck every day, and for this purpose she kept in readiness a pail to which a rope was attached, that it might be dropped overboard into the lake and hauled up full. This was soon in use. Aunt Kate insisted on having several large pots and pans also filled. "You can't have too much water at a fire," she said, practically. The burning hay barge was rapidly being blown down toward the boathouse. At the latter structure quite a throng of club members, and others, had gathered in readiness to act when the time came. In the moonlight they could be seen getting pails and tubs of water in readiness, and one small line of hose, used to water the lawn, was laid. But it would be of small service against such a blaze as now enveloped the barge. Many boats were hastening to the scene, whistling frantically-- as though that helped. "Have you got a pump aboard?" some one hailed those on the Gem. "No, we're going to haul the barge away," answered Betty. "Good idea, but don't go too close!" came the warning. "It is going to be pretty warm," remarked Mr. Stone. He had the anchor made fast, and with the rope coiled so that it would not foul as he made the cast, he took his place on one of the after lockers. Betty's plan was to go as close to the burning craft as she could, to allow the cast to be made, As soon as the prongs of the anchor caught, she would head her motor and out toward the middle of the lake, towing the barge where it could be anchored and allowed to burn to the water's edge. "But what are you going to anchor it with?" asked Mr. Kennedy, when this last feature had been discussed. "That's so," spoke his chum, reflectively. "There's a heavy piece of iron under the middle board of the cabin," said Betty. "Uncle Amos said it was there for ballast in case we wanted to use a sail, but I don't see that we need it." "We'll use it temporarily, anyhow, for an anchor," decided Mr. Stone. He and his companion soon had it out, and made fast to the other end of the rope. "Get ready now!" warned Betty, when this had been done. "I'm going as close as I can." She steered her boat toward the burning barge. There came whistles of encouragement from the surrounding craft. The heat was intense, and on the suggestion of Mr. Kennedy the motor boat's decks were kept wet from the water in the pails. The girls felt their hands and faces grow warm. Those on the boathouse float and pier were all anxiety. The flames, blown by the wind, seemed to leap across the intervening space as if to reach the boat shelter. "Here she goes!" cried Mr. Stone, as he cast the anchor. It was skillfully done, and the prongs caught on some part of the barge, low enough down so that the hempen strands would not burn. Mr. Stone pulled on the rope to see if it would hold. It did, and he called: "Let her go, Miss Nelson! Gradually though; don't put too much strain on the rope at first! After you get the barge started the other way, it will be all right." Betty sent the Gem ahead. The rope paid out over the stern-- taunted-- became tight. There was a heavy strain on it. Would it hold? It did, and slowly the hay barge began to move out into the lake. "Hurray!" cried Mr. Kennedy. "That solved the problem." "You girls certainly know how to do things," said Mr. Stone, admiringly. Cheers from those in surrounding boats seemed to emphasize this sentiment. There was now no danger to the Yacht Club boathouse. A little later, when the flames in the hay were at their height, the piece of iron was dropped overboard from the Gem. This, with the rope and the kedge anchor, served to hold the barge in place. There it could burn without doing any harm. Soon the fire began to die down, and a little later it was but a smouldering mass, not even interesting as a spectacle. Betty Nelson's plan had worked well, and later she received the thanks of the Yacht Club, she and her chums being elected honorary life members in recognition of the service they had rendered. Summer days passed-- delicious, lazy summer days-- during which the girls motored, canoed or rowed as they fancied, went on picnics in the woods, or on some of the islands of Rainbow Lake, or took long walks. Mr. Stone and Mr. Kennedy, sometimes one, often both, went with the girls. Occasionally Will and his friends ran out for a day or two, taking cruises with Betty, and her chums. Aunt Kate remained as chaperone, others who had been invited finding it impossible to come. The girls' mothers made up a party and paid them a visit one day, being royally entertained at the time. "Yes, you girls certainly know how to do things," said Mr. Stone one day; after Betty had skillfully avoided a collision, due to the carelessness of another skipper. "I wish we could do something to get those papers for father," thought Grace. Not a trace had been found of Prince or the missing documents. It was very strange. Mr. Ford and his lawyer friends could not understand it. The interests opposed to him were preparing to take action, it was rumored, and if the papers were found this would be stopped. Even a detective agency that made a specialty of tracing lost articles had no success. Prince and the papers seemed to have vanished into thin air. One day as Betty and her chums were motoring about the lake, having gone to the store for some supplies, they saw the two boys who had been searching for their canoe. "Did you find it?" asked Grace. "No, not a trace of it, Too, bad, too, for we saved up our money-- four dollars, now," said the taller of the two lads. "If you find her we'll give you that money; won't we?" and he appealed to his companion. "We sure will!" "Well, if we see, or hear, anything of it we'll let you know," promised Betty. "Poor fellows," she murmured, as they rowed away. They had made a circuit of the lake, going in many coves, but without success. "It's about time to be thinking of camp, if we're going in for that sort of thing," announced Betty one day. "Shall we try it, girl?" "I'd like it," said Mollie. "We can use the boat, too; can't we?" "Of course," replied Betty. "And sleep aboard?" asked Grace. "No, let's sleep in a tent," proposed Amy. "It will be lots of fun." "But the bugs, and mosquitoes-- not to mention frogs and snakes," came protestingly from Grace. "Oh, we've done it before, and we can use our mosquito nets," said Betty. "I heard of a nice tent, and a well-fitted up camp over on Elm Island we can hire for a week or so." "But the ghost-- the one Mr. Lagg told about?" asked Mollie. "We'll 'lay' the ghost!" laughed Betty. "Seriously, I don't believe there is anything more than a fisherman's story to account for it. Still, if you girls are afraid---- " "Afraid!" they protested in chorus. "Then we'll go to Elm Island," decided Betty, and they did. The camp, near a little dock where the Gem could be tied, was well suited to their needs. "Oh, we'll have a good time here!" declared Betty as they took possession. "But we must get in plenty of supplies. Let's go over and call on Mr. Lagg," and they headed for the mainland in the motor boat. CHAPTER XVIII IN CAMP "Well, well, young ladies, I certainly am glad to see you again! Indeed I am." "Ladies, ladies, one and all, I'm very glad to have you call!" Thus Mr. Lagg made our friends welcome as they entered his "emporium," as the sign over the door had it. "What will it be to-day?" he went on. "I've prunes and peaches, pies and pills, To feed you well, and cure your ills." "Thank you, but we haven't any ills!" cried "Brown Betty," as her friends were beginning to call her, for certainly she was tanned most becomingly. "However, we do want the lottest lot of things. Where is that list, Mollie?" "You have it." "No, I gave it to you." "Grace had it last," volunteered Amy. "She said she did not want to forget---- " "Oh, we know what Grace doesn't want to forget," interrupted Mollie with a laugh. "Produce that list, Grace," and it was forthcoming. "You see we have let our supplies run low," remarked Betty as she gave her order, "Are you going on a long cruise?" Mr. Lagg, wanted to know. "To sail and sail the bounding main, And then come back to port again? "Of course I know that isn't very good," he apologized. "When I make 'em up on the spur of the moment that way I don't take time to polish 'em off. And of course Rainbow Lake isn't exactly the bounding main, but it will answer as well." "Certainly," agreed Betty, with a laugh. "I think that is all," she went on, looking at her list. "Oh, I almost forgot, we want some more of your lovely olives-- those large ones." "Yes, those are fine olives," admitted the store keeper. "I get them from New York. "Olives stuffed, and some with pits, With girls my olives sure make hits." He chanted this with a bow and a smile. "I am aware," he said, "I am aware that the foregoing may sound like a baseball game, but such is not my intention. I use hit in the sense of meaning that it is well-liked." "Too well liked-- I mean the olives," spoke Mollie. "We can't keep enough on hand. I think we'll have to buy them by the case after this." "As Grace does her chocolates," remarked Betty, with a smile that took all the sarcasm out of the words. "Well," remarked Grace, drawlingly, "I have noticed that you girls are generally around when I open a fresh box." "Well hit!" cried Amy. "Don't let them fuss you, Grace my dear." "I don't intend to." Mr. Lagg helped his red-haired boy of all work to carry the girls' purchases down to the boat. "You must be fixing for a long voyage," he remarked. "No, we are going to camp over on Elm Island," said Betty. The storekeeper started. "What! With the ghost?" He nearly dropped a package of fresh eggs. "Really, Mr. Lagg, is there-- er-- anything really there?" asked Mollie, seriously. "Well, now, far be it from me to cause you young ladies any alarm," said Mr. Lagg, "but I only repeat what I heard. There is something on that island that none of the men or boys who have seen and heard it cannot account for." "Just what is it?" asked Betty, "Do you want me to tell you?" "Certainly-- we are not afraid. Though we mustn't let Aunt Kate know," said Betty, quickly. "Well, it's white and it rattles," said Mr. Lagg. "Sounds like a riddle," commented Amy. "Let's see who can guess the answer." "White-- and rattles," murmured Betty. "I have it-- it's a pan full of white dishes. Some lone camper goes down to wash his dishes in the lake every night, and that accounts for it." "Then we'll ask the lone camper-- to scamper!" cried Grace with a laugh. "We want peace and quietness." "And you are really going to camp on Elm Island?" asked Mr. Lagg, as he put the purchases aboard. "We are," said Betty, solenmly. "And if you hear us call for help in the middle of the night---- " "Betty Nelson!" protested Amy. "And if for help you call on I-- I'll come exceeding quick and spry!" Thus spouted Mr. Lagg. "I am painfully aware," he said, quickly, "that my poem on this occasion needs much polishing, but I sometimes make them that way, just to show what can be done-- on the spur of the moment. Howsomever, I wish you luck. And if you do need help, just holler, or light a fire on shore, or fire a gun. I can see you or hear you from the end of my dock." Indeed, Elm Island was in sight. The girls went back with their supplies, and soon were in camp. The hard part of the work had been done for them by those of whom they had hired the tent and the outfit. All that remained to do was to light the patent oil stove, and cook. They could prepare their meals aboard the boat if they desired, and take them to the dining tent. In short they could take their choice of many methods of out-door life. Their supplies were put away, the camp gotten in "ship-shape," cots were made up, and mosquito bars suspended to insure a night of comfort. A little tour was made of the island in the vicinity of the camp, and, as far as the girls could see, occasional picnic parties were the only visitors. There were no other campers there. "We'll have a marshmallow roast to-night," decided Betty, as evening came on. They had gathered wood for a fire on the shore of the lake, and the candy had been provided by Grace, as might have been guessed. "I hope the ghost doesn't come and want some," murmured Mollie. "Hush!" exclaimed Betty. A noise in the woods made them all jump. Then they laughed, as a bird flew out. "Our nerves are not what they should be," said Betty. "We must calm down. I wonder did we get any pickles?" "I saw him put some in," spoke Grace. "Then let's have supper, and we'll go out for a ride on the lake afterward," suggested Betty. "Maybe the ghost will carry off our camp," remarked Amy. "Don't you dare let Aunt Kate hear you say that or she'll run away!" cried Betty. "Come on, everyone help get supper, and we'll be through early," and, gaily humming she began to set the table that stood under a canvas shelter in front of the big tent. CHAPTER XIX A QUEER DISTURBANCE "Have we blankets enough?" "It's sure to be cool before morning." "We can burn the oil stove turned down love-- that will make the tent warm." "Oh, but it makes it so close and-- er-- smelly." They all laughed at that. Betty and her chums were preparing to spend their first night in camp on Elm Island, in the tent. They had had supper-- eating with fine appetites-- and after a little run about the lake had tied up at the small dock near their tent. "A lantern would be a good thing to burn," said Aunt Kate. "That will give some warmth, too." "And we can see better, if-- if anything comes!" exclaimed Amy, evidently with an effort. "Anything-- what do you mean?" demanded Mollie, as she combed out her long hair, preparatory to braiding it. "Well, I mean-- er-- anything!" and again Amy faltered. "Oh, girls she means-- the ghost!" exclaimed Betty, with a laugh. "Why not say it?" "Don't!" pleaded Grace. "Now look here," went on practical Betty. "There's no use evading this matter. There's no such thing as a ghost, of that we are certain, and yet if we shy at mentioning it all the while it will only make us more nervous." "The idea! I'm not nervous a bit," declared Mollie. "Well, then," resumed Betty, "there's no use in being afraid to use the word, as Amy seemed to be. So talk ghost all you like-- you can't scare me. I'm so tired I know I'll sleep soundly, and I hope the rest of you will. Only, for goodness sakes, don't be talking in weird whispers. That is far worse than all the ghosts in creation." "That's what I say!" exclaimed Aunt Kate, who was an old-fashioned, motherly soul. "If the ghost comes I'm going to talk to it, and ask how things are-- er-- on the other side. Girls, it's a great privilege to have a ghostly friend. If the man who owns this island knew what was good for him he'd advertise the fact that it was haunted. If Mr. Lagg were here I'd get him to make up a poem about the ghost. That would scare it off, if anything could." "That's the way to talk!" cried Betty, cheerfully. "And now for a good night's rest. Bur-- r-- r-- r! It is cold!" and she shivered. "I'm going to get some more blankets from the boat," declared Mollie. "I know we'll be glad of them before morning. Come along with me, Grace," she added, after a moment's pause, as she took up one of the lanterns. "You can help carry them." "And scare away the----" began Amy. "Indeed, I wasn't thinking a thing about it!" insisted Mollie, with emphasis. "And I'll thank you to---- " She began in that impetuous style, that usually presaged a burst of temper, and Betty looked distressed. But Mollie corrected her fault almost before she had committed it. "Excuse me, Amy," she said, contritely. "I know what you mean. Will you come, Grace?" "Of course. I'll be glad of some extra coverings myself." The two girls were back in remarkably short time. "You didn't stay long," commented Betty, drily. "it's only a step to the dock," answered Mollie, as she and Grace deposited their arm-loads of blankets on the cots. Then after the talk and laughter had died away, quiet gradually settled down in the camp tent. The Outdoor Girls were trying to go to sleep, but one and all, afterward, even Aunt Kate, complained that it was difficult. Whether it was the change from the boat, or the talk of the ghost, none could say. At any rate there were uneasy turnings from side to side, and as each cot squeaked in a different key, and as one or the other was constantly "singing," the result may be imagined. "Oh, dear!" exclaimed Grace, impatiently, after a half-hour of comparative quiet, "I know I'll never get to sleep. Do you girls mind if I sit up and read a little? That always makes me drowsy, and I've got a book that needs finishing." Only Aunt Kate was slumbering. "Got any chocolates that need eating?" asked Mollie, with a laugh, in which they all joined, half-hysterically. "Yes, I have!" with emphasis. "But, just for that you won't get any." "I don't want them! You couldn't hire me to eat candy at night," and again Mollie flared up. "Girls, girls!" besought Betty. "This will never do! We will all be rags in the morning." "Polishing rags then, I hope," murmured Amy. "My hands are black from the oil stove-- it smoked, and I'll need a cake of sand-soap to get clean again." "Well, I can't stand this-- I'm too fidgety!" declared Grace. "I'm going to sit up a little while, and read. I'm going to eat a chocolate, too. I'll give you some, Mollie, if you like. I bought a fresh box of Mr. Lagg. "Chocolates they are nice and sweet, Good for man and beast to eat." "Give me a young lady-like brand," suggested Amy. "Why don't we all of us sit up a while, and-- I have it-- we'll make a pot of chocolate," exclaimed Mollie. "That will make us all sleep, and warm us-- it is getting real chilly already." "Perhaps that will be best," agreed Betty, as she donned her heavy dressing gown and warm slippers, for the tent was cool even in July. Soon there was the aroma of chocolate in the little cooking shelter, and the girls sat around, in various picturesque and comfortable attitudes, sipping the warm beverage and nibbling the crisp crackers. Then gradually their nerves quieted down, and even Grace, more aroused than any of the others, began to feel drowsy. One by one they again sought their cots, and finally a series of deep breathings told of much-needed sleep. It must have been long after midnight when Betty was suddenly aroused by a queer noise. She had slept heavily, and at first she was not fully aware of her surroundings, nor what had awakened her. Then she became conscious of a curious heavy breathing, as of some animal. She sat up in alarm, her heart pounding furiously. Her throat went dry. "Girls-- girls!" she gasped, hoarsely. "Aunt Kate!" The latter was the first to reply. Quickly reaching out to the lantern near her, she turned up the wick. Following the sudden illumination in the tent there was a cracking in the underbrush near it. "Oh!" screamed Grace, sitting up. "What is it?" "I'm going to look!" said Mollie, resolutely. "Don't! Don't!" pleaded Amy, but Mollie was already at the flap of the tent, which she quickly loosed. Then she screamed. "Look! It's white! It's white!" Betty, forcing herself to action, stood beside her chum. She was just in time to see some-thing big and white run down toward the lake. There was a clash and jingling as of chains, and a splashing of water. Then the white thing disappeared, and the girls stood staring at one another, trembling violently. CHAPTER XX THE STORM Grace "draped" herself over the nearest cot. Amy followed her example, with the added distinction that she covered her head with the blankets. Betty and Mollie stood clinging to each other. "Though I don't think they were any braver than we," declared Grace afterward. "They simply couldn't fall down, for Betty wanted to go one way and Grace the other. So they just naturally held each other up." "I couldn't stand," declared Amy. "My, knees shook so." Aunt Kate was the first to speak after the apparition had passed away, seeming to lose itself in the lake. "Girls, have you any idea what it was?" she asked. "The-- the--" began Amy. "Oh, I can't say it!" she wailed from beneath the covers. "Don't be silly!" commanded Betty, sharply. "If you mean-- ghost-- say so," but she herself hesitated over the word. "If that was the ghost it was the queerest one I ever saw!" declared Mollie, with resolution. "I don't just mean that, either," she hastened to add, "for I never saw a ghost before. But in all the stories I ever read ghosts were tall and thin, of the willowy type---- " "Like Grace," put in Betty, with rather a wan smile. "Don't you dare compare me to a ghost!" commanded the Gibson girl," with energy that brought the blood to her pale cheeks. She ventured to peer out from under the tent flap now. "Is it-- is it gone?" she faltered. "It's in the lake-- whatever it was," said Mollie. "But wasn't it oddly shaped, Betty?" "It was indeed. And it made plenty of noise. Real ghosts never do that." "Oh, some do!" asserted Amy. "I read the 'Ghost of the Stone Castle,' a most fascinating story, and that ghost always rattled chains, and made a terrible noise." "What did it turn out to be?" asked Aunt Kate. "The story didn't say. No one ever found out." "Well, this one is exactly like Mr. Lagg described," spoke Grace, "chains and all. What could it have been?" "I imagine," said Betty, slowly, "that it may be some wild animal---- " Grace screamed. "What is it now?" asked Betty, regarding her. "Don't say wild animals-- they're worse than ghosts!" "Nonsense! Don't be silly! I mean it may he some wild animal, like a fox or deer that has been caught in a trap. Traps have chains on them, you know. This animal may have been caught some time ago, have pulled the chain loose, and the poor thing may be going around with the trap still fastened to him. That would account for the rattling." "Yes," said Mollie, "that may be so, and there may be white foxes, but I never heard of any outside of Arctic regions. But, Betty Nelson, there never was a fox as large as that. Why it was as-- as big as our tent!" "Yes, and how it sniffed and breathed!" added Betty. "I guess it couldn't be a wild animal. It may have been a cow. I wonder if any campers here keep a white cow?" "A cow would moo," declared Grace. "But whatever it was, it was frightened at the light," said Aunt Kate, practically, "so I don't think we need to be afraid of it-- whatever it was. We'll leave a light outside the tent the rest of the night, and it won't come back." "I'm going to sleep in the boat!" declared Grace. "Nonsense!" cried Betty. "Don't be a deserter! Have some more chocolate, and we'll all go to sleep," and they finally persuaded Grace to remain. It took some little time to get their nerves quiet, but finally they all fell into a more or less uneasy slumber that lasted until morning. The "ghost" did not return. Wan, and with rather dark circles under their eyes, the girls got breakfast the next morning. The meal put them in better spirits, and when they bustled around about the camp duties they, forgot their scare of the night before. They made a partial tour of the island, though some parts were too densely wooded and swampy to penetrate. But such parts as they visited showed the presence of no other campers. They were alone on Elm Island, save for an occasional picnic party, several evidently having been there the day before. "Then that-- thing-- couldn't have been a cow," said Grace, positively. "Make up a new theory," suggested Betty, with a laugh. "One thing, though, we're not going to let it drive us away, are we-- not away from our camp?" The others did not answer for a moment, and then Mollie exclaimed: "I'm going to stay-- for one." "So am I!" declared Aunt Kate, vigorously. "A light will keep whatever animal it is away, and I'm sure it was that. Of course we'll stay!" There was nothing for Grace and Amy to do but give in-- which they did, rather timidly, be it confessed. "And now let's go for a ride," proposed Betty, after lunch. "There are some things I want to get at Mr. Lagg's store." "Will you tell him about the-- ghost?" asked Grace. "Certainly not. It may be," said Betty, "that some one is playing a joke on us. In that case we'll not give him the satisfaction of knowing that we saw anything. We will keep silent, girls." And they did. "Matches, soap and oil and butter, Business gives me such a flutter." Mr. Lagg recited this as Betty gave her order. "Have you seen the ghost?" he asked. "Oh!" cried Grace, "you have in some fresh chocolates! I must have some." "You'll find my chocolates sweet and good, To eat on lake or in the wood!" Mr. Lagg's attention being diverted to a net subject, he did not press his question. Thus the girls escaped committing themselves. "I think we are going to have a storm," remarked Betty, when they were under way again, cruising down the lake toward Triangle Island, where they expected to call on some friends. "And as Rainbow gets rough very quickly, I think we shall turn back." "Yes, do," urged Amy. "I detest getting wet." "The cabin is dry," urged Grace. "We had better go back," urged Aunt Kate, and the prow of the Gem was swung around. Other boats, too small or not staunch enough to weather the blow that was evidently preparing, had turned about for a run to shore. There passed Betty's craft the two boys whose canoe had been taken. "Any luck?" asked Betty, interestedly. "No, we haven't found a trace of it yet," the older one replied. In the West dark masses of vapor were piling up, and now and then the clouds were split by a jagged chain of lightning, while the ever-in-creasing rumble of thunder told of the onrush of the storm. "We're going to get caught!" declared Mollie. "I guess I'll close the ports, Betty." "Do; and bring out my raincoat, please." Attired in this protective garment over her sailor suit, the Little Captain stood at the wheel. With a blast that flecked the crests of the waves into foam, with a rattle and roar, and a vicious swish of rain, the storm broke over the Gem while she was yet a mile from the camp on Elm Island. The boat heeled over, for her cabin was high and offered a broad surface to the wind. "We'll capsize!" screamed Amy. "We will not!" exclaimed Betty, above the noise. She shifted the wheel to bring the boat head-on to the waves, and this made her ride on a more even keel. Then, with a downpour, accompanied by terrific thunder and vivid lightning, the storm broke. Betty bravely stood to her post, the others offering to relieve her, but she would not give up the wheel, and remained there until the little dock was reached. Then, making snug their craft, they raced for the tent. It had stood up well, for it was protected from the gale by big elm trees. Soon they were in shelter. And then, almost as suddenly as it had come up, the storm passed. The clouds seemed to melt away, and the sun came out, the shower passing to the East. Grace, who had gone out on the end of the dock, called to the others. "Oh, come on and see it!" "What-- the ghost?" inquired Mollie. "No, but the most beautiful rainbow I ever saw-- a double one!" They came beside her, and Grace pointed to where, arching the heavens, were two bows of many colors, one low down, vivid and perfect, the other above it-- a fainter reflection. As the sun came out from behind the clouds the colors grew brighter. "How lovely!" murmured Amy, clasping her hands. "Yes, it is the most brilliant bow I have ever seen," added Aunt Kate. "It seems almost like like a painted one." I would be more poetical if I were Mr. Lagg," and she laughed. "It is very vivid," went on Betty. "In fact I have heard it said that on account of the peculiar situation of this lake, the high mountains around it, and the clouds, there are brighter rainbows here than anywhere else in this country. That is how the lake got its name-- Rainbow. It was the Indians who first gave it that, I was told, though I don't know the Indian name for rainbow." "We don't need to-- this is beautiful as it is," murmured Grace. "Oh, isn't it wonderful!" and they stood there admiring the beautiful scene, and recalling the old story of the bow-- the promise of the Creator after the flood that never again would the world be submerged. Then the light gradually died from the colored arches, to be repeated again in the wonderful cloud effects at sunset. The storm had been like the weeping of a little child, who smiles before its tears-- and afterward. CHAPTER XXI THE GHOST "Girls, there are letters for each of us!" exclaimed Betty. "Any for me?" asked Aunt Kate. "Yes, a nice-- adipose-- that is to say, fleshy one," exclaimed Mollie, passing it over. It was bulky. The girls had stopped at the store of Mr. Lagg, where they had sent word to have their mail forwarded. The occasion was a morning visit several days after they had established their camp on Elm Island. "Any news?" asked Betty of Mollie, the former having finished a brief note from home, stating that all were well. "Yes, poor little Dodo is to go to the specialist to be operated on this week. Oh, it does seem as if I ought to go home, and yet mamma writes that I am to stay and enjoy myself. She says there is practically no danger, and that there is great hope of success. Aunt Kittie-- Dodo was at her house when the accident happened, you know-- Aunt Kittie has come to stay with mamma. Every one else is well, including Paul. "Oh, but I shall be so anxious until it is over! They are going to let me know as soon as it is. Are we going to stay around here, where I can get word quickly?" "Yes, we will remain on Elm Island, I think," said Betty. "There is no use in cruising about too much when we are so comfortable there, and really it is lovely in the woods." "As long as the ghost doesn't bother us," spoke Amy. "Nonsense!" exclaimed Betty. "What is your news, Grace?" "Oh, Will writes that he and Frank are coming up to camp on the island near us." "That will be fine!" exclaimed Betty. "When will they get here?" "Allen can't come up until the week-end," went on Grace. "He has to take some kind of bar examinations. For the-- high jump, I think." "Silly!" reproved Betty, with a blush. "But Will told me to tell you specially that Allen is coming," went on Grace. "They can stay a few days." "It will be fine," cried Mollie. "Any news about the papers, Grace?" "Not a word, and no trace of Prince." "That is queer," said Betty. "But we will live in hopes-- that Dodo will be all right, and that the papers will be found." "Indeed we will," sighed Grace. Mr. Lagg was bowing and smiling behind his counter while the girls were reading their letters. "What will it be? What will it be? What will it be to-day? Be pleased to leave an order, before you go away!" "Really, I don't believe we need a thing," answered Mollie, in answer to this poetical effusion. "We might have---- " "Some more olives," interrupted Grace. "They are so handy to eat, if you wake up in the night, and can't sleep." "Shades of Morpheus preserve us!" laughed Mollie. "Olives!" "Does the ghost keep you awake?" asked the storekeeper. "Not-- not lately!" answered Betty, truthfully. "The ghost! The ghost! with clanking chains, It comes out only when-- it rains!" Thus Amy anticipated Mr. Lagg. "Very good-- very good!" he commended. "I must write that down. Hank Lefferton was over setting eel pots on the island last night, and he said he seen it." "The ghost?" faltered Betty. "Yep. Chains and all." "Well, we didn't," said Aunt Kate, decidedly. "Come along, girls." They had written some souvenir cards, which they mailed, and again they went sailing about Rainbow Lake. Several days passed. The girls went on little trips, on picnics, cruised about and spent delightful hours in the woods. They thoroughly enjoyed the camp, and the "ghost" did not annoy them. Mollie waited anxiously for news from home, but none came. Then the boys arrived, with their camping paraphernalia, and in such bubbling good spirits that the girls were infected with them, for they had become rather lonesome of late. The boys pitched their tent near that of the girls, and many meals were eaten in common. Then one night it happened! It was late, and after a jolly session-- a marshmallow roast, to be exact-- they had all retired. No one remained awake now, for the girls had become used to their surroundings, and the boys-- Allen included, for he had come up-- were sound sleepers. There was a crash of underbrush, a series of snorts-- no other word describes them-- and the screaming girls, hastening to their tent flaps, cried: "The ghost! The ghost!" "Get after it, fellows!" called Will, as he recognized his sister's voice. "We'll lay this chap-- whoever he is!" There was a vision of something white, again that rattling of chains, and a plunge into the lake. Then all was still. CHAPTER XXII WHAT MOLLIE FOUND "Did you get-- it?" Betty hesitated a moment over the question. Will, Frank and Allen stood just outside the tent of the girls. They had come back from a hurried race after the white object that had again disturbed the slumbers of the campers. "We only had a glimpse of it," answered Will. "Then it seemed to melt into the water." "But it was big," said Frank. "And made lots of noise," added Allen. "That's just the way it acted before," declared Mollie. In dressing gowns, warmly wrapped up, and in slippers, the girls were talking through the opened flap of the tent to Grace's brother and his chums. "Can you imagine what it may be?" asked Aunt Kate. She had been making chocolate-- a seemingly never-failing remedy for night alarms. "Haven't the least idea," answered Will, "unless it's someone trying to play a so-called practical joke." "I'd like to get hold of the player," announced Allen. "I'd run him off---- " "Off the scale," interrupted Betty, with a laugh. "That's it," conceded Allen. "Are you girls all right?" "All but our nerves," answered Grace. The boys made a search in the gloom, but found nothing, and once more quiet settled down. Nor were they disturbed again that night. In the morning they laughed. "Oh, but it's hot!" exclaimed Mollie during the forenoon, when the question of dinner was being discussed. "I think we might go for a swim. There's a nice sandy beach at the side of our dock." "Let's!" proposed Grace. The boys had gone off fishing. Soon the girls were splashing around in the lake, making a pretty picture in their becoming bathing suits, of which they had more use than they had anticipated. "Let's try some diving!" proposed Mollie, always a daring water sprite. "It's lovely and deep here," and she looked down from the end of the dock. "I wish I dared dive," said Amy. She was a rather timid swimmer, slow and deliberate, probably able to keep afloat for a long time, but always timid in deep water. "Here goes!" cried impulsive Mollie, as she poised for a flash into the water. She went down cleanly, but was rather long coming up. Grace and Betty looked anxiously at one another. "She is----" began Betty. Mollie flashed into sight like a seal. "I-- I found something!" she panted. "Did you strike bottom?" asked Betty. "Almost. But that's all right. I'm going down again. There is something down there. Maybe it's the ghost!" "Oh, do be careful!" cautioned Betty, but Mollie was already in the water. She was longer this time coming up, and Betty was getting nervous. Then Mollie shot into view. "I-- I found it!" she gasped. "What?" chorused the others. "The missing canoe those boys have been looking for! It is down there on the bottom, freighted with stones. We will get it up for them!" CHAPTER XXIII SETTING A TRAP "Are you sure it is the canoe?" asked Betty, who did not want Mollie to take any unnecessary risks. "Of course I am," came the confident answer, as Mollie poised, in her dripping bathing suit, on the little dock. She made a pretty picture, too, with her red cap, and blue suit trimmed with white. "I could feel the edge of the gunwhale," she went on, "and the stones in it that keep it down." "But how can we get it up?" asked Grace, who was sitting on the dock, splashing her feet in the water. Grace never did care much about getting wet. Amy said she thought she looked better dry. Certainly she was a pretty girl and knew how to "pose" to make the most of her charms-- small blame to her, though, for she was unconscious of it. "We can get it up easily enough," declared Mollie, wringing the water from her skirt, "All we'll have to do will be to toss out the stones, one by one, and the canoe will almost float itself. I can tie a rope to the bow, and we can stand on shore and pull. Those boys will be so glad to get it back." "But can we lift out the heavy stones?" asked Amy, in considerable doubt. "Of course we can. You know any object is much lighter in water than out of it, we learned that in physics class, you remember. The water buoys it up. You can move a much heavier stone under water than you could if the same stone was on land. We can all try." "I never could stay under water long enough to get out even one stone," declared Grace. "Nor I," added Amy. "I'll try," spoke Betty-- she was always willing to try-- "but I'm afraid I can't be of much help, Mollie. And I'm sure I don't want you to do it all." "Well, wait until I make another inspection," said the diving girl. "It may be more than I bargained for. I'll hold my breath longer this time." "Do be careful!" cautioned Aunt Kate, coming out from the tent. "We will," promised Betty. Again Mollie dived. She had practiced the trick of opening her eyes under water, and this time she looked carefully over the sunken canoe. She stayed under her full limit, and when she came up she was panting for breath. "You must not stay under so long," warned Betty. "There-- are-- a-- lot-- of-- stones," gasped Mollie. "But I think we can do it," she added a moment later. "I'll see what I can do," spoke Betty. She was a good swimmer and diver, perhaps not so brilliant a performer as Mollie, but with more staying qualities. Down went Betty in a clean dive, and when she came up, panting and shaking the water from her eyes, she called: "I lifted out two, but I think we had better let the boys do it, Mollie." "Perhaps," was the reply. "I'm sorry you can't count on me," sail Grace, "but really I'd have nervous prostration if I went down there, even though it's only ten feet deep, as you say." "Well, getting nervous prostration under water would be a very bad idea," commented Betty. "And I'm sure I never could do it," remarked Amy. "Do let the boys manage it, Bet. The lads who own the canoe will be glad of the chance." "I'm going to move out a couple of stones, so Betty won't beat my record," laughed Mollie, diving again. She bobbed up a moment later. "Oh, dear!" she cried. "An eel slid right over me. Ugh! I'm not going down again!" and she shivered. Even the fearless Mollie had had enough of the under-water work. By means of a cord and a float the position of the sunken canoe was marked, so that the boys could locate it, and when they returned from a rather unsuccessful fishing trip, they readily agreed to raise the boat. It did not take them long to remove the stones, for Will, Frank and Allen were all expert swimmers, and could remain under water much longer than can most persons. Then a rope was made fast to the canoe, which would not rise completely because of being filled with water. It was pulled ashore and word sent to the young owners. That they were delighted goes without saying. They proffered the reward they had offered, but of course our friends would not take it. Later it was learned that the canoe had been taken by an unscrupulous fisherman, who was not above the suspicion of making a practice of such tricks. It was thought he intended to let it remain where it was until fall, when he would raise it, paint it a different color, and sell it. But Mollie's fortunate dive frustrated his plans. "Seen anything more of the ghost?" asked Will of the girls, when the canoe had been moored to the shore. "No, and we don't want to," returned Betty. "Afraid?" Allen wanted to know. "Indeed not!" she exclaimed, with a blush. "I'll tell you what let's do," suggested Frank. "Let's take a look around and see if that ghost left any footprints." "Ghosts never do," asserted Will. "Well, let's have a look anyhow. We should have done it before. Now, as nearly as I can recollect, the creature came about to here, and then rushed into the lake," and Frank went to a spot some distance from the tents. The others agreed that it was about there that the white object had been seen. Will was looking along the ground, going toward the lake. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation. "Girls! Fellows!" he cried. "Come here!" They all hastened to his side. He pointed to some marks in the sandy soil. "What are they?" he asked, excitedly. "Hoof marks!" cried Allen, dramatically. "That's right!" agreed Will. "They are the marks of a horse! Girls, that's what your ghost is-- a white horse, and-- and---- " He ceased abruptly, looked at Grace strangely, and then brother and sister gasped together: "Prince!" "What?" demanded Allen. "I'll wager almost anything that this ghost is my white horse, Prince, that has been missing so long!" went on Will. "But how in the world he could have gotten on this island, so far from the mainland, is a mystery!" "Couldn't he swim?" asked Frank. "Of course!" cried Will. "I forgot about that. And Prince was once a circus horse, or at least in some show where he had to jump into a tank of water. Prince is a regular hippopotamus when it comes to water. Strange I never thought of that before! "But this solves the ghost mystery, girls. You and the other folks have been frightened by white Prince scooting about the island." "We-- we weren't so very frightened," spoke Mollie. "But the rattling chains?" questioned Grace. "What were they?" "The stirrups, of course," answered her brother. "And, by Jove, Grace, if the stirrups are on Prince the saddle must be on him also, and the papers---- " "Oh, isn't this just fine!" cried Grace, her face alight. "Now papa can complete that business deal. I never loved a ghost before. Dear old Prince!" "Of course we are assuming a lot," said Will. "It may not be Prince after all, but all signs point to it. He must have been on this island all the while. No wonder we could get no trace of him. Probably he was so frightened at the storm and the auto, and his fall, that he ran on until he came to the lake. Then his old training came back to him, and in he plunged. There's enough fodder here for a dozen horses. He's just been running wild. I'll have my own troubles with him when I get him back." "But how are you going to do it?" asked Frank. "We'll search the island for him," replied Will. "Come on, we'll start now." Changing from their bathing suits to more conventional garments, the boys and girls at once began a tour of the island. But though it was not very large, there were inaccessible places, and it must have been in one of these that Prince hid during the day, for they neither saw, nor heard anything of him. "We've got to set a trap!" exclaimed Will. "How?" asked Grace. "Well, evidently he's been in the habit of coming around the tent to get scraps of food. We'll leave plenty out to-night, and also some oats. Then we'll watch, and when Prince comes I'll catch him." The boys voted this plan a good one. They went over to Mr. Lagg's store in the Gem to get a supply of fodder for the trap. "A horse on the island!" exclaimed Mr. Lagg. So that's the ghost; eh? Well, it's very likely, but it sort of spoils the story; "A ghostly ghost-- a ghost in white Appearing in the darkest night. That it should prove a horse to be, Most certainly amazes me." "Good!" exclaimed Will, with a laugh. "You are progressing, Mr. Lagg." A goodly supply of oats was placed in a box near the tent that evening, and then the boys and girls sat about the camp-fire and talked, while waiting for the time to retire. The boys were to make the attempt to capture Prince. CHAPTER XXIV THE GHOST CAUGHT "When do you expect to hear about little Dodo?" asked Grace, as the girls sat together on a log in front of the fire, "like roosting chickens," Will was ungallant enough to remark. "Almost any day now," replied Mollie. "They were to wait for the most favorable time for the operation, and the specialist, so mamma wrote, could not exactly fix on the day. But I am anxious to hear." "I should think you would be. Poor little Dodo! I'd give anything to hear her say now 'Has oo dot any tandy? '" "Don't," spoke Betty in a low tone to Grace, for she saw the tears in Mollie's eyes. "It was the strangest thing how Stone and Kennedy should turn out to be the two chaps in the auto," remarked Will, to change the subject. "And you have never let on that Grace was the girl on the horse?" "Never," answered Amy. "Don't say after this that girls can't keep a secret." Frank was to watch the first part of the night, to be relieved by Allen, and the latter by Will. "For, from what the girls say, Prince has been in the habit of coming rather late," Will explained, "and he's more likely to let me catch him than if you fellows tried it. So I'll take last watch." Frank's vigil was unrewarded, and when he awakened Allen, who sat up, sleepy-eyed, there was nothing to report. Allen found it hard work to keep awake, but managed to do so by drinking cold coffee. "Anything doing, old man?" asked Will, as, yawning, he got on some of the clothes he had discarded, the more comfortably to lie down on the cot. "Something came snooping around about an hour ago. At first I thought it was the horse, and went out to take a look. But it was only a fox, I guess, for it scampered away in the bushes. I hope you have better luck." "So do I. Dad wants those papers the worst way. If I could get them for him I'd feel better, for I can't get over blaming myself that it was my fault they were lost. It was, because I shouldn't have sent Grace for them when I knew how important they were." Allen went to his cot, and Will took up his vigil. For an hour he sat reading by a shaded lantern, so the light would not shine in the faces of his chums. Then, when he was beginning to nod, in spite of the attractions of the book, he heard a noise that brought him bolt upright in the chair. "Something is coming!" he whispered. He stole to the edge of the board platform, and cautiously opened the flap of the tent. The box containing oats and sugar had been placed a little distance away, in plain view. "That's Prince!" exclaimed Will, for in the moonlight he saw a white horse eating from the box. The "ghost" had arrived. Will resolved to make the attempt alone. He stepped softly from the tent, and made his way toward the horse. He had on a pair of tennis shoes that made his footsteps practically noiseless. Fortunately, Prince, should it prove to be that animal, stood sideways to the tent, his head away from it, so that he did not see Will. The boy tried to ascertain if there was a saddle on the horse, but there was the shadow of a tree across the middle of his back, and it was impossible to say for sure. Nearer and nearer stole Will. He thought he was going to have no trouble catching him, but when almost beside Prince, for Will was certain of the identity now, he stepped on a twig, that broke with a snap. With a snort Prince threw up his head and wheeled about. He saw Will, and leaped away. "Prince, old fellow! Prince! don't you know me?" called the boy, and he gave a whistle that Prince always answered. The horse retreated. Will held out some sugar he had ready for such an emergency. "Prince! Prince!" he called. The horse stopped and stretched out his head, sniping. Prank and Allen came to the tent opening. "Keep back!" called Will, in even tones. "I think I have him. Prince! Come here!" The horse took a step forward. He sensed his master now. Will advanced, speaking gently, and a moment later Prince, with a joyful whinny, was nibbling at the sugar in the boy's hand. Then Will slid the other along and caught the mane. The bridle was gone. "I have him!" cried Will. "Bring the rope, fellows." Prince was not frightened now. He stood still. Will led him into the full moonlight. Then he exclaimed: "The saddle is gone!" CHAPTER XXV THE MISSING SADDLE "Have you caught Prince?" Grace called this to her brother from the tent where she and the other girls had been aroused by the commotion. "Yes, I have him. He knew me almost at once," answered Will. "But the saddle is gone!" "And the papers?" Grace faltered. "Gone with it, I fancy. Too bad!" "Maybe he just brushed the saddle off," suggested Allen, who, with Frank, had come out with a rope halter that had been provided in case the "ghost hunt" was a success. "We'll look around. I'll get a lantern." But a hasty search in the darkness revealed nothing. There was no sign of a saddle. "We'll have to wait until morning," sighed Will, as he tied Prince to a tree. "Then we can see better, and look all around. Prince, old boy, you knew me; didn't you?" The handsome animal whinnied, and rubbed his nose against Will's arm. "And so you played the part of a ghost, you rascal! Scaring the girls---- " "We'll never admit that," called Betty from the tent. There was nothing more to do that night, after making Prince secure. The boys ate a little mid-night supper, and from the tent of the girls came the odor of chocolate, which Grace insisted on making. Then, after fitful slumbers, morning came. Will was up early to examine Prince. He found the healed cut, where the auto had struck, and there was evidence that the saddle had been on the animal until recently. The iron stirrups would account for the sound like chains. "The saddle must be somewhere on this island," declared Will. "I'm going to find it." "How?" asked Allen, who had made a careful toilet, as Betty had promised to go for a row with him. "I'll strap a pad on Prince, get on his back, and see where he takes me. The way I figure is this. Prince never liked to be in the open. I'm almost certain he has been staying in some sort of shelter-- either a cave, or an old cabin, or stable on the island. The saddle may have come off there. Now he'll most likely take me right to his stopping place. Of course he may not, but it's worth trying." "Indeed it is," agreed Prank. After a hasty breakfast Will put his plan to the test. Prince was fed well, and with Frank and Allen to follow, Will leaped on his pet's back, and gave him free rein-- or, rather, free halter, since there was no bridle. The girls said they would take a walk around the island, looking for the saddle as they went. Prince, after a little hesitation, started off with Will on his back. The splendid animal headed for the lake shore, and for a moment Will was inclined to think that Prince was going to plunge in and swim to some other island or the mainland. But Prince was only thirsty, and, slaking that desire, he ambled along the shore for a mile or so, the two young men following. "Where can he be going?" asked Frank. "Just let him alone," counseled Will. "He knows what he is about." And so Prince did. He took a path he had evidently traveled many times before, to judge by the hoof-marks, and presently came to a swampy place at which Frank and Allen balked. "Wait here," advised Will. "I'll soon be back. This is near one end of the island. It must be here that Prince has his stable." And so it proved. Splashing through the swamp, Prince ascended a little slope, pushed under some low tree branches that nearly brushed Will from his back, and came to a halt before a tumbled-down cabin, that was just about large enough for an improvised stable. Will leaped off, gave a look inside, and uttered a shout of joy, for there, trampled on and torn, broken and water-stained, was the saddle. A second later Will was kneeling before it, exploring the saddle pockets. "Here they are!" he cried, as he pulled out the missing papers. "I have them, fellows!" A hasty survey showed him that they were all there-- somewhat stained and torn, to be sure, but as good as ever for the purpose intended. "This is great luck!" cried Will. He looked about him. Then he saw the reason why Prince had made this place his headquarters. The former occupant of the deserted cabin had left behind a quantity of salt, and as all animals like, and need, this crystal, Prince had been attracted to the place. It was like the old "buffalo licks." Then, too, there was shelter from storms. "Prince, old man, you're all right!" cried Will, as he put the papers in his pockets. By dint of a little hasty repairing the saddle could be used temporarily. It was evident that Prince had kept it on until lately, and the dangling stirrups had caused the sound like rattling chains. There was no sign of the bridle, however, but the halter would answer. Will saddled his pet, and soon had rejoined Frank and Allen, to whom he had shouted the good news. Then a hasty trip was made back to camp. "Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Grace. "Now I can really enjoy camping and cruising. You must telephone papa at once." Which Will did, the whole party going over to Mr. Lagg's store in the motor boat. "Yes, I have the papers safe," Will told Mr. Ford. "Yes, I'll mail them at once. What's that-- Dodo-- tell Mollie Dodo is over the operation and is going to get well? I will-- that's good news! Hurrah!" "Oh, thank the dear Lord!" murmured Mollie, and then she sobbed on Betty's shoulder. "Well, I guess we are ready to start," announced Grace. "I have the chocolates. Who has the olives?" "Chocolates and olives-- the school girl's delight!" mocked Will, "Oh, you'll be asking for some," declared his sister. "Chocolates and olives are good for the boys, And to the girls they also bring joys." Thus remarked Mr. Lagg. The crowd of young people were in his store, stocking up the Gem for a resumption of her cruise on Rainbow Lake. It was several days after the finding of the missing saddle and the papers. The latter had been sent to Mr. Ford, Prince had been swum across to the mainland and sent home, and the news about little Dodo had been confirmed. The child would fully recover, and not even be lame. "Oh, what a fine time we've had!" exclaimed Grace, as she waltzed about the store with Amy. "Well, the summer isn't over yet by any means," spoke Mollie. "And there is the glorious Fall to come. I wonder what we shall do then?" And what they did do may be ascertained by reading the next volume of this series, to be called "The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car; Or, The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley," in which we will meet all our old friends again, and some new ones. "All aboard!" called Betty, as she led the way down to the dock where the Gem awaited them. Each one was carrying a bundle of supplies, for they expected to cruise for about a week. They boarded the motor boat. Betty threw over the lever of the self-starter. The engine responded promptly. As the clutch slipped in, white foam showed at the stern where the industrious propeller whirled about. The Gem slid away from the dock. "Good-bye! Good-bye!" called the boys and girls to Mr. Lagg. "Good-bye!" he answered, waving his red handkerchief at them. Then he recited. "As you sail o'er the bounding sea, Pause now and then and think of me. I've many things for man and beast, From chocolate drops to compressed yeast." "Good!" shouted Will, laughing. And Betty swung around the wheel to avoid the two boys whose canoe Mollie had so strangely found, as the Gem, continued her cruise down Rainbow Lake. And here, for a time, we, too, like Mr. Lagg, will say farewell to our friends. THE END 
61405	----	DOWN TO THE WORLDS OF MEN BY ALEXEI PANSHIN The ancient rule was sink or swim--swim in the miasma of a planet without spaceflight, or sink to utter destruction! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I The horses and packs were loaded before we went aboard the scoutship. The scout bay is no more than a great oversized airlock with a dozen small ships squatting over their tubes, but it was the last of the Ship that I might ever see, so I took a long final look from the top of the ramp. There were sixteen of us girls and thirteen boys. We took our places in the seats in the center of the scout. Riggy Allen made a joke that nobody bothered to laugh at, and then we were all silent. I was feeling lost and just beginning to enjoy it when Jimmy Dentremont came over to me. He's red-headed and has a face that makes him look about ten. An intelligent runt like me. He said what I expected. "Mia, do you want to go partners if we can get together when we get down?" I guess he thought that because we were always matched on study I liked him. Well, I did when I wasn't mad at him, but now I had that crack he'd made about being a snob in mind, so I said, "Not likely. I want to come back alive." It wasn't fair, but it was a good crack and he went back to his place without saying anything. My name is Mia Havero. I'm fourteen, of course, or I wouldn't be telling this. I'm short, dark and scrawny, though I don't expect that scrawniness to last much longer. Mother is very good looking. In the meantime, I've got brains as a consolation. After we were all settled, George Fuhonin, the pilot, raised the ramps. We sat there for five minutes while they bled air out of our tube and then we just ... dropped. My stomach turned flips. We didn't have to leave that way, but George thinks it's fun to be a hot pilot. Thinking it over, I was almost sorry I'd been stinking to Jimmy D. He's the only competition I have my own age. The trouble is, you don't go partners with the competition, do you? Besides, there was still that crack about being a snob. The planet chosen for our Trial was called Tintera. The last contact the Ship had had with it--and we were the ones who dropped them--was almost 150 years ago. No contact since. That had made the Council debate a little before they dropped us there, but they decided it was all right in the end. It didn't make any practical difference to us kids because they never tell you anything about the place they're going to drop you. All I knew was the name. I wouldn't have known that much if Daddy weren't Chairman of the Council. I felt like crawling in a corner of the ship and crying, but nobody else was breaking down, so I didn't. I did feel miserable. I cried when I said good-by to Mother and Daddy--a real emotional scene--but that wasn't in public. * * * * * It wasn't the chance of not coming back that bothered me really, because I never believed that I wouldn't. The thought that made me unhappy was that I would have to be on a planet for a whole month. Planets make me feel wretched. The gravity is always wrong, for one thing. Either your arches and calves ache or every time you step you think you're going to trip on a piece of fluff and break your neck. There are vegetables everywhere and little grubby things just looking for _you_ to crawl on. If you can think of anything creepier than that, you've got a real nasty imagination. Worst of all, planets stink. Every single one smells--I've been on enough to know that. A planet is all right for a Mud-eater, but not for me. We have a place in the Ship like that--the Third Level--but it's only a thousand square miles and any time it gets on your nerves you can go up a level or down a level and be back in civilization. When we reached Tintera, they started dropping us. We swung over the sea from the morning side and then dropped low over gray-green forested hills. Finally George spotted a clear area and dropped into it. They don't care what order you go in, so Jimmy D. jumped up, grabbed his gear and then led his horse down the ramp. I think he was still smarting from the slap I'd given him. In a minute we were airborne again. I wondered if I would ever see Jimmy--if he would get back alive. It's no game we play. When we turn fourteen, they drop us on the nearest colonized planet and come back one month later. That may sound like fun to you, but a lot of us never come back alive. Don't think I was helpless. I'm hell on wheels. They don't let us grow for fourteen years and then kick us out to die. They prepare us. They do figure, though, that if you can't keep yourself alive by the time you're fourteen, you're too stupid, foolish or unlucky to be any use to the Ship. There's sense behind it. It means that everybody on the Ship is a person who can take care of himself if he has to. Daddy says that something has to be done in a closed society to keep the population from decaying mentally and physically, and this is it. And it helps to keep the population steady. I began to check my gear out--sonic pistol, pickup signal so I could be found at the end of the month, saddle and cinches, food and clothes. Venie Morlock has got a crush on Jimmy D., and when she saw me start getting ready to go, she began to check her gear, too. At our next landing, I grabbed Ninc's reins and cut Venie out smoothly. It didn't have anything to do with Jimmy. I just couldn't stand to put off the bad moment any longer. The ship lifted impersonally away from Ninc and me like a rising bird, and in just a moment it was gone. Its gray-blue color was almost the color of the half-overcast sky, so I was never sure when I saw it last. II The first night was hell, I guess because I'm not used to having the lights out. That's when you really start to feel lonely, being alone in the dark. When the sun disappears, somehow you wonder in your stomach if it's really going to come back. But I lived through it--one day in thirty gone. I rode in a spiral search pattern during the next two days. I had three things in mind--stay alive, find people and find some of the others. The first was automatic. The second was to find out if there was a slot I could fit into for a month. If not, I would have to find a place to camp out, as nasty as that would be. The third was to join forces, though not with that meatball Jimmy D. No, he isn't really a meatball. The trouble is that I don't take nothing from nobody, especially him, and he doesn't take nothing from nobody, especially me. So we do a lot of fighting. I had a good month for Trial. My birthday is in November--too close to Year End Holiday for my taste, but this year it was all right. It was spring on Tintera, but it was December in the Ship, and after we got back we had five days of Holiday to celebrate. It gave me something to look forward to. In two days of riding, I ran onto nothing but a few odd-looking animals. I shot one small one and ate it. It turned out to taste pretty good, though not as good as a slice from Hambone No. 4, to my mind the best meat vat on the Ship. I've eaten things so gruey-looking that I wondered that anybody had the guts to try them in the first place and they've turned out to taste good. And I've seen things that looked good that I couldn't keep on my stomach. So I guess I was lucky. On the third day, I found the road. I brought Ninc down off the hillside, losing sight of the road in the trees, and then reaching it in the level below. It was narrow and made of sand spread over a hard base. Out of the marks in the sand, I could pick out the tracks of horses and both narrow and wide wheels. Other tracks I couldn't identify. One of the smartest moves in history was to include horses when they dropped the colonies. I say "they" because, while we did the actual dropping, the idea originated with the whole evac plan back on Earth. Considering how short a time it was in which the colonies were established, there was not time to set up industry, so they had to have draft animals. The first of the Great Ships was finished in 2025. One of the eight, as well as the two that were being built then, went up with everything else in the Solar System in 2041. In that sixteen years 112 colonies were planted. I don't know how many of those planets had animals that _could_ have been substituted but, even if they had, they would have had to be domesticated from scratch. That would have been stupid. I'll bet that half the colonies would have failed if they hadn't had horses. * * * * * We'd come in from the west over the ocean, so I traveled east on the road. That much water makes me nervous, and roads have to go somewhere. I came on my first travelers three hours later. I rounded a tree-lined bend, ducking an overhanging branch, and pulled Ninc to a stop. There were five men on horseback herding a bunch of the ugliest creatures alive. They were green and grotesque. They had squat bodies, long limbs and knobby bulges at their joints. They had square, flat animal masks for faces. But they walked on their hind legs and they had paws that were almost hands, and that was enough to make them seem almost human. They made a wordless, chilling, lowing sound as they milled and plodded along. I started Ninc up again and moved slowly to catch up with them. All the men on horseback had guns in saddle boots. They looked as nervous as cats with kittens. One of them had a string of packhorses on a line and he saw me and called to another who seemed to be the leader. That one wheeled his black horse and rode back toward me. He was a middle-aged man, maybe as old as my Daddy. He was large and he had a hard face. Normal enough, but hard. He pulled to a halt when we reached each other, but I kept going. He had to come around and follow me. I believe in judging a person by his face. A man can't help the face he owns, but he can help the expression he wears on it. If a man looks mean, I generally believe that he is. This one looked mean. That was why I kept riding. He said, "What be you doing out here, boy? Be you out of your head? There be escaped Losels in these woods." I told you I hadn't finished filling out yet, but I hadn't thought it was that bad. I wasn't ready to make a fight over the point, though. Generally, I can't keep my bloody mouth shut, but now I didn't say anything. It seemed smart. "Where be you from?" he asked. I pointed to the road behind us. "And where be you going?" I pointed ahead. No other way to go. He seemed exasperated. I have that effect sometimes. Even on Mother and Daddy, who should know better. We were coming up on the others now, and the man said, "Maybe you'd better ride on from here with us. For protection." He had an odd way of twisting his sounds, almost as though he had a mouthful of mush. I wondered whether he were just an oddball or whether everybody here spoke the same way. I'd never heard International English spoken any way but one, even on the planet Daddy made me visit with him. One of the other outriders came easing by then. I suppose they'd been watching us all the while. He called to the hard man. "He be awfully small, Horst. I doubt me a Losel'd even notice him at all. We mought as well throw him back again." The rider looked at me. When I didn't dissolve in terror as he expected, he shrugged and one of the other men laughed. The hard man said to the others, "This boy will be riding along with us to Forton for protection." I looked down at the plodding, unhappy creatures they were driving along and one looked back at me with dull, expressionless golden eyes. I felt uncomfortable. I said, "I don't think so." What the man did then surprised me. He said, "I do think so," and reached for the rifle in his saddle boot. I whipped my sonic pistol out so fast that he was caught leaning over with the rifle half out. His jaw dropped. He knew what I held and he didn't want to be fried. I said, "Ease your rifles out and drop them gently to the ground." They did, watching me all the while with wary expressions. When all the rifles were on the ground, I said, "All right, let's go." They didn't want to move. They didn't want to leave the rifles. I could see that. Horst didn't say anything. He just watched me with narrowed eyes. But one of the others held up a hand and in wheedling tones said, "Look here, kid...." "Shut up," I said, in as mean a voice as I could muster, and he did. It surprised me. I didn't think I sounded _that_ mean. I decided he just didn't trust the crazy kid not to shoot. After twenty minutes of easy riding for us and hard walking for the creatures, I said, "If you want your rifles, you can go back and get them now." I dug my heels into Ninc's sides and rode on. At the next bend I looked back and saw four of them holding their packhorses and the creatures still while one beat a dust-raising retreat down the road. I put this episode in the "file and hold for analysis" section in my mind and rode on, feeling good. I think I even giggled once. Sometimes I even convince myself that I'm hell on wheels. III When I was nine, my Daddy gave me a painted wooden doll that my great-grandmother brought from Earth. The thing is that inside it, nestled one in another, are eleven more dolls, each one smaller than the last. I like to watch people when they open it for the first time. My face must have been like that as I rode along the road. The country leveled into a great rolling valley and the trees gave way to great farms and fields. In the fields, working, were some of the green creatures, which surprised me since the ones I'd seen before hadn't seemed smart enough to count to one, let alone do any work. But it relieved me. I thought they might have been eating them or something. I passed two crossroads and started to meet more people, but nobody questioned me. I met people on horseback, and twice I met trucks moving silently past. And I overtook a wagon driven by the oldest man I've seen in my life. He waved to me, and I waved back. Near the end of the afternoon I came to the town, and there I received a jolt that sickened me. By the time I came out on the other side, I was sick. My hands were cold and sweaty and my head was spinning, and I wanted to kick Ninc to a gallop. I rode slowly in, looking all around, missing nothing. The town was all stone, wood and brick. Out of date. Out of time, really. There were no machines more complicated than the trucks I'd seen earlier. At the edge of town, I passed a newspaper office with a headline pasted in the window--INVASION! I remember that. I wondered about it. But I looked most closely at the people. In all that town, I didn't see one girl over ten years old and no grown-up women at all. There were little kids, there were boys and there were men, but no girls. All the boys and men wore pants, and so did I, which must have been why Horst and his buddies assumed I was a boy. It wasn't flattering; but I decided I'd not tell anybody different until I found what made the clocks tick on this planet. But that wasn't what bothered me. It was the kids. My God! They swarmed. I saw a family come out of a house--a father and _four_ children. It was the most foul thing I've ever seen. It struck me then--these people were Free Birthers! I felt a wave of nausea and I closed my eyes until it passed. * * * * * The first thing you learn in school is that if it weren't for idiot and criminal people like these, Earth would never have been destroyed. The evacuation would never have had to take place, and eight billion people wouldn't have died. There wouldn't have _been_ eight billion people. But, no. They bred and they spread and they devoured everything in their path like a cancer. They gobbled up all the resources that Earth had and crowded and shoved one another until the final war came. I am lucky. My great-great-grandparents were among those who had enough foresight to see what was coming. If it hadn't been for them and some others like them, there wouldn't be any humans left anywhere. And I wouldn't be here. That may not scare you, but it scares me. What happened before, when people didn't use their heads and wound up blowing the Solar System apart, is something nobody should forget. The older people don't let us forget. But these people had, and that the Council should know. For the first time since I landed on Tintera, I felt _really_ frightened. There was too much going on that I didn't understand. I felt a blind urge to get away, and when I reached the edge of town, I whomped Ninc a good one and gave him his head. I let him run for almost a mile before I pulled him down to a walk again. I couldn't help wishing for Jimmy D. Whatever else he is, he's smart and brains I needed. How do you find out what's going on? Eavesdrop? That's a lousy method. For one thing, people can't be depended on to talk about the things you want to hear. For another, you're likely to get caught. Ask somebody? Who? Make the mistake of bracing a fellow like Horst and you might wind up with a sore head and an empty pocket. The best thing I could think of was to find a library, but that might be a job. I'd had two bad shocks on this day, but they weren't the last. In the late afternoon, when the sun was starting to sink and a cool wind was starting to ripple the tree leaves, I saw the scoutship high in the sky. The dying sun colored it a deep red. Back again? I wondered what had gone wrong. I reached down into my saddlebag and brought out my contact signal. The scoutship swung up in the sky in a familiar movement calculated to drop the stomach out of everybody aboard. George Fuhonin's style. I triggered the signal, my heart turning flips all the while. I didn't know why he was back, but I wasn't really sorry. The ship swung around until it was coming back on a path almost over my head, going in the same direction. Then it went into a slip and started bucking so hard that I knew this wasn't hot piloting at all, just plain idiot stutter-fingered stupidity at the controls. As it skidded by me overhead, I got a good look at it and knew that it wasn't one of ours. Not too different, but not ours. One more enigma. Where was it from? Not here. Even if you know how, and we wouldn't tell these Mud-eaters how, a scoutship is something that takes an advanced technology to build. * * * * * I felt defeated and tired. Not much farther along the road, I came to a campsite with two wagons pulled in for the night, and I couldn't help but pull in myself. The campsite was large and had two permanent buildings on it. One was a well enclosure and the other was little more than a high-walled pen. It didn't even have a roof. I set up camp and ate my dinner. In the wagon closest to me were a man, his wife and their three children. The kids were running around and playing, and one of them ran close to the high-walled pen. His father came and pulled him away. The kids weren't to blame for their parents, but when one of them said hello to me, I didn't even answer. I know how lousy I would feel if I had two or three brothers and sisters, but it didn't strike me until that moment that it wouldn't even seem out of the ordinary to these kids. Isn't that horrible? About the time I finished eating, and before it grew dark, the old man I had seen earlier in the day drove his wagon in. He fascinated me. He had white hair, something I had read about in stories but had never seen before. When nightfall came, they started a large fire. Everybody gathered around. There was singing for awhile, and then the father of the children tried to pack them off to bed. But they weren't ready to go, so the old man started telling them a story. In the old man's odd accent, and sitting there in the campfire light surrounded by darkness, it seemed just right. It was about an old witch named Baba Yaga who lived in the forest in a house that stood on chicken legs. She was the nasty stepmother of a nice little girl, and to get rid of the kid, she sent her on a phony errand into the deep dark woods at nightfall. I could appreciate the poor girl's position. All the little girl had to help her were the handkerchief, the comb and the pearl that she had inherited from her dear dead mother. But, as it turned out, they were just enough to defeat nasty old Baba Yaga and bring the girl safely home. I wished for the same for myself. The old man had just finished and they were starting to drag the kids off to bed when there was a commotion on the road at the edge of the camp. I looked but my eyes were adjusted to the light of the fire and I couldn't see far into the dark. A voice there said, "I'll be damned if I'll take another day like this one, Horst. We should have been here hours ago. It be your fault we're not." Horst growled a retort. I decided that it was time for me to leave the campfire. I got up and eased away as Horst and his men came up to the fire, and cut back to where Ninc was parked. I grabbed up my blankets and mattress and started to roll them up. I had a pretty good idea now what they used the high-walled pen for. I should have known that they would have to pen the animals up for the night. I should have used my head. I hadn't and now it was time to take leave. I never got the chance. * * * * * I was just heaving the saddle up on Ninc when I felt a hand on my shoulder and I was swung around. "Well, well. Horst, look who we have here," he called. It was the one who'd made the joke about me being beneath the notice of a Losel. He was alone with me now, but with that call the others would be up fast. I brought the saddle around as hard as I could and then up, and he went down. He started to get up again, so I dropped the saddle on him and reached inside my jacket for my gun. Somebody grabbed me then from behind and pinned my arms to my side. I opened my mouth to scream--I have a good scream--but a rough smelly hand clamped down over it before I had a chance to get more than a lungful of air. I bit down hard--5000 lbs. psi, I'm told--but he didn't let me go. I started to kick, but Horst jerked me off my feet and dragged me off. When we were behind the pen and out of earshot of the fire, he stopped dragging me and dropped me in a heap. "Make any noise," he said, "and I'll hurt you." That was a silly way to put it, but somehow it said more than if he'd threatened to break my arm or my head. It left him a latitude of things to do if he pleased. He examined his hand. There was enough moonlight for that. "I ought to club you anyway," he said. The one I'd dropped the saddle on came up then. The others were putting the animals in the pen. He started to kick me, but Horst stopped him. "No," he said. "Look through the kid's gear, bring the horse and what we can use." The other one didn't move. "Get going, Jack," Horst said in a menacing tone and they stood toe to toe for a long moment before Jack finally backed down. It seemed to me that Horst wasn't so much objecting to me being kicked, but was rather establishing who did the kicking in his bunch. But I wasn't done yet. I was scared, but I still had the pistol under my jacket. Horst turned back to me and I said, "You can't do this and get away with it." He said, "Look, boy. You may not know it, but you be in a lot of trouble. So don't give me a hard time." He still thought I was a boy. It was not time to correct him, but I didn't like to see the point go unchallenged. It was unflattering. "The courts won't let you get away with this," I said. I'd passed a courthouse in the town with a carved motto over the doors: EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER THE LAW or TRUTH OUR SHIELD AND JUSTICE OUR SWORD or something stuffy like that. He laughed, not a phony, villian-type laugh, but a real laugh, so I knew I'd goofed. "Boy, boy. Don't talk about the courts. I be doing you a favor. I be taking what I can use of your gear, but I be letting you go. You go to court and they'll take everything and lock you up besides. I be leaving you your freedom." "Why would they be doing that?" I asked. I slipped my hand under my jacket. "Every time you open your mouth you shout that you be off one of the Ships," Horst said. "That be enough. They already have one of you brats in jail in Forton." I was about to bring my gun out when up came Jack leading Ninc, with all my stuff loaded on. I mentally thanked him. He said, "The kid's got some good equipment. But I can't make out what this be for." He held out my pickup signal. Horst looked at it, then handed it back. "Throw it away," he said. I leveled my gun at them--Hell on Wheels strikes again! I said, "Hand that over to me." Horst made a disgusted sound. "Don't make any noise," I said, "or you'll fry. Now hand it over." I stowed it away, then paused with one hand on the leather horn of the saddle. "What's the name of the kid in jail in Forton." "I can't remember," he said. "But it be coming to me. Hold on." I waited. Then suddenly my arm was hit a numbing blow from behind and the gun went flying. Jack pounced after it and Horst said, "Good enough," to the others who'd come up behind me. I felt like a fool. Horst stalked over and got the signal. He dropped it on the ground and said in a voice far colder than mine could ever be, because it was natural and mine wasn't, "The piece be yours." Then he tromped on it until it cracked and fell apart. Then he said, "Pull a gun on me twice. Twice." He slapped me so hard that my ears rang. "You dirty little punk." I said calmly, "You big louse." It was a time I would have done better to keep my mouth shut. All I can remember is a flash of pain as his fist crunched against the side of my face and then nothing. Brains are no good if you don't use them. IV I remember pain and sickness, and motion, but my next clear memory is waking in a bed in a house. I had a feeling that time had passed but how much I didn't know. I looked around and found the old man who had told the story sitting by my bed. "How be you feeling this morning, young lady?" he asked. He had white hair and a seamed face and his hands were gnarled and old. His face was red, and the red and the white of his hair made a sharp contrast with the bright blue of his deep-set eyes. It was a good face. "Not very healthy," I said. "How long has it been?" "Two days," he said. "You'll get over it soon enough. I be Daniel Kutsov. And you?" "I'm Mia Havero." "I found you dumped in a ditch after Horst Fanger and his boys had left you," he said. "A very unpleasant man ... as I suppose he be bound to be, herding Losels." "Those green things were Losels? Why are they afraid of them?" "The ones you saw beed drugged. They wouldn't obey otherwise. Once in awhile a few be stronger than the drug and they escape to the woods. The drug cannot be so strong that they cannot work. So the strongest escape. They be some danger to most people, and a great danger to men like Horst Fanger who buy them from the ships. Every so often, hunters go out to thin them down." "That seems like slavery," I said, yawning. It was a stupid thing to say, like some comment about the idiocy of a Free Birth policy. Not the sentiment, but the timing. Mr. Kutsov treated the comment with more respect than it deserved. "Only God can decide a question like that," he said gently. "Be it slavery to use my horses to work for me? I don't know anyone who would say so. A man be a different matter, though. The question be whether a Losel be like a horse or like a man, and that I can't answer. Now go to sleep again and in a while I will bring you some food." He left then, but I didn't go to sleep. I was in trouble. I had no way to contact the scoutship. There was only one way out, and that was to find somebody else who did have his signal. That wasn't going to be easy. Mr. Kutsov brought me some food later in the day, and I asked him then, "Why are you doing all this for me?" He said, "I don't like to see children hurt, by people like Horst Fanger or by anyone." "But I'm from one of the Ships," I said. "You know that, don't you?" Mr. Kutsov nodded. "Yes, I know that." "I understand that is pretty bad around here." "With some people, true. But all the people who hate the Ships don't realize that if it beedn't for the Ships they wouldn't be here at all. They hold their grudge too close to their hearts. There be some of us who disagree with the government though it has lost us our families or years from our lives, and we would not destroy what we cannot agree with. When such an one as Horst Fanger uses this as an excuse to rob and injure a child, I will not agree. He has taken all that you have and there is no way to reclaim it, but what I can give of my house be yours." * * * * * I thanked him as best I could and then I asked him what the grudge was that they held against the Ships. "It ben't a simple thing," he said. "You have seen how poor and backward we be. We realize it. Now and again, when you decide to stop, we see you people from the Ships. And you ben't poor or backward. You could call what we feel jealousy, if you wanted, but it be more than that and different. When we beed dropped here, there beed no scientists or technicians among us. I can understand. Why should they leave the last places where they had a chance to use and develop their knowledge for a backward planet where there is no equipment, no opportunity? What be felt here be that all the men who survived the end of Earth and the Solar System be the equal heirs of man's knowledge and accomplishment. But by bad luck, things didn't work out that way. So ideas urged by the Ships be ignored, and the Ships be despised, and people from the Ships be treated as shamefully as you have beed or worse." I could think of a good example of an idea that the Ships emphasized that had been ignored. Only it was more than an idea or an opinion. It was a cold and deadly lesson taught by history. It was: Man becomes an organism that ultimately destroys itself unless he regulates his own size and growth. That was what I was taught. I said, "I can understand how they might feel that way, but it's not fair. We pretty much support ourselves. As much as we can, we re-use things and salvage things, but we still need raw materials. The only thing we have to trade is knowledge. If we didn't have anything to trade for raw materials, that would be the end of us. Do we have a choice?" "I don't hold you to blame," Mr. Kutsov said slowly, "but I can't help but to feel that you have made a mistake and that it will hurt you in the end." I didn't say it, but I thought--when you lay blame, whom do you put it on? People who are obviously sick like these Mud-eaters, or people who are normal like us? After I got better, I had the run of Mr. Kutsov's house. It was a small place near the edge of Forton, surrounded by trees and with a small garden. Mr. Kutsov made a regular shipping run through the towns to the coast and back every second week. It was not a profitable business, but he said that at his age, profit was no longer very important. He was very good to me, but I didn't understand him. He gave me lessons before he let me go outside into the town. Women were second class citizens around here, but prejudice of that sort wasn't in Mr. Kutsov. Dressed as I was, as scrawny as I am, when people saw me here, they saw a boy. People see what they expect to see. I could get away with my sex, but not my accent. I might sound right on seven Ships and on all other planets, but here I was wrong. And I had two choices--sound right or shut up. One of these choices was impossible for me, so I set out to learn to sound like a Tinteran, born and bred, with Mr. Kutsov's aid. It was a long time before he was willing to give me a barely passing grade. He said, "All right. You should keep listening to people and correcting yourself, but I be satisfied. You talk as though you have a rag in your mouth, but I think you can get by." Before I went out into town, I found out one more important thing. It was the answer to a question that I didn't ask Mr. Kutsov. I'd been searching for it in old newspapers, and at last I found the story I was looking for. The last sentence read: "After sentencing, Dentremont was sent to the Territorial Jail in Forton to serve his three-month term." I thought, they misspelled his name. And then I thought, trust it to be Jimmy D. He gets in almost as much trouble as I do. * * * * * Though you may think it strange, my first stop was the library. I've found that it helps to be well-researched. I got what I could from Mr. Kutsov's books during the first days while he was outdoors working in his garden. In his library, I found a novel that he had written himself called _The White Way_. He said, "It took me forty years to write it, and I have spent forty-two years since living with the political repercussions. It has beed an interesting forty-two years, but I am not sure that I would do it again. Read the book if you be interested." I did read it, though I couldn't understand what the fuss was about. It seemed reasonable to me. But these Mud-eaters were crazy anyway. I couldn't help but think that he and Daddy would have found a lot in common. They were both fine, tough-minded people, and though you would never know it to look at them, they were the same age. Except that at the age of eighty Mr. Kutsov was old, and at the age of eighty Daddy was not. It cost me an effort to walk through the streets of Forton, but after my third trip, the pain was less, though the number of children still made me sick. In the library, I spent four days getting a line on Tintera. I read their history. I studied their geography and, as sneakily as I could, I tore out the best local maps I could find. On my trips through town, I took the time to look up Horst Fanger's place of business. It was a house, a shed and pen for the Losels, a stable, a truck garage (one truck--broken down) and a sale block, all housed in one rambling, shanty building. Mr. Horst Fanger was apparently a big man. Big deal. When I was ready, I scouted out the jail. It was a raw unpleasant day, the sort that makes me hate planets, and rain was threatening when I reached the jailpen. It was a solid three-story building of great stone blocks, shaped like a fortress and protected by bars, an iron-spike fence and two nasty-looking dogs. On my second trip around, the rain began. I beat it to the front and dodged in the entrance. I was standing there, shaking the rain off, when a man in a green uniform came stalking out of one of the offices that lined the first-floor hallway. My heart stopped for a moment, but he went right by without giving me a second look and went upstairs. That gave me some confidence and so I started poking around. * * * * * I had covered the bulletin boards and the offices on one side of the hall when another man in green came into the hall and made straight for me. I didn't wait, I walked toward him, too. I said, as wide-eyed and innocent as I could, "Can you help me, sir?" "Well, that depends. What sort of help do you need?" He was a big, rather slow man with one angled cloth bar on his shirt front over one pocket and a plate that said ROBARDS pinned over the pocket on the other side. He seemed good-natured. I said, "Jerry had to write about the capital, and Jimmy got the Governor, and I got _you_." "Hold on there. First, what be your name?" "Billy Davidow," I said. "I don't know what to write, sir, and I thought you could show me around and tell me things." "I be sorry, son," he said. "We be pretty caught up today. Could you make it some other afternoon or maybe some evening?" I said slowly, "I have to hand the paper in this week." After a minute, he said, "All right. I'll take you around. But I can't spare much time. It'll have to be a quick tour." The offices were on the first floor. Storage rooms, an arms room and a target range were in the basement. Most of the cells were on the second floor, with the very rough cases celled on the third. "If the judge says maximum security, they go on the third, everybody else on the second unless we have an overflow. Have a boy upstairs now." My heart sank. "A real bad actor. Killed a man." Well, that wasn't Jimmy. Not with a three-month sentence. Maximum security had three sets of barred doors plus an armed guard. Sgt. Robards pointed it all out to me. "By this time next week, it will all be full in here," he said sadly. "The Governor has ordered a round-up of all political agitators. The Anti-Redemptionists be getting out of hand and he be going to cool them off. Uh, don't put that in your paper." "Oh, I won't," I said, crossing off on my notes. The ordinary cells on the second floor were behind no barred doors and I got a guided tour. I stared Jimmy D. right in the face, but he had the brains to keep his mouth shut. When we had finished, I thanked Sgt. Robards enthusiastically. "It sure has been swell, sir." "Not at all, son," he said. "I enjoyed it myself. If you have time some evening, drop by when I have the duty. My schedule bees on the bulletin board." "Thank you, sir," I said. "Maybe I will." V Before I scouted the jail I had only vague notions of what I was going to do to spring Jimmy D. I had spent an hour or so, for instance, toying with the idea of forcing the Territorial Governor to release Jimmy at the point of a gun. I spent that much time with it because the idea was fun to think about, but I dropped it because it was stupid. I finally decided on a very simple course of action, one that could easily go wrong. It was my choice because it was the only thing I could pull off by myself that had a chance of working. Before I left the jail building, I copied down Sgt. Robards' duty schedule from the bulletin board. Then I went home. I spent the next few days shoplifting. Mr. Kutsov was laying in supplies, too, loading his wagon for his regular trip. I helped him load up, saving my shopping for my spare time. Mr. Kutsov wanted me to go along with him, but I couldn't, of course, and I couldn't tell him why. He didn't want to argue and he couldn't _make_ me do anything I didn't want to do, so I had an unfair advantage. I just dug in my heels. Finally he agreed it was all right for me to stay alone in the house while he was gone. It was what I wanted, but I didn't enjoy the process of getting my own way as much as I did at home. There it is a more even battle. The day he picked to leave was perfect for my purposes. Mr. Kutsov said, "I'll be back in six days. Be you sure that you will be all right?" I said, "Yes. I'll be careful. You be careful, too." "I don't think it matters much any more at my age," he smiled. "Stay out of trouble." "I'll try," I said, and waved good-by. That was what I meant to do, stay out of trouble. Back in the house, I wrote a note of explanation for Mr. Kutsov and thanked him for all he had done. Then I dug my two small packs out of hiding and I was ready. I set out just after dark. It was sprinkling lightly, but I didn't mind it. It surprised me, but I enjoyed the feel of the spray on my face. In one pocket I had pencil and paper for protective coverage. In another pocket I had a single sock and a roll of tape. Just before I got to the jail, I filled the sock with wet sand. Inside there were lights on in only two first floor offices. Sgt. Robards was in one of them. "Hello, Sgt. Robards," I said, going in. "How be you tonight?" "Well enough," he said. "It be pretty slow down here tonight. They be busy up on the Third Floor tonight, though." "Oh?" "They be picking up those Anti-Redemptionists tonight. How did your paper go?" "I handed it in," I said. "I should get a good grade with your help." "Oh, you found out everything you needed to know." "Oh, yes. I just came by to visit tonight. I wondered if you'd show me the target range again. That was keen." "Sure," he said. "Would you like to see me pop some targets? I be the local champion, you know." "Gee, would you?" We went downstairs, Sgt. Robards leading the way. This was the place I'd picked to drop him. He was about to slip the key in the door to the range when I slugged him across the back of the neck with my sock full of sand. I grabbed him and eased him down. * * * * * I tried the keys on either side of the target door key and opened the arsenal on the second try. I dragged him in there and got out my roll of tape I took three quick turns about his ankles, then did the same with his wrists. I finished by putting a bar and two crosspieces over the mouth. I picked out two weapons then. They had no sonics, of course, so I picked out two of the smallest and lightest pistols in the room. I figured out what cartridges fit them, and then dropped guns and cartridge clips into my pocket. I swung the door shut and locked it again, leaving Sgt. Robards inside. I stood for a moment in the corridor with the keys in my hand. There were only ten keys, not enough to cover each individual cell. Yet Sgt. Robards had clinked these keys and said that he could unlock the cells. Maybe I would have done better to stick up the Territorial Governor. Well, here goes. I eased up to the first floor. Nobody came out of the second office to check on the noise made by my pounding heart, which surprised me. Then up to the second floor. It was dark here, but light from the first and third floors leaking up and down the stairs made things bright enough for me to see what I was doing. There were voices on the third floor and somebody laughed up there. I held my breath and moved quietly to Jimmy's cell. I whispered, "Jimmy!" and he came alert and moved to the door. "Am I glad to see you," he whispered back. I held up the keys. "Do any of these fit?" "Yes, the D key. The D key. It fits the four cells in this corner." I fumbled through until I had the key tagged D. I opened the cell with as few clinking noises as possible. "Come on," I said. "We've got to get out of here in a hurry." He slipped out and pushed the door shut behind him. We headed for the stairs and were almost there when I heard somebody coming up. Jimmy must have heard it, too, because he grabbed my arm and pulled me back. We flattened out as best we could. Talk about walking right into it! The policeman looked over at us and said, "What are you doing up here, Robards? Hey, you're not...." I stepped out and brought out one of the pistols. I said, "Easy now. If things go wrong for us, I have nothing to lose by shooting you. If you want to live, play it straight." He apparently believed me, because he put his hands where I could see them and shut up. I herded him into Jimmy's cell and let Jimmy do the honors with the loaded sock. We taped him up and while Jimmy was locking him in, I heard somebody in one of the cells behind me say, "Shut up, there," to somebody else. I turned and said, "Do you want to get shot?" The voice was collected. "No. No trouble here." "Do you want to be let out?" The voice was amused. "I don't think so. Thank you just the same." Jimmy finished and I asked, "Where is your signal? We have to have that." "In the basement with the rest of my gear." The signal was all we took. When we were three blocks away and on a dark side street, I handed Jimmy his gun and ammunition. As he took them, he said, "Tell me something, Mia. Would you really have shot him?" I said. "I couldn't have. I hadn't loaded my gun yet." * * * * * I led him through town following the back ways I'd worked out before. Somebody once said that good luck is no more nor less than careful preparation, and this time I meant to have good luck. I led Jimmy toward the Losel-selling district. Jimmy is short and red-headed with a face that makes him look about four years younger than he is. That's a handicap any time. When you stand out anyway, it's likely to make you a little bit tart. But Jimmy's all right most of the time. He said, "We're in trouble." "That's brilliant." "No," Jimmy said. "They have a scoutship from one of the other Ships. This is going to sound wild, but they intend to use the scout to take over a Ship and then use that to destroy the rest of the Ships. They're going to try. The police are rounding up everybody who is opposed who has any influence and is putting them in jail." "So what?" "Mia, are you mad at me for something?" "What makes you think so?" "You're being bitter about something." "If you must know, it's that crack you made about me being a snob." "That was a month ago." "I still resent it." "Why?" Jimmy asked. "It's true. You think that because you're from a Ship that you're automatically better than any Mud-eater. That makes you a snob." "Well, you're no better," I said. "Maybe not, but I don't pretend. Hey, look, we can't get anywhere if we fight and we've got to stick together. I'll tell you what. I'll apologize. I'm sorry I said it, even if it is true. Make up?" "Okay," I said. But that was a typical trick of his. Get the last blow in and then call the whole thing off. When we got to Horst Fanger's place, I said, "I've got our packs all set up. This is where we get our horses." I'd left this until last, not wanting people running around looking for stolen horses while I was trying to break somebody out of the police jail pen. Besides, for this I wanted somebody along as lookout. There was a fetid, unwashed odor that hung about the pens that the misting rain did nothing to dispel. We slipped by the pens, the Losels watching us but making no noise, and came to the stables, which smelled better. Jimmy stood guard while I broke the lock and slipped inside. Ninc was there, good old Nincompoop, and a quick search turned up his saddle as well. I saddled him up and then stood watch while Jimmy picked himself out a horse and gear. I did one last thing before I left. I took out the pencil and paper in my pocket and wrote in _correct_ Inter E, in great big letters: I'M A _GIRL_, YOU STINKER. I hung it on a nail. It may have been childish, but it felt good. We rode from there to Mr. Kutsov's house, still following back alleys. As we rode, I told Jimmy about Mr. Kutsov and what he'd done for me. When we got there, we rode around to the back. "Hold the horses," I said. "I'll slip in and get the packs. They're just inside." We both dismounted and Jimmy took Ninc's reins. I bounded up the steps. Mr. Kutsov was waiting in the dark inside. He said, "I read your note." "Why did you come back?" I asked. He smiled. "It didn't seem right to leave you here by yourself. I be sorry. I think I underestimated you. Be that Jimmy Dentremont outside?" "You're not mad?" "No. I ben't angry. I understand why you couldn't tell me." For some reason, I started crying and couldn't stop. The tears ran down my face. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry." The front door signal sounded then and Mr. Kutsov answered the door. A green-uniformed policeman stood in the doorway. "Daniel Kutsov?" he asked. Instinctively, I shrank back out of sight of the doorway. I swiped at my face with my sleeve. Mr. Kutsov said, "Yes. What can I do for you." The policeman moved one step inside the house where I could see him again. He said in a flat voice, "I have a warrant for your arrest." * * * * * There was only one light on in the house, in the front room. From the shadows at the rear I watched them both. The policeman had a hard mask for a face, no more human than a Losel. Mr. Kutsov was determined and I had the feeling that he had forgotten my presence. "To jail again? For my book?" He shook his head. "No." "It be nothing to do with any book I know of, Kutsov. It be known that you be an Anti-Redemptionist. So come along." He grasped Mr. Kutsov's arm. Mr. Kutsov shook loose. "No. I won't go to jail again. It be no crime to be against stupidity. I won't go." The policeman said, "You be coming whether you want to or not. You be under arrest." Mr. Kutsov's voice had never shown his age before, but it shook now. "Get out of my house!" A sense of coming destruction grew on me as I saw the policeman lift his gun from its holster and say, "You be coming if I have to shoot." Mr. Kutsov swung his fist at the policeman and missed and, as though the man could afford to let nothing pass without retaliation, he swung the barrel of his pistol dully against the side of Mr. Kutsov's head. It rocked Mr. Kutsov, but he didn't fall. He raised his fist again. The policeman struck once more and waited but Mr. Kutsov still didn't fall. Instead, he swung again, and for the first time he landed, a blow that bounced weakly off the man's shoulder. Almost inevitably, it seemed, the policeman raised his pistol and fired directly at Mr. Kutsov, and then again, and as the second report rang Mr. Kutsov slid to the floor. The silence was loud and gaunt. The policeman stood looking down at him and said, "Old fool!" under his breath. Then he came to himself and looked around. Then he picked a candlestick off the table and dropped it with a thud by Mr. Kutsov's empty outstretched hand. The noise was a release for me and I moved for the first time. The policeman grunted and looked up and we stared at each other. Then again, slowly, he raised his gun and pointed it at me. I heard a snickering sound and the three reports rang out, one following another. The policeman stood for a moment, balanced himself and then, like a crumpled sheet of paper, he fell to the floor. I didn't even look at Jimmy behind me. I started to cry and I went to Mr. Kutsov, passing by the policeman without even looking at him. As I bent down beside him, his eyes opened and he looked at me. I couldn't stop crying. I held his head and cried. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry." He smiled and said faintly, but clearly, "It be all right." After a minute he closed his eyes, and then he died. After another minute, Jimmy touched my arm and said, "There's nothing we can do. Let's leave now, Mia, while we still can." Outside, it was still raining. Standing in the rain I felt deserted. VI The final morning on Tintera was a fine day. We and the horses were in a rock-enclosed aerie where we had dodged the day before for shelter. In the aerie were grass and a small rock spring, and this day, the final day, was bright with blue and piled clouds riding high. From where we sat, looking from the top of the rock wall, we could see over miles of expanse. Lower hills and curving valleys all covered with a rolling carpet of trees, a carpet of varying shades of gray and green. There were some natural upland meadows, and clearings in the valleys, and far away a line drawn in the trees that might be the path of a river. Down there, under that carpet, were all sorts of things--wild Losels, men hunting us, and--perhaps--some of the others from the Ship. We had seen the Losels and they had seen us; they had gone their way and we had gone ours. The men hunting us for blowing up their scoutship we hadn't seen for four days, and even then they hadn't seen us. As for the others, we hadn't seen them at all. But they might be there, under the anonymous carpet. Jimmy got up from the ground and brushed himself off. He brought the signal over to me and said, "Should I, or do you want to?" "Go ahead," I said. He triggered it. George Fuhonin was piloting and we were the sixth and seventh aboard. The other five crowded around and helped us put our gear away. Jimmy went on inside and I went upstairs to talk to George. I was up there by the time we were airborne. "Hello, Halfpint," George said. "Hi, Georgie-Worgie," I said, dealing blow for blow. "Have you had any trouble picking us up?" "No trouble yet. You trying to wish me problems?" "No," I said. "This is a real nasty planet. They had Jimmy D. locked up in jail. They hate everybody from the Ships." "Oh." George raised his eyebrows. "Well, that might explain the board." He pointed to the board of lights above and to his left. Twenty-nine were marked for the twenty-nine of us. Of the twenty-nine, only twelve were lit. "The last light came on two hours ago. If there aren't any more, this will be the most fatal Trial Group I've ever picked up." I stayed upstairs through two more pickups. Joe Fernandez-Fragoso, and then another double of which Venie Morlock was one half. I went downstairs to say hello to her. * * * * * We were just settling down when George set off the alarm. He was speaking in the elder brother tone that I can't stand. "All right, kids--shut up and listen. One of our people is down there. I didn't get close enough to see who. Whoever it is is surrounded by some of the local peasantry and we've got to bust him out. I'm going to buzz down and try to land on some of them. Then I want all of you outside and laying down a covering fire. Got that? I'm starting on down now." Some of the kids had their weapons with them, but Jimmy and I didn't. We hopped for the gear racks and got out our pistols. There were ten of us and four ramps to the outside. Jimmy and I had No. 3 to ourselves. George is a hotrodder, as I've said, and after he gave us a long moment to get in place, he started down, a stomach-heaving swoop. Then he touched down light as a feather and dropped the ramps. Jimmy and I dived down the ramp and I went left and he went right. We were on a slight slope facing down and my momentum and the slant put me right where I wanted to be--flat on my face. I rolled behind a tree and looked over to see Jimmy almost hidden in a bush. Here, hundreds of miles from where we had been picked up, it was misting under a familiar rolled gray sky. In my ears was the sound of gunfire from the other side of the ship and from below us. Our boy was pinned fifty yards down the slope behind some rocks that barely protected him. He was fighting back. I could see the sighting beam of his sonic pistol slapping out. About thirty feet away from him toward us was the body of his horse. I recognized him then--a meatball named Riggy Allen. I took all this in in seconds, and then I raised my pistol and fired, aiming at his attackers. They were dug in behind trees and rocks, at least partly hidden from Riggy as he was hidden from them. From where we were, though, above and looking down, they could be picked out. The distance was too great for my shot and it plowed up earth ten feet short, but the man I aimed at ducked back behind cover. There was a certain satisfaction in one of these guns. Where a sonic pistol is silent, these made enough noise that you knew you were doing something. And when you missed with a sonic pistol, all you could expect at most was a shriveled branch or a sere and yellow leaf, but a miss with this gun could send up a gout of earth or drive a hole in a tree big enough to scare the steadiest man you can find. I aimed higher and started to loft my shots in. Jimmy was doing the same thing, and the net effect was to keep their heads down. Riggy finally got the idea after a long moment. He stood up and started racing up the hill. Then my gun clicked empty, and a second later the firing to my right stopped. I started to fumble for another clip. As our fire stopped, those heads popped back up again and took in the situation. They began to fire again and our boy Riggy took a long step and then dived over the body of his horse and went flat. * * * * * In a moment I was firing again, and then Jimmy was, too, and Riggy was up and running again. Then I started thinking clearly and held my fire while Jimmy emptied his clip. The instant he stopped, I started again, a regular squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. As I finished, Jimmy opened with his new clip and then Riggy was past us and up the ramp. He went flat in the doorway there and started firing his sonic pistol; its range was greater than our peashooters and he hosed the whole area down while Jimmy and I sprinted for the ramp. As we hit the inside of the ship, I yelled, "Raise No. 3!" George had either been watching or listening, because it lifted smoothly up and locked in place. Shots were still coming from the other sides of the ship, so I yelled at Jimmy to go left. Riggy just stood there for a moment fuzzy-headed, but Jimmy gave him a shove to the right and he finally got the idea. I cut through the middle. In the doorway of No. 1, I skidded flat on my face again and looked for targets. I dropped all my clips in front of me and began to fire. When the clip was empty, in two quick motions I pulled out the old one and slapped in the new and fired again. The three I was covering for used their heads and slipped in one at a time. As the second one came aboard, I heard Jimmy's voice call to raise No. 2 from my left. My third was Venie Morlock and as she ran aboard, I couldn't resist tripping her flat. I yelled to George to raise No. 1. Venie glared at me and demanded, "What was that for?" as the ramp swung up. "Just making sure you didn't get shot," I said, lying. A second later, Riggy yelled that his side was okay and the last ramp was raised. My last view of Tintera was of a rainsoaked hillside and men doing their best to kill us, which all seems appropriate somehow. As the last ramp locked in place, George lifted the ship again and headed for the next pickup. I went over to say hello to Riggy. He'd been completely unhurt by the barrage, but he had a great gash on his arm that was just starting to heal. He _said_ that he was minding his own business in the woods one day when a Losel jumped out from behind a bush and slashed him. That may sound reasonable to you, but you don't know Riggy. I do. My opinion is that it was probably the other way around--the Losel was walking along in the woods one day, minding his own business, when _Riggy_ jumped out from a bush and scared him. That is the sort of thing Riggy is inclined to do. Riggy had been sneaking a look at my gun, and now he said, "Where did you get that neat pistol? Let me see it." I handed it over. After a minute of inspection, Riggy asked, "You wouldn't want to trade, would you?" "For your sonic pistol?" "Yes. You want to?" I considered it for a minute, and then I said, "All right," and we traded. There is a certain amount of satisfaction in shooting an antique like that, but I know which is the more effective weapon. Besides, I only had one full clip of ammunition left. * * * * * There is a certain amount of prestige in coming back alive from Survival. It's your key to adulthood. There were no brass bands waiting for us when we got back, but our families were there, and that was enough. The fifteen of us went down the lowered ramp, and when I stood again on solid rock, I looked around that ugly, bare scout bay and just drank it in. Home. I turned to Jimmy then and I said, "Jimmy, it's a relief to be back, isn't it? And that isn't snobbery. It might have been before, but I don't think I am now." And Jimmy nodded. The waiting room wasn't bare. They had the decorations up for Year End, colored mobiles with lights that ranged through the spectrum, and more decorations on the walls. In the crowd of people waiting for us, I saw Jimmy's mother and her present husband, and Jimmy's father and _his_ wife. When they saw Jimmy, they started waving and shouting. Just as I said, "I'll see you tonight," I saw Mother and Daddy standing off to one side, and I waved. It was as though I had left the real world entirely for a month, and now at last I was back where things were going on and I wasn't missing a thing. I ran to them and I kissed Mother and hugged Daddy. Mother was crying. I leaned back in Daddy's arms and looked up at him. He put a measuring hand over my head and said, "Mia, I believe you've grown some." It might be so. I felt taller. 
5660	----	MARY LOUISE By Edith Van Dyne Author of "Aunt Jane's Nieces Series" "The Daring Twins," etc. TO YOUNG READERS You will like Mary Louise because she is so much like yourself. Mrs. Van Dyne has succeeded in finding a very human girl for her heroine; Mary Louise is really not a fiction character at all. Perhaps you know the author through her "Aunt Jane's Nieces" stories; then you don't need to be told that you will want to read all the volumes that will be written about lovable Mary Louise. Mrs. Van Dyne is recognized as one of the most interesting writers for girls to-day. Her success is largely due to the fact that she does not write DOWN to her young readers; she realizes that the girl of to-day does not have to be babied, and that her quick mind is able to appreciate stories that are as well planned and cleverly told as adult fiction. That is the theory behind "The Bluebird Books." If you are the girl who likes books of individuality--wholesome without being tiresome, and full of action without being sensational--then you are just the girl for whom the series is being written. "Mary Louise" is more than a worthy successor to the "Aunt Jane's Nieces Series"--it has merit which you will quickly recognize. THE PUBLISHERS. CONTENTS I JUST AN ARGUMENT II GRAN'PA JIM III A SURPRISE IV SHIFTING SANDS V OFFICIAL INVESTIGATION VI UNDER A CLOUD VII THE ESCAPE VIII A FRIENDLY FOE IX OFFICER O'GORMAN X RATHER QUEER INDEED XI MARY LOUISE MEETS IRENE XII A CHEERFUL COMRADE XIII BUB SUCCUMBS TO FORCE XIV A CALL FROM AGATHA LORD XV BUB'S HOBBY XVI THE STOLEN BOOK XVII THE HIRED GIRL XVIII MARY LOUISE GROWS SUSPICIOUS XIX AN ARTFUL CONFESSION XX DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND XXI BAD NEWS XXII THE FOLKS AT BIGBEE'S XXIII A KISS FROM JOSIE XXIV FACING THE TRUTH XXV SIMPLE JUSTICE XXVI THE LETTER CHAPTER I JUST AN ARGUMENT "It's positively cruel!" pouted Jennie Allen, one of a group of girls occupying a garden bench in the ample grounds of Miss Stearne's School for Girls, at Beverly. "It's worse than that; it's insulting," declared Mable Westervelt, her big dark eyes flashing indignantly. "Doesn't it seem to reflect on our characters?" timidly asked Dorothy Knerr. "Indeed it does!" asserted Sue Finley. "But here comes Mary Louise; let's ask her opinion." "Phoo! Mary Louise is only a day scholar," said Jennie. "The restriction doesn't apply to her at all." "I'd like to hear what she says, anyhow," remarked Dorothy. "Mary Louise has a way of untangling things, you know." "She's rather too officious to suit me," Mable Westervelt retorted, "and she's younger than any of us. One would think, the way she poses as monitor at this second-rate, run-down boarding school, that Mary Louise Burrows made the world." "Oh, Mable! I've never known her to pose at all," said Sue. "But, hush; she mustn't overhear us and, besides, if we want her to intercede with Miss Stearne we must not offend her." The girl they were discussing came leisurely down a path, her books under one arm, the other hand holding a class paper which she examined in a cursory way as she walked. She wore a dark skirt and a simple shirtwaist, both quite modish and becoming, and her shoes were the admiration and envy of half the girls at the school. Dorothy Knerr used to say that "Mary Louise's clothes always looked as if they grew on her," but that may have been partially accounted for by the grace of her slim form and her unconscious but distinctive poise of bearing. Few people would describe Mary Louise Burrows as beautiful, while all would agree that she possessed charming manners. And she was fifteen--an age when many girls are both awkward and shy. As she drew near to the group on the bench they ceased discussing Mary Louise but continued angrily to canvass their latest grievance. "What do you think, Mary Louise," demanded Jennie, as the girl paused before them, "of this latest outrage?" "What outrage, Jen?" with a whimsical smile at their indignant faces. "This latest decree of the tyrant Stearne. Didn't you see it posted on the blackboard this morning? 'The young ladies will hereafter refrain from leaving the school grounds after the hour of six p.m., unless written permission is first secured from the Principal. Any infraction of this rule will result in suspension or permanent dismissal.' We're determined not to stand for this rule a single minute. We intend to strike for our liberties." "Well," said Mary Louise reflectively, "I'm not surprised. The wonder is that Miss Stearne hasn't stopped your evening parades before now. This is a small school in a small town, where everyone knows everyone else; otherwise you'd have been guarded as jealously as if you were in a convent. Did you ever know or hear of any other private boarding school where the girls were allowed to go to town evenings, or whenever they pleased out of school hours?" "Didn't I tell you?" snapped Mable, addressing the group. "Mary Louise is always on the wrong side. Other schools are not criterions for this ramshackle establishment, anyhow. We have twelve boarders and four day scholars, and how Miss Stearne ever supports the place and herself on her income is an occult problem that the geometries can't solve. She pays little Miss Dandler, her assistant, the wages of an ordinary housemaid; the furniture is old and shabby and the classrooms gloomy; the food is more nourishing than feastful and the tablecloths are so patched and darned that it's a wonder they hold together." Mary Louise quietly seated herself upon the bench beside them. "You're looking on the seamy side, Mable," she said with a smile, "and you're not quite just to the school. I believe your parents sent you here because Miss Stearne is known to be a very competent teacher and her school has an excellent reputation of long standing. For twenty years this delightful old place, which was once General Barlow's residence, has been a select school for young ladies of the best families. Gran'pa Jim says it's an evidence of good breeding and respectability to have attended Miss Stearne's school." "Well, what's that got to do with this insulting order to stay in evenings?" demanded Sue Finley. "You'd better put all that rot you're talking into a circular and mail it to the mothers of imbecile daughters. Miss Stearne has gone a step too far in her tyranny, as she'll find out. We know well enough what it means. There's no inducement for us to wander into that little tucked-up town of Beverly after dinner except to take in the picture show, which is our one innocent recreation. I'm sure we've always conducted ourselves most properly. This order simply means we must cut out the picture show and, if we permit it to stand, heaven only knows what we shall do to amuse ourselves." "We'll do something worse, probably," suggested Jennie. "What's your idea about it, Mary Louise?" asked Dorothy. "Don't be a prude," warned Mable, glaring at the young girl. "Try to be honest and sensible--if you can--and give us your advice. Shall we disregard the order, and do as we please, or be namby-pambies and submit to the outrage? You're a day scholar and may visit the picture shows as often as you like. Consider our position, cooped up here like a lot of chickens and refused the only harmless amusement the town affords." "Gran'pa Jim," observed Mary Louise, musingly, "always advises me to look on both sides of a question before making up my mind, because every question has to have two sides or it couldn't be argued. If Miss Stearne wishes to keep you away from the pictures, she has a reason for it; so let's discover what the reason is." "To spoil any little fun we might have," asserted Mable bitterly. "No; I can't believe that," answered Mary Louise. "She isn't unkindly, we all know, nor is she too strict with her girls. I've heard her remark that all her boarders are young ladies who can be trusted to conduct themselves properly on all occasions; and she's right about that. We must look for her reason somewhere else and I think it's in the pictures themselves." "As for that," said Jennie, "I've seen Miss Stearne herself at the picture theatre twice within the last week." "Then that's it; she doesn't like the character of the pictures shown. I think, myself, girls, they've been rather rank lately." "What's wrong with them?" "I like pictures as well as you do," said Mary Louise, "and Gran'pa Jim often takes me to see them. Tuesday night a man shot another in cold blood and the girl the murderer was in love with helped him to escape and married him. I felt like giving her a good shaking, didn't you? She didn't act like a real girl at all. And Thursday night the picture story told of a man with two wives and of divorces and disgraceful doings generally. Gran'pa Jim took me away before it was over and I was glad to go. Some of the pictures are fine and dandy, but as long as the man who runs the theatre mixes the horrid things with the decent ones--and we can't know beforehand which is which--it's really the safest plan to keep away from the place altogether. I'm sure that's the position Miss Stearne takes, and we can't blame her for it. If we do, it's an evidence of laxness of morals in ourselves." The girls received this statement sullenly, yet they had no logical reply to controvert it. So Mary Louise, feeling that her explanation of the distasteful edict was not popular with her friends, quietly rose and sauntered to the gate, on her way home. "Pah!" sneered Mable Westervelt, looking after the slim figure, "I'm always suspicious of those goody-goody creatures. Mark my words, girls: Mary Louise will fall from her pedestal some day. She isn't a bit better than the rest of us, in spite of her angel baby ways, and I wouldn't be surprised if she turned out to be a regular hypocrite!" CHAPTER II GRAN'PA JIM Beverly is an old town and not especially progressive. It lies nearly two miles from a railway station and has little attractiveness for strangers. Beverly contains several beautiful old residences, however, built generations ago and still surrounded by extensive grounds where the trees and shrubbery are now generally overgrown and neglected. One of these fine old places Miss Stearne rented for her boarding school; another, quite the most imposing residence in the town, had been leased some two years previous to the time of this story by Colonel James Weatherby, whose family consisted of his widowed daughter, Mrs. Burrows, and his grandchild, Mary Louise Burrows. Their only servants were an old negro, Uncle Eben, and his wife, Aunt Polly, who were Beverly bred and had been hired when the Colonel first came to town and took possession of the stately Vandeventer mansion. Colonel Weatherby was a man of exceptionally distinguished appearance, tall and dignified, with courtly manners and an air of prosperity that impressed the simple villagers with awe. His snow-white hair and piercing dark eyes, his immaculate dress upon all occasions, the whispered comments on his ample deposits in the local bank, all contributed to render him remarkable among the three or four hundred ordinary inhabitants of Beverly, who, after his two years' residence among them, scarcely knew more of him than is above related. For Colonel Weatherby was an extremely reserved man and seldom deigned to exchange conversation with his neighbors. In truth, he had nothing in common with them and even when he walked out with Mary Louise he merely acknowledged the greeting of those he met by a dignified nod of his stately head. With Mary Louise, however, he would converse fluently and with earnestness, whether at home during the long evenings or on their frequent walks through the country, which were indulged in on Saturdays and holidays during the months that school was in session and much more often during vacations. The Colonel owned a modest automobile which he kept in the stable and only drove on rare occasions, although one of Uncle Eben's duties was to keep the car in apple-pie order. Colonel Weatherby loved best to walk and Mary Louise enjoyed their tramps together because Gran'pa Jim always told her so many interesting things and was such a charming companion. He often developed a strain of humor in the girl's society and would relate anecdotes that aroused in her spontaneous laughter, for she possessed a keen sense of the ludicrous. Yes, Gran'pa Jim was really funny, when in the mood, and as jolly a comrade as one would wish. He was fond of poetry, too, and the most severe trial Mary Louise was forced to endure was when he carried a book of poems in his pocket and insisted on reading from it while they rested in a shady nook by the roadside or on the bank of the little river that flowed near by the town. Mary Louise had no soul for poetry, but she would have endured far greater hardships rather than forfeit the genial companionship of Gran'pa Jim. It was only during these past two years that she had come to know her grandfather so intimately and to become as fond of him as she was proud. Her earlier life had been one of so many changes that the constant shifting had rather bewildered her. First she remembered living in a big city house where she was cared for by a nurse who was never out of sight or hearing. There it was that "Mamma Bee"--Mrs. Beatrice Burrows--appeared to the child at times as a beautiful vision and often as she bent over her little daughter for a good-night kiss the popular society woman, arrayed in evening or ball costume, would seem to Mary Louise like a radiant angel descended straight from heaven. She knew little of her mother in those days, which were quite hazy in memory because she was so young. The first change she remembered was an abrupt flitting from the splendid city house to a humble cottage in a retired village. There was no maid now, nor other servant whatever. Mamma Bee did the cooking and sweeping, her face worn and anxious, while Gran'pa Jim walked the floor of the little sitting room day by day, only pausing at times to read to Mary Louise stories from her nursery books. This life did not last very long--perhaps a year or so--and then they were in a big hotel in another city, reached after a long and tiresome railway journey. Here the girl saw little of her grandfather, for a governess came daily to teach Mary Louise to read and write and to do sums on a pretty slate framed in silver. Then, suddenly, in dead of night, away they whisked again, traveling by train until long after the sun was up, when they came to a pretty town where they kept house again. There were servants, this time, and horses and carriages and pretty clothes for Mary Louise and Mamma Bee. The little girl was sent to a school just a block away from her home. She remembered Miss Jenkins well, for this teacher made much of her and was so kind and gentle that Mary Louise progressed rapidly in her studies. But the abrupt changes did not end here. Mary Louise came home from school one afternoon and found her dear mother sobbing bitterly as she clung around the neck of Gran'pa Jim, who stood in the middle of the room as still as if he had been a marble statue. Mary Louise promptly mingled her tears with those of her mother, without knowing why, and then there was a quick "packing-up" and a rush to the railway again. Next they were in the house of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Conant, very pleasant people who seemed to be old friends of Mamma Bee and Gran'pa Jim. It was a cosy house, not big and pretentious, and Mary Louise liked it. Peter Conant and Gran'pa Jim had many long talks together, and it was here that the child first heard her grandfather called "Colonel." Others might have called him that before, but she had not heard them. Mrs. Conant was very deaf and wore big spectacles, but she always had a smile on her face and her voice was soft and pleasing. After a few days Mamma Bee told her daughter she was going to leave her in the care of the Conants for a time, while she traveled to a foreign country with Gran'pa Jim. The girl was surprised at being abandoned but accepted her fate quietly when it was explained that she was to go to school while living with the Conants, which she could not do if she was traveling with her mother and grandfather, who were making this arrangement for the girl's best good. Three years Mary Louise lived with the Conants and had little to complain of. Mr. Conant was a lawyer and was at his office all day, while Mrs. Conant was very kind to the girl and looked after her welfare with motherly care. At last, quite unexpectedly, Mary Louise's trunk was packed and she was taken to the station to meet a train on which were her mother and grandfather. They did not leave the cars except to shake hands with the Conants and thank them for their care of Mary Louise. A moment later the train bore away the reunited family to their new home in Beverly. Mary Louise now found she must "get acquainted" with Mamma Bee and Gran'pa Jim all over again, for during these last three years she had developed so fast in mind and body that her previous knowledge of her relatives seemed like a hazy dream. The Colonel also discovered a new granddaughter, to whom he became passionately attached. For two years now they had grown together until they were great friends and cronies. As for Mrs. Burrows, she seemed to have devoted her whole life to her father, the Colonel. She had lost much of her former beauty and had become a thin, pale woman with anxious eyes and an expectant and deprecating air, as if always prepared to ward off a sudden blow. Her solicitude for the old Colonel was almost pathetic and while he was in her presence she constantly hovered around him, doing little things for his comfort which he invariably acknowledged with his courtly bow and a gracious word of thanks. It was through her association with this cultured old gentleman that Mary Louise had imbibed a certain degree of logic and philosophy unknown to many girls of fifteen. He taught her consideration for others as the keynote of happiness, yet he himself declined to mingle with his fellow men. He abhorred sulking and was always cheerful and pleasant in his home circle, yet when others approached him familiarly he resented it with a frown. He taught his granddaughter to be generous to the poor and supplied her freely with money for charity, yet he personally refused all demands upon him by churches or charitable societies. In their long talks together he displayed an intimate acquaintance with men and affairs, but never referred in any way to his former life. "Are you really a colonel?" Mary Louise once asked him. "Men call me so," he replied, but there was a tone in his voice that warned the girl not to pursue the subject further. She knew his moods almost as well as her mother did. The Colonel was very particular as to dress. He obtained his own clothing from a New York tailor and took a keen interest in the gowns of his daughter and of Mary Louise, his taste in female apparel being so remarkable that they were justly considered the best dressed women in Beverly. The house they were living in contained an excellent library and was furnished in a quaint, old-fashioned manner that was very appealing to them all. Mary Louise sincerely hoped there would be no more changes in their lives and that they might continue to live in Beverly for many years to come. CHAPTER III A SURPRISE On the afternoon when our story begins Mary Louise walked home from school and found Colonel Weatherby waiting for her in the garden, leggings strapped to his gaunt legs, the checked walking-cap on his head, a gold-headed crop in his hand. "Let us go for a walk, my dear," he proposed. "It is Friday, so you will have all day to-morrow in which to get your lessons." "Oh, it won't take all day for that," she replied with a laugh. "I'll be glad of the walk. Where shall we go, Gran'pa Jim?" "Perhaps to the mill-race. We haven't visited it for a long time." She ran to the house to put away her books and get her stout shoes, and presently rejoined him, when together they strolled up the street and circled round the little town until they came to the river bank. Then they followed the stream toward the old mill. Mary Louise told her grandfather of the recent edict of Miss Stearne and the indignation it had aroused in her girl boarders. "And what do you think of it, Gran'pa Jim?" she asked in conclusion. "What do YOU think of it, Mary Louise?" "It is rather hard on the girls, who have enjoyed their liberty for so long; but I think it is Miss Stearne's plan to keep them away from the picture theatre." "And so?" "And so," she said, "it may do the girls more good than harm." He smiled approvingly. It was his custom to draw out her ideas on all questions, rather than to assert his own in advance. If he found her wrong or misinformed he would then correct her and set her right. "So you do not approve of the pictures, Mary Louise?" "Not all of them, Gran'pa Jim, although they all seem to have been 'passed by the Board of Censors'--perhaps when their eyes were shut. I love the good pictures, and I know that you do, but some we have seen lately gave me the shivers. So, perhaps Miss Stearne is right." "I am confident she is," he agreed. "Some makers of pictures may consider it beneficial to emphasize good by exhibiting evil, by way of contrast, but they are doubtless wrong. I've an old-fashioned notion that young girls should be shielded, as much as possible, from knowledge of the world's sins and worries, which is sure to be impressed upon them in later years. We cannot ignore evil, unfortunately, but we can often avoid it." "But why, if these pictures are really harmful, does Mr. Welland exhibit them at his theatre?" asked the girl. "Mr. Welland is running his theatre to make money," explained the Colonel, "and the surest way to make money is to cater to the tastes of his patrons, the majority of whom demand picture plays of the more vivid sort, such as you and I complain of. So the fault lies not with the exhibitor but with the sensation-loving public. If Mr. Welland showed only such pictures as have good morals he would gain the patronage of Miss Stearne's twelve young ladies, and a few others, but the masses would refuse to support him." "Then," said Mary Louise, "the masses ought to be educated to desire better things." "Many philanthropists have tried to do that, and signally failed. I believe the world is gradually growing better, my dear, but ages will pass before mankind attains a really wholesome mental atmosphere. However, we should each do our humble part toward the moral uplift of our fellows and one way is not to condone what we know to be wrong." He spoke earnestly, in a conversational tone that robbed his words of preachment. Mary Louise thought Gran'pa Jim must be an exceptionally good man and hoped she would grow, in time, to be like him. The only thing that puzzled her was why he refused to associate with his fellow men, while at heart he so warmly espoused their uplift and advancement. They had now reached the mill-race and had seated themselves on the high embankment where they could watch the water swirl swiftly beneath them. The mill was not grinding to-day and its neighborhood seemed quite deserted. Here the old Colonel and his granddaughter sat dreamily for a long time, conversing casually on various subjects or allowing themselves to drift into thought. It was a happy hour for them both and was only interrupted when Jackson the miller passed by on his way home from the village. The man gave the Colonel a surly nod, but he smiled on Mary Louise, the girl being as popular in the district as her grandfather was unpopular. After Jackson had passed them by Gran'pa Jim rose slowly and proposed they return home. "If we go through the village," said he, "we shall reach home, without hurrying ourselves, in time to dress for dinner. I object to being hurried, don't you, Mary Louise?" "Yes, indeed, if it can be avoided." Going through the village saved them half a mile in distance, but Mary Louise would not have proposed it herself, on account of the Colonel's well-known aversion to meeting people. This afternoon, however, he made the proposal himself, so they strolled away to the main road that led through the one business street of the little town. At this hour there was little life in Beverly's main street. The farmers who drove in to trade had now returned home; the town women were busy getting supper and most of their men were at home feeding the stock or doing the evening chores. However, they passed an occasional group of two or three and around the general store stood a few other natives, listlessly awaiting the call to the evening meal. These cast curious glances at the well-known forms of the old man and the young girl, for his two years' residence had not made the testy old Colonel any less strange to them. They knew all about him there was to know--which was nothing at all--and understood they must not venture to address him as they would have done any other citizen. Cooper's Hotel, a modest and not very inviting frame building, stood near the center of the village and as Mary Louise and her grandfather passed it the door opened and a man stepped out and only avoided bumping into them by coming to a full stop. They stopped also, of necessity, and Mary Louise was astonished to find the stranger staring into the Colonel's face with an expression of mingled amazement and incredulity on his own. "James Hathaway, by all the gods!" he exclaimed, adding in wondering tones: "And after all these years!" Mary Louise, clinging to her grandfather's arm, cast an upward glance at his face. It was tensely drawn; the eyelids were half closed and through their slits the Colonel's eyes glinted fiercely. "You are mistaken, fellow. Out of my way!" he said, and seizing the girl's arm, which she had withdrawn in affright, he marched straight ahead. The man fell back, but stared after them with his former expression of bewildered surprise. Mary Louise noted this in a glance over her shoulder and something in the stranger's attitude--was it a half veiled threat?--caused her to shudder involuntarily. The Colonel strode on, looking neither to right nor left, saying never a word. They reached their home grounds, passed up the path in silence and entered the house. The Colonel went straight to the stairs and cried in a loud voice: "Beatrice!" The tone thrilled Mary Louise with a premonition of evil. A door was hastily opened and her mother appeared at the head of the stairs, looking down on them with the customary anxiety on her worn features doubly accentuated. "Again, father?" she asked in a voice that slightly trembled. "Yes. Come with me to the library, Beatrice." CHAPTER IV SHIFTING SANDS Mary Louise hid herself in the drawing-room, where she could watch the closed door of the library opposite. At times she trembled with an unknown dread; again, she told herself that no harm could possibly befall her dear, good Gran'pa Jim or her faithful, loving mother. Yet why were they closeted in the library so long, and how could the meeting with that insolent stranger affect Colonel Weatherby so strongly? After a long time her mother came out, looking more pallid and harassed than ever but strangely composed. She kissed Mary Louise, who came to meet her, and said: "Get ready for dinner, dear. We are late." The girl went to her room, dazed and uneasy. At dinner her mother appeared at the table, eating little or nothing, but Gran'pa Jim was not present. Afterward she learned that he had gone over to Miss Stearne's School for Girls, where he completed important arrangements concerning his granddaughter. When dinner was over Mary Louise went into the library and, drawing a chair to where the light of the student lamp flooded her book, tried to read. But the words were blurred and her mind was in a sort of chaos. Mamma Bee had summoned Aunt Polly and Uncle Eben to her room, where she was now holding a conference with the faithful colored servants. A strange and subtle atmosphere of unrest pervaded the house; Mary Louise scented radical changes in their heretofore pleasant home life, but what these changes were to be or what necessitated them she could not imagine. After a while she heard Gran'pa Jim enter the hall and hang up his hat and coat and place his cane in the rack. Then he came to the door of the library and stood a moment looking hard at Mary Louise. Her own eyes regarded her grandfather earnestly, questioning him as positively as if she had spoken. He drew a chair before her and leaning over took both her hands in his and held them fast. "My dear," he said gently, "I regret to say that another change has overtaken us. Have you ever heard of 'harlequin fate'? 'Tis a very buffoon of mischief and irony that is often permitted to dog our earthly footsteps and prevent us from becoming too content with our lot. For a time you and I, little maid, good comrades though we have been, must tread different paths. Your mother and I are going away, presently, and we shall leave you here in Beverly, where you may continue your studies under the supervision of Miss Stearne, as a boarder at her school. This house, although the rental is paid for six weeks longer, we shall at once vacate, leaving Uncle Eben and Aunt Sallie to put it in shape and close it properly. Do you understand all this, Mary Louise?" "I understand what you have told me, Gran'pa Jim. But why--" "Miss Stearne will be supplied with ample funds to cover your tuition and to purchase any supplies you may need. You will have nothing to worry about and so may devote all your energies to your studies." "But how long---" "Trust me and your mother to watch over your welfare, for you are very dear to us, believe me," he continued, disregarding her interruptions. "Do you remember the address of the Conants, at Dorfield?" "Of course." "Well, you may write to me, or to your mother, once a week, addressing the letter in care of Peter Conant. But if you are questioned by anyone," he added, gravely, "do not mention the address of the Conants or hint that I have gone to Dorfield. Write your letters privately and unobserved, in your own room, and post them secretly, by your own hand, so that no one will be aware of the correspondence. Your caution in this regard will be of great service to your mother and me. Do you think you can follow these instructions?" "To be sure I can, Gran'pa Jim. But why must I---" "Some day," said he, "you will understand this seeming mystery and be able to smile at your present perplexities. There is nothing to fear, my dear child, and nothing that need cause you undue anxiety. Keep a brave heart and, whatever happens, have faith in Gran'pa Jim. Your mother--as good a woman as God ever made--believes in me, and she knows all. Can you accept her judgment, Mary Louise? Can you steadfastly ignore any aspersions that may be cast upon my good name?" "Yes, Gran'pa Jim." She had not the faintest idea what he referred to. Not until afterward was she able to piece these strange remarks together and make sense of them. Just now the girl was most impressed by the fact that her mother and grandfather were going away and would leave her as a boarder with Miss Stearne. The delightful home life, wherein she had passed the happiest two years of her existence, was to be broken up for good and all. "Now I must go to your mother. Kiss me, my dear!" As he rose to his feet Mary Louise also sprang from her chair and the Colonel folded his arms around her and for a moment held her tight in his embrace. Then he slowly released her, holding the girl at arms' length while he studied her troubled face with grave intensity. One kiss upon her upturned forehead and the old man swung around and left the room without another word. Mary Louise sank into her chair, a little sob in her throat. She felt very miserable, indeed, at that moment. "Harlequin fate!" she sighed. "I wonder why it has chosen us for its victims?" After an hour passed in the deserted library she stole away to her own room and prepared for bed. In the night, during her fitful periods of sleep, she dreamed that her mother bent over her and kissed her lips--once, twice, a third time. The girl woke with a start. A dim light flooded her chamber, for outside was a full moon. But the room was habited only by shadows, save for her own feverish, restless body. She turned over to find a cooler place and presently fell asleep again. CHAPTER V OFFICIAL INVESTIGATION "And you say they are gone?" cried Mary Louise in surprise, as she came down to breakfast the next morning and found the table laid for one and old Eben waiting to serve her. "In de night, chile. I don' know 'zac'ly wha' der time, by de clock, but de Kun'l an' Missy Burrows did'n' sleep heah a-tall." "There is no night train," said the girl, seating herself thoughtfully at the table. "How could they go, Uncle?" "Jus' took deh auto'bile, chile, an' de Kun'l done druv it heself--bag an' baggage. But--see heah, Ma'y 'Ouise--we-all ain' s'pose to know nuth'n' bout dat git-away. Ef some imper'nent puss'n' ask us, we ain' gwine t' know how dey go, nohow. De Kun'l say tell Ma'y 'Ouise she ain' gwine know noth'n' a-tall, 'bout nuth'n', 'cause 'tain't nobody's business." "I understand, Uncle Eben." She reflected upon this seemingly unnecessary secrecy as she ate her breakfast. After a time she asked: "What are you and Aunt Polly going to do, Uncle?" "Fus' thing," replied the old negro, "Polly gwine git yo' traps all pack up an' I gwine take 'em ovah to Missy Stearne's place in de wheel-barrer. Den I gwine red up de house an' take de keys to Mass' Gimble, de agent. Den Polly an' me we go back to our own li'l' house in de lane yondeh. De Kun'l done 'range ev'thing propeh, an' we gwine do jus' like he say." Mary Louise felt lonely and uncomfortable in the big house, now that her mother and grandfather had gone away. Since the move was inevitable, she would be glad to go to Miss Stearne as soon as possible. She helped Aunt Polly pack her trunk and suit case, afterwards gathering into a bundle the things she had forgotten or overlooked, all of which personal belongings Uncle Eben wheeled over to the school. Then she bade the faithful servitors good-bye, promising to call upon them at their humble home, and walked slowly over the well-known path to Miss Stearne's establishment, where she presented herself to the principal. It being Saturday, Miss Stearne was seated at a desk in her own private room, where she received Mary Louise and bade her sit down. Miss Stearne was a woman fifty years of age, tall and lean, with a deeply lined face and a tendency to nervousness that was increasing with her years. She was a very clever teacher and a very incompetent business woman, so that her small school, of excellent standing and repute, proved difficult to finance. In character Miss Stearne was temperamental enough to have been a genius. She was kindly natured, fond of young girls and cared for her pupils with motherly instincts seldom possessed by those in similar positions. She was lax in many respects, severely strict in others. Not always were her rules and regulations dictated by good judgment. Therefore her girls usually found as much fault as other boarding school girls are prone to do, and with somewhat more reason. On the other hand, no one could question the principal's erudition or her skill in imparting her knowledge to others. "Sit down, Mary Louise," she said to the girl. "This is an astonishing change in your life, is it not? Colonel Weatherby came to me last evening and said he had been suddenly called away on important matters that would brook no delay, and that your mother was to accompany him on the journey. He begged me to take you in as a regular boarder and of course I consented. You have been one of my most tractable and conscientious pupils and I have been proud of your progress. But the school is quite full, as you know; so at first I was uncertain that I could accommodate you here; but Miss Dandler, my assistant, has given up her room to you and I shall put a bed for her in my own sleeping chamber, so that difficulty is now happily arranged. I suppose your family left Beverly this morning, by the early train?" "They have gone," replied Mary Louise, non-committally. "You will be lonely for a time, of course, but presently you will feel quite at home in the school because you know all of my girls so well. It is not like a strange girl coming into a new school. And remember, Mary Louise, that you are to come to me for any advice and assistance you need, for I promised your grandfather that I would fill your mother's place as far as I am able to do so." Mary Louise reflected, with a little shock of pain, that her mother had never been very near to her and that Miss Stearne might well perform such perfunctory duties as the girl had been accustomed to expect. But no one could ever take the place of Gran'pa Jim. "Thank you, Miss Stearne," she said. "I am sure I shall be quite contented here. Is my room ready?" "Yes; and your trunk has already been placed in it. Let me know, my dear, if there is anything you need." Mary Louise went to her room and was promptly pounced upon by Dorothy Knerr and Sue Finley, who roomed just across the hall from her and were delighted to find she was to become a regular boarder. They asked numerous questions as they helped her to unpack and settle her room, but accepted her conservative answers without comment. At the noon luncheon Mary Louise was accorded a warm reception by the assembled boarders and this cordial welcome by her school-mates did much to restore the girl to her normal condition of cheerfulness. She even joined a group in a game of tennis after luncheon and it was while she was playing that little Miss Dandler came with, a message that Mary Louise was wanted in Miss Stearne's room at once. "Take my racquet," she said to Jennie Allen; "I'll be back in a minute." When she entered Miss Stearne's room she was surprised to find herself confronted by the same man whom she and her grandfather had encountered in front of Cooper's Hotel the previous afternoon--the man whom she secretly held responsible for this abrupt change in her life. The principal sat crouched over her desk as if overawed by her visitor, who stopped his nervous pacing up and down the room as the girl appeared. "This is Mary Louise Burrows," said Miss Stearne, in a weak voice. "Huh!" He glared at her with a scowl for a moment and then demanded: "Where's Hathaway?" Mary Louise reddened. "I do not know to whom you refer," she answered quietly. "Aren't you his granddaughter?" "I am the granddaughter of Colonel James Weatherby, sir." "It's all the same; Hathaway or Weatherby, the scoundrel can't disguise his personality. Where is he?" She did not reply. Her eyes had narrowed a little, as the Colonel's were sometimes prone to do, and her lips were pressed firmly together. "Answer me!" he shouted, waving his arms threateningly. "Miss Stearne," Mary Louise said, turning to the principal, "unless you request your guest to be more respectful I shall leave the room." "Not yet you won't," said the man in a less boisterous tone. "Don't annoy me with your airs, for I'm in a hurry. Where is Hathaway--or Weatherby--or whatever he calls himself?" "I do not know." "You don't, eh? Didn't he leave an address?" "No." "I don't believe you. Where did he go?" "If I knew," said Mary Louise with dignity, "I would not inform you." He uttered a growl and then threw back his coat, displaying a badge attached to his vest. "I'm a federal officer," he asserted with egotistic pride, "a member of the Government's Secret Service Department. I've been searching for James J. Hathaway for nine years, and so has every man in the service. Last night I stumbled upon him by accident, and on inquiring found he has been living quietly in this little jumping-off place. I wired the Department for instructions and an hour ago received orders to arrest him, but found my bird had flown. He left you behind, though, and I'm wise to the fact that you're a clew that will lead me straight to him. You're going to do that very thing, and the sooner you make up your mind to it the better for all of us. No nonsense, girl! The Federal Government's not to be trifled with. Tell me where to find your grandfather." "If you have finished your insolent remarks," she answered with spirit, "I will go away. You have interrupted my game of tennis." He gave a bark of anger that made her smile, but as she turned away he sprang forward and seized her arm, swinging her around so that she again faced him. "Great Caesar, girl! Don't you realize what you're up against?" he demanded. "I do," said she. "I seem to be in the power of a brute. If a law exists that permits you to insult a girl, there must also be a law to punish you. I shall see a lawyer and try to have you properly punished for this absolute insolence." He regarded her keenly, still frowning, but when he spoke again he had moderated both his tone and words. "I do not intend to be insolent, Miss Burrows, but I have been greatly aggravated by your grandfather's unfortunate escape and in this emergency every moment is precious if I am to capture him before he gets out of America, as he has done once or twice before. Also, having wired the Department that I have found Hathaway, I shall be discredited if I let him slip through my fingers, so I am in a desperate fix. If I have seemed a bit gruff and nervous, forgive me. It is your duty, as a loyal subject of the United States, to assist an officer of the law by every means in your power, especially when he is engaged in running down a criminal. Therefore, whether you dislike to or not, you must tell me where to find your grandfather." "My grandfather is not a criminal, sir." "The jury will decide that when his case comes to trial. At present he is accused of crime and a warrant is out for his arrest. Where is he?" "I do not know," she persisted. "He--he left by the morning train, which goes west," stammered Miss Stearne, anxious to placate the officer and fearful of the girl's stubborn resistance. "So the nigger servant told me," sneered the man; "but he didn't. I was at the station myself--two miles from this forsaken place--to make sure that Hathaway didn't skip while I was waiting for orders. Therefore, he is either hidden somewhere in Beverly or he has sneaked away to an adjoining town. The old serpent is slippery as an eel; but I'm going to catch him, this time, as sure as fate, and this girl must give me all the information she can." "Oh, that will be quite easy," retorted Mary Louise, somewhat triumphantly, "for I have no information to divulge." He began to pace the room again, casting at her shrewd and uncertain glances. "He didn't say where he was going?" "No." "Or leave any address?" "No." "What DID he say?" "That he was going away and would arrange with Miss Stearne for me to board at the school." "Huh! I see. Foxy old guy. Knew I would question you and wouldn't take chances. If he writes you, or you learn what has become of him, will you tell me?" "No." "I thought not." He turned toward the principal. "How about this girl's board money?" he asked. "When did he say he'd send it?" "He paid me in advance, to the end of the present term," answered the agitated Miss Stearne. "Foxy old boy! Seemed to think of everything. I'm going, now; but take this warning--both of you. Don't gabble about what I've said. Keep the secret. If nothing gets out, Hathaway may think the coast is clear and it's safe for him to come back. In that case I--or someone appointed by the Department--will get a chance to nab him. That's all. Good day." He made his exit from the room without ceremony, leaving Mary Louise and Miss Stearne staring fearfully at one another. "It--it's--dreadful!" stammered the teacher, shrinking back with a moan. "It would be, if it were true," said the girl. "But Gran'pa Jim is no criminal, we all know. He's the best man that ever lived, and the whole trouble is that this foolish officer has mistaken him for someone else. I heard him, with my own ears, tell the man he was mistaken." Miss Stearne reflected. "Then why did your grandfather run away?" she asked. It was now Mary Louise's turn to reflect, seeking an answer. Presently she realized that a logical explanation of her grandfather's action was impossible with her present knowledge. "I cannot answer that question, Miss Stearne," she admitted, candidly, "but Gran'pa Jim must have had some good reason." There was unbelief in the woman's eyes--unbelief and a horror of the whole disgraceful affair that somehow included Mary Louise in its scope. The girl read this look and it confused her. She mumbled an excuse and fled to her room to indulge in a good cry. CHAPTER VI UNDER A CLOUD The officer's injunction not to talk of the case of Colonel Weatherby was of little avail in insuring secrecy. Oscar Dowd, who owned and edited the one weekly newspaper in town, which appeared under the title of "The Beverly Beacon," was a very ferret for news. He had to be; otherwise there never would have been enough happenings in the vicinity to fill the scant columns of his little paper, which was printed in big type to make the items and editorials fill as much space as possible. Uncle Eben met the editor and told him the Colonel had gone away suddenly and had vacated the Vandeventer mansion and put Mary Louise with Miss Stearne to board. Thereat, Oscar Dowd scented "news" and called on Miss Stearne for further information. The good lady was almost as much afraid of an editor as of an officer of the law, so under Oscar's rapid-fire questioning she disclosed more of the dreadful charge against Colonel Weatherby than she intended to. She even admitted the visit of the secret service agent, but declined to give details of it. Oscar found the agent had departed for parts unknown--perhaps to trail the escaped Colonel--but the hotel keeper furnished him with other wisps of information and, bunching all the rumors together and sifting the wheat from the chaff, the editor evolved a most thrilling tale to print in the Wednesday paper. Some of the material his own imagination supplied; much else was obtained from irresponsible gossips who had no foundation for their assertions. Miss Stearne was horrified to find, on receiving her copy of the Wednesday "Beacon" that big headlines across the front page announced: "Beverly Harbors a Criminal in Disguise! Flight of Colonel James Weatherby when a Federal Officer Seeks to Arrest him for a Terrible Crime!" Then followed a mangled report of the officer's visit to Beverly on government business, his recognition of Colonel Weatherby--who was none other than the noted criminal, James J. Hathaway--on the street in front of Cooper's Hotel, how the officer wired Washington for instructions and how Hathaway, alias Weatherby, escaped in the dead of night and had so far successfully eluded all pursuit. What crime Hathaway, alias Weatherby, was accused of, the officer would not divulge, and the statements of others disagreed. One report declared the Colonel had wrecked a New York bank and absconded with enormous sums he had embezzled; another stated he had been president of a swindling stock corporation which had used the mails illegally to further its nefarious schemes. A third account asserted he had insured his life for a million dollars in favor of his daughter, Mrs. Burrows, and then established a false death and reappeared after Mrs. Burrows had collected the insurance money. Having printed all this prominently in big type, the editor appended a brief note in small type saying he would not vouch for the truth of any statement made in the foregoing article. Nevertheless, it was a terrible arraignment and greatly shocked the good citizens of Beverly. Miss Stearne, realizing how humiliated Mary Louise would be if the newspaper fell into her hands, carefully hid her copy away where none of the girls could see it; but one of the day scholars brought a copy to the school Thursday morning and passed it around among the girls, so that all were soon in possession of the whole scandalous screed. Mable Westervelt, after feasting upon the awful accusations, cruelly handed the paper to Mary Louise. The girl's face blanched and then grew red, her mouth fell open as if gasping for breath and her eyes stared with a pained, hopeless expression at the printed page that branded her dearly loved Gran'pa Jim a swindler and a thief. She rose quickly and left the room, to the great relief of the other girls, who wanted to talk the matter over. "The idea," cried Mable indignantly, "of that old villain's foisting his grandchild on this respectable school while he ran away to escape the penalty of his crimes!" "Mary Louise is all right," asserted Jennie Allen stoutly. "She isn't to blame, at all." "I warned you that her goody-goody airs were a cloak to hidden wickedness," said Mable, tossing her head. "Blood will tell," drawled Lina Darrow, a very fat girl. "Mary Louise has bad blood in her veins and it's bound to crop out, sooner or later. I advise you girls to keep your trunks locked and to look after your jewelry." "Shame--shame!" cried Dorothy Knerr, and the others echoed the reproach. Even Mable looked at fat Lina disapprovingly. However, in spite of staunch support on the part of her few real friends, Mary Louise felt from that hour a changed atmosphere when in the presence of her school fellows. Weeks rolled by without further public attacks upon Gran'pa Jim, but among the girls at the school suspicion had crept in to ostracize Mary Louise from the general confidence. She lost her bright, cheery air of self-assurance and grew shy and fearful of reproach, avoiding her schoolmates more than they avoided her. Instead of being content in her new home, as she had hoped to be, the girl found herself more miserable and discontented than at any other period of her life. She longed continually to be comforted by Gran'pa Jim and Mamma Bee, and even lost interest in her studies, moping dismally in her room when she should have been taking an interest in the life at the school. Even good Miss Stearne had unconsciously changed in her attitude toward the forlorn girl. Deciding one day that she needed some new shoes, Mary Louise went to the principal to ask for the money with which to buy them. Miss Stearne considered the matter seriously. Then she said with warning emphasis: "My dear, I do not think it advisable for you to waste your funds on shoes, especially as those you have are in fairly good condition. Of course, your grandfather left some money with me, to be expended as I saw fit, but now that he has abscon--eh--eh--secreted himself, so to speak, we can expect no further remittances. When this term is ended any extra money should be applied toward your further board and tuition. Otherwise you would become an outcast, with no place to go and no shelter for your head. That, in common decency, must be avoided. No; I do not approve of any useless expenditures. I shall hoard this money for future emergencies." In happier times Mary Louise would have been indignant at the thought that her grandfather would ever leave her unprovided for, but she had been so humbled of late that this aspect of her affairs, so candidly presented by Miss Stearne, troubled her exceedingly. She had written a letter every week to her grandfather, addressing it, as he had instructed her to do, in care of Mr. Peter Conant at Dorfield. And always she had stolen out, unobserved, and mailed the letter at the village post office. Of course she had never by a single word referred to the scandal regarding the Colonel or her mother, or to her own unhappy lot at school because of that scandal, knowing how such a report would grieve them; but the curious thing about this correspondence was that it was distinctly one-sided. In the three months since they had gone away, Mary Louise had never received an answer to any of her letters, either from her grandfather or her mother. This might be explained, she reflected, by the fact that they suspected the mails would be watched; but this supposition attributed some truth to the accusation that Gran'pa Jim was a fugitive from justice, which she would not allow for an instant. Had he not told her to have faith in him, whatever happened? Should she prove disloyal just because a brutal officer and an irresponsible newspaper editor had branded her dear grandfather a criminal? No! Whatever happened she would cling to her faith in the goodness of dear Gran'pa Jim. There was very little money in her purse; a few pennies that she must hoard to buy postage stamps with. Two parties for young people were given in Beverly and at both of them Mary Louise was the only girl boarding at the school who was uninvited. She knew that some of the girls even resented her presence at the school and often when she joined a group of schoolmates their hushed conversation warned her they had been discussing her. Altogether, she felt that her presence at the school was fast becoming unbearable and when one of the boarders openly accused her of stealing a diamond ring--which was later discovered on a shelf above a washstand--the patient humility of Mary Louise turned to righteous anger and she resolved to leave the shelter of Miss Stearne's roof without delay. There was only one possible place for her to go--to the Conant house at Dorfield, where her mother and grandfather were staying and where she had already passed three of the most pleasant years of her short life. Gran'pa Jim had not told her she could come to him, even in an emergency, but when she explained all the suffering she had endured at the school she knew quite well that he would forgive her for coming. But she needed money for the long journey, and this must be secured in some way from her own resources. So she got together all the jewelry she possessed and placing it in her handbag started for the town. She had an idea that a jewelry shop was the proper place to sell her jewelry, but Mr. Trumbull the jeweler shook his head and said that Watson, at the bank, often loaned money on such security. He advised the girl to see Watson. So Mary Louise went to the "bank," which was a one-man affair situated in the rear of the hardware store, where a grating had been placed in one corner. There she found Mr. Watson, who was more a country broker than a banker, and throve by lending money to farmers. Gran'pa Jim was almost as fond of pretty jewels as he was of good clothes and he had always been generous in presenting his grand-daughter with trinkets on her birthdays and at Christmas time. The jewelry she laid before Mr. Watson was really valuable and the banker's eye was especially attracted by a brooch of pearls that must have cost several hundred dollars. "How much do you want to borrow on this lot?" he asked. "As much as I can get, sir," she replied. "Have you any idea of redeeming it?" "I hope to do so, of course." The banker knew perfectly well who Mary Louise was and suspected she needed money. "This is no pawnbroker's shop," he asserted. "I'll give you a hundred dollars, outright, for this pearl brooch--as a purchase, understand--but the rest of the junk I don't want." A little man who had entered the hardware store to purchase a tin dipper was getting so close to the "bank" that Mary Louise feared being overheard; so she did not argue with Mr. Watson. Deciding that a hundred dollars ought to take her to Dorfield, she promptly accepted the offer, signed a bill of sale and received her money. Then she walked two miles to the railway station and discovered that a ticket to Dorfield could be bought for ninety-two dollars. That would give her eight dollars leeway, which seemed quite sufficient. Elated at the prospect of freedom she returned to the school to make her preparation for departure and arrived just in time to join the other girls at dinner. CHAPTER VII THE ESCAPE As she packed her trunk behind the locked door of her room--an unnecessary precaution, since the girls generally avoided her society--Mary Louise considered whether to confide the fact of her going to Miss Stearne or to depart without a word of adieu. In the latter case she would forfeit her trunk and her pretty clothes, which she did not wish to do unless it proved absolutely necessary; and, after all, she decided, frankness was best. Gran'pa Jim had often said that what one could not do openly should not be done at all. There was nothing to be ashamed of in her resolve to leave the school where she was so unhappy. The girls did not want her there and she did not want to stay; the school would be relieved of a disturbing element and Mary Louise would be relieved of unjust persecution; no blame attached to any but those who had made public this vile slander against her grandfather. From all viewpoints she considered she was doing the right thing; so, when her preparations were complete, she went to Miss Stearne's room, although it was now after eight o'clock in the evening, and requested an interview. "I am going away," she quietly announced to the principal. "Going away! But where?" asked the astonished teacher. "I cannot tell you that, Miss Stearne." "Do you not know?" "Yes, I know, but I prefer not to tell you." Miss Stearne was greatly annoyed. She was also perplexed. The fact that Mary Louise was deserting her school did not seem so important, at the moment, as the danger involved by a young girl's going out into the world unprotected. The good woman had already been rendered very nervous by the dreadful accusation of Colonel Weatherby and the consequent stigma that attached to his granddaughter, a pupil at her eminently respectable school. She realized perfectly that the girl was blameless, whatever her grandsire might have done, and she deeply deplored the scornful attitude assumed by the other pupils toward poor Mary Louise; nevertheless a certain bitter resentment of the unwholesome scandal that had smirched her dignified establishment had taken possession of the woman, perhaps unconsciously, and while she might be a little ashamed of the ungenerous feeling, Miss Stearne fervently wished she had never accepted the girl as a pupil. She HAD accepted her, however. She had received the money for Mary Louise's tuition and expenses and had promptly applied the entire sum to reducing her grocery bills and other pressing obligations; therefore she felt it her duty to give value received. If Mary Louise was to be driven from the school by the jeers and sneers of the other girls, Miss Stearne would feel like a thief. Moreover, it would be a distinct reproach to her should she allow a fifteen-year-old girl to wander into a cruel world because her school--her sole home and refuge--had been rendered so unbearable that she could not remain there. The principal was really unable to repay the money that had been advanced to her, even if that would relieve her of obligation to shelter the girl, and therefore she decided that Mary Louise must not be permitted, under any circumstances, to leave her establishment without the authority of her natural guardians. This argument ran hurriedly through her mind as the girl stood calmly waiting. "Is this action approved by your mother, or--or--by your grandfather?" she asked, somewhat more harshly than was her wont in addressing her pupils. "No, Miss Stearne." "Then how dare you even suggest it?" "I am not wanted here," returned the girl with calm assurance. "My presence is annoying to the other girls, as well as to yourself, and so disturbs the routine of the school. For my part, I--I am very unhappy here, as you must realize, because everyone seems to think my dear Gran'pa Jim is a wicked man--which I know he is not. I have no heart to study, and--and so--it is better for us all that I go away." This statement was so absolutely true and the implied reproach was so justified, that Miss Stearne allowed herself to become angry as the best means of opposing the girl's design. "This is absurd!" she exclaimed. "You imagine these grievances, Mary Louise, and I cannot permit you to attack the school and your fellow boarders in so reckless a manner. You shall not stir one step from this school! I forbid you, positively, to leave the grounds hereafter without my express permission. You have been placed in my charge and I insist that you obey me. Go to your room and study your lessons, which you have been shamefully neglecting lately. If I hear any more of this rebellious wish to leave the school, I shall be obliged to punish you by confining you to your room." The girl listened to this speech with evident surprise; yet the tirade did not seem to impress her. "You refuse, then, to let me go?" she returned. "I positively refuse." "But I cannot stay here, Miss Stearne," she protested. "You must. I have always treated you kindly--I treat all my girls well if they deserve it--but you are developing a bad disposition, Mary Louise--a most reprehensible disposition, I regret to say--and the tendency must be corrected at once. Not another word! Go to your room." Mary Louise went to her room, greatly depressed by the interview. She looked at her trunk, made a mental inventory of its highly prized contents, and sighed. But as soon as she rejoined Gran'pa, Jim, she reflected, he would send an order to have the trunk forwarded and Miss Stearne would not dare refuse. For a time she must do without her pretty gowns. Instead of studying her text books she studied the railway time-card. She had intended asking Miss Stearne to permit her to take the five-thirty train from Beverly Junction the next morning and since the recent interview she had firmly decided to board that very train. This was not entirely due to stubbornness, for she reflected that if she stayed at the school her unhappy condition would become aggravated, instead of improving, especially since Miss Stearne had developed unexpected sharpness of temper. She would endure no longer the malicious taunts of her school fellows or the scoldings of the principal, and these could be avoided in no other way than by escaping as she had planned. At ten o'clock she lay down upon her bed, fully dressed, and put out her light; but she dared not fall asleep lest she miss her train. At times she lighted a match and looked at her watch and it surprised her to realize how long a night can be when one is watching for daybreak. At four o'clock she softly rose, put on her hat, took her suit case in hand and stealthily crept from, the room. It was very dark in the hallway but the house was so familiar to her that she easily felt her way along the passage, down the front stairs and so to the front door. Miss Stearne always locked this door at night but left the key in the lock. To-night the key had been withdrawn. When Mary Louise had satisfied herself of this fact she stole along the lower hallway toward the rear. The door that connected with the dining room and farther on with the servants' quarters had also been locked and the key withdrawn. This was so unusual that it plainly told the girl that Miss Stearne was suspicious that she might try to escape, and so had taken precautions to prevent her leaving the house. Mary Louise cautiously set down her suit case and tried to think what to do. The house had not been built for a school but was an old residence converted to school purposes. On one side of the hall was a big drawing-room; on the other side were the principal's apartments. Mary Louise entered the drawing-room and ran against a chair that stood in her way. Until now she had not made the slightest noise, but the suit case banged against the chair and the concussion reverberated dully throughout the house. The opposite door opened and a light flooded the hall. From where the girl stood in the dark drawing-room she could see Miss Stearne standing in her doorway and listening. Mary Louise held herself motionless. She scarcely dared breathe. The principal glanced up and down the hall, noted the locked doors and presently retired into her room, after a little while extinguishing the light. Then Mary Louise felt her way to a window, drew aside the heavy draperies and carefully released the catch of the sash, which she then succeeded in raising. The wooden blinds were easily unfastened but swung back with a slight creak that made her heart leap with apprehension. She did not wait, now, to learn if the sound had been heard, for already she had wasted too much time if she intended to catch her train. She leaned through the window, let her suit case down as far as she could reach, and dropped it to the ground. Then she climbed through the opening and let herself down by clinging to the sill. It was a high window, but she was a tall girl for her age and her feet touched the ground. Now she was free to go her way. She lost no time in getting away from the grounds, being guided by a dim starlight and a glow in the east that was a promise of morning. With rapid steps she made her way to the station, reaching it over the rough country road just as the train pulled in. She had been possessed with the idea that someone was stealthily following her and under the light of the depot lamps her first act was to swing around and stare into the darkness from which she had emerged. She almost expected to see Miss Stearne appear, but it was only a little man with a fat nose and a shabby suit of clothes, who had probably come from the village to catch the same train she wanted. He paid no attention to the girl but entered the same car she did and quietly took his seat in the rear. CHAPTER VIII A FRIENDLY FOE It required two days and a night to go by rail from Beverly to Dorfield and as Mary Louise had passed a sleepless night at the school she decided to purchase a berth on the sleeper. That made a big hole in her surplus of eight dollars and she also found her meals in the dining car quite expensive, so that by the time she left the train at Dorfield her finances would be reduced to the sum of a dollar and twenty cents. That would not have disturbed her, knowing that thereafter she would be with Gran'pa Jim, except for one circumstance. The little man with the fat nose, who had taken the train at Beverly, was still on board. All the other passengers who had been on the train at that time had one by one left it and been replaced by others, for the route lay through several large cities where many alighted and others came aboard. Only the little man from Beverly remained, quiet and unobtrusive but somehow haunting the girl's presence in an embarrassing manner. He seldom looked at her but was found staring from the window whenever she turned her eyes toward him. At first she scarcely noticed the man, but the longer he remained aboard the train the more she speculated as to where he might be going. Whenever she entered the dining car he took a notion to eat at that time, but found a seat as far removed from her as possible. She imagined she had escaped him when she went to the sleeper, but next morning as she passed out he was standing in the vestibule and a few moments later he was in the diner where she was breakfasting. It was now that the girl first conceived the idea that he might be following her for a purpose, dogging her footsteps to discover at what station she left the train. And, when she asked herself why the stranger should be so greatly concerned with her movements, she remembered that she was going to Gran'pa Jim and that at one time an officer had endeavored to discover, through her, her grandfather's whereabouts. "If this little man," she mused, glancing at his blank, inexpressive features, "happens to be a detective, and knows who I am, he may think I will lead him directly to Colonel Weatherby, whom he may then arrest. Gran'pa Jim is innocent, of course, but I know he doesn't wish to be arrested, because he left Beverly suddenly to avoid it. And," she added with a sudden feinting of the heart, "if this suspicion is true I am actually falling into the trap and leading an officer to my grandfather's retreat." This reflection rendered the girl very uneasy and caused her to watch the fat-nosed man guardedly all through that tedious day. She constantly hoped he would leave the train at some station and thus prove her fears to be groundless, but always he remained in his seat, patiently eyeing the landscape through his window. Late in the afternoon another suspicious circumstance aroused her alarm. The conductor of the train, as he passed through the car, paused at the rear end and gazed thoughtfully at the little man huddled in the rear seat, who seemed unconscious of his regard. After watching him a while the conductor suddenly turned his head and looked directly at Mary Louise, with a curious expression, as if connecting his two passengers. Then he went on through the train, but the girl's heart was beating high and the little man, while seeming to eye the fleeting landscape through the window, wriggled somewhat uneasily in his seat. Mary Louise now decided he was a detective. She suspected that he had been sent to Beverly, after the other man left, to watch her movements, with the idea that sooner or later she would rejoin her grandfather. Perhaps, had any letter come for her from her mother or Gran'pa Jim, this officer would have seized it and obtained from it the address of the man he was seeking. That would account for their failure to write her; perhaps they were aware of the plot and therefore dared not send her a letter. And now she began wondering what she should do when she got to Dorfield, if the little man also left the train at that station. Such an act on his part would prove that her suspicions were correct, in which case she would lead him straight to her grandfather, whom she would thus deliver into the power of his merciless enemies. No; that would not do, at all. If the man followed her from the train at Dorfield she dared not go to Peter Conant's house. Where, then, COULD she go? Had she possessed sufficient money it might be best to ride past Dorfield and pay her fare to another station; but her funds were practically exhausted. Dorfield was a much bigger town than Beverly; it was quite a large city, indeed; perhaps she could escape the supervision of the detective, in some way, and by outwitting him find herself free to seek the Conant's home. She would try this and circumstances must decide her plan of action. Always there was the chance that she misjudged the little man. As the conductor called the station the train halted and the girl passed the rear seat, where the man had his bare head half out the open window, and descended from the car to the platform. A few others also alighted, to hurry away to the omnibuses or street car or walk to their destinations. Mary Louise stood quite still upon the platform until the train drew out after its brief stop. It was nearly six o'clock in the evening and fast growing dark, yet she distinctly observed the fat-nosed man, who had alighted on the opposite side of the track and was now sauntering diagonally across the rails to the depot, his hands thrust deep in his pockets and his eyes turned away from Mary Louise as if the girl occupied no part of his thoughts. But she knew better than that. Her suspicions were now fully confirmed and she sought to evade the detective in just the way any inexperienced girl might have done. Turning in the opposite direction she hastily crossed the street, putting a big building between herself and the depot, and then hurried along a cross-street. She looked back now and then and found she had not been followed; so, to insure escape, she turned another corner, giving a fearful glance over her shoulder as she did so. This street was not so well lighted as the others had been and she had no idea where it led to. She knew Dorfield pretty well, having once resided there for three years, but in her agitated haste she had now lost all sense of direction. Feeling, however, that she was now safe from pursuit, she walked on more slowly, trying to discover her whereabouts, and presently passed a dimly-lighted bakery before which a man stood looking abstractedly into the window at the cakes and pies, his back toward her. Instantly Mary Louise felt her heart sink. She did not need to see the man's face to recognize the detective. Nor did he stir as she passed him by and proceeded up the street. But how did he happen to be there? Had she accidentally stumbled upon him, or had he purposely placed himself in her path to assure her that escape from him was impossible? As she reached the next corner a street car came rushing along, halted a brief moment and proceeded on its way. In that moment Mary Louise had stepped aboard and as she entered the closed section and sank into a seat she breathed a sigh of relief. The man at the bakery window had not followed her. The car made one or two more stops, turned a corner and stopped again. This time the little man with the fat nose deliberately swung himself to the rear platform, paid his fare and remained there. He didn't look at Mary Louise at all, but she looked at him and her expression was one of mingled horror and fear. A mile farther on the car reached the end of its line and the conductor reversed the trolley-pole and prepared for the return journey. Mary Louise kept her seat. The detective watched the motorman and conductor with an assumption of stupid interest and retained his place on the platform. On the way back to the business section of Dorfield, Mary Louise considered what to do next. She was very young and inexperienced; she was also, at this moment, very weary and despondent. It was clearly evident that she could not escape this man, whose persistence impressed her with the imminent danger that threatened her grandfather if she went to the home of the Conants--the one thing she positively must not do. Since her arrival was wholly unexpected by her friends, with whom she could not communicate, she now found herself a forlorn wanderer, without money or shelter. When the car stopped at Main Street she got off and walked slowly along the brilliantly lighted thoroughfare, feeling more safe among the moving throngs of people. Presently she came to a well-remembered corner where the principal hotel stood on one side and the First National Bank on the other. She now knew where she was and could find the direct route to the Conants, had she dared go there. To gain time for thought the girl stepped into the doorway of the bank, which was closed for the day, thus avoiding being jostled by pedestrians. She set down her suit case, leaned against the door-frame and tried to determine her wisest course of action. She was hungry, tired, frightened, and the combination of sensations made her turn faint. With a white face and despair in her heart she leaned heavily back and closed her eyes. "Pardon me," said a soft voice, and with a nervous start she opened her eyes to find the little fat-nosed man confronting her. He had removed his hat and was looking straight into her face--for the first time, she imagined--and now she noticed that his gray eyes were not at all unkindly. "What do you want?" she asked sharply, with an involuntary shudder. "I wish to advise you, Miss Burrows," he replied. "I believe you know who I am and it is folly for us to pursue this game of hide-and-seek any longer. You are tired and worn out with your long ride and the anxiety I have caused you." "You are dogging me!" she exclaimed indignantly. "I am keeping you in sight, according to orders." "You are a detective!" she asked, a little disarmed by his frankness. "John O'Gorman by name, Miss. At home I have a little girl much like you, but I doubt if my Josie--even though I have trained her--would prove more shrewd than you have done under such trying circumstances. Even in the train you recognized my profession--and I am thought to be rather clever at disguising my motives." "Yes?" "And you know quite well that because you have come to Dorfield to join your grandfather, whom you call Colonel Weatherby, I have followed you in an attempt to discover, through you, the man for whom our government has searched many years." "Oh, indeed!" "Therefore you are determined not to go to your destination and you are at your wits' end to know what to do. Let me advise you, for the sake of my own little Josie." The abrupt proposal bewildered her. "You are my enemy!" "Don't think that, Miss," he said gently. "I am an officer of the law, engaged in doing my duty. I am not your enemy and bear you no ill-will." "You are trying to arrest my grandfather." "In the course of duty. But he is quite safe from me for to-night, while you are almost exhausted through your efforts to protect him. Go into the hotel across the way and register and get some supper and a room. To-morrow you will be able to think more clearly and may then make up your mind what to do." She hesitated. The voice seemed earnest and sincere, the eyes considerate and pitying, and the advice appealed to her as good; but-- "Just for to-night, put yourself in my care," he said. "I'm ashamed to have annoyed you to such an extent and to have interfered with your plans; but I could not help it. You have succeeded in balking the DETECTIVE, but the MAN admires you for it. I noticed, the last time you took out your purse in the dining-car, that your money is nearly gone. If you will permit me to lend you enough for your hotel expenses--" "No." "Well, it may not be necessary. Your friends will supply you with money whenever our little--comedy, shall we say?--is played to the end. In the meantime I'll speak to the landlord. Now, Miss Burrows, run across to the hotel and register." She gazed at him uncertainly a moment and the little man smiled reassuringly. Somehow, she felt inclined to trust him. "Thank you," she said and took her suit case into the hotel office. The clerk looked at her rather curiously as she registered, but assigned her a room and told her that dinner was still being served. She followed the bellboy to her room, where she brushed her gown, bathed her hands and face and rearranged her hair. Then she went to the dining room and, although the journey and worry had left her sick and nervous, she ate some dinner and felt stronger and better after it. CHAPTER IX OFFICER O'GORMAN Mary Louise returned to her room and sat down to consider the best way out of her dilemma. The detective's friendliness, so frankly expressed, pleased her, in a way, yet she realized his vigilance would not be relaxed and that he was still determined, through her, to discover where Gran'pa Jim was hidden. An uncomfortable degree of danger had already been incurred by her unconsciously leading the officer to Dorfield. He knew now that the man he was seeking was either in this city or its immediate neighborhood. But unless she led him to the exact spot--to the dwelling of the Conants--it would take even this clever detective some time to locate the refugee. Before then Mary Louise hoped to be able to warn Gran'pa Jim of his danger. That would prevent her from rejoining him and her mother, but it would also save him from arrest. Glancing around her comfortable room she saw a telephone on the wall. Beside it, on a hook, hung the book containing the addresses of the subscribers. She opened the book and glancing down its columns found: "Conant, Peter; r. 1216 Oak St. Blue 147." Why hadn't she thought of this simple method of communication before? It would be quite easy to call Mr. Conant and tell him where she was and have him warn Gran'pa Jim that a detective was searching for him. She went to the telephone and took down the receiver. "Office!" cried a sharp voice. "What number do you want?" Mary Louise hesitated; then she hung up the receiver without reply. It occurred to her that the hotel office was a public place and that the telephone girl would be likely to yell out the number for all to overhear. To satisfy herself on this point she went down stairs in the elevator and purchased a magazine at the news stand. The telephone desk was near by and Mary Louise could hear the girl calling the numbers and responding to calls, while not six feet from her desk sat a man whose person was nearly covered by a spread newspaper which he appeared to be reading. But Mary Louise knew him by his striped trousers and straightway congratulated herself on her caution. Undoubtedly the detective had figured on her telephoning and she had nearly fallen into the trap. Back to her room she went, resolved to make no further move till morning. The day had been a hard one for the girl, mentally and physically, and at this moment she felt herself hopelessly involved in a snare from which she could see no means of escape. She read a little in her magazine, to quiet her nerves, and then went to bed and fell asleep. At daybreak Mary Louise wakened to wonder if she had done right in running away from Miss Stearne's school. Gran'pa Jim had placed her there because he did not wish to take her with him when he left Beverly, and now she had come to him without his consent and in doing so had perhaps delivered him into the hands of his enemies. Poor Gran'pa Jim! She would never cease to reproach herself if she became responsible for his ruin. As she lay in bed, thinking in this vein, she allowed herself to wonder for the first time why her dear grandfather was being persecuted by the officers of the law--by the Government of the United States, indeed, which should be just and merciful to all its people. Of course he was innocent of any wrong-doing; Gran'pa Jim would never do anything to injure a human being, for he was goodness itself and had taught her to honor truth and righteousness ever since she could remember. Never for a moment would she doubt him. But it was curious, when she came to reflect upon it, that he would run away from his enemies instead of facing them bravely. For many years he had hidden himself--first in one place and then in another--and at the first warning of discovery or pursuit would disappear and seek a new hiding-place. For she now realized, in the light of her recent knowledge, that for many years Gran'pa Jim had been a fugitive from the law, and that for some unknown reason he dared not face his accusers. Some people might consider this an evidence of guilt, but Mary Louise and Gran'pa Jim had been close comrades for two years and deep in her heart was the unalterable conviction that his very nature would revolt against crime of any sort. Moreover--always a strong argument in her mind--her mother had steadfastly believed in her grandfather and had devoted herself to him to the exclusion of all else in her life, even neglecting her own daughter to serve her father. Mamma Bee loved her, she well knew, yet Mary Louise had never enjoyed the same affectionate intercourse with her mother that she had with her grandfather, for Mamma Bee's whole life seemed to center around the old Colonel. This unusual devotion was proof enough to Mary Louise that her grandfather was innocent, but it did not untangle the maze. Looking back over her past life, she could recall the many sudden changes of residence due to Colonel Weatherby's desire to escape apprehension by the authorities. They seemed to date from the time they had left that big city house, where the child had an especial nurse and there were lots of servants, and where her beautiful mother used to bend over her with a good-night kiss while arrayed in dainty ball costumes sparkling with jewels. Mary Louise tried to remember her father, but could not, although she had been told that he died in that very house. She remembered Gran'pa Jim in those days, however, only he was too busy to pay much attention to her. Let's see; was he called "Colonel Weatherby" in those days! She could not recollect. That name did not become familiar to her until long afterward. Always he had been just "Gran'pa Jim" to her. Yet that dreadful officer of the law who had questioned her in Beverly had called him "Hathaway--James J. Hathaway." How absurd! But where had she heard the name of Hathaway before? She puzzled her brain to remember. Did it belong to any of her schoolgirl friends? Or was it-- With a sudden thought she sprang from her bed and took her watch from the dresser. It was an old watch, given her by Mamma Bee on the girl's twelfth birthday, while she was living with the Conants, and her mother had bidden her to treasure it because it had belonged to her when she was a girl of Mary Louise's age. The watch was stem-winding and had a closed case, the back lid of which had seldom been opened because it fitted very tightly. But now Mary Louise pried it open with a hatpin and carried it to the light. On the inside of the gold case the following words were engraved: "Beatrice Hathaway, from her loving Father." Mary Louise stared at this inscription for a long while. For the first time, ugly doubts began to creep into her heart. The officer was right when he said that James Hathaway was masquerading under the false name of Colonel Weatherby. Gran'pa Jim had never told even Mary Louise that his real name was Hathaway; Mamma Bee had never told her, either. With a deep sigh she snapped the case of the watch in place and then began to dress. It was still too early for breakfast when she had finished her toilet, so she sat by the open window of her room, looking down into the street, and tried to solve the mystery of Gran'pa Jim. Better thoughts came to her, inspiring her with new courage. Her grandfather had changed his name to enable him the more easily to escape observation, for it was James Hathaway who was accused, not Colonel James Weatherby. It was difficult, however, for the girl to familiarize herself with the idea that Gran'pa Jim was really James Hathaway; still, if her mother's name before her marriage was indeed Beatrice Hathaway, as the watch proved, then there was no question but her grandfather's name was also Hathaway. He had changed it for a purpose and she must not question the honesty of that purpose, however black the case looked against her beloved Gran'pa Jim. This discovery, nevertheless, only added to the mystery of the whole affair, which she realized her inability to cope with. Grouping the facts with which she was familiar into regular order, her information was limited as follows: Once Gran'pa Jim was rich and prosperous and was named Hathaway. He had many friends and lived in a handsome city house. Suddenly he left everything and ran away, changing his name to that of Weatherby. He was afraid, for some unknown reason, of being arrested, and whenever discovery threatened his retreat he would run away again. In this manner he had maintained his liberty for nine years, yet to-day the officers of the law seemed as anxious to find him as at first. To sum up, Gran'pa Jim was accused of a crime so important that it could not be condoned and only his cleverness in evading arrest had saved him from prison. That would look pretty black to a stranger, and it made even Mary Louise feel very uncomfortable and oppressed, but against the accusation the girl placed these facts, better known to her than the others: Gran'pa Jim was a good man, kind and honest. Since she had known him his life had been blameless. Mamma Bee, who knew him best of all, never faltered in her devotion to him. He was incapable of doing an evil deed, he abhorred falsehood, he insisted on defending the rights of his fellow men. Therefore, in spite of any evidence against him Mary Louise believed in his innocence. Having settled this belief firmly in mind and heart, the girl felt a distinct sense of relief. She would doubt no more. She would not try, in the future, to solve a mystery that was beyond her comprehension. Her one duty was to maintain an unfaltering faith. At seven o'clock she went to the breakfast room, to which but two or three other guests of the hotel had preceded her, and in a few minutes Detective O'Gorman entered and seated himself at a table near her. He bowed very respectfully as he caught her eye and she returned the salutation, uneasy at the man's presence but feeling no especial antagonism toward him. As he had said, he was but doing his duty. O'Gorman finished his breakfast before Mary Louise did, after which, rising from his chair, he came toward her table and asked quietly: "May I sit at your table a moment, Miss Burrows?" She neither consented nor refused, being taken by surprise, but O'Gorman sat down without requiring an answer. "I wish to tell you," he began, "that my unpleasant espionage of you is ended. It will be needless for me to embarrass or annoy you longer." "Indeed?" "Yes. Aren't you glad?" with a smile at her astonished expression. "You see, I've been busy investigating while you slept. I've visited the local police station and--various other places. I am satisfied that Mr. Hathaway--or Mr. Weatherby, as he calls himself--is not in Dorfield and has never located here. Once again the man has baffled the entire force of our department. I am now confident that your coming to this town was not to meet your grandfather but to seek refuge with other friends, and so I have been causing you all this bother and vexation for nothing." She looked at him in amazement. "I'm going to ask you to forgive me," he went on, "and unless I misjudge your nature you're not going to bear any grudge against me. They sent me to Beverly to watch you, and for a time that was a lazy man's job. When you sold some of your jewelry for a hundred dollars, however, I knew there would be something doing. You were not very happy at your school, I knew, and my first thought was that you merely intended to run away--anywhere to escape the persecution of those heartless girls. But you bought a ticket for Dorfield, a faraway town, so I at once decided--wrongly, I admit--that you knew where Hathaway was and intended going to him. So I came with you, to find he is not here. He has never been here. Hathaway is too distinguished a personage, in appearance, to escape the eye of the local police. So I am about to set you free, my girl, and to return immediately to my headquarters in Washington." She had followed his speech eagerly and with a feeling of keen disappointment at his report that her grandfather and her mother were not in Dorfield. Could it be true? Officer O'Gorman took a card from his pocket-book and laid it beside her plate. "My dear child," said he in a gentle tone, "I fear your life is destined to be one of trials and perplexities, if not of dreary heartaches. I have watched over you and studied your character for longer than you know and I have found much in your make-up that is interesting and admirable. You remind me a good deal of my own Josie--as good and clever a girl as ever lived. So I am going to ask you to consider me your friend. Keep this card and if ever you get into serious difficulty I want you to wire me to come and help you. If I should happen, at the time, to have duties to prevent my coming, I will send some other reliable person to your assistance. Will you promise to do this?" "Thank you, Mr. O'Gorman," she said. "I--I--your kindness embarrasses me." "Don't allow it to do that. A detective is a man, you know, much like other men, and I have always held that the better man he is the better detective he is sure to prove. I'm obliged to do disagreeable things, at times, in the fulfillment of my duty, but I try to spare even the most hardened criminal as much as possible. So why shouldn't I be kind to a helpless, unfortunate girl?" "Am I that?" she asked. "Perhaps not. But I fear your grandfather's fate is destined to cause you unhappiness. You seem fond of him." "He is the best man in all the world!" O'Gorman looked at the tablecloth rather than to meet her eyes. "So I will now say good-bye, Miss Burrows, and--I wish you the happiness you deserve. You're just as good a girl as my Josie is." With this he rose to his feet and bowed again. He was a little man and he had a fat nose, but Mary Louise could not help liking him. She was still afraid of the detective, however, and when he had left the dining room she asked herself if his story could be true, if Gran'pa Jim was not in Dorfield--if he had never even come to the town, as O'Gorman had stated. The Conants would know that, of course, and if the detective went away she would be free to go to the Conants for information. She would find shelter, at least, with these old friends. As she passed from the dining room into the hotel lobby Mr. O'Gorman was paying his bill and bidding the clerk farewell. He had no baggage, except such as he might carry in his pocket, but he entered a bus that stood outside and was driven away with a final doff of his hat to the watching girl. Mary Louise decided in the instant what to do. Mr. Peter Conant was a lawyer and had an office in one of the big buildings down-town. She remembered that he always made a point of being in his office at eight o'clock in the morning, and it was nearly eight now. She would visit Mr. Conant in his office, for this could not possibly endanger the safety of Gran'pa Jim in case the detective's story proved false, or if an attempt had been made to deceive her. The man had seemed sincere and for the time being he had actually gone away; but she was suspicious of detectives. She ran upstairs for her coat and hat and at once left the hotel. She knew the way to Peter Conant's office and walked rapidly toward it. CHAPTER X RATHER QUEER INDEED Mary Louise found the door of the office, which was located on the third floor of the Chambers Building, locked. However, the sign: "Peter Conant, Attorney at Law," was painted on the glass panel in big, distinct letters, so she was sure she had made no mistake. She slowly paced the hall, waiting, until the elevator stopped and Mr. Conant stepped out and approached the door, his morning paper in one hand, a key in the other. Running to him, the girl exclaimed: "Oh, Mr. Conant!" He stopped short and turned to face her. Then he stepped a pace backward and said: "Great heavens, it's Mary Louise!" "Didn't you recognize me?" she asked. "Not at first," he answered slowly. "You have grown tall and--and--older, in two years." "Where is Gran'pa J-" "Hush!" with a startled glance up and down the hall. Then he unlocked the door and added: "Come in." Mary Louise followed him through the outer office and into a smaller room beyond, the door of which Mr. Conant carefully closed after them. Then he turned to look steadily at the girl, who thought he did not seem especially delighted at her appearance in Dorfield. Indeed, his first words proved this, for he asked sternly: "Why are you here?" "I left the school at Beverly because the girls made it so uncomfortable for me there that I could not bear it longer," she explained. "In what way did they make it uncomfortable for you?" "They jeered at me because--because--Gran'pa Jim is being hunted by the officers of the law, who accuse him, of doing something wicked." Mr. Conant frowned. "Perhaps their attitude was only natural," he remarked; "but there was no accusation against you, my child. Why didn't you stick it out? The scandal would soon have died away and left you in peace." "I was unhappy there," she said simply, "and so I thought I would come here to mother and Gran'pa Jim." "Here?" as if surprised. "Yes. Aren't they here, with you?" "No." "Then where are they?" "I've no idea." She sat still and stared at him, while he regarded her with a thoughtful and perplexed look on his face. Mr. Conant is difficult to describe because he was like dozens of men one meets every day, at least in outward appearance. He was neither tall nor short, lean nor fat, handsome nor ugly, attractive nor repulsive. Yet Peter Conant must not be considered a nonentity because he was commonplace in person, for he possessed mannerisms that were peculiar. He would open his eyes very wide and stare at one steadily until the person became confused and turned away. The gaze was not especially shrewd, but it was disconcerting because steadfast. When he talked he would chop off his words, one by one, with a distinct pause between each, and that often made it hard to tell whether he had ended his speech or still had more to say. When very earnest or interested he would play with a locket that dangled from his watch chain; otherwise he usually stood with his hands clasped behind his back. Mary Louise well knew these peculiarities, having previously lived in his house, and also she knew he was a kind-hearted man, devotedly attached to his deaf wife and thoroughly trusted by Gran'pa Jim. "I was told," said the girl presently, "to direct all my letters to my grandfather in your care." "I am aware that you have done so," he replied. "So I thought, of course, that he and my mother were with you." "No; they did not come here. Colonel Weatherby arranged for me to forward your letters, which I did as soon as they arrived." "Oh; then you know his address?" "I do not. There are six different points to which I forward letters, in rotation, both those from you and from others on various matters of business, and these points are widely scattered. My impression is that Colonel Weatherby is in none of these places and that the letters are again forwarded to him to--wherever he may be." Mary Louise felt quite discouraged. With hesitation she asked: "Do you suppose you could find him for me?" "It is impossible." "What am I to do, Mr. Conant?" "I advise you to go back to your school." "Can't I stay here, with you?" He stared at her with his round eyes, playing with his locket. "I haven't the money for the return trip," she went on falteringly. "I had to sell some of my jewelry to get here. I won't be much trouble, if you will let me live with you until I can find Gran'pa Jim." Mr. Conant still stared. "I'm sure," said Mary Louise, "that my grandfather will gladly repay you any money it costs you to keep me." "You--don't--un-der-stand," he retorted, chopping off his words rather viciously. "Moreover, you can't understand. Go to the house and talk to Hannah. Have you any baggage!" "I've a suit case at the hotel," she said, and went on to tell him the experiences of her journey and of her encounter with Detective O'Gorman. During this relation, which he did not interrupt, Mr. Conant toyed persistently with his watch charm. His features were noncommittal but he was thoroughly interested. "You see," he remarked when she had finished, "Colonel Weatherby's elaborate system of evading discovery is quite necessary." "But why should he wish to hide?" asked the girl. "Don't you know?" "No, sir." "Then your grandfather doesn't wish you to know. I am his lawyer--at least I am one of his lawyers--and a lawyer must respect the confidences of his clients." Mary Louise looked at him wonderingly, for here was someone who evidently knew the entire truth. "Do you believe my grandfather is a bad man?" she asked. "No. I have the highest respect for Colonel Weatherby." "Do you know his name to be Weatherby--or is it Hathaway?" "I am his lawyer," reiterated Mr. Conant. "Is it possible that an innocent man would change his name and hide, rather than face an unjust accusation?" "Yes." Mary Louise sighed. "I will go with you to the hotel and pay your bill," said the lawyer. "Then you may go to the house and talk to Hannah. When I have talked with her myself, we will determine what to do with you." So they went to the hotel and the girl packed her suit case and brought it downstairs. "Queer!" said Mr. Conant to her, fingering his locket. "Your bill has been paid by that man O'Gorman." "How impertinent!" she exclaimed. "There is also a note for you in your box." The clerk handed her an envelope, which she opened. "I hope to be able to send you your grandfather's address very soon," wrote O'Gorman. "You will probably stay in Dorfield; perhaps with the Conants, with whom you lived before. You might try sending Colonel Weatherby a letter in care of Oscar Lawler, at Los Angeles, California. In any event, don't forget my card or neglect to wire me in case of emergency." Having read this with considerable surprise the girl handed the note to Mr. Conant, who slowly read it and gave a bark like that of an angry dog when he came to the name of the California attorney. Without remark he put the detective's letter in his pocket and picking up Mary Louise's suit case led the girl outside to the street corner. "This car will take you to within two blocks of my house," he said. "Can you manage your grip alone?" "Easily," she assured him. "You have carfare!" "Yes, thank you." "Then good-bye. I'll see you this evening." He turned away and she boarded the street car. CHAPTER XI MARY LOUISE MEETS IRENE As Mary Louise approached the home of the Conants, which was a pretty little house set far back in a garden filled with trees and shrubs, she was surprised to hear a joyous ragtime tune being drummed upon the piano--an instrument she remembered Mrs. Conant kept in the house exclusively as an ornament, being unable to play it. Then, as the girl reached the porch, the melody suddenly stopped, a merry laugh rang out and a fresh, sweet voice was heard through the open window talking rapidly and with eager inflection. "I wonder who that can be?" thought Mary Louise. Everyone had to speak loudly to poor Mrs. Conant, who might be entertaining a visitor. She rang the bell and soon her old friend appeared in the doorway. "My dear, dear child!" cried the good lady, recognizing the girl instantly and embracing her after a welcoming kiss. "Where on earth have you come from?" "From Beverly," said Mary Louise with a smile, for in her depressed state of mind this warm greeting cheered her wonderfully. "Come right in," said Mrs. Conant, seizing the suit case. "Have you had breakfast?" "Yes, indeed; hours ago. And I've seen Mr. Conant at his office. He--he wanted me to talk to you." She spoke loudly, as she had been accustomed to do, but now Mrs. Conant wore on her ear an instrument similar in appearance to a small telephone receiver, and she seemed to hear quite distinctly through its mechanism. Indeed, she pointed to it with an air of pride and said: "I can hear a whisper, my dear!" As Mary Louise was ushered into the cosy sitting room she looked for the piano-player and the owner of the merry laugh and cheery voice. Near the center of the room was a wheeled chair in which sat a young girl of about her own age--a rather pretty girl in spite of her thin frame and pallid countenance. She was neatly dressed in figured dimity, with a bright ribbon at her throat. A pair of expressive brown eyes regarded Mary Louise with questioning earnestness. Over her lap lay a coverlet; her slender white fingers rested upon the broad arms of her chair. "This," said Mrs. Conant, "is my niece, Irene Macfarlane, who is living with us just now and is the life and joy of our formerly dull household. You'll have to love her, Mary Louise, because no one can help doing so." Mary Louise advanced to the chair and took one of the wan hands in her own. A thrill of pity flooded her heart for the unfortunate girl, who instantly noted her expression and met it with a charmingly spontaneous smile. "Don't you dare think of me as a cripple!" she said warningly. "I am not at all helpless and my really-truly friends quickly forget this ugly wheeled chair. We're to be friends, are we not? And you're going to stay, because I see your baggage. Also I know all about you, Mary Louise Burrows, for Aunt Hannah never tires of singing your praises." This was said so naturally and with such absence of affectation that Mary Louise could not fail to respond to the words and smile. "I'm glad to find you here, Irene," she said, "and I don't know yet whether I'm to stay or not. That will depend on Mrs. Conant's decision." "Then you're to stay," promptly decided the hospitable lady, who by turning her mechanical ear toward the speaker seemed able to hear her words clearly. "But you don't know all the complications yet," confessed the girl. "I've run away from school and--and there are other things you must know before you decide. Mr. Conant wasn't at all enthusiastic over my coming here, I assure you, so I must tell you frankly the whole story of my adventures." "Very good," returned Mrs. Conant. "I think I can guess at most of the story, but you shall tell it in your own way. Presently Irene is going out to inspect the roses; she does that every morning; so when she is out of the way we'll have a nice talk together." "I'm going now," said Irene, with a bright laugh at her dismissal. "Mary Louise won't be happy till everything is properly settled; nor will I, for I'm anxious to get acquainted with my new friend. So here I go and when you've had your talk out just whistle for me, Mary Louise." She could propel the chair by means of rims attached to the wheels and, even as she spoke, began to roll herself out of the room. Mary Louise sprang to assist her, but the girl waved her away with a little laugh. "I'm an expert traveler," she said, "and everyone lets me go and come as I please. Indeed, I'm very independent, Mary Louise, as you will presently discover." Away she went, through the hall, out at the front door and along the broad porch, and when she had gone Mary Louise whispered softly into Mrs. Conant's mechanical eardrum: "What is wrong with her?" "A good many things," was the reply, "although the brave child makes light of them all. One leg is badly withered and the foot of the other is twisted out of shape. She can stand on that foot to dress herself--which she insists on doing unaided--but she cannot walk a step. Irene has suffered a great deal, I think, and she's a frail little body; but she has the sweetest temperament in the world and seems happy and content from morn till night." "It's wonderful!" exclaimed Mary Louise. "What caused her affliction?" "It is the result of an illness she had when a baby. Irene is sixteen and has never known what it is to be well and strong, yet she never resents her fate, but says she is grateful for the blessings she enjoys. Her father died long ago and her mother about a year since; so, the child being an orphan, Peter and I have taken her to live with us." "That is very kind of you," asserted Mary Louise with conviction. "No; I fear it is pure selfishness," returned the good woman, "for until she came to us the old home had been dreadfully dull--the result, my dear, of your going away. And now tell me your story, and all about yourself, for I'm anxious to hear what brought you to Dorfield." Mary Louise drew a chair close to that of Aunt Hannah Conant and confided to her all the worries and tribulations that had induced her to quit Miss Stearne's school and seek shelter with her old friends the Conants. Also, she related the episode of Detective O'Gorman and how she had first learned through him that her grandfather and her mother were not living in Dorfield. "I'm dreadfully worried over Gran'pa Jim," said she, "for those terrible agents of the Secret Service seem bent on catching him. And he doesn't wish to be caught. If they arrested him, do you think they would put him in jail, Aunt Hannah?" "I fear so," was the reply. "What do they imagine he has done that is wrong?" "I do not know," said Mrs. Conant. "Peter never tells me anything about the private affairs of his clients, and I never ask him. But of one thing I am sure, my dear, and that is that Peter Conant would not act as Colonel Weatherby's lawyer, and try to shield him, unless he believed him innocent of any crime. Peter is a little odd, in some ways, but he's honest to the backbone." "I know it," declared Mary Louise. "Also I know that Gran'pa Jim is a good man. Cannot the law make a mistake, Aunt Hannah?" "It surely can, or there would be no use for lawyers. But do not worry over your grandfather, my child, for he seems quite able to take care of himself. It is nine or ten years since he became a fugitive--also making a fugitive of your poor mother, who would not desert him--and to this day the officers of the law have been unable to apprehend him. Be patient, dear girl, and accept the situation as you find it. You shall live with us until your people again send for you. We have excellent schools in Dorfield, where you will not be taunted with your grandfather's misfortunes because no one here knows anything about them." "Doesn't Irene know?" asked Mary Louise. "She only knows that your people are great travelers and frequently leave you behind them as they flit from place to place. She knows that you lived with us for three years and that we love you." The girl became thoughtful for a time. "I can't understand," she finally said, "why Gran'pa Jim acts the way he does. Often he has told me, when I deserved censure, to 'face the music' and have it over with. Once he said that those who sin must suffer the penalty, because it is the law of both God and man, and he who seeks to escape a just penalty is a coward. Gran'pa knows he is innocent, but the government thinks he is guilty; so why doesn't he face the music and prove his innocence, instead of running away as a coward might do and so allow his good name to suffer reproach?" Mrs. Conant shook her head as if perplexed. "That very question has often puzzled me, as it has you," she confessed. "Once I asked Peter about it and he scowled and said it might be just as well to allow Colonel Weatherby to mind his own business. The Colonel seems to have a good deal of money, and perhaps he fears that if he surrendered to the law it would be taken away from him, leaving you and your mother destitute." "We wouldn't mind that," said the girl, "if Gran'pa's name could be cleared." "After all," continued Mrs. Conant reflectively, "I don't believe the Colonel is accused of stealing money, for Peter says his family is one of the oldest and richest in New York. Your grandfather inherited a vast fortune and added largely to it. Peter says he was an important man of affairs before this misfortune--whatever it was--overtook him." "I can just remember our home in New York," said Mary Louise, also musingly, "for I was very young at the time. It was a beautiful big place, with a good many servants. I wonder what drove us from it?" "Do you remember your father?" asked Mrs. Conant. "Not at all." "Peter once told me he was a foreigner who fell desperately in love with your mother and married her without your grandfather's full approval. I believe Mr. Burrows was a man of much political influence, for he served in the Department of State and had a good many admirers. Peter never knew why your grandfather opposed the marriage, for afterward he took Mr. and Mrs. Burrows to live with him and they were all good friends up to the day of your father's death. But this is ancient history and speculation on subjects we do not understand is sure to prove unsatisfactory. I wouldn't worry over your grandfather's troubles, my dear. Try to forget them." "Grandfather's real name isn't Weatherby," said the girl. "It is Hathaway." Mrs. Conant gave a start of surprise. "How did you learn that?" she asked sharply. The girl took out her watch, pried open the back ease with a penknife and allowed Mrs. Conant to read the inscription. Also she curiously watched the woman's face and noted its quick flush and its uneasy expression. Did the lawyer's wife know more than she had admitted? If so, why was everyone trying to keep her in the dark? "I cannot see that this helps to solve the mystery," said Mrs. Conant in a brisk tone as she recovered from her surprise. "Let us put the whole thing out of mind, Mary Louise, or it will keep us all stirred up and in a muddle of doubt. I shall tell Peter you are to live with us, and your old little room at the back of the hall is all ready for you. Irene has the next room, so you will be quite neighborly. Go and put away your things and then we'll whistle for Irene." Mary Louise went to the well-remembered room and slowly and thoughtfully unpacked her suit case. She was glad to find a home again among congenial people, but she was growing more and more perplexed over the astonishing case of Gran'pa Jim. It worried her to find that an occasional doubt would cross her mind in spite of her intense loyalty to her dearly loved grandparent. She would promptly drive out the doubt, but it would insist on intruding again. "Something is wrong somewhere," she sighed. "There must be some snarl that even Gran'pa Jim can't untangle; and, if he can't, I'm sure no one else can. I wish I could find him and that he would tell me all about it. I suppose he thinks I'm too young to confide in, but I'm almost sixteen now and surely that's old enough to understand things. There were girls at school twenty years old that I'm sure couldn't reason as well as I can." After a while she went down stairs and joined Irene in the garden, where the chair-girl was trimming rose bushes with a pair of stout scissors. She greeted Mary Louise with her bright smile, saying: "I suppose everything is fixed up, now, and we can begin to get acquainted." "Why, we ARE acquainted," declared Mary Louise. "Until to-day I had never heard of you, yet it seems as if I had known you always." "Thank you," laughed Irene; "that is a very pretty compliment, I well realize. You have decided to stay, then?" "Aunt Hannah has decided so, but Mr. Conant may object." "He won't do that," was the quick reply. "Uncle Peter may be an autocrat in his office, but I've noticed that Aunt Hannah is the ruler of this household." Mr. Conant may have noticed that, also, for he seemed not at all surprised when his wife said she had decided to keep Mary Louise with them. But after the girls had gone to bed that night the lawyer had a long talk with his better half, and thereafter Mary Louise's presence was accepted as a matter of course. But Mr. Conant said to her the next morning: "I have notified your grandfather, at his six different addresses, of your coming to us, so I ought to receive his instructions within the next few days. Also, to-day I will write Miss Stearne that you are here and why you came away from the school." "Will you ask her to send my trunk?" "Not now. We will first await advices from Colonel Weatherby." These "advices" were received three days later in the form of a brief telegram from a Los Angeles attorney. The message read: "Colonel Weatherby requests you to keep M. L. in Dorfield until further instructions. Money forwarded. Hot. Caution." It was signed "O. L." and when Mr. Conant showed Mary Louise the message she exclaimed: "Then Mr. O'Gorman was right!" "In what way?" questioned the lawyer. "In the note he left for me at the hotel he said I might find my grandfather by writing to Oscar Lawler at Los Angeles, California. This telegram is from Los Angeles and it is signed 'O. L.' which must mean 'Oscar Lawler.'" "How clever!" said Mr. Conant sarcastically. "That proves, of course, that Gran'pa Jim and mother are in California, But how did the detective know that?" she asked wonderingly. "He didn't know it," answered Peter Conant. "On the contrary, this message proves to me that they are not there at all." "But the telegram says--" "Otherwise," continued the lawyer, "the telegram would not have come from that far-away point on the Pacific coast. There now remain five other places where Colonel Weatherby might be located. The chances are, however, that he is not in any of them." Mary Louise was puzzled. It was altogether too bewildering for her comprehension. "Here are two strange words," said she, eyeing the telegram she still held. "What does 'hot' mean, Mr. Conant?" "It means," he replied, "that the government spies are again seeking Colonel Weatherby. The word 'caution' means that we must all take care not to let any information escape us that might lead to his arrest. Don't talk to strangers, Mary Louise; don't talk to anyone outside our family of your grandfather's affairs, or even of your own affairs. The safety of Colonel Weatherby depends, to a great extent, on our all being silent and discreet." CHAPTER XII A CHEERFUL COMRADE The more Mary Louise saw of Irene Macfarlane the more she learned to love her. No one could be miserable or despondent for long in the chair-girl's society, because she was always so bright and cheery herself. One forgot to pity her or even to deplore her misfortunes while listening to her merry chatter and frank laughter, for she seemed to find genuine joy and merriment in the simplest incidents of the life about her. "God has been so good to me, Mary Louise!" she once exclaimed as they were sitting together in the garden. "He has given me sight, that I may revel in bookland and in the beauties of flowers and trees and shifting skies and the faces of my friends. He has given me the blessing of hearing, that I may enjoy the strains of sweet music and the songs of the birds and the voices of those I love. And I can scent the fragrance of the morning air, the perfume of the roses and--yes! even the beefsteak Aunt Hannah is frying for supper. The beefsteak tastes as good to me as it does to you. I can feel the softness of your cheek; I can sing melodies, in my own way, whenever my heart swells with joy. I can move about, by means of this wonderful chair, without the bother of walking. You don't envy me, Mary Louise, because you enjoy almost equal blessings; but you must admit I have reason for being happy." Irene read a good many books and magazines and through the daily papers kept well posted on the world's affairs. Indeed, she was much better posted than Mary Louise, who, being more active, had less leisure to think and thus absorb the full meaning of all that came to her notice. Irene would play the piano for hours at a time, though obliged to lean forward in her chair to reach the keys, and her moods ran the gamut from severely classical themes to ragtime, seeming to enjoy all equally. She also sewed and mended with such consummate skill that Mary Louise, who was rather awkward with her needle, marveled at her talent. Nor was this the end of the chair-girl's accomplishments, for Irene had a fancy for sketching and made numerous caricatures of those persons with whom she came in contact. These contained so much humor that Mary Louise was delighted with them--especially one of "Uncle Peter" toying with his watch fob and staring straight ahead of him with round, expressionless eyes. "Really, Irene, I believe you could paint," she once said. "No," answered her friend, "I would not be so wicked as to do that. All imitations of Nature seem to me a mock of God's handiwork, which no mortal brush can hope to equal. I shall never be so audacious, I hope. But a photograph is a pure reflex of Nature, and my caricatures, which are merely bits of harmless fun, furnish us now and then a spark of humor to make us laugh, and laughter is good for the soul. I often laugh at my own sketches, as you know. Sometimes I laugh at their whimsical conception, before ever I put pencil to paper. Lots of caricatures I make secretly, laughing over and then destroying them for fear they might be seen and hurt the feelings of their innocent subjects. Why, Mary Louise, I drew your doleful face only yesterday, and it was so funny I shrieked with glee. You heard me and looked over at me with a smile that made the caricature lie, so I promptly tore it up. It had served its purpose, you see." So many of these quaint notions filled the head of the crippled girl that Mary Louise's wondering interest in her never flagged. It was easy to understand why Mrs. Conant had declared that Irene was the joy and life of the household, for it was impossible to remain morbid or blue in her presence. For this reason, as well as through the warm and sincere affection inspired by Irene, Mary Louise came by degrees to confide to her the entire story of the mystery that surrounded her grandfather and influenced the lives of her mother and herself. Of her personal anxieties and fears she told her new friend far more than she had ever confessed to anyone else and her disclosures were met by ready sympathy. "Phoo!" cried Irene. "This isn't a REAL trouble; it will pass away. Everything passes away in time, Mary Louise, for life is a succession of changes--one thing after another. Remember the quotation: 'Whate'er may be thy fate to-day, remember--this will pass away.' I love that little saying and it has comforted me and given me courage many a time." "Life will also pass away," observed Mary Louise pessimistically. "To be sure. Isn't that a glad prospect? To pass to a new life, to new adventures, planned for us by the wisdom of God, is the most glorious promise we mortals possess. In good time that joy will be ours, but now we must make the most of our present blessings. I take it, Mary Louise, that there is a purpose in everything--a Divine Purpose, you know--and that those who most patiently accept their trials will have the better future recompense. What's a twisted ankle or a shriveled leg to do with happiness? Or even a persecuted grandfather? We're made of better stuff, you and I, than to cry at such babyish bumps. My! what a lot of things we both have to be thankful for." Somehow these conversations cheered Mary Louise considerably and her face soon lost its drawn, worried look and became almost as placid as in the days when she had Gran'pa Jim beside her and suspected no approaching calamity. Gran'pa Jim would surely have loved Irene, had he known her, because their ideas of life and duty were so similar. As it was now less than a month to the long summer vacation, Mary Louise did not enter the Dorfield High School but studied a little at home, so as not to get "rusty," and passed most of her days in the society of Irene Macfarlane. It was a week or so after her arrival that Peter Conant said to her one evening: "I have now received ample funds for all your needs, Mary Louise, so I have sent to Miss Stearne to have your trunk and books forwarded." "Oh; then you have heard from Gran'pa Jim?" she asked eagerly. "Yes." "Where is he?" "I do not know," chopping the words apart with emphasis. "The Colonel has been very liberal. I am to put twenty dollars in cash in your pocketbook and you are to come to me for any further sums you may require, which I am ordered to supply without question. I would have favored making you an allowance, had I been consulted, but the Colonel is--eh--eh--the Colonel is the Colonel." "Didn't Gran'pa Jim send me any letter, or--any information at all?" she asked wistfully. "Not a word." "In my last letter, which you promised me to forward, I begged him to write me," she said, with disappointment. Peter Conant made no reply. He merely stared at her. But afterward, when the two girls were alone, Irene said to her: "I do not think you should beg your grandfather to write you. A letter might be traced by his enemies, you know, and that would mean his undoing. He surely loves you and bears you in mind, for he has provided for your comfort in every possible way. Even your letters to him may be dangerous, although they reach him in such roundabout ways. If I were you, Mary Louise, I'd accept the situation as I found it and not demand more than your grandfather and your mother are able to give you." This frank advice Mary Louise accepted in good part and through the influence of the chair-girl she gradually developed a more contented frame of mind. Irene was a persistent reader of books and one of Mary Louise's self-imposed duties was to go to the public library and select such volumes as her friend was likely to be interested in. These covered a wide range of subjects, although historical works and tales of the age of chivalry seemed to appeal to Irene more than any others. Sometimes she would read aloud, in her sweet, sympathetic voice, to Mary Louise and Mrs. Conant, and under these conditions they frequently found themselves interested in books which, if read by themselves, they would be sure to find intolerably dry and uninteresting. The crippled girl had a way of giving more than she received and, instead of demanding attention, would often entertain the sound-limbed ones of her immediate circle. CHAPTER XIII BUB SUCCUMBS TO FORCE One day Peter Conant abruptly left his office, came home and packed his grip and then hurried down town and caught the five o'clock train for New York. He was glum and uncommunicative, as usual, merely telling Aunt Hannah that business called him away and he did not know when he would be back. A week later Peter appeared at the family breakfast table, having arrived on the early morning express, and he seemed in a more gracious mood than usual. Indeed, he was really talkative. "I met Will Morrison in New York, Hannah," he said to his wife. "He was just sailing for London with his family and will remain abroad all summer. He wanted us to occupy his mountain place, Hillcrest Lodge, during July and August, and although I told him we couldn't use the place he insisted on my taking an order on his man to turn the shack over to us." "The shack!" cried Aunt Hannah indignantly. "Why, Peter, Hillcrest Lodge is a little palace. It is the cosiest, most delightful place I have ever visited. Why shouldn't we accept Will Morrison's proposition to occupy it?" "I can't leave my business." "You could run up every Friday afternoon, taking the train to Millbank and the stage to Hillcrest, and stay with us till Monday morning." He stared at her reflectively. "Would you be safe in that out-of-the-way place?" he asked. "Of course. Didn't you say Will had a man for caretaker? And only a few scattered cottages are located near by, so we shall be quite by ourselves and wholly unmolested. I mean to go, and take the girls. The change will do us all good, so you may as well begin to make arrangements for the trip." Peter Conant stared awhile and then resumed his breakfast without comment. Mary Louise thought she saw a smile flicker over his stolid features for a moment, but could not be positive. Aunt Hannah had spoken in a practical, matter-of-fact way that did not admit of argument. "Let me see," she resumed; "we will plan to leave on Thursday morning, over the branch road, which will get us to Millbank by noon. If you telegraph the stage-driver to meet us we can reach Hillcrest Lodge by three o'clock--perhaps earlier--and that will enable us to get settled before dark. That is far better than taking the afternoon train. Will you make the proper arrangements, Peter?" "Yes," he briefly replied. As he was leaving the house after breakfast he fixed his stare on Irene and said to her: "In New York I ran across a lot of second-hand books at an auction sale--old novels and romances which you will probably like. I bought the lot and shipped them home. If they arrive in time you can take them to Hillcrest and they will keep you reading all summer." "Oh, thank you, Uncle Peter!" exclaimed the chair-girl gratefully. "Have you any--any--news of Gran'pa Jim?" asked Mary Louise diffidently. "No," he said and walked away. During the few days that remained before their exodus they were busy preparing for the anticipated vacation. Summer gowns had to be looked over and such things gathered together as might be useful during their two months' stay at Hillcrest. "Of course no one will see us," remarked Aunt Hannah; "it's really the jumping-off place of the world; but Will Morrison has made it as cosy as possible and we three, with just Peter at the week-ends, can amuse one another without getting lonely. Peter will fish in the mountain streams, of course, and that's the reason he is allowing us to go. We've visited the Morrisons two or three times at the Lodge and Peter has fished for trout every minute he was there." "Who are the Morrisons?" asked Mary Louise. "Will Morrison is a rich banker and his wife Sallie was an old schoolmate of mine. The Lodge is only a little resort of theirs, you know, for in the city they live in grand style. I know you girls will enjoy the place, for the scenery is delightful and the clear mountain air mighty invigorating." All girls delight in change of location and although Irene was a little worried over the difficulties of getting to Hillcrest Lodge in her crippled condition, she was as eager to go as was Mary Louise. And she made the trip more comfortably than she had feared. At Millbank the stage-driver fixed a comfortable seat for her in his carryall and loaded the boxes and baggage and the wheeled chair and the box of books--which had arrived from New York--on the railed top of his bus, and then they drove away through a rough but picturesque country that drew from the girls many exclamations of delight. Presently they came to a small group of dwellings called the "Huddle," which lay at the foot of the mountain. Then up a winding path the four horses labored patiently, halting often to rest and get their breaths. At such times the passengers gloried in the superb views of the valley and its farms and were never impatient to proceed. They passed one or two modest villas, for this splendid location had long ago been discovered by a few others besides Will Morrison who loved to come here for their vacations and so escape the maddening crowds of the cities. Aunt Hannah had planned the trip with remarkable accuracy, for at about three o'clock the lumbering stage stopped at a pretty chalet half hidden among the tall pines and overlooking a steep bluff. Here the baggage and boxes were speedily unloaded. "I gotta git back ter meet the aft'noon train," said Bill Coombs, their driver. "They won't be any more passingers in this direction, tain't likely, 'cause the houses 'roun' here is mighty scattered an' no one's expectin' nobody, as I know of. But in the other direction from Millbank--Sodd Corners way--I may catch a load, if I'm lucky." So back he drove, leaving the Conants' traps by the roadside, and Peter began looking around for Morrison's man. The doors of the house were fast locked, front and rear. There was no one in the barn or the shed-like garage, where a rusty looking automobile stood. Peter looked around the grounds in vain. Then he whistled. Afterward he began bawling out "Hi, there!" in a voice that echoed lonesomely throughout the mountain side. And, at last, when they were all beginning to despair, a boy came slouching around a corner of the house, from whence no one could guess. He was whittling a stick and he continued to whittle while he stared at the unexpected arrivals and slowly advanced. When about fifteen paces away he halted, with feet planted well apart, and bent his gaze sturdily on his stick and knife. He was barefooted, dressed in faded blue-jeans overalls and a rusty gingham shirt--the two united by a strap over one shoulder--and his head was covered by a broad Scotch golf cap much too big for him and considerably too warm for the season. "Come here!" commanded Mr. Conant. The boy did not move, therefore the lawyer advanced angrily toward him. "Why didn't you obey me?" he asked. "They's gals there. I hates gals," said the boy in a confidential tone. "Any sort o' men critters I kin stand, but gals gits my goat." "Who are you?" inquired Mr. Conant. "Me? I'm jus' Bub." "Where is Mr. Morrison's man?" "Meanin' Talbot? Gone up to Mark's Peak, to guide a gang o' hunters f'm the city." "When did he go?" asked the lawyer. "I guess a Tuesday. No--a Wednesday." "And when will he be back?" The boy whittled, abstractedly. "Answer me!" "How kin I? D'ye know where Mark's Peak is?" "No." "It takes a week ter git thar; they'll likely hunt two er three weeks; mebbe more; ye kin tell that as well as I kin. Mister Will's gone ter You-RUPP with Miss' Morrison, so Talbot he won't be in no hurry ter come back." "Great Caesar! Here's a pretty mess. Are you Talbot's boy?" "Nope. I'm a Grigger, an' live over in the holler, yonder." "What are you doing here?" "Earnin' two bits a week." "How?" "Lookin' after the place." "Very well. Mr. Morrison has given us permission to use the Lodge while he is away, so unlock the doors and help get the baggage in." The boy notched the stick with his knife, using great care. "Talbot didn't say nuth'n' 'bout that," he remarked composedly. Mr. Conant uttered an impatient ejaculation. It was one of his peculiarities to give a bark similar to that of a dog when greatly annoyed. After staring at the boy a while he took out Will Morrison's letter to Talbot, opened it and held it before Bub's face. "Read that!" he cried. Bub grinned and shook his head. "_I_ kain't read," he said. Mr. Conant, in a loud and severe voice, read Mr. Morrison's instruction to his man Talbot to do everything in his power to make the Conants comfortable and to serve them as faithfully as he did his own master. The boy listened, whittling slowly. Then he said: "Mebbe that's all right; an' ag'in, mebbe tain't. Seein' as I kain't read I ain't goin' ter take no one's word fer it." "You insolent brat!" exclaimed Peter Conant, highly incensed. Then he turned and called: "Come here, Mary Louise." Mary Louise promptly advanced and with every step she made the boy retreated a like distance, until the lawyer seized his arm and held it in a firm grip. "What do you mean by running away?" he demanded. "I hates gals," retorted Bub sullenly. "Don't be a fool. Come here, Mary Louise, and read this letter to the boy, word for word." Mary Louise, marking the boy's bashfulness and trying to restrain a smile, read Mr. Morrison's letter. "You see," said the lawyer sharply, giving Bub a little shake, "those are the exact words of the letter. We're going to enter the Lodge and take possession of it, as Mr. Morrison has told us to do, and if you don't obey my orders I shall give you a good flogging. Do you understand that?" Bub nodded, more cheerfully. "If ye do it by force," said he, "that lets me out. Nobody kin blame me if I'm forced." Mary Louise laughed so heartily that the boy cast an upward, half-approving glance at her face. Even Mr. Conant's stern visage relaxed. "See here, Bub," he said, "obey my orders and no harm can come to you. This letter is genuine and if you serve us faithfully while we are here I'll--I'll give you four bits a week." "Heh? Four bits!" "Exactly. Four bits every week." "Gee, that'll make six bits a week, with the two Talbot's goin' ter give me. I'm hanged ef I don't buy a sweater fer next winter, afore the cold weather comes!" "Very good," said Mr. Conant. "Now get busy and let us in." Bub deliberately closed the knife and put it in his pocket, tossing away the stick. "Gals," he remarked, with another half glance at Mary Louise, "ain't ter my likin'; but FOUR BITS--" He turned and walked away to where a wild rosebush clambered over one corner of the Lodge. Pushing away the thick, thorny branches with care, he thrust in his hand and drew out a bunch of keys. "If it's jus' the same t' you, sir, I'd ruther ye'd snatch 'em from my hand," he suggested. "Then, if I'm blamed, I kin prove a alibi." Mr. Conant was so irritated that he literally obeyed the boy's request and snatched the keys. Then he led the way to the front door. "It's that thin, brass one," Bub hinted. Mr. Conant opened the front door. The place was apparently in perfect order. "Go and get Hannah and Irene, please," said Peter to Mary Louise, and soon they had all taken possession of the cosy Lodge, had opened the windows and aired it and selected their various bedrooms. "It is simply delightful!" exclaimed Irene, who was again seated in her wheeled chair, "and, if Uncle Peter will build a little runway from the porch to the ground, as he did at home, I shall be able to go and come as I please." Meantime Aunt Hannah--as even Mary Louise now called Mrs. Conant--ransacked the kitchen and cupboards to discover what supplies were in the house. There was a huge stock of canned goods, which Will Morrison had begged them to use freely, and the Conants had brought a big box of other groceries with them, which was speedily unpacked. While the others were thus engaged in settling and arranging the house, Irene wheeled her chair to the porch, on the steps of which sat Bub, again whittling. He had shown much interest in the crippled girl, whose misfortune seemed instantly to dispel his aversion for her sex, at least so far as she was concerned. He was not reluctant even to look at her face and he watched with astonishment the ease with which she managed her chair. Having overheard, although at a distance, most of the boy's former conversation with Uncle Peter, Irene now began questioning him. "Have you been eating and sleeping here?" "Of course," answered Bub. "In the Lodge?" "No; over in Talbot's house. That's over the ridge, yonder; it's only a step, but ye kain't see it f'm here. My home's in the South Holler, four mile away." "Do you cook your own meals?" "Nobudy else ter do it." "And don't you get dreadfully lonesome at night?" "Who? Me? Guess not. What the Sam Hill is they to be lonesome over?" "There are no near neighbors, are there?" "Plenty. The Barker house is two mile one way an' the Bigbee house is jus' half a mile down the slope; guess ye passed it, comin' up; but they ain't no one in the Bigbee house jus' now, 'cause Bigbee got shot on the mount'n las' year, a deer hunt'n', an' Bigbee's wife's married another man what says he's delicate like an' can't leave the city. But neighbors is plenty. Six mile along the canyon lives Doolittle." Irene was delighted with Bub's quaint language and ways and before Mrs. Conant called her family to the simple improvised dinner the chair-girl had won the boy's heart and already they were firm friends. CHAPTER XIV A CALL FROM AGATHA LORD Hillcrest Lodge was perched upon a broad shelf of the wooded mountain, considerably nearer to the bottom than to the top, yet a stiff climb from the plain below. Behind it was a steep cliff; in front there was a gradual descent covered with scrub but affording a splendid view of the lowlands. At one side was the rocky canyon with its brook struggling among the boulders, and on the other side the roadway that wound up the mountain in zigzag fashion, selecting the course of least resistance. Will Morrison was doubtless a mighty hunter and an expert fisherman, for the "den" at the rear of the Lodge was a regular museum of trophies of the chase. Stag and doe heads, enormous trout mounted on boards, antlers of wild mountain sheep, rods, guns, revolvers and hunting-knives fairly lined the wails, while a cabinet contained reels, books of flies, cartridge belts, creels and many similar articles. On the floor were rugs of bear, deer and beaver. A shelf was filled with books on sporting subjects. There was a glass door that led onto a little porch at the rear of the Lodge and a big window that faced the cliff. This sanctum of the owner rather awed the girls when first they examined it, but they found it the most fascinating place in all the house and Irene was delighted to be awarded the bedroom that adjoined it. The other bedrooms were on the upper floor. "However," said Mr. Conant to Irene, "I shall reserve the privilege of smoking my evening pipe in this den, for here is a student lamp, a low table and the easiest chairs in all the place. If you keep your bedroom door shut you won't mind the fumes of tobacco." "I don't mind them anyhow, Uncle Peter," she replied. Bub Grigger helped get in the trunks and boxes. He also filled the woodbox in the big living room and carried water from the brook for Aunt Hannah, but otherwise he was of little use to them. His favorite occupation was whittling and he would sit for hours on one of the broad benches overlooking the valley, aimlessly cutting chips from a stick without forming it into any object whatsoever. "I suppose all this time he is deeply thinking," said Mary Louise as the girls sat on the porch watching him, the day after their arrival, "but it would be interesting to know what direction Bub's thoughts take." "He must be figuring up his earnings and deciding how long it will take to buy that winter sweater," laughed Irene. "I've had a bit of conversation with the boy already and his ideas struck me as rather crude and undeveloped." "One idea, however, is firmly fixed in his mind," declared Mary Louise. "He 'hates gals.'" "We must try to dispel that notion. Perhaps he has a big sister at home who pounds him, and therefore he believes all girls are alike." "Then let us go to him and make friends," suggested Mary Louise. "If we are gentle with the boy we may win him over." Mr. Conant had already made a runway for the chair, so they left the porch and approached Bub, who saw them coming and slipped into the scrub, where he speedily disappeared from view. At other times, also, he shyly avoided the girls, until they began to fear it would be more difficult to "make friends" than they had supposed. Monday morning Mr. Conant went down the mountain road, valise in hand, and met Bill Coombs the stage-driver at the foot of the descent, having made this arrangement to save time and expense. Peter had passed most of his two days' vacation in fishing and had been so successful that he promised Aunt Hannah he would surely return the following Friday. He had instructed Bub to "take good care of the womenfolks" during his absence, but no thought of danger occurred to any of them. The Morrisons had occupied the Lodge for years and had never been molested in any way. It was a somewhat isolated place but the country people in the neighborhood were thoroughly honest and trustworthy. "There isn't much for us to do here," said Mary Louise when the three were left alone, "except to read, to eat and to sleep--lazy occupations all. I climbed the mountain a little way yesterday, but the view from the Lodge is the best of all and if you leave the road you tear your dress to shreds in the scrub." "Well, to read, to eat and to sleep is the very best way to enjoy a vacation," asserted Aunt Hannah. "Let us all take it easy and have a good time." Irene's box of books which Mr. Conant had purchased for her in New York had been placed in the den, where she could select the volumes as she chose, and the chair-girl found the titles so alluring that she promised herself many hours of enjoyment while delving among them. They were all old and secondhand--perhaps fourth-hand or fifth-hand--as the lawyer had stated, and the covers were many of them worn to tatters; but "books is books," said Irene cheerily, and she believed they would not prove the less interesting in contents because of their condition. Mostly they were old romances, historical essays and novels, with a sprinkling of fairy tales and books of verse--just the subjects Irene most loved. "Being exiles, if not regular hermits," observed the crippled girl, sunning herself on the small porch outside the den, book in hand, "we may loaf and dream to our hearts' content, and without danger of reproach." But not for long were they to remain wholly secluded. On Thursday afternoon they were surprised by a visitor, who suddenly appeared from among the trees that lined the roadway and approached the two girls who were occupying a bench at the edge of the bluff. The new arrival was a lady of singularly striking appearance, beautiful and in the full flush of womanhood, being perhaps thirty years of age. She wore a smart walking-suit that fitted her rounded form perfectly, and a small hat with a single feather was jauntily perched upon her well-set head. Hair and eyes, almost black, contrasted finely with the bloom on her cheeks. In her ungloved hand she held a small walking-stick. Advancing with grace and perfect self-possession, she smiled and nodded to the two young girls and then, as Mary Louise rose to greet her, she said: "I am your nearest neighbor, and so I have climbed up here to get acquainted. I am Agatha Lord, but of course you do not know me, because I came from Boston, whereas you came from--from--" "Dorfield," said Mary Louise. "Pray be seated. Let me present Irene Macfarlane; and I am Mary Louise Burrows. You are welcome, Miss Lord--or should I say Mrs. Lord?" "Miss is correct," replied their visitor with a pleasant laugh, which brought an answering smile to the other faces; "but you must not address me except as 'Agatha.' For here in the wilderness formalities seem ridiculous. Now let us have a cosy chat together." "Won't you come into the Lodge and meet Mrs. Conant?" "Not just yet. You may imagine how that climb winded me, although they say it is only half a mile. I've taken the Bigbee house, just below you, you know, and I arrived there last night to get a good rest after a rather strenuous social career at home. Ever since Easter I've been on the 'go' every minute and I'm really worn to a frazzle." She did not look it, thought Mary Louise. Indeed, she seemed the very picture of health. "Ah," said she, fixing her eyes on Irene's book, "you are very fortunate. The one thing I forgot to bring with me was a supply of books, and there is not a volume--not even a prayer-book--in the Bigbee house. I shall go mad in these solitudes if I cannot read." "You may use my library," promised Irene, sympathizing with Miss Lord's desire. "Uncle Peter brought a great box of books for me to read and you are welcome to share their delights with me, I believe there are fifty of them, at the least; but many were published ages ago and perhaps," with a glance at the dainty hands, "you won't care to handle secondhand books." "This ozonic air will fumigate them," said Agatha Lord carelessly. "We don't absorb bindings, Irene, but merely the thoughts of the authors. Books are the one banquet-table whereat we may feast without destroying the delicacy or flavor of the dishes presented. As long as the pages hold together and the type is legible a book is as good as when new." "I like pretty bindings, though," declared Irene, "for they dress pretty thoughts in fitting attire. An ill-looking book, whatever its contents, resembles the ugly girl whose only redeeming feature is her good heart. To be beautiful without and within must have been the desire of God in all things." Agatha gave her a quick look of comprehension. There was an unconsciously wistful tone in the girl's voice. Her face, though pallid, was lovely to view; her dress was dainty and arranged with care; she earnestly sought to be as beautiful "without and within" as was possible, yet the twisted limbs forbade her attaining the perfection she craved. They sat together for an hour in desultory conversation and Agatha Lord certainly interested the two younger girls very much. She was decidedly worldly in much of her gossip but quick to perceive when she infringed the susceptibilities of her less sophisticated companions and was able to turn the subject cleverly to more agreeable channels. "I've brought my automobile with me," she said, "and, unless you have a car of your own, we will take some rides through the valley together. I mean to drive to Millbank every day for mail." "There's a car here, which belongs to Mr. Morrison," replied Mary Louise, "but as none of us understands driving it we will gladly accept your invitations to ride. Do you drive your own car?" "Yes, indeed; that is the joy of motoring; and I care for my car, too, because the hired chauffeurs are so stupid. I didn't wish the bother of servants while taking my 'rest cure,' and so my maid and I are all alone at the Bigbee place." After a time they went into the house, where Miss Lord was presented to Aunt Hannah, who welcomed their neighbor with her accustomed cordiality. In the den Agatha pounced upon the books and quickly selected two which she begged permission to take home with her. "This is really a well selected collection," she remarked, eyeing the titles critically. "Where did Mr. Conant find it?" "At an auction of second-hand junk in New York," explained Irene. "Uncle Peter knows that I love the old-fashioned books best but I'm sure he didn't realize what a good collection this is." As she spoke, Irene was listlessly running through the leaves of two or three volumes she had not before examined, when in one of them her eye was caught by a yellowed sheet of correspondence paper, tucked among the pages at about midway between the covers. Without removing the sheet she leaned over to examine the fine characters written upon it and presently exclaimed in wondering tones: "Why, Mary Louise! Here is an old letter about your mother--yes, and here's something about your grandfather, too. How strange that it should be--" "Let me see it!" cried Mary Louise, eagerly stretching out her hands. But over her friend's shoulder Irene caught the expression of Agatha Lord--tense, startled, with a gleam of triumph in the dark eyes. It frightened her, that look on the face of one she had deemed a stranger, and it warned her. She closed the book with a little slam of decision and tucked it beside her in her chair. "No," she said positively, "no one shall see the letter until I've had time to read it myself." "But what was it about?" asked Mary Louise. "I don't know, yet; and you're not to ask questions until I DO know," retorted Irene, calmly returning Miss Lord's curious gaze while addressing Mary Louise. "These are my books, you must admit, and so whatever I find in them belongs to me." "Quite right, my dear," approved Agatha Lord, with her light, easy laugh. She knew that Irene had surprised her unguarded expression and wished to counteract the impression it had caused. Irene returned the laugh with one equally insincere, saying to her guest: "Help yourself to whatever books you like, neighbor. Carry them home, read them and return them at your convenience." "You are exceedingly kind," answered Agatha and resumed her examination of the titles. Mary Louise had not observed the tell-tale expression on Miss Lord's face but she was shrewd enough to detect an undercurrent of ice in the polite phrases passing between her companions. She was consumed with curiosity to know more of the letter which Irene had found in the book but did not again refer to it in the presence of their visitor. It was not long before Agatha rose to go, a couple of books tucked beneath her arm. "Will you ride with me to Millbank to-morrow?" she asked, glancing from one face to another. Mary Louise looked at Irene and Irene hesitated. "I am not very comfortable without my chair," she said. "You shall have the rear seat all to yourself, and it is big and broad and comfortable. Mary Louise will ride with me in front. I can easily drive the car up here and load you in at this very porch. Please come!" "Very well, since you are so kind," Irene decided, and after a few more kindly remarks the beautiful Miss Lord left them and walked with graceful, swinging stride down the path to the road and down the road toward the Bigbee house. CHAPTER XV BUB'S HOBBY When their visitor had departed Mary Louise turned to her friend. "Now, Irene, tell me about that queer letter," she begged. "Not yet, dear. I'm sure it isn't important, though it's curious to find such an old letter tucked away in a book Uncle Peter bought at an auction in New York--a letter that refers to your own people, in days long gone by. In fact, Mary Louise, it was written so long ago that it cannot possibly interest us except as proof of the saying that the world's a mighty small place. When I have nothing else to do I mean to read that old epistle from start to finish; then, if it contains anything you'd care to see, I'll let you have a look at it." With this promise Mary Louise was forced to be content, for she did not wish to annoy Irene by further pleadings. It really seemed, on reflection, that the letter could be of little consequence to anyone. So she put it out of mind, especially as just now they spied Bub sitting on the bench and whittling as industriously as ever. "Let me go to him first," suggested Irene, with a mischievous smile. "He doesn't seem at all afraid of me, for some reason, and after I've led him into conversation you can join us." So she wheeled her chair over to where the boy sat. He glanced toward her as she approached the bench but made no movement to flee. "We've had a visitor," said the girl, confidentially; "a lady who has taken the Bigbee house for the summer." Bub nodded, still whittling. "I know; I seen her drive her car up the grade on high," he remarked, feeling the edge of his knife-blade reflectively. "Seems like a real sport--fer a gal--don't she?" "She isn't a girl; she's a grown woman." "To me," said Bub, "ev'rything in skirts is gals. The older they gits, the more ornery, to my mind. Never seen a gal yit what's wuth havin' 'round." "Some day," said Irene with a smile, "you may change your mind about girls." "An' ag'in," said Bub, "I mayn't. Dad says he were soft in the head when he took up with marm, an' Talbot owned a wife once what tried ter pizen him; so he giv 'er the shake an' come here to live in peace; but Dad's so used to scoldin's thet he can't sleep sound in the open any more onless he lays down beside the brook where it's noisiest. Then it reminds him o' marm an' he feels like he's to home. Gals think they got the men scared, an' sometimes they guess right. Even Miss' Morrison makes Will toe the mark, an' Miss' Morrison ain't no slouch, fer a gal." This somewhat voluble screed was delivered slowly, interspersed with periods of aimless whittling, and when Irene had patiently heard it through she decided it wise to change the subject. "To-morrow we are going to ride in Miss Lord's automobile," she remarked. Bub grunted. "She says she can easily run it up to our door. Do you believe that!" "Why not?" he inquired. "Don't Will Morrison have a car? It's over there in the shed now." "Could it be used?" quietly asked Mary Louise, who had now strolled up behind the bench unperceived. Bub turned a scowling face to her, but she was looking out across the bluff. And she had broached a subject in which the boy was intensely interested. "Thet thar car in there is a reg'lar hummer," he asserted, waving the knife in one hand and the stick in the other by way of emphasis. "Tain't much fer looks, ye know, but looks cuts no figger with machinery, s'long's it's well greased. On a hill, thet car's a cat; on a level stretch, she's a jack-rabbit. I've seen Will Morrison take 'er ter Millbank an' back in a hour--jus' one lonesome hour!" "That must have been in its good days," observed Mary Louise. "The thing hasn't any tires on it now." "Will takes the tires off ev'ry year, when he goes away, an' puts 'em in the cellar," explained Bub. "They's seven good tires down cellar now; I counted 'em the day afore ye come here." "In that case," said Mary Louise, "if any of us knew how to drive we could use the car." "Drive?" said Bub scornfully. "That's nuth'n'." "Oh. Do you know how?" "Me? I kin drive any car thet's on wheels. Two years ago, afore Talbot come, I used ter drive Will Morrison over t' Millbank ev'ry week t' catch the train; an' brung the car home ag'in; an' went fer Will when he come back." "You must have been very young, two years ago," said Irene. "Shucks. I'm goin' on fifteen this very minnit. When I were 'leven I druv the Higgins car fer 'em an' never hit the ditch once. Young! Wha'd'ye think I am--a KID?" So indignant had he become that he suddenly rose and slouched away, nor could they persuade him to return. "We're going to have a lot of fun with that boy, once we learn how to handle him," predicted Irene, when the two girls had enjoyed a good laugh at Bub's expense. "He seems a queer mixture of simplicity and shrewdness." The next day Agatha Lord appeared in her big touring car and after lifting Irene in and making her quite comfortable on the back seat they rolled gayly away to Millbank, where they had lunch at the primitive restaurant, visited the post-office in the grocery store and amused themselves until the train came in and brought Peter Conant, who was loaded down with various parcels of merchandise Aunt Hannah had ordered. The lawyer was greatly pleased to find a car waiting to carry him to the Lodge and after being introduced to Miss Lord, whose loveliness he could not fail to admire, he rode back with her in the front seat and left Mary Louise to sit inside with Irene and the packages. Bill Coombs didn't approve of this method of ruining his stage business and scowled at the glittering auto as it sped away across the plain to the mountain. On this day Miss Lord proved an exceedingly agreeable companion to them all, even Irene forgetting for the time the strange expression she had surprised on Agatha's face at the time she found the letter. Mary Louise seemed to have quite forgotten that letter, for she did not again refer to it; but Irene, who had studied it closely in the seclusion of her own room that very night, had it rather persistently in mind and her eyes took on an added expression of grave and gentle commiseration whenever she looked at Mary Louise's unconscious face. "It is much more fun," observed Peter Conant at breakfast the nest morning, "to ride to and from the station in a motor car than to patronize Bill Coombs' rickety, slow-going omnibus. But I can't expect our fair neighbor to run a stage line for my express accommodation." "Will Morrison's motor car is here in the shed," said Mary Louise, and then she told of their conversation with Bub concerning it. "He says he has driven a car ever since he was eleven years old," she added. "I wondered what that boy was good for," asserted the lawyer, "yet the very last thing I would have accused him of is being a chauffeur." "Why don't you put on the tires and use the car?" asked Aunt Hannah. "H-m. Morrison didn't mention the car to me. I suppose he forgot it. But I'm sure he'd be glad to have us use it. I'll talk with the boy." Bub was found near the Talbot cottage in the gully. When Mr. Conant and Mary Louise approached him, soon after finishing their breakfast, he was--as usual--diligently whittling. "They tell me you understand running Mr. Morrison's car," began the lawyer. Bub raised his eyes a moment to the speaker's face but deemed an answer unnecessary. "Is that true?" with an impatient inflection. "Kin run any car," said Bub. "Very well. Show me where the tires are and we will put them on. I want you to drive me to and from Millbank, hereafter." Bub retained his seat and whittled. "Hev ye got a order from Will Morrison, in writin'?" he demanded. "No, but he will be glad to have me use the machine. He said everything at the Lodge was at my disposal." "Cars," said Bub, "ain't like other things. A feller'll lend his huntin'-dog, er his knife, er his overcoat; but he's all-fired shy o' lendin' his car. Ef I runned it for ye, Will might blame ME." Mr. Conant fixed his dull stare on the boy's face, but Bub went on whittling. However, in the boy's inmost heart was a keen desire to run that motor car, as had been proposed. So he casually remarked: "Ef ye forced me, ye know, I'd jus' hev to do it. Even Will couldn't blame me ef I were forced." Mr. Conant was so exasperated that the hint was enough. He seized the boy's collar, lifted him off the stump and kicked him repeatedly as he propelled his victim toward the house. "Oh, Uncle Peter!" cried Mary Louise, distressed; but Peter was obdurate and Bub never whimpered. He even managed to close his knife, between kicks, and slip it into his trousers pocket. When they came to the garage the lawyer halted, more winded than Bub, and demanded sharply: "What is needed to put the car in shape to run?" "Tires, gas'line, oil 'n' water." "The tires are in the cellar, you say? Get them out or I'll skin you alive." Bub nodded, grinning. "Forcin' of me, afore a witness, lets me out," he remarked, cheerfully, and straightway went for the tires. Irene wheeled herself out and joined Uncle Peter and Mary Louise in watching the boy attach the tires, which were on demountable rims and soon put in place. All were surprised at Bub's sudden exhibition of energy and his deft movements, for he worked with the assurance of a skilled mechanic. "Now, we need gasoline," said Mr. Conant. "I must order that from Millbank, I suppose." "Onless ye want to rob Will Morrison's tank," agreed Bub. "Oh; has he a tank of gasoline here?" Bub nodded. "A undergroun' steel tank. I dunno how much gas is in it, but ef ye forced me I'd hev to measure it." Peter picked up a stick and shook it threateningly, whereat Bub smiled and walked to the rear of the garage where an iron plug appeared just above the surface of the ground. This he unscrewed with a wrench, thrust in a rod and drew it out again. "'Bout forty gallon," he announced. "Thet's 'nough fer a starter, I guess." "Then put some of it into the machine. Is there any oil?" "Plenty oil." Half an hour later Bub started the engine and rolled the car slowly out of its shed to the graveled drive in the back yard. "All right, mister," he announced with satisfaction. "I dunno what Will'll say to this, but I kin prove I were forced. Want to take a ride now?" "No," replied Mr. Conant, "I merely wanted to get the car in shape. You are to take me to the station on Monday morning. Under the circumstances we will not use Morrison's car for pleasure rides, but only for convenience in getting from here to the trains and back. He surely cannot object to that." Bub seemed disappointed by this decision. He ran the car around the yard two or three times, testing its condition, and then returned it to its shed. Mr. Conant got his rod and reel and departed on a fishing excursion. CHAPTER XVI THE STOLEN BOOK Miss Lord came up to the Lodge that Saturday forenoon and proved so agreeable to Aunt Hannah and the girls that she was invited to stay to lunch. Mr. Conant was not present, for he had put a couple of sandwiches in his pocket and would not return home until dinner-time. After luncheon they were all seated together on the benches at the edge of the bluff, which had become their favorite resort because the view was so wonderful. Mary Louise was doing a bit of fancy work, Irene was reading and Aunt Hannah, as she mended stockings, conversed in a desultory way with her guest. "If you don't mind," said Agatha, after a time, "I'll run in and get me a book. This seems the place and the hour for dreaming, rather than gossip, and as we are all in a dreamy mood a good old-fashioned romance seems to me quite fitting for the occasion." Taking permission for granted, she rose and sauntered toward the house. There was a serious and questioning look in Irene's eyes as they followed the graceful form of Miss Lord, but Mary Louise and Aunt Hannah paid no heed to their visitor's going in to select a book, it seemed so natural a thing for her to do. It was fully fifteen minutes before Agatha returned, book in hand. Irene glanced at the title and gave a sigh of relief. Without comment their guest resumed her seat and soon appeared to be immersed in her volume. Gradually the sun crossed the mountain and cast a black shadow over the plain below, a shadow which lengthened and advanced inch by inch until it shrouded the landscape spread beneath them. "That is my sun-dial," remarked Mary Louise, dropping her needlework to watch the shifting scene. "When the shadow passes the Huddle, it's four o'clock; by the time it reaches that group of oaks, it is four-thirty; at five o'clock it touches the creek, and then I know it's time to help Aunt Hannah with the dinner." Agatha laughed. "Is it really so late?" she asked. "I see the shadow has nearly reached the brook." "Oh! I didn't mean--" "Of course not; but it's time I ran home, just the same. My maid Susan is a perfect tyrant and scolds me dreadfully if I'm late. May I take this book home, Irene? I'll return the others I have borrowed to-morrow." "To be sure," answered Irene. "I'm rich in books, you know." When Miss Lord went away the party broke up, for Aunt Hannah was already thinking of dinner and Mary Louise wanted to make one of Uncle Peter's favorite desserts. So Irene wheeled her chair into the house and entering the den began a sharp inspection of the place, having in mind exactly the way it had looked when last she left it. But presently she breathed a sigh of relief and went into her own room, for the den had not been disturbed. She wheeled herself to a small table in a corner of her chamber and one glance confirmed her suspicions. For half an hour she sat quietly thinking, considering many things that might prove very important in the near future. The chair-girl knew little of life save what she had gleaned from books, but in some ways that was quite equal to personal experiences. At dinner she asked: "Did you take a book from my room to-day, Mary Louise?" "No," was the reply; "I have not been in your room since yesterday." "Nor you, Aunt Hannah?" "No, my dear. What book is missing?" "It was entitled 'The Siberian Exile.'" "Good gracious!" exclaimed Mary Louise. "Wasn't that the book you found the letter in?" "Yes." "And you say it is missing?" "It has mysteriously disappeared." "Nonsense," said Uncle Peter, who had returned with a fine string of trout. "No one would care to steal an old book, and the thing hasn't legs, you know." "Nevertheless," said Irene gravely, "it is gone." "And the letter with it!" added Mary Louise regretfully. "You ought to have let me read it while I could, Irene." "What letter are you talking about?" asked the lawyer. "It is nothing important, Uncle Peter," Irene assured him. "The loss of the book does not worry me at all." Nor did it, for she knew the letter was not in it. And, to avoid further questioning on the part of Mr. Conant, she managed to turn the conversation to less dangerous subjects. CHAPTER XVII THE HIRED GIRL Mr. Conant had just put on a comfortable smoking-jacket and slippers and seated himself in the den, pipe in mouth, when the old-fashioned knocker on the front door of the Lodge began to bang. It banged three times, so Mr. Conant rose and made for the door. Mrs. Conant and Mary Louise were in the kitchen and Irene was in her own room. The lawyer reflected, with a deprecating glance at his unconventional costume, that their evening caller could be none other than their neighbor, the beautiful Miss Lord, so as he opened the door he regretted that his appearance was not more presentable. But it was not Miss Lord who stood upon the porch awaiting admittance. It was a strange girl, who asked in a meek voice: "Is this Hillcrest Lodge?" "It is," replied the lawyer. The girl came in without an invitation, bringing a carpet-bag in one hand and a bundle tied in a newspaper tucked under the other arm. As she stood in the lighted room she looked around inquiringly and said: "I am Sarah Judd. Where is Mrs. Morrison, please?" Mr. Conant stood and stared at her, his hands clasped behind his back in characteristic attitude. He could not remember ever having heard of Sarah Judd. "Mrs. Morrison," he said in his choppy voice, "is in Europe." The girl stared at him in return, as if stupified. Then she sat down in the nearest chair and continued to stare. Finding her determined on silence, Mr. Conant spoke again. "The Morrisons are spending the summer abroad. I and my family are occupying the Lodge in their absence. I--eh--eh--I am Mr. Conant, of Dorfield." The girl sighed drearily. She was quite small, about seventeen years of age and dressed in a faded gingham over which she wore a black cloth coat that was rusty and frayed. A black straw hat, fearfully decorated with red velvet and mussed artificial flowers, was tipped over her forehead. Her features were not bad, but her nose was blotched, her face strongly freckled and her red hair very untidy. Only the mild blue eyes redeemed the unattractive face--eyes very like those of Mary Louise in expression, mused Mr. Conant, as he critically eyed the girl. "I have come here to work," she said after a long pause, during which she seemed trying to collect her thoughts. "I am Sarah Judd. Mrs. Morrison said I must come here on Saturday, the tenth day of July, to go to work. This is the tenth day of July." "H-m--h-m; I see. When did Mrs. Morrison tell you that?" "It was last September." "Oh; so she hired you a year in advance and didn't tell you, afterward, that she was going abroad?" "I didn't see her since, sir." Mr. Conant was perplexed. He went into the kitchen and told Aunt Hannah about it and the good woman came at once to interview Sarah Judd, followed by Mary Louise, who had just finished wiping the dishes. "This seems very unfortunate for you," began Mrs. Conant, regarding the strange girl with mild interest. "I suppose, when Mrs. Morrison engaged you, she expected to pass the summer at the Lodge, and afterward she forgot to notify you." Sarah Judd considered this soberly; then nodded her head. "I've walked all the way from Millbank," she said with another sigh. "Then you've had nothing to eat!" exclaimed Mary Louise, with ready sympathy. "May I get her something, Aunt Hannah?" "Of course, my dear." Both Mr. and Mrs. Conant felt rather embarrassed. "I regret," said the latter, "that we do not need a maid at present. We do our own housework, you see." "I have left a good place in Albany to come here," said Sarah, plaintively. "You should have written to Mrs. Morrison," declared the lawyer, "asking if she still required your services. Many unforeseen things may happen during a period of ten months." "Mrs. Morrison, she have paid me a month in advance," asserted the girl, in justification. "And she paid me my expenses to come here, too. She said I must not fail her; I should come to the Lodge on the tenth of July and do the work at the Lodge. She did not say she would be here. She did not say you would be here. She told me to come and work, and she paid me a month in advance, so I could give the money to my sister, who needed it then. And I must do as Mrs. Morrison says. I am paid to work at the Lodge and so I must work at the Lodge. I cannot help that, can I?" The lawyer was a man of experience, but this queer complication astonished him. He exchanged a questioning glance with his wife. "In any event," said Mrs. Conant, "the girl must stay here to-night, for it would be cruel to ask her to find her way down the mountain in the dark. We will put her in the maid's room, Peter, and to-morrow we can decide what to do with her." "Very well," agreed Mr. Conant and retreated to the den to have his smoke. Mary Louise arranged some food on the kitchen table for Sarah Judd and after the girl had eaten, Mrs. Conant took her to the maid's room, which was a very pleasant and well furnished apartment quite in keeping with all the comfortable appointments at Hillcrest Lodge, although it was built behind the kitchen and formed a little wing of its own. Sarah Judd accepted these favors with meek resignation. Since her one long speech of explanation she had maintained silence. Leaving her in her room, the family congregated in the den, where Mr. Conant was telling Irene about the queer arrival and the unfortunate misunderstanding that had occasioned it. "The girl is not to blame," said Mary Louise. "She seems an honest little thing, resolved to do her duty. It is all Mrs. Morrison's fault." "Doesn't look like a very competent servant, either," observed Mr. Conant, comfortably puffing his pipe. "You can't tell that from appearances, Peter," replied Mrs. Conant. "She can at least wash dishes and sweep and do the drudgery. Why not keep her?" "Oh, my dear!" "Mrs. Morrison has paid her a month's wages, and Molly Morrison wouldn't have done that had not the girl been competent. It won't cost us anything to keep her--except her food--and it seems a shame to cast her adrift just because the Morrisons forgot to notify her they had changed their plans." "Also," added Mary Louise, "Sarah Judd will be useful to us. This is Aunt Hannah's vacation, as well as a vacation for the rest of us, and a rest from cooking and housework would do her a heap of good." "Looking at it from that viewpoint," said Peter, after puffing his pipe reflectively, "I approve of our keeping Sarah Judd. I believe it will please the Morrisons better than for us to send her away, and--it surely won't hurt Hannah to be a lady of leisure for a month or so." CHAPTER XVIII MARY LOUISE GROWS SUSPICIOUS And so Sarah Judd's fate was decided. She prepared their Sunday morning breakfast and cooked it quite skillfully. Her appearance was now more tidy and she displayed greater energy than on the previous evening, when doubtless she was weary from her long walk. Mrs. Conant was well pleased with the girl and found the relief from clearing the table and "doing" the dishes very grateful. Their Sunday dinner, which Sarah prepared unaided and served promptly at one o'clock, their usual hour, was a pleasant surprise to them all. "The girl is a treasure," commented Mrs. Conant, contentedly. Sarah Judd was not talkative. When told she might stay she merely nodded her red head, displaying neither surprise nor satisfaction. Her eyes had a habit of roving continually from face to face and from object to object, yet they seemed to observe nothing clearly, so stolid was, their expression. Mary Louise tried to remember where she had noted a similar expression before, but could not locate it. Miss Lord came over that afternoon and when told about the new maid and the manner of her appearance seemed a little startled and uneasy. "I must see what she looks like," said she, "for she may prove a congenial companion for my own maid, who is already sulking because the place is so lonely." And presently Sarah Judd came out upon the lawn to ask Mrs. Conant's further instructions and this gave Agatha the desired opportunity to examine her closely. The inspection must have been satisfactory, for an expression of distinct relief crossed the lovely face. That Sunday evening they all went down to the Bigbee place in Miss Lord's motor car, where the lady entertained her guests at a charming luncheon. The Bigbee place was more extensive than Hillcrest Lodge, as it consisted of a big, rambling residence and numerous outbuildings; but it was not nearly so cosy or homelike, nor so pleasantly situated. Miss Lord's maid, Susan, was somewhat a mystery to the Hillcrest people. She dressed almost as elaborately as her mistress and performed her duties grudgingly and with a scowl that seemed to resent Miss Lord's entertaining company. Stranger still, when they went home that night it was the maid who brought out the big touring car and drove them all back to Hillcrest Lodge in it, handling the machine as expertly as Agatha could do. Miss Lord pleaded a headache as an excuse for not driving them herself. Sarah Judd opened the door for them. As she stood under the full light of the hall lamp Mary Louise noticed that the maid Susan leaned from her seat in the car and fixed a shrewd glance on Sarah's unconscious face. Then she gave a little shake of her head and drove away. "There's something queer about the folks at Bigbee's," Mary Louise confided to Irene, as she went to her friend's room to assist her in preparing for bed. "Agatha Lord kept looking at that velvet ribbon around your neck, to-night, as if she couldn't keep her eyes off it, and this afternoon she seemed scared by the news of Sarah Judd's arrival and wasn't happy until she had seen her. Then, again, that queer maid of Agatha's, Susan, drove us home so she could see Sarah Judd for herself. How do you account for all that, Irene?" "I don't account for it, my dear. You've been mixed up with so many mysteries that you attach suspicion to the most commonplace events. What should there be about Sarah Judd to frighten anyone?" "She's a stranger here, that's all, and our neighbors seem suspicious of strangers. I'm not questioning poor, innocent Sarah, understand; but if Agatha and her maid are uneasy about strangers coming here it seems likely there's a reason for it." "You're getting morbid, Mary Louise. I think I must forbid you to read any more of my romances," said Irene lightly, but at heart she questioned the folks at Bigbee's as seriously as her friend did. "Don't you think Agatha Lord stole that missing book?" asked Mary Louise, after a little reflection. "Why should she?" Irene was disturbed by the question but was resolved not to show it. "To get the letter that was in it--the letter you would not let me read." "What are your affairs to Agatha Lord?" "I wish I knew," said Mary Louise, musingly. "Irene, I've an idea she came to Bigbee's just to be near us. There's something stealthy and underhanded about our neighbors, I'm positive. Miss Lord is a very delightful woman, on the surface, but--" Irene laughed softly, as if amused. "There can be no reason in the world, Mary Louise," she averred, "why your private affairs are of any interest to outsiders, except--" "Well, Irene?" "Except that you are connected, in a way, with your grandfather." "Exactly! That is my idea, Irene. Ever since that affair with O'Gorman, I've had a feeling that I was being spied upon." "But that would be useless. You never hear from Colonel Weatherby, except in the most roundabout ways." "They don't know that; they think I MIGHT hear, and there's no other way to find where he is. Do you think," she added, "that the Secret Service employs female detectives?" "Perhaps so. There must be occasions when a woman can discover more than a man." "Then I believe Miss Lord is working for the Secret Service--the enemies of Gran'pa Jim." "I can't believe it." "What is on that black ribbon around your neck?" "A miniature of my mother." "Oh. To-night it got above your dress--the ribbon, I mean--and Agatha kept looking at it." "A good detective wouldn't be caught doing such a clumsy thing, Mary Louise. And, even if detectives were placed here to watch your actions, they wouldn't be interested in spying upon ME, would they?" "I suppose not." "I've never even seen your grandfather and so I must be exempt from suspicion. I advise you, my dear, to forget these apprehensions, which must be purely imaginary. If a thousand spies surrounded you, they could do you no harm, nor even trap you into betraying your grandfather, whose present location is a complete mystery to you." Mary Louise could not help admitting this was true, so she kissed her friend good night and went to her own room. Left alone, Irene put her hand to the ribbon around her neck and drew from her bosom an old-fashioned oval gold locket, as big as any ordinary watch but thinner. She opened the front of the ease and kissed her mother's picture, as was her nightly custom. Then she opened the back and drew out a tightly folded wad of paper. This she carefully spread out before her, when it proved to be the old letter she had found in the book. Once again she read the letter carefully, poring over the words in deep thought. "This letter," she murmured, "might indeed be of use to the Government, but it is of far more value to Mary Louise and--to her grandfather. I ought not to lose it; nor ought I to allow anyone to read it, at present. Perhaps, if Agatha Lord has noticed the ribbon I wear, it will be best to find a new hiding place for the letter." She was in bed now, and lay looking around the room with speculative gaze. Beside her stood her wheeled chair, with its cushion of dark Spanish leather. The girl smiled and, reaching for her work-basket, which was on a stand at the head of the bed, she drew out a pair of scissors and cut some of the stitches of the leathern cushion. Then she tucked the letter carefully inside and with a needle and some black linen thread sewed up the place she had ripped open. She had just completed this task when she glanced up and saw a face at her window--indistinctly, for even as she raised her head it drew back and faded into the outer gloom. For a moment Irene sat motionless, looking at the window. Then she turned to the stand, where the lamp was, and extinguished the light. An hour, perhaps, she sat upright in bed, considering what she should do. Then again she reached out in the darkness and felt for her scissors. Securing them, she drew the chair cushion upon the bed and felt along its edge for the place she had sewn. She could not determine for some time which was the right edge but at last she found where the stitches seemed a little tighter drawn than elsewhere and this place she managed to rip open. To her joy she found the letter and drew it out with a sigh of relief. But now what to do with it was a question of vital importance. She dared not relight her lamp and she was helpless when out of her chair. So she put back the cushion, slid from the bed into the chair and wheeled herself in the dark to her dresser, which had a chenille cover. Underneath this cover she spread the letter, deeming that so simple a hiding-place was likely to be overlooked in a hasty search and feeling that the letter would be safe there for the night, at least. She now returned to her bed. There was no use trying to resew the cushion in the dark. She lay awake for a long time, feeling a certain thrill of delight in the belief that she was a conspirator despite her crippled condition and that she was conspiring for the benefit of her dear friend Mary Louise. Finally she sank into a deep slumber and did not waken till the sun was streaming in at the window and Mary Louise knocked upon her door to call her. "You're lazy this morning," laughed Mary Louise, entering. "Let me help you dress for breakfast." Irene thanked her. No one but this girl friend was ever permitted to assist her in dressing, as she felt proud of her ability to serve herself. Her toilet was almost complete when Mary Louise suddenly exclaimed: "Why, what has become of your chair cushion?" Irene looked toward the chair. The cushion was gone. "Never mind," she said, although her face wore a troubled expression. "I must have left it somewhere. Here; I'll put a pillow in its place until I find it." CHAPTER XIX AN ARTFUL CONFESSION This Monday morning Bub appeared at the Lodge and had the car ready before Mr. Conant had finished his breakfast. Mary Louise decided to drive to Millbank with them, just for the pleasure of the trip, and although the boy evidently regarded her presence with distinct disapproval he made no verbal objection. As Irene wheeled herself out upon the porch to see them start, Mary Louise called to her: "Here's your chair cushion, Irene, lying on the steps and quite wet with dew. I never supposed you could be so careless. And you'd better sew up that rip before it gets bigger," she added, handing the cushion to her friend. "I will," Irene quietly returned. Bub proved himself a good driver before they had gone a mile and it pleased Mr. Conant to observe that the boy made the trip down the treacherous mountain road with admirable caution. Once on the level, however, he "stepped on it," as he expressed it, and dashed past the Huddle and over the plain as if training for the Grand Prix. It amused Mary Louise to watch their quaint little driver, barefooted and in blue-jeans and hickory shirt, with the heavy Scotch golf cap pulled over his eyes, taking his task of handling the car as seriously as might any city chauffeur and executing it fully as well. During the trip the girl conversed with Mr. Conant. "Do you remember our referring to an old letter, the other day?" she asked. "Yes," said he. "Irene found it in one of those secondhand books you bought in New York, and she said it spoke of both my mother and my grandfather." "The deuce it did!" he exclaimed, evidently startled by the information. "It must have been quite an old letter," continued Mary Louise, musingly. "What did it say?" he demanded, rather eagerly for the unemotional lawyer. "I don't know. Irene wouldn't let me read it." "Wouldn't, eh? That's odd. Why didn't you tell me of this before I left the Lodge?" "I didn't think to tell you, until now. And, Uncle Peter, what, do you think of Miss Lord?" "A very charming lady. What did Irene do with the letter?" "I think she left it in the book; and--the book was stolen the very next day." "Great Caesar! Who knew about that letter?" "Miss Lord was present when Irene found the letter, and she heard Irene exclaim that it was all about my mother, as well as about my grandfather." "Miss Lord?" "Yes." "And the book was taken by someone?" "The next day. We missed it after--after Miss Lord had visited the den alone." "Huh!" He rode for awhile in silence. "Really," he muttered, as if to himself, "I ought to go back. I ought not to take for granted the fact that this old letter is unimportant. However, Irene has read it, and if it happened to be of value I'm sure the girl would have told me about it." "Yes, she certainly would have told you," agreed Mary Louise. "But she declared that even I would not be interested in reading it." "That's the only point that perplexes me," said the lawyer. "Just--that--one--point." "Why?" asked the girl. But Mr. Conant did not explain. He sat bolt upright on his seat, staring at the back of Bub's head, for the rest of the journey. Mary Louise noticed that his fingers constantly fumbled with the locket on his watch chain. As the lawyer left the car at the station he whispered to Mary Louise: "Tell Irene that I now know about the letter; and just say to her that I consider her a very cautious girl. Don't say anything more. And don't, for heaven's sake, suspect poor Miss Lord. I'll talk with Irene when I return on Friday." On their way back Bub maintained an absolute silence until after they had passed the Huddle. Before they started to climb the hill road, however, the boy suddenly slowed up, halted the car and turned deliberately in his seat to face Mary Louise. "Bein' as how you're a gal," said he, "I ain't got much use fer ye, an' that's a fact. I don't say it's your fault, nor that ye wouldn't 'a' made a pass'ble boy ef ye'd be'n borned thet way. But you're right on one thing, an' don't fergit I told ye so: thet woman at Bigbee's ain't on the square." "How do you know?" asked Mary Louise, delighted to be taken into Bub's confidence--being a girl. "The critter's too slick," he explained, raising one bare foot to the cushion beside him and picking a sliver out of his toe. "Her eyes ain't got their shutters raised. Eyes're like winders, but hers ye kain't see through. I don't know nuth'n' 'bout that slick gal at Bigbee's an' I don't want to know nuth'n'. But I heer'd what ye said to the boss, an' what he said to you, an' I guess you're right in sizin' the critter up, an' the boss is wrong." With this he swung round again and started the car, nor did he utter another word until he ran the machine into the garage. During Mary Louise's absence Irene had had a strange and startling experience with their beautiful neighbor. The girl had wheeled her chair out upon the bluff to sun herself and read, Mrs. Conant being busy in the house, when Agatha Lord strolled up to her with a smile and a pleasant "good morning." "I'm glad to find you alone," said she, seating herself beside the wheeled chair. "I saw Mr. Conant and Mary Louise pass the Bigbee place and decided this would be a good opportunity for you and me to have a nice, quiet talk together. So I came over." Irene's face was a bit disdainful as she remarked: "I found the cushion this morning." "What cushion do you refer to?" asked Agatha with a puzzled expression. Irene frowned. "We cannot talk frankly together when we are at cross purposes," she complained. "Very true, my dear; but you seem inclined to speak in riddles." "Do you deny any knowledge of my chair cushion!" "I do." "I must accept your statement, of course. What do you wish to say to me, Miss Lord?" "I would like to establish a more friendly understanding between us. You are an intelligent girl and cannot fail to realize that I have taken a warm interest in your friend Mary Louise Burrows. I want to know more about her, and about her people, who seem to have cast her off. You are able to give me this information, I am sure, and by doing so you may be instrumental in assisting your friend materially." It was an odd speech; odd and insincere. Irene studied the woman's face curiously. "Who are you, Miss Lord?" she inquired. "Your neighbor." "Why are you our neighbor?" "I am glad to be able to explain that--to you, in confidence. I am trying to clear the name of Colonel Weatherby from a grave charge--the charge of high treason." "In other words, you are trying to discover where he is," retorted Irene impatiently. "No, my dear; you mistake me. It is not important to my mission, at present, to know where Colonel Weatherby is staying. I am merely seeking relevant information, such information as you are in a position to give me." "I, Miss Lord?" "Yes. To be perfectly frank, I want to see the letter which you found in that book." "Why should you attach any importance to that?" "I was present, you will remember, when you discovered it. I marked your surprise and perplexity--your fear and uncertainty--as you glanced first at the writing and then at Mary Louise. You determined not to show your friend that letter because it would disturb her, yet you inadvertently admitted, in my hearing, that it referred to the girl's mother and--which is vastly more important--to her grandfather." "Well; what then, Miss Lord?" "Colonel Weatherby is a man of mystery. He has been hunted by Government agents for nearly ten years, during which time he has successfully eluded them. If you know anything of the Government service you know it has a thousand eyes, ten thousand ears and a myriad of long arms to seize its malefactors. It has not yet captured Colonel Weatherby." "Why has he been hunted all these years?" "He is charged, as I said, with high treason. By persistently evading capture he has tacitly admitted his guilt." "But he is innocent!" cried Irene indignantly. Miss Lord seemed surprised, yet not altogether ill-pleased, at the involuntary exclamation. "Indeed!" she said softly. "Could you prove that statement?" "I--I think so," stammered the girl, regretting her hasty avowal. "Then why not do so and by restoring Mary Louise to her grandfather make them both happy?" Irene sat silent, trapped. "This is why I have come to you," continued Agatha, very seriously. "I am employed by those whose identity I must not disclose to sift this mystery of Colonel Weatherby to the bottom, if possible, and then to fix the guilt where it belongs. By accident you have come into possession of certain facts that would be important in unravelling the tangle, but through your unfortunate affliction you are helpless to act in your own capacity. You need an ally with more strength and experience than yourself, and I propose you accept me as that ally. Together we may be able to clear the name of James J. Hathaway--who now calls himself Colonel James Weatherby--from all reproach and so restore him to the esteem of his fellow men." "But we must not do that, even if we could!" cried Irene, quite distressed by the suggestion. "Why not, my dear?" The tone was so soft and cat-like that it alarmed Irene instantly. Before answering she took time to reflect. To her dismay she found this woman was gradually drawing from her the very information she had declared she would preserve secret. She knew well that she was no match for Agatha Lord in a trial of wits. Her only recourse must be a stubborn refusal to explain anything more. "Colonel Weatherby," she said slowly, "has better information than I of the charge against him and his reasons for keeping hidden, yet he steadfastly refuses to proclaim his innocence or to prove he is unjustly accused, which he might very well do if he chose. You say you are working in his interests, and, allowing that, I am satisfied he would bitterly reproach anyone who succeeded in clearing his name by disclosing the truth." This argument positively amazed Agatha Lord, as it might well amaze anyone who had not read the letter. In spite of her supreme confidence of the moment before, the woman now suddenly realized that this promising interview was destined to end disastrously to her plans. "I am so obtuse that you will have to explain that statement," she said with assumed carelessness; but Irene was now on guard and replied: "Then our alliance is dissolved. I do not intend, Miss Lord, to betray such information as I may have stumbled upon unwittingly. You express interest in Mary Louise and her grandfather and say you are anxious to serve them. So am I. Therefore I beg you, in their interests, to abandon any further attempt to penetrate the secret." Agatha was disconcerted. "Show me the letter," she urged, as a last resort. "If, on reading it, I find your position is justifiable--you must admit it is now bewildering--I will agree to abandon the investigation altogether." "I will not show you the letter," declared the girl positively. The woman studied her face. "But you will consider this conversation confidential, will you not?" "Since you request it, yes." "I do not wish our very pleasant relations, as neighbors, disturbed. I would rather the Conants and Mary Louise did not suspect I am here on any especial mission." "Very well." "In truth," continued Agatha, "I am growing fond of yon all and this is a real vacation to me, after a period of hard work in the city which racked my nerves. Before long I must return to the old strenuous life, so I wish to make the most of my present opportunities." "I understand." No further reference was made to the letter or to Colonel Weatherby. They talked of other things for a while and when Miss Lord went away there seemed to exist--at least upon the surface--the same friendly relations that had formerly prevailed between them. Irene, reflecting upon the interview, decided that while she had admitted more than was wise she had stopped short of exposing the truth about Colonel Weatherby. The letter was safely hidden, now. She defied even Miss Lord to find it. If she could manage to control her tongue, hereafter, the secret was safe in her possession. Thoughtfully she wheeled herself back to the den and finding the room deserted she ventured to peep into her novel hiding-place. Yes; the precious letter was still safe. But this time, in her abstraction, she failed to see the face at the window. CHAPTER XX DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND Tuesday afternoon Miss Lord's big touring car stood at the door of Hillcrest Lodge, for Agatha had invited the Conant party to ride with her to Millbank. Irene was tucked into the back seat in a comfortable position and beside her sat Mrs. Conant, who was going to make a few purchases at the village store. Mary Louise rode on the front seat with Agatha, who loved to drive her car and understood it perfectly. When they drove away there was no one left in the house but Sarah Judd, the servant girl, who was washing the lunch dishes. Bub was in the shed-like garage, however, washing and polishing Will Morrison's old car, on which the paint was so cracked and faded that the boy's attempt to improve its appearance was a desperate one. Sarah, through the kitchen window, watched Bub for a time rather sharply. Then she went out on the bluff and looked down in the valley. Miss Lord's big car was just passing the Huddle on its way up the valley. Sarah turned and reentered the house. Her meek and diffident expression of countenance had quite disappeared. Her face now wore a look of stern determination and the blue eyes deepened and grew shrewd. She walked straight to the den and without hesitation approached the farther wall and took from its pegs Will Morrison's fine hunting rifle. In the stock was a hollow chamber for cartridges, for the rifle was of the type known as a "repeater." Sliding back the steel plate that hid this cavity, Sarah drew from it a folded paper of a yellow tint and calmly spread it on the table before her. Then she laid down the rifle, placed a chair at the table and with absorbed attention read the letter from beginning to end--the letter that Irene had found in the book. It was closely written on both sides the thin sheet--evidently of foreign make--and although the writing was faded it was still clearly legible. After the first perusal Sarah Judd leaned her elbows on the table and her head on her hands and proceeded to study the epistle still more closely. Then she drew from her pocket a notebook and pencil and with infinite care made a copy of the entire letter, writing it in her book in shorthand. This accomplished, she replaced the letter in the rifle stock and hung the weapon on its pegs again. Both the window and the glass door of the den faced the back yard. Sarah opened the door and stood there in deep thought, watching Bub at his work. Then she returned to the table and opening a drawer drew out a sheet of blank paper. On this she wrote the following words: "John Folger, 1601 F. Street, Washington, D. C. Nothing under sterling over letter bobbing every kernel sad mother making frolic better quick. If England rumples paper Russia admires money. Sarah Judd." Each word of this preposterous phrasing she wrote after consulting another book hidden cleverly among the coils of her red hair--a tiny book it--was, filled with curious characters. When the writing was finished the girl seemed well satisfied with her work. After tucking away the book in its former place she went to her room, got her purse and then proceeded to the shed and confronted Bub. "I want you to drive this car to Millbank, to the telegraph office at the railway station," said Sarah. Bub gave her a scornful look. "Ye're crazy," he said and went on with his polishing. "That needn't worry you," retorted the girl. "It don't," declared Bub. "You can drive and you're going to," she continued. "I've got to send this telegram quick, and you've got to take it." She opened her purse and placed two coins on the fender of the car. "There's a dollar to pay for the message, and there's a five-dollar gold-piece to pay you for your trouble." Bub gave a gasp. He came up beside her and stared at the money. Then he turned to look at Sarah Judd. "What's up?" he demanded. "Private business. Don't ask questions; you'd only get lies for answers. Go and earn your money." "Miss' Conant, she's gone to Millbank herself. Ef she sees me there, I'll git fired. The boss'll fire me himself, anyhow, fer usin' the car when he tol' me not to." "How much do you get a week!" asked Sarah. "Four bits." "That's about two dollars a month. In two months the Conants will move back to the city, and by then you'll have earned four dollars. Why, Bub, it's cheaper for you to take this five-dollar gold-piece and get fired, than to work for two months for four dollars." Bub scratched his head in perplexity. "Ye ain't count'n' on the fun o' workin'," he suggested. "I'm counting on that five dollars--eight bits to a dollar, forty bits altogether. Why, it's a fortune, Bub." He took out his knife, looked around for a stick to whittle and, finding none, put the knife in his pocket with a sigh. "I guess Will Morrison wouldn't like it," he decided. "Put up yer money, Sairy." Sarah withdrew the gold-piece and put a larger one in its place. "There," she said; "let's make it ten dollars, and save time." Bub's hesitation vanished, but he asked anxiously: "Tain't go'n' to do no harm to them gals thet's stoppin' here, is it?" "It is to do them a good turn that I'm sending this telegram." "Honor bright?" "Hope to die, Bub." "All right; I'm off." He folded the letter, placed it inside his Scotch cap and stowed the money carefully in his pocket. "Don't let any of the folks see you if yon can help it," warned Sarah; "and, whatever happens, don't say anything about that telegram to a living soul. Only--see that it's sent." "I'm wise," answered Bub and a moment later he started the car and rolled away down the road. Sarah Judd looked after him with a queer smile on her face. Then she went back to her kitchen and resumed her dish-washing. Presently a scarcely audible sound arrested her attention. It seemed to come from the interior of the Lodge. Sarah avoided making a particle of noise herself as she stole softly through the dining room and entered the main hallway. One glance showed her that the front door was ajar and the door of the den closed--exactly the reverse of what they should be. She crept forward and with a sudden movement threw open the door of the den. A woman stood in the center of the room. As the door opened she swung around and pointed a revolver at Sarah. Then for a moment they silently faced one another. "Ah," said the woman, with an accent of relief, "you're the servant. Go back to your work. Mrs. Conant told me to make myself at home here." "Yes, I know," replied Sarah sarcastically. "She said she was expecting you and told me it wouldn't do any harm to keep an eye on you while you're here. She said Miss Lord was going to get all the family away, so you could make a careful search of the house, you being Miss Lord's maid, Susan--otherwise known as Nan Shelley, from the Washington Bureau." Susan's hand shook so ridiculously that she lowered the revolver to prevent its dropping from her grasp. Her countenance expressed chagrin, surprise, anger. "I don't know you," she said harshly. "Who are you?" "New at the game," replied Sarah Judd, with a shrug. "You don't know me, Nan, but I know you; and I know your record, too. You're as slick as they make 'em, and the one who calls herself Agatha Lord is just an infantile amateur beside you. But go ahead, Nan; don't let me interrupt your work." The woman sank into a chair. "You can't be from the home office," she muttered, staring hard at the girl. "They wouldn't dare interfere with my work here." "No; I'm not from the home office." "I knew," said Susan, "as soon as I heard the story of your coming, that it was faked. I'd gamble that you never saw Mrs. Morrison in your life." "You'd win," said Sarah, also taking a chair. "Then who could have sent you here?" "Figure it out yourself," suggested Sarah. "I'm trying to. Do you know what we're after?" "A clew to Hathaway. Incidentally, any other information concerning him that comes your way. That includes the letter." "Oh. So you know about the letter, do you?" asked Susan. "To be sure. And I know that's what you're here for now. Don't let me interrupt you. It's a mighty hard job, finding that letter, and the folks'll be back by and by." "You're right," exclaimed the woman, rising abruptly. "Go back to your work in the kitchen." "This is my occupation, just now," retorted Sarah, lolling in her chair. "Go ahead with your search, Nan, and I'll tell you when you are 'hot' or 'cold.'" "You're an impudent little chit," said Nan tartly. "See here," with a sudden change of voice, "let's pool issues. If we can discover anything important in this place, there's reward enough for us all." "I am not opposing you," protested Sarah Judd, "I'm not a particle interested in whether you trace Hathaway or not. I don't believe you can do it, though, and that letter you're so eager for won't help you a bit. It was written ten years ago." "That makes it more important," declared the other, "We've two things to accomplish; one is to locate Hathaway, and the other to secure absolute proof of his guilt." "I thought he was caught doing the job." "So he was, in a way. But the Department needs more proof." Sarah Judd smiled unbelievingly. Then she chuckled. Presently she laughed outright, in genuine merriment, as the thought that amused her grew and expanded. "What fools--" she said, "what perfect fools--we mortals be!" All this annoyed Nan Shelley exceedingly. The successful woman detective did not relish being jeered at by a mere girl. "You've read the letter, I suppose, and are now making fun of me for trying to get it? Perhaps you've hidden it yourself--although that isn't likely. Why can't you give me an honest tip? We're both in the same line, it seems, and both trying to earn an honest living. How about that letter? Is it necessary for me to find it?" "I've read it," admitted Sarah, "and I know where it is. You might perhaps find it, if you hunted long enough, but it isn't worth your while. It wouldn't help in the least to convict Hathaway and of course it couldn't tell you where he is now hiding." "Is this straight?" "True as gospel." "Then why don't you prove it by showing me the letter?" "Because I don't belong on your side of the fence. You're working for one organization and I for another. Any little tip I let slip is just for your personal use. Don't bother about that letter." Susan--or Nan Shelley--sat for a time in thought. Once in a while she would cast a furtive glance around the room and its wall covered with trophies, and then she would turn to Sarah Judd's placid face. "Where did the boy go?" she asked abruptly. "What boy?" "Bub; in the automobile." "To Millbank." "What for?" "To send a telegram." "Your report?" "Yes." "Important?" "I think it'll bring things to a climax." "The Hathaway case?" "You can guess anything, Nan, if you guess long enough." Nan rose and put the revolver in her pocket. Then she held out her hand frankly to Sarah Judd. "If you've beaten me in this affair," she said, with no apparent resentment, "you're clever enough to become famous some day. I'm going to take your advice about the letter and if that climax you're predicting arrives on schedule time I'll not be sorry to quit this dreary, dragging case and pick up a more interesting one." The tone was friendly and frank. Sarah stretched out her hand to meet that of Nan and in a flash a handcuff snapped over her wrist. With a cry she drew back, but a dextrous twist of her opponent's free hand prisoned her other wrist and she at once realized that she was fairly caught. "Fine!" she cried admiringly, as she looked at her bonds, "What next, Nan?" But Nan was too busy to talk. She deftly searched the girl's pocket and found the notebook. The shorthand writing caught her eye at once but the characters were unknown to her. "Cipher, eh?" she muttered. "A little code of my own invention," said Sarah. "Sometimes I can't make it out myself." Nan restored the book and examined Sarah Judd's purse. "They keep you well supplied with funds, it seems." "Comes handy in emergencies," was the reply. "Now let's go to your room." Sarah, handcuffed, led the way. Nan Shelley made a wonderfully rapid search through every article in the maid's room. The lining of her clothes was inspected, her hair-brush tested for a sliding back, the pictures on the wall, the rug and the bed-clothing examined minutely. Yet all this consumed but a brief period of time and resulted in no important discovery. "Feel better?" asked Sarah cheerfully. "You know I do. I'm going to remove these handcuffs, now, and then I'm going home. Come and see me, some time when you feel lonesome. I've only that fool Agatha to talk to and I've an idea you and I might interest each other." As she spoke she unlocked the manacles and dropped them with a slight click into a concealed pocket of her dark skirt. "I imagine Agatha isn't REAL brilliant," returned Sarah; "but neither am I. When I'm your age, Nan, I hope to be half as clever. Just now you can twist me around your finger." Nan regarded her seriously. "I wish I knew what you are up to," she remarked suspiciously. "You can scarcely conceal your joy, my girl, and that proves I've overlooked something. You've puzzled me, youngster as you are, but you must remember that I'm working in the dark while some mysterious gleam of knowledge lights your way. Put us side by side, on the same track, and I wouldn't be afraid of you, Sarah Judd." "Don't apologize, Nan; it makes me feel ashamed." Nan's frown, as she looked into the blue eyes, turned to a smile of appreciation. Sarah also smiled, and then she said: "Let me make you a cup of tea before you go." "A good idea. We're friends, then?" "Why not? One friend is worth a thousand enemies and it's absurd to quarrel with one for doing her duty." "That's what O'Gorman is always saying. Ever hear of O'Gorman?" "Yes; he's one of the old stand-bys in the secret service department; but they say he's getting old. Slipped a good many cogs lately, I hear." "He's the Chief's right hand man. O'Gorman used to have this case--the branch of it I'm now working--but he gave it up and recommended the Chief to put me on the job. Said a woman could trail Mary Louise better than any man and with less chance of discovery; and he was right, for I've lived half a block from her in Dorfield and she never saw my face once. But O'Gorman didn't suspect you were coming into the case and the thing's getting altogether too complicated to suit me." Sarah was brewing the tea and considered an answer unnecessary. The conversation drifted away from the Hathaway case and into less personal channels. When Nan Shelley finally rose to go there was sincere friendliness in Sarah's "good-bye" and the elder woman said in parting: "You're the right sort, Sarah. If ever you drift into Washington and need work, come to me and I'll get the Chief to take you on. I know he'd be glad to get you." "Thank you, Nan," said Sarah meekly. But there was a smile on her freckled face as she watched her recent acquaintance walk down the road, and it lingered there while she returned to her kitchen and finally washed and put away the long neglected lunch dishes. Bub dashed into the yard and tooted his horn. Sarah went out to him. "Ye kin call me lucky, ef ye don't mind," he said with a grin. "Sent yer tel'gram, found out the tenner ye guv me were good, an' got back without the folks gett'n' a single blink at me." "You're some driver, Bub, and you've got a wise head on your shoulders. If you don't talk about this trip, and I don't, no one will ever know, except we two, that the car has been out of the garage." CHAPTER XXI BAD NEWS Peter Conant had told his wife that he wouldn't be at the Lodge this week until Saturday, as business would prevent his coming earlier, yet the Thursday afternoon train brought him to Millbank and Bill Coombs' stage took him to Hillcrest. "Why, Peter!" exclaimed Aunt Hannah, when she saw him, "what on earth brought you--" Then she stopped short, for Peter's eyes were staring more roundly than usual and the hand that fumbled at his locket trembled visibly. He stared at Aunt Hannah, he stared at Irene; but most of all he stared at Mary Louise, who seemed to sense from his manner some impending misfortune. "H-m," said the lawyer, growing red and then paling; "I've bad news." He chopped the words off abruptly, as if he resented the necessity of uttering them. His eyes, which had been fixed upon the face of Mary Louise, suddenly wavered and sought the floor. His manner said more than his words. Mary Louise grew white and pressed her hands to her heart, regarding the lawyer with eyes questioning and full of fear. Irene turned a sympathetic gaze upon her friend and Aunt Hannah came closer to the girl and slipped an arm around her waist, as if to help her to endure this unknown trial. And Mary Louise, feeling she could not bear the suspense, asked falteringly: "Has--Gran'pa Jim--been--" "No," said Mr. Conant. "No, my dear, no." "Then--has anything happened to--to--mother?" "Well, well," muttered the lawyer, with a sort or growl, "Mrs. Burrows has not been in good health for some months, it seems. She--eh--was under a--eh--under a nervous strain; a severe nervous strain, you know, and--" "Is she dead?" asked the girl in a low, hard voice. "The end, it seems, came unexpectedly, several days ago. She did not suffer, your grandfather writes, but--" Again he left his sentence unfinished, for Mary Louise had buried her face in Aunt Hannah's bosom and was sobbing in a miserable, heart-breaking way that made Peter jerk a handkerchief from, his pocket and blow his nose lustily. Then he turned and marched from the room, while his wife led the hapless girl to a sofa and cuddled her in her lap as if she had been a little child. "She's best with the women," muttered Peter to himself. "It's a sorrowful thing--a dreadful thing, in a way--but it can't be helped and--she's best with the women." He had wandered into the dining room, where Sarah Judd was laying the table for dinner. She must have overheard the conversation in the living room, for she came beside the lawyer and asked: "When did Mrs. Burrows die?" "On Monday." "Where?" "That's none of your business, my girl." "Has the funeral been held?" He regarded her curiously. The idea of a servant asking such questions! But there was a look in Sarah's blue eyes that meant more than curiosity; somehow, it drew from him an answer. "Mrs. Burrows was cremated on Wednesday. It seems she preferred it to burial." Having said this, he turned to stare from the window again. Sarah Judd stood silent a moment. Then she said with a sigh of relief: "It's a queer world, isn't it, Mr. Conant? And this death isn't altogether a calamity." "Eh? Why not?" whirling round to face her. "Because," said Sarah, "it will enable Mr. Hathaway to face the world again--a free man." Peter Conant was so startled that he stood motionless, forgetting his locket but not forgetting to stare. Sarah, with her hands full of forks and spoons, began placing the silver in orderly array upon the table. She paid no heed to the lawyer, who gradually recovered his poise and watched her with newly awakened interest. Once or twice he opened his mouth to speak, and then decided not to. He was bewildered, perplexed, suspicious. In thought he began to review the manner of Sarah's coming to them, and her subsequent actions. She seemed a capable servant. Mrs. Conant had never complained of her. Yet--what did she know of Hathaway? Mary Louise did not appear at dinner. She begged to be left alone in her room. Sarah took her some toast and tea, with honest sympathy in her eyes, but the sorrowing girl shook her head and would not taste the food. Later, however, in the evening, she entered the living room where the others sat in depressed silence and said: "Please, Mr. Conant, tell me all you know about--mother." "It is very little, my dear" replied the lawyer in a kindly tone. "This morning I received a message from your grandfather which said: 'Poor Beatrice passed away on Monday and at her request her body was cremated to-day. Be very gentle in breaking the sad news to Mary Louise.' That was all, my child, and I came here as quickly as I could. In a day or so we shall have further details, I feel sure. I am going back to town in the morning and will send you any information I receive." "Thank you," said the girl, and was quietly leaving the room when Irene called to her. "Mary Louise!" "Yes?" half turning. "Will you come with me to my room?" "Now?" "Yes. You know I cannot go up the stairs. And--I lost my own dear mother not long ago, you will remember." Tears started to the girl's eyes, but she waited until Irene wheeled her chair beside her and then the two went through the den to Irene's room. Mrs. Conant nodded to Peter approvingly. "Irene will comfort her," she said, "and in a way far better than I might do. It is all very dreadful and very sad, Peter, but the poor child has never enjoyed much of her mother's society and when the first bitter grief is passed I think she will recover something of her usual cheerfulness." "H-m," returned the lawyer; "it seems a hard thing to say, Hannah, but this demise may prove a blessing in disguise and be best for the child's future happiness. In any event, I'm sure it will relieve the strain many of us have been under for the past ten years." "You talk in riddles, Peter." "The whole thing is a riddle, Hannah. And, by the way, have you noticed anything suspicious about our hired girl?" "About Sarah? No," regarding him with surprise. "Does she--eh--snoop around much?" "No; she's a very good girl." "Too good to be true, perhaps," observed Peter, and lapsed into thought. Really, it wouldn't matter now how much Sarah Judd--or anyone else--knew of the Hathaway case. The mystery would solve itself, presently. CHAPTER XXII THE FOLKS AT BIGBEE'S Mr. Conant decided to take the Friday morning train back to Dorfield, saying it would not be possible for him to remain at the Lodge over Sunday, because important business might require his presence in town. "This demise of Mrs. Burrows," he said confidentially to his wife in the privacy of their room, "may have far-reaching results and turn the whole current of Colonel Weatherby's life." "I don't see why," said Aunt Hannah. "You're not expected to see why," he replied. "As the Colonel is my most important client, I must be at the office in case of developments or a sudden demand for my services. I will tell you one thing, however, and that is that this vacation at Hillcrest Lodge was planned by the Colonel while I was in New York, with the idea that he and Mrs. Burrows would come here secretly and enjoy a nice visit with Mary Louise." "You planned all that, Peter!" "Yes. That is, Weatherby planned it. He knows Will Morrison well, and Will was only too glad to assist him; so they wired me to come to New York, where all was quickly arranged. This place is so retired that we considered it quite safe for the fugitives to come here." "Why didn't they come, then?" "Two reasons prevented them. One was the sudden breaking of Mrs. Burrows' health; the other reason was the Colonel's discovery that in some way our carefully laid plans had become known to the detectives who are seeking him." "Good gracious! Are you sure of that, Peter!" "The Colonel seemed sure. He maintains a detective force on his own account and his spies discovered that Hillcrest is being watched by agents of the Secret Service." "Dear me; what a maze of deceit!" wailed the good woman. "I wish you were well out of the whole affair, Peter; and I wish Mary Louise was out of it, too." "So do I, with all my heart. But it's coming to a focus soon, Hannah. Be patient and it may end better than we now fear." So Bub drove Mr. Conant to Millbank and then the boy took the car to the blacksmith shop to have a small part repaired. The blacksmith made a bungle of it and wasted all the forenoon before he finally took Bub's advice about shaping it and the new rod was attached and found to work successfully. It was after one o'clock when the boy at last started for home and on the way was hailed by a stranger--a little man who was trudging along the road with both hands thrust in his pockets. "Going far?" he asked. "Up th' mount'n to Hillcrest," said Bub. "Oh. May I have a lift?" "How fer?" "Well, I can't say how far I'll go. I'm undecided. Just came out here for a little fresh air, you know, with no definite plans," explained the stranger. "Hop in," said Bub and for a time they rode together in silence. "This 'ere's the Huddle, as we're comin' to," announced the boy. "Ol' Miss' Parsons she sometimes takes boarders." "That's kind of her," remarked the stranger. "But the air isn't so good as further up the hill." "Ef ye go up," said Bub with a grin, "guess ye'll hev to camp out an' eat scrub. Nobody don't take boarders, up th' mount'n." "I suppose not." He made no demand to be let out at the Huddle, so Bub drove on. "By the way," said the little man, "isn't there a place called Bigbee's, near here?" "Comin' to it pretty soon. They's some gals livin' there now, so ye won't care to stop." "What sort of girls are they?" "Sort o' queer." "Yes?" "Ye bet ye. Come from the city a while ago an' livin' by theyselves. Someth'n' wrong 'bout them gals," added Bub reflectively. "In what way?" asked the little man in a tone of interest. "They ain't here fer nuth'n' special 'cept watchin' the folks at Hillcrest. Them's the folks I belongs to. For four bits a week. They's someth'n' queer 'bout them, too; but I guess all the folks is queer thet comes here from the city." "Quite likely," agreed the little man, nodding. "Let me out at Bigbee's, please, and I'll look over those women and form my own opinion of them. They may perhaps be friends of mine." "In thet case," asserted Bub, "I pity ye, stranger. F'r my part, I ain't got no use fer anything thet wears skirts--'cept one er two, mebbe," he added reflectively. "Most men I kin git 'long with fust-rate; but ef a man ever gits in trouble, er begins cussin' an' acts ugly, it's 'cause some gal's rubbed him crossways the grain er stuck a knife in him an' twisted the blade--so's ter speak." "You're an observant lad, I see." "When I'm awake I kain't help seein' things." "And you're a pastoral philosopher." Bub scowled and gave him a surly glance. "What's the use firin' thet high-brow stuff at me?" he asked indignantly. "I s'pose ye think I'm a kid, jes' 'cause I don't do no fancy talkin'." "I suspect you of nothing but generosity in giving me this ride," said the stranger pleasantly. "Is that Bigbee's, over yonder?" "Yes." The little man got out at the point where the Bigbee drive met the road, and walked up the drive toward the house. Agatha Lord was standing at the gateway, as he approached it, and seemed rather startled at his appearance. But she quickly controlled her surprise and asked in a calm voice, as she faced him: "What's up, O'Gorman?" "Hathaway's coming here," he said. "Are you sure?" "He's in Dorfield to-day, waiting to see Lawyer Conant, who went in on the morning train. Where's Nan?" "Here, my lord!" said Nan Shelley, stepping from behind a tall shrub. "How are you, partner? I recognized you as you passed the Huddle with the boy." "Field glasses, eh? There isn't much escapes you, Nan." "Why didn't you tell me?" asked Agatha reproachfully. "Why don't you make your own discoveries?" retorted her confederate. Then, turning to O'Gorman, she continued: "So Hathaway's coming, is he? At last." "A little late, but according to program. How have you been getting along?" "Bored to death," asserted Nan. "Agatha has played the lady and I've done the dirty work. But tell me, why didn't you nab Hathaway at Dorfield?" O'Gorman smiled a little grimly as he answered: "I'm not sure, Nan, that we shall nab Hathaway at all." "Isn't he being shadowed?" with some surprise. "No. But he'll come here, right enough; and then--" "And then," she added, as he paused, "the chase of years will come to an end." "Exactly. We may decide to take him to Washington, and we may not." She gazed at him inquiringly. "There are some new developments, then, O'Gorman?" "I'm inclined to suspect there are." "Known to the department?" "Yes. I'm to investigate and use my judgment." "I see. Then Agatha and I are out of it?" "Not yet; I'm still depending on your shrewdness to assist me. The office has only had a hint, so far, of the prospective break in the case, but--" "Oh, yes; I remember now," exclaimed Nan. "That girl up at Conant's sent a telegram, in a desperate hurry. I suspected it meant something important. Who is she, O'Gorman, and why did the Chief cut under us by planting Sarah Judd in the Conants' household?" "He didn't. The girl has nothing to do with the Department." "Then some of you intercepted the telegram?" "We know what it said," he admitted. "Come, let's go to the house. I've had no lunch. Can you feed me?" "Certainly." They turned and walked slowly up the path. Said Nan, musingly: "That Sarah Judd is rather clever, O'Gorman. Is she in Hathaway's pay?" "I think not," he replied, with an amused chuckle. Nan tossed her head indignantly. "Very well; play me for a ninny, if you like," she said resentfully. "You'll get a heap more out of me, in that way!" "Now, now," said Agatha warningly, "keep your tempers and don't quarrel. You two are like cats and dogs when you get together; yet you're the two cleverest people in the service. According to your story, Mr. O'Gorman, there's an important crisis approaching, and we'd all like to be able to render a good account of ourselves." Agatha Lord may have lacked something of Nan's experience, but this speech proved her a fair diplomat. It dispersed the gathering storm and during the rest of that afternoon the three counseled together in perfect harmony, O'Gorman confiding to his associates such information as would enable them to act with him intelligently. Hathaway and Peter Conant could not arrive till the next day at noon; they might even come by the afternoon train. Nan's field glasses would warn them of the arrival and meanwhile there was ample time to consider how they should act. CHAPTER XXIII A KISS FROM JOSIE That evening, as Sarah Judd was sitting in her room reading a book, her work for the day being over, she heard a succession of little taps against her window-pane. She sat still, listening, until the taps were repeated, when she walked straight to the window, drew the shade and threw tip the sash. O'Gorman's face appeared in the opening and the girl put a hand on each of his cheeks and leaning over kissed him full upon his lips. The man's face, lighted by the lamp from within the room, was radiant. Even the fat nose was beatified by the love that shone in his small gray eyes. He took one of her hands in both of his own and held it close a moment, while they regarded one another silently. Then he gave a little beckoning signal and the girl turned to slip on a light coat, for the nights were chill on the mountain. Afterward she unfastened her outside door and joined the detective, who passed an arm around her and led her to one of the benches on the bluff. The new moon was dim, but a sprinkling of stars lit the sky. The man and girl were far enough from the Lodge not to be overheard. "It's good to see you again, Josie," said O'Gorman, as they seated themselves on the bench. "How do you like being a sleuth?" "Really, Daddy," she replied, "it has been no end of a lark. I'm dead sick of washing other folks' dishes, I confess, but the fun I've had has more than made up for the hard work. Do you know, Dad, I had a session with Nan Shelley one day, and she didn't have much the best of it, either, although she's quick as a cat and had me backed off the map in every way except for the matter of wits. My thoughts didn't crumble much and Nan was good enough to congratulate me. She knew, as soon as I did, about the letter the crippled girl found in a book, but I managed to make a copy of it, while Nan is still wondering where it is hid. I'm patting myself on the back, Dad, because you trained me and I want to prove myself a credit to your training. It's no wonder, with such a master, that I could hold my own with Nan Shelley!" He gave a little amused laugh. "You're all right, Josie dear," he replied. "My training wouldn't have amounted to shucks if you hadn't possessed the proper gray matter to work with. But about that letter," more seriously; "your telegram told me a lot, because our code is so concise, but it also left a good deal to be guessed at. Who wrote the letter? I must know all the details in order to understand it properly." "It's all down in my private shorthand book," said Josie O'Gorman, "but I've never dared make a clear copy while Nan was so near me. You can't read it, Dad, and I can't read it to you in the dark; so you'll have to wait." "Have you your notebook here?" "Always carry it." He drew an electric storage-lamp from his pocket and shielded the tiny circle of light with his coat. "Now, then," said he, "read the letter to me, Josie. It's impossible for anyone to see the light from the house." The girl held her notebook behind the flap of his coat, where the lamp shed its white rays upon it, and slowly read the text of the letter. O'Gorman sat silent for some time after she had finished reading. "In all my speculations concerning the Hathaway case," he said to his daughter, "I never guessed this as the true solution of the man's extraordinary actions. But now, realizing that Hathaway is a gentleman to the core, I understand he could not have acted in any other way." "Mrs. Burrows is dead," remarked Josie. "I know. It's a pity she didn't die long ago." "This thing killed her, Dad." "I'm sure of it. She was a weak, though kind-hearted, woman and this trouble wore her out with fear and anxiety. How did the girl--Mary Louise--take her mother's death?" "Rather hard, at first. She's quieter now. But--see here, Dad--are you still working for the Department?" "Of course." "Then I'm sorry I've told you so much. I'm on the other side. I'm here to protect Mary Louise Burrows and her interests." "To be sure. I sent you here myself, at my own expense, both to test your training before I let you into the regular game and for the sake of the little Burrows girl, whom I fell in love with when she was so friendless. I believed things would reach a climax in the Hathaway case, in this very spot, but I couldn't foresee that your cleverness would ferret out that letter, which the girl Irene intended to keep silent about, nor did I know that the Chief would send me here in person to supervise Hathaway's capture. Mighty queer things happen in this profession of ours, and circumstances lead the best of us by the nose." "Do you intend to arrest Mr. Hathaway?" "After hearing that letter read and in view of the fact that Mrs. Burrows is dead, I think not. The letter, if authentic, clears up the mystery to our complete satisfaction. But I must get the story from Hathaway's own lips, and then compare his statement with that in the letter. If they agree, we won't prosecute the man at all, and the famous case that has caused us so much trouble for years will be filed in the office pigeonholes and pass into ancient history." Josie O'Gorman sat silent for a long time. Then she asked: "Do you think Mr. Hathaway will come here, now that--now that--" "I'm quite sure he will come." "When?" "To-morrow." "Then I must warn them and try to head him off. I'm on his side, Dad; don't forget that." "I won't; and because you're on his side, Josie, you must let him come and be vindicated, and so clear up this matter for good and all." "Poor Mary Louise! I was thinking of her, not of her grandfather. Have you considered how a knowledge of the truth will affect her?" "Yes. She will be the chief sufferer when her grandfather's innocence is finally proved." "It will break her heart," said Josie, with a sigh. "Perhaps not. She's mighty fond of her grandfather. She'll be glad to have him freed from suspicion and she'll be sorry--about the other thing." Sarah Judd--otherwise Josie O'Gorman--sighed again; but presently she gave a little chuckle of glee. "Won't Nan be wild, though, when she finds I've beaten her and won the case for Hathaway?" "Nan won't mind. She's an old hand at the game and has learned to take things as they come. She'll be at work upon some other case within a week and will have forgotten that this one ever bothered her." "Who is Agatha Lord, and why did they send her here as principal, with Nan as her maid?" "Agatha is an educated woman who has moved in good society. The Chief thought she would be more likely to gain the friendship of the Conants than Nan, for poor Nan hasn't much breeding to boast of. But she was really the principal, for all that, and Agatha was instructed to report to her and to take her orders." "They were both suspicious of me," said the girl, "but as neither of them had ever set eyes on me before I was able to puzzle them. On the other hand, I knew who Nan was because I'd seen her with you, which gave me an advantage. Now, tell me, how's mother?" "Pretty chirky, but anxious about you because this is your first case and she feared your judgment wasn't sufficiently matured. I told her you'd pull through all right." For an hour they sat talking together. Then Officer O'Gorman kissed his daughter good night and walked back to the Bigbee house. CHAPTER XXIV FACING THE TRUTH Irene was a great comfort to Mary Louise in this hour of trial. The chair-girl, beneath her gayety of demeanor and lightness of speech, was deeply religious. Her absolute faith sounded so cheering that death was robbed of much of its horror and her bereaved friend found solace. Mary Louise was able to talk freely of "Mamma Bee" to Irene, while with Aunt Hannah she rather avoided reference to her mother. "I've always longed to be more with Mamma Bee and to learn to know her better," she said to her friend; "for, though she was very loving and gentle to me while I was with her, she spent most of her life caring for Gran'pa Jim, and they were away from me so much that I really didn't get to know Mamma very well. I think she worried a good deal over Gran'pa's troubles. She couldn't help that, of course, but I always hoped that some day the troubles would be over and we could all live happily together. And now--that can never be!" Irene, knowing more of the Hathaway family history than Mary Louise did, through the letter she had found and read, was often perplexed how to console her friend and still regard honesty and truth. Any deception, even when practiced through the best of motives, was abhorrent to her nature, so she avoided speaking of the present affliction and led Mary Louise to look to a future life for the motherly companionship she had missed on earth. "That," said she, "is the thought that has always given me the most comfort. We are both orphans, dear, and I'm sure your nature is as brave as my own and that you can bear equally well the loss of your parents." And Mary Louise was really brave and tried hard to bear her grief with patient resignation. One thing she presently decided in her mind, although she did not mention it to Irene. She must find Gran'pa Jim and go to him, wherever he might be. Gran'pa Jim and her mother had been inseparable companions; Mary Louise knew that her own present sorrow could be nothing when compared with that of her grandfather. And so it was her duty to find him and comfort him, to devote her whole life, as her mother had done, to caring for his wants and cheering his loneliness--so far, indeed, as she was able to do. Of course, no one could quite take the place of Mamma Bee. She was thinking in this vein as she sat in the den with Irene that Saturday afternoon. The chair-girl, who sewed beautifully, was fixing over one of Mary Louise's black dresses while Mary Louise sat opposite, listlessly watching her. The door into the hall was closed, but the glass door to the rear porch was wide open to let in the sun and air. And this simple scene was the setting for the drama about to be enacted. Mary Louise had her back half turned to the hall door, which Irene partially faced, and so it was that when the door opened softly and the chair-girl raised her head to gaze with startled surprise at someone who stood in the doorway, Mary Louise first curiously eyed her friend's expressive face and then, rather languidly, turned her head to glance over her shoulder. The next moment she sprang to her feet and rushed forward. "Gran'pa Jim--Oh, Gran'pa Jim!" she cried, and threw herself into the arms of a tall man who folded her to his breast in a close embrace. For a while they stood there silent, while Irene dropped her eyes to her lap, deeming the reunion too sacred to be observed by another. And then a little stir at the open porch door attracted her attention and with a shock of repulsion she saw Agatha Lord standing there with a cynical smile on her lovely face. Softly the sash of the window was raised, and the maid Susan stood on the ground outside, leaned her elbows on the sill and quietly regarded the scene within the den. The opening of the window arrested Colonel Weatherby's attention. He lifted his head and with a quick glance took in the situation. Then, still holding his granddaughter in his arms, he advanced to the center of the room and said sternly, addressing Agatha: "Is this a deliberate intrusion, because I am here, or is it pure insolence?" "Forgive us if we intrude, Mr. Hathaway," replied Agatha. "It was not our desire to interrupt your meeting with your granddaughter, but--it has been so difficult, in the past, to secure an interview with you, sir, that we dared not risk missing you at this time." He regarded her with an expression of astonishment. "That's it, exactly, Mr. Weatherby-Hathaway," remarked Susan mockingly, from her window. "Don't pay any attention to them, Gran'pa Jim," begged Mary Louise, clinging to him. "They're just two dreadful women who live down below here, and--and--" "I realize who they are," said the old gentleman in a calm voice, and addressing Agatha again he continued: "Since you are determined to interview me, pray step inside and be seated." Agatha shook her head with a smile; Nan Shelley laughed outright and retorted: "Not yet, Hathaway. We can't afford to take chances with one who has dodged the whole Department for ten years." "Then you are Government agents?" he asked. "That's it, sir." He turned his head toward the door by which he had entered, for there was an altercation going on in the hallway and Mr. Conant's voice could be heard angrily protesting. A moment later the lawyer came in, followed by the little man with the fat nose, who bowed to Colonel Weatherby very respectfully yet remained planted in the doorway. "This is--er--er--very unfortunate, sir; ve-ry un-for-tu-nate!" exclaimed Peter Conant, chopping off each word with a sort of snarl. "These con-found-ed secret service people have trailed us here." "It doesn't matter, Mr. Conant," replied the Colonel, in a voice composed but very weary. He seated himself in a chair, as he spoke, and Mary Louise sat on the arm of it, still embracing him. "No," said O'Gorman, "it really doesn't matter, sir. In fact, I'm sure you will feel relieved to have this affair off your mind and be spared all further annoyance concerning it." The old gentleman looked at him steadily but made no answer. It was Peter Conant who faced the speaker and demanded: "What do you mean by that statement?" "Mr. Hathaway knows what I mean. He can, in a few words, explain why he has for years borne the accusation of a crime of which he is innocent." Peter Conant was so astounded he could do nothing but stare at the detective. Staring was the very best thing that Peter did and he never stared harder in his life. The tears had been coursing down Mary Louise's cheeks, but now a glad look crossed her face. "Do you hear that, Gran'pa Jim?" she cried. "Of course you are innocent! I've always known that; but now even your enemies do." Mr. Hathaway looked long into the girl's eyes, which met his own hopefully, almost joyfully. Then he turned to O'Gorman. "I cannot prove my innocence," he said. "Do you mean that you WILL not?" "I will go with you and stand my trial. I will accept whatever punishment the law decrees." O'Gorman nodded his head. "I know exactly how you feel about it, Mr. Hathaway," he said, "and I sympathize with you most earnestly. Will you allow me to sit down awhile? Thank you." He took a chair facing that of the hunted man. Agatha, seeing this, seated herself on the door-step. Nan maintained her position, leaning through the open window. "This," said O'Gorman, "is a strange ease. It has always been a strange case, sir, from the very beginning. Important government secrets of the United States were stolen and turned over to the agent of a foreign government which is none too friendly to our own. It was considered, in its day, one of the most traitorous crimes in our history. And you, sir, a citizen of high standing and repute, were detected in the act of transferring many of these important papers to a spy, thus periling the safety of the nation. You were caught red-handed, so to speak, but made your escape and in a manner remarkable and even wonderful for its adroitness have for years evaded every effort on the part of our Secret Service Department to effect your capture. And yet, despite the absolute truth of this statement, you are innocent." None cared to reply for a time. Some who had listened to O'Gorman were too startled to speak; others refrained. Mary Louise stared at the detective with almost Peter Conant's expression--her eyes big and round. Irene thrilled with joyous anticipation, for in the presence of this sorrowing, hunted, white-haired old man, whose years had been devoted to patient self-sacrifice, the humiliation the coming disclosure would, thrust upon Mary Louise seemed now insignificant. Until this moment Irene had been determined to suppress the knowledge gained through the old letter in order to protect the feelings of her friend, but now a crying need for the truth to prevail was borne in upon her. She had thought that she alone knew this truth. To her astonishment, as well as satisfaction, the chair-girl now discovered that O'Gorman was equally well informed. CHAPTER XXV SIMPLE JUSTICE All eyes were turned upon Mr. Hathaway, who had laid a hand upon the head of his grandchild and was softly stroking her hair. At last he said brokenly, repeating his former assertion: "I cannot prove my innocence." "But I can," declared O'Gorman positively, "and I'm going to do it." "No--no!" said Hathaway, startled at his tone. "It's this way, sir," explained the little man in a matter-of-fact voice, "this chase after you has cost the government a heavy sum already, and your prosecution is likely to make public an affair which, under the circumstances, we consider it more diplomatic to hush up. Any danger to our country has passed, for information obtained ten years ago regarding our defenses, codes, and the like, is to-day worthless because all conditions are completely changed. Only the crime of treason remains; a crime that deserves the severest punishment; but the guilty persons have escaped punishment and are now facing a higher tribunal--both the principal in the crime and his weak and foolish tool. So it is best for all concerned, Mr. Hathaway, that we get at the truth of this matter and, when it is clearly on record in the government files, declare the case closed for all time. The State Department has more important matters that demand its attention." The old man's head was bowed, his chin resting on his breast. It was now the turn of Mary Louise to smooth his thin gray locks. "If you will make a statement, sir," continued O'Gorman, "we shall be able to verify it." Slowly Hathaway raised his head. "I have no statement to make," he persisted. "This is rank folly," exclaimed O'Gorman, "but if you refuse to make the statement, I shall make it myself." "I beg you--I implore you!" said Hathaway pleadingly. The detective rose and stood before him, looking not at the old man but at the young girl--Mary Louise. "Tell me, my child," he said gently, "would you not rather see your grandfather--an honorable, high-minded gentleman--acquitted of an unjust accusation, even at the expense of some abasement and perhaps heart-aches on your part, rather than allow him to continue to suffer disgrace in order to shield you from so slight an affliction?" "Sir!" cried Hathaway indignantly, starting to his feet; "how dare you throw the burden on this poor child? Have you no mercy--no compassion?" "Plenty," was the quiet reply. "Sit down, sir. This girl is stronger than you think. She will not be made permanently unhappy by knowing the truth, I assure you." Hathaway regarded him with a look of anguish akin to fear. Then he turned and seated himself, again putting an arm around Mary Louise as if to shield her. Said Irene, speaking very slowly: "I am quite sure Mr. O'Gorman is right. Mary Louise is a brave girl, and she loves her grandfather." Then Mary Louise spoke--hesitatingly, at first, for she could not yet comprehend the full import of the officer's words. "If you mean," said she, "that it will cause me sorrow and humiliation to free my grandfather from suspicion, and that he refuses to speak because he fears the truth will hurt me, then I ask you to speak out, Mr. O'Gorman." "Of course," returned the little man, smiling at her approvingly; "that is just what I intend to do. All these years, my girl, your grandfather has accepted reproach and disgrace in order to shield the good name of a woman and to save her from a prison cell. And that woman was your mother." "Oh!" cried Mary Louise and covered her face with her hands. "You brute!" exclaimed Hathaway, highly incensed. "But this is not all," continued O'Gorman, unmoved; "your mother, Mary Louise, would have been condemned and imprisoned--and deservedly so in the eyes of the law--had the truth been known; and yet I assure you she was only guilty of folly and of ignorance of the terrible consequences that might have resulted from her act. She was weak enough to be loyal to a promise wrung from her in extremity, and therein lay her only fault. Your grandfather knew all this, and she was his daughter--his only child. When the accusation for your mother's crime fell on him, he ran away and so tacitly admitted his guilt, thus drawing suspicion from her. His reason for remaining hidden was that, had he been caught and brought to trial, he could not have lied or perjured himself under oath even to save his dearly loved daughter from punishment. Now you understand why he could not submit to arrest; why, assisted by a small but powerful band of faithful friends, he has been able to evade capture during all these years. I admire him for that; but he has sacrificed himself long enough. Your mother's recent death renders her prosecution impossible. It is time the truth prevailed. In simple justice I will not allow this old man to embitter further his life, just to protect his grandchild from a knowledge of her mother's sin." Again a deathly silence pervaded the room. "You--you are speaking at random," said Hathaway, in a voice choked with emotion. "You have no proof of these dreadful statements." "But _I_ have!" said Irene bravely, believing it her duty to support O'Gorman. "And so have I," asserted the quiet voice of Sarah Judd, who had entered the room unperceived. Hathaway regarded both the girls in surprise, but said nothing. "I think," said Officer O'Gorman, "it will be best for us to read to Mr. Hathaway that letter." "The letter which I found in the book?" asked Irene eagerly. "Yes. But do not disturb yourself," as she started to wheel her chair close to the wall. "Josie will get it." To Irene's astonishment Sarah Judd walked straight to the repeating rifle, opened the sliding plate in its stock and took out the closely folded letter. Perhaps Nan Shelley and Agatha Lord were no less surprised than Irene; also they were deeply chagrined. But O'Gorman's slip in calling Sarah Judd "Josie" had conveyed to his associates information that somewhat modified their astonishment at the girl's cleverness, for everyone who knew O'Gorman had often heard of his daughter Josie, of whom he was accustomed to speak with infinite pride. He always said he was training her to follow his own profession and that when the education was complete Josie O'Gorman would make a name for herself in the detective service. So Nan and Agatha exchanged meaning glances and regarded the freckled-faced girl with new interest. "I'm not much of a reader," said Josie, carefully unfolding the paper. "Suppose we let Miss Irene read it?" Her father nodded assent and Josie handed the sheet to Irene. Mr. Hathaway had been growing uneasy and now addressed Officer O'Gorman in a protesting voice: "Is this reading necessary, sir?" "Very necessary, Mr. Hathaway." "What letter is this that you have referred to?" "A bit of information dating nearly ten years ago and written by one who perhaps knew more of the political intrigues of John and Beatrice Burrows than has ever come to your own knowledge." "The letter is authentic, then?" "Quite so." "And your Department knows of its existence?" "I am acting under the Department's instructions, sir. Oblige us, Miss Macfarlane," he added, turning to Irene, "by reading the letter in full." CHAPTER XXVI THE LETTER "This sheet," explained Irene, "is, in fact, but a part of a letter. The first sheets are missing, so we don't know who it was addressed to; but it is signed, at the end, by the initials 'E. de V.'" "The ambassador!" cried Hathaway, caught off his guard by surprise. "The same," said O'Gorman triumphantly; "and it is all in his well-known handwriting. Read the letter, my girl." "The first sentence," said Irene, "is a continuation of something on a previous page, but I will read it just as it appears here." And then, in a clear, distinct voice that was audible to all present, she read as follows: "which forces me to abandon at once my post and your delightful country in order to avoid further complications. My greatest regret is in leaving Mrs. Burrows in so unfortunate a predicament. The lady was absolutely loyal to us and the calamity that has overtaken her is through no fault of her own. "That you may understand this thoroughly I will remind you that John Burrows was in our employ. It was through our secret influence that he obtained his first government position, where he inspired confidence and became trusted implicitly. He did not acquire full control, however, until five years later, and during that time he met and married Beatrice Hathaway, the charming daughter of James J. Hathaway, a wealthy broker. That gave Burrows added importance and he was promoted to the high government position he occupied at the time of his death. "Burrows made for us secret copies of the fortifications on both the east and west coasts, including the number and caliber of guns, amounts of munitions stored and other details. Also he obtained copies of the secret telegraph and naval codes and the complete armaments of all war vessels, both in service and in process of construction. A part of this information and some of the plans he delivered to me before he died, as you know, and he had the balance practically ready for delivery when he was taken with pneumonia and unfortunately expired very suddenly. "It was characteristic of the man's faithfulness that on his death bed he made his wife promise to deliver the balance of the plans and an important book of codes to us as early as she could find an opportunity to do so. Mrs. Burrows had previously been in her husband's confidence and knew he was employed by us while holding his position with the government, so she readily promised to carry out his wishes, perhaps never dreaming of the difficulties that would confront her or the personal danger she assumed. But she was faithful to her promise and afterward tried to fulfill it. "Her father, the James J. Hathaway above mentioned, in whose mansion Mrs. Burrows lived with her only child, is a staunch patriot. Had he known of our plot he would have promptly denounced it, even sacrificing his son-in-law. I have no quarrel with him for that, you may well believe, as I value patriotism above all other personal qualities. But after the death of John Burrows it became very difficult for his wife to find a way to deliver to me the packet of plans without being detected. Through some oversight at the government office, which aroused suspicion immediately after his death, Burrows was discovered to have made duplicates of many documents intrusted to him and with a suspicion of the truth government agents were sent to interview Mrs. Burrows and find out if the duplicates were still among her husband's papers. Being a clever woman, she succeeded in secreting the precious package and so foiled the detectives. Even her own father, who was very indignant that a member of his household should be accused of treason, had no suspicion that his daughter was in any way involved. But the house was watched, after that, and Mrs. Burrows was constantly under surveillance--a fact of which she was fully aware. I also became aware of the difficulties that surrounded her and although impatient to receive the package I dared not press its delivery. Fortunately no suspicion attached to me and a year or so after her husband's death I met Mrs. Burrows at the house of a mutual friend, on the occasion of a crowded reception, and secured an interview with her where we could not be overheard. We both believed that by this time the police espionage had been greatly relaxed so I suggested that she boldly send the parcel to me, under an assumed name, at Carver's Drug Store, where I had a confederate. An ordinary messenger would not do for this errand, but Mr. Hathaway drove past the drug store every morning on his way to his office, and Mrs. Burrows thought it would be quite safe to send the parcel by his hand, the man being wholly above suspicion. "On the morning we had agreed upon for the attempt, the woman brought the innocent looking package to her father, as he was leaving the house, and asked him to deliver it at the drug store on his way down. Thinking it was returned goods he consented, but at the moment he delivered the parcel a couple of detectives appeared and arrested him, opening the package before him to prove its important contents. I witnessed this disaster to our plot with my own eyes, but managed to escape without being arrested as a partner in the conspiracy, and thus I succeeded in protecting the good name of my beloved country, which must never be known in this connection. "Hathaway was absolutely stupefied at the charge against him. Becoming violently indignant, he knocked down the officers and escaped with the contents of the package. He then returned home and demanded an explanation from his daughter, who confessed all. "It was then that Hathaway showed the stuff he was made of, to use an Americanism. He insisted on shielding his daughter, to whom he was devotedly attached, and in taking all the responsibility on his own shoulders. The penalty of this crime is imprisonment for life and he would not allow Mrs. Burrows to endure it. Being again arrested he did not deny his guilt but cheerfully suffered imprisonment. Before the day set for his trial, however, he managed to escape and since then he has so cleverly hidden himself that the authorities remain ignorant of his whereabouts. His wife and his grandchild also disappeared and it was found that his vast business interests had been legally transferred to some of his most intimate friends--doubtless for his future benefit. "The government secret service was helpless. No one save I knew that Hathaway was shielding his daughter, whose promise to her dead husband had led her to betray her country to the representative of a foreign power such as our own. Yet Hathaway, even in sacrificing his name and reputation, revolted at suffering life-long imprisonment, nor dared he stand trial through danger of being forced to confess the truth. So he remains in hiding and I have hopes that he will be able--through his many influential friends--to save himself from capture for many months to come. "This is the truth of the matter, dear friend, and as this explanation must never get beyond your own knowledge I charge you to destroy this letter as soon as it is read. When you are abroad next year we will meet and consider this and other matters in which we are mutually interested. I would not have ventured to put this on paper were it not for my desire to leave someone in this country posted on the Hathaway case. You will understand from the foregoing that the situation has become too delicate for me to remain here. If you can, give aid to Hathaway, whom I greatly admire, for we are in a way responsible for his troubles. As for Mrs. Burrows, I consider her a woman of character and honor. That she might keep a pledge made to her dead husband she sinned against the law without realizing the enormity of her offense. If anyone is to blame it is poor John Burrows, who was not justified in demanding so dangerous a pledge from his wife; but he was dying at the time and his judgment was impaired. Let us be just to all and so remain just to ourselves. "Write me at the old address and believe me to be yours most faithfully E. de V. The 16th of September, 1905." During Irene's reading the others maintained an intense silence. Even when she had ended, the silence continued for a time, while all considered with various feelings the remarkable statement they had just heard. It was O'Gorman who first spoke. "If you will assert, Mr. Hathaway, that the ambassador's statement is correct, to the best of your knowledge and belief, I have the authority of our department to promise that the charge against you will promptly be dropped and withdrawn and that you will be adjudged innocent of any offense against the law. It is true that you assisted a guilty person to escape punishment, and are therefore liable for what is called 'misprision of treason,' but we shall not press that, for, as I said before, we prefer, since no real harm has resulted, to allow the case to be filed without further publicity. Do you admit the truth of the statements contained in this letter?" "I believe them to be true," said Mr. Hathaway, in a low voice. Mary Louise was nestling close in his arms and now she raised her head tenderly to kiss his cheek. She was not sobbing; she did not even appear to be humbled or heart-broken. Perhaps she did not realize at the moment how gravely her father and mother had sinned against the laws of their country. That realization might come to her later, but just now she was happy in the vindication of Gran'pa Jim--a triumph that overshadowed all else. "I'll take this letter for our files," said Officer O'Gorman, folding it carefully before placing it in his pocketbook. "And now, sir, I hope you will permit me to congratulate you and to wish you many years of happiness with your granddaughter, who first won my admiration by her steadfast faith in your innocence. She's a good girl, is Mary Louise, and almost as clever as my Josie here. Come, Nan; come, Agatha; let's go back to Bigbee's. Our business here is finished." 
43584	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 43584-h.htm or 43584-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43584/43584-h/43584-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43584/43584-h.zip) Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). [_"Mary Lou! Mary Lou! Are you alive?" Max cried._ (Page 110) (THE MYSTERY OF THE SECRET BAND)] The Mary Lou Series THE MYSTERY OF THE SECRET BAND by EDITH LAVELL The Saalfield Publishing Company Akron, Ohio New York The Mary Lou Series by EDITH LAVELL The Mystery at Dark Cedars The Mystery of the Fires The Mystery of the Secret Band Copyright, MCMXXXV The Saalfield Publishing Company Printed in the United States of America _Contents_ CHAPTER PAGE I. A Real Detective 11 II. The Job 26 III. The Book Club 38 IV. A Midnight Visitor 54 V. Another Robbery 68 VI. Saturday Afternoon 78 VII. The Abandoned House 92 VIII. Knocked Out 110 IX. Lunch at the Bellevue 120 X. In the Dead of Night 132 XI. Bail 150 XII. Detective Gay Arrives 164 XIII. A Prisoner in the Dark 178 XIV. The Secret Band 194 XV. Christmas Morning 210 XVI. Two Captures 220 XVII. A Sad Story 231 XVIII. Conclusion 246 CHAPTER I _A Real Detective_ Mary Louise stamped the snow from her feet and removed her goloshes on the porch. Whistling the Christmas carol her class had just sung at school, she opened the door of her house and stepped inside. Her mother was sitting in an armchair in the living room, sewing. She looked up with a smile at her daughter. "How did your entertainment go?" she inquired. "Swell!" replied Mary Louise enthusiastically. "The seniors were great. You should have seen Max!" "I'd like to have seen Mary Louise Gay," mused her mother. "But this snow--and your father had the car----" "Oh, I wasn't so hot," laughed Mary Louise modestly. "I'll tell you who was the star of the afternoon--little Rosemary Dotts. She was so funny. She forgot all of her piece except the second line--'I'm going to have plum pudding!' Well, she said that once, and then she stared around at the audience and repeated it. And still she couldn't think of any more, so she said it again, and rubbed her fat little tummy as she repeated it. Well, she kept that up until I thought we'd just pass out laughing at her. Honestly, the tears were rolling down my cheeks. Her teacher had to come up to the platform and take her away." "That must have been funny," agreed Mrs. Gay. "Well, I guess you're thankful that it's all over. How do you like this weather for your vacation?" Mary Louise's brown eyes sparkled with pleasure. "It's keen!" she exclaimed. She executed a little dance step in her joy. "Two whole weeks with nothing to do but coast and skate and dance!" "And eat and sleep once in a while." "Oh yes, of course. Especially eat. What would Christmas be without eating?" "What are you going to do now?" inquired her mother. "Go coasting. Max and Norman are bringing the bobsled over in ten minutes, and Jane and I are supposed to be ready." "You better hurry, then. Get something to eat first. And--I forgot to tell you--your father wants to see you at half-past five this afternoon. Be sure to be home in time. He said he wanted to 'consult' you." "About somebody's Christmas present? I thought all our Christmas shopping was finished last week." "It was. This hasn't anything to do with presents, but it concerns your Christmas vacation, I believe," replied Mrs. Gay. "Oh, that sounds exciting!" exclaimed Mary Louise. Mr. Gay was a detective on the police force, and, knowing his daughter's keen interest in the solution of crimes, he sometimes discussed his cases with her. Already she had shown marked ability in the same line herself by unraveling two baffling mysteries the preceding summer. She ran out into the kitchen and poured out a glass of milk for herself and cut a piece of chocolate cake. This brisk weather certainly made her feel hungry, and the refreshments tasted good. Then she dashed upstairs to change into her "snow suit," a long-trousered costume that happened to be popular with the older girls at the moment. When she was all ready she opened her side window and whistled to her chum, Jane Patterson, who lived across the snow-covered lawn in the house next door. "Yo, Jane!" she called. Immediately a corresponding window flew up, and a youthful face appeared at the enclosure. "Ready!" was the reply. "The boys there yet?" "I think I hear them," returned Mary Louise. "Come on over." The windows were slammed down simultaneously, and the two girls dashed downstairs to their porches. Before they had finished putting on their goloshes, the boys were at the Gays' house. "Left the sled at the gate," announced Max Miller, Mary Louise's especial boy-friend in Riverside. "Do you think the snow's packed hard enough?" demanded Jane. "Hope so," returned Max, with a grin. "The kids were sledding last night over near Cooper's woods, so they ought to have made a track. Anyhow, we can have some fun. You've just got to be outdoors, weather like this." They made their way across the yard, chatting about the school entertainment, their dates for the next two weeks, and the fun which Christmas always brought them. When they reached the hill where the coasting was the best, near Riverside, they found many of their other high-school friends, and for two hours they alternately rode down the steep incline at a breathtaking speed and then trudged slowly back to the top. The sun was setting, and the afternoon was gone before they knew it. "Oh, I must go home!" exclaimed Mary Louise, glancing at her wrist-watch in amazement. "It's only five o'clock," returned Max complacently. "You don't eat at your house before six-thirty, do you?" "Come on, Mary Lou!" called Jane. "All aboard!" Her chum shook her head. "I can't, Jane. I've got to be home by five-thirty." "Why the rush?" demanded Max. "I have to see my father. He left word with Mother for me to be there." "Oh, you can see him at supper," observed Jane lightly. "You don't want to break up the party, do you?" "No, of course not. No need for that at all. I'll just run along by myself. You people take some more rides." "Nix," answered Max loyally. "You're not going home alone past these woods. If you have to go, Mary Lou, I'll go too." "Oh, we might as well all go," said Jane. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to be on time for a meal once in a while. Still, I don't see what all the fuss is about." Max looked straight into Mary Louise's eyes, a serious expression on his face. "Mary Lou," he asked, "you're not doing any more detective stuff, are you? Surely last summer was enough!" The girl laughed. "Yes, it was plenty. Haven't I been pretty good all fall? Never tried to listen in on any of Dad's cases or hunt for clues!" "I should think you'd be cured," remarked Jane. "The whole town could burn down before I'd go through an experience like yours last summer, to discover a criminal. And if it hadn't been for Max and Norman----" "I owe them my life!" said Mary Louise, half seriously and half smilingly. But in her heart she felt a deep sense of gratitude to her two youthful rescuers. "Max could use it," remarked Norman slyly. "I'll say I could," muttered the other young man fervently. "But you really don't think you'll do dangerous things again, do you, Mary Lou?" he asked eagerly. "You'll leave the solving of mysteries and crimes to your father hereafter, won't you?" Mary Louise's eyes twinkled. "I'm not making any rash promises. It sort of gets into the blood, Max. There's no other thrill like it. I'd rather solve a mystery than eat.... But I really don't think there is anything for me to solve now. So you can put your mind at rest." "I'll feel safer after this talk with your father is over," returned the young man. They came to a hill, and the subject was forgotten as they all piled on the sled and rode down together. It was only a little past five-thirty when Mary Louise opened the door of her house. Her father was already there, beside the roaring logs in the fireplace, comfortably smoking. Mr. Gay was a tall, impressive-looking man, with a determined jaw which announced to the world that he usually accomplished whatever he set out to do. He was proud of his daughter's detective work that summer, and delighted to have her follow in his footsteps, though he wished he might keep her always from the more gruesome features in the pursuit of crimes and criminals. "Hello, Mary Lou!" he called, gazing admiringly at her rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes. "Did you have a good time?" "Wonderful!" she replied, hanging up her snowflaked coat. "I'm sorry to be late, Dad, but I had a hard time getting the others home." "That's all right, Daughter. It won't take long for me to tell you what I have in mind. It may take longer for you to decide upon your answer." Mary Louise sat down opposite him and waited expectantly, not saying another word. "There is a small hotel for women in Philadelphia," he began. "It is a pretty up-to-date place, though they try to keep their rates down, because it is endowed, and supposedly was started for girls in moderate circumstances. They have been having some trouble lately, valuables have been stolen--and they are practically sure that none of the servants is guilty. So they want a detective." "A detective?" repeated Mary Louise breathlessly. "You mean----" "Yes, I mean you, Mary Lou. The proposition was put up to me, and naturally I can't handle it myself. I was to find them a woman detective for a week or so, and I suggested you. The woman in charge is delighted. She said a young girl like you could work better than anyone else because no one would suspect you of being a detective. And you could have a room near hers, under her protection, you see. "Now the great question is: would you want to give up your holiday for this purpose? All those engagements you have--all the fun you have planned with your young friends? Christmas Day alone in a strange city? Would it be worth it to you?" It did not take Mary Louise a moment to make her decision. "I'd love it, Dad!" she cried ecstatically. "But I shouldn't know how to go about it," she added hesitatingly. "What to do--how to begin." "Mrs. Hilliard--she is the hotel manager--would give you all the facts," explained her father. "I'd go with you and get you started. But you must consider carefully, Mary Lou. Think of your friends and your mother and your own pleasures. You can let me know tomorrow." Mary Louise nodded solemnly. "I know, Daddy. But this seems like the chance of a lifetime. Because you see I mean to be a detective when I graduate from high school. This is something definite to go on--a real experience, which I can make use of when I apply for a job." "Yes, of course. And, by the way, there is a salary attached. You are to get twenty-five dollars a week, and an extra bonus if you get any of the lost valuables back." "Oh, Daddy!" The exclamation was almost a whisper, so awed was Mary Louise at the thought of actually earning money in the work that she loved best in all the world. "When would I start?" she asked. "I could take you with me to Philadelphia tomorrow morning. But that wouldn't give you much time to write notes to your friends and pack your things. I suppose you'd have a lot of engagements to break." "Yes, but they don't matter." "Don't you want to think it over another day? I could come back and take you after the weekend." "No, Daddy, there's not a question of doubt in my mind. I want to try it and start as soon as possible. Some of the crowd will be at Jane's tonight, and I can tell them and phone to the others. I'll pack my clothes before I go. Have you told Mother yet?" "No, I haven't. I thought there was no use stirring her up if you didn't care to undertake it. But now we'll have to break the news to her, if you're sure." "You tell her, Daddy!" urged Mary Louise. "It will be easier." "All right, I will," he promised. A voice sounded from the kitchen. "Mary Louise, could you do an errand for me? You'll just have time before supper." "Yes, Mother," replied the girl, jumping to her feet. Then in a whisper to her father she added, "Tell her while I'm gone." Picking up her coat again, she ran out into the kitchen. "I want you to take this basket of jellies and fruit cake over to old Mrs. Detweiler," said Mrs. Gay. "I think it would be nice for them to have the things earlier this year, because they have so little at Christmas time." "Yes it would, Mother," agreed the girl absently. "Ask them whether they've heard anything from Margaret," added Mrs. Gay. "Maybe she's coming home for Christmas." "She wasn't home all summer, was she, Mother?" "No. And they didn't hear from her, either. They're terribly worried. I can't see why Margaret Detweiler would do a thing like that, when her grandparents have been so good to her all her life. Why, Mrs. Detweiler wore the same dress for five years just so she could put Margaret through high school. And the girl always seemed so grateful and affectionate, too." "Maybe something happened to her," suggested Mary Louise. "Surely they would have heard if it had.... Well, run along, dear. And come right back, because dinner is practically ready." Mary Louise pulled on her beret and her goloshes and went out into the snow again. It was entirely dark now, but the stars were shining, and the air was just cold enough to be invigorating. How good it was to be young and lively and happy! How sorry she felt for this poor old couple whom she was visiting, missing their granddaughter so dreadfully. But perhaps everything was all right. Maybe Margaret Detweiler was coming home for Christmas. The small brick house where the old couple lived was only a few blocks from Mary Louise's home. Half walking, half running, the girl covered the distance in less than ten minutes. She saw a low light in the living room and knocked at the door. Both of the Detweilers were well over seventy, and they lived modestly but comfortably on a small pension which Mr. Detweiler received. It had been sufficient for their needs until the death of Margaret's parents obliged them to take care of their only grandchild. But they had gladly sacrificed everything to give Margaret an education and a happy girlhood. She was older than Mary Louise by three or four years, so that the latter had never known her well. But she had always seemed like a sweet girl. Mr. Detweiler opened the door and insisted that Mary Louise come inside. Both the old people loved Mrs. Gay and enjoyed the wonderful presents of her own making she sent every Christmas. They were profuse in their thanks. "You must take off your things and get warm before you start out again," urged Mrs. Detweiler. "I'm really not a bit cold," replied Mary Louise. "And Mother told me to come right back, as supper will be waiting. But she wanted me to ask you whether you had heard anything from Margaret." Tears came to the old lady's eyes, and she shook her head. "Not a thing since last Christmas," she answered sadly. "You know she didn't come home then, but she wrote to us and sent us a box of lovely presents. Expensive things, so I knew she must be doing well. She had a position in a Harrisburg store at first, you know, and then she told us she had gotten a fine job in a Philadelphia store. That was where the last letter came from--the last we ever received from her!" "Didn't you write to her?" asked Mary Louise. "Yes, of course we did. But the letter was returned to us." "What store was she working in? I am going to Philadelphia for the Christmas holidays, and I might be able to find her." "I'm not sure. But the package was marked 'Strawbridge and Clothier' on the box. Did you ever hear of that store?" "Yes, I did. And I'll go there and make inquiries for you, Mrs. Detweiler." The old lady seized Mary Louise's hand gratefully. "Oh, if you could only find her, Mary Louise," she exclaimed, "we'd be the happiest couple alive!" "I'll do the best I can," promised the girl as she turned to the door. She ran all the way home, eager to find out what her mother was going to say in reply to her father's startling proposition about her Christmas vacation. CHAPTER II _The Job_ If Mrs. Gay did not like the idea of losing her daughter for two weeks, at least she kept the feeling to herself. She congratulated Mary Louise heartily on being chosen for a difficult piece of work. "You're a lucky girl!" cried Freckles, Mary Louise's young brother. "Wish I was old enough to take the job!" "You couldn't take this one, Son," his father reminded him, "because it's a woman's job. A man would be out of place in a woman's hotel. But Mary Lou can go about unnoticed--people will think she's just a guest." "Twenty-five bucks a week!" repeated Freckles. "What are you going to do with all that money, Sis?" "I don't know. Wait and see if I earn it. But if I do, we'll all have something nice out of it." "I wasn't asking for it!" protested the boy. "No, I know you weren't. But wait, and we'll see." She turned to her mother. "The Detweilers haven't heard a thing from Margaret, Mother. Not since they received a box last Christmas from Philadelphia. But I promised to try to hunt her up for them." "Oh, I feel so sorry for them!" exclaimed Mrs. Gay. "I do hope that nothing has happened to Margaret." "So do I. But, anyhow, that will give me two jobs in Philadelphia." "Yes," agreed her father, "and you can give that as your reason for being in Philadelphia--to the other guests at the hotel--if you care to." "That's an idea," said Mary Louise. "And maybe this is the more important of the two. I'm sure Margaret Detweiler is more precious to her grandparents than money and valuables to the women at that hotel." Though her mother accepted the situation calmly--owing to her father's persuasion, no doubt--Mary Louise found her best friends less agreeable. Jane raised a howl of protest when she heard of the plan, and Max Miller looked so crushed and unhappy that for a moment or two Mary Louise even considered the idea of giving the whole thing up. "I asked you two months ago to go to the senior dance during Christmas week," he said. "And you promised me faithfully, Mary Lou!" "I know, Max. But I couldn't foresee anything like this coming up." "It spoils my whole vacation. It spoils my whole senior year, because this is the biggest affair we have.... In fact, it spoils my whole life!" "Now, Max, be reasonable! We'd have only a few dances together--you're class president, don't forget, and you'll need to perform your social duties--and any other girl will do as your partner." "No other girl will do at all," he protested stubbornly. "I won't take anybody else. I'll go stag. I'd stay home entirely if I weren't president!" "Well, maybe I'll have the whole mystery solved in the week before Christmas, and get home in time for the dance," remarked Mary Louise optimistically. "More likely you'll stay a week overtime," muttered the young man. "Or maybe take on the job for good and never come back to Riverside at all." Mary Louise laughed. "You certainly can dish out gloom when you want to, Max! You don't suppose my parents would allow me to leave high school and take a regular job when I'm only sixteen, do you? I shan't be seventeen till next spring, you know." But Max refused to be consoled, and Jane Patterson upheld him in his attitude. It was ridiculous, foolhardy, dumb, silly--every adjective she could think of--to go to a strange city and be all alone during Christmas week when you could be having a perfectly wonderful time in Riverside. "You'll get to be a dried-up old maid by the time you're twenty-five," she told her chum. "And what good will your career be to you then?" "Lots of good," returned Mary Louise complacently. "If I'm going to be an old maid, I'll certainly want a career. But I don't see why a career should interfere with marriage. I'll have plenty of time to have it first." "All the men will be married by that time." "I'll take a chance," laughed Mary Louise. Nothing anybody said could stop her. Mary Louise was more thrilled than she had ever been in her life, and she meant to put her whole soul into this job. Not only for her own sake, but for her father's, as well. In her two previous experiences, personal inclination had made her unravel the mysteries, but now she felt that her father's reputation was involved. If he recommended someone who was incompetent, a failure would reflect upon him. Oh, she must succeed--if it were humanly possible! She left the party early that evening and went home to finish packing her suitcase. Immediately after breakfast the next morning she and her father took the train to Philadelphia. The snow had ceased falling, but the country was still covered with white. The sun shone, and the landscape was lovely. Mary Louise had never been to Philadelphia before, and she watched everything eagerly as she approached the terminal. It was a big city, in comparison with Riverside or even Harrisburg. But not so big as New York, which she had visited several times. "Where is the hotel, Daddy?" she asked as they left the train. "And what is its name?" "It is up near the Parkway, and it is called 'Stoddard House,' because a wealthy woman by the name of Stoddard left some money in her will to build it and help keep it up. It is a very attractive place." "I wonder how many rooms it has," said his daughter. "Not so many as you might expect, because I understand the whole first floor is planned for the girls' social uses. A card room, several small rooms for the girls to entertain callers, a library, a larger reception room for dancing, and the dining room are all part of the plan. But you'll soon go all over the place and see for yourself." Mary Louise's eyes sparkled. "It is going to be thrilling, Dad!" she said. "I hope you don't run into any danger," he remarked a little apprehensively. "The Philadelphia police will have your name on file--I saw to that--so the minute you call for help you can get it. And don't hesitate to phone me long distance any time you need me. I'll give you my list of addresses for the week. Don't stop for expense--we can't consider money in cases like this." Mary Louise nodded proudly. Never in her life had she been so happy. She walked along beside her father with her head high and her eyes shining. Her only misgiving, as they approached the hotel, was caused by her extreme youth. She hoped fervently that nobody would guess her age. The hotel was an attractive place. Set back from the street by a small terrace, its trim brick walls and white-painted doorway and windows looked cozy and home-like. What a nice place to live, Mary Louise thought, if you weren't lucky enough to have a home of your own! How thankful she was that the place wasn't gloomy and tumbledown like Dark Cedars, where she had made her first investigations as an amateur detective! Nobody would be telling her that ghosts haunted the walls of Stoddard House. Her father opened the door for her, and she preceded him into the lobby. It was rather small, as lobbies go, with only one counter-desk, one lounge, and a couple of elevators, which you worked yourself, at the side. But doors opened out from the lobby on all sides, revealing glimpses of numerous attractive reception rooms beyond. Mr. Gay nodded to the girl at the desk and inquired for Mrs. Hilliard. In a couple of minutes a stout middle-aged woman appeared and smiled pleasantly at him. He introduced Mary Louise. "Let's get back into my office where we can talk undisturbed," suggested Mrs. Hilliard, leading the way out of a door and along a hall to another smaller room. "Now sit down and I'll tell you all about our difficulties." Mr. Gay and his daughter made themselves comfortable, and Mary Louise took out her notebook. The same notebook which she had made so valuable on two previous occasions. "Last September was the first time we ever had any trouble at all," began Mrs. Hilliard. "We lost a complete set of silverware--a dozen each of knives, forks, and spoons. But as these were only plated, the loss did not run into a great deal of money, so we didn't make much fuss. I supposed that one of the maids stole them--a waitress who left the next day to be married. "But I must have been mistaken, for more things disappeared after she left. A very unusual vase we had in the library, quite valuable too, for it had belonged in the Stoddard family. That made it look as if the thief were a connoisseur. "The matron and I were watching the help carefully, and we felt sure that none of them was responsible. We hadn't many guests at the time--there are only about a dozen who live here permanently. And there happened to be only a couple of transients." "What are 'transients,' Mrs. Hilliard?" asked Mary Louise, who was unfamiliar with the term. "They're the people who stop in for a day or two--or even a week--and don't stay permanently," explained the other. "I should think they'd be the people who would be most likely to steal," observed Mary Louise. "Because they could get away with it more easily." "I thought so too, at first. But when things kept right on being stolen, and the same transients never came back, it began to look to me as if one of the permanent lodgers were responsible.... These two girls--I have forgotten their names--were here when the silverware and the vase disappeared, but they were not here in October when our watches were taken." "How many watches?" asked Mary Louise. "Four--including my own!" "And were there any transients here at that time?" "Just one. A chorus girl named Mary Green. She stayed a couple of days and then said her show was closing up." The young detective wrote all these facts into her notebook and asked whether that was all. "Not quite," replied Mrs. Hilliard. "Last Friday Miss Violet Granger had a valuable oil painting stolen from her room, and a purse containing fifty dollars.... So you see the situation has become pretty serious. Two of our regular guests have moved away because of it, and others have threatened to do so if anything else is stolen." She looked doubtfully at Mary Louise. "I'm sure I don't know how you would go about an investigation like this," she said. "But perhaps you do. Are you willing to try it?" "Of course I am!" cried the girl eagerly. "It's just the kind of thing I love. I've put down everything you said, Mrs. Hilliard, and I'm all ready to go to work now. I want to see the hotel and meet the guests as soon as possible." "I think Mary Louise had better keep secret the fact that she is spying on them," put in Mr. Gay. "Just let them think that she is a young friend of yours, Mrs. Hilliard, visiting you for her Christmas vacation. As a matter of fact, she wants to look up a young girl from Riverside, whose whereabouts have been lost by her relations. But use your own discretion, Mrs. Hilliard." "I will, Mr. Gay," agreed the woman. "And I will take good care of Mary Louise for you," she added. "That's right. No late hours--or being out alone at night, Mary Lou. Don't forget that this is a big city, and girls can easily get lost." "I'll be careful, Daddy," she promised. Mr. Gay kissed his daughter good-bye, and Mary Louise and Mrs. Hilliard took the elevator to the second floor. "There are ten rooms on each floor," the manager explained. "The fourth floor belongs to the help, and I have my own little three-room apartment at the back. "The third floor is reserved for our permanent guests. We have thirteen of them now--some two in a room, some alone. "Our second floor is principally for transients, although sometimes guests prefer to live there permanently. One woman named Mrs. Macgregor, a wealthy widow, likes her room and bath so much that she has decided to keep it indefinitely. But most of the guests on the second floor come and go.... "And now, my dear, here is your room. I was going to take you into my own apartment at first, but I decided that would be too far away from everybody. Here you can mix more with the other guests. Of course, whenever you get lonely, you can come up with me. I have some nice books, if you care to read in the evening, and a radio. And perhaps you brought your knitting?" "I forgot all about that," replied Mary Louise. "But of course I do knit, and I can easily buy some wool and some needles." Mrs. Hilliard opened the door of the room that was to be Mary Louise's and handed her the key. "Now I'll leave you to rest and unpack," she said. "Perhaps you can come down early before dinner to meet some of the girls in the reception room. The younger ones usually play the radio and dance a little before dinner." "I'll be there!" returned Mary Louise joyfully. CHAPTER III _The Book Club_ Mary Louise was a little awe-struck as she sat down alone in her new bedroom. The first time she had ever been away from home by herself, without any friends! Alone in a big city--working on a job! It seemed to her that she had suddenly grown up. She couldn't be the same care-free high-school girl who had gone coasting only yesterday afternoon with her friends. A momentary sensation of depression took hold of her as she thought of Jane and the boys and the informal party she was missing that evening. It would be wonderful if Jane could be with her now, sharing her experiences as she always had, helping her to solve this mystery. But such a thing was impossible, of course. Jane wouldn't want to give up the Christmas gayety at Riverside, and besides, this was a real job. You couldn't bring your friends along on a real job as if it were only play. Then she thought of that other Riverside girl alone in this big city. Margaret Detweiler, the girl who had so mysteriously disappeared. What could have happened to her? Suppose something like that should happen to Mary Louise! "I'm positively getting morbid," she thought, jumping up from the chair on which she was seated and beginning to unpack her things. "I'd better get dressed and go down and meet some of the young people. I'll never accomplish anything by mooning about like this." She unpacked her suitcase and hung her clothing in the closet. What a neat little room it was, with its pretty maple furniture and white ruffled curtains! So different from the common, ugly boarding-house bedroom! She was lucky to have such a nice place to live in. And Mrs. Hilliard was certainly a dear. She found the shower bath down the hall, and feeling refreshed, slipped into a new wine-red crêpe, which her mother had bought her especially for the holidays. It was very becoming, and her eyes sparkled as she ran down the steps to the first floor. No use bothering with elevators when she had only one flight to go. Mrs. Hilliard was at the desk, talking to the secretary, who was putting on her hat and coat. "Oh, Mary Louise," she said, "I want you to come here and register and meet Miss Horton. This is Miss Gay," she explained, "a young friend of mine. She is visiting me for the holidays, and I forgot to have her register when she came in. But as she is using room 206, and not my apartment, I think she had better register." Mary Louise nodded approvingly and wrote her name in the book. "You have never come across a girl named Margaret Detweiler, have you, Miss Horton?" she asked. "I want to find her if I can while I am in Philadelphia." The secretary shook her head. "No, I don't think so. You might look through the book, though. I can't remember all the transients who have stopped here at Stoddard House." "Naturally," agreed Mary Louise, and she turned the pages eagerly. But of course she did not find the name. Coincidences like that don't often happen, and besides, she reasoned, if she did find it, it wouldn't do her much good. That wouldn't tell her where Margaret was now. "Come into the music room with me," said Mrs. Hilliard. "I see one of our newest arrivals here--a young girl who came only last week. She can't be more than nineteen or twenty. I think you'd like each other." The girl, an attractive brunette with a gay manner and a little too much lipstick, was standing beside the radio, turning the dials. She looked up as Mrs. Hilliard and Mary Louise entered the room. "Miss Brooks, I want you to meet a friend of mine--Miss Gay," said Mrs. Hilliard. "Perhaps I'd better say 'Pauline' and 'Mary Louise,' because I know you young people don't bother with last names." The girls smiled at each other, and the manager went towards the door. "Would you be good enough to take care of Mary Louise--introduce her to any of the other guests who come in--Miss Brooks? I have to go back to the desk, for the secretary has gone home." "Certainly," agreed Pauline immediately. She turned on some dance music. "What do you say we dance?" she asked Mary Louise. "And does everybody call you by both names?" "Most people shorten it to 'Mary Lou.' Yes, I love to dance. That's a dandy fox trot." The girls stepped off, Pauline talking gayly all the time, asking Mary Louise all sorts of questions: where she was from, how long she was going to stay, and so on. Mary Louise answered pleasantly, happy to have found a new friend. It wouldn't be so bad without Jane, now that she had found a girl near her own age in Philadelphia, although she thought that Pauline was probably nearer twenty-five than twenty. Middle-aged people like Mrs. Hilliard weren't so good at guessing young people's ages, unless they had children of their own. "I wish I could take Pauline into my confidence," thought Mary Louise, "and have her help me the way Jane did. It would be so much nicer." But she knew that would not be wise: her father and Mrs. Hilliard wanted her to keep her job a secret. However, she did make it a point to ask Pauline a few questions in return for those she had answered. Not that she was interested in Pauline as a suspect--the girl had only arrived last week, Mrs. Hilliard said--but because she really wanted a young companion while she was in this strange city. "My parents are dead," Pauline told her. "I have a rich aunt who usually stays at the Ritz when she's in Philadelphia, but I don't care enough about her to live with her. I sort of flit from place to place, and write fashion articles for the magazines whenever my income runs short. I have a pretty good time." "Have you ever stayed at Stoddard House before?" asked Mary Louise. "No, I usually avoid women's places like Y. W. C. A.'s and girls' clubs," was the reply. "But this sort of looked different to me, and I thought I'd give it a try. It's pretty good, don't you think?" "I like it very much." By this time half-a-dozen people had entered the room, and two more couples were dancing. Suddenly Mary Louise felt bewildered. How could she possibly get to know so many people in the short space of two weeks and hope to find the thief? The music changed, and the other dancers left the room. Apparently the dining-room doors were open. "Gosh, I couldn't introduce you to any of those women, Mary Lou," said Pauline. "I don't know any of their names." "Oh, that's all right," agreed the young detective. "I'm not feeling a bit lonely." "Let's go eat--or are you supposed to wait for Mrs. Hilliard?" "No, she told me not to. She's such a busy person, she has to snatch her meals whenever she can. But I'll be with her in the evenings." "Exciting life!" observed Pauline. "Maybe I can rake up a date for you later. I've got one myself for tonight, and I'll sound Ben out. If he can get hold of another fellow for tomorrow night----" "Oh, I don't think I better make any plans," interrupted Mary Louise. "Though I do appreciate it a lot, Pauline. But you see I am Mrs. Hilliard's guest. I have to consult her." "O.K." The two girls went into the dining room, an attractive place, with tables for two and four persons, and chose one of the smaller ones. "We don't want any of the old dames parking with us," observed Pauline, glancing at a couple of elderly women just entering the room. "They cramp my style." "Rather," laughed Mary Louise, though she secretly wished she might meet some of the "old dames," as Pauline called them. Any one of them might be the thief. Pauline Brooks was very different from the girls of Riverside--not nearly so refined, Mary Louise thought--but she was a gay companion and made witty remarks about everything. No doubt she was a clever writer. Just as the girls finished their excellent dinner, Mrs. Hilliard came into the room. Pauline stood up. "I'll be running along, Mary Lou," she said. "Now you have company I better leave you and get dressed." Mary Louise smiled. "Have a good time--and I'll see you tomorrow." "Not too early!" warned Pauline. "I'll probably be dancing till the small hours tonight." She left the room, and Mrs. Hilliard sat down in her place. "Will you stay here with me while I eat my dinner, Mary Louise?" she asked. "Yes, indeed," replied the girl. "And did you enjoy your dinner?" "It was wonderful! Just like a fine hotel." "I think Stoddard House is a fine hotel--on a small scale, of course.... And now I have a suggestion to offer for tonight," she continued as she ate her dinner. "Some of the regular guests here have a book club which meets once a week. I seldom go to the meetings--I never seem to have time--but I thought I could take you tonight, and in that way you would get acquainted with some of these people. Though I don't suppose you'll find the person we're looking for among them. Thieves aren't often book lovers." "But it will help me to get the people sorted out, and I am so at sea," said Mary Louise. "I think it is a fine idea, Mrs. Hilliard. What time does the club meet?" "Seven-thirty. But we'll go to my room first, and you can copy down the names of all the guests, and their room numbers." "Oh, that's great!" she cried, thankful to be getting at something definite to start with. As soon as Mrs. Hilliard finished her dinner she and Mary Louise took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked down the long corridor to the back of the hotel. Here was Mrs. Hilliard's own private apartment, a cozy suite of three rooms and a bath. Mary Louise settled herself comfortably in an armchair and took out her notebook. "Do you want the names of the maids?" asked Mrs. Hilliard as she picked up some papers from her desk. "No, not yet," replied the girl. "You believe in their innocence, so I think I'd rather study the guests first." Mrs. Hilliard handed her a paper, a methodical list of the bedrooms on the second and third floors, and Mary Louise copied it, just as it was, into her notebook: "Second Floor: Room 200 Pauline Brooks. 202 May and Lucy Fletcher. 204 206 Mary Louise Gay. 208 201 Mrs. B. B. Macgregor. 203 205 Anne Starling. 207 209 Third Floor: Room 300 Miss Henrietta Stoddard. 302 Mrs. Weinberger. 304 Miss Hortense Weinberger. 306 Dorothy Semple. 308 Miss Hastings. 301 Ruth and Evelyn Walder. 303 305 Mrs. Moyer. 307 309 Miss Violet Granger." "You have quite a lot of empty rooms, haven't you, Mrs. Hilliard?" inquired Mary Louise, when she had finished her copy. "Yes. It's always dull at this time of year. And we never are very full. After all, it's rather expensive, with wages on the scale they are now." "How much do you charge?" "Fourteen dollars a week. But that doesn't cover our expenses." "No, I'm sure it doesn't. Everything is lovely--I didn't tell you how much I like my room--and the food couldn't be better." "Well, we have an income from the Stoddard estate which helps to pay expenses," Mrs. Hilliard explained. "There is a woman here named Miss Henrietta Stoddard," observed Mary Louise, looking at her list. "Is she any relation of the founder?" "Yes, she is her niece. Old Mrs. Stoddard provided in her will that Henrietta should be allowed to live here free all her life, as long as she was single or a widow." "How old a woman is she?" "About forty-five now, I should judge. And very bitter. She expected to inherit her aunt's money, and she even tried to break the will. She hasn't any money--I think she does odd jobs like taking care of children and doing hand sewing for her spending money and her clothing." "Hm!" remarked Mary Louise. Mrs. Hilliard smiled. "I know what you are thinking--and I kind of think so myself. That Miss Stoddard is the thief. But you'd never believe it to look at her. She's prim and proper and austere." "You never can tell," said Mary Louise. "No, that's true.... Well, you'll have a good chance to judge for yourself tonight. Miss Stoddard is the one who is in charge of the book club. There is a library fund in the endowment, and these women decide upon what to buy." "Tell me which of these guests belong to the club," urged the girl. "All the regular residents belong, except Miss Violet Granger. She is an artist--she draws for magazines and for an advertising firm--and she always keeps apart from the other guests. She is the one from whom the oil painting and the fifty dollars were stolen." Mary Louise nodded and put a check beside Miss Granger's name. "Now," she said, "I ought to check the names of all the other people who have had valuables stolen. Who else was there?" "Well, as I told you, the hotel itself lost the silverware and the Chinese vase. Then there were four watches stolen--my own, Mrs. Weinberger's, and the two Walder girls.... By the way, they are lovely girls, Mary Louise--they've lived here a couple of years, and I know their families--I'm sure you're going to like them.... "And the final--at least, I hope it's the final robbery--was the painting and the money from Miss Granger's room. But I have a feeling that isn't the end, and the guests are all nervous too. It's hurting our business--and--making my own job seem uncertain." Mary Louise closed her notebook thoughtfully and sighed. "I'll do the best I can, Mrs. Hilliard," she promised solemnly. Ten minutes later they took the elevator to the first floor, and Mrs. Hilliard led the way into the library. It was a cheerful room with an open fireplace, a number of comfortable chairs and built-in bookcases around the walls. Miss Henrietta Stoddard, a plain-looking woman with spectacles, sat at the table on one side, with a pile of books and a notebook beside her. She was talking to an elderly woman and a younger one. Mrs. Hilliard introduced Mary Louise. "Mrs. Weinberger and Miss Weinberger," she said, and Mary Louise immediately placed them as the mother and daughter who lived in rooms 302 and 304. The daughter was complaining to Miss Stoddard. "I don't see why we can't have some more exciting books," she said. "Something a little more youthful." Miss Stoddard drew the corners of her severe mouth together. "We buy just what the club votes for," she replied icily. "Because the younger members never come to put in their votes!" returned the younger woman petulantly. "I asked the Walder girls to come to the meeting tonight, but of course they had dates." She turned eagerly to Mary Louise. "You can put in a vote, Miss Gay!" she exclaimed. "Will you suggest something youthful?" Mary Louise smiled. "I shan't be here long enough to belong to the club," she answered. "I'm just visiting Mrs. Hilliard for the vacation." "You're a schoolgirl?" "Yes. A junior at Riverside High School." "Never heard of it," returned Miss Weinberger, abruptly and scornfully. "I'm afraid it's not famous--like Yale or Harvard," remarked Mary Louise, with a sly smile. Miss Weinberger went on talking to the others in her complaining, whining tone. Mary Louise disliked her intensely, but she didn't believe she would ever steal anything. "What time is it?" demanded Miss Stoddard sharply. "I don't know. My watch was stolen, you know," replied Mrs. Weinberger, looking accusingly at Mrs. Hilliard, as if it were her fault. "You never heard anything about those watches, did you?" inquired Miss Stoddard. "No," replied the manager, keeping her eyes away from Mary Louise. "There was a night watchman that night, but he said he didn't see any burglar or hear any disturbance." "The night watchman couldn't watch four watches," Mary Louise remarked facetiously. "Yes, there were four stolen," agreed Mrs. Weinberger. "I suppose Mrs. Hilliard told you?" Mary Louise flushed: she must be more careful in the future. "I think that bleached-blond chorus girl took them," observed Miss Weinberger. "She was here then and left the next day. That name of hers was probably assumed. 'Mary Green!' Too common!" Mary Louise wanted to write this in her notebook, but caution bade her wait till the meeting was over. The door opened, and an old lady came in, leaning on her cane. She was past eighty, but very bright and cheerful, with beautiful gray hair and a charming smile. Mrs. Hilliard sprang up and offered her the best chair in the room and introduced Mary Louise to her. Her name was Mrs. Moyer. Now the meeting began: the guests returned the books they had borrowed and discussed new ones to purchase. At half-past nine a maid brought in tea and cakes, and the evening ended sociably. Thankful to slip off alone to write her observations in her notebook, Mary Louise went to her own room. CHAPTER IV _A Midnight Visitor_ Mary Louise put on her kimono and stretched herself out comfortably on her pretty bed, with her notebook in her hands. What a lovely room it was! What a charming little bedside table, with its silk-shaded lamp, its dainty ice-water jug--and its telephone. For that convenience especially she was thankful: she'd far rather have a telephone than a radio. Little did she realize how soon she was to find that instrument so useful! She opened her notebook at the page upon which she had written the guests' names, and counted them. Fourteen people besides herself, and of that number she had met only five. Rather a slow beginning! "If I only had Jane here, she'd know everybody in the place by now," she thought wistfully. "Jane is clever, but she does jump at conclusions. Maybe I'm better off alone." She glanced at the notebook again and resolved not to bother yet with the names of people she hadn't met. She'd concentrate instead upon the five that she did know. She began at the beginning with the girl with whom she had danced and eaten supper. "Pauline Brooks couldn't be guilty," she decided. "Because she came to Stoddard House only a few days ago for the first time. After the first two robberies had taken place. So she's out.... "Now I'm not so sure about Miss Henrietta Stoddard. She might even believe she had a right to steal things, because she was cheated out of her inheritance. Yes--I'll watch Miss Stoddard carefully. "Next those two Weinberger women. Hardly possible, when the mother lost her own watch. Of course, thieves sometimes pretend to have things stolen, just to establish their innocence, the same way murderers often wound themselves--for alibis. But, just the same, I believe those women are honest. They're pretty well off, too, to judge from their clothes and their jewelry." She came to the last person she had met--the old lady who had come to the book-club meeting with a cane--Mrs. Moyer. Mary Louise's face broke into a smile. Nobody in her right senses could suspect a person like that! That was all. Except the secretary, Miss Horton, whom she had met at the desk. Mary Louise closed the notebook and put it on the table beside her. That was enough for tonight; now she'd try to get some sleep. She put out the light and opened the window. Snow still covered everything except the streets and the sidewalks, and the moon shone over the roofs of the buildings beyond. Right below her side window was a fire escape, which made her feel somehow safe and secure. It was not nearly so quiet here as in Riverside; automobile horns honked now and again, and the sound of trolleys from the street in front was plainly heard. But Mary Louise was not worried about the noise, and a few minutes after she was in bed she was sound asleep. How many hours later she was awakened by a dream about Margaret Detweiler, Mary Louise had no way of knowing, for she had left her watch on the bureau. She thought she had found Margaret alone in an empty house, cold and starving to death, and she was trying to remember just what principles of first aid to apply, when she awoke and found it was only a dream. But something, she realized instantly, had awakened her. Something--somebody--was in her room! Her first sensation was one of terror. A ghost--no, a gypsy, perhaps--who would clap a gag over her mouth and bind her hand and foot! But before she uttered a sound she remembered where she was and why she was there. A delirious feeling of triumph stole over her, making her believe that success was at hand for her in her sleuthing. If this person were really the Stoddard House sneak thief, Mary Louise could lie still and watch her, for the room was light enough from the moon and the street lamps to show up the intruder quite plainly. Ever so cautiously, without turning her head or making any kind of sound, she rolled her eyes toward her bureau, where she could sense the intruder to be. Her reward was immediate: she saw a short person in dark clothing standing there, carefully picking up some object. "My purse--and my watch!" Mary Louise thought grimly. The little engraved watch her father had given her last Christmas. The figure turned around and silently crept towards the door. But sudden, swift dismay took possession of Mary Louise, making her tremble with fear and disappointment. The thief was not a woman, whom she could hope to identify as a guest at Stoddard House. He was a man! He turned the key in the lock so quietly that only the tiniest click could be heard. Then, just as softly, he closed the door again and vanished into the hall. Mary Louise gasped audibly with both relief and disappointment. Relief that he was gone, disappointment that he was a common, ordinary burglar whom she could not hope to catch. Nevertheless, she meant to do what she could, so she turned on her light and reached for the telephone beside her bed. In another moment she had told her story to the police, and, so perfect were their radio signals, in less than five minutes one of their cars stood at the door of the hotel. Meanwhile, Mary Louise had hastily thrown on a few clothes and run down the stairs to warn the night watchman. The halls were lighted all night, as well as the lobby of the hotel; she did not see how the burglar could escape without attracting the watchman's notice. She found him quietly smoking a pipe on the doorstep. He said he had seen nobody. "I think the burglar came in through the window from the fire escape," Mary Louise said. "Don't see how he could," returned the man. "I've been around there at the side for the last half hour. Nobody came along that alley." Baffled, Mary Louise summoned Mrs. Hilliard on the house phone, and by the time she stepped out of the elevator the two policemen had arrived. "The thief must be hiding somewhere in the building," concluded Mary Louise. "Waiting for a chance to slip away." "We'll have to make a search," announced Mrs. Hilliard. "You guard the doorway and the stairway, Mike," she said to the watchman, "and one of you officers go around the first floor and see whether the windows are all securely locked--in case the burglar escaped through one of them. Then the other officer can come with Miss Gay and me while we search the floors above." Immediately the plan was put into effect, and the searchers began on the second floor, looking first in the corridors and closets and empty rooms, then knocking at the doors of the guests' rooms. Pauline Brooks' door was the first they went to, and here a light shone under the cracks. "Sorry to disturb you, Miss Brooks," called Mrs. Hilliard, "but a sneak thief has gotten into the hotel, and we want to find him. May we come in?" "Just a minute," replied the girl. "Till I put on my bath robe. I was out late--at a dance, and I'm just undressing now." "What time is it, anyway?" asked Mary Louise. "You see, my watch was stolen." "It's only a few minutes after one," replied the policeman. A moment later Pauline unlocked the door, and the three people entered. The room was very untidy: clothing had been flung about everywhere, and two open suitcases occupied the chairs. "Look in the closet," advised Mrs. Hilliard. "There's nobody there," answered Pauline. "I've just been in it. But you might look under the bed. That's where men always hide in the bedroom farces." "You wouldn't think this was a 'bedroom farce' if you'd just lost your watch and your purse," remarked Mary Louise sharply. "I'm sorry, Mary Lou," apologized Pauline. "You see, I didn't know that _you_ were the victim." "We've got to get along," interrupted the officer. "There's nobody here--I'm sure of that." They passed on to the other rooms, waking up the guests when it was necessary, apologizing, explaining--and finding nobody. In only two of the rooms besides Pauline's had they found lights burning. Miss Granger, the artist, was still working on some drawings she was making for a magazine, and Miss Henrietta Stoddard, who explained that she was "such a poor sleeper," was reading a book. But both these women said that they had heard no disturbance. When the search was completed and the group returned to the first floor of the hotel, the watchman and the officer had nothing to report. The windows on the ground floor were all securely locked, the latter announced, and the former said that no one had escaped by the front door or the fire escape. "It's either an inside job or your young friend dreamed it," one of the policemen said to Mrs. Hilliard. "It couldn't be an inside job," returned the manager. "For there isn't any man who lives in the hotel." "And I didn't dream it," protested Mary Louise. "Because my watch and my purse are gone, and my door was unlocked. I locked it myself when I went to bed last night." "Well, we'll keep an eye on the building all night," promised the policeman as he opened the door. "Let us know if you have any more trouble." When the men had gone, Mrs. Hilliard persuaded Mary Louise to come to her apartment for the rest of the night. She had a couch-bed in her sitting room which she often used for her own guests. Mary Louise agreed, but it was a long while before she fell asleep again. She kept listening for sounds, imagining she heard footsteps in the hall, or windows opening somewhere in the building. But at last she dozed off, and slept until Mrs. Hilliard's alarm awakened her the next morning. "You had better go down to the dining room for your breakfast, Mary Louise," said the manager. "I just have orange juice and coffee, up here--if I go into the dining room I am tempted to overeat, and I put on weight." "All right," agreed Mary Louise. "I want to go to my room for fresh clothing anyway--I just grabbed these things last night in a hurry.... Mrs. Hilliard, what do you think of last night's occurrence?" "I don't know what to think. I was convinced that all our robberies before this were inside jobs, because our watchman was so careful. But now I don't know. Of course, this may be something entirely different. We'll see if anything happens tonight. You're sure it was a man, Mary Louise?" "Positive. He wore a cap pulled down over his head, and a mask over his eyes. He had on a dark suit--sneakers, too, for I couldn't hear him walk." "Did he have a gun?" "I don't know, because I pretended to be asleep, so he didn't need to defend himself. He got out so quickly. Where could he have vanished to?" Mrs. Hilliard shook her head with a sigh. "I haven't the slightest idea," she said. "Of course, he might have had an accomplice," mused Mary Louise. "Some woman may have let him out her window to the fire escape. Still, the watchman was keeping his eye on that...." Mary Louise's tone became dreary. "I guess I'm not much use to you, Mrs. Hilliard. I don't think I ought to take the salary." "You mean you want to go home, Mary Louise?" "Oh no! I wouldn't leave now for anything. But I mean I probably shan't be any help in finding a thief like that. So I oughtn't to accept any pay." "Don't worry about that," returned Mrs. Hilliard, patting Mary Louise's arm affectionately. "You just do the best you can. Nobody can do more. I'd really like it proved that none of our guests is the thief. I'd much rather find out that it was a common burglar." Reassured, Mary Louise went to her own room and dressed. By the time she reached the dining room the guests who held positions had already eaten their breakfasts and gone, and the others, who had nothing to do all day, had not yet put in an appearance. It was only a little after eight, but the dining room was deserted. "I wish I had somebody to talk to," she thought sadly as she seated herself at a little table by a window. The sunlight streamed in through the dainty ruffled curtains, there were rosebuds in the center of her table, and a menu from which she could order anything she wanted, but Mary Louise was not happy. She felt baffled and lonely. She ordered grapefruit first, and just as she finished it, Mrs. Weinberger came into the room. She made her way straight to Mary Louise's table. "May I sit with you, Miss Gay?" she asked. "My daughter won't eat breakfast for fear of gaining a pound, and it's so lonesome eating all by yourself." Mary Louise smiled cordially. "I think so too, Mrs. Weinberger," she replied. "I'll be delighted to have you." "Do you feel nervous after last night? It must have been terrible to be right in the room when the burglar got in. I was away when my watch was stolen." "Tell me about it, Mrs. Weinberger," urged Mary Louise. "I was over in Mrs. Moyer's room," the woman explained, after she had given her order to the waitress, "and my daughter went out of my room and couldn't remember whether she locked the door or not. Anyway, I discovered that my watch was gone when I was dressing for dinner." She sighed. "It was very valuable--a present from my late husband." Mary Louise had an inspiration. "I believe I'll visit some pawnshops today, to ask about mine," she said, "and I can inquire about yours at the same time, if you want me to, Mrs. Weinberger." "Yes, indeed! But I am afraid it is too late now. Mine was an old-fashioned watch--we used to wear them pinned on our dresses, with a brooch. Mine had seven diamonds on it in front, and my initials 'E. W.' in tiny pearls on the back." "Did you advertise?" "Yes, of course. But nothing came of it. My daughter thinks that transient guest--a chorus girl named Mary Green--stole it. We tried to trace her, but we couldn't find her name with any of the theatrical companies in town at the time." "She never came back here to Stoddard House?" "Oh no." "And were the other watches stolen the same day?" "Yes. Mrs. Hilliard's was taken during the supper hour, but she had laid it down on the desk, so that was her own carelessness. But the Walder girls had theirs taken while they were asleep--just as yours was." "What were theirs like?" "Plain gold wrist-watches, with their initials--R. W. and E. W. Their names are Ruth and Evelyn." "Well, I'll do what I can," concluded Mary Louise. "And now let's talk about something pleasant." So for the rest of the meal she and Mrs. Weinberger discussed books and the current moving pictures. CHAPTER V _Another Robbery_ Mary Louise had three separate plans in view for the morning. First, she would visit as many pawnshops as possible in the vicinity and ask to see their displays of watches. Second, she meant to go to Strawbridge and Clothier's department store and find out whether Margaret Detweiler had worked there, and why and when she had left. And third, she wanted to find some pretext to call on Miss Henrietta Stoddard in her own room and observe her closely. As she walked out of the dining room she met Mrs. Hilliard going towards her little office on the first floor. "Could I see you for a moment, Mrs. Hilliard?" she inquired. "Certainly, my dear. Come into the office with me." Mary Louise followed her into the room, but she did not sit down. She knew how busy the hotel manager would be on Saturday morning. "I have decided to visit some pawnshops, Mrs. Hilliard," she said. "I have my own watch to identify, and I got a pretty good description of Mrs. Weinberger's today. But I want you to tell me a little more about the other things that were stolen." "The silverware had an ivy-leaf pattern, and the initials 'S. H.'--for Stoddard House--engraved on it," replied the woman. "The vase was an old Chinese one, of an odd size, with decorations in that peculiar red they so often use. I believe I can draw it better than I can describe it. But I feel sure you'd never find it in a pawnshop. Whoever stole that sold it to an antique dealer." However, she picked up her pencil and roughly sketched the vase for Mary Louise, giving her a good idea of its appearance. At the same time she described the painting which had been stolen from Miss Granger's room--an original by the American artist Whistler. Mary Louise wrote all these facts in her notebook and kept the drawing. "That's fine, Mrs. Hilliard," she said as she opened the door. "I'm going out now, and I'll be back for lunch." "Good-bye and good luck!" Mary Louise went to her room, and from the telephone book beside her bed she listed the addresses of all the pawnshops in the neighborhood. This was going to be fun, she thought--at least, if she didn't lose her nerve. She hesitated for a few minutes outside of the first shop she came to. The iron bars guarding the window, the three balls in the doorway, seemed rather forbidding. For Mary Louise had never been inside a pawnshop. "I can say I want to buy a watch," she thought. "I do, too--I certainly need one. But I'm afraid I'd rather have a brand-new Ingersoll than a gold one that has belonged to somebody else. Still, I don't have to tell the shopkeeper that." Boldly she opened the door and went in. She had expected to find an old man with spectacles and a skullcap, the typical pawnbroker one sees in the moving pictures. But there was nothing different about this man behind the counter from any ordinary storekeeper. "Good-morning, miss," he said. "What can I do for you today?" "I want to look at ladies' watches," replied Mary Louise steadily. The man nodded and indicated a glass case on the opposite side of the shop. Mary Louise examined its contents intently. "The fact is," she said, "my own watch was stolen. I thought maybe it might have been pawned, and I'd look around in the shops first, before I buy one, in the hope of finding it." "Recently?" "Yes. Last night." The man smiled. "If it had been pawned last night or this morning, you wouldn't find it offered for sale yet. We have to hold all valuables until the time on their tickets expires." "Oh, of course! How stupid of me.... Well, could you tell me whether any ladies' watches have been pawned here since midnight last night?" "Yes, we've taken in two," replied the man graciously. "And I don't mind showing them to you. I'm not in league with any thieves. I'm an honest man." "I'm sure of it," agreed Mary Louise instantly. But she was disappointed upon sight of the watches. Neither of them was hers, nor did either remotely resemble Mrs. Weinberger's or any of the other three stolen from Stoddard House. "Thank you ever so much," she said finally. "I think I'll look around a little more and ask about my own, and if I can't find it, I may come back and buy one of yours. Several of those you have are very pretty." Thoroughly satisfied with her interview, she walked down the street until she came to another shop. It was on the corner of an alley, and just as she approached the intersection she noticed a woman in an old-fashioned brown suit coming out of the side door of the pawnshop. The woman glanced about furtively, as if she did not care to be seen, and caught Mary Louise's eyes. With a gasp of surprise, the girl recognized her immediately. It was Miss Henrietta Stoddard! Before Mary Louise could even nod to her, the woman had slipped across the street and around the corner, lost amid the Saturday morning crowd that was thronging the busy street. Mary Louise repressed a smile and entered the pawnshop by the front door. She repeated her former experience, with this difference, however: she did not find the shopkeeper nearly so cordial or so willing to co-operate. Finally she asked point-blank what the woman in the brown suit had just pawned. "I can't see that that's any of your business, miss," he replied disagreeably. "But I will tell you that it wasn't a watch." Mary Louise wasn't sure that she believed him. But there was nothing that she could do without enlisting the help of her father. She visited four other shops without any success, and finally decided to abandon the plan. It was too hopeless, too hit-or-miss, to expect to find those watches by that kind of searching. Far better, she concluded, to concentrate on observing the actions of the people at Stoddard House. Especially Miss Henrietta Stoddard herself! So she turned her steps to the big department store where she believed Margaret Detweiler had worked till last Christmas and inquired her way to the employment office. The store was brilliantly decorated for Christmas, and crowds of late shoppers filled the aisles and the elevators, so that it was not easy to reach her destination. Nor was the employment manager's office empty. Even at this late date, applicants were evidently hoping for jobs, and Mary Louise had to sit down and wait her turn. It was half an hour later that she found herself opposite the manager's desk. Mechanically a clerk handed her an application to fill out. "I don't want a position," Mary Louise said immediately. "I want to see whether I can get any information about a girl named Margaret Detweiler who, I think, worked in your store up to last Christmas. Would it be too much trouble to look her up in your files? I know you're busy----" "Oh, that's all right," replied the manager pleasantly, and she repeated the name to the clerk. "You see," explained Mary Louise, "Margaret Detweiler's grandparents haven't heard from her for a year, and they're dreadfully worried. Margaret is all they have in the world." The clerk found the card immediately. "Miss Detweiler did work here for six months last year," she stated. "In the jewelry department. And then she was dismissed for stealing." "Stealing!" repeated Mary Louise, aghast at such news. "Why, I can't believe it! Margaret was the most upright, honest girl at home; she came from the best people. How did it happen?" "I remember her now," announced the employment manager. "A pretty, dark-eyed girl who always dressed rather plainly. Yes, I was surprised too. But she had been ill, I believe, and perhaps she wasn't quite herself. Maybe she had doctor's bills and so on. It was too bad, for if she had come to me I could have helped her out with a loan." "Was she sent to prison?" asked Mary Louise in a hoarse whisper. Oh, the disgrace of the thing! It would kill old Mrs. Detweiler if she ever found it out. "No, she wasn't. We found the stolen article in Miss Detweiler's shoe. At least, one of the things she took--a link bracelet. We didn't recover the ring, but a wealthy woman, a customer who happened to be in the jewelry department at the time, evidently felt sorry for Miss Detweiler and offered to pay for the ring. We didn't let her, but of course we had to dismiss the girl." "You haven't any idea where Margaret went--or what she did?" "Only that this woman--her name was Mrs. Ferguson, I remember, and she lived at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel--promised Miss Detweiler a job. So perhaps everything is all right now." "I hope so!" exclaimed Mary Louise fervently. And thanking the woman profusely she left the office and the store. But she had her misgivings. If everything had turned out all right, why hadn't Margaret written to her grandparents? Who was this Mrs. Ferguson, and why had she done this kindness for an unknown girl? Mary Louise meant to find out, if she could. She inquired her way to the Benjamin Franklin Hotel and asked at the desk for Mrs. Ferguson. But she was informed that no such person lived there. "Would you have last year's register?" she asked timidly. She hated to put everybody to so much trouble. The clerk smiled: nobody could resist Mary Louise. "I'll get it for you," he said. After a good deal of searching she found a Mrs. H. R. Ferguson registered at the hotel on the twenty-third of the previous December, with only the indefinite address of Chicago, Illinois, after her name. Margaret Detweiler did not appear in the book at all: evidently she had never stayed at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel. With a sigh of disappointment, Mary Louise thanked the clerk and left. Nothing had been gained by that visit. "It must be lunch time," she decided, after glancing in vain at her wrist, where she was accustomed to wear her watch. "I guess I'll go back to the house." The minute she entered the door of Stoddard House, the most terrible commotion greeted her. A woman's shriek rang through the air; someone cried out, "Catch her--she's fainted!" the elevator doors slammed, and people appeared from everywhere, in wild confusion. Mary Louise dashed through the door to the desk just in time to see Mrs. Macgregor, the wealthy widow who lived in room 201, drop down on the bench beside the elevator. Women pressed all around her prostrate figure: guests, maids, Mrs. Hilliard, and the secretary, Miss Horton, who offered a glass of water to the unconscious woman. But nobody seemed to know what it was all about. Presently Mrs. Macgregor opened her eyes and accepted a sip of the water. Then she glared accusingly at Mrs. Hilliard. "I've been robbed!" she cried. "Five hundred dollars and a pair of diamond earrings!" CHAPTER VI _Saturday Afternoon_ "Do you feel any better now, Mrs. Macgregor?" inquired Mrs. Hilliard, as the stricken woman sat upright on the bench. "Better!" she repeated angrily. "I'll never feel better till I get my money back again." Mary Louise repressed a smile. Macgregor was a Scotch name. "Now, tell us how it happened," urged Mrs. Hilliard. "When did you first miss the money?" "Just a few minutes ago, when I came out of my bath." She became hysterical again. "Lock the doors!" she cried. "Search everybody! Call the police!" Mary Louise caught Mrs. Hilliard's eye. "Shall I?" she asked. Mrs. Hilliard nodded. "And tell the janitor to lock the doors and station himself at the front to let the guests in who come home, for the girls will be coming into lunch from work. Today's a half holiday." By the time Mary Louise had returned, she found the crowd somewhat dispersed. The servants had gone back to their work, but several new arrivals had joined Mrs. Hilliard and Mrs. Macgregor. The two Walder girls, about whom Mary Louise had heard so much, were there, and Mrs. Hilliard introduced them. They were both very attractive, very much the same type as Mary Louise's own friends in Riverside. Much more real, she thought, than Pauline Brooks, with her vivid make-up and her boastful talk. "That is a great deal of money to keep in your room, Mrs. Macgregor," Evelyn Walder said. "Especially after all the robberies we've been having at Stoddard House." "That's just it! It was on account of these terrible goings-on that I took the money and the diamonds from a little safe I have and got them ready to put into the bank. Somebody was too quick for me. But I'm pretty sure I know who it was: Ida, the chambermaid!" "Oh, no!" protested Mrs. Hilliard. "Ida has been with me two years, and I know she's honest." "Send for her," commanded Mrs. Macgregor. While they were waiting for the girl to appear, Mrs. Macgregor explained more calmly just what had happened. "I had the money and the diamonds in a bag on my bureau," she said. "I was running the water in my bathroom when I heard a knock at the door. I unlocked it, and Ida came in with clean towels and a fresh bureau cover. While she was fixing the bureau cover, I hurried back to the bathroom, put the towels away, and turned off the water. My bath salts fell out of the closet when I opened the door to put the towels away, so I was delayed two or three minutes gathering them up. I heard Ida go out and close the door behind her, and I got into my bath. When I came back into the bedroom, my bag was gone." "But you didn't scream immediately," observed Mrs. Hilliard. "You must have waited to dress." "I had dressed in the bathroom, before I knew the bag was stolen." "Wasn't anybody else in your room all morning, Mrs. Macgregor?" Mary Louise couldn't help asking. "Only Miss Stoddard. She had gone out to buy me some thread--she does my mending for me--and she stopped in on her return from the store and took some of my lingerie to her room." At this moment the chambermaid, a girl of about twenty-two, approached the group. Either she knew nothing about the robbery, or else she was a splendid actress, for she appeared entirely unconcerned. "You wanted me, Mrs. Hilliard?" she inquired. "Listen to the innocent baby!" mocked Mrs. Macgregor scornfully. Ida looked puzzled, and Mrs. Hilliard briefly explained the situation. The girl denied the whole thing immediately. "There wasn't any bag on the bureau, Mrs. Macgregor," she said. "I know, because I changed the cover." "Maybe it wasn't on the bureau," admitted Mrs. Macgregor. "But it was somewhere in the room. You're going to be searched!" The girl looked imploringly at Mrs. Hilliard, but the latter could not refuse to grant Mrs. Macgregor's demand. "I can prove I didn't take any bag," said Ida. "By Miss Brooks. I went right into her room next and made her bed. She can tell you I did. She was just going out--I'm sure she'll remember." "Is Miss Brooks here?" "I think she left the hotel about fifteen minutes ago," stated Miss Horton, the secretary. "Before Mrs. Macgregor screamed." "Well, we can ask her when she comes back," said Mrs. Hilliard. "Where were you, Ida, when I sent for you?" "Still in Miss Brooks' room," replied the girl tearfully. "I was running the vacuum cleaner, so I never heard the disturbance." Mrs. Hilliard turned to Mrs. Macgregor. "If Ida did steal your bag," she said, "she would have to have it concealed on her person. Mary Louise, you take Ida to my apartment and have her undress and prove that she isn't hiding anything." Without a word the two girls did as they were told and took the elevator to the fourth floor. Mary Louise felt dreadfully sorry for her companion, who by this time was shaking and sobbing. She put her arm through Ida's as they entered Mrs. Hilliard's apartment. "You know, Ida," she said, "if you did do this it would be lots easier for you if you'd own up now. The police are bound to find out anyhow, sooner or later." "But I didn't, miss!" protested the other girl. "I never stole anything in my life. I was brought up different. I'm a good girl, and my mother would die if she knew I was even accused of stealing." Instinctively Mary Louise believed her. Nevertheless, she had to do as she was told, and she carefully made the search. But she found nothing. Satisfied, she took the girl back to Mrs. Hilliard. The police had already arrived, and more of the hotel guests had returned. Miss Stoddard was sitting beside Mrs. Macgregor, and Mary Louise longed to suggest that she--or rather her room--be searched. However, the police attended to that. One officer took each floor, and everybody's room was systematically gone through. But the valuable bag could not be found. The doors of the hotel were unlocked, and everybody was allowed to go in and out again as she pleased. Mary Louise watched eagerly for Pauline Brooks, hoping that she would prove Ida's alibi, but Miss Brooks did not return. Undoubtedly she had a date somewhere--a lively girl like Pauline could not imagine wasting her Saturday afternoon on "females," as she would call the guests at Stoddard House. The dining-room doors were thrown open, and Mary Louise and Mrs. Hilliard went in to their lunch together. The older woman seemed dreadfully depressed. "Mrs. Macgregor is leaving this afternoon," she said. "And the Weinbergers go tomorrow. If this keeps up, the hotel will be empty in another week.... And I'll lose my position." "Oh, I hope not," replied Mary Louise. "Everybody can't leave because things are stolen, for there are robberies everywhere. The big hotels all employ private detectives, and yet I've read that an awful lot of things are taken just the same. Some people make their living just by robbing hotel guests. So, no matter where people go, they run a risk. Even in homes of their own." "Yes, that's true. But Stoddard House has been particularly unlucky, and you know things like this get around." "I'm going to do my best to find out who is the guilty person," Mary Louise assured her. "And this morning's robbery ought to narrow down my suspects to those who were at the house at the time. At least, if you can help me by telling me who they are." "Yes, I think I can. Besides Mrs. Macgregor and myself, there were only Miss Stoddard, the two Weinbergers, Mrs. Moyer, and Miss Brooks. All the rest of the guests have positions and were away at work." Mary Louise took her notebook and checked off the list. "That does make it easier, unless one of the help is guilty. They were all here at the time.... But of course the thief may be that same man who stole my watch." "Yes, that's possible, especially if he is an accomplice of one of the guests--of Miss Stoddard, for instance." "Yes. I've been thinking about her. She was in Mrs. Macgregor's room, you know." But Mary Louise did not tell Mrs. Hilliard about seeing Miss Stoddard sneaking out of the pawnshop. "You better go to a movie this afternoon, Mary Louise, and forget all about it for the time being," advised the manager. "Shan't I ask the Walder girls to take you along? They usually go to a show." "No, thanks, Mrs. Hilliard. It's very thoughtful of you, but I want to go back to the department store and make another inquiry about the lost girl I'm trying to trace. I'd like a chance to talk to Miss Stoddard too, and to Pauline Brooks when she comes back. Maybe she saw the thief, if she came out of her room when Ida said she did." "Well, do as you like. Only don't worry too much, dear." Mary Louise finished her lunch and went out into the open air again. Now that she was becoming a little more familiar with the city, she thought she would like to walk along Chestnut and Walnut streets, to have a look at the big hotels and the expensive shops. The downtown district was thronged with people, shopping, going to matinées, hurrying home for their weekend holiday; the confusion was overwhelming after the quiet of Riverside. But Mary Louise enjoyed the excitement: it would be something to write home about. At Broad and Walnut streets she stopped to admire the Ritz Hotel, a tall, imposing building of white stone, where Pauline Brooks had said that her aunt usually stayed when she was visiting Philadelphia. What fun it would be to have luncheon or tea there some day! If only she had somebody to go with. Perhaps Pauline would take her, if she asked her. Mary Louise wanted to be able to tell the Riverside girls about it. Half a block farther on she saw Pauline herself coming towards her, accompanied by a stout, stylishly dressed woman and a very blond girl of her own age. "That must be Pauline's aunt," Mary Louise thought, noticing what a hard, unpleasant face the woman had, how unattractive she was, in spite of her elegant clothes. "No wonder Pauline doesn't want to live with her!" "Hello, Pauline!" she said brightly. It was wonderful to meet somebody she knew in this big, strange city. Pauline, who had not noticed Mary Louise, looked up in surprise. "Oh, hello--uh--Emmy Lou," she replied. Mary Louise laughed and stood still. "We've had all sorts of excitement at Stoddard House, Pauline. I want to tell you about it." The woman and the blond girl continued to walk on, but Pauline stopped for a moment. "You mean besides last night?" she asked. "Yes. Another robbery. Mrs. Macgregor----" "Tell me at supper time, Emmy Lou," interrupted Pauline. "These people are in a hurry. I've got to go." Mary Louise was disappointed; she did so want to ask Pauline whether Ida's story were true. Now she'd have to wait. She continued her walk down Walnut Street until she came to Ninth, then she turned up to Market Street and entered the department store where she had made the inquiries that morning concerning Margaret Detweiler. There were not so many people visiting the employment manager that afternoon as in the morning: perhaps everybody thought Saturday afternoon a poor time to look for a job. Mary Louise was thankful for this, and apologized profusely for taking the busy woman's time again. "I couldn't find anybody by the name of Ferguson at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel now," she said, "or any trace of Margaret Detweiler at all, there. But after I left the hotel it occurred to me that if you would give me the address that Margaret had while she was working here, I might make inquiries at the boarding house, or wherever it was that she lived. They might know something. Do you think that would be too much trouble?" "No trouble at all," replied the woman pleasantly. She told the clerk to look in the files again. The address was a number on Pine Street, and Mary Louise asked where that street was located, as she copied it down in her notebook. "Not far away," was the reply. "You can easily walk there in a few minutes." She gave Mary Louise explicit directions. It was a shabby red-brick house in a poor but respectable neighborhood. A colored woman answered Mary Louise's ring. "Nothing today!" said the woman instantly, without giving Mary Louise a chance to speak first. "I'm not selling anything," replied the girl, laughing. "I wanted to ask the landlady here about a girl named Margaret Detweiler who used to live here. Could you ask her to spare me a minute or two?" "All right," agreed the servant. "Come in." She ushered Mary Louise into a neat but gloomy parlor, and in a couple of minutes the landlady appeared. "I understand you want to ask me about Miss Detweiler?" she inquired. "Yes," answered Mary Louise. "I am trying to find her for her grandparents. The employment manager of the department store said she lived here. Is that correct?" "Yes, it is. Miss Detweiler lived here for about five months. She seemed like a nice quiet girl, with no bad habits. She paid regular till the last month she was here, when she took sick and had to spend a lot of money on medicines and doctor's bills. Then, all of a sudden, she slipped away without payin' her bill, and I never saw her again." "She owes you money?" demanded Mary Louise. "No, she don't now. A couple of weeks after she left, she sent it to me in a registered letter. So we're square now." "Didn't she send her address?" "No, she didn't." "Where was the letter postmarked?" "Center Square. A little town up the state." "Do you still have the envelope?" "No, I haven't. But I remember the name, because I used to know folks at Center Square." "Didn't Margaret say anything in her letter about how she was getting on or what she was doing?" asked Mary Louise. "There wasn't any letter. Just a folded piece of paper." "Oh, that's too bad! And what was the date?" "Sometime in January. Let's see, it must have been near the start of the month, for I remember I used some of that money to buy my grandson a birthday present, and his birthday's on the seventh." "Well, I thank you very much for what you have told me," concluded Mary Louise. "Maybe it will lead to something. I'll go to Center Square and make inquiries. You see," she explained, "Margaret Detweiler's grandparents are very unhappy because they haven't heard from her, and I want to do all in my power to find her. Margaret is all they have, and they love her dearly." The woman's eyes filled with tears. "And may you have good luck, my dear child!" she said. CHAPTER VII _The Abandoned House_ When Mary Louise returned to the hotel, she found everything quiet. She went immediately to the fourth floor; Mrs. Hilliard was in her sitting room, knitting and listening to the radio. "Has anything happened since I left?" asked the girl eagerly. "No," replied the manager. "Except that another guest has departed. Your friend Pauline Brooks came back, packed her bag, paid her bill, and left. Of course, she was only a transient anyway, but the hotel is so empty that I was hoping she would stay a while." "I met her on the street with her aunt," Mary Louise said. "But she didn't have time to talk to me. Did you question her about Ida's story?" "Yes, and she said it was true that Ida did come into her room to make the bed at that time, because she, Miss Brooks, had slept late. But she didn't know how long the maid had stayed because she left the hotel before Mrs. Macgregor discovered her loss and screamed. So it is possible that Ida went back into Mrs. Macgregor's room." "Personally I believe the girl is innocent," stated Mary Louise. "So do I. As I said, she has been with me two years, and I have always found her absolutely trustworthy. It probably was a sneak thief. The police are on the lookout for somebody like that." "Did you talk to Miss Stoddard?" "No, I didn't. She went out this afternoon." "She'll bear watching," remarked Mary Louise. "I think so too," agreed the other.... "Now, tell me what you did with yourself this afternoon." Mary Louise related the story of her visit to Margaret Detweiler's former boarding house and the scant information she had obtained. "Is Center Square far away?" she asked. "Oh, a couple of hours' drive, if you have a car. But do you really think it would do you any good to go there? The girl was probably only passing through and stopped at the postoffice to mail her letter to the landlady." "Yes, I am afraid that is all there was to it. But I could at least make inquiries, and after all, it's the only clue I have. I'd never be satisfied if I didn't do the very best I could to find Margaret for her grandparents." Mary Louise stayed a little longer with Mrs. Hilliard; then she went to her own room to dress for dinner. But suddenly she was terribly homesick. Jane and the boys would be coasting all afternoon, she knew, for there would still be plenty of snow left in the country, and there was a dance tonight at another friend's. Max would be coming for her in his runabout; she would be wearing her blue silk dress--and--and----Her eyes filled with tears. Wasn't she just being terribly foolish to stay here in Philadelphia, missing all those good times? And for what? There wasn't a chance in the world that she'd discover the thief, when even the police were unsuccessful. "But I'll never learn to be a detective until I try--and--learn to accept failures," she told herself sternly, and she knew that, all things considered, she had not been foolish. It might be hard at the time to give up all the fun, but in the long run it would be worth it. She ought to be thanking her lucky stars for the chance! Somewhat reassured, she dressed and went downstairs to the reception room, where the radio was playing. She found the two Walder girls, whom she had met at noontime when Mrs. Macgregor raised the commotion. Mary Louise greeted them cordially. "It's beginning to rain," said Evelyn Walder, "so Sis and I thought we'd stay in tonight and try to get up a game of bridge. Do you play, Mary Lou?" "Yes, indeed," replied Mary Louise. "I love it. Whom shall we get for a fourth? Mrs. Hilliard?" "Mrs. Hilliard doesn't like to play, and besides, she has to get up and answer the telephone so much that she usually just knits in the evenings. Maybe we can get one of the Fletcher girls." "No, I heard Lucy say that they had a date," returned Ruth Walder. Mary Louise looked disappointed; she was so anxious to meet all the guests at Stoddard House. She had an inspiration, however. "How about Miss Stoddard?" she asked. "Does she play?" The other two girls looked at Mary Louise in amazement. "Sure, she plays bridge," replied Evelyn. "But we don't want her! If you don't mind my slang, I'll say she's a pain in the neck." Mary Louise smiled: she thought so too. "Mrs. Weinberger is nice, even if she is a lot older than we are," observed Ruth. "And she loves to play, because her daughter goes out every Saturday night with her boy-friend, I think." The others agreed to this suggestion, and Mrs. Weinberger accepted the invitation immediately. So the evening passed pleasantly, but Mary Louise did not feel that she had learned anything of value to her job. The party broke up about ten-thirty; Mary Louise went to her room and took out her notebook. "It's getting so confusing," she mused. "So many things stolen, so many people involved. These two robberies since I came--the one in my room last night, and Mrs. Macgregor's today--make five in all. I wonder if they could all have been done by the same person. Maybe--maybe it's a secret band of some kind! With Miss Henrietta Stoddard as its leader!" Her one determination, when she awakened the next morning, was to have a talk with Miss Stoddard. Accordingly, after breakfast she asked Mrs. Hilliard how that could best be arranged. "Miss Stoddard always goes to Christ Church," was the reply. "Why couldn't you plan to go with her?" "That's a wonderful idea, Mrs. Hilliard! I always did want to visit Christ Church--we read so much about it in history." "I'll ask her to take you with her," offered the manager, "when she comes out of the dining room." The arrangement was easily made, and a couple of hours later Mary Louise met Miss Stoddard in the lobby of the hotel. Today the spinster was not wearing the shabby brown suit; indeed, she looked quite neat and stylish in a dark blue coat trimmed with fur. The rain had washed most of the snow away, and the sun was shining, so both Mary Louise and Miss Stoddard thought it would be pleasant to walk down to Second and Market streets, where the historic church was situated. For a while they talked of its significance in colonial Philadelphia, and Miss Stoddard promised to show Mary Louise the pew in which George Washington and his family had worshiped. It was Miss Stoddard, however, who gave the conversation a personal turn. "You saw me come out of that pawnshop yesterday, didn't you, Miss Gay?" she inquired. "I wanted to ask you not to say anything about my visit to Mrs. Hilliard or to any of the other guests." "But it is nothing to be ashamed of, Miss Stoddard," protested Mary Louise. "Lots of people pawn things." "I know. But not women of my type, usually. I'm rather hard pressed for money now, so I sold an old brooch of my mother's. It didn't bring much." Mary Louise nodded and looked at her companion. But she could not tell whether she were telling the truth or not. "Then," continued Miss Stoddard, "my visit might look suspicious to some people--after all these robberies at the hotel." "Yes, I suppose that's true." "But it really proves my innocence, because if I had taken all that money of Mrs. Macgregor's I shouldn't be rushing to a pawnshop now to get a little more." That was a good point; Mary Louise had not thought of it before. "Who do you think did all the stealing, Miss Stoddard?" she asked point-blank. "The Weinberger girl! I suppose you'd call her a woman, but she seems like just a girl to me. She and the young man she goes with are in league together. I think he's out of work, and the two of them have been planning to get married. So they've been stealing right and left." "Even her own mother's watch?" "Yes, even that." Mary Louise was silent. It was an entirely new idea to her. Yet it was possible; the Weinbergers had been at Stoddard House ever since the things began to be stolen. If Hortense Weinberger were going to marry this young man of hers, she could use the silverware, the vase, and the painting in her new house or apartment. The watches could be pawned, and the money would be enough to keep the young couple for a while.... Yes, the explanation was logical. "I have reason to believe that this couple will elope tonight," announced Miss Stoddard. Mary Louise's eyes opened wide with excitement. "If that man is the thief, and if I can see him to identify him," she said, "maybe that will solve the mystery. You remember, Miss Stoddard, a man stole my watch. He was short and of slight build--but of course I couldn't see his face. Is Miss Weinberger's friend like that?" "I don't know. I never saw him. But I overheard a phone call, and Hortense Weinberger said she'd slip out about eleven tonight. Could you be watching then?" "Yes, yes!" cried Mary Louise joyfully. Oh, suppose it were true, and she could identify the man! Wouldn't it be too wonderful? "I think you're terribly clever, Miss Stoddard," she said, "if you really have found the solution. It will mean so much to Mrs. Hilliard. She has been worried to death." They had been so interested in their conversation that they did not realize how near they were to the church. In another minute they were walking reverently into the old building, and for the next hour and a half, robberies and mysteries were forgotten in the solemn beauty of the service. Nor did they refer to the subject afterwards, but walked back to the hotel talking about historic Philadelphia. Mary Louise went to her room after dinner and wrote down everything Miss Stoddard had said about Hortense Weinberger. The explanation was so plausible that she could hardly wait for the evening to come, with her chance to identify her own particular burglar. If he were the man who had entered her room, the whole thing would be solved and she could go home for Christmas! Oh, how glad she was that she had had that talk with Miss Stoddard! In the midst of her daydreams a knock sounded at the door. A maid handed her a card with the name "Max Miller" engraved on it. Mary Louise let out a wild whoop of joy and, not waiting to explain, dashed past the maid and down the steps to the lobby. And there he was. Good old Max--looking handsomer than ever! Mary Louise could have hugged him in her delight. "Max! You angel!" she cried. "How did you know I'd be so glad to see you?" "Because I knew how glad I'd be to see you," he replied, still holding onto her hand. Mary Louise withdrew it laughingly. "Women talk," she reminded him, glancing about her. "O.K.," he grinned. "How are you? Solved your mystery yet?" "Oh no. I've had my own watch and five dollars stolen--that's all!" "And you call this a good time! Well, Mary Lou, you certainly can take it.... But haven't you had enough, little girl? Please come home with me!" Mary Louise's eyes flashed in anger. "Is that what you came here for, Max Miller?" she demanded. "No--oh, no! I didn't expect you'd come home. I just wanted to see you, so I drove down. Started early this morning. Now let's go places and do things!" "Where? You can't do much in Philadelphia on Sunday." "Anywhere. We can take a drive and have our supper at some nice place away from this henhouse." "Now, Max----" "Get your coat and hat. There's a good girl." "But, Max, you must be sick of driving. And if you expect to start back tonight----" "I don't. I'm staying over at the Y.M. for a couple of days. So I can watch you. Now, don't get excited! I have your parents' consent. In fact, they thought it was a bully idea. You may be a wonderful detective, Mary Lou, but just the same you're a darned pretty girl. And pretty girls alone in strange cities...." "I have Mrs. Hilliard," she reminded him. "Yes, I know. That's what makes it _look_ all right. But it doesn't make you safe, just the same. You could easily be kidnaped." "You're not going to follow me everywhere I go, are you?" she asked, in concern. "No. Just keep an eye on you for a couple of days. And maybe help you a bit. With a car at your disposal, you may be able to clear up things quicker and go home in time for the senior prom. That's my little scheme, in a nutshell." "It will be wonderful," agreed Mary Louise. "I'll admit there have been moments when I've been homesick, Max." Her eyes brightened. "I know where I want to go this afternoon! To Center Square." "Where's that?" "I don't know. Out in the country somewhere--you can look it up on your map." "O.K. I'm ready, Mary Lou. The car is at the door. Run up and get your hat and coat. Wrap up warmly. It's a lot warmer, and most of the snow's gone, but you know my runabout isn't like a heated limousine." In five minutes she was back again, looking very pretty in her squirrel coat, with its matching toque. Leaving word for Mrs. Hilliard that she would not be back for supper, she got into the car with Max. As the couple started, Mary Louise explained why she wanted to go to Center Square: that her project had nothing to do with the thefts at the hotel but was the hope of tracing Margaret Detweiler. And she told her companion the facts she had learned about the girl. "I'm even more anxious to find her than to solve the mystery at Stoddard House," she said, "because of those two old people. It's just too dreadful for them." Max nodded. He knew the Detweilers and felt extremely sorry for them. Everybody in Riverside liked them and pitied them in their distress. "I just can't bear to tell them that Margaret was dismissed from the department store for stealing," she added. "I wouldn't," advised Max. "Better tell them nothing at all than that. It wouldn't help any and would only cause them unhappiness." Mary Louise asked about everything that had happened at Riverside since she had left. It had been only two days, but it seemed like an age. Max described the party the night before, but it was a poor affair without Mary Lou, according to his idea, and he had left early so he could get off at daybreak this morning. The day was clear and warm, and except for the slush on the roads the drive was delightful. The young people were happy to be together again and enjoyed every minute of it. It was already dusk of the short winter day when they arrived at Center Square and stopped at the country hotel. "We're going to want dinner in an hour or so," Max told the clerk. "But first we want to see whether we can locate a girl who was here late last winter. Did a young woman named Margaret Detweiler ever register here?" The clerk obligingly looked through his book. But the name was not there. "She's tall and slender and very dark," said Mary Louise. "Has wavy hair and an olive complexion." The clerk shook his head. "No, I don't remember seein' anybody like that around. Not many strangers come here--except automobile parties sometimes, stoppin' to eat." "Are there any empty houses she might have rented?" was Mary Louise's next question. "None rented as I know of. There's some abandoned houses around, places where people sometimes come just for the summer." "Where?" The clerk gave the directions. "Now one more question. Where does the postmaster live? For of course the postoffice is closed on Sunday." "Sure it's closed. But the postmaster lives right over top of it. Across the street a way from here." Mary Louise and Max went there next and were fortunate enough to find the man at home. When Mary Louise told him about the registered letter and described the girl, he said he believed he did remember. So few people came to the little country town; still fewer registered letters. But Margaret hadn't stopped in a car, he thought--she had walked from somewhere. No, he was positive she hadn't been boarding with any of the folks around, or he'd have heard of it. Well, that was something definite! Maybe she was hiding in one of those empty houses the clerk had spoken of, to escape from the police. Max turned his car off the main highway into a little dirt road, almost impassable with its slush and snow. He stopped in front of the first empty house which the clerk had described. It was dark and forlorn. "There would be some sort of light if anybody were living there," observed Max. "You can't tell," replied Mary Louise. "If Margaret were hiding, she'd be careful about lights. Let's get out and look." "But why should she hide? Didn't you tell me the employment manager promised not to send her to jail?" "Yes, but you don't know what crimes she's committed since. If she were behaving herself, wouldn't she have written to her grandparents? Either she's dead or she's doing something wrong." They waded through slush over their shoe-tops but could see no signs of any life. Mary Louise decided to try another house. "It's a wild theory, Mary Lou, but you're the doctor," agreed Max. "So long as my bus'll run, I'm game." "You are a sport, Max! I don't know what I'd do without you." "Men are helpful sometimes, aren't they?" "I guess they're absolutely necessary," replied Mary Louise modestly. "I never seem to be able to get along without them." "That's the proper attitude for a girl," he answered gayly. Farther along the road they stopped in front of another empty house. It was situated at the top of a steep incline and almost completely surrounded by trees. "Can you climb that hill, Max?" she asked. "I can try--if you think there's any use," he replied. It was a difficult task, for the driveway was so covered with slush that it was hard to tell which was road and which was field. But Max made it in low gear, and they came to a stop in front of a barn, under a big tree. The house was shabby and unpainted; its windows were covered with boards, and its heavy doors without glass. Mary Louise shuddered: it reminded her of Dark Cedars. Max turned off the motor and jumped out of the car. "Nobody home, I guess," he announced. From her seat in the car Mary Louise stared at the house, peering into the strip of glass above the boards on the windows. She thought she saw a flicker of light, as if a candle were burning. Yes, she was sure of it--and--a face appeared at the window! Two frightened eyes looked right into hers. A second later another face appeared, more plainly than the first, for this person evidently had hold of the candle. The first face had vanished, and Mary Louise saw only that of an exceedingly ugly woman--someone who looked somehow familiar. That very instant the tiny light went out, and at the same moment Mary Louise sank unconscious in her seat. A stone, hurled from the tree above her, had hit her right on the head! CHAPTER VIII _Knocked Out_ Max, who was standing on the ground near by, heard the heavy thud of the stone as it hit the floor of the car. Turning about sharply, he saw Mary Louise slumped in her seat, unconscious from the blow. He flung open the door and jumped in beside her. "Mary Lou! Mary Lou! Are you alive?" he cried desperately. The girl did not answer. "Help! Help!" he shrieked, at the top of his lungs. A mocking laugh sounded from the tree above. Max looked up, but in the darkness he could see no one. How he wished he had his flashlight! But it was behind in the rumble seat, and he daren't waste a minute; he must get Mary Lou to a doctor with all possible speed. Starting his engine immediately--for there was no reply to his call for help--he circled around the tree and crept cautiously down the slippery hill, praying as he had never prayed before. Oh, suppose Mary Louise were dead! With as much speed as he dared put on, he drove back to the Center Square hotel. As he came to a stop he felt a little movement beside him, and Mary Louise raised her head and opened her eyes. "Where are we, Max?" she asked. "What happened?" "Oh, my darling!" he cried, flinging his arm around her shoulders. "You are alive!" The girl managed a feeble laugh. "Of course I am. My head hurts dreadfully, though. What happened?" "You were hit by a stone--see it there, on the floor?--from that tree we were parked under. It knocked you out.... Now, can you manage to walk up to the hotel, or shall I carry you?" "I can walk," she replied, taking his arm. In the light of the hotel doorway Max saw the blood running down her neck. He wiped it with his handkerchief. "Can we have a doctor immediately?" he asked the hotel clerk the moment they were inside the door. "Yes, there's one in the dining room now, eating his dinner. I'll call him. An accident?" Max explained the strange happening at the empty house, but the clerk said he did not know anything about the place. He had not heard of any gangsters in these parts. The doctor came immediately and dressed Mary Louise's head. The cut was not serious, he assured her; it was not in a vital place. When it was washed and bandaged she was able to eat her dinner with enjoyment. "Maybe that first person I saw was Margaret Detweiler," she said. "I wish I could stay here all night and go investigate tomorrow. But Mother wouldn't approve of it." "I should say not!" thundered Max. "I'm taking you back to Mrs. Hilliard tonight, and I think you had better go home to Riverside tomorrow." "Indeed I won't, Max. And that reminds me, I have to be at the hotel tonight at eleven o'clock. I want to spy on an elopement." "Elopement! What next?" "Well, one of the guests, a Miss Stoddard, who happens to be a niece of the founder of Stoddard House, thinks another guest is eloping tonight. She thinks this couple are responsible for all the robberies at the hotel. You know it was a man who entered my room and stole my watch, so I hoped maybe I could identify this fellow as the burglar. If I could, the mystery would be solved." "And you could go home?" "Yes, unless I could find out something more about Margaret Detweiler. But I wouldn't stay here just on purpose for that. I'd go home and see what I could do from there, with Dad's help." "What time is it now, I wonder?" asked Max. "We must get back without fail!" "I don't know," replied Mary Louise regretfully. "I haven't any watch." "I'm going to buy you one for Christmas, if I get a check from Dad," announced Max. "Of course, it will be late, but I'll give you your other present first, so you wouldn't mind that, would you, Mary Lou?" "You'll do nothing of the sort!" protested the girl. "I couldn't accept it. If you get a check from your father it's to buy something for yourself. I'll get an Ingersoll tomorrow when I'm in town.... Now, what time is it?" "It's half-past eight. If you feel able, I think we better go along, because I don't dare drive too fast on these slippery roads at night." "I'm all right--I only have a headache now. So let's get going." Max paid the bill, and they were off. "Now, what will your plans be for tomorrow?" he inquired, as they rode along. "I'd like to come out here and visit that empty house with a policeman," she replied. "If it's possible, I will. But of course I have to see what turns up at the hotel. That is my real job: I'm being paid for it, and my father and Mrs. Hilliard are counting on me to do my best." "I wouldn't care if you never saw Center Square again," muttered Max resentfully. "Still, it would be great to catch the guy who threw that rock at you." "And find out whether the girl really was Margaret Detweiler. Yes, and I'd like to see that ugly woman again. I've seen her face before somewhere, but I can't place her. You don't forget a face like that." "There's something crooked about their hiding in that house," remarked Max. "Yes, of course.... Well, to continue with my plans: I'll see what develops tonight. If there really is an elopement, I'll try to identify that man. If he isn't anything like my burglar, I'll believe that Miss Stoddard is guilty herself and that she just made the whole story up to throw suspicion away from herself." Max regarded her admiringly. "You are a pretty clever girl, Mary Lou," he said. "I do think you'll make a swell detective." "Thanks, Max. But I'm afraid there's nothing clever about that. It's just using common sense." "Well, the good detectives say that's the most important thing: not to let anything escape their notice and to use common sense all the time." They talked of other things for a while, of school and dances and basketball. Finally they reached Stoddard House, a little after ten o'clock. "Oh, I do hope we're in time!" exclaimed Mary Louise. They found the hotel almost deserted. Mrs. Hilliard was sitting in a chair, knitting. Nobody else was around. "Did you have a good time, dear?" she asked, after Max had been introduced to her. "An exciting time," replied the young man. "Mary Lou was hit on the head with a stone and knocked out. But detectives have to expect that sort of thing, I suppose." "Sh!" warned the girl. "Nobody except Mrs. Hilliard is supposed to know I'm acting as detective." "I didn't k-n-o-w that!" apologized Max, in the tone of Joe Penner. Mrs. Hilliard looked troubled. "Tell me what happened," she urged. Briefly Mary Louise related the story, and the good woman was relieved to hear that the blow was not serious. She was thankful, too, that the job at Stoddard House had not been responsible for it. "Are the Weinbergers still here?" was Mary Louise's next question. "Mrs. Weinberger is. But her daughter went out early this afternoon, and I don't think she came back. Her mother was in a great stew at supper time. You would think from the way she carries on that her daughter was a girl in her teens instead of a woman of twenty-eight or so." A look of disappointment crossed Mary Louise's face. "I must see Miss Stoddard," she announced. "Max, you wait here with Mrs. Hilliard till I come back, because I may need you. I shan't be gone long." She ran off and took the elevator to the third floor and knocked at Miss Stoddard's door. "Who is it?" was the query. "Mary Louise Gay. May I come in, Miss Stoddard?" The woman turned the key in the lock and opened the door. She was dressed in a kimono and slippers. "You're too late, Miss Gay," she said. "Miss Weinberger has already eloped. I'm sure of it. I saw her get into a taxi this afternoon, and one of the maids came out and brought her her suitcase. She probably had hidden it somewhere from her mother. She's probably married by now--and run off with all the money and jewelry from Stoddard House!" "Oh!" gasped Mary Louise in dismay. "Why wasn't I here! Did you see the man, Miss Stoddard?" "No--unless he was the taxi driver. But I didn't even get a good look at him." "Probably she was to join him somewhere. He wouldn't risk coming near the house in broad daylight if he was the burglar who entered my room." "No, that's true." "If Hortense Weinberger really is married," said Mary Louise, "don't you suppose her mother will hear about it tomorrow? And if I keep in touch with her mother, I ought to see the man when he comes back from the honeymoon." "Mrs. Weinberger was planning to leave Stoddard House tomorrow," returned Miss Stoddard. "Yes, I know. But this may alter her plans. And besides, she will surely give her forwarding address to Mrs. Hilliard. She has no reason to hide; she doesn't have any idea that her daughter or her husband is suspected of stealing." "I hope you're right, Miss Gay.... Now, tell me what happened to your head." "I was riding in an open car, and a stone fell out of a tree and hit me," she answered simply. The older woman pulled down the corners of her mouth and looked doubtful. "Of course, she's thinking I'm just a wild young girl," Mary Louise concluded. But it really didn't matter in the least to her what Miss Stoddard chose to believe about her. "Well, I must get to bed, Miss Stoddard," she said aloud. "So good-night." "Good-night," returned the other, carefully locking the door after Mary Louise went out. A moment later the girl joined Mrs. Hilliard and Max on the first floor. "Miss Stoddard thinks Miss Weinberger eloped this afternoon," she announced. Mrs. Hilliard laughed incredulously. "Old maids love to imagine romances," she said. "Well, we'll see.... Now, don't you think you had better go to bed?" she asked Mary Louise in a motherly way. "Yes, I do," agreed the girl, "Max, if you're still here, I'd be glad to have you come to lunch with me tomorrow. We're allowed to have men to meals, aren't we, Mrs. Hilliard?" "Certainly, dear." "Nix on that!" protested the young man immediately. "Can you imagine me--one lone fellow--in that dining room full of dames? Looking me over and snickering at the way I wear my hair or tie my shoes? Nothing doing! I'll call for you at one, Mary Lou, and we'll go out somewhere to lunch." "O.K.," agreed the girl, smiling. "See you then!" CHAPTER IX _Lunch at the Bellevue_ Mary Louise slept late the following morning. The dining-room doors had been closed for an hour when Mrs. Hilliard finally came into her room. "What time is it, Mrs. Hilliard?" she inquired, opening her eyes and staring at the bright sunlight pouring through the windows. "It's almost eleven o'clock. I thought you had better sleep this morning, Mary Louise, on account of your head. How do you feel?" "Oh, I'm all right, Mrs. Hilliard, thank you. But this is no time for anybody with a job to get up! I'll get fired." The woman laughed. "My dear, you are doing all that anybody could do, I believe. I am afraid the situation is hopeless. Mrs. Weinberger moved out this morning." "Did she hear from her daughter?" "Yes, she had a telegram. She is married and has gone to New York for a honeymoon over Christmas." "How did her mother take it?" "Very badly. She seemed all cut up about it. The man has a job as a taxi driver, and though Mrs. Weinberger has never met him, she is sure he is a rough, uneducated fellow." "Miss Stoddard thinks he is our thief," announced Mary Louise. "She believes he has been working with Miss Weinberger's help." Mrs. Hilliard's eyes opened wide in astonishment. "That might be possible," she said. "Yes. You remember it was a man who entered my room Friday night. And with Miss Weinberger to watch out for him, he could have sneaked into 'most any of the rooms. That's the theory I wanted to work on today. Where did Mrs. Weinberger go?" "To the Bellevue--temporarily. She said that she'd find something cheaper later on and send me her forwarding address. But she will stay at the big hotel for a few days, till her daughter comes back." "Then I'm going to go see her there. Isn't there something she left that I could take over to her, to use for an excuse?" "A special-delivery letter arrived a few minutes ago. I was going to send it over this afternoon by one of the maids." "Let me take it! And I'll have Max take me there to lunch so I can say I was coming to the hotel anyway. Where is it?" "Broad and Walnut--right across the street from the Ritz Carlton. Your friend will probably know.... Now, you get dressed, Mary Louise, and come over to my apartment for a cup of coffee. You must have something before you leave." "Thanks very much, Mrs. Hilliard. If it isn't too much trouble." She was ready before one o'clock, her bandage entirely covered by her hat, and was waiting downstairs in the lobby for Max when he arrived. "You're looking fine today, Mary Lou!" he exclaimed admiringly. "How's the head?" "Oh, it's all right. Max, could we go to the Bellevue for lunch? And will you please let me pay the bill--out of my salary? Because it's on account of the job that I want to go there." "Sure we can go," he replied. "But nix on the bill. Unless you eat everything on the bill of fare." "I know, but it's a big hotel, and it may be dreadfully expensive." "We'll see," he agreed. Max left his car in an open-air garage near the hotel, and the two young people entered together. Mary Louise thought it was a lovely place, and she pressed Max's arm jubilantly. What fun it was to have a companion! She wouldn't have enjoyed lunching there alone at all, but having Max made it seem like a party. The hotel was quite crowded, probably with numerous vacation guests and Christmas shoppers, and the young couple made their way slowly to the dining room. In the passageway they suddenly came upon Pauline Brooks with another girl--the same blond girl she had been with on Walnut Street the preceding Saturday noon. "Pauline!" exclaimed Mary Louise. "How are you?" Pauline turned around, and seeing Mary Louise's handsome companion her smile included him. Mary Louise introduced Max, and Pauline in turn introduced the cute little blond as Miss Jackson. The girl immediately began to roll her eyes at Max. "I was so disappointed that you moved away from Stoddard House," said Mary Louise. "I didn't like the atmosphere," replied Pauline. "Too much stealing. I was afraid I wouldn't have anything left if I stayed." "But you didn't lose anything, did you?" asked Mary Louise. "No, but I wasn't taking any chances. Besides, it's a lot more comfortable here." "Here? I thought you were at the Ritz?" Pauline laughed. "I was. But my aunt went out to the country, so I moved over here. Like it better." "I see." Suddenly a thought came to Mary Louise: That woman whom she had seen in the empty house--her face looked like Pauline's aunt! That was the person she had reminded her of! "Is your aunt's place at Center Square?" she inquired. Mary Louise thought she saw Pauline start at the question, but she answered it carelessly enough. "It's not in any town," she said. "Just in the country.... Well, I'll be seein' you." She started away. "Wait a minute," begged Mary Louise. "Did you girls ever meet a girl named Margaret Detweiler, from Riverside? I am trying to find her for her grandmother." "Margaret Detweiler--yes----" began Miss Jackson. But Pauline interrupted her. "You're thinking of Margaret Lyla, Blondie," she corrected. "We don't know any Margaret Detweiler." "That's right," agreed the other girl, in obvious confusion. Mary Louise sighed: she had probably been mistaken. And it was all so mixed up, anyhow. Her memory of the night before, of those two faces at the window, was already growing vague. She and Max went on into the dining room. "Some high-steppers," remarked Max. "Not your type, Mary Lou." "I don't care for the little blonde," agreed Mary Louise. "But I did sort of like Pauline Brooks. She was my first friend here in Philadelphia, and she seemed awfully sociable." "I don't like her," said Max emphatically. Of course, Mary Louise was flattered, and she smiled contentedly. "Well, you needn't worry--she'll never be one of my best friends," she said. The waiter led them to a table with a pretty bouquet on the shining white linen cover, and Mary Louise felt almost as if she were at a party. An orchestra was playing, and there were many people dancing. Everything here spoke of gayety and life: no wonder Pauline Brooks referred the Bellevue to Stoddard House. But she must be very rich to be able to stay here. "A big city is grand, isn't it?" she remarked to Max, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "Sometimes," he admitted. "But it can be an awfully lonely place too, Mary Lou. It all depends on who is with you." And his eyes told her who the person was whom he preferred. "Yes, I guess you're right, Max. I was lonely--and it was wonderful of you to come. I wish you could stay the whole time here with me." "I'm supposed to go back tonight, or tomorrow morning early at the latest. But I could break that on one condition." "What's that?" demanded Mary Louise. He lowered his voice to almost a whisper. "Mary Lou, you know how much I care for you. You know I've adored you since the first minute I met you. There's never been anybody else. Let's get married--now--today--and keep it secret till I graduate in June. Then----" The waiter approached diplomatically. Mary Louise picked up the menu in confusion. She had never dreamed Max would suggest such a thing. Why, she had no idea of getting married for years and years! "I'll take this special luncheon," she said, noticing that its cost was moderate. "I will too," added Max, anxious to get rid of the waiter. "What do you say, Mary Lou? Will you?" His voice was so eager that the girl was deeply touched. "Oh no, Max. I couldn't. I don't love you--or anybody--that way yet. And I couldn't deceive my parents or let you deceive yours." "We might just tell our fathers and mothers," he suggested. "No, no, I couldn't. Let's don't even talk about it. I'm here in Philadelphia on a detective job, and I mean to give it my very best. I'll be sorry to have you go home, but maybe it will be better. I'll work harder if I haven't anybody to play around with. Now--what would you say to a dance while we wait for our first course?" The couple glided off to the music, and more than one person in that big dining room noticed the graceful, handsome pair and envied them their happiness. When they came back to their seats their soup was ready for them. "Here come your friends," remarked Max, as Pauline Brooks and her blond companion entered the dining room. "And take a look at the fellows they have with them!" "I don't like their looks," announced Mary Louise emphatically. "Neither do I, needless to say. Just goes to show you what kind of girls they are.... Mary Lou, I want you to drop that Brooks woman. She might get you into harm. Promise me!" "No need to promise," laughed Mary Louise. "I'll probably never see her again now that she's moved away from Stoddard House." Mary Louise ate her luncheon with keen enjoyment. There was nothing like going without breakfast, she said, to give you an appetite for lunch. "Do you think there's any chance of your getting home for Christmas?" asked Max wistfully. "No, I don't believe so," she replied. "I try not to think about it. It will be my first Christmas away from home, the first time I ever didn't hang up my stocking. But, Max, if I could solve this mystery for Mrs. Hillard, it would be worth ten Christmas stockings to me. I just can't tell you what it means." "Yes, I realize that. But it doesn't seem right. The fun at home--visiting each other's houses after dinner, and the Christmas dance at the Country Club! Gosh, Mary Lou, I just can't bear it!" "Why, Max, I'll be the homesick one--not you," she reminded him. Her eyes traveled around the room while they were waiting for their dessert, and she caught sight of Mrs. Weinberger, eating a lonely lunch in a corner by a window, looking as if she didn't care whether she lived or died. Mary Louise felt dreadfully sorry for her; she was glad to have an excuse to go to speak to her after lunch. She took Max over and introduced him. Mrs. Weinberger acknowledged the introduction, but she did not smile. She looked as if she might never smile again. "Yet how much gloomier she would be if she knew we suspected her daughter and her husband of those crimes!" thought Mary Louise. "I have a special-delivery letter for you, Mrs. Weinberger," she said. "I was coming here for lunch, so Mrs. Hilliard asked me to bring it over to you." "Thank you," replied the woman, taking the letter and splitting the envelope immediately. "You heard that my daughter is married, Miss Gay?" "Yes, Mrs. Hilliard told me." Mary Louise longed to ask when the honeymooners would be back, but she hesitated because Mrs. Weinberger looked so gloomy. The woman drew a snapshot from the envelope. "Why, here is their picture!" she exclaimed. "And--he's positively handsome!" Eagerly she handed the photograph to Mary Louise, anxious for the girl's good opinion of the new son-in-law. What an opportunity for the young detective! Mary Louise's fingers actually trembled as she took hold of the picture. But all her hopes were dashed to pieces at the first glance. The man was as different from Mary Louise's burglar as anyone could possibly be. Six feet tall and broad-shouldered, he was smiling down tenderly at his new wife, who was at least a foot shorter. "He's charming, Mrs. Weinberger," she tried to say steadily. "May I offer my congratulations?" The older woman straightened up--and actually smiled! "He is a civil engineer," she read proudly. "But he couldn't get a job, so he's driving a taxi! Well, that's an honest living, isn't it?" "I should say so!" exclaimed Max. "You're lucky you don't have to support him--as so many mothers and fathers-in-law have to nowadays." Mary Louise was pleased for Mrs. Weinberger's sake but disappointed for her own. Miss Stoddard was all wrong: the solution was incorrect. And she was just as much at sea as ever! "There's your friend Pauline Brooks," remarked Mrs. Weinberger. "And--look who's with her!" "That's a friend of hers--a Miss Jackson," explained Mary Louise, as the two girls, with their boy-friends, got up to dance. "Miss Jackson nothing! That's Mary Green--the chorus girl who was staying at Stoddard House when my watch was stolen. I'd like to have a talk with that young woman. But I suppose it wouldn't do any good." Mary Louise's eyes narrowed until they were only slits; she was thinking deeply. Mary Green--alias Miss Jackson! The next step was to find out whether Pauline Brooks too had a different name at this hotel! Maybe at last she was on the right track. CHAPTER X _In the Dead of Night_ "How about a movie?" suggested Max, as the young couple left the hotel dining room. "Oh no, Max," replied Mary Louise. "No, thanks. I have to work now. I'm going to stay right here." "In the hotel? Doing what?" "Some investigating." "You think that young man is guilty? He looked honest to me." "No, I don't believe he's guilty. I--I'll explain later, Max, if anything comes of my investigations.... Now, run along and do something without me." "Can I see you tonight?" "I could probably go to an early show with you after dinner. I'm not sure, so don't stay in Philadelphia just on account of that. I mean, if you want to start back home." "I'm going to start home at daylight tomorrow, morning," replied the young man. "So I'll surely be around tonight. At Stoddard House soon after seven." "All right, I'll see you then. And thanks for a lovely lunch, Max. It's been wonderful." The young man departed, and Mary Louise hunted a desk in one of the smaller rooms of the Bellevue--set aside for writing. She placed a sheet of paper in front of her and took up a pen, as if she were writing a letter. But what she really wanted to do was to think. "I was wrong twice," she reasoned. "First in suspecting Miss Stoddard, then in believing Miss Weinberger guilty. I'll go more carefully this time. "If my very first guess was right--that the transient guests were stealing the valuables from Stoddard House--I must begin all over again. Mrs. Hilliard said there were two girls staying at the hotel for a day or so when the silverware and the vase were stolen.... Are these girls in league with Mary Green and Pauline Brooks? Are they all members of a secret band of thieves? That's the first question I have to answer." She frowned and opened her notebook. Why hadn't she gotten the names of those girls from Mrs. Hilliard's old register? The second crime--the stealing of the watches--she could pin on Mary Green, alias "Blondie Jackson." Now for the last three robberies. They had all taken place while Pauline Brooks was at Stoddard House! Mary Louise considered them separately. Pauline could have stolen Miss Granger's money and her picture, but it was a man who entered Mary Louise's bedroom on Friday night and who took her watch and her money. Was one of those young men whom Pauline was dining with today an accomplice? If so, how did he escape from the hotel? Out of Pauline's window? Finally, she thought over the circumstances of Mrs. Macgregor's robbery, and she almost laughed out loud at her own stupidity. Pauline had left her own room as soon as the maid came in to clean it; she had slipped into Mrs. Macgregor's room and stolen the bag containing the valuables and had left the hotel immediately, before Mrs. Macgregor came out of her bath. Why hadn't she thought of that explanation before? The solution seemed logical and plausible, yet how, Mary Louise asked herself, could she prove her accusations? None of these girls had been caught in the act; probably none of them still possessed the stolen articles, and the money had not been marked in any way or the serial numbers taken. This fact was dreadfully discouraging. If Mary Louise could not prove the girls' guilt, she could do nothing about it. She couldn't even assure Mrs. Hilliard that there would be no more robberies at Stoddard House, because she could not know how many members of this gang there were, and the manager could not suspect every transient guest who came to the hotel. No, she concluded, there was nothing to do but try to catch them in a new crime. If they really made it their business to rob hotels, they would probably carry out some plan here at the Bellevue tonight. Mary Louise's only course was to watch them. With this determination in mind, she went to the clerk's desk in the lobby. "Could I see the manager?" she inquired. The man looked at her quizzingly, wondering whether Mary Louise was a patron of the hotel or a society girl who wanted to collect money for something. "Are you a guest at the hotel, miss?" he asked. "Or have you an appointment?" "No to both questions," she replied. "But I am a private detective, and I want to consult him about something." "O.K.," agreed the clerk. "What name, please?" "Mary Louise Gay." The clerk reached for the telephone, and in another minute he told Mary Louise where to find the manager's office. She followed his directions and walked in bravely, hoping that the man would not think she was dreadfully young. "I am staying at a small hotel for women called Stoddard House," she began, "to investigate a series of robberies which they have had there. The Philadelphia police have my name, and if you wish to identify me, please call Mr. LeStrange." "I will take your word for it, Miss Gay," replied the man, smiling. "These robberies have always occurred when there was a transient guest at the hotel," she explained. "The last series, while I was at the place, led me to suspect a certain girl; the series before that led other people to suspect another girl. I find these two girls are living here now at the Bellevue--they seem to go from one hotel to another, for they were at the Ritz only last Saturday. They evidently use different names. I should like to meet your hotel detective, explain the case to him, and get permission to watch these two young women." The manager did not appear as surprised as Mary Louise expected him to be. But she could not know how common hotel robberies were at the present time. "I will send for our detective," he said. "You have my permission to go ahead--under his orders, of course." "Oh, thank you!" cried Mary Louise, delighted that so far it had been easy. The manager sent for the detective, a nice-looking man of about thirty. He introduced him as Mr. Hayden, and repeated Mary Louise's story. "What would your plan be, Miss Gay?" asked the detective. He treated her respectfully, as if she were indeed a real member of the profession, and Mary Louise felt proud and happy. "First of all, I want to find these girls' names on the hotel register and see what names they are using. Then I want, if possible, to engage a room near theirs and listen for them all night. And third, I want you, or one of your assistants, Mr. Hayden, to be right there in readiness, in case they do anything tonight." "You haven't evidence enough to convict them of the robberies at Stoddard House?" asked Mr. Hayden. "Oh no. I may be entirely mistaken. It is only a clue I am going on. But I believe it is worth following up." "What do you say, Hayden?" inquired the manager. "I'm glad to help," replied the younger man. "I'll be on duty tonight, anyhow, and I'd enjoy the investigation. Nothing is lost, even if nothing does happen." "Then let's go have a look at the register," suggested Mary Louise. "Better send for it," said the detective. "Arouse no suspicions." The book was brought to them, and Mary Louise looked carefully for the names of Pauline Brooks and Mary Green. But she did not find them. She did, however, find the name of Mary Jackson, and with it a name of Catherine Smith, both of whom had arrived that day and engaged a room together on the sixth floor. "Those must be the girls," she concluded. "Room 607. What's the nearest room you can give me?" The manager looked in his records. "609 is moving out tonight. Would that be time enough--or do you want it now?" "No, that's plenty of time. And another thing, can you tell me where Mrs. Weinberger's room is? I met her at Stoddard House, and she would be a sort of chaperon for me." "Her room is on the tenth floor," was the reply: "1026." "Thanks. Then put me down for 609, and I'll phone Mrs. Weinberger this afternoon. I'll come back early this evening, and I'll ask Mrs. Weinberger to meet me in one of the reception rooms. Then, could you come there too, Mr. Hayden?" The man nodded, smiling. How correct this girl was about everything! "Then I believe it's all arranged," said Mary Louise, rising. "I'll go back to Stoddard House. And if you have a chance, Mr. Hayden, will you keep your eye on these girls we're suspecting?" "But I don't know them," he reminded her. "I'd forgotten that! Well, let me describe them. Maybe if you visit the sixth floor, you will see them go in and out." She went on to tell him that Pauline Brooks--or Catherine Smith, as she called herself here--was a striking brunette, and that her companion, Mary Green--or Mary Jackson--was noticeably blond; that both girls were short and slender and wore fur coats and expensive jewelry; that both were as little like the typical sneak thieves as could possibly be imagined. As Mary Louise walked along the street she decided not to tell Mrs. Hilliard any of the details of her plans or who the girls were that she was watching. If nothing came of her theory, she would feel foolish at having failed the third time. Besides, it wasn't fair to the girls to spread suspicion about them until she had proved them guilty. She stopped at a jewelry store and purchased a small, cheap watch, which she put into her handbag. Then she went back to the hotel. Immediately upon her arrival at Stoddard House she called Mrs. Weinberger on the telephone; then, assured of her coöperation, she went to Mrs. Hilliard's office. "I have decided to spend the night at the Bellevue," she said. "Mrs. Weinberger is going to be my chaperon." The manager looked doubtful. "But I promised your father I'd keep you right here with me," she objected. "I know, but this is important. I think I'm on the track of a discovery. And Mrs. Weinberger has promised to look after me." "Does she know that you suspect her daughter, Mary Louise?" "No, because I don't suspect her any longer. Or her new husband either. My clues point in another direction. This time I'm not going to say anything about them till I find out how they work out." "I suppose it will be all right, then," agreed Mrs. Hilliard reluctantly.... "What are your immediate plans, dear?" "I'm going to sleep now till six o'clock, because it's possible I may be awake most of the night. I'll have my dinner here with you then, or with the Walder girls, and after that I'm going to a show with Max. About nine-thirty I'll get to the Bellevue--Mrs. Weinberger is going to wait up for me and go to my room with me." "I'm afraid something may happen to you!" protested the good woman. Mary Louise laughed. "Mrs. Hilliard, you aren't a bit like an employer to the detective she has hired. Instead, you treat me like a daughter. And you mustn't. I shan't be a bit of use to you if you don't help me go ahead and work hard." "I suppose you're right, Mary Louise," sighed Mrs. Hilliard. "But I had no idea what a lovable child you were when I told your father I didn't mind hiring anybody so young as long as she got results." "I only hope I do!" exclaimed Mary Louise fervently. She went to her own room, packed only her toilet articles in her handbag--for she had no intention of going to bed that night--and lay down for her nap. It was dark when she awakened. Dressing hurriedly, and taking her hat and coat with her, she met the Walder girls in the lobby and accepted their invitation to eat dinner with them. Immediately afterwards Max arrived at the hotel, and the young couple went directly to a movie. When it was over, the young man suggested that they go somewhere to eat and dance. Mary Louise shook her head. "I'm sorry, Max--I'd like to, but I can't. This is all I can be with you tonight. I want you to take me to the Bellevue now. I'm spending the night there." "What in thunder are you doing that for?" he stormed. "Please calm down, Max!" she begged. "It's perfectly all right: Mrs. Weinberger is going to meet me and look after me. But I'd rather you didn't say anything about it to Mother--I can explain better when I get home." "Still, I don't like it," he muttered. Nevertheless, he took her to the hotel and waited with her until Mrs. Weinberger came downstairs. "Don't forget to be back home for the dance a week from tonight, Mary Lou!" he said at parting. Mary Louise turned to Mrs. Weinberger. "Have you seen the girls--Pauline Brooks and Mary Green?" she asked. She had explained over the telephone why she wanted to stay at the Bellevue. "No, I haven't," replied the older woman. "But then, I have been in my own room." "How late do you expect to stay up tonight, Mrs. Weinberger?" "Till about eleven, I suppose." "Will you bring your knitting or your magazine to my room till you're ready to go to bed?" "Certainly--I'll be glad to have your company, my dear." Mr. Hayden, the hotel detective, stepped out of the elevator and came to join them. "There's a sitting room on the sixth floor," he said. "Suppose I go there about midnight, Miss Gay? I'm going to have a nap now, but my assistant is in charge, and if you need him, notify the desk, and he'll be with you immediately. Is that O.K.?" "Perfectly satisfactory," agreed Mary Louise. Taking the key to her room, she and Mrs. Weinberger went up together. Pauline's room was apparently dark, but Mary Louise left her own door open so that Mrs. Weinberger could watch for the girls. She herself took up a position where she could not be seen from the doorway. She turned on the room radio, and a couple of hours passed pleasantly. At eleven o'clock Mrs. Weinberger decided to go to her own room and go to bed. When she had gone, Mary Louise turned off the light and the radio and closed her door. Pulling a comfortable chair close beside the keyhole, she sat down to wait and to listen for Pauline's and Mary's return. The elevators clicked more frequently as midnight approached; more and more guests returned to their rooms. Mary Louise watched them all until she saw Pauline Brooks and Mary Green come along the passageway. They were in high spirits, laughing and talking noisily without any regard for the sleepers in the hotel. Even through the thick walls, Mary Louise could hear them as they prepared for bed. But in half an hour all was quiet. Both girls were asleep, no doubt--and Mary Louise believed that she had had all her trouble for nothing. She sighed and dozed in her chair. However, she was not used to sleeping sitting up, and every little noise in the hall aroused her attention. She heard a man come along at two o'clock, and another at half-past. And a little after three she identified the muffled sound of the door of the next room opening! Leaning forward tensely, she glued her eye to the keyhole. Two young men emerged from the girls' room and staggered about unsteadily, as if they were drunk. Two very small men, who somehow looked more like masqueraders than real men, although they were correctly dressed, except for the fact that they wore their caps instead of hats and had not taken them off in the hotel. In spite of their apparently intoxicated condition they walked silently across the hall to room 614. Very cautiously one of them took a key from his pocket, and after a moment or two, he opened the door. Both young men entered the room, but Mary Louise saw that they did not turn on the light as they went in. "There's something queer about that," she thought. And then she remembered the burglar who had entered her own room at Stoddard House and had stolen her watch. He was very like these young men--short and slight and wore a cap. Perhaps these were Pauline's accomplices! Cautiously she moved her chair aside and slipped out of her room. In another moment she had reached the sitting room where Mr. Hayden, the detective, was dozing over a newspaper. "Come with me!" she said briefly, leading him to room 614. "I saw two young men enter this room a couple of minutes ago." The detective knocked gently on the door. There was no reply. He knocked again. The startled voice of a man called out, "What do you want?" "I'm the hotel detective," answered Mr. Hayden. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but please open the door." A light flashed on in the room, and an elderly man, now clad in his dressing gown, admitted Mary Louise and Mr. Hayden. "This young lady thinks she saw two young men come in here five minutes ago," explained the latter. "Were you asleep, sir?" "Yes," was the reply. "Your knock waked me up." "Then, if you don't mind, we'll search the room. Have you anything valuable here?" "I certainly have! A wallet with five hundred dollars, and a set of diamond shirt studs." Mr. Hayden went straight to the closet and turned on the light. Feminine giggles greeted his action. "Don' be mad at us, mishter!" pleaded a girl's voice. "We jus' had a leetle too mush likker, and we wanted to get some shirt studs for our costumes. We're goin' to a nish party, dreshed up like men!" Mr. Hayden smiled and pulled out the two "young men" from the closet. As he snatched off their caps, Mary Louise recognized them instantly. Pauline Brooks and Mary Green! "Pauline!" she cried. "Emmy Lou!" In her surprise, Pauline forgot to act drunk. But the next moment she remembered. "Pleash let us go, mishter," she pleaded, taking hold of Mr. Hayden's coat collar. "Was only jus' a prank----" "Prank nothing!" cried Mary Louise. "And these girls aren't intoxicated, either, Mr. Hayden." "No, I don't believe they are," agreed the detective. He turned to the owner of the room. "Suppose you check up on your valuables, sir, while I call the police." "You're not going to send us to jail!" protested Pauline, in a perfectly normal tone. "But we haven't stolen anything." "You stole plenty at Stoddard House," Mary Louise couldn't help saying. Pauline regarded her accuser with hatred in her eyes. "So you're the one who's responsible for this!" she hissed. "Nasty little rat! And I thought you were a friend of mine!" Mary Louise laughed. "I'll be a friend when you and your gang give back all the stolen articles and money," she replied. The elderly man who lived in the room interrupted them. "Two studs are missing," he announced. "I found the wallet with my money in it on the floor. Yet it was carefully put away last night." "Take off your shoes, Pauline!" ordered Mary Louise. "That's the place to find missing diamonds." The girl had to obey, and the studs fell out on the floor. "It's enough," concluded Mr. Hayden. "Here comes my assistant. You girls will come with us till the police arrive." "Not in these clothes!" objected Mary Green. "Yes, just as you are." He turned to the man. "And now, good-night, sir." "Good-night, and thank you a thousand times!" was the reply. "Thank Miss Gay," amended Mr. Hayden. "It was her work." Tired but satisfied, Mary Louise went back to her own room, and, removing only her shoes and her dress, she slept soundly for the rest of the night. CHAPTER XI _Bail_ Mary Louise did not awaken until nine o'clock the following morning. A pleasant glow of triumph suffused her; she was experiencing her first thrill of professional success. But the occurrence of the preceding night was only a partial victory, she reminded herself; the job was just begun. There were more thieves to be caught, and valuables to be recovered. She decided to ring for a breakfast tray in her room. She had often seen this luxury pictured in the movies; now was her chance to try it out for herself. While it was being prepared she took a shower and dressed. Ten minutes later the tempting meal arrived. It was fun, she thought, as she poured the coffee from the silver pot, to play being a wealthy lady, but it would be more enjoyable if Jane were with her.... However, she had no time now to think of Jane or of her friends in Riverside; she must concentrate all her mental powers upon the mystery she was trying to solve. These were the hypotheses she meant to build her case upon: 1. Pauline Brooks and Mary Green were two members of a secret band of hotel robbers, composed probably of women and girls. 2. Pauline's "aunt," as she called her, must be the leader, since she went from hotel to hotel. 3. The two transient guests who had undoubtedly stolen the silverware and the vase from Stoddard House were members of the same gang. 4. Pauline's "aunt" had a country place where she probably hid the stolen articles until they could be disposed of. Now, with these facts in mind, Mary Louise had several poignant questions to answer: 1. Was this country place at Center Square, and was that woman whom Mary Louise had seen in the dark Pauline's aunt? 2. Was Margaret Detweiler connected with this gang? Mary Louise remembered that Mary Green had admitted that she knew Margaret and that Pauline had instantly contradicted her. It was still rather a muddle, she decided as she finished her breakfast and left the room. She took the elevator to Mrs. Weinberger's floor and hastily told her the story of the previous night's excitement; then, scarcely waiting for the older woman's congratulations, she hurried down to the manager's office. "The hotel is exceedingly grateful to you for the service you have rendered us, Miss Gay," said the man. "The least we can do is to present you with a receipted bill for your room and breakfast." Mary Louise gasped out her thanks: she had never dreamed of a reward. "And what became of the girls?" she inquired. "They are being held under five hundred dollars bail," was the reply. "They won't have any trouble raising that, I'm afraid," said Mary Louise. "They'll skip and go right on with their old tricks." "Perhaps you're right, Miss Gay." "Is Mr. Hayden here?" she asked. "No, he has gone home," replied the manager. "But he left this memorandum for you in case you want to visit the girls and see whether you can learn anything more about the case you're working on." Mary Louise put the paper with the address on it in her handbag and hurried back to Stoddard House. She found Mrs. Hilliard in her office on the first floor, planning her work for the day. "I've great news for you, Mrs. Hilliard!" she cried, carefully closing the door behind her. "I've caught two of the thieves, and you'll never guess who they are!" "No, I won't even try," returned the other. "I'm not much good as a detective. But hurry up and tell me." "Pauline Brooks and Mary Green!" "Pauline Brooks!" repeated Mrs. Hilliard in amazement. "But tell me how you know!" "The detective at the Bellevue and I caught them in men's clothing, trying to rob another guest at the hotel. Remember--I thought it was a man who stole my watch, though he did seem awfully small? Well, it was Pauline, and she was dressed up the same way last night!" "You're the cleverest girl I ever met, Mary Louise! How did you ever come to suspect those girls?" "I'll tell you the whole story later--when I have more time, Mrs. Hilliard. I've got to be off now, after some evidence to prove that they were the thieves who did the stealing here. You see, they're in jail now for what they did at the Bellevue, but I have nothing to prove they were guilty of the robberies at Stoddard House." "But what are you going to do?" "I'm going to try to find the leader of their gang and find the treasure chest. And that reminds me, I want the names of those two transients who were here when you missed the vase and the silverware." Mrs. Hilliard searched for them in her book, and Mary Louise copied them, although she had little hope that they would help her. The way these girls changed names with each change of residence made it extremely baffling. "Where do you expect to look for the leader of this gang?" asked the manager. "I'm going to drive up to Center Square again, right now. In a hired 'drive it yourself' car." "Isn't that where you got that blow on your head?" "Yes, but you needn't worry about me this time, Mrs. Hilliard. I'm going to get a policeman to go with me to the empty house." "Wise girl.... But I believe you'd be wiser still, Mary Louise, if you just dropped the thing now and went home for Christmas. You've certainly earned your pay, and we can feel that our troubles are over. I can give the guests some assurance that they will not be robbed again. Won't you go, dear? Your family will be wanting you." "Oh no, Mrs. Hilliard--thank you just the same. But I couldn't think of it. I want to recover the stolen goods and get more proof against those two girls. I couldn't give up now!" "Well, then, be very careful!" "I'll be back in time for supper," she promised. Mary Louise went directly to the nearest agency and hired a car. Not a new car, but one which ran smoothly and which she found no difficulty in operating. The day was warm for December, and sunny; the snow was gone; it would be jolly to spend the whole day out-of-doors. Of course, it would have been nicer if Jane or Max were with her, but Mary Louise had so much to think about that she did not mind being alone. Wasn't it funny, she mused, that the very first guest she had met at Stoddard House had been the guilty person? How thankful she was that she had not given in to that impulse to make Pauline Brooks her confidante! Perhaps, if she had, Pauline would not have stolen her watch. Yet, without that misfortune, Mary Louise might never have solved the mystery. She drove along at an even speed, following her map and watching for the landmarks she had noticed on her previous trip. About noon she arrived at the hotel where she and Max had eaten dinner on Sunday evening, and she drew the car to a stop at its entrance. The same clerk was at the desk; he remembered Mary Louise and asked immediately how her head was. "It's almost well," she replied. "But I want to visit that house again and find out who lives there and what hit me." "To collect damages?" "No, not specially. But there is something mysterious about that house, and I'd like to see it in broad daylight. This time I want to take a policeman with me. Have you any in Center Square?" "We have a constable. He might be willing to go along." "Would you be kind enough to ring him up and ask him to come here while I eat my lunch in the dining room? After all, he has a right to help me find out what hit me." "Sure, I will, miss. And he'll be glad to come. He's mighty obliging. Besides, he ain't got much to do." Mary Louise was hungry, and she enjoyed her lunch immensely. The food wasn't dainty like the Stoddard House, or fancy, like the Bellevue, but it was wholesome and well cooked, and the keen air had given her a good appetite. When she had finished eating and returned to the main room of the little country hotel, she found the officer waiting for her. He was a stout, middle-aged man with a pleasant smile, and he wore a baggy gray suit with a stringy tie. He was very much interested in the story of Mary Louise's previous visit to Center Square, and of her reason for wanting to see the ugly woman again who was occupying the house. "Of course, what I'm hoping for," concluded Mary Louise, "is to catch her with the stolen goods and have her arrested. But she may not be the person I'm looking for at all, because I saw her in the dark with only a lighted candle behind her." "What is her name?" "Mrs. Brooks is the only name I know her by. But I've learned that criminals have half a dozen names, so you can't go by that. There isn't anybody by that name around here, is there?" The man shook his head. "No, there ain't. But let's drive to the house you mean, and I can tell you who owns it. And maybe tell you something about the people that live there." "I don't believe anybody really lives there," replied Mary Louise. "It's all boarded up." They got into Mary Louise's hired car, and she turned off the main highway into the dirt road which she and Max had explored. Here it was difficult for Mary Louise to find her way, because on the former occasion it had been dark, and snow had covered most of the ground. She drove along slowly, past the empty house they had first visited, until she came to the hill and the place with the steep driveway. She remembered the house now; there was the tree under which Max had parked, and the barn beyond. A huge sign bearing the words "No Trespassing--Private Property" had been erected since her former visit. "This place belongs to a Mrs. Ferguson of Baltimore," announced the constable. "She's a widow with two daughters. They never live here, but once in a while she brings a bunch of girls here for a house party. She's wealthy--always comes in a car and brings a couple of servants." "Ferguson," repeated Mary Louise, wondering where she had heard that name before. But she had heard so many new names in the past few days that she could not place it. "Could you describe her?" she inquired. "Can't say as I could. Never saw her close. She dresses stylish, I know that, and has nothin' to do with the country folks around here." Mary Louise brought the car to a stop and parked it some distance from the house, cautiously avoiding the trees this time. Even though she had a constable with her, she wasn't taking any chances of being hit again. "That's the tree we were parked under," she pointed out, "where I got hit in the head." "Did you see anybody?" "No. But my friend said afterward he heard somebody laugh. But he couldn't wait to investigate, because he had to get me to a doctor." "Maybe it was just a bad boy. We have some young bums around here once in a while." Mary Louise got out of the car, and the constable followed her, making a tour of the outside of the house, examining the boarded windows, trying the locked doors. Apparently it was deserted. "I'd love to get inside," remarked Mary Louise. "Couldn't we break in?" "Not without a warrant," replied the officer. "We ain't got any real evidence against this lady. You can't tell what hit you, and besides, you was trespassin' on private property." Mary Louise sighed. Evidently there was nothing she could do here. She might as well go back to Philadelphia. It had been rather a useless waste of time, she thought, as she drove along towards the hotel. She had learned only one fact--the name of the owner of that empty house. "Ferguson," she kept repeating to herself, wondering where she had heard that name before. And then it came to her--in a flash. Ferguson was the name of the woman who had helped Margaret Detweiler at the department store! Mary Louise laughed out loud. "So I'm on the track of the wrong mystery," she thought. "Oh, well, if I could find Margaret Detweiler I'd be happier than if I got back all that money stolen from Stoddard House. So my day really hasn't been wasted." When she arrived at her hotel she literally smelled Christmas in the air. The windows were hung with wreaths; holly and mistletoe and evergreen decorated the rooms on the first floor. Everybody seemed to be hurrying around with a pleasant holiday air of excitement, carrying packages and making last-minute plans for the great day. A sudden swift feeling of homesickness took possession of Mary Louise, a violent desire to be back in her own home in Riverside, sharing the happy holiday confusion. For a moment she felt that she would have to go back at any sacrifice. But ambition overcame sentiment. She would not be a quitter, and leave at the most important time. She would see the thing through as she had planned. But there was nothing to prevent her wiring to her father to come and spend part of the holiday with her. Especially now that she had something definite to report to him. So she composed a telegram and sent it at once, over the telephone. "Have caught thieves," she said, "but cannot recover stolen goods. Leader of band at large. Please come help me. Love--M.L." As soon as the message was sent, she felt better and was as jolly as anyone else at supper. She was helping the Walder girls tie up packages and humming Christmas carols when a call came for her on the telephone. "Maybe it's Dad," she said to Mrs. Hilliard as she came into the manager's office. But it wasn't. It was Mr. Hayden, calling from the Bellevue. "Pauline Brooks has wired to a Mrs. Ferguson, Hotel Phillips, Baltimore, Maryland," he announced, "asking for five hundred dollars. All she says in her telegram is: 'Please send $500 bail,' and signed it 'P.B.' But I thought it might help you to know to whom she wired, Miss Gay." "I should say it does!" exclaimed Mary Louise rapturously. "Thank you so much, Mr. Hayden!" She was so happy that she executed a dance. Oh, how wonderful that piece of news was! Mrs. Ferguson! The woman who had helped--or pretended to help--Margaret Detweiler! The woman who lived at Center Square! Possibly--the same woman whom Pauline had called her aunt, by the name of Mrs. Brooks! Everything seemed to be coming untangled all at once. If only Mary Louise could catch this Ferguson woman! But of course she could--with her father's help. Thank heaven he would be coming soon! He could fly straight to Baltimore and accomplish her arrest. And the mystery--perhaps both mysteries--would be solved! So Mary Louise went happily to sleep that night, little dreaming that the worst part of her experience lay ahead of her. CHAPTER XII _Detective Gay Arrives_ Mary Louise awakened the following morning with a delightful sense of expectancy. It was the day before Christmas! Surely her father would come; he would know how much she wanted him, and her mother would be unselfish enough to urge him to go. He would bring Mary Louise her Christmas presents and take her out to Christmas dinner. She dressed quickly and hurried down to the lobby to ask the secretary whether there was any message for her. None had arrived as yet, but by the time she had finished her breakfast it came. "Arrive about noon to stay over Christmas with you. Love--Dad," were the precious words she read. Her eyes sparkling with anticipation, Mary Louise ran to Mrs. Hilliard with her good news. "So you see I don't need to go home," she said. "I can hardly wait till he comes!" "I'm so glad, dear," replied the manager. "You've been an awfully good sport about being away from your family--and now you're getting your reward." "I think I'll put in my time till he arrives by going over to visit my friend Pauline Brooks," said Mary Louise. "I'd like to find out whether she obtained her bail yet." "You better be careful," warned Mrs. Hilliard. "That girl probably hates you now, and if she's free there's no telling what she might do to you!" "I know she hates me. But she can't do a thing. Especially with guards all around.... And I'll be back before Dad comes. I want to be on the spot to greet him." She put on her hat and coat and went to the address which Mr. Hayden had written down for her on the paper. She encountered no difficulty in finding her way to the matron who had charge of the women prisoners. "I am Mary Louise Gay," she said. "A private detective in the employ of the manager of Stoddard House. I believe that two of your prisoners--Pauline Brooks and Mary Green--are guilty of some robberies there, as well as at the Bellevue, where they were caught. But I haven't evidence enough to prove my case. I thought if I might talk to these girls----" The matron interrupted her. "You can't do that, Miss Gay," she said, "because they have already been released on bail, until their case comes up next month." "How did they get the money--it was five hundred dollars, wasn't it?--so soon?" "They wired yesterday to a Mrs. Ferguson in Baltimore. Miss Brooks received a registered letter this morning, and the girls left half an hour ago." Mary Louise sighed; it seemed as if she were always too late. Why hadn't she come here before breakfast, since she knew from Mr. Hayden last night that the girls had telegraphed a request for the money? "Where did they go?" was her next question. "I don't know. They are to report back here on the morning of January second--or forfeit their bail." "They won't be back," announced Mary Louise. "Five hundred dollars is nothing to them." The matron turned to read a letter; she had no more time to discuss the subject with the young detective. But Mary Louise lingered. "I just want to ask one more question," she said; "and then I won't take any more of your time. Was there a letter from this Mrs. Ferguson, or did she merely send the money?" "There was a letter. I had it copied, because Mr. Hayden told me to keep copies of any correspondence these girls had while they were here.... Wait a minute--yes, here it is. You may read it for yourself." Mary Louise took the copy eagerly and read it as quickly as she could. The writing was poor but entirely legible, and the words were spelled right. But the subject matter was so rambling that in certain places she was not sure that she read it correctly. This was the letter which she finally deciphered: _Dear Girls:_ _You poor girls! Meet your misfortune with this $500. U.S. justice is terrible! In what other country would they detain innocent girls?_ _Baltimore is where I am now, but I am leaving immediately for a trip to Florida. Margaret can't go with me on account of school. Will you write to her? Get her address from the phone book._ _Treasure Island is playing at the movies, and we liked it a lot. From my observation it is like the book. C.S. enjoyed it thoroughly. And so did I. Bring me back the book if you go home for Christmas. It was mine anyhow._ _Tonight I am packing. Baltimore is tiresome, and I'll be glad to leave._ _Love,_ _Aunt Ethel._ "May I make another copy of this letter?" Mary Louise asked the matron. Since it was rather peculiar, it would bear studying. Besides, it mentioned Margaret, and that might mean Margaret Detweiler. The matron agreed. "Yes, sit down at that desk. Or do you want a typewriter?" "Well, if you can lend me one," answered Mary Louise. She had learned typing at school, thinking it would come in handy in her chosen profession. So she typed the letter carefully and put it into her handbag. As she stepped out into the open air again she saw by one of the big clocks on the street that it was only a little past ten. Two hours to wait until she saw her father! Two hours, with nothing to do. It seemed rather ridiculous that she should be so idle when everybody else was apparently so busy. The throngs of people on the streets rushed along as if there were not a minute to lose. "I can go in here and buy some handkerchiefs for Mrs. Hilliard for Christmas," she thought, as she entered a department store. All the rest of her gifts had been bought and wrapped up long ago; they were piled neatly in a box at home, ready for her mother to distribute to her family and her friends on Christmas morning. The organ in the store was playing Christmas music; Mary Louise lingered for a while after she made her purchase to listen to it. She felt very happy because her father was coming. She returned to the hotel about eleven, put Mrs. Hilliard's gift on her desk and went down to one of the reception rooms to wait for her father. The Walder girls came in--they both had a half holiday so that they might start home early--and they said good-bye to Mary Louise and wished her a merry Christmas. The slow hands of the clock crept towards twelve. At five minutes of the hour her father came. Mary Louise saw him the minute he opened the door and rushed to him as if it had been years, and not days, since their parting. "Oh, Dad, this is grand!" she cried. "I was so afraid you wouldn't be able to get here. Are you very busy?" "No, dear," he replied as he kissed her. "There's a sort of lull in my work now, and I had expected to be home for several days. But now I am at your service. Your aunt arrived yesterday to be with your mother over the holidays, so they probably won't miss me much. I want you to tell me everything that has happened so far. Max said your watch was stolen, and you were hit on the head by a stone. How is your head now?" "It's all right, Daddy. And I bought a cheap watch, so I can get along without my good one, though of course I was especially fond of it. But come into the dining room and let's have lunch while we talk. At least, if you don't mind being the only man with a lot of women. Max objected to that." "No, I don't mind," he said. "And I am hungry." When they were seated at one of the small tables and had given their orders, Mary Louise began to tell her story. "I was robbed that very first night," she said. "Of course, it was pretty dark in my room, but not terribly so, for the street lights show up quite well. Anyhow, I could see well enough to distinguish a small man, with a cap and a black mask. "Well, we had a watchman on guard that night, and the police got here in no time, but nobody saw the burglar get away. I insisted he was hiding in the hotel, but Mrs. Hilliard had it searched thoroughly, and we couldn't find a man in the place. I didn't dream then that it was a girl masquerading as a man. But that is the explanation: a girl named Pauline Brooks, who lived right across the hall from me. Of course, it was the easiest thing in the world for her to slip back into her own room and take off her disguise." "Did you search for the burglar in her room too?" "Yes, we went there the very first thing. Pauline made us wait a minute or two--she said she had just gotten in from a dance and was half undressed." "And you believed her?" "Yes, indeed. We had become quite good friends at supper that night." Mr. Gay laughed. "But what finally led you to suspect her?" Mary Louise went on to tell her father in detail about her false suspicions concerning first Miss Stoddard and then Miss Weinberger, and described her visit to the Bellevue and the catching of Pauline Brooks and Mary Green in the very act of stealing. "But that wasn't evidence enough to prove them guilty of the robberies at Stoddard House," objected her father. "I know," admitted Mary Louise. "But I figured out that there is a whole band of these secret hotel thieves, for I'm pretty sure two other members stole some silverware and a vase from Stoddard House a while ago. I believe, too, that a woman whom Pauline called her aunt is the leader.... And that's what I want you to do, Dad. Go after her!" "But where is she?" he demanded. "I think she's in Baltimore now, at the Hotel Phillips, because that's where the girls got their money for bail. Five hundred dollars. She's planning to go to Florida, so you have to hurry." "What could I do with her if I did find her?" inquired Mr. Gay. "Couldn't you arrest her?" "Not unless I had some evidence against her." Mary Louise sighed: it was dreadful, she thought, to know that somebody was guilty and not be able to prove it. But she could see that her father was right. Mr. Gay was enjoying his lunch. He praised the food and the service to Mary Louise and exclaimed in surprise that the hotel was not well filled. "It's partly because of these robberies," explained Mary Louise. "Several people have moved out just since I came. No wonder Mrs. Hilliard is worried." "But she feels encouraged since you found two of the thieves, doesn't she?" "Oh, yes, she's tremendously pleased. She told me I had earned my money, and I could go home. But of course I'm not satisfied. The job's only half done." The waitress approached the table, and offered a menu. "I'll take plum pudding," announced Mr. Gay, "in celebration of the season. How about you, Mary Lou?" "Chocolate sundae," was her inevitable choice. "Where," inquired Mr. Gay, turning to his daughter, "did this aunt of Pauline's live when she was in Philadelphia?" "She stayed at the Ritz." "Never at Stoddard House?" "Oh no." "Then we'll make a visit to the Ritz after lunch. And I think I will take the two o'clock train to Baltimore to see what I can find out about the woman. What does she call herself?" "Mrs. Ferguson--and sometimes Mrs. Brooks. Possibly there are two different women, but I don't believe so.... But what will you do at the Ritz, Daddy?" "Just make inquiries as to whether anything was stolen while the woman stayed there, and if so, what. That would give me a reason for going after her in Baltimore." "That's a great idea, Dad!" exclaimed Mary Louise joyfully. "May I go to the hotel with you?" "Of course. Now, you run along and get your hat and coat and tell Mrs. Hilliard where you are going, while I order a taxi." It was not until they were in the cab that Mr. Gay remembered to ask how Mary Louise had received the cut on her head. Max had not told him much, he explained, because he wanted to keep it secret from Mary Louise's mother, to save her unnecessary worry. "It was part of my investigation about Margaret Detweiler," replied the girl, and she hurriedly told her father the reason for her visit to Center Square and its consequences. "But I feel that in some way the two cases are tied up together," she added, "for the woman who owns the place is named Mrs. Ferguson, and a face which I saw at the window reminded me of the woman Pauline called her aunt. But it's all very confusing." The taxi pulled up at the Ritz, and Mr. Gay and his daughter got out. With his badge, the former had no difficulty in interviewing the hotel detective immediately. He asked whether any money or valuables had been lost at the Ritz during the past week. "Yes," replied the other, "some money and a valuable bag containing two pearl rings were stolen last Friday. But we suspected a chap who called himself a traveling salesman, and we're on his track." "Was a Mrs. Brooks staying here at the time?" "Yes. I remember her well. With two nieces." "Please describe her," urged Mary Louise. "She is tall and stout--weighs around a hundred and eighty, I should judge. About fifty years old, with black hair done very severely--looks like a wig. Dresses well and wears jewelry. Has false teeth and an ugly mouth, but seems a great favorite with young people.... That's about all." "That's enough," said Mr. Gay. "Now, can you tell me just what was stolen?" The detective wrote down the articles on a slip of paper. "A bag containing two pearl rings, and two hundred dollars." The bag was valuable in itself, being made of gold mesh, he told them. "Thank you very much," said Mr. Gay as he pocketed the list. "I'll let you know if I have any success." The taxi was waiting outside the hotel, and Mary Louise jumped into it first. "I'll ride to the station with you, Daddy," she said. "Do you think you'll be back tonight?" "Maybe," he answered. "But we'll have a fine Christmas together tomorrow." He was just in time to catch his train. Mary Louise watched it pull out of the station and wondered what in the world she would do to pass the afternoon. Slowly she walked out to the street and looked at the Christmas displays in the shop windows. She had gone about two blocks when she stopped to examine a particularly attractive display, featuring a small, real Christmas tree, when she noticed that the shop into whose window she was gazing was a tea room. A cup of hot chocolate ought to taste good, she decided--rich and hot, with whipped cream on the top! So she opened the door and went inside. Little did she realize at that moment how thankful she was to be later on for that one cup of chocolate and the plate of little cakes that she ordered! CHAPTER XIII _A Prisoner in the Dark_ While Mary Louise waited for her chocolate to be served, she took the copy of the letter from her handbag and read it again. The woman said she was going to Florida. Oh, suppose her father should be too late to catch her! "But if Mrs. Ferguson really is a crook, why should she write all her plans to a prisoner, when she would know that the letter would be censored?" Mary Louise asked herself. Her eyes narrowed. The woman had written the letter on purpose to deceive them! She probably had no intention of going to Florida! Perhaps it was a code letter. Mary Louise recalled the Lindbergh case, in which the kidnaper had written a letter to a prisoner in which the second word of every sentence was a key, thus forming a message. She decided to try to discover something like that for herself. She read the letter again: _Dear Girls:_ _You poor girls! Meet your misfortune with this $500. U.S. justice is terrible! In what other country would they detain innocent girls?_ _Baltimore is where I am now, but I am leaving immediately for a trip to Florida. Margaret can't go with me on account of school. Will you write to her? Get her address from the phone book._ _Treasure Island is playing at the movies, and we liked it a lot. From my observation it is like the book. C. S. enjoyed it thoroughly. And so did I. Bring me back the book if you go home for Christmas. It was mine anyhow._ _Tonight I am packing. Baltimore is tiresome, and I'll be glad to leave._ _Love,_ _Aunt Ethel._ On a page of her notebook Mary Louise wrote down each second word and read the result to herself: "Poor--your--courts--what--is--can't--her--island----" "Shucks! That doesn't mean a thing!" she muttered in disgust. "I guess I was crazy. But just the same, it does seem like a dumb sort of letter if it hasn't some underlying meaning." The waitress brought her chocolate in a lovely little blue pot, and the whipped cream in a bowl. On a plate of the same set, dainty pink and white cakes were piled. "It's a good thing I'm not dieting," thought Mary Louise, as she poured out a steaming cup of chocolate. "This certainly looks delicious!" She wondered idly, as she finished her refreshments, whether she should go to a picture show, just to put in her time. She wasn't exactly in the mood for that kind of entertainment; her own life was too exciting at the present moment to allow her to feel the need for fiction. So, while she waited for her bill, she glanced again at the letter in her handbag. "I might try the first word of each sentence," she thought. "To see whether I could form a message that way. Though I should think that would be too obvious.... Still, I'll see what happens." She jotted down the opening word of each sentence on another page of her notebook. "You--meet--us--in--Baltimore--Margaret--will--get--treasure--from-- C.S.--and--bring--it--to--Baltimore." It was all Mary Louise could do to keep from crying out in her joy. Of course that was the answer! Pauline and Mary were to go to Baltimore. The treasure, the stolen goods, must be in that house at C.S.--Center Square. And "Margaret" would go there to get it! Mary Louise no longer had any difficulty in deciding what to do with her afternoon. She'd drive to Center Square as fast as she could--in order to beat "Margaret" there. Oh, how she hoped that the "Margaret" referred to was Margaret Detweiler! Her hands actually trembled as she paid the bill, she was in such haste to be off. She hadn't time to go back to the hotel and inform Mrs. Hilliard of her plan. Later on she was to wish desperately that she had taken that precaution. Instead, she hurried to the agency and hired the same car she had driven the previous day. Then she set off on the road which was by this time becoming familiar. It was after five o'clock when Mary Louise reached Center Square. The twilight was deepening; already the short winter day was almost at a close. "I'll need a flashlight," she decided and she stopped in at a country store to buy one. When she came out of the store she drove directly to the abandoned house. This time she did not want to take the constable with her, for he would forbid her breaking into the place. Yet that was exactly what Mary Louise meant to do, if she could not be admitted by knocking at the door! She turned into the driveway, past the "No Trespassing" sign, mounted the steep incline, and parked her car in an inconspicuous spot behind the house and at the side of the barn. "Here's hoping I don't get hit with a rock!" she thought recklessly, as she jumped out of the car. The darkness was becoming deeper; the silence was broken only by the moaning of the tree branches in the wind. The place seemed completely deserted. With her heart beating fast, Mary Louise ran to the back door of the house and tried it. As she had anticipated, it was securely locked. A moment later she encountered the same condition at the front door. At both entrances she knocked loudly; at neither was there any response. "Just the same, I'm going to get in!" she muttered resolutely. "If I have to climb over the porch to a second-story window!" She walked around the house again, more slowly this time, examining each window as she passed it. Everywhere she found boards nailed over the glass. On only one window at the side did she discover a partial opening. It was the window through which she had seen the face of the young girl with the ugly woman beside her. Mary Louise's heart leaped up in joy. She could break through that glass and get in! The window which she was examining was at least three feet from the ground, and two boards were nailed across the lower sash. But by standing on a log which she dragged to the spot she was able to reach the upper sash. With the aid of a stone she smashed the glass into bits. It would have been easier to climb through the opening without her fur coat, but Mary Louise felt sure that she would need its protection in the damp, cold house. How thankful she was later on that she had not yielded to her first impulse! She accomplished the feat successfully, however, without even tearing her clothing or breaking her flashlight, and stood on the floor of a room which she soon identified as the dining room. It was horribly cold and damp inside the house, but Mary Louise scarcely noticed it at first. A thrill of excitement sent a pleasant glow through her body. She was going to search for the treasure! Keeping her flashlight turned on, she gave a quick glance about the room. A table, half a dozen chairs, a sideboard of beautiful mahogany, and a china-closet filled with lovely dishes comprised its furnishings. "A good place to begin my search!" she decided, going straight to the attractive sideboard and opening the drawer nearest the top. A luncheon set of exquisite design greeted her eyes. "Rather grand for a country place," she silently commented. "Let's see what else we can find!" A second drawer was entirely empty, but a third contained a full set of silverware. Seizing a spoon in one hand, Mary Louise turned the flashlight on it with the other. A wild cry of joy escaped her lips; the spoon was decorated with an ivy-leaf pattern! Yes, and there were the initials, too--S.H. (for Stoddard House, Mrs. Hilliard had said)--engraved on the stem! "So I know that I'm in the right place!" she couldn't help exclaiming aloud in her triumph. The sound of her own voice in the silent, dark house was strange; Mary Louise found herself trembling. But only for a moment: courage and common sense came to her rescue. Hastily she gathered all the silver together and put it in a pile on the dining-room table. "I may have to go out through the window again," she figured, "so I'll leave my stuff here. But first I'll try the doors from the inside." There, however, she met disappointment. There were no dead latches on the doors; they were both locked securely, and the keys had been removed. Now that she had familiarized herself with the plan of the house, she decided to make a systematic search, beginning with the upstairs and working her way down. Cautiously she ascended the wide stairway in the hall to the second floor. There were four bedrooms, she saw by the aid of her flashlight, and a bathroom. A narrow staircase led to an attic above. "I might as well begin with the attic," she thought, "and do the thing thoroughly. That would be a natural place to hide things--especially if there's a closet." There was a huge closet, she soon discovered, besides two trunks, and all sorts of odds and ends of furniture piled about the room. Naturally, Mary Louise began her search with the trunks: to her delight she found them unlocked. "If I only have the same luck that I had in the dining room!" she wished as she began to examine the trays. Things had apparently been stuffed in hit-or-miss fashion: ribbons, scarves, odd bits of costumes were all entangled together. Off in a corner of the tray she found a heavy box which looked especially inviting. Opening it excitedly she let out a wild whoop of joy. There was jewelry inside! But when she examined the articles one by one she experienced only disappointment. There was nothing valuable in the whole collection; it was merely "five-and-ten-store" stuff, which nobody would wear except to a costume party. "I might have expected that," she mused as she put the box back into the tray. "If this trunk had had anything valuable in it, it would have been locked." Nevertheless, she resolved to make her search thorough and went through both trunks, without any success. Then she directed her attention to the closet. This occupied a large space--almost as big as a small room--so that Mary Louise found that she could easily enter it herself. It was horribly chilly and damp; she shivered, and drew her coat more tightly around her as she continued her task. She was peering into a hat box when she suddenly heard a pounding on a wall. She stopped what she was doing and listened intently. Where was the noise coming from? Had someone come in? Was "Margaret" here, or had the police come to arrest Mary Louise for housebreaking? Her hands shook and she turned off her flashlight, waiting tensely in the darkness, while the pounding continued. But she did not hear any footsteps. The noise finally ceased, and, reassured at last, Mary Louise turned on her flashlight and resumed her search. But the attic revealed nothing of any importance, not even any loose boards in the walls or floor underneath which the treasure might have been stored. With a sigh of disappointment, Mary Louise descended the attic steps. Entering the bedrooms one after the other and searching them carefully, she encountered no better results. The bureaus were practically empty; the beds contained only a blanket spread over each mattress, and though Mary Louise felt around them with her hands for hard objects which might be concealed, she found nothing. Looking at her watch, she saw to her surprise that it was almost eight o'clock. Supper hour was long past; because of her excitement, and on account of her refreshments in the Philadelphia tea shop, she had not felt hungry. But she was thirsty and was delighted to find running water in the bathroom. "I'm glad I don't have to climb out of that window to get a drink at the pump!" she congratulated herself. And while she was there she methodically searched the bathroom, again without any success. "Why, here's an electric light button!" she exclaimed in surprise. "These people must be rich--they have all the modern improvements. And I've been using up my battery!" But the light did not turn on; no doubt the current was cut off while the people were away, and Mary Louise had to resort to her flashlight again. "Because I started in the attic, the treasure will probably be in the cellar," she concluded. "I hope my battery doesn't give out before I get to it." Nevertheless, she meant to proceed with the downstairs first, just as she had planned. She would rather be there if "Margaret" arrived. Oh, how she wished the girl would come! Especially if she proved to be Margaret Detweiler. The kitchen consumed a great deal of time, for she had to look in every possible can and dish in the various closets. As she examined everything, she was conscious of increasing hunger; she sincerely hoped that she would find something she could eat. But her search revealed nothing except some dry groceries: tea, sugar, salt, and spices. Moreover, the stove was an electric one, useless without current. She could not even heat water to make herself a cup of tea! She was debating whether she should crawl out of the window and go to a store for something to eat, or whether she should wait until she had completed her task. It was just nine o'clock now; if she left the house she might miss seeing Margaret and lose all chance of finding either the girl or the treasure. But as she passed through the dining room from the kitchen she saw immediately that her decision had been made for her. The window through which she had crawled into the house had been boarded up tightly! She was a helpless prisoner in this dark, lonely house! So that was the explanation of the pounding which she had heard from the attic closet! Oh, why hadn't she rushed down to see who was doing it? Now what in the world could she do? If Margaret didn't come, she would have to spend the night here--alone! And tomorrow was Christmas! But suppose nobody came tomorrow--or the next day--or the next week! Starvation, death from pneumonia, loneliness that would drive her insane--all these grim horrors stared Mary Louise in the face. Shivering with cold, she stood motionless in the dining room and tried to think of some way out. It would be impossible for her to break down those heavy wooden doors, and she knew nothing about picking locks. There wasn't an unboarded window on the whole first floor, and even the windows over the porch on the second floor were tightly nailed shut. Oh, what on earth could she do? "If only Max and Norman would come along now and give that familiar signal!" she wished. But no sound disturbed the silence of the night; even the wind had died, leaving a stillness like death all about her. She felt buried alive in a doorless tomb. "Nobody knows I'm here," she moaned. "Not even Mrs. Hilliard. "I'll have to think of something," she decided, with a supreme effort to keep herself in control. "In the meanwhile, I might as well finish my search." But even that satisfaction was denied to Mary Louise. In the doorway between the dining room and the living room her flashlight went out. At the most critical moment, when her courage was at the lowest ebb, the battery had died! A groan of agonized dismay escaped from her lips. In utter despair she groped for a chair and sank down in it, miserable and defeated. The impenetrable blackness of the room was overpowering, for she was used to the lights of the streets in Philadelphia and in Riverside. A strange, physical fear took possession of her, paralyzing her limbs; for several minutes she sat still in the darkness, not even attempting to move. A shiver ran through her; she was becoming colder and colder in this damp, icy house. Her need for warmth stirred her to action. She rose cautiously to her feet and groped her way to the hall, where she remembered the stairway to be located, and without encountering any serious knocks, she slowly ascended to one of the bedrooms. Here the inky blackness still confronted her, but it was not so deep as that of the first floor, for there was an unboarded window in the room. Gradually, as she made her way towards it, Mary Louise could perceive its outline. Most of the window was covered by the tree branches, but here and there through the limbs she could distinguish patches of sky. Yes--far off, and dim, but real, nevertheless--was one shining star! "The Christmas star," she murmured. "Or at least--my Christmas star. For it's the only one I'll see tonight." There was something immensely comforting in its presence. The star reassured her, it reminded her that God was still in His heaven, and she was not forsaken. Tomorrow, Christmas morning, rescue would surely come! So, after collecting all the blankets in the house on one bed, she took off her coat and her hat and her shoes and lay down, drawing the squirrel coat over her on top of the blankets. Cold and hunger and her dark prison were forgotten in a blissful maze of unconsciousness. Mary Louise slept until the sun of the strangest Christmas of her experience awakened her. CHAPTER XIV _The Secret Band_ Mr. Gay settled back in his seat in the train with a sense of comfort. He liked traveling; no matter how hard he was working or how difficult the case he was trying to solve, he could always rest on a journey. "I might have brought Mary Lou with me," he thought. "She would have liked the experience." But perhaps, he decided, she had wanted to remain on the spot at Stoddard House in case anything new developed. Little did he think as he was speeding along towards Baltimore that his daughter was driving as fast as she could in the opposite direction. Into a new danger which he had not dreamed of! Mary Louise, in her systematic way, had given her father a list of all the valuables to be recovered. Now, at his leisure, he took the paper from his pocket and went over it carefully. "Set of silverware, ivy-leaf pattern, initials S.H. Chinese vase. 5 watches, including one set with diamonds and my own. $550 in cash. Painting by Whistler. Pair of diamond earrings." Mr. Gay let out a low whistle. What a list that was! No wonder Mrs. Hilliard was worried! He took from his pocket the other slip of paper, which the detective at the Ritz had just given to him. "Gold-mesh handbag containing $200. 2 pearl rings...." "If this woman, this Mrs. Ferguson, is responsible for all this, she certainly ought to be kept behind prison bars for the rest of her life," he thought. "But we'll see--we'll see...." His train passed through a small town, and from his window Mr. Gay could see the Christmas decorations in the houses. How he wished that he and Mary Louise could both be at home, taking part in the happy celebrations! Trimming the tree, filling the stockings, eating the turkey dinner together! But there would be more Christmases, he reminded himself, and the whole family would be together on New Year's Day. It was dusk when he arrived in Baltimore and he took a taxi straight to the Hotel Phillips. He engaged a room for he meant to take a shower and have his dinner there, even if he did not remain all night. A few minutes later he was interviewing the hotel detective in his private office. "Is there a Mrs. Ferguson staying here?" he asked, after he had shown his badge. "Yes, there is," replied the other man. "She came two days ago with two daughters and four other girls as guests. They have a suite of rooms on the ninth floor and are planning to stay over Christmas." "Has anything been stolen since their arrival?" questioned Mr. Gay. The other detective's eyes opened wide in surprise. "Yes. A roll of bills, two hundred dollars, I believe it amounted to, and a valuable stamp collection. Last night. But surely----" "I have reasons to suspect Mrs. Ferguson and her accomplices," stated Mr. Gay. "Other hotel robberies lead us to believe she is the leader of a band of hotel thieves." "But we are on the track of another suspect. A man we found wandering into the wrong room last night and excusing himself by the old gag of saying he was drunk." "Maybe he was drunk!" "Possibly. We couldn't get any sense out of him. But I believe that he was just a darned good actor. Another fellow got away--an accomplice, I think, who is known to be a stamp collector. We're on his trail." "I'd like to search the Ferguson woman's rooms," announced Mr. Gay. "Can I have your help?" The man hesitated. He hated to antagonize wealthy guests who were bringing so much money into the hotel; yet when he recalled the expression of Mrs. Ferguson's eyes he remembered that he had distrusted her. So he reluctantly consented to the other detective's request. Taking one of his assistants with him, the hotel detective led Mr. Gay to the ninth floor and knocked at Mrs. Ferguson's door. From within sounds of laughter and gay music could be heard. As the door opened, the three men saw the girls playing cards in the sitting room of the luxurious suite. A radio was grinding out jazz. With a shrewd glance at the girls, Mr. Gay realized immediately that they were not the same type as his daughter's friends at Riverside. They were older, too, although they were painted and lipsticked to appear young. "Mrs. Ferguson," began the hotel detective, "I must apologize for interrupting your card game, but I have to go through with a routine. Last night some valuables were stolen from one of our guests, and I have promised him to make a thorough search of each room. You understand, of course, that no slight is meant to you or to your guests. The girls can go on with their game, if you will just permit us to look around." Mrs. Ferguson, who was, Mr. Gay thought, one of the ugliest women he had ever seen, drew herself up proudly. "I very much resent it," she replied haughtily. "In fact I forbid it!" "You can't do that," answered the detective coolly. "For even if you decide to leave the hotel, your things will be searched before you go. But please don't be unreasonable, Mrs. Ferguson! Suppose that you, for instance, had been robbed of that beautiful diamond ring you are wearing. Wouldn't you want us to do everything in our power to get it back for you?" "I wouldn't want guests--especially women and girls--subjected to such insults as you were offering me and my young friends and relatives! Besides, I thought you were already pretty sure of your thief." "We're not sure of anything. Will you submit peacefully, Mrs. Ferguson, or must we call in the police?" The woman looked sullen and did not answer; the detective stepped across the room and locked the door. Mrs. Ferguson turned her back and wandered indifferently towards the bare Christmas tree in the corner. It was standing upright in a box of green, but it had not been trimmed. A pile of boxes beside it indicated the ornaments with which it would probably soon be decorated. Mr. Gay, always the keenest observer, sensed that fact that Mrs. Ferguson had some special interest in those boxes, and his first shrewd surmise was that valuables were somehow concealed within them. Therefore, he kept his eye glued on that corner of the room. "I guess you'll have to stop your games, girls," said Mrs. Ferguson, "since these men mean to be objectionable. Of course, we'll move to another hotel immediately, so you can all go and get your things packed.... Pauline, you take care of these balls for the tree. Men like this wouldn't care whether they were smashed or not! They have no Christmas spirit." "Some hotel!" muttered Pauline, with an oath under her breath. But she got up and went towards the Christmas tree. "Wait a minute!" ordered Mr. Gay. "I'm looking into those boxes." Mrs. Ferguson laughed scornfully. "They just came from the 'Five and Ten,'" she said. "They haven't even been unwrapped. And I warn you men, if you break them, you can replace them! It's not easy to get through the crowds now, either." Detective Gay smiled. "I'll take the responsibility," he promised as he untied the string of the top package. As Mrs. Ferguson had stated, it contained nothing but bright new Christmas-tree balls. But when he lifted the second box in the pile--a huge package as big as a hat box--he knew immediately that it was too heavy to contain Christmas-tree ornaments. Nevertheless, his countenance was expressionless as he untied the string. A great quantity of tissue paper covered the top of the box; this Mr. Gay removed, and from beneath it he drew forth a shabby blue book. "Is this the stamp album?" he asked the hotel detective. The other man gasped and rushed to Mr. Gay's side. "Yes! Yes!" he cried. "That's it! See if the stamps are still in it." With a quick movement Pauline Brooks took two steps forward and snatched the book from the detective's hands. "That's my album!" she exclaimed. "If you don't believe it, look at the name in the front." Triumphantly she turned to the first page and displayed the inscription: _Pauline Brooks,_ _Christmas, 1931._ _From Aunt Ethel._ Detective Gay laughed scornfully. "You can't fool us that easily, Miss Brooks," he said. "Examine the ink in the handwriting for yourself! It's fresh.... You can't pass that off for three years old." Pauline looked calmly into her accuser's eyes. "Maybe it is," she retorted. "But I don't have to write my name in my books the minute I get them, do I?" "Hand it over!" commanded the hotel detective, while Mr. Gay continued his search of the Christmas boxes. At the bottom of the pile he found the gold-mesh handbag with two pearl rings inside it. But he did not discover any of the lost money. "Call the police," ordered the hotel detective, turning to his assistant. "Gay and I will make a thorough search of this room. And on your way downstairs get hold of Mr. Jones, in room 710. He can come up here and identify his stamp album." Mrs. Ferguson by this time had slipped into her bedroom, and one by one the girls were following her. Detective Gay, suddenly aware of the fact that the criminals meant to escape by another door, dashed out into the hall just in time to stop them. "Must we use handcuffs?" he demanded, pushing Mrs. Ferguson back into her room and locking the door. The woman did not reply, but she looked at him with an expression of hatred in her eyes. Mr. Gay called into the next room to the hotel detective, who was still making a systematic search. "Can you get me a photographer?" he asked. "O.K.," was the reply, and the detective put the message through, using the room telephone. "Now, what do you want a photographer for?" demanded Pauline impudently. "Because we're such pretty girls?" "I want to send your picture to my daughter," replied Mr. Gay. "I understand that you and she used to be friends." "Who is your daughter?" "Mary Louise Gay." "The little rat! If I'd ever realized----" "How smart she is," supplied Mr. Gay proudly, "you'd have been more careful! Well, Miss Brooks, you've been pretty clever, but not quite clever enough. This is the end of your dangerous career." "I guess we can get out on bail!" she boasted. "I guess you can't! Not this time, young lady!" The photographer and the police arrived at the same time; Mrs. Ferguson and her band of six had to submit to having their pictures taken and were allowed, under supervision, to pack a few necessary articles of clothing into their suitcases. Then, under the escort of four policemen and the assistant hotel detective, they rode downstairs to the waiting patrol car. Mr. Gay and the hotel detective went on with their methodical search. "Suppose we stop and eat," suggested the latter. "We can lock up these rooms." "O.K.," agreed Mr. Gay. A knock sounded at the door. "I'm Jones--the man who lost the album," announced the visitor. "Did you fellows really get it?" His question held all the eagerness of the collector. "This it?" queried the hotel detective, holding the worn blue book up to view. "Oh, boy! Is it? I'll say so! Let's see it!" He grasped the book affectionately. "We are still hoping to find your money, too," added Mr. Gay. But the man was hardly listening; his stamps meant far more to him than his roll of bills. "Whom do I thank for this?" he inquired finally, as he opened the door. "My daughter," returned Mr. Gay. "But she isn't here, and I'll have to tell you the story some other time." During their supper together, Mr. Gay told the hotel detective about Mary Louise and the discoveries she had made which led her to suspect Mrs. Ferguson and Pauline Brooks. He brought the list out of his pocket and crossed off the articles that had been recovered: the gold-mesh bag and the two pearl rings. "Except for the money which was stolen here last night, we probably shan't find anything else in the rooms," he concluded. "Mrs. Ferguson has no doubt hidden or disposed of everything which her gang stole from Stoddard House." Nevertheless, the two men resumed their search after dinner. Deeply hidden in the artificial grass which filled the Christmas-tree box, they found four hundred dollars--the exact amount which had been taken from the Hotel Ritz in Philadelphia and the Hotel Phillips there in Baltimore. But two hours' more searching revealed nothing else. At ten o'clock the two men decided to quit. Mr. Gay went directly to his room and called Stoddard House on the telephone, asking to speak to Mary Louise. To his surprise it was Mrs. Hilliard who answered him. "Mary Louise did not come home for supper," she said. "I concluded that she had gone to Baltimore with you, Mr. Gay." "No, she didn't. Could she have gone to the movies with any of the girls, do you think?" "Possibly. But she usually tells me where she is going. Of course she may have gone home with the Walder girls, and I know their folks haven't a phone." Mr. Gay seemed reassured; after all, he decided, nothing could happen to his daughter now that the criminals were under lock and key. "Well, tell her I'll take the first train home tomorrow," he concluded, "and that I have good news for her." "I will, Mr. Gay," promised the hotel manager. Disappointed but not worried, he replaced the receiver and went down to the desk to inquire for the picture of Mrs. Ferguson's band of thieves. Several copies had been struck off, and they were surprisingly good. Mr. Gay chuckled when he thought how pleased Mary Louise would be to see all the criminals lined up together. Taking the pictures with him, he went straight to the offices of Baltimore's leading newspapers. In a short time he had given the editors the important facts of the capture of the dangerous band, giving the credit to Mary Louise. To one of these newspapers he gave his daughter's picture--a snapshot which he always carried in his pocket. "Wait till Riverside sees that!" he exulted. "Won't our family be proud of our Mary Lou!" Mr. Gay slept soundly that night, believing that everything was all right with Mary Louise. Had he but known the agony of spirit his daughter was experiencing he would have returned posthaste to Philadelphia. Mrs. Hilliard, however, was more concerned and spent a restless night. She felt sure that something had happened to Mary Louise, for she was not the sort of girl to go off without mentioning her plans. Even if she had gone to the country with the Walder girls, she would have found a way to telephone. Mary Louise was never thoughtless or selfish. In her worried condition, Mrs. Hilliard awakened twice during the night and went down and looked into the girl's empty room. At six o'clock she could stand the anxiety no longer, and she called Mr. Gay on the long distance telephone. He was in bed, asleep, but the first ring at his bedside awakened him. He listened to Mrs. Hilliard's news with a sinking heart, remembering the dreadful thing which had happened to his daughter the previous summer, while she was investigating a mystery of crime. "I'll take the seven o'clock train to Philadelphia!" he cried, already snatching his clothing from the chair beside his bed. In his haste and his deep concern for his daughter he forgot entirely that this was Christmas morning. When the waiter in the dining car greeted him with a respectful "Merry Christmas, sir," Mr. Gay stared at him blankly. Then he remembered and made the correct reply. One look at Mrs. Hilliard's face as he entered Stoddard House told him that there was no news of his girl. Mary Louise had not returned. "The only place I can think of," said Mrs. Hilliard, "for I've already gotten in touch with the Walder girls, is that empty house out in Center Square, where she was hit on the head the night she went there with Max Miller." "I'll drive right out there," announced Mr. Gay immediately. "I guess I can make inquiries at the hotel.... And in the meantime I'll notify the Philadelphia police, but I'll warn them not to give out the news on the radio till I get back.... I don't want to alarm Mary Lou's mother until it is necessary." Ten minutes later he was in a taxicab, directing the driver to speed as fast as the law allowed to Center Square. CHAPTER XV _Christmas Morning_ Christmas morning! Mary Louise laughed out loud when she wakened amid the bleakness of her surroundings in that empty house near Center Square. Oh, how different it was from every other Christmas of her experience! No lovely fragrance of evergreen, no warm fire, no cheery hot breakfast--no presents! But this last fact worried her least of all. At the moment she believed she would give up all the Christmas presents in the world for a plate of sausage and hot cakes. She felt a little stiff from sleeping in her clothing, but underneath the blankets and her fur coat she had not suffered from the cold. And, oh, how good it was to see the sun! To be able to walk around in a light house--or a dimly lighted one, for even some of the second-story windows were boarded up. She shuddered at the fear that no one might come that day to rescue her, that she might be subjected to another black night in this dismal place. But with daylight to aid her perhaps she could find a way out for herself, if no one came. She would try not to lose hope. She got up and washed, thankful at least for the water in the house, and she took a long drink. Then she remembered that there was tea in the kitchen, and even though there was no way of heating the water, she could make cold tea and add sugar. Perhaps the sugar would supply a little energy. With her fur coat buttoned up to her neck she cautiously descended the stairway in the hall. Downstairs it was so dark that she could not even see the outlines of the furniture until her eyes became accustomed to the dimness. "There must be candles in the kitchen," she surmised. "But I'm afraid it will be too dark to find them." She groped her way out to the kitchen, and fumbled around until she touched the dresser. "I'd never be able to tell which is sugar and which is salt," she thought. "Except that I can taste anything I happen to find." However, that proceeding might not prove to be so good, she decided, for she had no desire to taste kitchen cleanser or rat poison, for instance. No, it would be better to do without than to take any risks, just for the sake of a cup of cold tea! As she cautiously ran her hand along the bottom shelf of the dresser, her fingers encountered something decidedly rough. For a moment she was puzzled, until she could identify the object. But in a moment she recognized it. Sandpaper, of course! Sandpaper on the outside of a box of matches. Her pulse quickened as she picked up the box, and found that it was full. This was luck indeed! She struck a match at once, and began to hunt feverishly for candles. But she wasted three matches without finding a single one. "I can have my cold tea, anyway," she thought, and with the aid of a single match she located tea and sugar and a cup. The sink was right beside the dresser, and she ran cold water over the tea leaves. "Merry Christmas, Mary Lou!" she finally said aloud, as she drank the cold tea through closed teeth, to avoid swallowing the leaves. She felt chillier than ever after she had finished it, but not quite so weak and empty. Lighting another match she made her way into the living room. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were an open fireplace all piled up with wood!" she mused, as she entered the room. There was a fireplace, she found, but it was totally empty. On a shelf over it, however, she came upon a discovery which she had overlooked the previous night. There, right in the middle of the mantelpiece, stood a Chinese vase of the very design which Mrs. Hilliard had described! "Maybe if I look around I'll find Miss Granger's painting," was her next hope. She examined the picture over the fireplace--a cheap hunting scene--and was just about to turn away when she made another find which brought a whoop of joy to her lips. In plain view, at each end of the shelf, stood two tall, red candles! When Mary Louise had lighted one of these she felt suddenly like a different girl. It was amazing what a change one steady little gleam of light could make. But she was frugal enough to burn only one of them; if she had to spend another night in this house she would not need to be in complete darkness. There was an upright piano at the other side of the room; Mary Louise stepped over and sat down on the stool in front of it. "I'll play a Christmas carol, just to celebrate!" she decided, and struck the opening chords of "O come all ye faithful." She stopped abruptly. "What a terrible rattle!" she exclaimed. "These people must throw their tin cans into the piano when they finish with them!" She stood up and examined the top with her candle. Lifting up the hinged half, she peered down into the space beneath. Instantly she perceived a gray flannel bag hanging on the end of one of the keys as if someone had deliberately hidden it there. She snatched it off excitedly, delighted to find that it was heavy. No doubt it contained something metallic, which had been the cause of the jangling of the piano keys. With trembling fingers she pulled open the string and dumped the contents of the bag upon a chair. Diamond rings, bracelets, earrings, watches, and gold necklaces dropped out before her astonished eyes. A fabulous treasure, such as one reads about in fairy tales or sometimes dreams of finding! Color came to Mary Louise's cheeks, and her heart raced wildly as she examined the articles one by one to make sure that they were genuine. Mrs. Weinberger's old-fashioned timepiece ornamented with diamonds was there--and Mary Louise's own dainty little wrist watch, engraved with her name in the back of it. Oh, what a joy it was to have it again! She clasped it affectionately about her wrist. Leaving the jewelry on the chair, she peered into the piano again to see what else she could find. She was rewarded with another discovery. Down in a corner, in a remote spot, she saw a small package wrapped in brown paper. She encountered some difficulty in prying it loose, but at last she had it free. Stripped of its brown-paper wrapping, she found that she held a fat wad of bills in her hand! "Mrs. Macgregor's money!" she thought immediately. "And Miss Granger's--and my own five dollars!" How wonderful it all was! To be able to return the possessions to the rightful owners at Stoddard House! To have proof enough now to convict Mrs. Ferguson and her band of thieves! To collect her salary from Mrs. Hilliard and go home--in time for Max's senior dance! If--only--she could get out of this house! A feverish sense of impatience took possession of Mary Louise. It was cruel, she stormed, that in her hour of triumph she should be imprisoned alone in a dark house. Wouldn't somebody miss her and come to her rescue? Where was her father? Why hadn't he driven out here to Center Square when he returned to Stoddard House last night--and had found her missing? But suppose--awful thought--that he had not returned! Suppose he had missed finding Mrs. Ferguson and had been deceived by that letter of hers into pursuing the woman to Florida! Mrs. Hilliard would conclude that he had taken her--Mary Louise--with him, when neither returned! A trip to Florida, Mary Louise figured, might consume almost a week. While she waited alone in this dark, cold house, each day itself an eternity of hunger and loneliness and suffering! A hollow laugh escaped her lips as she glanced at the money and the valuables heaped on the chair beside her. They were as little use to her now as Midas's gold. They would neither feed her nor keep her warm. "There's no use hoping for release by somebody else," she told herself. "I'll have to work out a way by myself. I'll have to be a modern Count of Monte Cristo!" She stood up and gathered her treasure together again into the bag and took the Chinese vase from the mantelpiece. Another tour of the room revealed the Whistler picture in a dark corner. With the aid of her half-burnt candle, she carried everything to the dining room and placed it all in a pile beside the silverware. "I'll hide the money inside my dress and the jewelry in my coat pocket. These other things I'll drop into that wood-basket I saw in the kitchen." When she had finally completed her packing she sat down in the dining room to think. "I believe I'll try to get out the same way I got in," she decided. "Because the glass is already broken in that window. All I'll have to do will be to cut my way through the new boards which that caretaker--or whoever he was--hammered on last night." With this purpose in view, Mary Louise carried her candle into the kitchen. The drawer in the dresser revealed a poor selection of knives; it might take days to cut through a board with only these as tools. Nevertheless, she meant to try. Anything was better than idleness. Selecting what appeared to be the sharpest in the collection, she returned to the window in the dining room. But she realized immediately that her scheme would not work. The boards were too close together; it would be impossible to insert a knife between them at any place. "I guess I'll have to smash that bedroom window and jump out," she thought gloomily. "It would probably mean a broken neck, but that's better than a slow, lingering death." She pulled the dresser drawer farther out, looking idly for some other implement to facilitate her escape. Suddenly her eyes lighted upon a hammer. Not a very large hammer, but adequate enough for the task. Why hadn't she thought of that plan before? It would be lots easier to hammer those boards loose than to try to cut through them with a knife. She picked it up out of the drawer and paused abruptly. There was a slight sound in the front of the house, like the click of a key in a lock. Extinguishing her candle, she waited breathlessly till she heard the front door open. Someone stepped cautiously into the hall! Mary Louise's heart stood still in her excitement. Who was the intruder? Was it the Margaret whom Mrs. Ferguson had mentioned in her letter, or was it the woman herself? Whoever it was, was he or she armed with a revolver? Much as Mary Louise longed to find Margaret Detweiler, she dared not take a chance now of coming face to face with an unknown person in this dark house, since all the valuables were in her possession. Her only desire at the moment was for escape. Silently she moved towards the door of the kitchen which led directly into the hall. She heard the newcomer go into the living room, and as Mary Louise crept past the doorway she saw the gleam of a flashlight. But the person, whoever it was, was hidden from her view, and Mary Louise did not wait to find out who it was. She reached the front door in safety and found the key still reposing in the lock. A second later she removed the key and slipped out of the door into the clear, cold sunshine. She was free at last! And with a chuckle of triumph she inserted the key on the outside of the door and turned it, imprisoning the intruder, just as she herself had been imprisoned for the last sixteen hours! CHAPTER XVI _Two Captures_ For one ecstatic moment Mary Louise stood motionless on the front porch, breathing the cold, delicious air of freedom. Then she ran around the side of the house to the rear to look for her car. At first she thought it was gone, for she could not see it, huddled up close to the barn. But a few steps more revealed it to her view, and, weak as she was, she darted forward eagerly. She decided that she would drive directly to the hotel and have some breakfast; afterwards she would inquire her way to the constable's house. He could take charge of the valuables in her possession and go back with her to meet the intruder. For Mary Louise had no intention of returning to Philadelphia without first learning that person's identity. Besides, she had forgotten to bring out with her the basket containing the vase and the picture and the silverware. No use going back to Stoddard House without the entire loot! She climbed into the car and put her foot on the starter--without any success. She pulled out the choke and tried again and again. Five minutes passed. She made one final effort, in vain. The car was frozen! Despair seized her; she did not know what she could do. In her weakened condition, cold and hungry as she was, she did not believe herself physically capable of walking to the hotel. The distance must be at least a mile, although it had seemed so short by automobile. She got out of the car and silently walked back to the front porch of the house, listening for sounds from the prisoner locked within its walls. But she heard nothing until she reached the driveway. Then a young man stepped from behind a tree and almost frightened her to death. He was a tough-looking fellow of about nineteen or twenty, she judged, in slovenly corduroy trousers, a dirty lumber jacket, and cap. He eyed her suspiciously; Mary Louise forced herself to meet his gaze, although she was trembling so that she had to keep her hand on the jewelry in her pocket to prevent its rattling. The young man edged up nearer to her. "You one of Mrs. Ferguson's girls?" he demanded. "Yes, I know her," replied Mary Louise. "I----" "You been in the house now?" "Yes," admitted Mary Louise. "Anything gone?" "No, I don't think so." "That's lucky," remarked the young man. "I come around last night about six o'clock, same as I do every night, and I seen a window was broke on the side of the house. But I didn't see nobody prowlin' around, so I just nailed a board across it. I'm still watchin' fer that guy that come in a car. You kin tell Mrs. Ferguson he ain't come back yet." "What guy?" inquired Mary Louise, feeling more at ease now, since this young man evidently regarded her as one of Mrs. Ferguson's gang of girls. "That fellow that drove up here last Sunday night," was the reply. "Didn't Mrs. Ferguson tell you?" "I haven't seen Mrs. Ferguson to talk to," she stammered, hardly able to keep from laughing. "Well, this guy meant trouble, I'm a-thinkin'. He drove up here in a car with a dame alongside of him. I hid in a tree when I heard the car comin', and when it was under the tree I dropped a rock on the dame's head. Knocked her out, and the guy had to rush her off to a doctor." "Suppose you had killed her!" exclaimed Mary Louise solemnly. "I ain't supposin'. Besides, nobody knows I done it except Mrs. Ferguson and you girls, and if any of you dames tell on me, I've got plenty to tell on you!" "No doubt about that," agreed Mary Louise. "Well, I must be getting on. I'm going to the hotel for breakfast." "How about my money?" demanded the young man. "Mrs. Ferguson wrote me you'd be along today and said you'd pay me. She promised me ten bucks." This announcement scared Mary Louise; she didn't know whether she should pay the man or not, in order to keep up the pretence that she was a member of the secret band. If she refused, mightn't he knock her down? Yet if she complied with his demand and let him see the roll of bills, what would prevent his stealing them all at once? However, a solution came to her mind, and she decided to risk it. "I haven't more than five dollars in my purse," she said, opening it and showing him the contents. "I'll have to pay you when I get back, after I have something to eat. I'm starved--I didn't have any supper last night." "O.K.," agreed the young man, to Mary Louise's surprise. "Meet me here in an hour?" "Yes, just about," returned Mary Louise, hurrying down the driveway. The minute she reached the road, out of sight of the house, Mary Louise started to run, and she kept on running for perhaps a couple of minutes. Then she stopped abruptly, dropping down on the cold, hard ground. She was so faint, she did not believe that she could take another step. "Oh, I must get there!" she panted. "I must--must--must----" But the main highway was not even in sight: only the long, desolate country road before her, without a sign of a person or a house. She staggered somehow to her feet and took two or three steps forward. Utterly exhausted, she sank again to the ground. "A lot of good all my discoveries will do me or the people of Stoddard House," she mused bitterly, "if I pass out here on the road!" She made another effort to rise, but she was growing colder and weaker every minute. In utter dismay she buried her head in her arms. A sense of numbness began to creep over her as she sat there; she was losing consciousness of where she was when the sharp sound of a motor horn aroused her to her senses. A car stopped opposite her; for one tense second she was afraid to look up for fear the occupants were some of Mrs. Ferguson's gang. When a pleasant masculine voice addressed her, she felt the tears rush to her eyes in relief. "What is the trouble, my girl?" inquired the man. "Can I help you?" Reassurance and an overwhelming sense of gratitude almost prevented Mary Louise from answering. The man with the kind voice was someone she could trust: she saw by his manner of dressing that he was a Catholic priest. "Oh, yes!" she replied. "Can you take me to the constable? Do you know where he lives?" "Yes, of course I can." It was an odd request, but the good man asked no questions. He merely got out of his car and lifted Mary Louise in beside him. "I'd tell you the story--only I'm so cold and hungry," she said. "Maybe--later----" "That's all right, my child," he replied soothingly. In less than five minutes he stopped his car in front of a plain brick house and helped Mary Louise to the doorway. "Merry Christmas, Hodge!" he said, when the door was opened to his knock. "This young lady----" "Merry Christmas, Father," returned the constable, gazing at Mary Louise. Almost instantly he recalled who she was. "Come in, Miss Gay," he said. "Oh, how can I ever thank you enough?" said Mary Louise, fervently to the priest. But the good man only smiled and departed as quickly as he had appeared. The smell of coffee, of breakfast--for it was only a little after nine o'clock--was overpowering to the hungry, exhausted girl. She sank into a chair with only one cry on her lips: "Coffee!" Before the constable could even ask her a question, his wife hurried from the dining room with a steaming cup in her hands. She was a motherly woman of about forty-five; three children immediately followed her into the living room to see who the stranger was who had arrived so mysteriously. "Drink this, dear," said Mrs. Hodge, holding the cup to Mary Louise's lips. "I put cream and sugar in it, so it won't burn you." Nothing in her life had ever tasted half so good to the cold, hungry girl as that fragrant cup of coffee. She finished it to the last drop, and a smile broke over her face. "Was that good!" she exclaimed. "Oh, how much better I feel!" "You must have some breakfast now," urged Mrs. Hodge. "Don't crowd around Miss Gay so closely, children! She needs room to breathe." "I'm all right now--really," said Mary Louise. The warmth of the room was working its magic spell; for the first time now she noticed the Christmas tree and the toys around the floor. "I've been locked up alone in that empty house of Mrs. Ferguson's since five o'clock last night----" she began. But Mrs. Hodge refused to let her talk until she had eaten her breakfast. Mary Louise ate everything that was on the table: a steaming bowl of oatmeal, an orange, half a dozen hot-cakes, two pieces of sausage, a glass of milk, and another cup of coffee. When she had finally finished she said that she believed she had enjoyed that breakfast more than any meal she had ever had. The whole family listened while she briefly told her story. Beginning with the code letter which had directed her to Center Square, she explained how she had broken into the empty house and how she had been imprisoned by a man who was evidently in Mrs. Ferguson's employ. "He admitted hitting me--only of course he didn't know it was I--over the head last Sunday. He thinks I'm one of Mrs. Ferguson's gang. So will you go back with me and arrest him, Constable Hodge?" she asked. "I sure will," agreed the man, and he told one of his children to run across the yard to get a neighbor to help him. "I found the stolen goods," concluded Mary Louise, reaching into her dress and producing the roll of bills and taking the bag of jewelry from her pocket. "Will you take charge of it till I can bring my father up to get it? He's a detective too, you see." Everyone gasped in amazement at the heap of valuables which Mary Louise displayed before their eyes. The children rushed forward excitedly, and the young detective saw no reason why they should not examine them to their hearts' content. One of the boys even wanted to count the money. "But how did you get out of that house?" demanded the constable. "Did that man open the door for you?" "Oh no," replied Mary Louise. "A member of Mrs. Ferguson's gang came with a key. I slipped out and locked her inside. That's why we must hurry back, to catch her before she escapes." Mary Louise rose from her chair. "Can we go now, Constable?" she asked. "Certainly. Yep, here comes my neighbor, who often helps me make arrests. We'll take him along in case your man or your prisoner gets uppish." "Could we take a mechanic to fix my car, too?" she asked. "It's frozen." "One of the kids will phone to the garage right now to send somebody out." They gathered up the treasure, and, leaving it in Mrs. Hodge's care, Mary Louise, the constable, and the neighbor--a husky six-foot fellow--got into the car. The distance which had seemed so long to the girl an hour ago was covered in less than five minutes. At the turn into the driveway, Mary Louise saw the man who was waiting for her. Recognizing the constable at once, he made a quick dash to get away. But he was not fast enough: the constable was out of the car in a second, commanding him to stop and displaying his revolver. With an oath on his lips he surrendered. The constable's big friend took charge of him while Mary Louise and the officer entered the dark, cold house. The moment they opened the door they heard a girl's terrified sobs from the living room. "Who--are--you?" she called, in a voice choking with fear and misery. "The Constable of Center Square and Mary Louise Gay!" replied the young detective. The prisoner jumped to her feet and ran out to the open door. "Mary--Louise--Gay!" she repeated incredulously, bursting afresh into tears. But Mary Louise had identified her immediately. She was Margaret Detweiler! CHAPTER XVII _A Sad Story_ Mary Louise thought she had never seen anyone change so much in the short space of two years as Margaret Detweiler had changed. How much older she looked, how much sadder, in spite of her expensive clothes! What a strange, trapped expression there was in her eyes, like that of an animal caught in a cage! "You--are--going to arrest me?" the girl stammered, directing her question to the constable. "I am doing just what Miss Gay says, at the present time," replied the man. "So far, I don't know that you're guilty of any crime." "No, no, don't arrest Margaret!" protested Mary Louise. "I just can't believe that she is a member of Mrs. Ferguson's gang. Why, it's too impossible!" "No, it isn't impossible," said Margaret, more calmly now. "Mrs. Ferguson is a special kind of criminal who makes young girls do her stealing for her. She picks up country girls who don't know anybody in the city and trains them.... Oh, it's a long story--and a sad one!" "Do you mean to say that you did steal, Margaret?" demanded Mary Louise incredulously, for she had never believed that story of Margaret's theft at the department store. "You must tell me the truth! For the sake of your grandparents." "I can honestly say that I have never stolen anything in my life," replied the other girl steadfastly. "Mrs. Ferguson soon found out that I was no good for that, so she made me guardian of the treasure. I felt almost as wicked. But I never stole." "Thank heaven for that!" exclaimed Mary Louise. "But now I've lost her valuables, and she'll send me to prison," whimpered Margaret. "Oh, Mary Lou, did you take them?" "Yes, I took them. They're at the constable's home now, and most of them belong to the guests at Stoddard House in Philadelphia. But you shan't suffer, Margaret, unless you're really guilty." "The young lady is very cold," remarked the constable. "Hadn't we better go back to my house, where it's warm, till your car is fixed, Miss Gay?" "Oh yes, if you will let us!" agreed Mary Louise enthusiastically. She could see that Margaret's teeth were chattering, and she remembered how cold she herself had been after an hour or so in that empty house. "Wait until I get my other things," she said, running back into the kitchen for the basket which she had packed early that morning. "I'll put them into the car and see how soon the mechanic thinks he will have it ready." She returned in a couple of minutes and found the others already seated in the constable's sedan. Mary Louise was glad to find that the officer had put Margaret Detweiler in front with him, not beside the tough young man with his huge guardian in the rear seat. She squeezed in next to Margaret, and the car started. "The mechanic is going to drive my car to your place in about half an hour," announced Mary Louise. "And then we'll start for Philadelphia." "Fine!" exclaimed the constable. "That'll give you girls a chance to get warm. And maybe have a cup of coffee." "It's marvelous coffee," commented Mary Louise. "It just about saved my life." Not another word was said about the crimes or the secret band. Margaret Detweiler was introduced to Mrs. Hodge as a friend of Mary Louise's from Riverside, and the two girls spent a pleasant half hour in the constable's home, sipping their freshly made coffee and looking at the children's Christmas toys. The constable, who had taken the young thug away, returned just as Mary Louise's hired car drove up to the door. Mary Louise jumped up and reached for her coat. "Wait a minute!" cautioned the constable. "Company's comin' here to see you, Miss Gay! I just met somebody askin' for you at the hotel.... So don't be in too much of a rush!" From the obvious twinkle in the man's eyes, Mary Louise believed that Max Miller must have driven down to Philadelphia again and, missing her there, had naturally traced her to Center Square. But at that same moment a yellow taxi stopped at the constable's gate, thereby dispelling any such illusion. Max would never ride in a taxicab on his limited allowance! The door of the cab opened, and a tall, handsome man stepped out, paid the driver, and dismissed the cab. It was Mary Louise's father. Flinging open the door, the girl shouted at him in delight, so loud that Mr. Gay heard her in spite of the noise of the departing cab. In another moment he entered the open door of the house and held Mary Louise tightly in his arms. "Mary Lou!" he cried in delight. "Are you sure you're all right?" "I'm fine," she replied, ushering him into the constable's house. "Merry Christmas, Daddy!" "The same to you, dear." He gazed at her fondly. "I believe it will be--now. You certainly look happy, Daughter." "I am, Daddy. These people have treated me royally!" She turned around and introduced her father to Mrs. Hodge and the children, for he had already met the constable. "And, oh, Dad, here is Margaret Detweiler," she added. "You remember her, don't you?" "I certainly do," replied Mr. Gay, extending his hand cordially. "My, but your grandparents are going to be glad to see you, Margaret!" The girl blushed and looked down at the floor in embarrassment. Wisely, Mr. Gay asked no questions. "I have all the stolen valuables, Dad," continued Mary Louise. "Every single thing that was taken from Stoddard House, and even the money!" Mr. Gay gazed at his daughter in speechless admiration: she had excelled his fondest hopes! "Mary Lou, that's--wonderful!" he said after a moment.... "I have good news too. I caught your thieves. Seven of 'em. They are in a Baltimore jail now." Both girls exclaimed aloud in amazement and delight. Margaret Detweiler started forward and clutched the detective's arm. "It's really true, Mr. Gay?" she demanded breathlessly. "Mrs. Ferguson--is she in jail too?" "Locked up without any chance of getting out on bail!" he said authoritatively. "Oh, I'm so glad!" murmured the girl thankfully. "Now we'll be able to take the valuables right back to their owners at Stoddard House, Constable Hodge," announced Mary Louise. "I'm not afraid to carry them, with Dad beside me." Mrs. Hodge brought the jewelry and the money from its hiding place and gave it all to Detective Gay. Both he and Mary Louise tried to thank the Hodges for their help and their hospitality; Mr. Gay wanted to give the constable some sort of recompense, but the good man refused. Only after a great deal of persuasion would he accept a five-dollar bill as a Christmas present for his children. "Ready, Daddy?" inquired Mary Louise as she slipped on her coat. "Just a minute," replied her father. "I want to telephone to Mrs. Hilliard to let her know that you are safe. She's been terribly worried, Mary Lou.... And shall I tell her that we'll eat Christmas dinner with her at Stoddard House?" "Oh, yes! I've heard about the menu. There won't be a sweller dinner anywhere in Philadelphia than at Stoddard House. But shall we be in time?" Mr. Gay consulted his watch. "It's only a little after eleven," he said. "We ought to make it by one o'clock." As soon as the telephone call was completed, the three people got into the little car. Mary Louise herself took the wheel, for, as she explained, she was familiar with it by this time. "Now tell me about your experiences, Mary Lou," urged her father, as soon as they were well under way. Mary Louise explained, for Margaret's benefit as well as for her father's, about deciphering the code letter and coming up to Center Square and breaking into the empty house in search of the valuables. But she made light of the coldness and desolation of the dark house and of her own hunger. She concluded with the statement that Margaret had come that morning and let her out with a key. "But how did you happen to have the key, Margaret?" demanded Mr. Gay. "I will have to tell you my whole story from the beginning," answered the girl. There was a tragic note in her voice, which drew out her listeners' sympathy, but neither made any comment. "Then you can decide what to do with me," she continued. "I guess I deserve to go to prison, but when I assure you that I have never done anything wrong except under compulsion, maybe you will not be so angry with me." "We're not angry with you, Margaret," Mary Louise told her. "Only terribly sorry. So please tell us everything. You remember that your grandparents have never heard anything from you since last Christmas.... So begin your story there." "All right.... Let me see--I was working in that department store in Philadelphia, and doing pretty well, for I got commissions besides my salary on everything I sold. I started in the cheap jewelry department and was promoted to the expensive kind. Christmas brought me in a lot of business, but I guess I overworked, for I got sick the week before and had to stay home and have the doctor. I'd already spent a good deal of money on presents, and when my doctor's bill was paid I found my salary was all gone. So I went back to the store before I should--on the twenty-third of December, I remember." "The twenty-third of December!" repeated Mary Louise. "That was the day Mrs. Ferguson registered at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel." "How did you know, Mary Lou?" demanded Margaret. "I went to the hotel and looked through the old register," she explained. "But go on, Margaret. What happened then?" "I found that a ring, an expensive diamond ring, had been stolen from our department," continued the girl. "They insisted that it was taken before I was away, but they couldn't prove anything. Just the same, I know the store detective had his eye on me.... Well, that very day something else disappeared: a link bracelet. This time they accused me immediately." "But why?" "I don't know, except that I was the newest salesgirl in the department--in fact, the only girl. The store detective stepped behind my counter and leaned down to the floor. _And he picked that bracelet right out of my shoe!_" "How dreadful!" cried Mary Louise. "Somebody had 'planted' it there?" "Of course. Mrs. Ferguson had, as I later learned. But at the time I hadn't a suspicion. She was standing right near the counter, examining some rings. When she heard me accused and told to leave the store, she stepped forward, saying that she was sorry for me. She asked me whether I had any family, and I told her they were too far away for me to go to, without any money. "'But you'll have trouble getting a job without a reference,' she said. 'So perhaps I had better help you.'" "The sly cat!" cried Mary Louise. Margaret nodded. "But I didn't know it then. I simply asked her whether she could get me a job, and she told me to come to the Benjamin Franklin Hotel that afternoon and ask for Mrs. Ferguson. "Of course, I went--I had nothing else to do. She engaged me at once as her secretary. We went out to Center Square for a few days, and I met a lot of other girls. Two daughters, two nieces, and a couple of friends. We had a good time, but I didn't do any work, for she had two servants and a chauffeur, and I felt as if I didn't earn my pay." "Did she give you a salary?" asked Mary Louise. "Yes," replied Margaret. "For the first couple of weeks. But I had to send it to my landlady in Philadelphia. After that, Mrs. Ferguson bought my clothes and paid my hotel bills, but she never gave me any cash." "So you couldn't get away!" observed Mr. Gay. "Exactly. Gradually I began to suspect that there was something crooked about this bunch, and then one day I found the diamond ring which had been stolen from the store: among Mrs. Ferguson's stuff at Center Square!" "What did you do?" demanded Mary Louise. "I showed it to her and said I was going to take it right back to the store, and she stood there and laughed at me. She said it would only prove my own guilt! "The next day we all went to Washington and stayed in different hotels. Mrs. Ferguson kept me with her, but I soon saw through her tricks. Her girls were all skilled hotel thieves. She tried to teach me the business, as she called it, but I refused to learn. So she made me take charge of the stuff they stole. The girls would bring their loot to her, and she'd send me with it to Center Square. Every once in a while she would dispose of it all to a crooked dealer who asked no questions." "Were you out at Center Square last Sunday, Margaret?" interrupted Mary Louise. "Yes. Mrs. Ferguson and I both went. We had intended to get the place ready to spend Christmas there, but for some reason, Mrs. Ferguson got scared. She said that Mary Green talked too much, and she thought we ought to clear out. She made plans to dispose of everything in Baltimore, and then we were all going to sail to Bermuda.... But why did you ask that, Mary Lou?" "Because I was in that car that drove up to the house then. I saw you and then Mrs. Ferguson. I wouldn't have thought of its being you, only Mary Green admitted that she knew you. That made me suspicious." "You disappeared pretty quickly!" "Rather," laughed Mary Louise, and she told the story of being hit over the head by a rock and of catching the young man and having him arrested that very morning. "That was clever!" approved her father. "Who was he, Margaret?" "A neighborhood bum that Mrs. Ferguson employs to watch the place and keep the people away," replied the girl. "But I'm afraid I interrupted you, Margaret," apologized Mary Louise. "Please go on with your story." "There isn't much left to tell. I was too far away from home to run away, without any money, and I hadn't a single friend I could go to. All the store people thought I was a thief, so I knew there was no use asking their help. I just kept on, from day to day, not knowing how it would ever end and never expecting to see my grandparents or my Riverside friends again. Oh, you can't imagine how unhappy I have been!" She stopped talking, for emotion had overcome her; tears were rolling down her cheeks. Mary Louise laid her hand over Margaret's reassuringly. "It's all right now, isn't it, Daddy?" she said. "We'll take you home to your grandparents." "But I can't go back to them!" protested the other girl. "How can I tell them what has happened? They'd be disgraced for life." "You can tell them you have been working for a queer woman who wouldn't allow you to write home," said Mr. Gay. "A woman whose mind was affected, for that is the truth. There is no doubt that Mrs. Ferguson is the victim of a diseased mind." "Wouldn't you ever tell on me?" questioned Margaret. "No, of course not. It was in no way your fault, child.... And now try to be happy. I think I can find you a job in Herman's Hardware store, right in Riverside. And you can live with your grandparents. They need you." "It seems almost too good to be true," breathed the grateful girl. Mary Louise turned to her father. "Now for your story, Dad," she begged. "About capturing the thieves." "I think that had better be kept till dinner time," replied Mr. Gay. "This traffic we're approaching will require all your attention, Mary Lou. And besides, Mrs. Hilliard will want to hear it too." CHAPTER XVIII _Conclusion_ Mary Louise brought the car to a stop at Stoddard House at a quarter to one. Carrying the money and the jewels in her father's briefcase, and the other articles in the basket, she and Margaret went into the hotel to get ready for dinner while Mr. Gay returned the hired car to the garage. "I'll notify the police that you're found, Mary Lou," he said. "Then I'll call your mother. I think it will be best if she goes over to your grandparents, Margaret, and tells them about you herself. They haven't a telephone, and I don't like to frighten elderly people with telegrams." Both girls nodded their approval to these suggestions and hurried into the hotel. Mrs. Hilliard was waiting for Mary Louise with open arms; she loved the young detective like a daughter. "Now, run along, girls, and get ready for dinner," she said finally. "We are going to have one big table, instead of all the little ones in the dining room. With a tree in the center, and place cards, just like a jolly family party." "That's swell!" exclaimed Mary Louise. "It'll be real Christmas after all." "And thank you so much for the lovely handkerchiefs, dear," added the manager. "It was sweet of you to think of me.... That reminds me, you haven't had your presents yet." "Put them at my place at the table," suggested Mary Louise. "And I'll have presents for some of the guests," she added, with a significant glance at the briefcase and basket. When the girls returned to the first floor, after washing their faces and powdering their noses, they found Mr. Gay waiting for them. For a moment he did not see them, so intent was he in the newspaper he was reading. "Want to see the gang's picture?" he asked when Mary Louise came to his side. "Oh yes! Please!" In spite of the fact that it was Christmas Day, a large photograph of Mrs. Ferguson and her six accomplices occupied much of the front page of this Philadelphia paper. In an inset above the picture of the crooks was Mary Louise's smiling face! "Daddy!" cried the girl in amazement. "Are you responsible for this?" "I am," replied her father proudly. "I want everybody to know that the credit belongs to you, Daughter." Other guests, who had not yet read their newspapers, crowded about Mr. Gay eager for the exciting news. They all remembered Pauline Brooks, and Mary Green; several of them identified the two transients who had stolen the other things from Stoddard House. A loud gong sounded from the dining room, and Mrs. Hilliard threw open the doors. The room was beautifully decorated with greens and holly; a long table stretched out before them, covered with a lovely lace cloth and bearing a small Christmas tree as its centerpiece. Bright red ribbons had been stretched from the tree to each guest's place, adding brilliancy to the spectacle. "Hello, Mary Louise!" said a voice behind the young detective, and, turning around, Mary Louise saw Mrs. Weinberger behind her. "Merry Christmas, Mrs. Weinberger!" she replied. "It's nice to see you back here." "I've come back to stay," announced the older woman. "I got lonely at the Bellevue. And Mrs. Macgregor is here too, for Christmas dinner." It was a happy group who finally found their places around the beautiful table and sat down. Mrs. Hilliard was at one end, and Miss Stoddard was honored with the seat at the other end. Mr. Gay was the only man present, but he did not seem in the least embarrassed. Mary Louise found her pile of presents at her place, and Margaret Detweiler discovered a bunch of violets and a box of candy at hers. Even in his haste, Mr. Gay had remembered the lonely girl. The guests ate their oyster cocktails and their mushroom soup before any formal announcement concerning the valuables was made. Then Mrs. Hilliard rose from her chair. "As you all know from the papers, our criminals have been caught by Mary Louise Gay and her father, and are now in prison. But even better news than that is coming. I'll introduce Mr. Gay, whom some of you know already, and he'll tell you more about it." Everybody clapped as the famous detective stood up. "I'm not going to make a speech," he said, "and keep you waiting for the turkey we're all looking forward to. I just thought that maybe some of you would enjoy this wonderful dinner even more if you knew that you are going to get everything back again which was stolen. My daughter found all the valuables and the money this morning in Mrs. Ferguson's house at Center Square, and she will now return them to their rightful owners." As the newspaper had not mentioned anything about the stolen goods, the guests were not prepared for this pleasant surprise. A loud burst of applause greeted Mary Louise as she smilingly rose to her feet and opened the briefcase and drew out the basket from under the table where she had hidden it. "I'll begin at the beginning," she said. "With the vase and the silverware belonging to Stoddard House." She carried these articles to Mrs. Hilliard, amid appreciative hand-clapping. "Next, Miss Granger's picture and her fifty dollars," she continued. Tears actually came to the artist's eyes as she took the painting from Mary Louise's hands. "You keep the fifty dollars, Miss Gay," she said. "My picture is what I care for most." "No, Miss Granger, no, thank you," replied the girl solemnly. "I am being paid a salary for my work by Mrs. Hilliard, but I can't accept rewards for doing my duty." She picked up the watches next: Mrs. Weinberger's and Mrs. Hilliard's. The Walder girls would get theirs when they returned from their holidays. "And, last of all, Mrs. Macgregor's diamond earrings and her five hundred dollars," she concluded, restoring the jewelry and the bills to the delighted woman. "I believe that is all, for I am wearing my own wrist-watch, and I have my purse with its five dollars contents." Loud cheering accompanied the applause which followed. When it had at last quieted down, both Mrs. Weinberger and Mrs. Macgregor tried in vain to give Mary Louise a reward, but she remained firm in her refusal. Then the turkeys were brought to the dining room, and everything else was temporarily forgotten in the enjoyment of Christmas dinner. When it was all over, Mr. Gay told Mary Louise to pack her clothing and her presents while he returned the remaining valuables to the Ritz and to the police. "For I hope we can make the three-thirty train," he explained. "But with that change at the Junction, we'd have to wait all night, shouldn't we, Daddy?" inquired Mary Louise. Anxious as she was to get back to Riverside, she had no desire to spend the night in a cheerless railway station. "No," replied her father. "Because there's going to be a surprise waiting for you at the Junction." "Max and Norman?" guessed Mary Louise instantly. "You mean that they'll drive down for us?" Mr. Gay nodded. "That isn't all," he said. Mary Louise did not guess the rest of the answer until the train pulled into the Junction shortly after eight o'clock that night. Then a war whoop that could come from no one else but her small brother greeted her ears, and she knew that her mother must be there too. Yes, and there was her chum, Jane Patterson, grinning at her from the boys' car! And her little dog, Silky! In another minute Mary Louise was clasping her arms around Mrs. Gay and hugging Freckles and Jane and Silky all at once. Max, at her side, had to be content with pressing her arm affectionately. Questions, Christmas greetings, words of joy and congratulation poured so fast upon Mary Louise's ears that she could scarcely understand them. "You're home to stay, darling?" This from her mother. "You'll go to the senior prom with me?" demanded Max. "You're the most famous girl detective in the world!" shouted Norman Wilder. "You were a lemon to duck my party, but I'll give another one just in your honor," promised Jane. "Did you get your salary--your twenty-five bucks?" asked Freckles. Mary Louise nodded, smiling, to everything. Then she got into Max's car beside him, with Jane and Norman in the rumble seat. Mr. Gay took the wheel of his sedan, with his wife beside him; Margaret Detweiler, who was quietly watching everything, sat behind with Freckles. The drivers of the two cars did not stop for any food on the way; they sped along as fast as they dared towards Riverside. Old Mr. and Mrs. Detweiler were waiting up for their precious granddaughter, their lost Margaret. A little before midnight the cars pulled up in front of the old couple's home, and everybody in the party went inside for a moment. The greeting between Margaret and her grandparents was touching to see. Even Norman Wilder, who prided himself on being "hard-boiled," admitted afterwards that the tears came to his eyes. Mrs. Gay discreetly drew her own party away, back to her home, where a feast was waiting for the travelers. This, Mary Louise felt, was her real Christmas celebration--with her family and her three dearest friends. Now she could tell her story and listen to the praises which meant so much to her. "But the best part of it all," she concluded, "is that I'm a real professional detective at last!" * * * * * * Transcriber's note: --Retained publication and copyright information from the printed exemplar (this book is public-domain in the U.S.). --Obvious typographical errors were corrected without comment. Possibly intentional spelling variations were not changed. --A Table of Contents and a list of the series books were prepared for the convenience of the reader. 
36919	----	THE HEART'S COUNTRY BY MARY HEATON VORSE WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALICE BARBER STEPHENS [Illustration] BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1914 COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE CROWELL PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY MARY HEATON O'BRIEN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Published April 1914_ [Illustration: YOU MUST COME! (p. 151)] By Mary Heaton Vorse THE HEART'S COUNTRY. Illustrated. THE VERY LITTLE PERSON. Illustrated. THE BREAKING IN OF A YACHTSMAN'S WIFE. Illustrated. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Boston and New York CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Prologue 1 I 5 II 17 III 24 IV 30 V 36 VI 43 VII 50 VIII 58 IX 68 X 85 XI 97 XII 112 XIII 119 XIV 128 XV 146 XVI 153 XVII 168 XVIII 187 XIX 195 XX 203 XXI 221 XXII 230 XXIII 248 XXIV 253 XXV 261 XXVI 276 XXVII 282 ILLUSTRATIONS "You must come!" (page 151) _Frontispiece_ "I Hate your Society, anyway! I never did want to be an Old Maid!" 40 "She is very lovely" 108 She towered above Ellen, an Avenging Fate 176 From drawings by Alice Barber Stephens. THE HEART'S COUNTRY PROLOGUE The actors in this drama are dead, or else life has turned them into such different beings that their transformation is hardly less than that of death itself. Their thoughts are scattered to the winds, or live, oddly changed, in the bodies of their children--the girl who brought me the journals and packages of letters smiled up at me with the flashing smile of Ellen. This girl, with a gesture of the hand, opened for me the gates of the past, and when she was gone I walked through them with beating heart, back over the steep path of years. This little package of long-forgotten papers which she had given me, and of whose contents she was ignorant, were a strange legacy, for it was my own youth that I found in them and the youth of Ellen. As I went over the scrawled journals and through the packages of letters, the land of memory blossomed for me and the tears that came to my eyes thawed the ice of many years. Ellen herself had forgotten her youth; she may not have remembered that in the bottom of an old trunk she had left for me things which she could not bear to destroy--for there they found them after her death with a letter addressed to me. As I read on, it was as though I had before me the broken pieces of her heart, and as I looked, my own childhood and even my girlhood lived again. I had often looked for my girlhood and had never found it. Those years when women are in the making--that land of glamour--are the hardest thing of all for grown-up people to understand. Nothing stays fixed there, all the emotions are at their point of effervescence and their charm is their evanescence. The very power of early youth is in the violence of its changes; it is the era of chaos in the souls of people; when they are in the making; when the crust is only forming, and the fire may break forth at any moment; and when what seems most secure and fixed trembles under the feet and disappears in some new-made gulf of the emotions. Then, too, in our youth they teach us such cruel things, we spend ourselves in trying to keep alive such spent fires, and no one tells us that it is anything but noble to live under the destructive tyranny of love. We have to find our way alone-- The thought came to me that I would try to write a sort of story of my friend. And yet, although I had before me the picture of a heart in the making, I have taken up my pen and laid it down again because it is not a story which "marches." Its victories and defeats went on in the quiet of Ellen's heart, but I have learned that this silent making and marring of the hearts of women means the fate of all men forever. I fancy that women will have another bar of judgment and that the question asked us there will be: "Have you loved well? Were you small and grudging and niggardly? Did you make of love a sorry barter, or did you give with such a gesture as spring makes when it walks blossoming across the land?" I do not think that old age often repents the generosities of its youth; perhaps it is my own too careful sowing that makes me wish to write the life of my friend, who asked only to spend herself and her own sweetness with both reckless hands. CHAPTER I Ellen and her mother drove in a "shay" to take possession of the old Scudder house, which had been vacant long enough to have a deserted and haunted look. It was far back from the street and was sentineled on either side by an uncompromising fir tree. Great vans, of the kind used in that early day to move furniture from one town to another, disgorged their contents on the young spring grass, and though Mildred Dilloway and Janie Acres and I walked to the village store and back on a half-dozen errands, we saw nothing of the new little girl that day; but there remains in my mind the memory of her little mother, a youthful, black-clad figure, moving helplessly, and it seemed at random, among her household effects that squatted so forlornly in the front yard and then started on their processional walk to the house, impelled by the puissant force of Miss Sarah Grant. Ellen's account of this time is as follows:-- "We are going to live by ourselves, though we can't afford it, because we are ourselves, mamma says, and will really give less trouble this way, though my aunt and uncle think not. 'I want you to win your aunt and uncle,' she said to me. It will be so much easier for me to win them if they don't know me too well. That is one of her reasons for not living in the house with them. 'They would find us so slack that we should become a thorn in their flesh.' 'Couldn't we stop being slack?' I said. Mamma looked at me, and after a long time she said, 'You and I, Ellen, will always be slack inside. Material things don't interest us.' My mother doesn't know me. I like some material things, like ploughing. I said to her: 'Wouldn't _they_ be a thorn in _our_ flesh?' She tried not to smile, and said quite sternly: 'Ellen, you must never think of your dear aunt and uncle in that way.' If it is so, why shouldn't I think so, I wonder? As soon as I saw them I knew what mother meant. They are very nice and I love them, but they have never leaned over the gate to talk to peddlers. A lost dog wouldn't be happy in their home. We have never had any dogs but lost ones. And Aunt Sarah didn't like Faro's name or his ways. I like Aunt Sarah. She says just what she feels like saying. Mother doesn't. Mother says the things she wants to feel like saying. I annoyed my Aunt Sarah by forgetting to come home to help, and mother said, 'Oh, dear, why did you need to go and read the Bible to that woman next door when we were moving in, and I wanted your aunt to have a high opinion of you?' I said, 'She had the rheumatism.' Aunt Sarah said, 'Does she read with her knee; and how came you there anyway, Ellen?' I said, 'By the back door, because I like back doors and I hate going in front doors.' Aunt Sarah looked at me very sharply and said, 'That child of yours, Emily, is just such a child as I should expect you to have, reading the Bible to strangers who have the rheumatism when a pair of willing hands would have been useful at home.' The way she looked at me, I knew deep inside she didn't really mind, so I suddenly kissed her. Later mother said, 'Mercy! I would never have dared to kiss your Aunt Sarah like that.' I told her I knew Aunt Sarah wanted me to. 'How can you tell?' asked mother; but I always know things like that. It makes me feel rather vain, and vanity is a sin. My Uncle Ephraim is like a picture and so is the big house they live in. I had a moment that mamma called 'flesh-pottish' and longed to live there. 'That's just it, Ellen,' she said. 'They are like pictures, and you and I would be sure to injure their lovely surfaces. We are not violent, but so careless.'" After this arduous day I remember Miss Sarah popped down in my grandmother's sitting-room. Said she: "I'm all out of breath." My grandmother waited for further information. "I've been settling," Miss Sarah informed her with that frankness that kept all the older ladies in town in a state of twittering expectation. "I've been settling my do-less sister and her do-less child." She spoke in some exasperation. My grandmother allowed a long pause and said reflectively:-- "You'd make any one do-less, Sarah." And, indeed, Miss Sarah Grant was one of those energetic ladies who leave no place for the energies of others to expand. But here the wind shifted and her irritation disappeared. "Oh, my dear," she said, "it's too sad. Those children are as little fit to take care of themselves and to live alone as young robins in the nest." "The Lord looks after such," said my grandmother. "Well," replied Miss Sarah, with asperity, "you may be sure that after what I've seen of this world I'm not going to leave it with the Lord." She was on terms of familiarity with the Deity that even permitted criticism of his ways. Then she said: "Send Roberta soon to see that poor, fatherless Ellen of mine." This my grandmother did, shortly afterwards, and I started forth on my first visit to the "poor, fatherless Ellen" at the slow and elegant gait of a hearse with plumes. We were not far removed from that period when young ladies employed their leisure by limning lachrymose females weeping over urns. We were therefore expectant of a certain pomp of mourning; long, black draperies were the least we demanded. Ellen, I learned, was in the apple orchard, and thither I bent my solemn footsteps. It was in full bloom, one tree after another looking like bridal nosegays of some beneficent giant. All was quiet save for the droning of honey-bees. Suddenly two inches above my head there burst forth the roars of an infant of tender years. I looked up and there I beheld my tragic heroine. Her dress was of blue, checked gingham, a piece of which was caught on a twig of the apple tree and rent nearly in a three-cornered tear. One stocking was coming down in a manner unbecoming to any girl. Her hair was plaited in two neat little "plats," as we used to call them, and tied tightly with meager ribbons; but though I took these things in at a glance, that which naturally most arrested my attention was the fact that Ellen cherished to her bosom a large, red-headed infant, whom I immediately recognized as being one of the brood of the prolific Sweeneys. The child ceased roaring for a moment, upon which Ellen remarked to me with grave self-composure:-- "How do you do? I suppose you have come to play with me, but my brother and I can't come down for a moment until I have managed to get my dress from that twig. Perhaps you could come up and undo it, or if you could perhaps come and get him--" "Your brother!" I cried. "That's one of the Sweeney children." Ellen's eyes flashed. "It _is_ my brother," she insisted. "You can see for yourself it's my brother. Would one have taken anything but one's brother up a tree? I have to take care of him all the time." Said I: "I've known the Sweeney boys all my life; there are seven of them and the third but one biggest always takes care of the smallest. There's one littler 'n this." "Oh, there _is_!" said Ellen. Her brow darkened. "And I got up the tree with this large, hulking thing in my arms--and goodness knows how I ever did get up it!" She spoke with vigor and precision. "Aha!" I cried, "you say yourself it's a Sweeney." "I say nothing of the kind," rejoined Ellen. "This is my brother. Come," she wheedled, "why won't you say it's my brother?" I bit my lip; I wanted to go, for I was not used to being made game of. Moreover, I disapproved of her present position extremely. There was I, my mouth made up, so to speak, for a weeping-willow air, lachrymose ringlets, dark-rimmed eyes, and black raiment, and I had encountered fallen stockings, torn blue gingham, and the Sweeney baby, and the whole of it together up a tree. Ellen now looked down on me. Her generous mouth with its tip-tilted corners--an exotic, lovable mouth, too large for beauty, but of a remarkable texture and color--now drooped and her eyes filled,--filled beautifully, and yet did not brim over. And for all the droop of the mouth, the saddest little smile I have ever seen hovered about its corners. "Won't you _please_ say that this is my brother?" she pleaded. Though I knew it was the Sweeney baby and though I knew she was play-acting all of it, stubborn and downright child though I was, something gripped my heart. Though I couldn't have then put it into words, there was a wistfulness and a heart-hunger about her that played a game with me. It was my first encounter and my first overthrow. "Have it your brother," said I in a surly fashion. When we had got the baby down from the tree, Ellen finished me by looking at me with her sincere, sweet eyes in which there was a hint of tears, and saying softly: "Once I had a little brother who died." That was all. She turned her face away; I turned my face away; our hands met. It was as though she was explaining to me her insistence on the Sweeney baby. It was her look and this silent and averted hand-clasp that brought me to my feet in a very torrent of feeling when Alec Yorke, an engaging youth of eleven summers, came ramping through the orchard shouting:-- "Oh, you'll get it! You'll get it! Mrs. Sweeney's given Ted a good one already--she's after you!" It was not the gusto in his tone at her ultimate fate that irritated me, but this taking away of Ellen's baby brother. "Mrs. Sweeney's got nothing to do with this baby!" I cried. "It's Ellen's brother!" I bent down and picked up a stone and threw it at Alec. Ellen did the same. In one second we had performed one of those amazing sleights of hand that are so frequent and so disconcerting at this moment of girlhood. A moment before we had been swimming along the upper levels of sentiment and crossing the tender, heart-breaking line of the love of women for little children; now our teary mistiness vanished and we were back at the green-apple-hearted moment of childhood. That afternoon I had already been a young lady with all the decorous manners of eighteen; I had been no age,--just a woman whose heart is touched with pity and affection; and now I was just stern, hard twelve, and I threw a rock at my little friend, Alec Yorke. So did Ellen. Together, with hoots and pebbles, we drove the invading male from our midst. Ellen, I remember, had a "Yip! Yip! Yip!" which was blood-thirsty and derisive at once. She barked it out like a terrier gone mad. I remember also her crying out in a ferocious agony of desire: "Oh, if I get near you, won't I _spit_ on you!" These were her first words to Alec. He said in later years that their first meeting was indelibly engraven on his memory. He retreated over the fence vanquished by superior force, but with his head well up and his thumb to his gallantly tilted nose. Here Ellen turned to me, the light of victory flashing from her eyes, which fought with my interrogatory gaze, filled with tears again, and at last sought the distance. "_I never had a little brother_," she muttered thickly. Anger surged over me and then died as quickly as it had come. Again she had me. The quiver in her voice showed me what her sincerity had cost her, and so did her next words:-- "I wanted one so always that I just had to make-believe." Here one had the heart of truth, stripped of the spirit of make-believe which it had clothed in quaint and absurd garments. Again I squeezed Ellen's hand in mine. I tell all these things in detail because this was so Ellen. She had this dual nature which fought forever in her heart,--the passion for make-believe and the fundamental need of telling the truth,--always to herself, and often embarrassingly to those she loved. She comments as follows on this episode, unconsciously showing me as the young prig I was:-- "The moment Roberta picked up a rock to fight for my brother, I knew I should have to tell her the truth. I saw right away how good Roberta was. She has very lovely blue eyes and her hair is so smooth and shiny that I don't believe she musses it when she sleeps. She looked at me so straight and her eyes were so round that it was very hard work to tell her that the Sweeney baby was not my brother, but I gritted my teeth and did it. The rest was easy on account of her soft heart." CHAPTER II The heart of man is mysterious. Why a passionately expressed desire to spit upon one should be alluring, God knows--I don't. It was fatal to Alec. I see him now jumping up and down outside the fence, shouting forth: "Ya ha! Ya ha! You can't get me!"--or wooing Ellen by the subtle method of attaching a hard green apple to a supple stick and flinging it at her. The relations of these two, as you can see, were deep from the first. Ellen, more than any of the rest of us, had sharp recrudescences back to little girlhood just as she flamed further ahead on the shimmering path of adolescence. Thus she covered a wide gamut of years in her everyday life. I think it is this ability to roam up and down time that makes life interesting, more than any other thing. So when Janie Acres and Mildred Dilloway and Ellen and I would be sitting under the trees discussing the important affairs of life, Ellen would suddenly be moved to arise with her ear-rending "Yip! Yip!" and "career" (I use Miss Sarah's word) across the landscape. Her frocks, because of her mother's dislike to the dull work of letting down tucks and hems, were shorter than those worn in my decorous young days, and her thin little legs measured the distance like a pair of dividers. There was an intensity to her flight that made one think of a projectile. From the excursions into tenderness that our little quartette of girls was always making, from our sudden flashes of maturity, Ellen would suddenly leap with both feet into full childhood. I remember sudden jumps from high lofts and swinging from trees and the slipping off of shoes and stockings for the purpose of wading in brooks. And these impassioned returns to the golden age were always heightened by the presence of Alec. Such "performances" were, of course, severely criticized. New England at that time was staider than it is to-day; a higher standard of what was named "decorum" was demanded of the young, and yet smiles flickered around mouths while brows frowned when Ellen played. As I read Ellen's journal at this time, it is as though I could see her growing up as the tide comes in; the receding wave toward childhood meant Alec to her. He was a loosely built lad with a humorous and smiling mouth. His shaggy mane of hair, which boys wore longer in those days than they do now, gave him the appearance of a lion's cub. His whimsical temperament and his easy disposition he got from his mother. She was a placid woman who had spent her life in adapting herself to the difficult temperament of Mr. Yorke, and it was her boast that there was no other woman living who could have got on with her husband without being fidgeted into an early grave. When Miss Sarah opined that if she put her mind on that and on nothing else, she could get on with any man living, Mrs. Yorke replied nothing, but said afterwards to my grandmother:-- "Poor Miss Sarah! Ain't it queer about these unmarried women; no matter how intellectual they be! It ain't puttin' your mind on it ever made a woman get on with the man she's married to." Whatever the knack was that made a woman accomplish this feat, Alec had had imparted by his mother. "Learnin' you to get on with your pa real easy an' smilin' is goin' to help you a lot in life, Alec," the good woman had told her son. "Mebbe it'll be worth more to you than as if we had money to leave you." Understanding the virtues in a good but crotchety and trying man, had bred in Alec a tolerant and humorous spirit of the kind that most people don't ever acquire at all, and that Youth seldom knows. It made him kind to boys younger than himself, and also made it easy for his mother to make him play the part of nurse to smaller brothers and sisters and also to nieces and nephews, for Mrs. Yorke's married sister lived next door to her. It was the constant presence of a small child in Alec's train that made Ellen discover the mystery about him. "There's a deep mystery about Alec," Ellen told me. "Every day he comes and leaves his baby with me at a certain time and runs off rapidly toward the Butlers'." Now I had seen Alec Yorke grow up; he was younger than I, and you know the scorn that a girl of thirteen can have toward a boy a year her junior and half a head shorter than she. At that time he fits into no scheme of things; there is no being on earth who arouses one's sentiment less. As a sweetheart he is impossible; equally impossible is he as an object on which to lavish motherly feelings. For me, Alec was a mere plague; he lured Ellen from me into skylarkings in which I had no part, nor did I wish to have, having, by the New England training of that day, already had my childhood taken from me. It was not mystery that I had ever connected with Alec, but a baffling sense of humor and an intensity in the way he could turn hand-springs. There was a fire in his performance of cart-wheels that seemed to let loose all that was foolish and gay, and, from the point of view of the grown-ups of the time, reprehensible in Ellen. So it was obvious to me that any mysterious doings of Alec's meant no good. "We ought to find out," said I, "what he's about." "Oh, Roberta!" pleaded Ellen; "then it wouldn't be a mystery any more." "We ought to find out what he's doing," I pursued, "and get him to stop it. We should use our influence even if he is young." We, therefore, stealthily made after Alec. He went out through a hole in the fence of the Scudder place, circled a little wood, scaled some outhouses of the Jones's, and in this circuitous method came back to old Mrs. Butler's, next door, and there he lay on his stomach in the woodshed, at a little distance. With a reappearance of guilty stealth, he looked around and seeing no one he dove suddenly into Mrs. Butler's house. Mrs. Butler was stricken with rheumatism and lived entirely on the first floor, so by the simple method of flattening our noses against the window-pane we might find out anything that was afoot. We fathomed the mystery. There stood Alec, doing old Mrs. Butler's back hair. He combed it out as best he might, while she punctuated the performance with such remarks as these: "Lor! child, remember it's hair in your hands, not a hank of yarn." Then she would groan, "Oh, the day that I lost the use of my arms over my head and must go through this!" All of which Alec bore with patience. We made off a little shamefacedly while Ellen hissed in my ear, with fine logic: "There, Roberta Hathaway, that's what you get by snooping into people's business." We never mentioned Alec's mystery to him, though from time to time Ellen would seem maddeningly knowing. CHAPTER III When Mrs. Payne had been in our village less than a year and the interest of the village in the "do-less" sister of Miss Sarah had somewhat dwindled, it flamed up again. Mrs. Payne had a visitor, to our country eyes a splendid-looking, middle-aged gentleman. He put up at the little inn and called on Mrs. Payne and brought her such little trifles as a man might bestow upon a lady; sweets also he brought for Ellen, and a most elegant little needlecase with a gold thimble,--an incongruous gift, for since Ellen learned the use of the needle she had abhorred it; if she lived to-day she would have darned her stockings with a sail needle and dental floss. There went through the town, "He's courting the widow," for he came again and again, and in the mean time, according to the postmistress, there arrived letters and a package or two. Concerning this episode Ellen writes:-- "I wish aunts were made of different stuff. When Aunt Sarah comes down here looking like a gorgon, I know that she has come to make my mother cry and I am very glad that I called her 'old gorgon-face' right before her one time, though it is a rude way to address one's female relatives and I apologized to her afterwards, and now I think I will have to undo my apology because I feel so glad and happy every time I think I called her it. I couldn't help hearing because I was in the next room, and anyway I didn't mind if I did hear it. She said to my mother: 'I suppose you've made up your mind already what to do about Mr. Dennett.' 'About Mr. Dennett?' said my mother, and she sounded frightened,--she is much more frightened of my Aunt Sarah than I am. 'Even you can't be such a ninny,' said my aunt, 'as to think he comes here for nothing. A man of his age doesn't come from Springfield for the purpose of an afternoon's conversation.' 'I hadn't faced it that way,' said mamma. 'Pooh! Pooh!' said my aunt. 'There's a limit to even your folly; I hope you have planned to do the sensible thing and if you have not, you should save him the humiliation of declaring himself, which he'll do now very soon, no doubt.' 'He pretended business brought him here,' said my mother. 'Business, indeed,' said Aunt Sarah, and she made a noise like a snort, which if I made she would consider very rude. I wish there was one day a year when children could tell their aunts how rude they are at times, just as their aunts tell them every day in the week. 'The business of courting is what he is about, and with an atom of honesty you must know it, and now I want to know what you are going to do.' 'It's rather hard; I'm going to call Ellen,' said my mother; and I had to move rather rapidly not to be found too near the door, which showed me that I was listening, which one ought never to do. 'Ellen,' said my mother; and my aunt then said a word which I am not allowed to say. 'Squizzelty Betsey,' said she, 'what has Ellen to do with it?' 'I'm going to consult with Ellen'; and then, when I was in the room, 'Ellen,' she said, 'your aunt seems to think that Mr. Dennett wishes to become a new father to you. How do you like this idea?' 'Would you have to keep house for him,' I said, 'the way you did for dear papa?' 'More so,' said my mamma. 'I don't think we should be happy then,' said I. At this Aunt Sarah rocked back and forth and she groaned as though her stomach hurt her. While my aunt was groaning, I could see my mother turn her back and I knew by her actions that she was putting her handkerchief to her mouth to keep from laughing, and which I have often seen her do when my aunt was here. 'It made us both very nervous,' I explained to her, 'getting meals exactly on time and doing all the things that a man has a right to have perfect in his own house, which is what papa used to say, but we have not, since we've lived together, had to have anything perfect at all; we never think of meal-times or any other sad things.' 'Listen, Ellen,' said my aunt; 'you are almost more sensible and grown-up than your mother; your mother is still a young woman, a long life of loneliness confronts her,--more than that, a cramped financial situation. You'll always have to go without and without and without. It would be from every point of view a dignified and suitable alliance and one which your mother should be happy to make and which any woman of her age and position and an atom of sense would do.' Here my mother flung out her hand in the air as though she were throwing away something and were glad to do it. I wish I could see her do that again. 'I respect him and I like him, and his liking for me touches me and flatters me, but oh! the running of a big house; but oh! the pent-up city streets.' 'And I say so, too,' I cried. Then she suddenly drew me to her and stood me at arm's length from her, and she said to me, 'Ellen, promise me when you grow up, and when your blood shall leap high, and nothing happens in this little town, and when the world calls to you, that you won't blame me.' And my aunt said, 'Don't worry, Emily; plenty will always happen where Ellen is.' I hugged and kissed her and promised hard. Now there will be no more presents, and no more bon-bons, for mother is going to shock him so he will not want to come again, which she thinks is a good way to save his vanity, but Aunt Sarah said: 'Emily, you are incorrigible.' But we are both, my mother and I, very sorry to lose our good friend. 'Can't men be friends with you,' I asked, 'without wanting to marry you?' And my mother said, 'It seems not, dear.' But when I grow up it is going to be different with me." CHAPTER IV Ellen wrote about this time:-- "Grandma Hathaway, Aunt Sarah and mamma, all don't know what to do about me. I should be much grown-upper than I am. 'Mercy,' said Aunt Sarah, 'that great girl of yours, Emily, acts so that she makes me tremble for fear she will some day swing by a tail from a bough, like a monkey.' [Here we see Miss Grant foreshadowing the Darwinian theory.] They don't know I try to be good, but I do try; but when joy gets into my feet I have to run, and I love to feel like that. I think I only try to be good when I am not happy. I have said my prayers about it, and the awful thing is when I say my prayers I feel as if God said: 'Never mind, Ellen, run if you like.' They always say to me: 'Why can't you sit and sew under the trees with the other girls?' Oh, if they only knew what we talked about when we sit and sew! And even Roberta does, though she disapproves of all silliness. I have never seen any girl disapprove of all silliness as does Roberta. But what we sit and talk about is _beaux_, though Roberta doesn't call hers that, and he isn't. And when Roberta talks so beautifully, I often talk the same way, but deep in my heart I know I wish I had a real beau, like the grown-up girls we talk about. It's strange, though, that Roberta has none, because she has more of one than any of the rest of us, because she writes notes to Leonard Dilloway and he carries home her books. When I said, 'He is your beau,' she was very shocked. 'I wish you would not speak so to me,' she said, 'it pains me. I shall never love, anyway, but once. I am far too young to think of such things.' 'Why do you do it?' I asked her. This made her cross. 'I don't,' she answered. 'Leonard is my friend.' But the rest of us know she is in love. So when they talk to me about being a hoyden and ask me to sit and sew, I feel like a hypocrite, because I know that young girls like us are much more grown-up than they were when Aunt Sarah and Grandma Hathaway were young, and that they would dislike one as much as the other. Though I am young in actions I have such old thoughts that I am surprised and wish I could help being proud of myself for them. I have older thoughts than Janie or Mildred, or even Roberta. Roberta sounds older, but her thoughts are tied with strings while mine are not." This sketch of hers is an accurate picture of the conversations between young girls that are going on forever and ever when three or four long-legged youngsters are together. Their talk leads inevitably, as did ours, toward their business in life. To the lads we were adventures--not to be confused with the real business they had to do in the world; to us they were life itself. Like all young girls, we lived in a close little world of our own. No one entered it, nor could we come out toward others'. We were passionate spectators at the feast of life, picking up the crumbs of experience which came our way; for in our civilization we are treated as children at an age when Juliet ran away for love, and Beatrice set Dante's heart to beating. And yet our hearts beat, and we were tragic and ineffectual Juliets, appearing on our balconies to youths who saw only the shortness of our skirts. We knew without knowing that our little lean arms were to be the cradles of the unborn generation. Forever and ever we tried to tell those whom we met, "I am Eve," and couldn't, not knowing the way past the angel with the flaming sword of self-consciousness. It was the great adventure of Janie Acres which made us conscious of our absorption in boys. There had been a merry-making which took place in a barn, and in talking it over afterwards, we recounted the conversation of each boy who had spoken to us, giving the impression of having snubbed them one and all; which, indeed, we often did, but against our wills, because embarrassment made us gruff. Janie had the adventure of hiding in the same corn-bin with a lad, and what occurred in the corn-bin she was coy of telling. When pressed, she flushed and looked the other way. It was Ellen who brought the utter innocence and lack of romance to light with her merciless truthfulness. "Did he kiss you?" asked she. We were shocked at her frankness. We never spoke of such things as kisses directly. The delicacy of our little souls was deeply wounded. And Janie replied:-- "Well, not exactly. But," she faltered, "he would have if I had stayed there." "How do you know?" asked Ellen coldly. Thus it was she pricked the bubble of sentiment. We were all rather horrified, immensely interested and rather envious. We now perceived our sentimentality. We ourselves were shocked a little by some of our temerities, for in the wide conspiracy of silence around us we imagined we were the only adventurous ones in the world. Characteristically, it was I who suggested that momentous association, the "Zinias," or "Old Maid Club." Ellen wrote:-- "We made up our minds that we were always to be true friends of men and lift their minds up as women should. We are going to think only of our studies, our homes, and of religion. Roberta says we may as well begin now, for we are getting older every minute, and one of us is already fourteen. And before we know it we will be thinking of nothing but boys. We have only to look around us to see what such things lead to. Patty Newcomb and Elizabeth Taylor and all those big girls are both forward and bold. When I said, 'Roberta, isn't noticing everything they do and talking about it just the same as talking about boys?' she said at once, 'It is not the same at all,' in the tone that I know she doesn't want me to say anything more. And when I said, 'Oh, Roberta, aren't we rather young yet to think about being old maids?' she replied sternly, 'It is never too young to begin.'" I feel rather sorry now for the stern, little Roberta. I feel sorry, too, for Janie Acres and her kiss that never was. She would have been so proud of it; it would have been her proof that she was a young lady. CHAPTER V No sooner had Ellen covenanted "Thou shalt not!" than off she went on her first adventure,--a trifling one but bleeding. She walked one day to the academy with Arthur McLain. He wore long trousers. Of this fatal occurrence Ellen remarks touchingly: "I tried very hard to be interesting, but I chose the wrong thing." It is a mistake frequently made by grown men and women. Alas! capricious fate that governs these things turned my sweet, unconscious Ellen to one forever on the alert for the appearance of this long-legged quidnunc. I will give three or four paragraphs from her journal:-- "I asked Aunt Sarah if she wanted me to get her some more yarn when hers ran short. She answered, 'Yes, you may, though I wish, Ellen, my dear child, that you were as eager to do your work as you are to wait on others.' But I knew all the time that I offered to go because I hoped that I should see him, and I should have told my aunt that that was why I offered." A few days later comes the touching little expression of the desire of the eyes:-- "Last week I walked all over town to catch glimpses of him. I went to the post-office, and he wasn't there; I went down past the school-house and past his house, and whenever I saw a boy coming toward me, it was hard to breathe. The whole day was empty and I thought it would never be night." Again:-- "To-day I saw him; he passed by me and just said, 'Hulloa, Ellen.' When I stopped for a moment, I thought he would speak to me. In school this morning he stopped and talked, but all my words went away and I seemed so stupid. At night I make up things I would like to say to him, and when he stops for a moment,--oh, he stops so seldom,--I forget them all." Throughout all this, not once does she use the word _love_. From that terrible and impersonal longing, unaware of itself and unrecognized, Ellen walked out toward the long-trousered boy. She spread before him as much as she could of her little shy sweetnesses. She walked up and down the silent streets waiting for him. Later she writes: "I had no single reason in the world for liking him." I was with Ellen at the moment of her disillusion. We were out walking together when Arthur McLain came toward us. Ahead of us, tail wagging, ran the beloved mongrel Faro. He stopped to sniff at Arthur. Arthur shooed him away. He was a lad timid about dogs, it seems. Faro saw his nervousness, and, for deviltry, barked. Arthur kicked at him with the savageness of fear. I can see Ellen now gathering her dog to her with one regal sweep of the hand and walking past the boy, her head erect, her cheeks scarlet. "I _hate_ a coward," she said to me in a low, tense voice; and later with a flaming look, "I would have killed him with my _hands_ if he had hurt Faro," she cried. So humiliated was she that she says no word in her journal for her reason for her change of heart. She could not forgive him for having made a fool of herself about him--about one so unworthy. For of all things in the world hard to forgive, this is the hardest. "I would be glad if he were dead. Oh, I know I am awful, but it is like that. Think of him walking around this town day by day, and I will have to meet him; when I go uptown, when I go to school, I will be avoiding him exactly the way I used to look for him. Oh, if he would only go away." It is not only Ellen who would like to slay the dead ghosts of unworthy loves. "He walks up and down, and doesn't know I have looked at him. Oh, if he knew that, I think I should die [her journal goes on]. He walks up and down and doesn't know that I so hate the sight of him. I don't hate him, but just the sight of him--so awfully I hate it. Everything he does seems to me so tiresome; his loud laugh makes me feel sick, and he doesn't know anything. I make-believe to myself that he walked all over town after me and got in my way and annoyed me until I said, 'I will be very glad, Arthur, if you would cease these undesired attentions.' How could he cease anything he had never begun, for it wasn't at all like that it happened. I should feel so much happier if I only could have hurt him, too." This experience, so phantasmal and yet so poignant, led to the Zinias' premature death. Conscience invaded Ellen now that disillusion had done its blighting work. There came a day when she could no longer keep to herself her deviation from the precise morals demanded by the Zinias. It was after a walk toward evening up the mountain, full of pregnant silences, that she confessed:-- "You would despise me, if you really knew me. I'm not the kind of a girl we are trying to be." [Illustration: I HATE YOUR SOCIETY ANYWAY! I NEVER DID WANT TO BE AN OLD MAID] It shocked me and thrilled me at the same time. "What have you been doing?" I asked her. "I can't tell you," she told me. "You would despise me too much." "Why, Ellen!" I cried. "Tell me about it." "No! No!" she said; and she buried her face in the moss in a very agony of shame. "I can't tell a human soul." And she still left me with a feeling of having had an interesting sentimental experience. Thus may we, when young, rifle sweetness from the blossom of despair. It was communicated to the other two Zinias that Ellen's conduct had been unbecoming a sincere old maid, and when they turned on her, instead of shame, she had for them: "I hate your society, anyway! I never did want to be an old maid!" As I look back, this adventure closes for us a certain phase of life as definitely as though we had shut the door. We all realized, though we were not honest enough to say it aloud, that we too didn't wish to be old maids. And all this happened because an unlovable boy had made Ellen like him. So much at the mercy of men are women! Just a shadow of the Cyprian over us and we blossomed. It was the shadow of a shadow; it had not one little objective event to give it substance, yet the Zinias withered. CHAPTER VI With a deep revulsion of feeling, Ellen gave up girls, sewing, and Zinias, and made a dash into childhood with Alec Yorke. Alec at this time was a strong lad of thirteen, a head shorter than Ellen. I remember even then he seemed more a person than the other boys, though at the monkey-shining age. They egged one another on until the ordinary obstacles that stand in people's way did not exist. They became together drunken with the joy of life. In this mood, they disappeared together one day, to the scandal of Miss Sarah. She was particularly annoyed because Mrs. Payne refused to be disturbed by the event. "While he and Ellen are off together, they are somewhere having a good time. Why should I worry?" said she. They had come together to find out if Ellen was at my house. "If I had known Ellen was gone with Alec, Sarah, I should never have gone to look for her. I wasn't worried about her, anyway; I only wanted company," said she, with more asperity than usual. The two returned at sunset, the glamour of a glorious day about them. They merely told vaguely: "They had been off on the mountain." It leaked out that they had been as far as the village, ten miles away, and that the peddler had given them a lift back. This last was a scandal. An Irish peddler lived on the outskirts of our village, and this was before the day when foreigners were plenty. He lived contrary to our American customs,--the pig roamed at will, in friendly fashion, through his cabin. He sang in Gaelic as he drove his cart with its moth-eaten, calico horse,--songs that were now wildly sad, now wildly gay. He was alien, so we disapproved of him. I remonstrated with Ellen on this. "I like him," was her only answer. This had not been all the adventure, nor was this the end of it. To tell the story in Ellen's own words:-- "Alec and I were picking currants at Aunt Sarah's when I heard a voice behind me, and I never knew before what it meant when I read in books, that 'their hearts were in their mouths.' I thought mine would beat its way right out of me and lie thumping at my feet when I heard a voice say: 'Oh, here are my little friends from Erin's Isle.' I suppose it is because I am very bad that it never occurred to me until that minute that fooling a minister, by pretending to be the peddler's children, was not right, especially when it was Alec's and my singing songs in what we made him believe was Gaelic that made him buy so many more things. I wonder if all people who do wrong only feel badly when they are found out? I turned around and I thought I should fall, for my mother was with him, and Aunt Sarah and uncle and our own minister. Uncle Ephraim had not heard what he said, and now, 'Permit me, Mr. Sweetser,' he said, 'to present my little niece, Ellen, Mrs. Payne's little daughter, and our neighbor, Master Alec Yorke.' I saw him wondering if we really could be the same children, because, while we were playing that we were the peddler's children, we had taken off our shoes and stockings to make ourselves look like wild Irish children, and had succeeded very well, indeed. I thought for a moment that perhaps he wouldn't say anything, but Aunt Sarah's ears were open. 'What was that? Did I hear you say "your little friends from Erin"? Have you seen these children before?' This was an awful moment. 'These are the same children that came with the Irish peddler to my house.' 'Ha! Ha! I knew that those children were gone for no good, Emily, and that they were strangely silent about their exploits,' Aunt Sarah said. 'Do you mean,' said Uncle Ephraim, 'that my niece and Horace Yorke's son made believe to be the children of a drunken, Irish peddler, and thus appeared before you?' 'Not only that,' said Mr. Sweetser sadly, 'but they sang to us in Gaelic.' 'Gaelic,' snorted Aunt Sarah; 'never a word does she know of Gaelic. I have heard her making up gibberish to the tunes that that peddler sings on his way.' Here Alec acted extremely noble, though it annoyed me very much, and I am sure that I am a very ungrateful girl that it did annoy me. He spoke right up and said: 'Mr. Grant, it is all my fault. It was I who thought of being children of the Irish peddler and I who suggested that we hop on his cart. I should take all the blame.' There was not one word of truth in this, for we had often ridden with the peddler before, and the idea of playing that we were his children was my own, and without thinking I told them so. 'Let us say no more about this childish prank,' said Mr. Sweetser. 'These children have shown real nobility, the little lad in desiring to shield Miss Ellen and Miss Ellen in not permitting herself to be shielded.' Well, I knew that we should have more of it and plenty later, and we did when Aunt Sarah came ravening--there is no other word to use for it, though I know it is not polite--down to our house. It all oppressed me very much, even though Alec whispered: 'We can make-believe we are being persecuted by the Philistines.' I know I have disgraced the family, but I shall never understand why riding with the peddler should do this. If our family is any good, it should take more than this. Uncle Ephraim and Aunt Sarah have said that I am really too old to act as I do. When I answer, 'But if I act so, doesn't it show that I am not too old, Aunt Sarah?' she says: 'Mercy, my child, as tall as any flagpole and with legs like a beanstalk, you've got to be acting like a young lady. We can't have young women of our family getting a ridiculous name.' This means that I must give up Alec. 'Why you want that child around all the time is incomprehensible to me,' said my aunt. 'You are a good head higher than he is.' People are always measuring things in length and breadth. How can one measure one's friends by the pound? Roberta agrees with them. She thinks I am giddy, and feels that she must be good for me. I love Roberta more than any other earthly being beside mamma, but when Roberta tries to be good for me, I am so wicked that I try to be bad for Roberta, and can very easily be so." This episode stopped the free skylarking with Alec. As you have seen, it was explained to Ellen that since she was fourteen and nearly a young lady, she must behave as such. When I think how many lovely spontaneities have been offered on the sad and drab altar of young ladyhood, I could weep, as Ellen did. Alec's suggestion that they were being persecuted by the Philistines did not comfort her, and little Mrs. Payne said sadly:-- "Your aunt and uncle are right, Ellen, and I suppose I'll have to punish you to satisfy them, but I can't help knowing that you must have had a perfectly wonderful day, and they are few in this world. Don't let your punishment cloud your memory." CHAPTER VII Look back and see if you can remember when it was you drifted from that part of the river of life that is little girlhood to that time when you recognized that you were grown up, and the eyes of men rested on you speculatively, interestedly, and your parents foreshadowed these things by an irritating watchfulness that you did not understand. The picture of Ellen that comes to me oftenest is one of her progress through the streets, her hair in an anguished neatness, from her desire to escape Miss Sarah's critical censure, her skirts longer now, and behind her perpetually screeled the three motherless babes of our not long widowed minister. He was a middle-aged man, ineffectual except for some occasional Gottbetrunkener moments. From my present vantage-point I now recognize him to be one of the brothers of St. Francis by temperament. He had a true poetic sense, and Ellen would go to his house for the purpose of washing dishes and helping about, performing her labors with the precision which she had only for the work of other people, her own room, to my anguish, being a whited sepulcher of disorder, outwardly fair to the glance of her Aunt Sarah, while dust lay thick in every unobservable spot. It was I who kept her bureau drawers in order. She writes:-- "I just can't waste a minute indoors. I don't know why grown people have so many things to do. When I get married I am going to live in a tent and have just one cupboard where I keep everything, with doors that can't be seen through. Roberta wrings her hands, but she would wring them more if she knew that I have from earliest childhood learned to sleep quietly in my bed as it takes less time to make it when I get up. And mother doesn't care one bit more than I. I am so glad. She so frequently says: 'Ellen, this is too sweet a day to cook'; and we eat bread and milk all day, and don't even light the stove, though there have been moments when I have been glad that there is a big kitchen in which they are always cooking, up at my Aunt Sarah's. We would get things done much better if it were not for reading aloud, but so frequently mother finds things she wants to read, and then we go on, but not on and on like Mr. Sylvester and I. We began reading poetry the other day--how shall I tell it? And he read and I read, and he read and I read, until we understood everything we were reading, the very heart. We felt as if we had made the poetry--just knowing it for ourselves, and it was us. By pretending I am Mr. Sylvester's second wife sent by the Lord to take care of his motherless children, I find I can do housework very well, for me, though I feel rather guilty when I look at him, for I know that even he might be exasperated at the thought of me as his second wife. But one has to do something." Some weeks later this occurs:-- "Now I have learned to work so beautifully and have done so well, besides taking care of the children and then baking, I feel it isn't fair not to do it at home. Oh, how hard it is to do work for one's self. I know I should think I am doing it for my mother, and when I was very little I used to pretend that I was a poor child who supported her mother; but the little silly pretenses of childhood are now impossible for me since I am so much over fifteen." It was at this time that we began to be allowed to go to the young people's parties, because with us there was no fixed and rigid time when girls come out. They went when their legs were long enough and when they had learned to fold their hands properly in their laps and sit with decorum, which with Ellen and myself occurred somewhere toward sixteen. Ellen writes of one of these parties:-- "I am sitting waiting to go. I have a new pale-blue dress with little ruffles--little, tiny ruffles. Aunt Sarah is disgusted that mother put so much work into my dress because it isn't practical, when we need so many things, for her to waste her eyes. And it is true, but oh, how much more fun it is to work on ornaments than useful things, and parties are like ornaments. I think they are like jewels, and a great, big, enormous party, with lights and flowers, like one reads about in books, must be like having strings of pearls. All I hope is that I will act politely, and not show how pleased I am, because if I did I should shout and sing. My Aunt Sarah said: 'Ellen, please, my child, don't make me feel as if you were going to burst into flame or perhaps slide down the banisters.' And, indeed, I often look in the glass and wonder that I can look so quiet and unshining." It was in this high mood that Ellen met Edward Graham. I know now that he must have been an honest lad, square-cornered, solid, with an awkward, bearish, honest walk, nice, kind eyes, and a short mop of wiry, glinting curls as his only beauty, which fitted his head like a close-clinging cap, stopping abruptly instead of straggling down unkemptwise, as hair is apt to do, on the back of his neck and temples. It was Ellen who noticed this and wrote about it. He must have been not over one-and-twenty, but he was instructor at the academy in chemistry and mathematics. Well do I remember hearing this conversation at the other side of a vine-trellis at this party. In her low, pensive voice Ellen was saying: "I lived by the sea; it was in my veins. The noise of its beating is in my heart. One cannot live inland when one has been a lighthouse-keeper's daughter." Rage and anger surged in me, for Ellen had made but three visits to the sea in all her days, and one of which occurred when she was too small to remember it. As you may gather from this, her father had not been a lighthouse-keeper. I stamped my foot; a little-girl _mad_ feeling came over me. I took my saucer of goodies and my cake firmly in my hand and went to confront her then and there. She had talked so beautifully about truth and life that very afternoon. I couldn't do it. The little sarcastic remark that anger had invented for me died still-born. She was too lovely; something almost mystically beautiful radiated from her whole little personality. "I am so happy," she seemed to say. "Let me stay happy one moment more." There was always about her this heart-rending quality. It was not until I could draw her by herself that I spoke to her, and then my remonstrance was gentle. "You must tell him the truth," I insisted kindly. And Ellen wrung her hands and said:-- "Oh, Roberta! you make my heart feel like a shriveled-up little leaf; you make me feel like a bad dream, like when you find yourself in company without your clothes." But I repeated inexorably:-- "You _must_ tell him." I can see her now drooping up to him and the appealing glance of her large eyes. Presently I saw him take both her hands in his, and then she came toward me, her feet dancing, a glad, naughty look in her eyes. She answered my glance of inquiry with:-- "He asked me why I told him what I did, and, since I was telling the whole truth, I answered, 'I wanted awfully to have you like me.'" That, you see, is what I got for interfering with my friend and torturing her. CHAPTER VIII The next few weeks there were very few entries. Ellen was very bad at mathematics, and her uncle, who rarely left his seclusion to interest himself in her affairs and who merely enjoyed her personality, thought it would be a fine plan if this responsible young man should give his Ellen lessons. Mr. Grant was advanced in his theories concerning the female brain, which, he said, lost its vagueness and inexactnesses through a mathematical training. Ellen merely makes a note of this. There are very few entries in her journal at this time, for she was playing with the great forces of life. God help us all! We didn't know passion when it came to us, nor how should we? It was the warp on which were woven all our generous impulses, all our high idealisms, making in all the shimmering garments in which we clothed our fragile, newborn spirits. Ellen walked in a magic circle of her own ignorance, never dreaming of love or of being in love. So absorbed was she that it seemed like some one walking down a road that leads directly into a swift-flowing river, and not knowing that the river was there until one had walked directly into it. So close is the so-called silly moment of girlhood to the moment of full development, that when the change comes it sometimes takes only overnight. It was only a few pages, after all, that separated Ellen, who managed to do the minister's dishes by pretending that she was his second wife, from the Ellen who wrote:-- "I don't know how to begin what I am going to say. I thought everybody in the world must know what had happened to me. I thought my face must shine with it. I thought I must look like some one very different from myself,--like a woman, perhaps. I came home through Lincoln Field and squeezed myself through a hole in the fence so no one could see me. I came up the back way to my room and locked the door. My heart beat both ways at once when I looked in the glass, but I looked just the same as before I went out--as before he kissed me. I went downstairs and my hand seemed too heavy to open the door and go in where I heard their voices. I was afraid to go because I felt: 'They will know, they will know!' Mr. Sylvester and mamma and Aunt Sarah were there. 'Where have you been?' said mamma. And I could not answer. I felt I had been gone so long and so far. I could hear the blood beating in my ears, and when my aunt said: 'I wish, Ellen, you would stand up straighter,' I could hardly lift my head." Next day there is an entry: "I didn't know we were engaged until he told me, 'Why, of course, we are.'" Thus simply does youth plight its troth. They had been together and he had kissed her, and so, of course, they were engaged. Of course, they were ready to fight the long battle of life side by side, and she who had given so much in her kiss had walked out past the doors of girlhood; through that one light touch she felt that her whole life must be then surrendered to the boy who had had the magic word for her. They decided to tell no one on account of their youth. No sooner did this honest lad have my rainbow Ellen in his hands than he started in trying to make some one else of her. I read her journal that follows with a certain heartache because I was not blameless in this matter. I, too, wanted to take this gay and shimmering child and turn her into something else; trim her generosities and check her impulses. Another thing that makes me rage is the fact that my knowledge of the lives of men teaches me that, had Ellen had one little affectation in which to clothe herself, her young lover would have been on his knees before her instead of being the pedantic young master. Ellen's journal at this time varies from a thing glittering with life, from being drunk with the heady wine of being beloved for the first time, to a book of copy-book maxims, beginning with: "Edward says I must read--or do--or act--or mustn't." Poor young man! He wrote her decalogues by the dozen, and yet the tragedy of him is that he tasted her special quality and loved her while trying to kill it. The youth of Ellen and her high joy of living carried him along in spite of himself, though he always made Ellen pay for his happiness by lectures on the seriousness of life. It was here that Alec began to perceive the place he had in her life. They had a game they played that they called "Two Years Ago," in which they outdid their own childish pranks. Ellen remarks ingenuously:-- "I suppose that I ought to tell Edward how Alec and I rest ourselves from growing up, but there is no place in him to tell this to. I tried it with Roberta, and she just understood what it was about, but doesn't see why I want to do it; and I don't know myself exactly, except that I just have to." Then from one day to another Alec was sent West to an uncle and two weeks later, as had been planned, Edward left. He was to go away for a year and a half, and then come back and formally ask for Ellen's hand. It shocked Ellen terribly that she missed Alec most. Through all the year and a half that followed, Ellen never told me anything of what was in her mind, nor did she tell her mother, and here is the characteristic of their young girlhood that people seem to forget--this nameless reticence. So, alone, she went through the crucial thing that falling out of love always is. Another girl in her situation might have deceived herself, the idea of a grown-up lover was such a pleasant one to a girl of Ellen's age. Ellen was unaware of the disillusion she was preparing for herself. She writes, appalled:-- "I don't know what has happened to me, I can only describe it by saying I have waked up. I know now that I am not in love with Edward and I just understood this from one day to another. He has not done anything at all. He writes me just the way he always has. He hasn't changed, so I suppose I am fickle and bad, and that I can't trust myself, for if this wasn't real, I don't know what can be real, and yet I feel as though I had never loved him at all. I sometimes wonder if I should have become engaged to some other person if it had happened that some other person had kissed me." Write him of her change of heart she could not, for as time went on apparently the memory of her became dearer to the boy. Good and slow and pedantic, he yet realized what a lovely thing life had put into his hands, and he longed to keep it, and he communicated this ever-growing longing to Ellen. She so wanted to keep faith with herself and to live up to all the things about "one love and only one love" that books from all time have taught young girls they ought to feel. She felt a great need of talking about it with some one and could not bring herself to do it. "If I could only tell some one and ask what to do, but it seems disloyal. Roberta wouldn't understand and some way I don't want to worry my little mother. Sometimes I feel as if I did tell her without saying any words, when I sit beside her and hold her hand and feel afraid. The other night we sat alone in the dark. The smell of honeysuckle vines was so sweet that I shall never smell it again without thinking how soft her hand felt in the dark. She said: 'When I was your age, I used often to want to tell my mother things and didn't dare. My mother was more like your Aunt Sarah.' My heart beat so when she said this that it seemed as if she could hear it, but I only pressed her hand and kissed it. Then she said to me: 'You have seemed a little absent-minded lately, my darling child; have you anything on your mind, Ellen?' And I said in a low voice, and blushing,--and I took my face off her hand for fear she would feel me blush against it,--'What should I have?'" As I read her cramped little handwriting a sudden wave of shame creeps over me as though I had gone back; I remember her so well; I was so on the outside; I loved her so truly. Meantime, as every day shortened the distance that separated them, a certain dread encompassed Ellen; she visualized their approach one to another in this way:-- "It was as if I was standing still and he was standing still, and that the space between us was being shortened by little jerks, and each jerk was as a day that makes us come nearer and nearer. I don't want to see him--oh, I don't want to see him. I don't know what I'm going to say to him--perhaps nothing. He will look at me kindly--oh, kindly and critically,--and then I shall be afraid; afraid of hurting him--afraid of him." A little later she writes again:-- "If I go on feeling undecided as to what I shall do, something will snap inside my head. I can't feel so uncertain. He wrote to me lately, 'Ellen, my life would be utterly worthless without you.' I cannot ruin any one's life, and my life is pretty worthless, anyway, so I am going to stand by my first promise, which is the only brave thing to do. Now that I have decided that, I feel at peace. I loved him once and my love will come back." She adds touchingly, "I have two weeks before he comes"; but these two weeks of respite were denied her. I was going down to Ellen's when I met Edward Graham on his way there also. "I've come to surprise Ellen," he said. So it happened that it was I who went to her with the words, "Edward Graham's waiting for you downstairs," and wondered at the sudden ebb of color from her face. CHAPTER IX It was with her mind utterly made up as to what course to take that she went to her ordeal. She was going to offer herself a little, white offering before the altar of the fetish which decrees that we shall keep our promises. Herding her to this doom were all the cruel things which we teach our young girls. In New England in my day we did not joke about engagements. In her innocence, having given her lover her mouth to be kissed and her hand to be held, and having promised to be his, she had definitely decided that in the sight of God she was his, and so she dressed herself in her best that she might please him. I suppose that had I made up my mind to do what Ellen did at that age, I should have gone through to the iniquitous end, shut my eyes and quieted my rebellious spirit with sophistries. I should have done according to whichever part of the strange anomalous teaching which we give young girls that I believed in most. Had I believed most that it is the crime of crimes to marry without love, I should have frankly made up my mind to break the engagement, but had I believed that one may love but once, and that an engagement is a marriage of the spirit, and that in giving this I had given so much to one man that I had nothing left for any other,--it is strange, but this is still taught to girls to-day,--I should have traveled that terrible road. For girls as young as Ellen have to find their way around through a world that is hung with a cobweb of lies, which is put there to screen us from the real world. The suffering that the unlearning of these lies has given to girls of our class from all time is greater than the suffering through which we must pass to come to a wider religious belief. Ellen might make up her mind as to what to do, but she lived by instincts. She writes about it:-- "I couldn't. All day I pretended to myself that I was glad he was coming, and that as soon as I saw him everything would be all right, but it is a terrible, awful thing. He cares. He put his arms out toward me and said: 'Ellen, oh, Ellen!' All I could say--I was so cruel, so stupid--was, 'Don't, don't'; and I meant I didn't want him to touch me. And then he said, and it was worse because he has grown much older looking, 'I don't understand. What's the matter, Ellen?' I said, 'I can't marry you; I don't love you.' He said: 'Why, what have I done?' What could I tell him? It was just that he was he and I was I, and that's no reason, and yet it is the only reason in the world that you can't change, and that's why you love people and that's why you don't love them. We both stood and just stared at each other. While I looked at him all the color went out of his face and it grew gray. 'When did it happen, Ellen?' he said. 'I don't know,' I told him; 'it just went out.' 'You might have told me.' 'I meant never to tell you,' I said; and then his color all came back to his face and this was worse than before. 'You meant to marry me just the same? Then you _do_ care for me; it's just an idea you've gotten; it's just because we have been apart so long. Let's just go on just as you meant to, Ellen, if there is no one else.' He opened his arms as if he wanted to hide me from myself in them, but I don't know what happened to me. I just said, 'No-no-no-no,' and ran out of the room, and out of the house up into the orchard. I didn't notice, but threw myself down under the tree and cried and cried. I don't know how long I was there, but I heard my mother saying: 'Ellen, Ellen,' and the sound of her footsteps coming toward me, but I couldn't stop sobbing so that she wouldn't find me like that. She heard me and came to me and said, 'Why, Ellen darling! Child, it is as wet as a river here.' She felt my dress and at first it seemed to me that it must be wet with my tears, but it was just the grass. 'What is it, Ellen?' she said to me, and I told her that we had been engaged and that I had just seen Edward, and told him that I didn't want to marry him; and she just folded me in her arms and said, 'Why, darling, you needn't'; and she comforted me, and I felt all safe from everything and just like a very little girl. Not many people can feel like that with their mothers, but I don't think unless you can that your mother's a mother to you really. I couldn't go on feeling safe and rested forever. I've broken faith with myself. I can't count on myself any more. It's a terrible thing not to be able to count on people you love, but it's worse not to be able to count on yourself. I couldn't do what I thought was right; how do I know I will be able to keep from doing what's wrong? I think I will try and give up being good, because most of the things people think are good I don't understand why. I might have saved myself all that suffering and been happy and low-minded, comfortable and contented, and I think I will be from now on." I well remember this epoch in Ellen's life; she must have been between eighteen and nineteen when she gave up hope of herself and went out to be comfortable, low-minded, and happy, for she told me about this spiritual change in her. It was a crisis with Ellen, a spiritual crisis as important as the time in a boy's life when he makes a breach in the "Thou Shalt Nots" that have guarded him around, and surrenders himself to the heady wine of living and says to himself: "I am a sinner; now let's see what there is in sin." Just about the time Ellen broke her engagement, a boy named Landry lay heavily on my conscience. At this time, also, Ellen was engaged and yet was unhappy, and yet all I knew about Ellen was that there was something weighing heavily on her mind, and all she knew about me was my outward principles in this matter and none of my inward storm and stress. I can remember very well the never-ending conversations we had at this time. I suppose all young girls who are not on terms of familiarity with their own souls thus cloak their real feelings from each other. For there is happily nothing more usual than that shivering, shrinking, spiritual modesty which can tell of no event in life that implicates another human being. Later the weaker women outgrow it shamefully, or the finer ones among us replace it with a beautiful frankness. There are some happy girls who have been so simply brought up that they have never felt the need for the ambiguities of life as Ellen and myself did. The facts of the case were these: Released from the torturing thought of Edward Graham, the breath of life blew through Ellen in a storm, while I was being discreetly courted by George Landry. I had never had a tumultuous suitor, on account of my being matter-of-fact in my attitude toward the boys I knew or instinctively withdrawing myself from any sentimental approach. But now this sentimentally inclined youth had called on me and shown a recurring disposition to try and hold my hand when we were alone together. We read a great deal of poetry also and with deep emphasis. Thus does Satan trick the unwary. I, Roberta, the straightforward; I, the hater of philandering, and who sincerely felt that a self-respecting woman should be proposed to only by a man she would willingly accept as her husband, read verses far-gazing at distant horizons and with gentle underscorings whose audacity set my heart to beating. That I had gone into this slow-moving and decorous little flight of sentiment seemed so contrary to my ideals that I felt I must give up my friend and his poetry-reading and forego the heart-throbbing performance of having my hand gently captured and as gently withdrawing it again, both of us apparently blankly unaware of the actions of our respective hands. Ellen and I would discuss our affairs in ambiguities like this:-- "There's a doom threatening me," Ellen would confess. "A doom?" asked I, impressed by the sinister darkness of the word. "Fate has tangled up my life," Ellen averred. "I have been deceived in myself, and now that I know what I am, I don't care." "What sort of fate?" I then made bold to ask. "One that will influence my whole life because it has made me glad I'm not good like I tried to be. I love the feeling of having gotten rid of goodness, Roberta"; and Ellen flashed me the smile of a naughty angel, and turned from me to wipe the nose of the youngest Sylvester baby, Prudentia, who accompanied us on our woodsy rambles. "Can you always decide everything in your life?" "Indeed I cannot," I answered quickly. "I must give up a thing that's sweetest and dearest in life to me, and I can't decide to do it--I am not strong." "Oh, Roberta!" Ellen cried out. "You are so much stronger than I, for I decided and did the opposite thing." "What did you want to do?" "The thing I did do," poor Ellen cried, tears welling up to her sweet eyes. "I wanted to do what I wanted to do, and yet before I so wanted to do what was right." Then, with her little fists pounding on the moss on which we were sitting, she said: "And mighty often, Roberta Hathaway, what people want to do seems to me the really right thing to do." As I grow older, it seems to me so very often that what people want is really the right thing. There are so many needless sacrifices made in life,--sacrifices that do good to no one and cripple and maim one. * * * * * I might have saved myself the worry of giving up the "sweetest and dearest thing in life," for I had an experience which showed me what a solemn young fool I was. If Ellen and I had this intense spiritual modesty, Janie Acres was not so afflicted. She was always prolific in detail of any sentimental adventure which she had, and was generally only quiet when she had nothing to tell. Ellen summed this characteristic up in her observation on Janie's character:-- "When Roberta and I don't say anything it is because we have too much to say, but when Janie acts as if she knew how God made the world, it is a sure sign she has nothing to tell." Poor Janie Acres! Through all this long stretch of years I can see her perpetually heart-hungry, wishing for experiences her very eagerness denied her; longing for sympathy, companionship, and love, and when such things came her way, killing them. She had a curious jealousy which was kept from its full bloom by her confidence in herself. When Janie hadn't sufficient sentimental experiences she would invent them. And it was because of her inventions that my little experience which I was taking so seriously was turned to ashes before me. This trait of Janie's was an incredible one to me. I, who so diligently hid all trace of any sentiment in my life, could never comprehend a temperament that would not only share all its secrets with its friends, but who also invented them; and it was only when Janie had repeatedly emphasized George Landry's attentions to her at moments when I had been reading poetry with him that I realized this. I listened with the gravest feeling of superiority to Janie's artless prattle. If George Landry walked up the street with her, it was an event. I think if she had refused to have him accompany her to a Sunday-School picnic she would have recounted it to us as the refusal of a proposal of marriage. In some obscure way Janie's interest in George Landry quickened my own feeling and gave me emotions of vast superiority which were very bad for me. All this is brought vividly back to me by this page of Ellen's journal which recounts the final dénouement:-- "We have been having an awful time this afternoon, and I don't think that any of us will feel the same ever again. Roberta has been crying in my arms and says she feels soiled, but she has acted so nobly that it will be a comfort to her, because being noble is always a comfort to Roberta--and to almost anybody else. George Landry has been a friend of Roberta's for some time, and when the other girls have joked her about it she has been very stern, and I've believed everything Roberta has said because I think it is horrid to do anything else. But Janie has been talking about George, too, in the way she goes on about anybody that notices her, only who could tell that Janie would talk about those who don't notice her in the least? This afternoon we were all talking together, and she began: 'Last night George Landry came past my house and I pretended not to notice him, and he stopped and said, "Can I come in?" And I said, "No, it was too late."' 'What time was it?' asked Mildred Dilloway. 'Oh, it was about eight o'clock, and he stayed and talked and talked and leaned clear over the gate, and I kept backing away, and if mother hadn't called me from the house,--' Here Mildred broke in and said: 'Janie Acres! I don't see how you can tell things like that! George Landry was at my house all yesterday evening.' 'Well, it was the evening before that,' said Janie. 'Well, it wasn't the evening before that,' said Mildred, 'because he was at my house all the evening before, too.' 'I thought your mother was so particular,' began Janie; but Mildred wouldn't let her change the subject the way Janie knows how to do, and she said: 'The way you have gone on about George Landry has almost made trouble between George and myself. It has made me feel quite suspicious at times. But now I have caught you at it.' Janie blushed very hard and said: 'You are very spiteful, Mildred, about it. George Landry does like me and I haven't told you anything that wasn't so. Perhaps it wasn't so late when he leaned over my gate.' 'He wasn't anywhere near your old gate,' said Mildred, 'and I might just as well tell you--' And here Mildred, who is very soft when she loses her temper, and begins to cry, did all these and made us all very much embarrassed. 'And I might as well tell you--and you can see how much you have hurt me--he kissed me good-night. So you can see whether it's nice of you to pretend that George Landry is interested in you or not.' We were all perfectly quiet for a minute, and then it was that Roberta made her great sacrifice. Mildred was still crying from excitement and Janie was at a loss for something to say for once, and looking very frowning-browed and jealous. 'Girls,' Roberta said, 'I have something to tell you. And you, Mildred,--whether George has been attentive to Janie I don't know, but--' 'He walked home with me yesterday afternoon,' said Janie. 'He did not,' replied Roberta firmly; 'he did not. He was at my house all yesterday afternoon, and we were reading poetry and he held my hand.' If Roberta had been the least like Mildred, she would have cried, too, but she stood there straight and held her head up as beautiful as an avenging fate. What she said stopped Mildred's tears, and she sprang to her feet and stamped her foot, and said: 'Well, if he did that and then came to my house and did what he did in the evening, he's a pig!' And she stamped her foot again. 'I said the truth anyway'; and she glared at Janie who now said, 'I was just trying to tease both of you.' But Mildred snapped, 'You were trying to lie to both of us.' And Janie stuck her head on one side in the most provoking way and said, 'I don't want your horrid beau anyway.' It was all very painful, especially to Roberta. She said: 'We must never any of us speak to him again. He is unworthy of our notice. Except to spare you more pain, Mildred, I would not have told you about this at all, and I am very much ashamed of myself, and it serves me right. I shall never let any one hold my hand again as long as I live.' None of us knew that any boy could be so double-faced, and we all have agreed, and Janie Acres, too, that we shall act as though he did not exist at all, which will save our dignity and we hope will teach him something." When other people write our lives, they tell the dates of our births, marriages, and deaths; they note the year we went to college and when we left, and all the other irrelevant things; no one says that it was at such and such a moment that his soul was born, or that the baptism of fire that turned away the selfishness of this woman came at such a time. We keep these great and obscure birthdays and many minor ones to ourselves, and this droll little episode was the definite ending for us of little-girlhood. In our town we dawdled along in what the Germans call the "back fish" age until some such thing has happened, for we had no custom of girls coming out all of a sudden full-blown young ladies; we had to win our spurs in a way. We thought of ourselves as grown up, to be sure. Mildred Dilloway had had a very melodramatic love-affair with one of the lads in the seminary who had gotten into some sort of a scrape and was expelled from school. He had urged Mildred to fly with him. Alas! that women should be so practical. Even young as she was, she asked, "Where?" and when he had no special place to propose beyond his parents' house, to which he was then repairing, she had laughed at him, but in spite of all our experiments in sentiment we had remained immature in spirit. Now, suddenly, through the actions of this soft youth, George Landry, we found ourselves in an absurd position. The grown woman in us came to life; we wanted to vindicate ourselves in our own eyes; and it was during the next few months that we found ourselves suddenly grown up and the world's attitude toward us suddenly changed. From being the little girls who accepted the casual kindnesses of older men in a panic of gratitude, suddenly our position was of those who are sought out. CHAPTER X Ellen's formal renouncing of goodness helped us find our place in the grown-up world. Her gayety had always made her overstep the bounds of perfect decorum demanded of young women in my generation, and she set about carrying out her resolution which she told me about. I remember well the shocked sort of quiver with which I recognized myself, even staid Roberta, in her question:-- "Roberta, when you're in company, don't you ever want to do foolish things? When you see a lot of solemn people saying good-bye downstairs, don't you want to slide down the banister into their midst? When Edward Graham used to lecture me, again and again I've wanted to take his hand and skip down the street singing, 'Hippity Hop to the Barber Shop,' and see what he'd do. I've always wanted to do all the foolish things I've thought of when I was in company, and now, Roberta, I'm going to!" I had had these erring impulses. Who has not? In each of us there is a hinterland where thoughts as fantastic as anything that happens in dreams gambol around with the irresponsibility of monkeys. Ellen translated a certain amount of these into action--and see what happened. This is what makes virtue so discouraging in an imperfect world. It was her naughtiness which advertised to the world of men, "I am a sweet and adorable person; I can make you laugh, and I can make you dream, and I have no fear." Ellen now acted before strangers with the inspired foolishness which most of us keep for those best known to us. Even for them this mad spirit is not at our beck and call, but must wait for the time and place to bring it out. Youth, empty of such lovely, high-spirited, and drunken moments, must be very sad. The divine folly of such mirth is only for the partaker; one must feel the wine of life coursing through one to understand its spiritual significance. Joy-drunken young people seem to outsiders silly, if they don't seem wanton; and while the things that we did would seem mild enough if I told them, they set our little New England town by the ears during the year that followed. Our little coterie gradually acquired the reputation of giddiness among the older people, while we steadily became leaders among those of our own age, and Ellen the central flame around which we revolved. I myself thought her too audacious, and even when carried away by her I used to remonstrate seriously with her. This accomplished nothing, but it eased my own conscience. Edward Graham, who had come back to teach in the academy, also lectured Ellen continually. He was one of those tenacious men who desire a thing all the more when they have lost it, and I think the full flowering of his affection for Ellen only came after he knew he couldn't have her. I think it might never have come otherwise. His love for her was deep and fundamental, and the sort of love men treat like the air they breathe; but had she married him and been the docile wife she would have been, he might never even have known himself to what extent he cared, and still less have shown it to her. They continued to see much of each other, because he had put to her the plausible story that they could still be friends, and she, of course, eagerly assented, wishing to make what little reparation she could, and not realizing that at the back of his mind was a determination to win her at whatever cost. Now her growing popularity and light-mindedness caused him anguish. Her growing popularity aroused in him a leaden jealousy. He alternated from mad blame to pleading affection. His devotion to her was a continual pain, and yet in her gentleness she didn't know how to escape it, and his criticisms bred in her a certain defiance of the world and of conventions and made her more extravagant. I suppose it was because it came as a climax of a number of smaller follies that the town took so much notice of the famous "Young People's Party," given by the gentle Mr. Sylvester. I well remember the next day. I see myself demure in my grandmother's kitchen, demure and gingham-aproned, my hands in dough, my hair sleek under its net. I see Ellen, a blue ribbon around her hair, a sparkle in her eye, her little feet crossed, with all the look of the cat which has swallowed the canary, and is glad of it. This is what sin had brought her to, you see. Mrs. Payne sat, sweet and helpless-looking, in one chair, and my grandmother creaked portentously back and forth, her hands folded on the place she called her waist-line, saying to Sarah Grant:-- "It couldn't have been _hens_, Sarah." "It was hens," said Miss Sarah accusingly. "They went out to the hen-yard and brought each hen into the house, and they flew around and broke two vases." Her eyes meantime had not quitted Ellen, who at this inopportune moment snickered with happy recollection. "Ellen," her aunt broke off accusingly, "did _you_ think of bringing those hens into the house?" "We were hawking," explained Ellen. "I brought mine in on my wrist and it flew across and perched on John Seymore's shoulder. That's how we told off partners for 'Authors'; everybody got a hen, and on whichever boy's shoulder it perched,--and often it wouldn't perch,--that's what really happened." She laughed; her mother laughed; I laughed. Whoever reads this will sympathize with Aunt Sarah, because it doesn't seem witty for a grown company of young men and young girls to have behaved that way in the house of their minister. It had been a golden moment, I assure you,--a party that stood out;--and if ever the laughter of the Greeks was heard in that staid, old New England town it was when Ellen Payne stood aloft on the hassock, a squawking hen trembling indignantly on her wrist; and she at that moment looked both beautiful and absurd. Miss Sarah Grant saw nothing of all this. "I am chagrined," she said. "Have you no respect for life?" And she walked away heavily. Ellen spent the afternoon gathering expiatory pond-lilies of which her aunt was as a rule fond. She waded in the pond during the whole afternoon, her skirts trussed up scandalously, emerging with a stocking of black mud on either foot. She was sunburned, she was mosquito-bitten, she was happy, she sung aloud for joy on her way home; and when she left the offering at her aunt's door, this lady said: "These are very pretty, Ellen, and I thank you, but I wish, my dear, that you had made me some little gift that is a testimony of your industry." It was on our way home that we were stopped by some women from the other church, who asked me:-- "Roberta, is it really true that you and Ellen started to bring in _hens_ to the _minister's house_ at the Young People's Party?" "Roberta never started it," said Ellen, who was easily drawn in ways like this. "We thought they were joking when they told us," said Mrs. Mary Snow, who was a widow and very precise. "Well," said Miss Amelia Barton, "I should think Mr. Sylvester would have prevented it." "Mr. Sylvester enjoyed it, the fowls enhanced the party," said Ellen. I pulled her along. "Hateful gossips," she said. As we passed the house where Edward Graham was living, this illustrious young man joined us for the purpose of saying:-- "You remember, Ellen, I told you at the party, when I first saw you coming in with the hen, that you had far better leave it outside. The whole town is talking and buzzing." "The whole town disgusts me deeply," cried Ellen, "and so does any one who lets the buzzing reach my ears." "You ought to want to know the reaction of the things you do," retorted Graham, whose belief in his moralities made him irritable when attacked. "You are criticizing Mr. Sylvester for permitting it and I think you went much too far." When Edward Graham moralized on the subject Ellen replied flippantly:-- "It is that you and everybody else criticize anything you're not used to. What's the harm in hens; what evil does bringing a hen into the minister's house lead to? Does it make you want to go and take the amber beads off a baby's neck just because I brought in a hen and it perched on John Seymore's shoulder? John Seymore didn't mind it, and he's studying for the ministry. It is people like you, who talk about an innocent thing like a hen, and fuss over it as if it was something bad, who do harm," cried Ellen; and she swept me along with her. She comments in this fashion about the episode:-- "At the party we were all very happy, and there's no rule that says that a thing must be of a worthy sort before we may laugh at it. That's one of the nice things about laughing, there's no rhyme or reason to it. It was not among those things that mother talks of that undermine our fineness of perception. But Mr. Sylvester didn't realize how people were going to feel about it, and now they are all talking and tongue-wagging as though something terrible had happened. Am I wrong, or are they? I think they are, and I hate them for it, and I feel as though that was the worst thing I had done, because I hate poor Edward Graham and I hate Mrs. Snow and Miss Barton because of their smallness and injustice; and aren't they more wicked to talk about innocent things and gossip about young people and make those who are happy feel uncomfortable and sinful? It makes me want to break a window when I think how virtuous they feel." We hadn't heard the last of the talk concerning the "Hen Party." Rumors of it reached our ears from all sides. I suppose our elders exaggerated the talk, that we might learn decorum. Personally I could not imagine, any more than Ellen could, just what harm the hens had been supposed to have done us. One of the hardest things for me now to understand is the annoyance so many people feel at the sweet, noisy fun of young people. It seems to me the very laughter of fairyland, but older people have a way of turning the fairy coach of mirth into a pumpkin drawn by mice, and are proud of themselves for doing this. It is strange that the ages of men have rolled on one after the other without this being a basic principle laid down to all parents--you can't disapprove a child into the paths of virtue any more than you can scold a man into loving his wife. There are a great many young people who are made reckless and sullen by such disapproval, though Ellen was saved from the harm that Edward Graham and the public opinion of which he was the voice might have done her by the utter sympathy of her little mother. She joined in all our little gayeties; she laughed with us. So did Mr. Sylvester. He attended the next two or three young people's parties, explaining to Ellen with his gentleness: "They say, my dear, that I'm not a fit guide for youth, so I am going to try and learn to be so by being more with you." Of course, for their pains, these two grown-up children of God were called overindulgent; it was prophesied that they would spoil us; yet it was this that kept Ellen's audacities always sweet. However, even so, Ellen's future destiny was despaired of by Edward Graham. "Ellen is in danger of becoming a jilt," he told me. "She can't help it if people like her," said I; for I, myself, had changed a great deal from that rigorous opinion that one should be proposed to only by the man one intends to marry. "Ellen has altered very much in the three years I have known her," said Edward. "She has grown up," said I. "She has not grown up in the way I hoped to see her." "Then, why don't you turn away your eyes from the offensive spectacle?" I asked him cruelly, not knowing that this--poor fellow--was just what he couldn't do. But even I was inclined to agree with Edward Graham. CHAPTER XI The old Scudder place in those days was full of laughter and young people. We were happier there than any place else, and I have never known any parties gayer than those, where the only refreshments were weak lemonade and occasionally a batch of cookies. I remember once or twice on great occasions Miss Sarah Grant provided "refreshments." There came a time when I agreed with Edward Graham that Ellen was going too far. This night I remember we were playing hide-and-seek all through the house--and you may be sure it was only in little Mrs. Payne's house that such a thing would be allowed; for, oh! how sacred the guest-room in my day and how solemn and suggestive of a funeral the parlors in all the rigor of their horsehair. The Scudder house was a magnificent place for hide-and-seek,--the ell connected with the front of the house by what was known in my day as a "scoot hole,"--sort of a half-sized door,--and more doors opened from downstairs to the outside air than any house I have ever seen. I was hiding in one of the rooms when I heard the sound of running, and Ellen dashed in, John Seymore in hot pursuit, Ellen's laughter trailing out gay-hearted, careless, and irresistible. "Now, I've got you," cried John Seymore's voice; and to my horror and scandal, he kissed her and Ellen merely laughed, laughed as she might have had she been ten instead of twenty, having run away breathless from a kiss that she expected to get in the end, and over which she was only making a mock panic. It was a romping sort of a performance, because Ellen had slipped away from him without any sentiment, but I was shocked and pained--and, besides, I liked John Seymore and he liked me, and I didn't think such levity was becoming in one who was to become a minister. I sought Ellen out. "I saw you," said I. "I heard you under the bed," said Ellen. "That's why you went out?" "I didn't want to embarrass you," said she, grinning a naughty little-girl grin at me. "You ought to be ashamed," I admonished. "Do I look it?" asked Ellen. Suddenly there rushed over me most poignantly the memory of all our immature aspirations for the uplifting of those we knew. In a great wave of sadness I felt that we were wasting our lives--and the boy that liked me most of all had kissed Ellen in a romp. Twelve o'clock had struck for me. I was little Cinderella. I suppose I must have shown Ellen all I felt, for she had seen the new look in my eyes and all her impishness vanished, and she cried out: "Oh, Roberta dear!"--when we both heard voices shouting:-- "It's Alec! It's Alec Yorke!" And in strolled a grown-up youth with wide shoulders, and a fine, open-air, swinging way with him, and on top of it was perched the head of Alec Yorke, only Alec made over with that incredible change that comes between fifteen and eighteen years. He was a man grown, but from this face, so masculine in its youthful quality, looked the touching young eyes of Alec, blue and sweet, and fearless, angry blue. He was seized with a dumb shyness and shook Ellen's hand over and over again, while his eyes rested on her as if the sight of her fed the soul of him. After a while they drifted off together. Ellen wrote about this meeting:-- "I can't tell how strange this meeting with Alec has been. It was as though my dearest friend had been changed over and I had to find _my_ Alec in this new grown-up boy, who was the same and so different; even his voice was different. And then all at once he began to tell me how much he cared for me, and I feel so ashamed. I feel ashamed just because he says that the memory of what I am like has kept him from doing things that he shouldn't; he said I've always seemed to him like a white light burning in his life. I seemed to myself so very silly. I have never had any one talk to me as he did. Every one else who has cared for me has wanted something for themselves and he wanted nothing. I know now that I've never cared for any one in my life, for the way I care means nothing compared to the way he cares for me. What little bit of love I had for Edward was nothing. I feel ashamed because I know so little beside this boy who is so sweet and knows so much. He doesn't even expect I shall care for him. He only wants to make me proud that he should have ever cared for me, and to be something just for that. The things he said were all very young and very quixotic, perhaps, but how much more beautiful than the things that older spirits think of saying, and if I ever care for any one, I pray to God that I shall only think of what I can give. We sat there for a long time, and he held my hand in his and told me again and again about myself, and it was as if I had seen a reflection of the me that I might be and that I ought to be in the dear things he said; and when I said: 'Oh, Alec, you don't know me; you have forgotten me,' he said, 'I look at you, Ellen; you're sweeter than you were, sweeter than even I remember you.' But everything he said he said in just a few words that were hard for him to say, but each little, difficult sentence had his true self in it, as though he had distilled his soul for me, and I am so light-minded and have been so careless and I have tried so little, but if any one can feel about me as Alec does, I can try, even though I can't care for him, to be a little bit more the person he thinks I am. I have found the only reason I've ever yet found for acting the way people want you to act, and that is to please the ones you love. Some of the foolish things you do may hurt some one you really care for. Roberta was shocked because John Seymore kissed me; but I know we were just romping, and at most, perhaps, I was a little bold. It is funny that just a little boy should open my heart so. Mother and Mr. Sylvester love the me I am, or rather a younger me--the naughty little girl whose naughtiness they know don't make much difference; but somehow he has seen the sweetest person I ever am. I feel I have been a long way off from her, just being trivial and playing the same game over again and not going on. I haven't felt before for very long that Life was a glorious battle, and that every day, and all one's days, one must fight an obscure and ever-encroaching enemy. I've got to go back to the mountain. I have been seeing things close to and putting the emphasis on little things. I wish I could write a letter to everyone I am fond of. I think it would go like this: 'Dear People: I am going to make you a present of all the small things I do that you don't like. It will be the things I do, not the way I feel, but when I feel so happy that I want to run down Main Street, I won't run any more. I don't think these little things matter, but as I haven't many things to give, I give you my foolish impulses.'" I can't say that I remember any marked change of action in Ellen because of her change of heart, and I still had that rather breathless feeling when I perceived that she was what she called "happy in her feet," by which she meant that then it was she was so happy that she must go romping through our staid, little town, a graceful harlequin. It was just now, however, that she learned something about Miss Sarah Grant that touched her and made her wish to put her newborn feelings toward life into immediate action. Miss Grant, who had always lectured us severely, it now seemed had defended Ellen against all comments. "I enjoy the child's high spirits," we found her to have said. "This town should not expect conventional actions from the Grants in inessentials." Finding this out, Ellen said to me:-- "She wants a sign of my industry; I'm going to _buy_ her something beautiful." "What with?" I asked, because actual money was scarce in the Payne household, and their tiny income was eked out by trading eggs and other things at the store; for in a day when most people raised everything themselves it was desperately hard for two ladies to make actual money. "Well," considered Ellen, "Mrs. Salesby has gone away." Mrs. Salesby was a gentlewoman who copied Mr. Sylvester's sermons, his handwriting being quite illegible. The sum paid for this work was trifling, the work demanded, long and laborious, and Ellen's handwriting I might call temperamental. Mr. Sylvester was at this time having a book of his sermons, which he called "Thoughts on Life," copied. So for long hours Ellen shut herself in Mr. Sylvester's dust-covered study and copied the inspired wanderings of his spirit which was what his sermons really were. Living in such intimacy with his thoughts had a further effect on her mind. They were the musings of a mystic who was not too acquainted with the infantile tongue which mysticism must perforce employ since it forever and ever has tried to impress the emotions for which the spoken language has not yet coined exact phrases. Something of his inner meaning came to Ellen. She worked on with a serene joy. At this time also Edward Graham ceased to be a disturbing presence in her life; for feeling the need of showing Alec the sort of a girl she was she told him her whole little story and he had applied to it the youth's rule-of-thumb logic and saw the thing as it really was. He gave Ellen the first sensible talk she had ever had on her relations with men. As for Ellen's calm acceptance of Alec's devotion, she used the sophistries with which women from all time have accepted the sweet, undimmed love of those whom they consider boys. "He would, of course,"--writes the candid Ellen,--"have cared for some one anyway at this time, and it is better that he should care for me because I place real value on his affection and try myself to be good so that I shall never hurt them." Through months of toil she had at last acquired the few dollars necessary to buy the present, and something "boughten" at that moment had a tremendous value. Gifts were much fewer, and such gifts as there were were of course made at home. The first afternoon after her long task was over, Ellen went up the mountain to reflect. Our mountain and our river were two things which moulded the souls of us. The austere mountain drew my eyes toward God, and how often I lost my personal grievances as I mingled my bemused little spirit in the swirling river, which, after one looked at it long enough and steadily enough, seemed at last to absorb one in itself and float one down seaward. I knew that Ellen was on the mountain and Alec and I walked up to meet her. She was on what we call "Oscar's Leap," a place where the mountain seemed cleft away above the river, as though with some giant's knife, and just above there was a clear platform, surrounded by trees and bushes. Our tradition had it that Oscar, one of the chiefs, leaped his horse into the river below to escape from his enemies. This night the river was turned to a mighty sheet of burnished crimson, as the sun set just beyond the black bulk of the mountain. Our peaceful town took on an apocalyptical aspect. One felt that among the serene silence of departing day, the end of the world had come, and in some way the very silence of its coming made it more awesome, for its color demanded cataclysmal sounds. Ellen said once: "It tears one through like the noise of trumpets." Presently Ellen came down the road toward us, the last slanting rays of the sun outlining her in the light. She didn't see us as she came toward us, as we stood in the shadow. As I look back at that time it seems to me that she forever moved in a pool of light that came from the radiance of her own spirit. There was a little hush over both Alec and myself. He said: "She is very lovely." And I answered: "She has been on the mountain." I felt, indeed, as if Ellen had gone there to commune with God. "When I came from the mountain to-day," she writes, "the world had a new look, as if I had never seen it before. I wish the river had a face so I could kiss it. I had to hold my hands tight so that I shouldn't fling them around the necks of Alec and Roberta; I took it for a good omen that the two that I love most should be waiting there for me. I have made a wonderful friend. Though I have never seen him before, yet I have known him always. I was sitting above Oscar's Leap, thinking hard, meditating on the beautiful things in life, which if you think hard enough about, Mr. Sylvester says, you will become like, but to do this you must feel like a little child, very small and humble and believing. I think I was nearer feeling this than I have since I was really little, when I looked up and saw him standing there. I had been thinking so hard I hadn't heard him come even; he was just there as if I had thought him into life, and I was no more afraid of him than as though I had always known him, although a stranger frightens me as a rule, unless I'm feeling foolish. He said: 'I have been watching you a long time; I've been watching you think'; and I just smiled at him and he sat down there beside me, and then it was as if all the things I had never been able to say to any one came to me, crowding to my lips. I don't know if I said them or not, because I don't remember exactly what we talked about. We made friends the way children make friends. I felt that if I knew him a little more only, he would know me more as I am than any one in the world, because the me, that my own people know, is so mixed up with that gone-forever person that used to be myself. I wish I could remember more what we said to each other, but the meaning of them is like Mr. Sylvester's sermons--we haven't got words for them yet; but I remember one thing that seems to me like the truth of truths. He said to me, 'Ellen, I am coming back to find you; it was more than chance that led me here this afternoon.'" [Illustration: SHE IS VERY LOVELY] In all that she writes about him during the next two weeks, where he crosses and recrosses the pages of her journal continually,--for she wrote an almost day-to-day account, Time at that moment held its breath and gave her space to look at the treasure that had fallen into her hands,--she never once mentions the word "love." She merely waited for the coming of her friend. During this time little bits of their conversation creep out. They had told each other exactly nothing about their lives, drowned as they had been in the poignancy of their encounter. I thought in my innocence that the white radiance of her, that was so apparent to me who loved her so, was the blossoming of religion in her spirit. One afternoon we had been notified that Ellen's gift had come for her aunt. It had been sent direct from the city, very beautiful toilet and cologne bottles, I remember it was, of the massive kind with which ladies' dressers were then always supplied. We had it all planned that we were to sit there while Miss Sarah undid her parcel, and finally, after she had wondered who could have sent her this gift, with a gesture Ellen was to tell her, but while Miss Sarah was about to open the parcel, the wide door of the stately drawing-room opened. A young man was framed in it. He stood there looking at Ellen, who was sitting on a low hassock; she looked at him. It seemed to me that a breathless silence elapsed before Miss Sarah looked up, while these two talked mutely. I have only one other time in my life seen a look on any human face that was like hers. It was that of one who in another minute must hide her face in her hands to screen her eyes from the sight of the glory of the Lord. CHAPTER XII Thus they stood through an eternity of understanding, which in the actual flight of time was only the moment that it took for Miss Sarah to turn around, but it seemed to me that her glad little cry of surprise: "Why, it must be Roger!" was echoed deep in Ellen's heart; and turning to Ellen she said:-- "This is Mr. Roger Byington. You remember, Ellen dear, I told you he was going to stay with us.--But what a surprise--we didn't expect you until this afternoon." "I started a day earlier so that I could walk over the mountain. I walked the last stage." He looked at Ellen, whose eyes had never once left him and who had the look of having seen a miracle. So poignant seemed her look to me, so much did it tell me, that I remember I had the wish to stand between her and this strange young man, so that her heart shouldn't be revealed to him, and between her and her Aunt Sarah, so that she would notice nothing; but I might have spared myself the pains. In a moment Aunt Sarah was leading him away to seek for Mr. Ephraim Grant. I knew without Ellen telling me that this must be her friend of the mountain. She had told me about him in all naïveté. It had seemed to me sort of an Ellenesque thing to have happened, charming and delightful, though I had paid no attention to her belief that he was coming back. "Did you know Mr. Byington was the one, Ellen?" I asked. She shook her head. "How could I guess?" We had been told that old friends of Miss Sarah's had written asking for a boarding-place for their son, who was reading law after his return from abroad and wished a quiet place where he might study, and that Miss Sarah had invited him to stay at her house, but naturally I had not connected him with Ellen's stranger. Once in a long time things turn out the way that we dream that they will. Once, perhaps, in a lifetime all the dreamed-of and expected things focus themselves into one full moment. At such times the doors of our spirits open and we find the hidden roads to the spirits of others, and this was what happened to Ellen. Instead of Roger's arrival dimming her present, everything came about as she had planned and it all worked in together into one marvelous day. For once Age understood Youth, for when Miss Sarah learned how this money had been laboriously come by, she said:-- "Ellen, you have the heart of a child, for only a child would have treasured up my word that I meant and didn't mean, and I think, my dear, I've often scolded you for this very reason. You are a darling child, Ellen, but a trying one, and I hope you'll never grow up." When Roger came back with Mr. Grant, "Look, young man," she said. "Do you know what this is? This is one of the rarest things in the world; it's a true gift. You have probably never made one in your whole life; you and your family go in and plank down your money and buy something pretty and go away. Now, whenever I look at this, Ellen, I shall think of your patience and self-denial,--yes, and your industry, and oh, dear, dear! I shall never be able to scold you again, which, as I know, you will often deserve." We sat there for a half-hour and I felt as though I were in the midst of a story, with my Ellen for the heroine. Roger won us all that afternoon. In conversation he was the most delightful person in the world. There was about him a certain, subdued arrogance when he wasn't talking, which changed when he smiled into the most delightful sunny winsomeness. He listened to those much older and those much younger than himself with an absorbed interest that gave the speaker the sensation of saying something of deep interest. Later we learned that this young prince and a trying bad little boy were the same person, but that day we only saw the young prince. I know that I myself had the impression of having had the window of Life suddenly thrown open wide, for with unconsciousness of what he was doing, he took us sweeping up and down the world. He had traveled a great deal in a day when traveling was much more of an adventure, and he had had adventures and real ones, as one of his temperament would be bound to have. He made one feel that one was living with a higher vitality, as Ellen did, and the way Ellen affected me then and later was as though she were a beautiful jewel that I had seen in the sun for the first time. On this first day she sat there shining with soft radiance and saying almost nothing, becoming, it seemed to me, transfigured before my eyes. After a while Ellen rose to go, and Roger accompanied us, and I had to stay with them, having no pretext for leaving, as my house was beyond Ellen's down the street; but it seemed to me that, without meaning to, they subtly shut me out by the very way that they included me in their laborious conversation, for as soon as we three were walking down the sidewalk, under the great double row of elms which bordered our street, their touching courtesy made a stranger of me as nothing else could have done. Ellen wrote:-- "The first thing he said to me when we were alone was, 'Ellen, I thought you were a little girl and you're grown up. When you meet strange men on the mountains and they say to you politely, "May I ask your name?" do you answer, "Why, I am Ellen"?' I had forgotten that I had said that. I suppose I did look young, with my hair down and my brown dress that's so much too short for me. 'I came back to find a wonderful little girl; where is she?' I answered,--and my heart was beating at my boldness,--'She grew up while you were away.' 'Oh, Ellen, Ellen!' he said to me, 'those were the longest weeks in all the life I've lived, and it's strange it should have been your aunt's house that I should have come to. It is as if I had been led by the hand, first, to you on the mountain, and now, to you here.' And then he looked at me and said, 'Ellen, you focused all my life for me that day on the mountain. I've spent two weeks clearing from my life worthless trash, all the débris that a man accumulates living as many years in the world as I have.' And he has really lived in the world, ever since boys here are nothing but boys. He told me, 'When I went by I stopped at our place on the mountain. Have you been back?' 'Yes,' I said, and I looked down. 'Look at me,' he said, and it seemed to me he drew my eyes to his. 'Have you been there often?' 'Yes.' 'How often, Ellen?' and I shook my head. I felt as though I was dying of shame, for I had been there every day at sunset. What if he knew how I had worked to get everything done so I could fly up there at sunset? I felt as if his eyes were burning down into my heart and he said, as though he could read my thoughts, 'Every sunset I remembered the way I saw you there. I ought to have seen you there again, Ellen; I wanted to take you and fly up there, and I am going to get a good mark in heaven for having been so nice to your aunt and uncle, and even to your nice little friend, for being so terribly in my way.' And all of a sudden he looked like a naughty, bad, little boy, which made me laugh at him, and made me feel on earth again;--and now I'm going to see him at sunset. I feel as if I had never been alive before. I went in and kissed mother and she said: 'Was your aunt pleased with the present, dear?' I had forgotten all about my aunt and all about the present. It was as though I had returned from a very far-off country." CHAPTER XIII That afternoon we were all quilting at our house and Miss Sarah was pleased enough to give an account of her guest. "I've had a long letter from Lucia Byington," she said to my grandmother, "explaining that precious scapegrace of a son of hers, but I can tell Lucia she might have spared herself the pains. The minute I clapped my eyes on him I knew all about him, having known his father and mother. He has all her charm and her willfulness, with the iron will and talent of his father. I suppose, because I'm an old maid, I can't understand why a man can't bring up a high-metaled son, exactly like himself, without being at odds with him. But there! He expects his son to start where he's left off, with all the sobriety and solemnity of an aged Solomon. And why people like Lucia and David should expect not to have trouble with their children, I don't know. And as for David, he fights his own youth in the boy. Now the time had come for Master Roger to stop skylarking over the earth; he was holding out; leave town he wouldn't. They had words; he slung a knapsack on his back and went off, and wasn't heard from for a week, and then came back as meek as the Prodigal." You may be sure that Ellen and I had our ears wide open to this story, knowing as we did why it was that Roger had suddenly become the docile son. We were so self-conscious that our eyes did not dare seek one another's, and we sewed together the large, gay squares of patchwork with the precision of little automatons. My grandmother spoke up:-- "Well, Sarah, I half dislike having your stormy petrel in our little town. I saw him this morning, and he seemed to me a restless-looking bird. He'll be turning the silly heads of our girls next." "Let me catch him at it, or them, for that matter!" cried Miss Sarah. "He's here for _work_, and not to worry me with such-like goings-on! You may be sure that his family have had trouble enough with him in such imbroglios already." We had tea early and did the dishes and fell to our quilting again. I noticed Ellen becoming more and more abstracted until finally Miss Sarah said:-- "Well, Ellen, try to bring your mind back to your work. Years haven't taken your habit of 'wool-gathering' from you." Ellen wrote about this:-- "When I was a little girl I was more afraid of the setting sun than anything in the world and now I know why, for I was waiting always for this moment to come, when the sun, red and round and menacing, set right before my eyes and I stared hopelessly and hopelessly into it, not able to move. I had that awful leaden feeling of wanting to move and not being able to, as though I had been quilting through the ages and listening to stories about Roger, a strange and distorted Roger, who was as infinitely far away from me as the sun, and yet that I must go to him. I knew he was there at Oscar's Leap, and I felt as if he called my soul out of my body and my body suffered. I tried to tell myself that there was to-morrow. I tried to tell myself how foolish I am to be so broken in two that I must needs go and keep my word with this man that I've seen only twice in my life; but though I have only seen him twice, I've known him always, as I said before. There's no friend as dear and close as he in all the world. Oh, beautiful day that I can never have! The things that we would have said to each other to-night, we will say them another time, but not in the same way. This day is lost to me and I can never have it back again." She tells this of the time when next she saw him:-- "It seemed to me as though he leaped at me, there was such gladness in his face, although any one across the street would have said he just walked. He said, 'Oh, Ellen, Ellen!' as he did before; and then, 'I've been waiting ever since I saw you'; and then his face turned stern, and he said, 'Ellen, why didn't you come? Are you like other women; while I've been away did that candid, little girl learn to hide herself and learn to be false to her word?' I thought I should cry; tears came to my eyes; it seemed so cruel that at the very first I should fail him this way, and he saw how I felt and said to me, 'Oh! don't, don't, dear.' And for a little while we walked on in silence. 'Where were you, Ellen?' he asked me; and he stood still in the path and said: 'Ellen, are you a coward? What chained you there? Didn't you hear me calling to you from the mountain? Couldn't you get up and walk out of the room? If you had gone and hadn't come back, what would have happened?' And then he looked at me in a way I shall never forget, and what he said I shall remember all my days, for so I am going to live. 'Ellen,' he said, 'you and I in our friendship are not to be tied down by rules. Remember, courage opens all doors. Ellen, I threw away many things to clear the road that led to you. Let us keep on that way, Ellen; put your hand in mine and promise. We'll walk to each other straight out of the open door, without fear, won't we?' When I got home, I am so foolish and I am so weak and merit his friendship so little, that I cried. I don't now understand why it was that I stayed this afternoon." In this brave and heady fashion Roger began his wooing of Ellen. Just as his whole pose, forward swinging head and relaxed body, gave one the impression of one ready to make a forward rush at any moment and seize what it wanted, so was the action of his spirit. It was like the wine of life to my Ellen. They saw the sunset on the mountain together every night that they could, and he came down the pasture that led down from the hill, through the meadow, to the brook back of the Paynes' house. About these things I knew, for Ellen needed a confidante. Love overflowed her, and this was no secret, little love which she carried shyly, a secret lamp by which to light her way, which she hid as soon as any one appeared; but this was a flaming thing, as hard to hide as a comet. It swept her up and out and beyond herself into that over-heaven that only the pure in heart can feel when they are in love. It was only a very short time when she stopped deluding herself with any terms like "her dear friend"; for one of Roger's great strengths, then and always,--and I think to this day,--was knowing exactly what he wanted, and taking the shortest way to it, and to get his desire he was splendid and ruthless, and beware to any one who stood in his way. It was about now that she began the habit of writing what she called "Never Sent Letters"; for could she have been with him all the hours of the day, the day would yet not have been long enough for her, and they saw one another what seemed to them only now and then. She writes to him at this time:-- "What did I do with my time before I met you? The days that I've spent before you came have no meaning now to me, and now that I am away from you the only preparation is for you. Everything that I see, everything that I think, all my thoughts, I save them up and give them to you, tiny flowers from the country of my heart. I wonder how it is that you can love me ever so little, who have so little to give to you who have so much, and the only bitterness that I know is that what I have to give you is so worthless. You say that you love the joy of life in me. I wish I could make all the joy I feel shine out like a flame. I wish that I could distill all the love I have for you into one cup and then give it to you that you could drink, for entirely and utterly I am yours and have been yours always and forever, and so shall always be until I am changed over into some one else. When I'm with you I don't dare tell you these things for fear that I should drown you in myself. Take my life and do what you like with it, for without you it is a thing valueless to me." In this way was Ellen's touching prayer answered--that when she loved any one she wished only to give. For the time being everything else was blotted out for her; she had this measureless, sky-wide joy of giving herself and all day long, and all the time her spirit went out toward him in incense. Her days were lost in contemplation of the wonder which had happened. "From the moment I leave him, I walk toward him," she wrote--and in the interim between she went on apparently with life as before, and this woke in her a still wonder. "It is so very strange to be doing the same things that I was before, but all the work I do for my mother, every book I read, every word I speak has a meaning that it hadn't. It is as though my ear were at the heart of Life and I heard Life beat." CHAPTER XIV I saw a good deal of her and so did Alec. Alec at this time was preparing to work his way through college. Even Roger, who treated the village youth with the kindly tolerance of a splendid young prince, treated Alec as an equal. Alec, of course, gave him the whole-hearted admiration that generous lad does a man. He guessed Alec's infatuation for Ellen, for Roger was one of those experienced gentlemen who feel far off any emotional flurry and he had paired all of us before he had been in town ten days, and that without having appeared to observe us. So much was he the over-masculine that nothing of this kind could come near him without his senses registering it. He could mention John Seymore's name in a way to make me blush and make me wish to stamp my foot on the ground with outraged modesty. And as for Edward Graham, it was on his account that Ellen first learned the terrible anguish that love may bring with it, and she wrote:-- "I have learned how foolish I am and how weak. We were both at Oscar's Leap looking down into the river. 'I walked up and down the earth, Ellen,' he said, 'looking for you, and as I looked from one person to another I said, "No, that's not Ellen," and then I didn't know your name. I feel that it's strange of me that I should not have guessed it.' 'Didn't you ever care,' I asked him, 'for any one for a moment?' 'No,' he said, 'how could I? Once in a while I saw some one that looked a little like you and there I waited longer.' 'But people must have cared for you,' I said. 'Not really; some people make a game of things like that, Ellen,' he said. And already I felt deeply ashamed, that though I am so much younger I should have been so foolish as to think I cared once. 'And you, Ellen; you waited the same way for me, didn't you? The people who cared for you, you knew weren't me.'--And then I told him about Edward. He didn't speak for a long time, and then he said: 'Isn't there anywhere on the earth a woman so young and so sheltered that she doesn't pass from one hand to another and snatch at love, and give a piece of herself here and a piece of herself there? But, Ellen, I thought you were different'; and the deep and bitter shame that rushed over me then I don't think I shall ever forget. He asked me a great many questions, and when he found that I was so little when it all happened he forgave me. It seems wonderful to me that he should have waited." It seems wonderful to me, as I read this little, pitiful account, that Ellen with her straight, clear mind should have let herself be so bemused as to feel that something was wrong which her own inner sense had told her was not wrong, honest as she had always been with herself. She lived for the first time by another person's standard for her. She had given him that most precious thing of all, her inner judgment of herself. It seems still more wonderful to me that Roger should have told her such a story, for he had had love-affairs a-plenty; but I think he was utterly honest in this, and in his honesty lay his danger and his charm. New emotions, as they came to him, came with so overwhelming a force that they wiped out not only the old love, but the memory of it, and when he had fallen in love with the wild sweetness of Ellen the other experiences in his life seemed to him only an unimportant outburst of passion. Yet for her he had the Turk's jealousy: he wished not only for the utter virginity of the body, but also for the virginity of the spirit to such a point that he had to make-believe that there had been no Edward in her life at all before he could "forgive." They had both imagined that they could keep their love a secret for a while until Roger should have done a certain amount of work. "I want my parents to love the idea of Ellen from the first," he told me, "and I've been so at cross-purposes with them that I want to get back into their good graces a little before I tell them." And, indeed, for Roger to have rushed away to a tardy acquiescence of his father's will and to reappear immediately with a bride, we understood would strain the patience of an irascible parent. Just how much we learned from Miss Sarah, whom we heard saying:-- "The boy really seems to have turned over a definite new leaf. Lucia writes that she has learned that Roger has not even once written to that woman, whose entanglement with Roger worried them all so. She's been ill ever since he left, and it serves her right, too. A married woman of her age should have had better sense than to have let herself be carried away by an attractive youngster. Young rascal!--to go off on such a tangent when he was apparently just on the brink of making an ideal marriage. He and Emmeline Glover, you know, had been sweethearts for a long time when he got into this scrape." In such a way were Ellen and I enabled to piece out Roger's life, and it apparently did not occur to her to make any comparison between herself and Roger; for in very truth the desire he had for her had swept from him all his former life until it seemed so paltry and meaningless that it was no desire of concealment that had led him to speak so lightly of both of these women. They had walked across his conversation with Ellen. Ellen had heard Roger's side of these stories. "This married woman of whom they speak," she explained to me, "was a good friend of his and very much older than himself, but people are so evil-minded in this world. As for Emmeline Glover, he called her a sweet, little, silver-gray cloud, and another time, a graceful shadow." We realized, however, that some time should elapse before Roger should tell his parents of his new love, or they would think it a weak passing interest and fail to treat it seriously. When his interest in a person flagged, he lacked the coxcombry that makes a man afraid that his lack of interest has broken a woman's heart. Quite the contrary, he was apt to despise them for having shown affection for so light a cause. In the world of the affections he related nothing that had happened to him before to anything which was happening; each experience was fresh to him, a rising tide that had no memory of any other tide before. They might have gone on with their indiscreet friendship indefinitely, but they counted without themselves. They were caught up, both of them, in the fierce moving stream that sweeps and swings people out of the orbit that they have planned. It was impossible to both their natures, under the stress of what they were feeling, to wish to be guarded. The clandestine element in their friendship, slight though it was,--for Ellen's little mother was taken into the secret, how could she leave her out; she needed to spill some of her happiness over on every one who came near her,--became very irksome. Roger told me that he longed to go down Main Street shouting: "I love Ellen and am going to marry her; I love Ellen." And he would say with his naughty, little-boy look: "Whenever I hear Aunt Sarah"--for with what Miss Sarah called his usual impudence, Roger called her "Aunt Sarah" from the beginning--"talking about what a good boy I am and 'high time, too'"--and here he mimicked Miss Sarah's manner--"I want to say to her: 'Don't you know, you blind old fossil, that I'm here because of Ellen--Ellen--Ellen--Ellen, the gentle, that you presume to correct; Ellen, the joyful; Ellen, the glad of heart?' One of the strangest things in life to me is the impudence of Age, that dares to presume to touch so lovely a thing as Youth, and especially the youth of my Ellen. I can't stand it much longer, Roberta. Think of my knowing and submitting to my father's standing between Ellen and me. He's a wise old man, but he's forgotten things more useful than any that he knows, and I know them!" And, indeed, he seemed the incarnation of the splendid and arrogant Knowledge of Youth, and my heart beat that so splendid a youth should be Ellen's; they seemed then God-appointed for each other. Roger's direct mind found a way out of the difficulty. They were at their favorite meeting-place, up above Oscar's Leap, and looking out at the river which had turned to flame in the sunset light. Ellen tells about it:-- "'Oh, Ellen!' he said, 'why can't you put your hand in mine and walk out into the sunset with me? I often wonder why, when people love each other as we do, why they let anything stand in their way.' And then he said: 'Ellen, why shouldn't we--why shouldn't we walk out together, just you and me to-night?' And I said, 'Very well.' 'Come, then,' said he; and he held out his hand, and if I had put my hand in his he would have come with me, but I thought then he was joking. He said, 'Ellen, I'm not joking; I mean it. Would I joke of such a thing? Why should we waste one moment of what is so beautiful? You belong to me, Ellen, don't you?' And then he put his arms around me and kissed me so that I could hardly breathe, and said, 'Ellen, do you belong to me?' I could only hide my head on his shoulder and whisper to him, 'Yes'; and he said to me, 'Will you come with me, then, bad girl?' And I said, 'How can I?' 'Think about it, Ellen,' he said; 'think about it. I'll give you this week to think of it in, and at the end of the week it's one thing or the other. You come with me and be married or I'll tell them all. Am I one to tiptoe around through life, hiding because a cross-grained old man who happens to be my father will oppose at first something he will in the end be glad of?' He was such a bad little boy as he said this that I laughed, though he shouldn't speak of his father this way, I am sure, even though it is his father's fault. It is a terrible thing when any one as sweet and as full of the desire to love people as Roger shouldn't have been understood by his parents at home. His mother is very sweet, but she has never known how to get at him. All the mutinous things in Roger, and all the times when he wasn't adjusted to life, should have been loved away and understood away. He said to me: 'I've been good only since I have known you, Ellen, because no one has loved me before.' People have loved me all my life, and Roger, who is so much fuller and better than I, has not had my chance." Here we have the tragedy that all mothers must face. Their sons, that they have brought up so tenderly and whom they have anguished over, bring all their mistakes to the beloved to be wept over. If you have worn a callous place in his spirit, the soft hand of his sweetheart will find it and she will grieve over it. All girls are sure of two things: that they understand their men better than their very mothers do, and that they love them better as well; and every woman in the world, who is harrowing her soul over her little son that she is bringing up, may be sure that somewhere else in the world there is growing up a girl who is later on going to find any hardness or unkindness that she has left in his spirit. When she had known him six weeks, Ellen could have brought up Roger better than he had been. It was her first excuse for his willful idea. At first she didn't take him seriously, but opposition was the food on which his will fed. His father said of him that there was almost nothing one couldn't oppose him into. He thought out all the practical details. They could drive to the home of a minister he knew and be married at once and come back after two weeks. "Oh! why," Ellen wailed,--"why should we make them all unhappy when all you have to do is to work a month or two more?" "Yes, and then a long engagement, and then a making of my way; I in Boston, Ellen, and you here." It was a moment of terrible conflict for her. She wrote one of the letters to Roger she didn't mean to send:-- "Oh, my dear! I told you this afternoon and I want to tell you again in this letter how sweet this little hour is to me. It seems to be the sunniest place in all of life. The world seems to me to stretch ahead wonderful and splendid, and the great storms of Heaven whirling through the sky, and the lightning and the clouds, and I can hear in my ears the roar of cities and the big tumult of seas, and here it is so sweet. Why hurry away from it? Here it is so safe. The days of one's life when one is a girl and loves one's man are so few. Oh, don't hurry me away. Here is sunlight, and out there where you want to go it seems to me darkness. I'm a little girl, afraid of the setting sun. I was afraid of it and yet I couldn't help looking at it in its awful splendor. I couldn't take my eyes off from it, as little by little it dropped down behind the mountain, so wonderful and so inexorable. My heart chokes the same way when I think of running off in the night with you. Let's stay here with our hands in each other's and then quietly go out into life together without wrenching ourselves away from so many ties and without rending everything that links us to this life that we now live. Every bit of me, [she writes,] all my soul, all my heart and my mind, and all my body wants to go with him as he says, but oh! the needless hurt to them. When I said, 'Oh! how could we take our happiness at some one else's hurt?' he said, 'Listen, Ellen; the hurt is only temporary--just for a moment. Supposing we went to-morrow night and then we came back after two weeks married. My father, of course, will like you by and by--he just doesn't want any one for me now; he wants me to go on working and I am working like a giant, and then we would be free to go where we want.' Oh, it would be so easy! Nights I can't sleep, and when I do I am always deciding and deciding over and over again. When I tell him to remember the talk that it will mean, he says to me: 'Are you afraid?' I tell him, 'No, not for myself; but my mother will be left behind and there will be Mr. Sylvester and my aunt all to bear talk, so we shall be happy.'" It seemed as if it was an unequal battle, all the forces of love, and Ellen's own nature even, waging a conflict with her little, soft heart. She grew pale under the strain. I noticed it, but I didn't know the cause, for here was something that naturally she didn't tell me, being allied with the forces of order as I was. She would have given him anything that she had to give, from her life on, but she could not bear to deal him out some one else's happiness with a careless hand. For his lack of understanding in this she writes:-- "He's never known what it is to have a home or people that you really love about you, or to be part of things." He was clever in his arguments. Ellen writes:-- "He fairly argued my soul from my body. He said to me, 'Ellen, it is not as though they didn't want us to marry. It's just better for us to go together right away. Why should we waste a blessed year of our lives?' 'How could I run the risk of being the cause of serious trouble between you and your father and mother?' I said. 'You'll have to leave those things for me to judge,' he answered. 'How could I interfere with your work?' He grew almost angry at me. Then he threw his arms around me in that way he has, as though he would fairly crush my life from me, and he said: 'Ellen, Ellen, for my sake do it. I am not stable; I'm weak, and weak with violence. In you I found all the things that I haven't, all the sweet and all the true things in life, the things that I've been just for a minute at a time, when I've been a good little boy. You don't know me, Ellen. You've only seen the me that you made, but you can keep that if you want to. Don't play with it, Ellen. It's the most important thing in life for me to keep the me that you call out. I didn't know I could be so happy in a quiet place. I've always asked of life more and more, more life all the time and life has meant action, adventure, and danger, and all at once I find in you more life than anywhere else, and I don't want anything but you. Ellen, how can you continue this way to me for an idea, a foolish, bad idea, a taught idea? That's where you're not true, Ellen. If you were true, you would just put your hand in mine and walk away.' 'If there was no one in the world but you, I would put my hand in yours and do whatever you told me, but I'm not just I alone,' I told him. 'Well, I am just I, just I, and frankly in need of you--and in need of you right away. Ellen, this conflict with you is destroying me. By to-morrow night you must have decided.' I feel as though I had been shaken by a great wind. When I hear him crying to me, it seems as though he were crying for the safety of his soul; and yet there must be something hard in me, because I know that being without me for a few months more or less will not destroy a hard thing like Roger, and all the time my foolish and weak heart likes to pretend that it believes that this is so. But yet, how can I get the strength to tell him to-morrow night that I won't do what he wants me to? Oh! it is torture unspeakable to be ungenerous in any way to the one whom one loves. I can't do it. I've got to go, not because I believe down deep in me any argument that he has given me,--I was strong as those against it,--but just because he wants me to, because I can't help giving him whatever it is he asks." Thus goes the age-old cry. She writes to him:-- "Oh! my dear, why will you make me make you such a sad gift? Oh! my dearly beloved, must I give to you the peace of mind, even for a little while, of all those whom I have loved in the world; and yet, I know myself that when I give you this that I shall be glad of it. Now that I have decided, my heart sings aloud. Somehow all that they will suffer seems small to me and unimportant beside this great, sweeping gladness that I feel.... I feel the way that you feel, nothing matters except that we should be together. Every day that we spend apart is a day wasted--but I can't think of the rest of it. It isn't so hard--it isn't so difficult, after all. We will come back and everything will be all right, although I feel when I say this as if it wasn't I, and that what carried me along was the black current of a river on which I was floating, and that I had been floating on it for always, only thinking before that I could direct my poor, little boat. Now I know that it is something quite outside myself that's swinging me on with the strength of this fast-rushing stream." CHAPTER XV I remember that day very well. Ellen spent the day with me and with Alec, and we all three lay under the trees together and then Ellen went on a little tour of inspection. What she was doing really was saying "Good-bye" to the place that she knew and to us. Her eyes were bright and shining; I suppose she was thinking, "To-morrow I shall be where?--to-morrow I shall be who?--and these dear people who love me, what will they think? Not that I care!" She was so sweet to Alec that her loveliness melted his poor heart still further. So sweet she was that, with one of those ironies of fate that are often more cruel than tragedy, Alec took this time to tell Ellen about the work he had decided to do. I can see him as he stood under the apple trees, the sun shining on his mane of hair, the brightness of his eager eyes contrasting with his self-consciousness, while we two girls stood there, each absorbed in her own affairs. "I've looked all around life to see what I could do best--and I guess I know more about boys than anything else. I sort of know how they feel inside all the time. I don't forget. So I'm going to teach 'em. Try and teach 'em the things they want to know most and that they knock their shins so trying to find the way to. They have a hard time. I had just one teacher--and he led me out of darkness; and that's what I'm going to do. It's a business, you know, that means trying to understand all the time. It's a present to you, Ellen," he added with his crooked, whimsical smile. He was so anxious that we should see what he meant, and we were so polite and innerly so blank. Teaching grubby little boys seemed to us an uninspiring profession for a splendid youth like Alec. We couldn't know how many years he had looked ahead. Alec and his gift to Ellen seem to typify man and woman. Man, who comes with his bright visions of the future, bestows the gift of his high dreams on girls who see nothing in them--and are polite. But Ellen was too heart-rendingly sweet that afternoon to seem anything but understanding. She was heart-breakingly gay. After a while we went in together to Mrs. Payne's house. She and Mr. Sylvester were standing in the drawing-room with their hands clasped, and Mr. Sylvester spoke and said, "We may as well tell these dear children first"; and Ellen's little mother said, as shyly as a girl, "Mr. Sylvester and I have found very suddenly that we have always loved each other." He rejoined with his deep simplicity of manner, "Yes, quite suddenly we found out that we've been to one another as the air we breathe, and as the water we drink, and as the sun that shines." "And so, of course," said the little mother of Ellen, "we will be married." She stood there violet-eyed, in her neat, little black dress, as slender as a girl, more girlish in her looks than many of us for all her forty years. I don't think that any of the three of us had realized that people as old as Mr. Sylvester and Mrs. Payne could live in the land of romance and could fall in love. Like most young people in their early twenties, we imagined that this great gift of mankind was for us alone and that it never lightened up the hearts of those who had already lived and loved; but as these two stood, hand in hand, there rushed over all of us the feeling that they were just great children. The look of wonder was in their eyes; they had been living for so long close to the land of enchantment, and just now had stepped over its borders into its realization. "We see no reason for delaying our marriage long. We waited long enough; we've been close friends for eight years; and you, little Ellen,"--he spoke as though speaking to a little child,--"you have been already like a daughter to me and like a little mother to my children." "You'll help me now, Ellen, won't you?" pleaded her little mother; and it was as though they had changed places and Ellen were the older. But Ellen had them folded in her arms, kissing first one and then the other, and we all followed suit; and for once the stern conventions of New England reserve, which held in its iron grip such sweet and simple spirits as Mrs. Payne and Mr. Sylvester, was broken through. Now Ellen had a shining face, now everything had all been settled for her by Life. She could not possibly go away and leave her mother at such a moment, nor, of course, would Roger ask her this, and for a moment the light that swept over the country of her heart was dimmed by the quiet radiance of these two middle-aged people. Glad-footed she started off to her trysting-place, and what happened there was as though the sun had been eclipsed in mid-heaven, as though the solid earth had shaken under her feet. She ran to Roger with this precious tale of her mother's happiness in her hands, sure that he would understand. She writes, almost with an unbelief in the fact that she had herself heard and witnessed:-- "He wanted me to go with him just the same! He came forward to me in that way that always makes me think of leaping flame and said: 'You've decided to go, haven't you, Ellen?' And when I told him, he said, 'That makes it simpler, doesn't it? They'll be so occupied with themselves that they won't care what you do. Hooray!' And he laughed like a little boy. I said, 'You don't understand; now I can't go; I can't darken her happiness; my mother needs me'; and he stood before me, looking at me with eyes that burned with anger of his desire. 'Ellen,' he said, 'decide now, the long engagement with its perils for you and for me; my good or their good; our happiness against a few stitches put in your mother's clothes.' I said, 'I can't go.' He drew me to him and said, 'Ellen, are you coming? You must come'; and I felt as if my soul was shuddering out of my body, as if he tore me in two, and part of me must go, and I don't know what there was in my soul stronger than myself, because all of me never wanted to do anything more than to do his will, which was my will, too; but I had to say, 'I can't do it.' I know now that there are a thousand things that make up this; Mr. Sylvester being a minister, it would hurt him to have his daughter--oh! what a sweet word--run away. All these things, all the tangled and manifold ways in which my life is woven into those beloved of me, and now a thousandfold more tightly woven than before into the life of this little place, all held me back where the inner, beating heart of me cried aloud to go. He stood there pleading, and he raged with anger; his words beat me down, shivering, like a heavy storm of wind and rain. The love of him drew me toward him, as flowers lift up their heads to the sun, but something deep down kept saying, 'No, I can't go. No, I can't go.' 'Now, I know,' said he, 'at last how little your love is worth'; and then he pulled me to him and kissed me roughly, and again and again, and then almost threw me from him. 'Good-bye, Ellen,' he said; and I cried, 'Where are you going?' 'Oh, not far,' he said; but I felt as if his spirit had gone to the end of the world, and he strode without me down the road. I am writing like one in a dream, because I can't see and don't know what's going to happen to us, and I want to run out into the night and run to his house and cry under his window that I'll go whenever he says, but then I know, if I did that, that at the last moment I would decide I couldn't go." CHAPTER XVI While Ellen was going through these hours of anguish her mother and Mr. Sylvester sat in my grandmother's kitchen, a pair of helpless, middle-aged children, discussing how they would break the news to Miss Sarah Grant. They didn't need to explain why Miss Grant would disapprove of their marriage; she would disapprove of it just as all the town would, for it was evident that if Mr. Sylvester was going to marry again it was his duty to himself and to his children to marry a "capable woman," and you might as well ask a moon-ray or a soft breeze in the trees to be capable as Ellen's little mother. "I have suggested," said Mr. Sylvester, "that we let Miss Sarah learn of it as we shall the rest of the town. A simple and efficacious way has occurred to me, Mrs. Hathaway, of informing all our friends,--I shall merely tell Mrs. Snow and Miss Nellie Lee and then nature will do the rest." He was quite grave and simple-hearted as he said this, but I know that Alec and I did not dare to meet one another's eyes, for the good man had mentioned not only two of the most talkative ladies in town, but also two who had, according to gossip, felt themselves very capable of taking care of an incapable but godly man. Mrs. Payne, however, insisted that Mr. Sylvester should himself tell her sister of their engagement. "My dear," said Mr. Sylvester, "I trust I am a soldier of the Lord, but I confess to a feebleness in the knees when it comes to confronting Miss Sarah, for both of us have been a serious anxiety to her even in an unmarried state, and what shall we be now when my housekeeper has gone?" "And, indeed, my dear, how do you suppose," inquired my grandmother whose spiritual attitude had been one whose hands and eyes were both raised to Heaven,--"how do you suppose you are going to take care of the children?" Ellen's little mother considered a moment. "I shall love them," she replied after an interval. Mind you, this statement was one of sheer anarchy in an age when discipline was the keynote with children and the superstition still flourished that one could not properly bring up a child without the rod. "Yes," said my grandmother, "I suppose you will love the holes out of their clothes and love their gingham aprons into being, won't you?" "I can depend upon Matilda a good deal," considered Mrs. Payne; "but we have scarcely had time, dear Mrs. Hathaway, to think of the material side of the question, and the children adore Ellen." "And so, all together," rejoined Mr. Sylvester, "we shall get along very well, but our only real trouble is the pain of breaking the news to Miss Sarah." "Well," said my grandmother, with brisk sarcasm, "if that's all that's troubling you, I'll tell her myself. I'll go to her and tell her that there's going to be a family consisting of two grown people, one grown girl, and three helpless little children, none of whom realizes that meals have to be got or housework done." "Or, indeed," rejoined Mr. Sylvester, "where no one is occupied in anything but considering the lilies, how they grow." Upon this the two smiled at each other, for they both had the wisdom of the simple in their spirits. However, it was apparent to any one what a helpless ménage this would be with the strong hand of Mrs. Gillig, the housekeeper, removed from it. The news of the marriage ran through the town the way fire spreads; from house to house it galloped, then it would seem to skip a space and then mysteriously break forth afresh, as though by spontaneous combustion, and their interested chatter hid Ellen from herself a little. She wrote:-- "All day I have been receiving calls and answering questions. A certain sort of vague envy has mingled itself with a more definite commiseration and there has been a great deal of affection mingled with everything. They don't know. They all talk as though my little mother were a baby, and so she is. She's a child of light. She has not grown up and she hasn't made me grow up, and I hope I shall never have to, and I want to say to all the people, 'Oh, you blind person, you blind person,' when they speak in this half-patronizing tone of her. I want to say: 'Don't you know how much more she has than you? My mother is a happy person to live with; we are poor and our clothes are patched,--and sometimes they aren't even patched,--and I suppose she's a poor manager, but I am so glad she is because, when we do clean, it's because we want to and not to fight it day and night.' All through this day that's been so busy, when people have knocked at our door on one pretext or another, I've been waiting. All day Roger hasn't been to see me; it doesn't seem possible that he can be angry at me or stay away from me like this; it doesn't seem possible that he shouldn't understand me. I'm going up to-night to Oscar's Leap. It seemed to me that all the world had his voice to-day. Whenever I heard people talk far off, it seemed to me that I heard Roger; every time some one knocked on the door my heart leaped and I thought: 'He's coming at last.' Twice I walked uptown looking for him, and once there was a real errand,--not a make-believe one like when I was a little girl and wanted to do something that took me up to Aunt Sarah's; Aunt Sarah herself sent me, and how my ears were strained for the sound of his voice, and there was no sound at all in all the house. Then I did a thing that was very bold. I sat down at the piano and opened it and played and began to sing, hoping he would hear me, while I waited for the sewing for which Aunt Sarah had sent me. Then I heard footsteps on the stair and I knew that they weren't Roger's, but yet it seemed to me they must be--so much I wanted to see him that the very desire of my heart must call him to me--but no. I wonder what has happened; I wonder if he's angry; I wonder if he's hurt. I couldn't even ask Martha a word about him; I had to keep my mouth closed. It is partly my fault that we have to skulk in this way. It seems a curious thing that Martha should know if Roger was in the house somewhere. But surely he couldn't have been in the house or he would have come down when he heard me sing. Why should I feel ashamed at having tried to make him hear me? If I can go and call Alec from outside his house, why is it more wrong for me to go and call for the one whom I shall love all my days, and yet somehow I feel that I shouldn't. There is some deep instinct in me that makes me know I was wrong." I suppose it was because of Ellen's absorption in Roger that she failed to write an aspect of these days that stand out to me as one of the charming memories of my girlhood, for it so sums up our New England society of that day. My grandmother had performed the kind office of announcing the betrothal to Miss Sarah, and this good woman's reply was characteristic. "Well," said she, "trust Emily to get into mischief when Ellen gives us a moment's pause, and what irritates me the most, Sophia, is that I am not even allowed my just moment of anger. If I sulk, then there will be talk, to be sure, so I've got to go out and countenance this marriage of those 'babes of grace' as though it had been my fondest hope. I, forsooth, have got to go around and smile until my jaws are fairly dislocated to prevent the magpie chattering that there'll be; but before my anger cools I'm going down to give Emily a piece of my mind. When you consider her refusing a decent, advantageous marriage, and then becoming sentimental at her time of life, it's enough to make one's blood boil." Miss Sarah eased her mind by making remarks like this to her sister and then said she:-- "Sophia Hathaway and I are going to bring our sewing and spend the afternoon, because you'll see that half the town will be here to find out what's happened." So there we were, my grandmother and I, Mrs. Payne, Ellen, and Aunt Sarah--a solid phalanx. "We'll answer," Miss Sarah announced, "no questions except those asked us." Deacon Archibald and his wife were the first to call. The deacon came in cheerily, rubbing his hands. "It was such a fine day," said Mrs. Archibald, "that we thought we'd repay the many visits that we owe." "Yes, we are always so remiss in that," chirped Deacon Archibald. "Won't you be seated? Take this more comfortable chair," said little Mrs. Payne. "The weather's been fine lately," remarked the deacon. "A fine summer, indeed, for the crops," agreed Miss Sarah; "the tobacco's doing splendidly in the valley." There came another rap on the door and Mrs. Snow was admitted. "I thought I'd run in just a moment to see if you had that mantle pattern," she said. Mrs. Butler, stiff with rheumatism, came next. A knock was heard at the back door and I heard her heavy breathing and her "Well, Ellen, I just ran over to return your mother's hoe that Alec left at my house when he hoed my potatoes for me, but why he can't take back the tools himself I can't see. Has your mother got company; invited company, I mean?--because, Land Sakes! I can _hear_ she's got _company_. I'm not deaf." The question that they all longed to ask lay heavy in the air. It was good and _bona-fide_ gossip that they had heard as coming direct from Mr. Sylvester himself, but so afraid is New England of making a mistake and of committing itself, that two other ladies had dropped in on an errand of one sort or another, or for calls, before Miss Sarah took advantage of a little pause in the conversation to remark:-- "I suppose every one of you here has come to find out if my sister is to marry Mr. Sylvester." There was a little, fluttering chorus of dissent. "Nonsense," said Miss Sarah, "I know what you wish to ask and what a bushel more will come to ask before the evening is over, and that's why I'm staying here; and tell every one that you meet that we shall be happy to tell them ourselves that such, indeed, is the happy fact." Miss Sarah spoke with a large and grim geniality, for she always had the air of one who says, "Mankind, I am about to chastise you for your weakness, but I realize that I am human as well as you." Meantime my poor Ellen had heard in each one of these knocks on the door Roger's knock, and so she continued to hear the next day. She wrote:-- "He's gone away, and I have only learned about it by chance. Just by chance I heard Aunt Sarah saying: 'As if it wasn't excitement enough to have this happen yesterday, that young scallawag gets up and leaves me at a moment's notice.' Two of his friends came through, it seems, and Roger left with them. He left without sending word or sending me any message. He says he's gone for a day or two only. Aunt Sarah says she would not be surprised if he never came back, but that can't happen. How could it happen? Did he think that I had failed him so that he doesn't want me any more, or that I lacked so in courage and in love of him?... Another day has gone and no word from him. I don't think I've ever felt so alone in all my life and so cut off from all human help. I know it is wicked of me, but mother's happiness hurts me. I want her to be happy, but oh! it hurts me to watch it. I wish I could go off by myself somewhere, and yet I know that there I will be worse than I am now, with a thousand small things to do to somehow fill up the days. Something must have happened to him. I watch myself like some other person for fear I shall seem sad for a moment, for if I do it will look as though I am not pleased about my mother. Oh! I hope that I won't hurt their joy in any way. I wonder how women live who have to wait long for news of those they love. I seem to move around in the world, but I really do nothing but wait. Each time I see my aunt I think that she will have news of him; I'm grateful to her now if she only tells me he hasn't come. When I am asleep, I'm still listening and waiting for him. Something must have happened to him, because he must want to see me as I do him. It seems to me that no one could hurt any one they loved as much as this and be alive." Here it was for the first time that Ellen tasted that bitter pain of women, waiting. It sometimes seems to me that this is an anguish in which we live and of which men know nothing. During the course of a long life every woman passes so many hours of still agony when she must fold her hands and smile and wait. We cannot go out seeking the beloved, but must sit and wait until he comes. Like Ellen, when you have had a misunderstanding it is not yours to run generously forward; you can't clap your hat on your head and say, "Here, I'll make an end to this; I'll go and find her." No, you must sit waiting for the sound of his footsteps coming toward you; wait until your whole soul is tense; wait until each sound is part of this hope deferred. All women know this pain of waiting; and when our time of waiting for a sweetheart is over, the sons we love go out into the world, and again we can do nothing but sit still and wait for news of the travelers, wait for the little, scant messages of love which their careless hands pen to us in some casual moment. The long days pass and the letters don't come, and still we wait. We sit and wait for our children to be born, through the long months, with the black certainty of the birth that may be death staring us in the face. Some women get used to waiting. I think that those who do have closed the doors of their hearts to the keener range of feeling, having suffered so much that they say to themselves, "Here, I'll suffer no longer." There are yet others who pass through the pain of waiting, going by this thorny, bleeding, silent road of doubt and pain to a higher acquiescence. It is a long way there, and the heart of us must weep much in silence before we can attain this glorified peace. I have known the spirits of women to snap like the overstrained strings of a harp, as they waited with smiles upon their lips. I am sorry sometimes for all women, and most of all for the impatient, tender, and flaming spirits of young girls who meet this pain for the first time. It is because we have all suffered in this way that the most generous among us run so eagerly to meet those whom they love. Having tasted this pain, we wish forevermore to spare others anything like it. The more shallow-hearted and, perhaps, wiser women, and those who are not children of light, having tasted it, use the anguish of suspense as a weapon in the everlasting warfare between man and woman. But there is hardly a woman grown who could not echo the cry of Ellen when she wrote:-- "I do not dare to go out of the house for fear I might miss some word of him, and yet how can I stay in the house knowing my own thoughts? I wish to fill the gray horror of these empty hours with anything that the wayside will bring me; I want to go out and play with the children; I want to find Alec and walk with him. I try to remember just one thing--that some time to-day or to-morrow, or the next day, I shall hear something. _This can't go on forever; there has to come an end._" CHAPTER XVII I, with my eyes fastened on the romance of Mrs. Payne and Mr. Sylvester, had noticed nothing; the explanation that Roger had gone off for a few days with friends was enough for me; but it was Alec, with a keener vision, who had seen something wrong. "What ails Ellen?" he had asked me. "Why--what should?" I asked. "Roberta," said Alec, "is Ellen in love with Roger?" "How should I know?" said I. Alec looked down, kicking the dust before him with the gesture of a little boy. "It would be natural if they cared for each other," he continued. Then he suddenly flung out his hand and said, "If it's so, he won't ever make her happy." "Why, Alec, what do you mean?" I said. "He's only thinking about himself; he's interested only in Roger Byington," Alec declared with vehemence. He filled these next days as full of himself as he could; making Ellen laugh at his fantastic goings-on as he pretended to be the bulletin which announced how far the gossip had reached. With his tender second sight he tried to hide Ellen from herself or whatever it was that was troubling her. As Ellen said, the trouble couldn't last forever, and the end came unexpectedly. While we were sitting in the orchard I saw Ellen's hand go to her heart and her face change color; she sat still a lovely, quivering thing, with all the soul of her running out to meet Roger, and he advanced through the sweet clover, swishing at it with a little cherry wand that he had cut when walking. He had gone away a fairy prince--his only fault had been loving Ellen too much--and he came back a naughty little boy. Even I noticed the change in him. There was an arrogant, willful tilt to his head which belied the lightness of his disarming manner, and one which said: "First I'll try to coax you into good humor, but beware of my stubbornness if you find fault with me too far." He was the male that will not admit that he has faults. "Be thankful that I'm back at all," was what his bearing implied; "and we'll ignore also that I've been away, if you please." Ellen, poor child, had no idea of blaming him, any more than she had an instinct of hiding her emotions. Never once had she blamed Roger, even to herself, for going away, and at the sudden end of her suspense uncontrollable tears came to her eyes. Men have written books about the folly of the tears of women. Who knows it better than they, poor things? There are uncontrollable women, of course, who are as spendthrift with tears as some men of anger. Tears like these of Ellen's are as unexpected and uncontrollable as a sudden storm, and I, knowing what it meant when Ellen cried, left them quickly. Ellen wrote about it:-- "Oh, the unspeakable shame of having cried. I didn't know I was going to; I haven't cried since he has been away; I've only waited. He was sweet and tender with me, but he said whimsically: 'You, too, Ellen! I've had many a tearful home-coming with my mother. If one stays away unexpectedly from women, no matter who they are, the first thing they do when you turn up again is to find fault with you or else weep over you.' Then he held me out at arm's length. 'Ellen, you're not going to make of me the sinner that repented.' I don't know what leaden weight I have in my heart; it seems all so different; it's like a little, commonplace squabble. I'm always disappointing him; he has thought me different from all other women and I would so like to be, but I am just the same. He didn't even refer to the cause of his going away. We talked of this and that and couldn't find each other. He looked at me curiously two or three times and said, 'Ellen, I thought I should never see tears in your eyes.'" Here, indeed, was a shifting of base; they had been playing the higher harmonies that men and women play together; their spirits had been in perfect unison; even the tragic parting had had its undercurrent of understanding, and now here they were with their feet on earth; Ellen with homesick eyes for the land of lost content and Roger with a little sneer that she should have let him see that she had no pride against him. Her absence of coquetry was her undoing. He knew now he could put her down or take her up at will, and her price was a few tears. Her spirit stood out in that moment of welcome, shining and naked, her little shy spirit, the reflection of whose light alone had been enough for Alec. From the point of view of age, it is Roger for whom I am sorry, for with all courage and charm and ability and the swift, pulsing flow of life in him, life had tainted him already so that this ultimate gift of herself made him think Ellen too easy of attainment. The situation was one that had been repeated time and time again, sometimes by men and sometimes by women. Roger had had his naughtiness and his lack of consideration and his sudden and impatient vanishing out of a difficult situation treated by tears and reproaches. Poor Ellen, by her very innocence, had trodden a path of the emotion familiar to him, since his way out of difficulties had been a sudden impatient vanishing. If she could have only had the inspired sense to have taken his return in a matter-of-course manner, it would have piqued him, and again Ellen would have won; but how play sorry games like this with the best beloved? One of the sad things of love is that it is in absurd and trivial ways like this that it falls from its highest state and loses its radiance. From the account of her journal they jogged along a few days at a slack-water; Ellen groping forever for Roger, Roger a little bored at the too-eagerly offered heart; their positions oddly reversed; Roger rather magnificently forgiving Ellen for having annoyed him. Then suddenly into this doldrums of the emotions burst Miss Grant. A flaming affection is hard to hide. It shines like a light behind a closed door,--let two people walk ever so carefully. Now the eyes of one follow the other and the look is a caress; now some one intercepts an exchange of glances, and that exchange means, to any one whose heart has beat fast for love, a promise of everlasting devotion; you see a girl's hand steal to her fast-beating heart, or the young man waiting for her with that aching impatience of the young. So gossip had begun about Roger and Ellen. Some one had seen them walking down the street so absorbed that they had seen no one else; another had noticed Ellen walking across the bridge to the mountain and Roger going before her. Little by little the people who had separately observed these things had talked together until between them they had pieced together from broken fragments the whole story, and then, like a picture thrown unexpectedly on the screen, the gossip of it came to Miss Grant. I suppose she had gotten bits of it before, hints and innuendoes, of the kind people give who are too pusillanimous to face a woman like Miss Sarah with a point-blank question. The whole thing was focused one afternoon when she had said lightly to Mrs. Snow that she didn't know where on earth Roger had passed his time in such a quiet little town. "Well, Sarah, if you spent more time down at Emily's, perhaps you'd know." To Miss Sarah's hot, "What do you mean?"-- "I mean that wherever Ellen is, Roger's apt to be, and no reason making such big eyes at me; a very nice sort of thing, I think it." Miss Sarah merely put on her bonnet and shawl and marched majestically down the hill. She found Ellen on the back porch, in the midst of a foam of ruffles she was hemming for her mother's gown. She towered above Ellen, an avenging fate, whose gray curls bobbed on each side of her head. "Ellen, what's this gossip I hear about you and Roger?" she demanded. Before Ellen had time to reply, as though she read her confession in the color that mounted to her face, "How could you do such a thing, Ellen?" she fumed. "Don't you know that Roger Byington came here to work and settle down; don't you know that he has a marriage already planned? Don't you see the position you've put your family in, that of snatching at the fortune of an old friend! A fortune that's destined elsewhere, and that we were bound, you as well as I, to guard! You've been deceiving the whole of us!" Ellen rose to her feet and faced her, her sewing still in her hands, the blue ruffles around her white frock like a wave of the sea. "I've deceived no one, Aunt Sarah," said she, with a touch of sternness in her voice, and just here Roger appeared. He had heard voices, and had heard his and Ellen's names mentioned, and he had then seen Miss Grant storming down the hill like some aged New England Valkyrie and had followed her. He arrived in time around the side of the house to catch her last words, and the flaming anger that any one should scold his Ellen blew away forever the flatness that had for a moment assailed them. He threw his arms around Ellen as though he would protect her from everything for all time. "Miss Grant," he said, "the reason I'm here in this town is Ellen. I walked through here one time and I saw Ellen and talked with her for a few minutes by the roadside, and so I came back. No one else I've ever seen in life matters to me--nothing else but Ellen matters. Please remember that if I amount to anything _ever_, it will be because of Ellen, and if I fail, it will be because I have failed Ellen. Had I had my way Ellen would not have been here now with you; she'd be married to me." [Illustration: SHE TOWERED ABOVE ELLEN, AN AVENGING FATE] Ellen wrote:-- "I don't know what it did to me to have it talked about in the open. I felt as if I belonged forever to Roger, as though some way this outward profession of faith of his brought out and made positive everything that he had said and that I had felt, and that we truly belonged to one another." The old lady measured the young people with an angry gaze. "Young man," said she, "I consider you've abused my hospitality; you have put me and my brother and my whole family in a false light before your parents. You entangle yourself in sentimentalities with a married woman, you play false with your sweetheart, and when your father wishes you to reconstruct your life, you throw them both over and place me in the position of having seemed to connive at a marriage with my niece. I shall write your mother my disapproval by the next post, and if Ellen knew as much of your past history as I do, she wouldn't take this sudden infatuation seriously, and if she had any dignity she would withdraw at once from this false position." "Your letter," Roger replied with some heat, "will reach my mother somewhat after my own. When Ellen's love for her mother overcame her better judgment and she refused to go with me, I wrote my mother on my return as I told her I would do; and now, permit me, Miss Grant, to withdraw from your house which will save your pride in this matter." It was an old-fashioned quarrel that Youth and Age indulged in, and Ellen's journal gives more of it, full of stately words and innuendo and recriminations cloaked in fine-sounding periods, and I think both Roger and Miss Sarah enjoyed their own rhetoric heartily. Mrs. Payne heard the noise of the combat, and when Miss Sarah realized that her sister had been, as she said, "an accomplice," her indignation knew no bounds, though she admitted:-- "I'll do you justice, Emily; you've so little common sense that I don't suppose for a moment you thought of anything but the sentimentality of this ill-governed young man and your Ellen. You didn't, I suppose, for a moment consider that Ellen is not the sort of a marriage planned for him by his father." Mrs. Payne's wide-eyed, "Why shouldn't she be? Ellen's so sweet and pretty," collapsed the older lady's anger like a pricked balloon, as nothing else could have done. Ellen's picture of her is this: "Aunt Sarah flopped down, she didn't sit, and gathered her draperies around her like a wounded Roman matron." * * * * * Roger, at Mrs. Payne's words, again put his arm around Ellen and laughed aloud. He adored their unworldliness. The bad little boy in him vanished; so did the man of the world who cannot bear generosity in the beloved. He spoke truly enough when he said all the best things in him ran out ahead of him to meet Ellen. He said to Miss Sarah gently:-- "You see, we really care for each other, Aunt Sarah, and I'm awfully sorry about putting you in a false position, but that doesn't count very much compared to Ellen's and my happiness, does it? Please believe me when I tell you that your side of this never occurred to me and so I'll take myself away to-night." The moment of high-sounding periods was over. "Hadn't you better stay?" asked Miss Sarah. "Think of the talk, Roger." "I want talk," he said,--"all the talk in the world; I would like everybody to know how I care for Ellen--I welcome gossip." "The way he laughed"--wrote Ellen--"made one feel the way Spring looks; I was so proud, and wondered more than ever what I could have done to have any one like Roger love me." During the days when they had been at odds with life, they had taken pains to have me with them; it was the first time that they had shown themselves eager for my company together. I had been confidante first for Ellen and then for Roger, and then again for Ellen, but seldom had I seen them both at once. Now, after this explanation with Miss Grant, they unconsciously thrust me aside with no more regard for me than if I had been a withered flower. I was going to Ellen's to help with the sewing. I had left her a little lack-luster, a little wistful; Roger had been sulky and inclined to cynicism; and now they swept down on me like a splendid young god and goddess, no longer making any effort to keep the town in ignorance; they took it in in a magnificent gesture, the way they looked at each other; shouted it aloud, and, as though to carry out in very truth the words he had spoken to Miss Grant when he said he would like to shout through the town that he loved Ellen, he took her hand in his when he saw me and swung it to and fro; and in my day such an action as this was one which would cause the quiet windows to bristle with interrogatory eyes. You might be perfectly sure that there would be quiet slippings through back doors and gossiping under grape arbors. That evening I met Roger coming down the street and he stopped to tell me:-- "We've had it out with Aunt Sarah, and both Aunt Sarah and I have written to my mother. Now we'll soon have an end to this shilly-shallying." "And if your parents don't like it?" "God help them if they don't," he said. "Any parents I have will _have_ to like it." And there was so sinister a note in his voice that I shivered. Sometimes when he spoke there was a weight to a light word that seemed like a heavy wind. It was not long before the town had more to talk about. Mrs. Byington, in her beautiful and fashionable clothes, was as conspicuous as though she had come riding in a palanquin. The city and country were much more apart in those days, and home-made patterns taken from some remote city ones were passed from hand to hand; dolls dressed in Boston still carried the mode somewhat; and in our honest village, loveliness was put by with youth, and lovely was the quality of Mrs. Byington. At fifty she was tall and slender, her hair a little gray, her neck graceful like a girl's; she walked swayingly, and age was not a quality with which she seemed to have reckoned. With the changing years she had a quality as compelling as youth itself, and this without the slightest attempt at seeming less than her years. Ellen writes:-- "Roger's mother came to see me alone, and before her, so beautiful and soft, I felt as though I had been made yesterday. It happened that I opened the door for her, and I knew who she was and she knew me, for she said: 'Dear child, I know you are Ellen; I wanted to come by myself.' She looked at me with searching eyes that were a little sad, and all of a sudden I felt very sorry for her, for it must be very hard, when you have a son that you love, to learn all at once that his life belongs to some one else. We sat down and talked a little, and my heart beat so that I could hardly say anything, and I felt that I was very stupid, and that if Roger could be there he wouldn't like the way I was acting, and all of a sudden she put her arms around me and kissed me, and said: 'Dear Ellen, you are very lovely and very perfect, and, indeed, I knew you would be very "something" to send my wild Roger after you at such a rate. You love him very much, don't you?' I couldn't speak, and only bowed my head; and she said, as though talking to herself rather than to me, 'Poor child, it would be better for you if you loved him less; he would be more yours.' I asked her what she meant. She thought a moment, and then said: 'Perhaps you'll never find out; you're so sweet, Ellen; even Roger wouldn't hurt a child.' And for a moment I felt a little flaming anger at her for not understanding him better. I wanted to tell her that there was only sweetness in Roger for those who knew how to find it, but, of course, I didn't dare. There was something in her tone that made a cold shadow fall over me." It seemed as though all difficulties were cleared from before them, when Ellen found herself face to face with what really was the first important issue of this time. After all, the things in love that count are not all the obstacles imposed on us from without. It is strange to me why people have always written of these rather than of those far more important moments, as when, for instance, one first sees the beloved face to face as he really is. Love for a moment makes us transcend ourselves, and Roger was a brave lover, and Ellen had known nothing of him except Roger the lover, when suddenly she caught a new glimpse of Roger. She wrote:-- "I don't know what I'm going to do--nothing I suppose. I've seen Roger angry with his mother. It was our last afternoon all together and she was talking very seriously with us. She said: 'Your Ellen is very sweet, Roger. Keep her happiness, and if you play fast and loose again, you deserve all the unhappiness the world can bring you.' She has wanted me to see him as he is, and has talked around the edges of this, and she said to me, 'I came here wondering who you were, Ellen, and ever since I saw you I've been wondering what Roger will do to you in this new life of yours begun so sweetly.' One time she cried out, 'Oh! why do women have to marry men?' And then she laughed at herself for saying it. Ever since she came Roger has been watching her. He's had a critical attitude and is ready to find fault at a moment's notice. It was as if the impatience of the whole week overflowed. What he said wasn't so much. Oh! he kept within bounds before me, but the restrained anger of his manner was as though he had struck her, as though he had hurt her, as though the force of his anger would throw her from the room. She held up her head a little proudly, but she only said, as though to bring him to himself, 'Roger, Roger!' warning him, one would think, not to lose further control of himself. She spoke as if she were used to this wounding, terrible manner, a manner that gets its own way in spite of everything; and I stood there trembling inside, and I began thinking, 'Who are you, Roger, and who am I?' Now it is all at once as if I had an answer to why she seemed to pity me, as though she wanted to protect me from everything. All my instinct is to run and hide in some place where I shall hide from him forever. I know nothing of him or he of me." CHAPTER XVIII There comes a moment in the life of almost every one when, bewildered, for the first time they meet an everyday and faulty person in place of the beloved. Sometimes this is the beginning of a long disillusion; it is then that many find out that one has not been in love at all, but only in love with being in love. With young lovers one often calls this first glimpse the first quarrel. After marriage this slow torment of becoming accustomed to another personality in the body of the beloved is called the "time of adjustment." With Ellen this moment was a severe spiritual crisis. As she had seen concentrated in the last weeks only the lovable things in Roger, so in this one moment she had a vision of all in him that was inimical to happiness and peace. It was as if that blind, voiceless judge that sits deep within all of us and bids us love, hate, or fear, had been aroused to its depth, and its final judgment of Roger had been that here was danger. Had there been any place to run to, she would have fled, but there was nothing to do but sit still. She dreamed at night that she saw his face savage in anger, heartless in its desire, and relentless in its will to get what it wanted from life; and since she could not leave home to run away from him, she ran from him spiritually. When he came to see her next, he could hardly find Ellen in the inert and docile person who presented herself to his gaze. It was as though the glance he had given his mother and the tone in which he had spoken had been to her a prophecy of life to come. She saw him with that terrible clairvoyance that love gives; she saw clearly what her life in the hands of this other Roger would mean; and it seemed as if the very inner spirit of her struggled to free herself from his power. I, personally, fear the shocks of the spirit as some fear physical pain, and instinctively I withdrew from the perversities of men, and I now look shudderingly back on two marriages which I might have made but for this warning bell which rang over the reefs of the spirit. Her first movement had been one of flaming indignation; that burned out, leaving behind it the ashes of a dull, apathetic fear. When he asked her what was the matter and why, she told him she was afraid of him. He called himself a brute, he apologized to his mother, but she remained inert and docile, as aloof as a person who has been stunned by the spectacle of a great disaster, and, indeed, the flood of her emotions had ebbed back violently. In despair Roger came to me. "I've lost Ellen," he told me. "We've awfully bad tempers in our family, and my mother didn't understand that since I've known Ellen there are a whole lot of things in my life that I want to forget. The me Ellen knows is a different me from the one mother knows." He had never been as sweet to Ellen as he was now. She had seen before a brave lover who rushed everything before him and when he was refused anything would turn into a naughty little boy. Now he was a tender suppliant asking for mercy, confessing his sins and inventing sweet and touching things to do for Ellen. I think the men of my day were crueler as men and warmer as lovers. A man like Roger possessed himself more of a woman's mind and life than the men of to-day that I see around me seem able to do with their sweethearts. There was no little corner of her spirit that he did not wish to occupy, and to gain admission to her frightened little heart he made himself small and humble and appealing. Of the sincerity of his wretchedness and his repentance there was no doubt. "If she were only angry with me," he said to me, "but she's afraid, Roberta. It's a terrible thing to see her shrink from me. She doesn't mean to be unkind. She told me in all seriousness, as if she meant it, that she thought it would be better for all of us if I left her now. Why, she's my life, Roberta!" I was profoundly touched, as who would not have been? Nor did I fail to repeat this to Ellen. I had told Alec what the matter was, for seeing Ellen listless and remote he had jumped to the conclusion that Roger had hurt her in some way, and in Roger's defense I told him the truth and he put himself stolidly on the side of Ellen's instinct. Through one long day she and Alec went off together as they had when they were children, while Roger raged up and down. Ellen wrote:-- "We played, as we did when I was little, 'Two Years Ago,' and for one, beautiful afternoon I forgot how life can hurt. Just toward the end Alec cried out to me, 'Oh, Ellen, why can't I be older! Why couldn't it have been I? I'd never have hurt you, I'd never have made you afraid of me.' And I know that's true, and I know, too, that poor Alec could never find a key to the place in me that could be hurt. There's something wrong with women, for when once one has felt one's pulse beat fast, one can never again be content with a sweet and kind affection. One must wish forevermore to drown one's self forever and to let the waters of life sweep over one's head, however bitter they may be." Already, though she didn't know it, she was coming back to Roger. Every day he went to see her with some carefully thought-out little gift. Every night he wrote her a letter which he sent by me, and she wrote in answer a letter that she didn't send. "I suppose [she writes to Roger] that we can only be cured of the worst hurts of all by those who have hurt us. Oh, please hide me from yourself! Oh, protect me! from this Roger, since I am so afraid of you that my whole spirit shudders away from you. Shield me from this, or let me go now while I yet have strength to leave you, or else make me forget forever how black life could be if I ever saw again the face that you turned then on your mother, and that yet was a part of you." There is nothing truer in the life of the affections than this, that the wound made by those whom we love can only be cured by them. One may be sick even to death, and yet the only cure can come from the one who has poisoned life for us. There is only one other way to cure the hurt, and that is to stop loving. That's why a great many things become easier to bear as the years go by. We find men and women philosophically facing situations which formerly would have stopped all life for them. These are the dead of heart who have forgotten to care when they do this, and where one woman gains peace from a higher understanding of the man she loves, a dozen others find it by ceasing to love at all. Ellen made her attempt at escape, and then came back because she couldn't help it. The one person in the world who could have helped her was Alec. She was sincere when she told me:-- "If Alec was my brother, and had a home for me somewhere where I need not see Roger again, I'd go to him." It was her very docility and lack of resistance that maddened Roger. He told me:-- "Somehow Ellen has slipped out of my hands into a magic circle; she's afraid of me. It's as though she lived inside a crystal shell--I can see her and speak to her, but I can't touch her." I, myself, was very much disturbed and moved by it all. There was Ellen who had burned in a fire of happiness, whose very look at Roger had been a caress, who seemed to give herself to him by the way she stood,--her arms relaxed as though all her body cried out to him to take her,--now lost in apathy; nothing that I told her affected her as far as I could see. After days of this, just as I was giving up hope, I met them one afternoon, swinging down the street toward me, with the air of a god and goddess recently let out of prison. Roger had Prudentia flung on his shoulder, and carried the child aloft as though she were a flag of triumph. All the explanation I ever had of the reconciliation was what I had then and there. "He came down the street," Ellen told me, "with Prudentia on his shoulder, and said, 'Hello, Ellen,' and I said, 'Hello, Roger,' and he put out his hand to me and I took it. Why, Roberta, aren't you glad?" asked Ellen. "She wanted more pomp and circumstance," Roger jeered at me. "She wanted you, Ellen, to rush to my arms and say, 'Roderigo, I forgive thee.'" They went on; I heard their laughter down the street. That was all the thanks they gave me. CHAPTER XIX Ellen wiped the memory of their misunderstanding completely from her mind. If she had cared for Roger before, now she burned her bridges behind her; she swamped herself in her devotion to him. He stayed in our town until late fall, and during these months he seemed to want no other thing than the companionship of Ellen. The hours that he spent in work every day were their tragedy. In her journal Ellen prattled of a time "when they should be married and she could be with him even when he was working." "The world is full now," she complained, "of closed doors and good-nights and good-byes." All the diverse and many-sided problems of marriage resolved themselves, in her simple mind, into one single meaning, and that was the continual presence of Roger. She passed the hours away from him drowned in the thought of him. Though at that time she wrote very little in her journal,--she was happy,--she did write a series of little, good-night letters that were like so many kisses, fond and extravagant, the happy babblings of a perfectly happy heart. Meantime Roger was studying. It was the first time he had applied himself to work and found the power of his mind. In the quiet of this town he got into a tremendous stride of work and ate up books before him as fire licks up brushwood. They spent a great deal of their time together, planning his future and talking how great a man he was going to be. He had a gift of natural eloquence and loved an audience at any time. In that New England fall, when the crisp air is like wine and the hills are a miracle of color, Roger brooded over the picture of his own future, sketching outlines which he afterwards filled out. By letter he made friends again with his father. Their engagement had been announced and Ellen was given the consideration which a good marriage brings one in a little village, a consideration which she didn't even notice. Mildred Dilloway, in the mean time, had been--in the homely New England phrase--"keeping company" with Edward Graham, and no one was surprised when it became known that they were to be married. Ellen writes in connection with this:-- "When I think of what a little fool I was at that time, I could beat my head against the door. If I could have but looked ahead a little, I would have had a little more sense. I needn't have listened at all to Edward's blitherings and been saved two years of discomfort. Edward himself told me about it. 'Do not think, Ellen,' he said, 'that I'm unfaithful to the thought of you.' 'You couldn't be,' said I. 'You'll always be poetry to me, remember that,' he told me. 'I shall try to forget it,' said I. I have never before wished to throw something at any one as I did then. It was easy to see that he was a little disappointed in himself that he could care for any one else after having made so great a fuss and mourned around so. I wish he would go away, because I hate to be forever reminded of the me that used to be. What if one should turn back into the person that one was once? I wonder who the person is that I'm going to be. It will be a happy person or else I shan't be alive; because if I have Roger I shall be happy, and if anything happens to him it will happen to me, too." At that moment in her life she could not imagine any other separation from him than that caused by some disaster. She hadn't even faced the necessity of his leaving her when winter came. She knew he was going away, but she didn't realize it. They drifted along, making more of a drama all the time of the inevitable good-nights and the inevitable separations. As Ellen wrote: "People who are in love should be endowed; there isn't time for anything else." During this little perfect time life held its breath until Roger went away. The end came quite suddenly, with a peremptory letter from his father, who had a chance for him to enter a very well-known law office, under advantageous circumstances. While the shadow of separation was over them, it was like a cloud that passes near by and only bade the sunshine in which they stood more bright. She knew Roger was going, but she didn't really believe it. She wrote:-- "I lived through months of learning to realize he was gone between the time he left and dinner. Mr. Sylvester was there, and for a time I had to put aside the selfishness of my own grief and I was glad to forget it in talking of one little thing after another, the way one does to stifle down the pain of the heart. I wanted to run after Roger and look at his face once more. I wanted to run after him and foolishly throw myself in front of the horse and say, 'You can't go.' The part of me that talks was gay, because deeper than anything else was the wish in me to speed him joyfully and to have his last memory of me a gay and triumphant one. Time is a strange thing; all day it's walked along like a funeral procession, and before this it has been going so fast that there has hardly been a chance to get a word in edgewise between the striking of the hours; and since Roger went it's taken an eternity for it to strike the next quarter. I've tried to comfort myself by going up to Oscar's Leap, but my heart was so heavy that I could hardly walk all of the beautiful, weary way. I don't like myself for writing like this, for I have him and he really loves me. The more I see people and listen to the things they say, the more I am sure that very few people really love any one, and those who do love are seldom loved in return. It must be a terrible thing to love and feel one's self unloved. Now I'm going to get ready for my mother's wedding and then get ready for mine, and while my mind tells me I must be good, my heart cries out, 'Oh! Why can't I trade off the useless weeks at the other end of my life for the weeks that would mean so much now!' As he went away from me, I felt as though I were never going to see him again, and, indeed, this Roger and this Ellen will never see each other again. It seems to me that before he comes again I shall be made old by waiting, the days crawl past so slow and leaden-footed. I've said good-bye to this most beautiful time when I've said good-bye to Roger." At first he wrote her very often, but briefly. She wrote to him, in the intimacy of the letters she did not intend to send:-- "Your dear letters mean, 'I love you, Ellen; I think of you; my heart goes out to you.' Once in a while they say, 'I thirst for you,' but they tell me nothing of all the many things that I hunger so to know. I'd like to be able to see your life and know what time you wake up, what time you go to your office, and how your office looks, and which way it is set toward the sun so I could imagine you moving around, and you don't even answer my little, discreet questions. I would like to know the faces of all the people you meet often and how you amuse yourself. I wonder have you lost Ellen in your big and fearsome city. Roger, I have times when I'm _afraid_, and I don't know of what--just fear, as though the inner heart of me rang, 'Something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong,' where my mind has nothing to go on. Roger, I _wait_ for each one of your letters as if I was afraid it wouldn't come, and as if it were to be the last. I'm afraid. I don't trust life as I did, and when I don't trust life, I can't find you; when I trust life, it's as if when I shut my eyes I can put out my hand and touch you. But lately it is as though I wander around in the dark looking for you. I tell myself it's foolish, but my heart won't listen to the voice of reason. It is as though my confidence had been taken away from me, as though it had been a gift no one could touch with hands. My mother's wedding doesn't mean to me any more her happiness, but the day that you shall come back to me and give me back my confidence in life, and when I look on you again I shall know that everything is well in the world. I know that nothing has happened and that nothing can happen, but my heart knows differently." CHAPTER XX During the winter Alec came home from college every Saturday, walking over the mountain each Saturday afternoon for fifteen miles, and going back Monday morning by a stage that started at some unearthly hour, and carried passengers over to the nearest town to us through which a railroad ran in those days. Various boys of those he had around him would straggle down the road to meet him, so when he came into the town on cold winter nights it was with an escort of red-nosed, red-tippeted and booted youngsters. This was before any of the new forms of education for boys had even so much as stirred in their sleep, and the town agreed in considering Alec's friendship with the youngsters a waste of time on both sides: the parents of the boys saying that they had something better to do--in filling the wood-boxes for instance--than to tramp out and get their toes frozen off to meet Alec. Alec's friends, on the other hand, wondered what he wanted with a "parcel of young ones." It was only Ellen and myself who caught a glimpse of just what it was that Alec was accomplishing, when we also would walk out to meet him. Besides supplying them in his own person with a hero to worship, he drew them out and untangled their knotty minds for them; for the boy of ten and twelve was, in my girlhood, even more misunderstood and kicked about and generally at odds with life than he is now. Nothing was done to make his school days happier or the path of learning easier. Teachers, almost without exception, were the boys' natural enemies. Almost all the communication boys had from older people in my day, besides religious instructions, were recommendations to get to work and to get to work quickly. These snowy walks in the crisp air to meet Alec were the punctuation points of our lives, and the long, pleasant Saturday evenings that we spent together, with perhaps some of the other young people dropping in, were our greatest pleasure. I am sure Ellen's house seemed to him the gayest place in the world, because we concentrated into those few hours on Saturday evening the gayety of the whole week, though Ellen did not have much time for "mulling," as her aunt called it. Getting ready for her mother's marriage meant not only the preparation of her clothes, but also the preparation of the whole Scudder house for its occupancy by Mr. Sylvester and Matilda, Flavilla, and Prudentia. Ellen's mood was not at all consistent with that of vague apprehension, and this warning note of her spirit she failed to listen to most of the time; as long as Roger's letters came regularly, she lived in a shimmering world of imagination, writing to him all the things she dared, and then writing to him again all the things she was too timid to tell him. All the outward details of her life were constant and pressing enough, and very homely, most of them; while within she lived in a shimmering world of her own, her lovely garden inclosed of the spirit, into which she let no unkind breath blow; and so her love for Roger blossomed throughout the long months of the winter. Then toward Easter came her mother's wedding, which meant to Ellen Roger's return. The Resurrection and Roger's return came all together in Ellen's mind. When his letter came that told her he couldn't leave his office at this moment, she could not at first believe it, any more than she could at first believe that he had gone away. Alec was there, and he asked me shortly:-- "Why couldn't Roger come?" "He's busy," I said. Alec gave me an odd look. "One can do what one wants to," said he. He was one of those over whom Love passes a maturing hand. At twenty he had lost the young-robin look of expression, just as he had lost early the puppy aspect that a boy has before he has gotten used to man-size hands and feet. "It's hard," he said, "to sit back and do nothing. It's hard when you love any one as I do Ellen not to be able to get for her any of the things in life that she wants the most." "What does she want," I asked, "that she hasn't?" "Well," Alec reflected, "I can come to see her every week and Roger can't." He might have said: "I can spend my life on her and give her every thought of my heart and stand between her and unhappiness as much as I can, and Roger can't." This was one of the few times that Ellen played make-believe to herself. I think she had to. It was only later that her straight mind said what Alec had said, "We can do what we want to." She hid her own disappointment from herself, and life was good to her in that it gave her a great deal to do. Although in those days wedding journeys were very rare, Mr. Sylvester had an old friend, a minister, near Washington, who came up to marry them and they were to exchange pulpits, and so directly after her disappointment Ellen was left alone with the three Sylvester children. Matilda at this time was already eleven and she remarked gravely to Ellen,--"Ellen, we've all decided that you can be our mother. Of course we shall call your mother 'Mother,' too, and we shall love her like that, because we've made up our minds that it is our _duty_,"--Matilda was very particular about duty,--"but you'll be our real mother. I've done the best I can with the children,"--for thus did Matilda always refer to her little sisters,--"but our clothes are in a terrible state since Mrs. Gillig went away." For the Sylvesters' housekeeper had gone promptly after the announcement of her employer's engagement. She had departed to the next town, where her relatives lived, saying that she was not going to stay around and be any one's "kill-joy"; so with an occasional day's work from Mrs. Butler and help from Ellen and me, they had gotten on as best they could. "I got their poor, little things unpacked [said Ellen] and got them their supper and put them to bed and Flavia patted my cheek and said, 'Ellen, you're so happy, that's why we love you,' and Prudentia said, 'Yes, I love folks that laugh,' and it came over me that for a while, anyway, I really am their mother--poor me, who knows so little about doing anything. Before I went to bed Matilda put her arm around me and said, 'Oh! Ellen, I want to grow up and be capable and take care of father and mother and everybody, and I've been just as capable as I know how ever since Mrs. Gillig left. I've been so capable it makes my jaws ache, and I want to stop and be a little girl.' And pretty soon Aunt Sarah came in to see how badly I had done everything and to grumble good-naturedly over my endeavors, and then Grandma Hathaway dropped in to see if I needed anything, and they went off together and left Alec and me alone, and the children in bed. And Alec never once looked at me as though he cared for me; he was only funny and told me stories, just as if he knew I couldn't have borne affection from any one but Roger." So it was that Ellen hid from herself and from the pain that was in her heart. This was one of the few times she played make-believe with herself. She was afraid of her own doubt and afraid of her own thoughts, really afraid for the first time; for this is another of the painful milestones which most of us have to pass in the long and bleeding road of love--the first time that we are afraid to face our fears. Ellen and her mother had been buying cloth for Ellen's trousseau, and she had put it all by for her mother to begin on when her mother should be married. I was to help her, and so, of course, was Aunt Sarah. In our days, girls mostly made their own trousseaux, and the richer among us had some seamstress engaged for a couple of months or six weeks, but friends helped one another, and one was supposed to go to one's husband with linen enough to last a long time in life, and with good, substantial garments, suitable for various occasions in a gentlewoman's life. Ellen had a poplin and a cashmere among other things, and when I came a day or two after her mother's wedding to encourage her to begin on her own things, I found her on her hands and knees cutting. "Why, Ellen Payne! What's that you're doing?" For instead of cutting out one beautiful cashmere garment she was cutting three little frocks. "Oh, Miss Grant!" I exclaimed, scandalized, to Miss Sarah, "Ellen's cutting up her blue cashmere from her trousseau for the children." Miss Grant adjusted her glasses and peered down at the patterns on the floor. "Well, there," said she, "you have Ellen. We'll have Ellen Payne's trousseau walking all over town on three pairs of legs, and rather than patch up their old things, she begins her new life by taking the very trousseau off her own back! Some would think you were self-sacrificing, Ellen, but I know you." Poor Ellen always remained the same, taking more pleasure in doing any one's work than her own, and as she told me, "the soul of her sickened in patching up the clothes of those poor children any more," and, besides, said she: "Everybody else has new clothes, and there's no one on earth quite so proud as a little girl with a new frock." "But your own trousseau, Ellen," I objected scandalized, because I had a proper sentiment for those things. Ellen was romantic, but seldom sentimental at all. "Cloth's cloth," she replied briskly, "and goodness knows when I'm to be married and shall need it, and there's one sure thing, they need new best dresses right straight away." They needed new best dresses and they needed new almost everything else, as Matilda had warned Ellen. So here was Ellen with her hands full. In the day before the sewing-machine, when every stitch had to be put in by hand and there were no such things as ready-made garments, making clothes for a family was no light undertaking. No wonder, then, that we made our dresses of good stuff, intended to wear; and Ellen had not only to provide for the little Sylvesters garments, but for her own trousseau as well. The young ladies nowadays, who make themselves a few things and order and buy ready-made everything else, do not realize what an undertaking the preparations for a wedding used to be. It sometimes seems to me that there was as much difference in our serious preparation of our clothes and the way that girls prepare now, as there is in the way that we prepared ourselves spiritually. Ellen wrote:-- "The clothes that I am making mean my life, Roger. They are not dresses to me any more. There is one dress I know I shall never be able to put on without feeling my heart beat away the minutes slowly while I waited and waited and waited for your letter. There are some buttonholes made while it seemed as if my heart sang like birds. What do you think I am building with the things I dream of constantly, as I sit with the thought of you and sew on the clothes that I shall wear when we are at last together for always, for thinking is the way that one builds up or tears down the things of the spirit? I think I build rather solidly, and before I can be torn out of this house of my thoughts of you, I shall have to be pulled out in little pieces no bigger than your hand." She wrote this after she had seen him, for he came for a two days' breathless visit, just as spring was breaking. He came back the bad, little boy, ready to sulk if he was scolded for not coming sooner. This time Ellen had only sweetness for him, no tears; she was so heart-brokenly glad to see him, but she wrote:-- "Where have you gone, Roger, and what's become of that lovely, shining love that we had? The horizon has shrunken for us in a curious way. Where it used to be wider than that of all the world, and the heavens flung full of stars and a splendid wind ramping over everything, our love lives now in a little world full of small hopes and fears, a dwarfed place. I suppose all this means that I wanted to ask you when you were here, 'What's the matter, Roger? What has happened to your love for me?' And I didn't dare to because I knew that you would say, 'Nothing.' I know you would look at me as one who says, 'Am I not here with you now? Don't be a tiresome woman.' When I said to you--and I said it half smiling--'It's a terrible thing how a man can eat up a woman's life as you do mine, so I am all yours,' you turned away as though you didn't hear me. You made acknowledgment of a word that was only half kind. I write this to you which I would never say to you because if said to you it would be a reproach. I write to you since I have need of my soul talking to yours, and with no reproach in my mind, but to try and understand what it is that has happened. Before, had I shown you my heart that way, you would have caught me to you. Must I be careful not to give you too much of myself, Roger; must I pour myself out to you in small sips,--you who wished to drink of me, as though your thirst for me would never become quenched? It seemed to me that there were as many things to keep silent about while you were here as before we had things to talk about. We were always running into ghosts of the way we used to care, and yet you were so dear to me and sweet to me." Lovers forever have watched the affections ebb out bit by bit, and have been as powerless to stop the ebbing as the tides of the sea. This causeless change, this heart-breaking wintertime of the affections, is one of the hardest things of all to bear. When people quarrel they can "make up" again, but this slow alteration from life to death comes as relentlessly as age and seems as little in our power to change as age's coming. It has been the anguish of lovers from all time. All through the coming of spring and summer, Ellen had brooded over this change, wondering if it was her fault, measuring Roger's affection and cherishing every little phrase of love which he put in his letters, every desire to see her, and magnifying them, and stitching all the while her doubts and hopes--hopes a little frayed and tarnished--into her wedding-clothes. There was a time when he promised every week to come, and every week there came a letter instead of Roger. He played fast and loose with her as it suited him, now coming to see her a splendid young prince, now leaving her without word for weeks. It is an awful and bleeding thing when a woman realizes that the beloved has changed toward her and she doesn't know the reason, and it is still harder to have given more of one's self than has been wanted, and this Ellen did continually. Suffering herself, she wanted to spare Roger suffering. So she lived along in that hope deferred that maketh the heart sick. Then all word of Roger ceased for a time. She wrote to him as she had always and then she wrote him a letter that she never sent, releasing him. "Once, when I was a little girl, I thought I was engaged because I thought I was in love, and I spent two years of my life in thinking that my life was dear to this man. I lived in a torment of doubt of what to do rather than hurt him. I could not bear to have any one live this way for me, and least of all you who have been the heart of life to me, and so before this happens to you let us say good-bye to each other as splendidly and gayly as we first met each other. Love does not come at any one's bidding, nor will it stay, and I would blame no one in this world for ceasing to love, least of all the one whom I love. But I could not endure from you a cowardly drifting away from me, I could not bear to see you fear to face bravely a moment of pain, nor could I bear the dishonorable shiftiness with which some men loosen the bonds between themselves and the women whom they have loved." And under this page, which was written on good notepaper,--a true never-sent letter,--she had written: "_Oh! if I had the courage to send this now!_" Then came Roger, triumphant and upstanding, his first pleaded case in his pocket, a splendid young prince again, as prodigal with apologies as he was with love. The miracle happened; they turned back the hands of time for a few days. "He held me from him, the way he does, at arm's length, and said: 'Ellen, have you doubted me?' What could I say to him? When I had courage enough to say, 'What's been the matter, Roger? Where did you go so I couldn't find you?' he only laughed and said, 'I've been in the devil's own temper.'" This was the last time she fought against him. From this time on he loosed his careless hand and tightened the clutch of it over her heart until it bled, according to his mood. When she didn't write him for a while he rushed to her, to see that his own was his own, and this was as much as any woman ought to have asked, so he felt. She wrote:-- "There's one thing I've learned about you, Roger, when first I saw the other Roger, and that was if any one denied you anything, you loved to beg for it. As long as a thing denies itself to you, you must strive for it, and knowing this of you, it is a weapon that I can never use. If I played you as if you were a trout in the stream, played you until I reeled you in to me, tired and gasping, I might have held you in my hand always. Whatever I shall do for you in life, I shall never do anything that shows my love for you more, in that I won't traffic with your love, and keep it for myself by playing a game with you. I make you this present, a real gift, as my aunt once said, and one that you won't know about ever." So she wrote in the deep bitterness of her heart. * * * * * The wedding had been fixed for October and all the time there was one little song that sung itself to her: "When we're married, then I can show him how I really care; when I'm with him, nothing will be hard for me, for it is suspense that kills." For she trusted him as women must, in the face of disloyalty and carelessness. In the early fall, after a season of silence, when she was too sick at heart even to write, he came. He had a deprecatory air. He came as one asking the favor of something which he ought not to have, and it was characteristic of him, with his intolerance of the disagreeable, that he should break the edge of telling Ellen, so to speak, by telling me first. He had come to defer the wedding, and his reason for wishing to do so we found out later. I remember how he sat in my kitchen, his heavy, handsome profile silhouetted against the flaming, evening sky, his head swung forward. He lifted his face toward me with a sharp, impatient gesture, looked at me, and asked a question, to me inconceivable. "Do you think she is going to make an awful fuss?" CHAPTER XXI Here my long-cherished resentment toward Roger overflowed. No one could have been with Ellen as I had been without seeing the turmoil in which her spirit lived. She had grown thin and of a certain transparency as do those whose sufferings of the spirit affect their bodies profoundly. I knew there were long times when he didn't write; I knew how she waited for his letters; I knew how seldom he came. I felt, in my wisdom, that she bore from Roger things I would stand from no man. I had learned, step by step with Ellen, that Ellen's life and all her happiness were in careless hands and, in Alec's language, that there was no country of the heart there for her. I looked at Roger with level-eyed disgust. "Why, Roger," I asked him, "don't you break your engagement now, if that's what you mean to do?" To my point-blank question, he only stared at me. "I don't want to break it," he said. "Ellen's just exactly the kind of a woman I want for my wife," he added. "But in your good time," said I bitterly. He looked at me with his bold, laughing eyes: "There's a delight of life with Ellen that I can find with no one else. I know what she is, Roberta, a thousand times more than you. She's the only _alive_ person in the world, but since you put the words in my mouth, 'In my own good time!'" He had completely recovered his good-tempered arrogance. "I'd never stand from you what Ellen's stood, and I hope she says good-bye to you now," I cried. It is easy for those not in love to place the limit to love's endurance. It is fortunately not easy to keep these shallow promises to one's self. I am sorry that so much of what was most unlovely in Roger creeps into my story. At the time I had no patience with him, his undeniable charm and interest offended me as it kept Ellen bound to him. I wanted, as youth always does, people to be all bad or all good, and Roger would be neither of these things. I realize now that, faithful or unfaithful, he kept Ellen's life full of him, nor could she escape his compelling personality. There are many men we should not quarrel with,--men who can so absorb us, like him of the ultra-masculine type, who have everything but pity and understanding of what they themselves haven't felt. They are of all men the most attractive to women and they care the least about the individual. From now on she loved him always with a fear that he was waiting for her with a knife for her back. She wrote:-- "Oh, how much make-believe we have had! I've pretended that I thought it was nice for Roger to work, and he's pretended to me that he wanted to work, but he doesn't want me--that's the real reason. When I wake in the morning, I feel my heart crying within me in the deep heaviness of my spirit before I can remember what's happened, and then I remember that Roger doesn't want me. He doesn't want me and I can't imagine life going on without him. I've always thought to feel unbeloved would be the worst thing that could happen to me. I don't know myself in this beggared person. Life seems so empty for me, and I go shivering up to Alec to warm my cold spirit at the fire of his affection. I look back at the time when I waited for Roger to come back to me, just three little days, and the touch of his hand still warm in mine, and think how happy I was then." A little later she became more accustomed to the idea and wrote:-- "Roger, I'm ashamed of how I felt, and I'm glad of one thing, that you know nothing about it. Have you seen me as I am, and is that why you no longer care as you did? I've been a cowardly, shivering thing, afraid of your letters even, afraid of what would come next. How can a man love so cowardly a woman? Why should I count and measure love for love, instead of rejoicing with you in your work? It is I that know nothing about love, since I can whine and since I can compare and contrast yesterday with to-day, instead of being glad that you are alive and in the same world with me; and why should I care if, since you want to marry me, you have lost some of the first hot flame, a flame which burned us both? Are all women in life egotists that they can't bear that the eyes of the beloved don't rest on them every moment?" There was very little use in her trying to hearten herself with brave words, for women know when a part of the life of the man they love belongs to them and when it doesn't. Many of us live for years separated from the man we love, and know that his thoughts turn to us continually, that time and space are a terrible, practical joke played by destiny on mankind. There had been a moment in Ellen's life when, whether he were thinking of her or not, there was no place in his life where she might not go, and now the foundation of a real affection was lacking between them, and that foundation is sincerity. In whatever way she tried to go to him she came upon high walls and barriers of silence, places in his spirit marked "No thoroughfare." "I know nothing about you, Roger; [she writes] I only know that things are going on that are hostile to me and to our love. I suppose, that you do not tell me what it is shows you do not trust me and that I've grasped too much and asked too much. I fight forever with an unseen adversary. I don't even know if this adversary has a face or if it is a set of circumstances in your life, and I have nothing to fight with but my bleeding love for you, and what good is that to you unless you happen to want it? What thing is so worthless as an undesired love? Yet you made it, Roger, and you are responsible for it. It is like having a child and then finding it troublesome, letting it starve to death, to create a love like mine for you and then kill it. Women who love should never doubt. They should trust and trust in the face of dishonor and in the face of disaster, for distrust carries with it a bitter strength. A woman who trusts utterly is a woman who gives herself utterly, and then, when the blow descends from the blue, it also crushes her utterly, perhaps it may even kill her, but she has had that exalted peace even until the last moment. It's all the difference between having one's beloved brought home dead, who went out smiling, and having him die horribly inch by inch, before one's eyes. It is better to have love killed than to have it tortured to death, and I would rather have had you say, in the midst of our deepest hour together, 'Ellen, I'm going away and I shall never see you again,' than wait as I do for you to tell me it's finished." This was how Ellen's spirit lived, racked and torn between its grave fears and its momentary and joyful hopes, while the day was passed in a thousand details of a house humming with children. As Ellen said herself, "The outer side of her life was living in sunshine and the inner side in darkness and doubt." In town people said Ellen was working too hard over Mr. Sylvester's brood, for she seemed at that time so frail that through the transparent shell of her one could see her spirit burning. None of the family suspected that there was any misunderstanding between them, for Roger had a very kindly generosity. He was a man prodigal in the small acts of kindness, and was forever sending things for the children and for Mrs. Sylvester, whom he treated like an elder sister, teasing her and loving her. Miss Grant was the only one who had had occasional misgivings, and I learned from my grandmother that Roger's family were not satisfied with his "goings on," and that while he was being a success, his mother was worried over him, which made my grandmother remark:-- "I wish that young man had fallen from his horse and broken his neck before ever he set eyes on Ellen Payne. Old women like us forget that young creatures die of a broken heart now and again, and if they could only die! The best friend I ever had, Roberta, had all the youth and love killed in her and went on living like a dry, little automaton of a woman, and is living yet. Instead of the things she might have had,--children and a husband and a home,--she has just her own dried-up body, which is like a little birch tree struck by lightning; and the thing she thinks of most in life is the noise that the sparrows make in her elm trees." But I could not fear that a fate like that awaited my Ellen, for my memory of her then is a lovely frail thing, with a hand forever held out to Prudentia and Flavilla. Prudentia when crossed stopped, as was her custom, to pray. She prayed in season and out of season and for everything, and it was against her father's principles to stop her. "How stop a child communing with her Maker?" he would argue, to which Ellen would reply with spirit:-- "She's only communing with her own selfishness when she says: 'Oh! God, send the boys home so Ellen can tell me a story.'" For several of Alec's youngsters hung around the old Scudder place a great deal, and accompanied Ellen on her walks, as though Alec had left her, in those boys, a bit of his protecting spirit. CHAPTER XXII Various important things happened that winter. The first was a deep surprise to all of Alec's friends. He became engaged to his landlady's daughter in the town where he went to college. "How can you?" I asked him, "caring for Ellen?" "Well, you see," he explained, "it's all over, isn't it, forever? No matter what happens, Ellen is Roger's, and why should I hang around and bay the moon? Elizabeth knows all about Ellen." "I don't see how you can," I repeated. And then he said:-- "Roberta, it seems a wonderful thing to me that any one should care for me. How can I hurt a love that has been given to me? I care for her in a different way from Ellen and there is all truth between us." Then he laughed. "It's a funny thing; Roger loves no one, Ellen loves Roger, I love Ellen, and Elizabeth cares for me. By doing this I'm making the tangle less." That is all he would tell me at the time, but, being romantic then and still romantic, I have always thought that his chivalry and compassion had been skillfully played upon. With a touching belief in the generosity of woman that is possible only in extreme youth, Alec effected a meeting between Elizabeth and Ellen at which I was present. All three of us were painfully polite and well behaved. Our cordiality was touching as we played to our dear Alec as audience. "But," said Ellen to me afterwards, "isn't it dreadful! why couldn't he have chosen any one else! She's sweet, of course; but think, Roberta, of that doll-faced thing as Alec's wife." While Elizabeth is reported to have said that on beholding Ellen she could hardly keep herself from exclaiming aloud, "Why, is _that_ Ellen Payne!" It was in midwinter that Mrs. Byington asked Ellen to visit her. She had often asked Ellen before, but there had been various reasons; Roger always preferred to spend the time with Ellen in the country. It seemed to me that in the days of her preparation it was like seeing a person come back to life. She has written:-- "I've been so homesick for you, Roger, that I felt like those people who die of homesickness in a far-off country. I feel as though I had been put away in a place where there was no air to breathe, and now I am to be let out into the sunlight once more, since you want me to come to you." Roger came back with her, but during the week she was away there was no entry at all. The visit was a time of confusion and excitement. Mrs. Byington gave her three beautiful frocks, more beautiful than anything she had ever seen, and it seemed to Ellen that she had met the whole city of Boston, and that she had been drowned in compliments. They seemed to her to have only just learned of her engagement, and she felt the weight of their curious eyes upon her, and realized that they turned from compliments to gossip, and Mrs. Byington, in the mean time, scarcely concealed her relief at Ellen's presence and her pleasure at the impression Ellen had made. Miss Sarah told these things to my grandmother, having accompanied Ellen. Ellen made one friend, a girl younger than herself, a cousin of Roger's, who unconsciously played a part, since she put in Ellen's hands the answer to so many riddles, the uncertainties that so tortured her. "Now I know all the things that tortured me so," she wrote. "I felt that I was in Boston for some definite purpose that I didn't know about, and the reason Katherine showed me, as though she had flung out a careless hand and pulled back a curtain, and I felt as though I had listened at Roger's door. 'Aunt Lydia was glad enough to have you come,' said she. 'Of course, we in the family have known of Roger's engagement, even if he hasn't talked about it outside, but since his quarrel with Mary Leckie, he's been eager enough too.' And her little careless words gave me a picture of all the things I didn't know, but that I had felt, and as if to make it sure it seemed that Mrs. Byington apologized to me when she said: 'Roger is making great strides at his profession; it is a compensation for many things to know that the man one loves is a man of great attainment.' It is as though my heart had been dried up suddenly. I look back at the time when I could cry as a time of happiness. If he should love some one more than me, how could I blame him, but he has used me as a pawn in the game, to hurt some one he's been unkind to, perhaps some one who loved him, too. What attainment of his can wipe out this cruelty? I saw the little look of triumph on his face when he saw his friends approved of me. Now what hope have I or where can I turn in this world? I have just one good little word to cling to--he said to me wistfully, 'Oh! Ellen, why wouldn't you run away with me?' They say love is blind, but no man knows or excuses a man so little as the woman who loves him." She had not seen him alone when she wrote this, as Miss Grant accompanied them home. It was on Saturday afternoon, and they went walking on the road to meet Alec, that Ellen learned her own heart. Roger was in a dangerous mood, kind on the surface, but underneath a mood that said: "Take me or leave me; I am as I am." Perhaps he regretted burning his bridges behind him; perhaps he chafed at the restraint of the inevitable marriage. For once he was ready to draw the hidden things to the surface. Ellen wrote:-- "I know now who I am, and I know that I have no pride in the world and that there's no place where I stop in my love for Roger; no matter what he does to me, I cannot leave him; no matter what happens, I ask only to be with him. We started out across the mountain. It was slushy underfoot and the cold, damp air whining up from the river. All the world looked sullen, and a sad little moon peered through a hole in the clouds. I felt inside as sad and cold as the world seemed. Roger walked along, his head thrown forward, looking into the dusk the way he looked at his mother. At last he said: 'Did you have a good time in Boston, Ellen?' And I knew he was questioning me as to what I had seen, throwing the door open on everything; and I had gone out with him, meaning to tell him what I thought and stand and fall by that. I said to myself a hundred times to-day, 'There are better things in this world than happiness,' but at his menacing voice I could say nothing. I looked down into the abyss of my need of him and there was no bottom to it. I felt that at a word from me he would quarrel with me, perhaps fling me away from him, and I didn't dare say anything. After a long silence he said: 'You look dispirited, Ellen; you're never happy, are you, unless some one is telling you that you're the Rose of the World?' Tears burned behind my eyes, but I turned his challenge into a joke. In that moment I had seen what life would mean without him, and I saw it wouldn't be life, that I am his at his own price--no matter what I must do, no matter what I must suffer, if he gives me faith or unfaith. I thought I had pride, but I know now that I ask for nothing but to stay near him at his own terms. I know there is nothing I would not do to keep him by my side, that the only thing intolerable to me is that he should leave me. There's no little pride or self-respect left for me to wrap myself in any more. I walked beside him fighting back the tears, and it was like a deliverance to me when Alec came striding toward me, his head up, and his hair blowing in the wind, and I could blot out myself for a minute. When we got home, the three children were in the cold hall. Matilda and Flavilla were trying to make Prudentia come in, and Prudentia was praying, as she had been for half an hour, that I would come home. My little mother met me very shame-faced and said, 'Dearest, see what I've found,' and it was an enormous bag of holey stockings that she had put away to mend as a surprise for me, and had forgotten, and all the little details of life wrapped around me sweetly, but it's hard to have every one good to me but the one whom I love." Love has its base places and its hideous slaveries of the spirit, but yet there is a certain comfort in utter abandonment. Ellen was like a man who has feared bankruptcy and who breathes again when he has at last actually failed; she had nothing to lose any more in her own spirit. She might lose Roger, but no other thing, for she now asked for nothing for herself. She had reached the lowest grade where one's soul may live, when she knows there is nothing that one wouldn't suffer at the hands of the beloved. Pride comes first--a blessed relief--between most women and such pain; but many women know something of the shame akin to it when they sacrifice their sincerity and their sense of truth rather than run the risk of a frown from the man they love. The whole event had been one of unspeakable defeat and horror to Ellen; all that was fair and sweet in life to her turned black. There was no explaining away or excusing what Roger had done; she was too fair-minded to try. She saw the act in all its smallness, but it didn't affect her want of him. During the next dark months she had all the pain of one who has been utterly abandoned by her lover, and she suffered, too, from jealousy and was ashamed of her suffering. Because she had told herself the truth about herself always, she had not even the disillusion that she was playing a fine and noble part. She only knew that it was no virtue of hers, but just a necessity for her to continue to spend herself endlessly for Roger. Her body, too, suffered pitifully, and she seemed to me to do nothing but wait for the meager words that Roger sent her. Then happened in her heart that which I now know is the climax of the whole story. I knew nothing of it except that I knew that at a certain time Ellen grew happier. She stopped waiting and became again master of her own soul, and the light of her spirit shone high again. She told me nothing, for things like this one cannot tell to another person. How can we tell another person of the rebirth of one's own soul? "I don't know how to tell what has happened to me, [wrote Ellen,] but I know that I have come to the other side of suffering. I know it is as though I had been sitting at the bottom of a dark well, and suddenly, in the blackness of the sky above me, I saw a star and climbed out toward it. I know I shall lose this vision and go stumbling on, but sometimes it will come back to me; and I shall always have the memory of it and never again can I be in the muddy darkness in which my spirit has lived. I sat awake all night thinking of Roger in a flooding tenderness of love and understanding, and I realized that in all this time I've only just been learning the first painful paths on the road of love. Whatever one gives sorrowfully isn't love, nor does love fear; it asks only to understand more and more. As long as one has fear, one thinks of one's self; as long as one is sad, one thinks of one's self. Until one has learned not to say, 'Give, give,' one doesn't know the meaning of love. So many sins are committed in the name of love continually and I will commit no more. 'I love you' has been a reason even for killing the ones whom we love, but for this one night I have had a vision of something that transcends love of self. Let me give and let me understand. Love must be either an equal exchange between equals or else a complete giving by one person, so let my giving be complete." So it was that from a woman ashamed of her own abasement, Ellen walked forth with head up, meeting the difficulties that life put to her and turning them into sweetness. Roger felt this change in her. Lately all intercourse between them had been, on Ellen's side, a silent questioning, and on his side, silent anger at her questioning; and the whole situation scarcely less strained than had they talked to each other. After having gone through the painful Calvary of love, the pain of waiting and the pain of doubt, and of trust misplaced and of jealousy, she had come through to the other side of grief. Her high mood had made her see life so truly that an event which shocked the rest of us did not touch her, since she saw it in its true relation to Roger's life, even though it again put off her wedding, violently and cataclysmally. He came during the winter occasionally, looking rather haggard and gaunt and ill at ease with life, and he rested himself more and more on her breast as if trying further and further and with deeper confidence this unspeakable affection of hers. Miss Sarah brought the news to our house, and she was agitated as I never have seen her. "You may as well stay, Roberta," she said, "because, after all, it may be better that you shall tell Ellen. No," she contradicted herself, "no one shall carry my burdens for me." "What's happened to Roger?" my grandmother asked; and I sat silent and trembling, pictures of a dead Roger in my mind. "Roger's father has turned him off; he's been mixed up in some disgraceful gambling scrape. He's been very wild this winter, poor Lydia writes me,--poor heart-broken woman. He escaped actual arrest only through his father's influence." Little by little the whole series of events were made clear before my horrified young eyes. Country New England in those days was a place of rigid morals, nor were young girls taught to condone the frailties of men, and gambling at that time had a guilty and glittering sound. All our feelings, I think, were, how fortunate it should have occurred before Ellen's wedding. When Miss Sarah told her, she said:-- "I know, he's written me already," but she didn't add, "And I've written him to come to me." She wrote:-- "When I got his letter telling me what had happened and releasing me, it seemed to me as if all the smouldering love in me for him burst into flame, and now, in the moment when every one's turned on him, I am triumphantly and gladly his more than ever I've been. I feel as if I could stretch out my arms to him in the darkness and shield him from all harm and trouble. I feel as if I had been talking with him face to face, and that all this had burned away all those things that have been between us all this time. And he turned to me at this time with 'I suppose you, too, Ellen, will want no more of me, but I wish, Ellen, I could say good-bye to you myself instead of writing it--you've been so true, Ellen.'" So in the spring, two years after she first met Roger, Ellen went to Oscar's Leap to await his coming. She loved the gallant bearing of him, for he came no broken penitent. He was no coward before the challenge of life; he loved the difficult and had a lovely joy in such battles. "They kicked me out, Ellen," he told her, "and I've kicked them all out. Now it's me with my own two hands and my own two feet and you in the world. Why didn't you tell me to do this before?" He loved the feeling he had of foot-looseness. He needed just one person to hold a hand out to him in the general wreckage of life, and his own woman had done this for him. When he got her letter, it seemed to him as though he had fallen to the earth only to spring up strong again. This time Ellen's whole family was against her, even to Mr. Sylvester, whose gentle nature always distrusted Roger. He had feared him from the first, having that gift of judgment of character that gentle and simple people often have. Ellen writes:-- "We had a fine scene, like that in a novel, at our house. Mr. Sylvester forbade Roger the house, and I flung myself in Roger's arms and said that I would never leave him. Mother cried, and I could hear the children breathing at the keyhole and Prudentia praying in the hall. I suppose I should take it more seriously. I am sorry to be at odds with them, but what difference does it make to me, after all? I am glad just that Roger is back. If I could go with him now out into the world, I would put my hand in his and go, but the last thing he needs at this moment is a wife, and the first thing of all he needs is me. Now all my days of waiting have been paid for, now all my nights of doubt. If after this he should turn from me and love me no more, I should have had this and it would have paid for everything in my life. I can't take Mr. Sylvester's and my mother's attitude seriously, because I know, as if I could read the future, that Roger will go out in the world and come back and be forgiven. I am wrong to be almost glad that it has happened, but it has made it possible for me to show him my heart, my poor bleeding heart, that has been silent for so long." Roger found work in a neighboring village and they met at the house of Ellen's old friend, the peddler, or he took Ellen with him. During this time Roger flung from him again all of his life. He was one whom the confessional would have served well, for he could purge himself from all blame by telling everything and by passing to the innocent the burden of all his weaknesses. Now that life made some demand on him, the best of him shone out. There was, to be sure, the making of a fine family scandal when it was discovered that Ellen was meeting Roger, but Ellen refused to quarrel; she refused to defend herself or do anything but laugh; and when I, rather scandalized at the lightness with which she took this whole situation, pointed out that her aunt was sulking and that her mother and Mr. Sylvester were sad, she replied with levity: "They'll get over it." During the long winter of silence and of forging her spirit into this flaming thing it now was, she had learned that lesson which is so difficult for youth, and that is that all things pass and that to-morrow brings peace to the bruised heart. Her prophecy concerning Roger came to pass. After the weeks spent with her he went West, made friends with a friend of his father,--who had a lighter attitude toward Roger's frailties, having had no opportunity to be tired out by them,--did well in pleading some spectacular cases, and came back, not the prodigal son, but triumphantly and gladly; then after his year of self-denial he plunged deeply into all sorts of amusements. CHAPTER XXIII Ellen, during his absence, had kept closer and closer to her high mood. She knew that certain sorts of happiness were not for her with Roger, and that certain things he did and his moments of neglect and forgetfulness no longer wounded her to death. A month before her marriage she went to Boston again to buy her best things. Mrs. Sylvester had had a small legacy left her, and insisted that it must go to Ellen's trousseau. I accompanied Mrs. Sylvester and Ellen. Roger was frankly relieved in his mind to have Ellen in Boston and the day of his wedding at last in sight. "There was never a man," he told me, "looked forward to his wedding with greater eagerness. I'm through with philandering, Roberta. No one knows more than I what Ellen has stood for my sake." I knew he was referring to a mild flirtation gossip concerning him which had come to Ellen and to me. It seemed as if now nothing could come in their way and as if all was clear before them. Almost every detail was provided for when Ellen's prayer that she had prayed day by day and day by day--"Give me understanding and insight"--received its supreme answer. It was Roger's temperament, and Ellen understood this, to fill the vacant places in his life with small love-affairs. At first she had suffered a certain jealousy and afterwards humiliation, and then dismissed it all as negligible, never thinking of it, as was natural, from the other woman's point of view. This last vague affair had been with a young girl visiting from the South, who hadn't known Roger was engaged, as he supposed she had. I noticed in the different places where we went a little, frail figure with a pretty, strained face, with eyes continually and irritatingly on Roger. His mother had said of him, "He's not one who kisses and tells, but one who kisses and runs"; and he was avoiding her with his instinctive avoidance of the disagreeable. She was a foolish, suffering girl, like Ellen without pride, and even lacking the guard of Ellen's reserve, haunting what she had thought had been her love for the balm of a single word which, though she had lost him, would make his memory sweet to her. We were at a great party given by one of Roger's relatives, in Ellen's honor, two dazzled, little country Cinderellas, and for a moment had drawn ourselves apart to a recess of the big hall, and we saw Roger looking for us. The young girl hurrying across ran almost into his arms, and as they stood she cried out, in a little flowing voice, "Roger." His face went white with anger and set itself into the lines that since then have been known as "his sentencing face." He didn't speak, but looked at her with quiet, cruel, and scornful eyes. There was silence between them, and she tortured the long white gloves that she held in her nervous hands, looking so frail that a breath might have blown her away. "I've been trying to speak to you." "I think we said all that was necessary before," he told her with the same cold, white scorn. He had been stopped in his search for what he wanted, and here was being made a scene that he had tried to avoid. "I've been trying not to speak to you," he said very quietly, "because I had nothing to say to you that could please you." Then tormented out of herself, she cried out: "Roger, was there no reality of any friendship between us? Were you engaged all the time that I've known you?" "There's been nothing between us. What should there be? Just a moonshine of words," he answered her. "I've been engaged three years. Do you wish anything else?" She didn't answer, but went away, a lonely, little, fragile figure, shivering as though struck with a great cold. He had had no moment of compassion; his instinct had been to crush her with as little pity as he would an annoying fly. In his ruthlessness he took even the past from her, not even leaving her the shadow of her romance for comfort. Ellen and I had both seen her wilt before him and the light in her eyes go out, and I felt Ellen's hand shaking in mine as the girl had shivered, and she whispered in my ear:-- "There, but for the grace of God, goes Ellen Payne." Here was her prayer granted and understanding was given her. The final tragedy is not to be unloved, but to find out that one has loved nothing;--that within the shell of the body there is nothing to which we can give ourselves;--to have been cursed with the love of the shallow-hearted; and there is a deep torment, beyond the loss of death, which goes with the unknitting of two souls knit close together, strand by strand. Ellen could stand any cruelty that he gave to her and condone it, but she shivered back from this relentlessness that she had seen in Roger. As he came to her she said to him:-- "I heard you, Roger." His face was still set in anger. "I gave her no cause," he exclaimed angrily, "nothing but a little moonshine talk. When we're married I shan't be subjected to things like that." "We're not going to be married," said Ellen. CHAPTER XXIV During all my life long I have occasionally had, in times of stress, a recurrence of the spiritual nausea which I felt that night. When we drove home in the closed carriage Mrs. Sylvester was prattling like a girl about the beautiful party. Indeed, she had enjoyed the outward circumstance of things almost more than Ellen and myself, and Roger, making light talk with her, sat next to Ellen,--light talk that had its undercurrent of meaning that Ellen and I understood. The cab lurched noisily over the cobblestones, with which all Boston was paved in those days, so that Roger and Mrs. Sylvester had to raise their voices above the din. It was raining, and the yellow flare of the street-corner lamps was reflected in pools of eddying light from the damp pavements. It seemed to me that we went on and on forever in this torment of noise and talk, and the smell of the wet spring night conflicted with the smell of the stuffy upholstery, and I suffered as though I was witnessing the physical pain of a tortured child. It seemed to me that the torment of the ceaseless, agonizing prattle of Ellen's little mother, accompanied by the drunken lurch of the lumbering cab, would never stop, for all the time I knew that Ellen's heart was breaking, and that the only thing that life could give her at that moment was darkness and rest. I knew this was the end as far as she and Roger were concerned. We had our room together, and I felt like a stranger in a house of mourning. I knew that there was no comfort that I could give her at all. She hadn't even tears with which to refresh herself, and all she said to me was: "Roberta, I've been stripped bare of leaves to-night." This was a true enough picture of her. She had been a blooming flower, and now it was as if the frost of some inexorable and unseen winter had touched her and she was bare of leaves and blossoms. I suppose I was the only one among all those who loved her who did not urge Ellen to reflect on her decision. There was so little to tell when it came to it. Ellen's reason was so little one of the usual causes for which an engagement may be dissolved, with the approval of a girl's elders. Here was Ellen who had stood by Roger gayly, without even, apparently, a proper understanding of his dissipation; who had endured from him neglect, who had learned to school herself so that she was able to ignore his temperamental interests in other women; she, who had been without any end in her affections, gave the appearance to the outside world of having suddenly, for no reason, come to an end of her love. In our town there was scant belief that Ellen had jilted Roger. Why do such a thing? "Aren't they all as poor as church mice, and isn't Roger as likely a young man as one would wish to see?" They clamored around me inquisitively. There is no time when the human race shows itself in such beauty and in such heartless sordidness as in the time of grief. Then it is that the world we know turns strange faces upon us, and mean, low-lived men will show the gentle chivalry that one would expect only of angels, and delicate women, of chaste and gracious lives, will develop, before one's eyes, hideous and ghoulish curiosity. Any one who has been through the death of those whom they love knows this, and still more it is true in the other disasters of life, where there is no ceremonial of grief. Death has dignity. Its august finality stops many a wagging tongue and many an unkind word. But oh, the other griefs of the spirit! One is shielded by no mourning; there is no protecting tradition to fold its arms about one; and one's poor, shivering soul is left naked on the highway, afraid of the heartless curiosity of prying eyes. The curious world has no mercy for a girl jilted by her lover. There is no sanctity to all this suffering, no privacy allowable, not a day's respite from the inquisitive natures and prattling tongues. One must count one's self very fortunate if one is allowed to care for the most bleeding of one's wounds with a certain degree of decent privacy. And in our little town privacy was what was impossible for Ellen. I was for a while the center of the storm, for, to Roger, Ellen had been inexplicable; he had not been able to believe what had happened and came storming down after us. "I can't see him," Ellen told me. "There's no place anywhere in him to explain anything. You'll see when you try and talk to him." I begged her, out of kindness, to see him once because he was terribly torn by what had happened. He told me that the sure foundations of life had rocked under his feet, and when I repeated this to Ellen, she shook her head. "It's not that,--he can't bear that what's been so his creature should defy him. He's never had life say no to him before." She said this without bitterness, and more as an older woman might of a boy she has brought up. "Why won't you see him," I pleaded with her, "just for one moment?" "I don't dare to," she told me. "Every habit I have says yes to him; every strand of my body cries out to him; it's as if he had never been and I had died; and yet our bodies go on living and caring for each other. He doesn't need me any more than he needs any one else. He needs no person, Roberta. Love and encouragement and companionship: the world is full of it for him. Yet I need him and shall need him always, to the end of my days." Often it is that in the disintegration of a deep and long-lived affection, it is the instinct of the body to shiver away first, before the mind knows what has happened, but it is more dangerous when, in the full splendor of love, the blow has fallen and instinct still clamors for the beloved's companionship. But she wasn't to be spared seeing him. They met by chance upon the street. I was with Ellen, and he began at once babbling forth the excuses he had said over and over to me. Because Ellen said there was no place in him to tell him what it was all about, he persisted in thinking that she had been outraged by his trifling again, with their affection, at the eleventh hour. At last he went away, but he had the satisfaction of feeling that he had played the noble part. In the light of Ellen's actions, what he considered his own small unfaiths, appeared as nothing. "Now you are gone [she wrote] I would call you back if I could, and I have to remember and say to myself that there is no one to call back. There is nothing in you that would hear the things that I wish to say to you, and yet you go on living and yet I must love you; and yet, forever and ever in the night, my heart goes out to you; and yet, when I walk along, I feel the touch of your hand, as though it were placed in mine. But the you that meant life to me never was, or died, perhaps, with your boyhood. He was there a little while and smiled at me, and all the time the real you was growing large and strong and killing that other whom I loved. But I have bound my life up in you, so what can I do, and where will I find comfort? I can have scarcely the comfort of a memory, for I have loved only a ghost in you. I envy those sad and haggard girls who have been deserted by their lovers. I envy wives who have been left with little children to care for, for they, at least, have had reality; they have been able to give all of themselves, and what they have known has been real. I wonder if I shall always have to bleed for you, drop by drop, and that while I bleed, my strength also goes? Everything talks to me of you. My hand stretches out for a pen and I must write to you, though you aren't, and yet you are dearer to me than all the world besides. Where did the sweet soul of you go that I loved so well, and how can I live in a world where such things happen? I go out upon the street and hear people walking past and children playing and think with surprise, 'Why, there are happy people in the world!'" CHAPTER XXV If the world has little pity for a jilted girl, how shall it have much understanding for any one who suffers after having voluntarily sent her lover away, especially when it was her obvious duty to her family to marry? So her world was not very kind to Ellen at a moment when she most needed their kindness. We do not often understand the sicknesses of the spirit; now we mete out to them the criminal indulgence that a foolish woman does to a wayward child, and now we treat them with bruising harshness. During the summer matters were not so bad, because every one rather expected that Ellen would come to herself. My grandmother used to question me seriously if I were encouraging Ellen. Even Mr. and Mrs. Sylvester, most unworldly people,--more unworldly, I think, than any one I have ever known,--had seen the children "enjoying advantages" through Ellen, for Ellen and Roger had planned a thousand things. Matilda had wept openly when Ellen had returned, and said:-- "Oh, Ellen, Ellen! Now that you're not going to be married, I suppose I shall never visit you and study music in Boston, and, Ellen, I had so make-believed it in my heart." During the summer there was little written in her journal except letters to Roger, which stopped abruptly with her determination to get over the aching want which she had for him. With the coming of winter there settled down over Ellen a limitless depression. She was very gentle, but she seemed lost in a mist of sadness. I cannot describe to what extent her spirit was dimmed. It seemed as though a strange, withering age had crept over her before her time. People noticed it, and word went abroad that Ellen Payne was "in a decline," which was a word for almost everything that ailed one in those days, short of a broken leg. I remember her walking around at that time with poses of a very tired child, for all the hollow under her eyes and the troubled lines in her forehead. She would let her arms swing before her like a little girl that had outgrown her strength, and throw herself down into chairs as though she had held herself on her feet to the utmost limits of her endurance. I ventured to ask her at last: "What's the matter, Ellen?" For we had avoided, by common consent, talking of anything that might be wounding, and had put the past out of sight. She looked at me with eyes that had the hurt look of a little girl. "I'll tell you what's the matter," she told me in answer. "I know well enough what's the matter. There's no meaning to life any more at all. The world goes on over there"--she waved her hand ever so slightly--"and I'm here on the outside, and what they do doesn't mean anything at all, Roberta. If life goes on like this, maybe I'll be lucky enough to die, and the worst of it is that the hope of dying is keeping me alive. I am afraid, Roberta, that when one has anything to live for, even if it's dying, that one keeps on living. What it really means," she added, "is that I've lost God, for I can't pray any more." Since then I've known a great many women in mortal pain, and I truly believe that it is the nearness of death that keeps many a suffering soul alive. They are forever heartening themselves by looking through the black, mysterious door, where there is an end to pain and where one need not stay famished any more at life's feast. Death walks consolingly so close; death is so easy and calls compassionately to these forsaken ones, saying, "Out here is rest--so near; if it gets much worse, you can come to me." Wherever one looks there is the consoling possibility of death, and since death is so near and so easy, people, who have forgotten for a while the reason for living, go on just the same. For who, in the winter of the spirit, can again believe in spring? At this time even the children seemed to turn away from Ellen and give her nothing. She had always meant laughter and gayety and the heightening of the lives of all of us around her, and Alec and I were the only two who remained faithful to her in this moment of desolation, because the others did not see Ellen in this docile, lifeless soul, who went around still called by the name of Ellen Payne; and this withdrawal of human sympathy was as unconscious as it was wounding. My sweet old grandmother, who had loved Ellen so, combined with old Mrs. Butler, whose hair Ellen had done for years,--since Alec had grown up,--would nod their heads together and say that Ellen Payne ought to stop those mopish ways and use more backbone. That winter Ellen's mother was ailing and coughed badly also, and for the first time in her life was a little querulous and complaining. I ignored as much as I could Ellen's ill feelings, as she wished me to do, but I remember this tragic winter well. There were a very few entries in her journal, but not in this or in any other crisis of her life had she failed to clarify her mind by the written word. I find this:-- "I try as hard as I can to attach myself to the duties that crowd around me. Sometimes it just seems to me that I am going to succeed in being interested and then I am not. I think it must be like this in those strange northern countries, where the glow of dawn comes on the horizon, and, starved for light, one says, 'Here is the dawn'; and even as one speaks the light pales and the dreadful twilight thickens around one." Towards spring--one of those soppy, wet springs, when it seems as though the green would never come--I could stand the silence no longer, and some word or look of hers that betrayed to me the desolate abasement of her spirit made me cry out:-- "Ellen, isn't there anything on earth that you want?" "I think I would like to see Alec," she answered. It seemed to me a foolish wish, for Alec was in his first school and far away, and his visits to us had been spasmodic and brief, and shared, of course, with Elizabeth Greenough, though during the summer he had been home and spent a good deal of time with Ellen, and she had accepted his kindness as she always had, very much as the air one breathes, or as she accepted my friendship--as one of the certain things among the deep uncertainties of life. I wrote to Alec what Ellen had said, without a hope in the world that he could come. It seemed the sort of thing that only love accomplishes, and he had seemed to me perfectly contented with his engagement, making his visits to the home of his young lady with the regularity of a lover, or of a clock. But almost sooner than seemed possible he came. When Ellen saw him tears came to her eyes. For it is just at these moments, when one is thirsting for help and sympathy, that we seem to lose the way to the hearts of others, and this is natural enough, for there is a terrible egotism in certain phases of grief. The eyes of the spirit are turned inward and we cease to give, and after a while, as with Ellen, grief becomes a habit and we slip along smoothly enough in the deepening and dolorous grooves of sorrow. It is easier to do this where the outside life is monotonous, and to us, in our little town, our own point of view and our own spirits furnished whatever diversity there was. One day went along after another and one never met a new face on the street, and it was with a true instinct for help that Ellen cried out:-- "I envy men who can go out in the world and forget. It must be easier to forget among those who have never seen your face or ever heard what has happened to you, and here everything brings me back to the thoughts that I try in so futile a fashion to put out of my mind." Alec's unexpected arrival had been the only thing that had happened through the long winter and spring. I waited with anxiety for the end of their interview. "Well," I asked Alec, "how did you find her?" And he answered:-- "She just wants to know how one manages to live when the meaning of life is dead and I told her that that wasn't what she needed, but that she needed to go and search for the meaning of life, and you know, Roberta, a person who really seeks for that can always find it. I've a plan that I'm going to try. Ellen has promised to do everything I tell her, and keep her to it, even if it seems childish to you." A day or two after Alec left, there knocked at the Sylvesters' back door a sturdy boy of twelve; a shock of wild black hair blew across his forehead, and funny, humorous blue eyes gleamed under straight black brows. For the rest, he was freckled past belief. As Ellen opened the door for him, he choked in a spasm of embarrassment, then the words came, with a rush. He had a deep voice for his age. "I've come to git Ellen Payne," he boomed. When Ellen, who had opened the door for him, said:-- "Why, I'm Ellen Payne and what do you want?" he flushed furiously and muttered:-- "He said you was a girl." "Well," responded Ellen, with more briskness than she had shown for some time, "I'm a girl." "No," replied the boy, "you're a grown-up woman, tall 's ever you'll be." "Did you say you had come to get me?" suggested Ellen. "He said you was to come with me." "What are we going to do?" asked Ellen. "Git mayflowers in a place you don't know," said the boy. "There's no such place," said Ellen. "I know every cranny of this place in my sleep." "Well, I know it as if I'd _made it_," retorted the boy. By the time Ellen came back ready to walk, a wave of shyness engulfed the boy; he was as uncommunicative as the Pyramids. He was deeply embarrassed by his companion, but he forgot now and then enough to go ahead, shouting his joy at the return of spring, and then his gayety would fall as a flag at half-mast when he saw Ellen after him. She came home wet and very tired, to listen to the prophecy of her Aunt Sarah that "no good would come of this weltering around in the wet, and that it was just like one of Alec's unpractical thoughts." While Miss Sarah loved Alec, his character annoyed her, winding as it did around a devious road and springing upon you new view-points, as a supposedly quiet road might discover unexpected and romantic vistas of country. Especially his attitude toward the boys was annoying to those who found difficulty in having wood-piles replenished and the "chores" done. "You'd think boys were something," my grandmother used to explain with some heat, "besides trying, rascally, little scallywags; but the older you grow, Roberta, the more you'll find truth in what I say, and that is, that boys were put in this world by the Lord for women to exercise their patience over." Tyke Bascom didn't come again for two days. This time Ellen penetrated through the shyness enough to find that he was a boy who lived over the mountain-road in a little clearing, called Foster's Corners, which had a sawmill and four houses. "That's a long ways," said Ellen. "Not so long when you're used to it," he replied. "It might be long for a woman." In his walks over the mountain, Alec had always stopped at the house and, being fatal to small boys, Tyke had enrolled in the company of Alec's friends. All that Tyke knew, it turned out, he had been taught by Alec, as he sat there resting on his way home. For the next two weeks Tyke Bascom came for Ellen, but irregularly. Sometimes he would come each day, for two or three days, and once three days went past, three days when Ellen watched for him. It had been a long time since she had been out in the open air; it had been a long time since she had gone back to the places she had known as a little girl, when she was in that deep and almost mystic communion with all life and growth around her, and when the mountain and the river, and the small mountain streams were like personalities to her. Only the very pure in heart and children have this intimate sense of oneness with the world, and Ellen and Alec had lain for hours, under cover, and watched to see a fox sneak past. They knew a marsh where the blue heron lived, and when she was little, Ellen had talked about the birds, squirrels, and chipmunks as intimately as though they were people. Now all this forgotten lore came back to her from out-of-the-way places in her mind. When I was a girl, it was only too easy for people to forget such things, for in my day, no sooner did one grow up than the customs of young ladyhood demanded that one should spend most of one's time in the house. Even skating was denied women, and Ellen's love of the outdoors met with a steady stream of disapproval from every one, including Roger. The only people who had not frowned on her were her mother and Mr. Sylvester, who held the heretical theory that it was good even for a woman to know the works of the Lord, even though a close and intimate knowledge was bad for smoothness of hair and neatness of frock. More than that, there was a desire awakened in Ellen's mind, of conquering this wild and morose child, who had given his heart so unreservedly to Alec. She asked him,-- "Do you like going out with me, Tyke?" "No 'm," he said, "not especially." "But"--she told him--"you don't need to come if you don't want to." He flushed all over and said, "I didn't mean that. Don't you see, Alec told me to, so I don't mind at all, 'cause it's for him." "Now I realize," she wrote, "that whenever I've sat down anywhere children have always come around me. Until the last year or two I've known all the little boys; there's never been a time when some of Alec's youngsters haven't been perched in our yard, and now comes along this boy who takes me out with him as he would carry a package for Alec." There was nothing for it, she must make him her own. I think it was the first desire she had had in a year's time, except the desire for the ultimate peace. She wooed him first out of his shyness, and as I would see them talking together I would see all the mannerisms of the Ellen I had known, of whom Aunt Sarah said, "She seemed about to burst into flame." All her forgotten shy guiles that had led her before into the inaccessible hearts of boys woke up one by one. I don't know how far she went back on the road to childhood, in these rambles, or how much she remembered of the golden time when Alec and she played truant together by the hills and brooks. One day Tyke appeared with this command: "You got to come up to my house, he says; ma needs help, she's sick. He sent you this." He gave her a note from Alec which read:-- "Dear Ellen: It was always easier for you to do housework out of your house than in." That was all. "Ma's sick; she's got a new baby." So every day Ellen trudged over the mountain-road and back. No sooner was Mrs. Bascom beginning to be up and around again, and Ellen still going to see her and the baby, than Mrs. Sylvester hurt her foot a little and was kept in her chair, so more than ever fell to Ellen. She wrote:-- "It is as though I had been walking down a long corridor and suddenly had opened a door into the light; when I came in sight of our house to-night and thought of all the people who can be happier because of me, tears of happiness came to my eyes, and I should have been glad if I could have gone down on my knees there and thanked God that I was of use in the world to those whom I love. All the selfish winter of my heart melted and my mind went out to my friend who helped me to find myself and to bring me home again. I suppose this is the road people have to travel to learn the meaning of life. You hear a bird sing by the road and you stop to listen, and by and by your heart starts beating again." CHAPTER XXVI When Alec came back in the early summer, he told me he was to stay for the year. The academy had offered him a place in it, and so had another school and he had chosen the academy. "Isn't the other place better?" I asked him. He nodded. "A little better; the experience is as good here." We did not need to discuss why it was he had stayed. I was a good enough friend of his to be able to ask:-- "Is it fair to Elizabeth?" "Roberta," he said, "I'm going to give my whole life to Elizabeth as long as it is of use to her, but I have a right to give a year of it partly to Ellen when she needs me." For his insight into Ellen had told him that she needed a hand out to her; during the moments of doubt and moments of return to the dead center in which she had lived so long. "Seeing Ellen, and seeing her free, won't you care more for her than you ought?" I objected. "I'll have to get over it if I do. I've thought it out, Roberta. Nothing that I give Ellen takes away from what I give Elizabeth. I care for her just as much as I always did, and I've always cared for Ellen the same." "Oh, Alec!" I cried, "why does the world have to be so at cross-purposes? Why aren't you free, and why can't you make Ellen care for you? Are you sure that Elizabeth cares for you?" "It's not for me to think things like that at all, Roberta," he answered. "It would be a poor sort of love I'd bring to Ellen, wouldn't it? I can't take kindness from Elizabeth and wrap myself in the cloak of her sympathy when I need it and throw it away when the sun comes out, even had the unimaginable happened, and Ellen cared for me,--which she won't. Some faiths one has to keep with one's self." As for Ellen, she accepted Alec's companionship as a matter of course. She had no doubts at all about Alec's devotion to Elizabeth, for Elizabeth was one who compelled sweetness when one spoke of her. She was a little person, appealing and soft, and the sort of woman who attends to the physical wants of the man she loves so kindly that this devotion is almost spiritual. It never occurred to Ellen that she still held any place in Alec's heart or that his early affection for her had been anything more than a boyish devotion he had outgrown for a real love. I think through the autumn and long winter, they both lived in the radiance of their affection for one another; they two were in the light together and the past and future were shut out. Perhaps they were better friends that they were not lovers. They both lived like children in the present, neither one looking into the future, when Alec should no longer be hers, but another woman's. "It's good [she wrote] to have something that lasts in one's life. Never for a moment, in all that I've lived through, has my affection faltered for Alec, nor his for me. We have each of us had more absorbing loves than each other, but this steady little flame remains unquenched." I think in their mutual satisfaction and the consciousness of their own virtue, they did not realize, as high-minded people often do, how this flowering friendship might affect a smaller nature. Elizabeth grew restless under it, and Miss Sarah found out from gossiping people that Elizabeth had not scrupled to do what was little short of spying on Alec. "I hope," she said to Ellen, "that you're worldly wise enough not to make trouble. Of course, we know that Alec might as well be your brother, but a young woman in love can't be expected to realize it." Alec was supremely unaware of any discontent on Elizabeth's part; he went over to see her as regularly as he had come home while he was in college, and whatever she felt she kept to herself. I fancy that Alec, whimsical and humorous, large-hearted and kind, would have been hard to approach with a small jealousy. Once in the light of his smile it would have withered up. It was after more and more of this talk had come to Ellen that I find, for the first time, in her journal a note of emotion about Alec. "When I hear them tell all the little things she does against you, Alec, my heart weeps, for if she's like that, I must watch you start out on a road of long disillusionment. It's so hard to sit aside and watch sadness and even disgust grow in your eyes, that my heart is heavy, and with unshed tears. What will happen to you whose goodness has come out to meet the goodness in me all your life? Either your own goodness will burn up the you that loves her, or the you that loves her will eat and corrode the you I love. I hope for you the high unhappiness and the sad and hard-gained peace rather than the contented compromise with the little, mean virtues that act as anodynes. Whatever happens to the outward aspect of your life, I wish for you that your spirit may walk free; but oh! I shan't be there to help you in the hard places, I shan't be able to hold out my hand to you as yours has been held out to me." It was only when she realized that Alec was going out into a life fraught with difficulties for him, since he loved a woman who had it in her power to hurt him so, that Ellen looked at the future, empty of her friend. From this time her journal is full of Elizabeth. From a woman to be taken for granted, some one sweet whom Alec loved, she became a sinister menace. In her little soft person she carried the unhappiness of what had been sweetest in Ellen's life. CHAPTER XXVII There came a beautiful spring month where she put the thought of the future from her, for Elizabeth was away on a visit and Ellen could forget her. Alec might have gone to his very wedding-day without Ellen knowing her very own mind and realizing that the dear and long-tested affection had changed its name; and only after he left her would she have wept at the grief of her heart, and, indeed, to me, a close observer, it did not seem to change its complexion at all, and not until the day of Alec's accident was I, a constant third in their party, conscious of any change in them. You know how disaster fills the air of a little town as a spiritual thunderclap. I remember to this day the sinister feeling I had that something was wrong when I saw two women meet two others in front of my house and stop, talking and gesticulating. I remember the flash that went over me was, "I wonder what's happened"; and then a patter of bare feet and a little flying figure of a lad dashed past, and they would have stopped him, but he made a wild circle around them, crying as he went:-- "Alec Yorke's dead!" Then I went out and became one of the gesticulating women. Then came the doctor driving from the school; he was waylaid up the street, and we scurried along, young and old, to hear what had happened. It seemed there had been some sort of a boy's prank with some gunpowder, and Alec, pulling away a boy, had been hurt. No, he wasn't dead, but there was a question of his eyesight; one couldn't tell how badly injured he was until the next day. That was all there was to tell. He was resting quietly. Then there was the rattle of wheels, and I saw Ellen driving down the street. She came straight toward us, but she was so drowned in the dolorous contemplation of what had happened that I am sure she did not see us, though at the sight of her face we all turned silent and stared at her; and the doctor dropped an illuminating word:-- "She's going to get Alec's young lady. Coming to he was rambling on about her, and"--he hesitated--"if the worst should happen it would be a comfort to have her there." But I, who knew Ellen so well, knew at the sight of her face what it was that had happened to her, and an impulse so deep in me that the words sprang to my lips involuntarily made me cry out, "Ellen, stop. I'm going with you." She obeyed me mechanically, but she seemed almost unconscious of me as I got in beside her. It was one of those days in spring when the world seems sodden with tears; when every tree drips all the day long. I remember to this day how I felt as I sat there by Ellen's side, fighting back tears until I was sick, for the hopeless tragic tangle of life had overwhelmed me. I wanted to cry with the oblivion of grief that unhappily one seldom knows this side of childhood. It seemed to me that some hidden well of sorrow had been opened from which the tears must gush forth unquenchable. And yet I must not cry, since Ellen sat there like something turned into stone. It was an irony too cruel to be borne that she should drive over this road to bring this alien Elizabeth to Alec. I knew, as though she had herself told me so, that all life could give her no such sweetness as the right to comfort Alec in his moment of trial, and that life had never given her anything harder than to go seeking another woman to fill the place that she would have been glad to fill herself. And with the same clearness of vision I knew that it was Ellen for whom Alec had called. At the moment of his disaster the old comfortable myth of friendship had ceased, and then Ellen had known that for her Alec was the very foundation of life, woven into its fabric, and that he had always been there. And this knowledge had come so flooding, so overwhelming that it drowned her and with it came the necessity of seeking a stranger for him. The interminable wet and weeping road over the mountain swarmed with memories of Alec; with the ghosts of the Alec and ourselves of bygone days. It was up this road that we had walked to meet him through that long and difficult winter, and the really glad spots of life were his home-coming. What did "over the mountain" mean, anyway, but Alec? And yet here we were going upon this errand; nor could I have opened my lips to say a word against it, even though I was innerly certain it was Ellen, and not Elizabeth, Alec wanted, for I was bound down by the fierce and narrow-minded code which decreed that, while a woman might refuse a marriage with a man, a man must go through to the bitter end. I had permitted myself one protest and repented of it. As we go on we will throw away all the false loyalties that have crucified so many of us. Both Ellen and myself faced this as though it was as inevitable as death itself. I do not know how fully she realized what she was doing; I do not know, but I cannot believe that deep down in her heart she thought that Alec didn't care for her. But she had played the game of friendship with Alec too long and too well to think that he gave her anything else but friendship. So we drove, silent, over our beloved road and down the other side of the mountain into the village street whose elms dripped unceasingly, and up to Elizabeth's white, commonplace little house. There was an added irony to it all in the way she received us in her parlor. She was the type of girl who preserves under all circumstances the little punctilios of life. She didn't permit herself the indiscretion of one surprised look at the sight of our strained faces and our arrival in the midst of a slow-falling, implacable spring rain. It was impossible not to avoid the polite overtures of an ordinary call. If we had come on an important errand it was plain that we should have to make the opening for the telling of that errand ourselves. She was very polite to us, but her politeness hid a mild resentment, for we had represented in life all of Alec that she had never been able to possess; while to us Elizabeth, so pretty in her commonplace way, so decorous, represented the menace of Alec's happiness. For a moment we bandied polite phrases, or rather Elizabeth and I did, while Ellen sat inert and aloof as she had on the drive over, until all of a sudden she seemed to awaken in a gush of pity for Alec and for Elizabeth. She swept all the little politenesses out of the way with one gesture. "Elizabeth," said she, "you must put on your things and come with us. Alec's been hurt. His eyesight is perhaps in danger." There was something deeply sweet in the way she spoke and deeply sweet in the look she gave Elizabeth, and at her complete sincerity and goodness Elizabeth also dropped the politenesses that she was using as a shield against us. The tears that were so easy for her started to her eyes. "Oh, Ellen!" she cried; "oh, poor Alec!" "We'd better go, I think, Elizabeth," said Ellen gently. "I can't go," Elizabeth answered; "I can't go with you, Ellen." And to the amazed question of our looks: "I can't go because I care for some one else," she told us. "I'd have written to him before," she went on, "but I thought I'd let him wait. He'd let me wait long enough." There was neither spite nor bitterness in her tone as she said this. I think the very best of her came forward to meet us in this moment. At the root of her narrow little nature was a certain childlike candor. "I cared for him too long without having him ever care. I tried to be real patient, but I got tired after a while, Ellen, and it seems good to me to have the whole heart of a man." And then a light whiff of anger flamed up in her. "Why did you come for me anyhow, Ellen Payne," she cried, "when he might need you? You knew all the time it was you he cared for; you knew all the time it was you he wants! Now hurry, hurry back." The conventionalities had fallen from her, and for the first and last time we saw the Elizabeth for whom Alec had cared. With this godspeed we started on our long drive back, I full of disquieting fears, full of anguish concerning Alec; Ellen still and withdrawn. After a while the strain of silence told on me and the words forced themselves from my lips: "Oh, I can't bear to think of its happening. I can't bear to think of having his life hurt this way." As if recalled from a very far distance, Ellen turned her head to me. "It can't happen, Roberta," said she slowly. I looked at her curiously. There was just enough light for me to see the outline of her face, and I felt as if she had pulled herself back by some great effort to answer me and that her spirit had been somewhere with Alec, free for the first time. And I felt for the rest of the ride as if in some obscure way he were near us; that Ellen could call to him through the dark. His mother opened the door for us. "I'm glad you've come," she said with her profound simplicity. "He's wanted you all his life, Ellen Payne." So we three women sat ourselves down for the night watch to learn what the morning would bring. Alec's mother sat there, her hands folded, solid as a rock, impassive as fate. She had borne a great deal in her life and had grown strong with it, and whatever happened she would be there to help him. All through my life I shall remember Ellen's face as it was through that long night, for it was the face of one who defies death and disaster; and what I mean only those who have brooded guardingly over the lives of those whom they love will understand. For there comes a moment in the lives of most women and some men when they seem to put their spirits, a tangible thing, between death and disaster and the beloved. And one more thing I shall remember forever was Alec's voice, as he cried out in his sleep, "Ellen," and again, "Ellen," as though, sunk fathoms deep in pain, he still called for her and his unconscious body groped for her in the darkness. So we sat and waited through the night, until the blessed word came to us at last that all was well with him. There was only one more entry in the journal and then blank leaves, for I suppose she began another book that belonged to herself and Alec alone. It told of the accident and went on:-- "I felt as if I had been waiting for this one moment all my life; as if all I had ever been and could hope to be concentrated itself in those long hours; as though the arms of my spirit folded themselves around him as I prayed, and as I prayed I knew that my prayer had been answered. I was as certain that it was well with him as if I could penetrate into the future. And that night I knew the meaning of my long life, and that I had only been learning to love enough, so that when he called to me, 'Ellen, Ellen,' I should have learned how to love and how to give." THE END The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A OTHERWISE PHYLLIS By Meredith Nicholson "The most delightful novel-heroine you've met in a long time. You like it all, but you love Phyllis."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._ "A true-blue, genuine American girl of the 20th century."--_Boston Globe._ "Phyllis is a fine creature.... 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Postage extra HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY [Illustration] BOSTON AND NEW YORK The Story of Waitstill Baxter By KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN "It cannot fail to prove a delight of delights to 'Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm' enthusiasts."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._ "All admirers of Jane Austen will enjoy Waitstill Baxter.... The solution the reader must find out for himself. It is a triumph of ingenuity. The characters are happy in their background of Puritan village life. The drudgery, the flowers, the strictness in morals and the narrowness of outlook all combine to form a harmonious picture."--_The London Times._ "Always generously giving of her best, and delightful as that best always is, Mrs. Wiggin has provided us with something even better in 'Waitstill Baxter.'"--_Montreal Star._ "In the strength of its sympathy, in the vivid reality of the lives it portrays, this story will be accepted as the very best of all the popular books that Mrs. Wiggin has written for an admiring constituency."--_Wilmington Every Evening._ Illustrated in color. Square crown 8vo. $1.30 _net_. Postage extra HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY [Illustration] BOSTON AND NEW YORK VALENTINE By Grant Richards "A far better novel than its predecessor, 'Caviare.'"--_London Athenæum._ "Cheeriness, youth, high spirits and the joy of life--these are the principal ingredients of this novel."--_London Telegraph._ "In 'Valentine' the action is laid almost wholly in London, with occasional week ends at Paris.... 'Valentine' is a good story about enjoyably human people, told with the rich personal charm of the accomplished raconteur."--_Boston Transcript._ "Its details and all the actions of all connected with its details are worked out with a realistic thoroughness that makes the story seem a piece of recorded history.... Distinctly light reading, clever, engaging, skillfully wrought."--_Churchman._ 12mo. $1.35 _net_. Postage extra HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY [Illustration] BOSTON AND NEW YORK Transcriber's Note A table of contents has been added by the transcriber for the convenience of the reader.