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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42029 ***
+
+               Girl Scouts Series, Volume 3
+
+                 The Girl Scout's Triumph
+
+                            or
+
+                   Rosanna's Sacrifice
+
+                 By Katherine Keene Galt
+
+
+    THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
+    CHICAGO  AKRON, OHIO NEW YORK
+    MADE IN U. S. A.
+
+    Copyright, MCMXXI, by
+    THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+    THE GIRL SCOUTS SERIES
+
+    1 THE GIRL SCOUTS AT HOME
+
+    2 THE GIRL SCOUTS RALLY
+
+    3 THE GIRL SCOUT'S TRIUMPH
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Claire was lying there on the rug, and Claire was crying.
+Rosanna slid from her bed and ran across the room.]
+
+
+
+
+THE GIRL SCOUT'S TRIUMPH
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The red-haired girl stared fixedly out of the window. There was nothing
+to look at but black night, and the light from within turned the glass
+into a dusky mirror where her image was clearly reflected. But she
+stared at it unseeingly, busy with her thoughts.
+
+She was very early, but in fifteen minutes or so the Girl Scouts would
+commence to arrive. It was something of an ordeal to face the strangers
+and she had planned to be the first one in the room. She thought it a
+distinct advantage to meet them so rather than to enter the room feeling
+that the fifteen or twenty pairs of eyes were all noting her and the
+brains belonging to them were registering the usual formula, "Goodness,
+what _red_ hair!"
+
+She never could see why people always spoke of her hair. Certainly there
+were redder heads, and her heavy, waving locks were always perfectly
+cared for, glossy and brushed with careful attention. She pulled the
+long braid over her shoulder and looked at it. The braid was thicker
+than her wrist, and when unbound it reached nearly to her knees. Almost
+petulantly she swung it behind her and turned her eyes toward the window
+again. They were queer eyes, a strange sea-green in color, and their
+black lashes and straight brows gave them a dark and brooding
+expression. She was pale, but it was not a wholesome pallor. She looked
+like a girl whose hours were not good, who sat up too late, and ate the
+wrong kinds of food. Her supple slender hands were bare except for a
+little finger ring of green jade set in silver. Her wrist-watch showed
+its tiny face from the center of a silver and jade bracelet. She wore
+the jewel pushed far up her sleeve.
+
+The door opened, and a tiny figure in the uniform of the Scout Captain
+entered. The red-haired girl, still staring into the night, did not
+bother to turn, and with a long glance at the unfamiliar and unfriendly
+back the little lady who had just entered advanced to the table in the
+center of the room and arranged the papers lying there. Occasionally she
+directed a puzzled glance toward the girl at the window, but silence
+filled the big room and the resolute shoulders showed no sign of
+curiosity or embarrassment. The little lady at the table smiled. She was
+well aware that the girl at the window, looking into the dark pane as in
+a looking-glass, was watching her closely. She frowned suddenly at the
+girl's rudeness, then smiled and went on with her task.
+
+A little later the door opened and a laughing, chattering group entered.
+Then and not until then did the red-haired girl rise and advance.
+
+The girls stared, and the stranger's lip curled. Her red hair! It was
+always so. Walking slowly toward the table, she started to give a
+perfunctory salute, a salute which changed character and became snappy
+enough as she felt her gaze held by a pair of deep, compelling eyes. The
+Scout Captain was tiny and looked not a day over sixteen; but she was
+the Captain, and the red-haired stranger reluctantly admitted it to
+herself. She could not complain of the friendliness of her greeting.
+Wanderer as she was, drifting here and there over the world, a Scout in
+one place after another, she was aware that here were girls filled with
+the simplest and most charming courtesy. Each one met her with a sweet
+warmth of manner that almost pierced her chill and reserve, and when she
+turned and took her seat as the business meeting commenced, the girls
+were all along wondering if the stranger was shy, sad, or merely bored.
+A feeling of puzzled resentment stirred in a few. If the strange girl
+did not wish to be friendly, why had she brought herself and her jade
+green eyes and her queer ring into their happy circle?
+
+The meeting progressed quietly. The strange new element cast a spell
+over the happy group. It was not as though they were depressed; it was
+rather as though they were waiting for something to happen, as though
+it was time for the curtain to go up on a new and exciting play.
+
+The girls, all a little restless by nature, smiled, shifted in their
+seats and occasionally touched each other with friendly, caressing
+hands. They regarded the little Captain with adoring eyes and cast
+questioning and friendly glances toward the newcomer.
+
+She, however, ignored them all. It was as though she sat alone, her
+strange, deep eyes fixed on the Captain's sparkling face, studying it
+with cool, impersonal interest. She never changed her easy, graceful
+position, and her delicate hands rested in her lap motionless as though
+carved from wax.
+
+The meeting closed, and as was their custom when a new girl joined, the
+Scouts gathered around the stranger with pretty, friendly advances. As
+they spoke to her, she regarded them with the same curious gaze she had
+bent on the Scout Captain.
+
+"We are so glad you have joined us," said a sparkling mite, dancing from
+one tiny foot to the other. "You say your name is Claire Maslin? Mine is
+Estella LaRue."
+
+"And mine is Jane Smith," said a tall beauty with golden hair and
+pansy-blue eyes.
+
+"Plain Jane," laughed little Estella, swinging on Jane's arm.
+
+"Have you just moved to Louisville?" asked another girl softly.
+
+"Yes," said Claire. It was the first time she had spoken and the girls
+waited breathlessly for more information. But the simple yes was her
+whole contribution.
+
+"Well, you must let us see a lot of you," said a bright-faced girl with
+docked hair. "Where do you live?"
+
+"At the Seelbach at present," said Claire Maslin. Her voice was very
+deep and throaty for a young girl, and she spoke slowly.
+
+Again the girls waited, expecting an invitation to call, but Claire said
+nothing. The silence grew oppressive. At the table the Scout Captain and
+a group of the girls were deep in some important discussion. No help
+could be expected from that quarter. It came, however, as the colored
+house-boy appeared at the door.
+
+"Cunnel Maslin's car," he announced.
+
+"Good-night," said Claire Maslin, her sudden smile sweeping the group
+and embracing them all. She left them and, moving easily toward the
+table, said a polite but brief good night to the little Captain.
+
+"We will see you out," said Estella LaRue, tugging at plain Jane and
+accompanying the newcomer to the door. She passively allowed them to
+come, and the door closed.
+
+In five minutes the two girls, round eyed and astonished, rushed back.
+
+"Oh, what _do_ you think?" cried Jane.
+
+"Yes, what?" echoed Estella, dancing up and down.
+
+"_I_ think she is a fairy princess in disguise," said Jane, nodding her
+golden head.
+
+"_I_ think she is a grouch," said a stout girl at the table, turning
+suddenly.
+
+"Why, Mabel, you positively must not say a thing like that!" said the
+little Captain in a shocked tone. "She is shy, and it is a good deal to
+come and meet so many girls at one time."
+
+"Do let us tell you what happened!" begged Estella. "We followed her out
+into the cloak-room, and she put on the _best_ looking hat and Jane
+commenced to look for a cloak that might be hers. But I was watching
+her, and she put her hand inside her blouse, and brought out a little
+handful of stuff and shook it out, and oh dear, oh dear, you never,
+never saw anything so wonderful!"
+
+"It was a big scarf of silk or chiffon or crepe. Something soft and
+cobwebby and heavy all at the same time. She wound it around her, and
+Estella stuttered, 'Won't you freeze in that?'"
+
+"She said, 'My cloak is in the hall,' and we followed her down to the
+door, and there--"
+
+"Standing against the wall," broke in Estella--
+
+"Like a graven image," interrupted Jane--
+
+"Was a _Chinaman_!" cried both girls.
+
+"A _Chinaman_!" exclaimed the crowd as one girl.
+
+"Yes," said Jane, while Estella danced up and down and nodded violently.
+"He had her cloak over his arm, and she spoke to him in some jabbery
+language, Chinese I suppose, and he shook the cloak open and put it
+around her shoulders. It was soft white fur."
+
+"Simply _too_ lovely," sighed Estella.
+
+"Then she said good-night, nothing else, and went out with the Chinaman
+following," completed Jane.
+
+"Who can she be?" said Estella dreamily.
+
+"A fairy princess, I reckon."
+
+"Fairy fiddlesticks!" laughed the little Captain. "It is all very
+simple. Her father has been here to see me. He is a colonel in the Army
+and for a long time was stationed in China. Hence the Chinese servant.
+Her father, Colonel Maslin, is very anxious to have her know some nice
+girls. Claire joined the Girl Scouts when they were stationed in
+Washington. Colonel Maslin says Claire finds it difficult to make
+advances, and I want you all to be as friendly as you can be."
+
+"Well, I would hate to have a heathen holding _my_ cloak," said Mabel
+piously. "What did he have on?"
+
+"Chinese clothes, of course, and made of silk, and all loose and baggy
+and flowing and embroidered, and sort of bluish and purplish and
+goldish."
+
+"Must have been rather weird," said Mabel, sniffing.
+
+"It wasn't weird one bit," declared Estella. "It was the most gorgeous
+thing I ever saw except that white fur cloak. Oh, and did you notice
+that queer ring she wears? Just exactly the color of her eyes. I suppose
+that is Chinese too."
+
+"She has had a most thrilling life, I am sure," said the little Captain.
+"I think she can tell us some interesting things when she feels
+acquainted with us. She is either very reserved or very shy. Don't rush
+her; just be your own dear friendly selves, my girls, and do all you can
+for her. Something tells me that Claire Maslin needs us."
+
+"Someone always needs us, seems to me," said Mabel. "We just get one
+person off our minds when up pops someone else."
+
+"Well, don't you think it is splendid and all sorts of fun to be of
+service?" demanded a bright, pretty, blond girl with docked hair.
+
+"I suppose so," grumbled Mabel, "but I think sometimes it would be nice
+to think just about myself for a while."
+
+The girls looked shocked, but the little Captain suddenly laughed. "Very
+well," she said. "It is worth trying if you think it would make you
+happy. I will detail you, Mabel, to make a study of this. For the coming
+week I want you to think wholly and _only_ of yourself. You will keep a
+daily notebook and jot down exactly what you do for yourself and what
+you leave undone for others. Be sure to make note of the amount of
+happiness you get out of it. You will report at our weekly meeting next
+Saturday. There is an extra meeting on Wednesday but you need not
+present any report then."
+
+Mabel looked at Mrs. Horton with round, astonished eyes.
+
+"Why, Captain, I can't _do_ it," she said. "My mother wouldn't allow it
+at all. Why, she simply wouldn't! She is always preaching generosity and
+unselfishness."
+
+"I don't believe she will notice what you are doing," said the Captain.
+"If she does, you can explain it to her. Otherwise say nothing at all.
+This is a Scout order, remember, and I expect you to do it with all your
+heart. We want to work this out. It will be very interesting to learn
+just how much pleasure one can get from absolute selfishness. That is
+what you really mean, you know, Mabel, when you want to live entirely
+for yourself."
+
+"If everyone did it, no one would have to do anything for anyone else,
+would they? Everything would be all done, and everyone would be doing
+just what they liked best to do," said Mabel, sticking to her point.
+
+"Perhaps," granted the Captain. "It is worth trying out."
+
+"Why don't we all try it for a week?" suggested Mabel, feeling that
+perhaps there was safety in numbers.
+
+"That would be upsetting," said the Captain. "You shall be our pioneer,
+Mabel."
+
+"Well, mother won't stand for it, I know," said the girl as she pulled
+on her soft tam-o'-shanter and said good-night. She went out very
+thoughtfully and the Captain with a queer little smile hurried to the
+telephone booth and called a certain number. A long conversation with
+Mabel's mother followed: a conversation punctuated by much laughter and
+a little sadness.
+
+When the Captain returned to the big scout room, all the girls had gone
+excepting the three she loved the best. Elsie Hargrave, the little
+French orphan adopted by Mrs. Hargrave and living in her splendid
+residence near by; Helen Culver, whose clever father had once been old
+Mrs. Horton's chauffeur; and the Captain's niece by marriage, Rosanna
+Horton: Rosanna of the dark eyes and lovely smile; Rosanna, whose tender
+and generous disposition made her well-loved wherever she went.
+
+"What did you do that for, sweetness?" said Rosanna, putting an arm
+around the tiny Captain.
+
+"You mean that detail for Mabel?" laughed little Mrs. Horton. "She needs
+it, and I am sure it will work out exactly right. Mabel is continually
+fretting about what she has to do for other people and what she is
+obliged to do at home. I think she is not nearly so selfish as she tries
+to be, but she is certainly taking a wrong turn. I want to help her if I
+can."
+
+"She will be punished if she gets any worse than usual," said Helen with
+conviction. "Her mother just simply _hates_ selfishness and keeps after
+Mabel all the time."
+
+"Perhaps that is where part of the trouble lies," said Mrs. Horton,
+nodding her head. "Well, I don't believe she will interfere this time."
+
+"Trust the dear little one to arrange all," said Elsie in her pretty
+way.
+
+"We will have a good many thrills, I think," said Helen, laughing,
+"between Mabel's experiment and that funny new girl, Claire Maslin."
+
+Mrs. Horton looked grave.
+
+"Confidentially, girls, I have a feeling that the 'funny new girl' as
+you call her, is not so funny after all. There is trouble enough there
+somewhere, and we must help her through."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+When Mabel Brewster left the Horton residence, she found her brother
+Frank waiting for her. He was bursting with curiosity.
+
+"Say, Mabe," he exclaimed, "who is the nifty red-head with the Chinese
+footman? Some style, I say. Who is she?"
+
+"A new Girl Scout," said Mabel absently. Even the mysterious stranger
+was crowded out of her thoughts by the new orders she was about to
+follow.
+
+"Well, don't you know her name, or where she lives, or anything about
+her?" demanded Frank.
+
+"What ails you?" retorted Mabel testily. "I thought you had no use for
+girls."
+
+"Don't usually," said the lad, "but this one is different. Comes sailing
+out with that Chink at her shoulder, and she was talking thirteen to the
+dozen in Chinese or something."
+
+"Talking?" interrupted Mabel. "You don't mean she spoke, do you?"
+
+"Not exactly," grinned Frank. "She simply rattled it off by the yard,
+and the Chinaman just went along nodding like one of those little china
+figures with wiggly heads you see in the Japanese shops."
+
+"Did she take the Chinaman along in the car?" asked Mabel curiously.
+
+"Yep! It was a big limousine, and the Chinaman hopped up in front with
+the driver. Miss Red-head sat alone like a queen. Say, she has wads of
+that red hair, hasn't she?"
+
+"I didn't notice," said Mabel. "What have you been doing? Playing
+basketball?"
+
+"Yes, we had a hot game, and I tore my suit all to pieces. I wish you
+would mend it, please, before Monday night. We are going to have
+practice games all next week."
+
+"All right," said Mabel absently. Then as she remembered her task she
+said firmly, "I forgot; I can't mend your suit. Mend it yourself."
+
+"Why, what ails you anyhow?" asked Frank wonderingly. "I can't sew, and
+I hate to ask mamma, she is always so busy. Why can't you mend it for
+me, Mabe?"
+
+"Something else I want to do," said Mabel coolly.
+
+"Well, I say you are a selfish pig!" retorted Frank.
+
+"Don't you let mamma hear you talk to me like that!" said Mabel. "You
+know what you would get."
+
+"It's what you are anyhow, and I will get even with you if you don't
+come across."
+
+Frank flung this threat at his sister as they entered their modest home.
+Mabel, flushed and rather uncomfortable, went into the sitting-room
+where her mother greeted her with a smile. She asked about the meeting,
+but made no comment when she heard Mabel telling Frank that she did not
+intend to go to church.
+
+"What are you going to do?" he demanded. "Stay in bed and have your
+breakfast brought up and loaf all day?"
+
+"I may," replied Mabel boldly.
+
+"If you do, you are a pill!" said Frank hotly.
+
+"Mamma, don't you let him talk to me like that," appealed Mabel.
+
+"Fight your own battles, my dear," said Mrs. Brewster. "If you are not
+able to compel politeness from your brother and others I feel sure that
+it is your own fault, and there is no use in someone else demanding it
+for you. Besides," said Mrs. Brewster, yawning rather openly, "I am
+tired fussing over you children. I have about decided to go into
+business."
+
+"Mummy!" cried Frank in a horrified tone.
+
+"_Mam_-ma!" wailed Mabel.
+
+"Exactly! I am thinking of going into interior decorating now that you
+children are old enough to look out for yourselves. I have spent a good
+share of my life looking after you, and now I think I will do something
+that I have always wanted to do."
+
+There was a long silence. Coming on the heels of her own plan, Mabel
+listened in amazement. Frank, however, went to his mother and sat down
+on the arm of her chair. There was a break in his boyish voice when he
+spoke.
+
+"Mummy, I don't like it," he said. "Are we out of money, or anything
+like that?"
+
+"Oh, no, not at all!" said Mrs. Brewster easily. "I just thought it
+would be fun."
+
+"I don't like it," repeated Frank in a hurt tone and, kissing his
+mother, he left the room and went whistling upstairs. Mrs. Brewster
+chuckled.
+
+"Frank always whistles when he is cross," she said, looking at her
+daughter as though she would appreciate the joke. But Mabel did not
+smile.
+
+"I don't blame him at all," she said stiffly.
+
+"Dear me! What a tempest in a tea-pot!" said Mrs. Brewster. "Here are a
+lot of stockings belonging to you that need mending. I am going upstairs
+to read," and she too left the room, calling back, "Be sure to put out
+the lights."
+
+Mabel, quite stupefied with surprise, sat thinking awhile, then she
+snapped off the lights, thinking as she did so that it was her mother's
+usual custom to put the room in order before she left it for the night.
+But Mabel did not intend to do it. So she left the chairs standing every
+which way with papers and magazines scattered over the table and her
+mother's sewing trailing on the floor.
+
+Reaching her own pretty room, she put on a comfortable kimono, arranged
+the light so she could read in bed, and from under a box divan dug out a
+paper-covered novel. She read the title with satisfaction, _Lady
+Ermintrude's Lover_, or _The Phantom of Marston's Marsh_. She curled up
+against the pillows, laying a copy of _Longfellow's Complete Poems_
+close beside her as a quick, safe substitute in case of interruption.
+Then before opening her book, she gave herself up to her thoughts,
+planning a luxurious and detailed campaign of self-indulgence. She
+smiled as she thought of the little Captain. It was a good joke on her,
+because Mabel was shrewd enough to realize that Mrs. Horton was trying
+to show her that happiness, true happiness, lay in doing for others.
+Mabel, with the Captain's authority behind her, prepared to fulfill all
+her dreams. How this was going to strike her mother Mabel could not
+guess, but her mother was showing a strange, new and unforeseen side.
+She was glad, and hoped her mother would be so busy with her own plans
+that she would fail to notice her daughter's actions. Presently Mabel
+buried herself in the trashy novel and with many thrills over the
+foolish and impossible adventures of the Lady Ermintrude forgot
+everything but her book.
+
+While she was thus employed, Mrs. Brewster, sitting on the foot of her
+son's bed, her feet curled under her, was deep in a whispered
+conversation which made both of them giggle like a pair of mischievous
+children rather than mother and son.
+
+"All right, mummy," agreed Frank finally. "I am game, but I know Mabe
+will be awfully mad at me."
+
+"Just go ahead and do as I tell you," said Mrs. Brewster, planting a
+kiss on her son's rumpled hair. "It will all come out right and I will
+help you when things get too deep."
+
+She went off to bed, and Frank, grinning with pleased anticipation, was
+almost asleep before the door closed.
+
+In the morning force of habit woke Mabel, and remembering the breakfast
+table to be set, she hopped out of bed and started for her morning bath.
+Then she quickly hopped again, this time back into bed.
+
+Presently her mother looked in.
+
+"Time to get up, Mabel dear," she said cheerily. "You will be late."
+
+"I don't believe I want to get up this morning," answered Mabel
+uncertainly, and waited for her mother to retort, "Oh, yes, you do! Come
+and help with the breakfast!" but instead she said:
+
+"All right, my dear; suit yourself," and went off to call Frank.
+
+Somehow Mabel did not care to sleep after that, and lay listening to the
+sounds and smells from below. She did not guess that the lower doors had
+been purposely left open in order to let the odors from her favorite
+dishes ascend. But on the rare occasions when her mother had let her
+sleep over, there had always been a dainty meal left in the warming
+oven, so Mabel snuggled down and fixed her already strained and tired
+eyes on the poor print in _Lady Ermintrude_.
+
+Her mother and Frank went off to church without disturbing her, and as
+the front door closed with the click that told her that the latch was
+down, Mabel closed her book, hurried out of bed, and wrapping her kimono
+around her, went downstairs to explore.
+
+She found nothing!
+
+The warming oven was empty; the tables in the kitchen and dining-room
+were so empty that they looked lonesome. She looked in the ice-chest.
+There was nothing cooked. In the sink there was a pan of potatoes peeled
+and in cold water; on top of the warming oven a pan of bread pudding,
+looking very queer and doughy, was ready for baking. There were some
+chops. Nothing more.
+
+Mabel commenced to feel abused. She went back to her room, and once more
+followed along on the trail of Lady Ermintrude. After a long while the
+telephone rang. Mabel went down and heard her mother's voice.
+
+"We decided to have a little spree, dear," she said. "We are going to
+take dinner down town at Sherr's. Hop on the car and join us; we will
+wait for you."
+
+"Where are you now?" asked Mabel joyfully. She loved an occasional meal
+at the bright pleasant restaurant where everything was always so
+deliciously cooked and carefully served.
+
+"Here at Sherr's, and you must hurry; it is past one o'clock now."
+
+"Why, I am not even dressed yet," wailed Mabel.
+
+"Oh, I am sorry," said Mrs. Brewster. "I don't believe we had better
+wait. You know it always takes you an hour to dress. Better luck next
+time, dearie! There are chops in the ice-box, and the potatoes and
+pudding are ready to cook, and there are some canned peas. You can fix a
+good dinner, and we will be home before long. Perhaps if you have time
+you had better pick up the sitting-room. I didn't feel in the mood for
+it this morning. It is an awful mess. Don't bother if you don't want to,
+however. Good-bye!"
+
+Mabel hung up the receiver with an angry frown. Nothing was going right;
+nothing was starting as she had intended it. She dressed slowly, and ate
+bread and butter and sugar for dinner. The milkman had forgotten to
+leave the milk. She drank water. And she did _not_ pick up the
+sitting-room.
+
+Later, her mother and brother failing to appear, she went out for a
+walk. When she returned at half past five, she met her truant family
+descending from a big touring car. Some friends had picked them up and
+had taken them for a long ride.
+
+Mrs. Brewster noted the bread crumbs on the kitchen table and the open
+sugar bowl. She smiled. Later they all sat down to a delicious hot
+supper, and Mabel cheered up enough to listen politely at least to the
+accounts of their dinner and ride that had followed.
+
+But when according to her orders, Mabel went to writing the account of
+the day in her notebook, it did not sound interesting at all!
+
+The next afternoon when Mabel came from school, having been detained
+half an hour on account of inattention, she found Frank busy mending the
+tears in his basketball suit by the simple method of drawing them up in
+a tight pucker.
+
+"Where is mother?" demanded Mabel.
+
+"Dunno," said Frank, squinting at his work.
+
+"Well, I wonder where she is," said Mabel. "Rosanna Horton asked me to
+come over to supper tonight, and I want to wear that new dress mother is
+making for me. She said she would have it done today." She went into her
+mother's little sewing-room, and came back looking disappointed.
+
+"It isn't finished at all!" she said. "I don't see where mother can be!"
+
+"Fix it yourself," suggested Frank, stabbing his needle into the jersey.
+
+"I can't," said Mabel. "Mother always does it. Besides," she added as an
+afterthought, "I hate sewing."
+
+As she spoke, her mother came in with a cheery greeting for her
+children. Before Mabel had a chance to ask her mother about the dress,
+Mrs. Brewster said,
+
+"Mabel, I want you to get supper for Frank tonight, and be here when
+the laundress comes for her pay. I have been asked to take dinner with a
+woman from New York City who is an interior decorator of note."
+
+"I can't, mamma, Rosanna Horton has asked me over there, and I told her
+I would come," said Mabel peevishly.
+
+"Well, tell her you won't be among those present," said Frank, chewing
+off his thread.
+
+"But I told her I would come, and I am going," said Mabel, stubbornly.
+
+"I bet you won't if mamma says not," retorted Frank.
+
+His mother caught his eye and shook her head.
+
+"Someone will have to stay home and see the laundress, and Frank has his
+basketball practice. It is a great chance for me, so I wish you would
+stay, Mabel," she said.
+
+"I don't see how I can!" objected Mabel. "I told Rosanna I would come
+and I reckon I had better go. You can go some other time, can't you,
+mamma?"
+
+"I suppose I can," said Mrs. Brewster, and left the room.
+
+Mabel glanced at her brother and noting his scowl, commenced to read a
+magazine.
+
+She was perfectly miserable. When it came time to dress, she donned her
+old frock, wondering why her mother had laid the new one, still
+unfinished, across her bed. Mabel loved to go to the Hortons. But for
+once the dinner was not a success. All the conversation seemed to hinge
+on anecdotes of unselfishness and generosity. Mabel thought of Frank
+working on his gym suit because she wouldn't mend it for him, but she
+thought most of her mother giving up her dinner to sit at home and wait
+for the laundress. Her mother was too kind to make the poor colored
+woman come again for her money. Mrs. Brewster knew that she needed it.
+
+Mabel, sitting with unwonted primness and silence at the Horton table,
+thought harder and harder and could not enjoy herself. And Mrs. Horton,
+the little Scout Captain, saw and smiled to herself a sly, quiet smile
+that scarcely disturbed her dimples. She wondered curiously what sort of
+a report Mabel would bring her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+We will leave Mabel embarked on her desperate career of utter
+selfishness and return to Claire Maslin.
+
+When Rosanna and Helen and pretty Elise went to call on her they found
+her rooms had been marvelously changed from the stiff appearance of
+hotel suites by the gorgeous draperies and scarfs and table covers
+placed wherever they could possibly be put. A faint, sweet, oriental
+odor seemed to come from them, and the soft-stepping Chinaman who
+ushered them in seemed to be part of a dream. Claire looked modern
+enough, however, in her kilted skirt of big green plaid, soft silk
+shirtwaist and dull green sweater. Her face was as impassive as ever,
+but she seemed to think that as hostess something more than silence was
+required of her, and she talked in a very friendly and entertaining
+manner.
+
+Elise, always thoughtful of little courtesies, asked almost at once if
+they might meet Madame, her mother, and the girls were filled with pity
+when Claire replied that her mother was an invalid and was away at a
+sanitarium. It was clear that Claire in her silent, repressed way felt
+her mother's illness very deeply. She changed the subject at once.
+Little by little, however, the girls gleaned the bare facts of her life.
+She had been born in the Philippines, and had traveled from post to post
+and from country to country with her parents until the time of her
+mother's illness. There was a gap in her story there, but later she went
+with her father, the Colonel. Her own maid, who took charge of the house
+when they had one, was a serious looking New England woman about sixty
+years old. The Chinaman too went with them everywhere.
+
+"We expect to move tomorrow," said Claire. "Papa has found a nice house
+way up on Third Street. It is furnished, so we will not have to unpack
+our things."
+
+"You look unpacked now," said Helen, glancing at the gorgeous silks and
+cushions that were scattered around.
+
+"Oh, no, we just take a trunk full of these with us so wherever we stop
+the rooms will seem like home to us. Papa and I both hate hotel rooms.
+They all look alike with their stuffy furniture and dreadful curtains.
+It does not take Chang long to fix everything and we are much more
+comfortable. I think we will like the new house." Then she added rather
+shyly, "I hope you will all come to see me very, very often. Papa wants
+me to know all of you. I don't like girls very well."
+
+The three girls stared in amazement. She didn't like _girls_! And she
+was willing to tell them so! Elise lifted her eyebrows. It was so rude.
+
+Helen Culver laughed. "Why do you bother with us if you do not like us?"
+she demanded.
+
+Claire was blushing. "I should not have said that," she confessed
+bluntly. "I don't mean to say what I think. You must excuse me for
+saying it."
+
+"And we will forgive you for having such a heart for us," said Elise,
+smiling. "I know how you will feel soon. At least for these two dear
+ones. You will love them so much."
+
+"It is such a beautiful day," said Rosanna, to change the conversation,
+"why can't we all take a ride? Perhaps you would like to see our parks."
+
+"I have seen everything," said Claire wearily. "I have done nothing but
+ride ever since we came to Louisville. But every afternoon I drive up to
+Camp Taylor to get papa and it is now almost time to go. Won't you all
+come with me? I do truly want you to, and papa wants so much to meet
+you. Papa likes girls," she added with a smile.
+
+"I think we should love to go," said Rosanna heartily. She wanted to
+accept the first invitation that Claire gave, so she spoke quickly and
+nodded gaily to the girls. But it was a nod that they understood to mean
+"We will go." They were accustomed to the guiding nods of the wise
+little Rosanna.
+
+Gliding smoothly along the beautiful roads in the luxurious limousine,
+the four girls chatted gaily. And returning, the talk and laughter was
+even more spirited for they found Colonel Maslin to be all that one
+could dream of or hope for in the way of a jolly, handsome father.
+Nothing would do but they must return to the hotel for afternoon tea,
+and Colonel Maslin's idea of tea was ordering all the goodies to be
+found on the menu card, and then a few more that the head waiter managed
+to think up. So it was a regular feast.
+
+Then the Colonel and Claire insisted on driving them home, and Colonel
+Maslin went in and was introduced to each of their families. The girls
+only waited for the big Maslin car to be well on its way when with one
+accord they hurried over to Rosanna's.
+
+"Well, what do you think?" demanded Helen.
+
+"Claire's father, is he not most splendid?" asked Elise with a deep sigh
+of appreciation.
+
+"Yes, he is!" agreed Rosanna. "But Claire is the oddest girl that I ever
+saw. Did you notice how she sits and looks in one direction as though
+she did not hear a word you were saying? And her eyes look perfectly
+desperate!"
+
+"She doesn't hear much that you say, at that," said Helen. "I watched
+her. She has taken a great fancy to you, Rosanna."
+
+"Dear me!" said Rosanna. "I almost wish she wouldn't! Whenever I look at
+her or think about her, it seems as though a cloud pressed down on me
+and choked me."
+
+"Don't you like her?" asked Helen.
+
+"Yes, in a way I do, but there is something so strange about her, and I
+can't help the feeling that some way she is going to have an influence
+on my life."
+
+"Don't let her," said Helen calmly. "Do some influencing yourself. I
+never let anyone influence me that way. Why, you will be awfully
+uncomfortable if you feel as though that girl with her red hair and
+green eyes could turn you from your purpose in any way. Don't you let
+her! I am surprised at you, Rosanna!"
+
+"I don't mean it in that way," said Rosanna. "She will not change me,
+Helen dear, but in some way or other--Oh, I can't tell what _I do_
+mean!"
+
+"Too many tarts!" laughed Helen. "I confess she is a queer girl, but we
+don't have to see much of her, and I doubt if we will. We have enough
+work coming along this spring without taking on any more than we have
+to. I want to earn all the merits and emblems that I possibly can by
+summer time, and I shall be a busy girl if I do it. And you want to do a
+lot of Scout work, Elise, now that you have learned to speak English so
+nicely."
+
+"_Merci_--I mean, thank you," said Elise. "Indeed I do much want to do
+something to benefit myself, and more to please our dear Captain. And
+somehow I think you are both seeing that strange Claire wrongly. I think
+the cloud hangs over her, and she is most, most sad, most gloomy in its
+shadow."
+
+"Dear me, how mysterious!" said Helen. "To me, she seems just like any
+other girl, except that she has gorgeous clothes and those queer green
+eyes, and such wads and wads of hair, and that Chinaman, and all those
+splendid embroideries. And of course it is odd the way she sits and
+never moves her hands but looks over your head as though there was some
+writing on the wall."
+
+"Perhaps there is," said Rosanna. "Like that man in the Bible, you know,
+who had a warning."
+
+Rosanna, as she spoke, little dreamed that there _was_ writing on every
+wall, in every cloud, that poor Claire saw and read with a feeling of
+hopeless horror.
+
+Leaning close to his handsome daughter in the big luxurious limousine,
+Colonel Maslin was saying to her, "Well, Bird o' Paradise, how do you
+like your new friends? Are they as friendly and fascinating as Kentucky
+girls are supposed to be?"
+
+"You met them," said Claire evenly. "What do you think?"
+
+"A mere man isn't supposed to think," laughed Colonel Maslin. "They seem
+delightful to me, so pretty and dainty and girlish. Stray sunbeams."
+
+Claire laughed. "I should say you thought quite fully on the subject,
+daddy!"
+
+"Well, they are all that I say, are they not?" asked the Colonel.
+
+"Oh, yes!" and Claire leaned indifferently away from her father's
+shoulder. He glanced at her and sighed. They entered the hotel in
+silence, each one busy with somber thoughts, and as the Chinaman closed
+the door behind them Claire suddenly flung her gloves on the table with
+a gesture of impatience and turning to the Colonel said passionately:
+
+"Father, look at me! Am I like those other girls? Do I look like them or
+act like them or talk like them? Is my heart like theirs? Oh, father, do
+you suppose they ever have the fits of awful temper that I have, or do
+the wild things I like to do? Just look at me, father! I am thirteen
+years old, and I feel thirty. Why do you make me have anything to do
+with them--those girls, I mean? We won't be friends, ever. It will be
+just like it has always been on other Posts where you have been
+stationed. You always want me to make friends with girls. And I hate
+them! And sooner or later they find it out and they are shocked. I wish
+I could shock them worse than I do! I'd like to scream and dance and
+pull my hair at them!"
+
+"Steady, Claire, steady!" said Colonel Maslin in a quiet level voice.
+
+He tried to take his daughter's hands but she jerked away.
+
+"Don't!" she exclaimed harshly. "Oh, father, can't you _see_ how it is?
+Can't you _see_ that they never, never like me? They look at my red
+hair, and they stare at Chang, and snub Nancy because they think that is
+the way to treat my maid, and they like the candy you always bring me,
+but we are never _friends_. Oh, I hate them all: every one of them!
+Sunbeams you call them. Well, I feel like a streak of lightning, and I
+would like to _strike_ them!"
+
+She beat her slender hands together violently, and crossing the room
+flung herself down on a divan and covered her eyes. Her father, white
+faced and stern, followed her and seated himself on the edge of the
+divan, although Claire lay rigid and tried to crowd him off.
+
+Colonel Maslin was silent for a time, and when he spoke his voice was
+very sad.
+
+"This is my fault, my child," he said. "When your mother was taken ill
+and could not be with us, I could not face the loneliness of having you
+away from me. Both your aunts insisted that I was wrong, but I wanted
+you for comfort, my darling, so I took you with me. Later, when I should
+have sent you to a good boarding-school, I did not have the courage. You
+are old for your age, I confess it, yet in many ways you are a spoiled
+and undisciplined child, my dear. You make it very hard for me, for I
+need you and you fail me. Now I am going to ask one more favor of you.
+After that, after you have honestly tried to do what I ask you, we will
+consider the subject closed for all time and you will go away to
+school."
+
+"You know I hate that worst of all!" cried Claire, lifting a stained and
+tearful face. "_Nothing_ but girls at school! Oh, father, why can't you
+let me do what I want to do, just amuse myself my own way, when I am not
+studying? You know I work hard at my books and music, and I don't _want_
+any friends. Girls are so curious, they always want to know things, and
+I am so afraid they will find out--"
+
+"Our misfortune is not a disgrace, Claire," said her father in a voice
+that shook in spite of his efforts to keep it steady. "And I want you to
+have friends."
+
+"Claller for Mlissie Claire," said Chang, coming silently from the
+telephone.
+
+"Another of them!" groaned Claire, sitting up. "Tell her I must be
+excused."
+
+"No," said Colonel Maslin sternly. "You promised to do what I asked, and
+I want to see you begin now--today. If after three months of honest
+effort you still take no pleasure in the society of these girls, I will
+give up the struggle and arrange your life in some different way. Come,
+Claire, do, _do_ try! You have given me your promise. A Maslin never
+breaks his word and I hold you to yours."
+
+Claire looked up wearily. "Very well, father, I will really try. Who is
+it, Chang?"
+
+"Mlieeis Blooster," said Chang in his pleasant sing-song voice.
+
+"Oh, yes, I know that girl," said Claire. "She is a queer one. Ask her
+to come up, Chang."
+
+Mabel, rather flustered over her adventure into the unknown mysteries of
+the big hotel, entered sedately and seated herself in the deepest and
+most comfortable chair that she could choose. For once Claire had to
+lead the conversation, as Mabel spoke but little and seemed to expect
+her hostess to do the talking. Colonel Maslin, thinking that his
+presence might keep the girls from getting on an easier footing, excused
+himself, and in a few minutes sent up from the office a huge box of
+candy.
+
+Mabel did brighten at this and stayed long after the proper length of a
+first call, while she ate candy and told her troubles, both real and
+imaginary, to her bored hostess. She finally told her of the task the
+Captain had set for her. And at last Claire was interested. She listened
+intently as Mabel droned on about her experiences.
+
+"I don't think parents really understand their children," said Mabel,
+carefully choosing a large chocolate cream. "Of course it may be
+different with you, but my mother certainly does not understand me at
+all. I am naturally very sensitive and love to read and dream, and I
+never get well into a book without her reminding me of something horrid
+and domestic that has to be done. I know I could write beautifully if I
+had time to collect my thoughts. And now that Captain Horton expects me
+to lead my own life regardless of others for a whole week, though of
+course part of the time has gone, I thought I could write some truly
+beautiful things. But nothing goes right. Of course mother does not
+know that Captain Horton told me to try this and she never notices any
+change in me, but she acts too queer for anything. She goes out all the
+time, and doesn't do any sewing for us (I have a brother) and last night
+she was talking about a _career_! My brother ought to stop her, but he
+just backs her right up."
+
+"It is too bad," sympathized Claire, passing the candy. "My father
+doesn't understand--"
+
+"I think a parent's place is in the home," Mabel interrupted. She was
+not at all interested in Claire or her father. Like all selfish people,
+she talked for the pleasure of hearing herself. "But mother has changed.
+I suspect it is old age. She will be thirty-five her next birthday. I
+have three more days for my experiment, and then if I cannot live my own
+life at home I shall ask mother to arrange something different. I have
+always wanted to be a bachelor girl. I read a story about one. She wrote
+for the papers and made enormous sums and had a _sweet_ apartment, and
+was so happy because she felt her soul was free. My, I must go! It is
+nearly supper time, and I think mother is going to have Parker House
+rolls. I adore them. I had no idea I had stayed so long, but you are so
+entertaining and it is so nice to think we feel alike about leading our
+own lives our own way, and all that."
+
+Claire murmured a faint good-bye after her departing guest and flopped
+heavily down on the divan where she had so recently thrown herself in
+tears.
+
+She lay staring at the ceiling, deep in thought. A hazy question flitted
+through her mind. "Am I like that?" she asked herself. Then she laughed
+and dismissed the silly idea.
+
+"What a dreadful girl!" she concluded. "Too dreadful! And father wants
+me to bother with people like that!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Having met Colonel Maslin in the hotel lobby, Mabel found herself riding
+home in the beautiful Maslin limousine. She sat exactly in the center of
+the softly cushioned seat and stared haughtily at the passersby. She
+inclined her head a trifle in condescending acknowledgment of the
+traffic police who waved them on as they turned from Broadway into Third
+Street. Mabel was sorry that he did not seem to notice her. He lived
+three doors from Mabel on the side street and it seemed a pity not to
+impress him, especially as he was forever bringing home the Brewster dog
+when he ran away without his tag.
+
+But luck was with Mabel when the big car rolled noiselessly up to the
+curb before her home, for her mother was standing at the window, and her
+brother and three other boys were having a last confab before separating
+for the night. Mabel crossed the sidewalk and went up the steps in her
+most stately manner. She did not notice the boys at all.
+
+"Well," said her mother as she entered the house, "did you get a ride
+home? How do you like the Maslin girl?
+
+"She is a rare soul," said Mabel. Then descending to earth, "I wish you
+could see the rooms they live in. You never _did_ see such lovely
+things. And she has a maid, and a Chinese house-servant, and her father
+is a perfect dear and sent us up a big box of candy."
+
+"A rare soul, is she?" said Mrs. Brewster. "How do you mean?"
+
+"Oh, I can't explain," said Mabel. "She is so understanding, and we
+seemed to think and feel just alike on so many subjects. I expect to see
+a great deal of her. We have so much in common."
+
+"Does she object to dusting and making beds and things of that sort?"
+asked Mrs. Brewster in a mild tone.
+
+"I don't know," said Mabel, flushing.
+
+"Ummm," said Mrs. Brewster. To Mabel the smile was
+maddening,--infuriating.
+
+"I don't see why you take it like that," she burst out harshly. "Just
+because I have a mind above the average and want to live my own life and
+set my soul free! I am reading every little while about some girl who
+does it. But I never get a chance. Nothing for _me_ but school and
+practice and that old dusting and helping around the house!"
+
+Mrs. Brewster sat down and looked quizzically at her excited elder
+child. She was in no hurry to break the silence, while Mabel stared out
+of the window and drummed on the pane with nervous finger tips. Finally
+she said gently, "Just what do you think you would like to do?"
+
+"Oh, I want to break away, and have a chance to expand! I feel choked
+the way things go now. I read about one girl about my age who left home
+and took an apartment and lived her own life. It was wonderful. She went
+to work too, and made lots and lots of money."
+
+"Lucky girl," said Mrs. Brewster. "What a help she must have been to her
+family! Oh, I forgot; the trick was that she _didn't_ help her family at
+all, did she? Was she a rare soul too?"
+
+Mabel registered what she fondly hoped was a look of scorn. She did not
+speak, and after a moment Mrs. Brewster continued:
+
+"What was her chosen field of endeavor? In other words, what job did she
+get?"
+
+"She became a newspaper woman," said Mabel.
+
+"But what did she do in the meantime? What did she do while she was
+learning to do newspaper work? Didn't you say she was a girl about your
+age?"
+
+Mabel answered patiently.
+
+"She became a newspaper writer at once," she said. "Don't you see,
+mamma, that is just the point? She went away from all the worries of her
+own home, where she never had time to think things out for herself, and
+it gave her a chance to _expand_. While she was at home her time was so
+broken."
+
+"I see," said Mrs. Brewster. "I suppose her cruel parents expected her
+to dust and wash dishes and mend her clothes and practice, and all
+that. It was a great pity. I suppose there are a great many parents
+like that--so thoughtless."
+
+"Indeed there are!" said Mabel with feeling. For the moment, hearing her
+mother agree with her, she forgot to whom she was talking. "If mothers
+and fathers only could understand that girls want to be _free_, that
+they want to expand and be themselves, everything would be different."
+
+"I don't doubt it at all," said Mrs. Brewster. She left the room and
+Mabel continued the train of pleasant thought. She made no move to help
+about supper, and Mrs. Brewster did not call her. Remembering that the
+girl she had read about was accustomed to sit at her piano and compose
+most beautiful melodies whenever she was disturbed or wanted to soothe
+herself, Mabel went to the piano and, putting a firm foot on the
+forbidden loud pedal, broke into what she fondly told herself were
+crashing chords palpitating with the suppressed passion of her breaking
+heart. The sounds thrilled her, and she continued until interrupted by a
+roar from Frank who was doing his algebra at the kitchen table.
+
+"Aw, Mabe, have a heart and quit that noise, will you?" he begged.
+
+His rudeness broke the spell. Mabel rose and started to sweep haughtily
+toward the stairs. She would retire to the sanctuary of her own room and
+brood! But before she reached the door she heard her mother call,
+"Supper is ready!"
+
+Mabel did not hesitate. She remembered the Parker House rolls and
+hurried into the dining-room. The rolls were there, and it was well
+worth postponing a "brood" for them. Mrs. Brewster was unusually silent
+and Frank watched her anxiously until, catching her eye, she nodded and
+flashed a quick look toward her abstracted daughter. At the close of the
+meal Mabel said with what sounded to Frank perilously like kindly meant
+condescension, "That was a delicious little supper, mamma," and
+receiving a meek but fervent, "Thank you so much, dear," from her mother
+Mabel went straightway to her own room and closed the door between
+herself and her unappreciative family.
+
+The sound of that door was a signal for Frank to explode.
+
+But Mrs. Brewster laid a soft hand over his rebellious mouth.
+
+"Softly, softly, dear!" she begged. "I want you to be as patient as you
+can. If _you_ were on the wrong path somehow or other, you would be glad
+to be turned back where there was safer going, wouldn't you? Well, Mabel
+must work this thing out for her own good. You and I cannot tell how she
+will come out of it, because after all her soul is her own, and she
+knows it better than we do. But we have faith in her, sonny dear, don't
+forget that, and we believe she is a dear daughter and sister, who
+really loves us with all her heart."
+
+"Yah, she acts it!" scoffed Frank, the unbeliever.
+
+"Give her time, dear," said Mrs. Brewster. "Please be patient. I am
+going to do some telephoning now, and if you hurry with your algebra and
+finish that history lesson, we will go to the movies. There is a good
+play at the Strand tonight."
+
+"I can do that all right," said Frank, and after his mother had gone to
+the telephone he rushed the dishes out into the kitchen, stacked them
+neatly, and was buried in his book when his mother returned, a look of
+amusement rather mixed with worry on her pleasant, wholesome face.
+
+The result of the telephone talk was an astounding offer from Mrs.
+Brewster to meet Mabel when that young lady left school next day. Mrs.
+Brewster was waiting for her daughter at the door of the High School,
+and as they started slowly down the street, Mrs. Brewster said, "You
+know the girl you were telling me about last night? I mean the one who
+broke away and lived by herself and freed her soul and all that?"
+
+Mabel nodded. Was her mother going to lecture her?
+
+"I don't want to stand in your light, Mabel, and some day suffer all
+kinds of remorse when I remember that I was the one who held you back
+just because I am old-fashioned and happen to think that home is the
+place for a young girl to grow up in, a place where she can have her
+mother's care and guidance and all that. No, I just can't do it! I want
+to give you a good start if you still feel that you want to take it.
+Something came up today that looked exactly like what you wanted, and I
+snatched at the chance. At least until you decide. Of course I could not
+decide for you."
+
+"What is it?" asked Mabel cautiously.
+
+"It seems quite wonderful," said Mrs. Brewster. "You know that ducky
+little apartment the Kents have right under Grandmother Brewster's? They
+are going away for the next six months, and want someone to live there
+and take care of it."
+
+"And we are going to live there?" cried Mabel delightedly. "Oh, I am so
+glad! I am so sick of our house, it is so out of date, mamma, and on
+such a side street! What will you do--shut it up or rent it?"
+
+"Don't go so fast, Mabel. You say yourself you can't expand your soul
+when Frank and I are around. I should think not! We will live just where
+we are, and if you like _you_ can have the flat all to yourself. I was
+there this morning. There is the sweetest kitchenette, with everything
+in it, and the dearest living-room and dining-room combined and, Mabel,
+_wait_ until you see the bed-room! It will be a lot to keep clean. I
+certainly was lucky this morning. Just as I was coming home I met Marian
+Gere, who does society for the _Times-Leader_, and she is looking for an
+assistant, and simply snapped at the chance of having your help. I said
+you could help her after school hours until the end of this term, and
+after that you could give all your time, because I did not feel that I
+could ask any girl to stay in school who was as talented as you feel you
+are. And she said I was very sensible to let you try your wings. _Try
+your wings._ Don't you think that a sweet expression? I remembered it
+because I thought perhaps you could use it in your writing some time."
+Mrs. Brewster paused for breath.
+
+Mabel was looking rather wild-eyed. Things seemed to be happening rather
+rapidly. Was it possible that all her cherished dreams were to be
+realized, and at once?
+
+Her mother had the key to the little playhouse apartment, the owner
+having departed, and Mabel looked it over and over with actual cold
+chills of delight coursing down her spine.
+
+"I wouldn't tell Grandmother Brewster for a while about being here,"
+suggested Mrs. Brewster. "She might think you needed looking after," and
+Mabel agreed.
+
+"When will you come over?"
+
+"Oh, today!" cried Mabel. "And I think I will go down right now and see
+Miss Gere."
+
+"Very well, and I will go home and pack a few things for you. I think I
+would just take a hand-bag now, and later you will know exactly what you
+will need. There is not much closet space in the apartment. And of
+course Frank and I will hope to see you occasionally. But we will
+understand if you don't come home often, because you will be working
+pretty hard to earn your living, even with such a good start. It is
+lucky that you can get this lovely place to live in rent free. Later I
+suppose you will not care what you have to pay, but now it will be a
+help. And you will find that groceries are pretty high."
+
+Mrs. Brewster nodded a gay good-bye as the car approached, and left
+Mabel walking down Third Street on her way to the _Times-Leader_. A few
+blocks on her way she overtook Jane and Estella arm in arm as usual.
+Mabel gave her braid a flirt and unconsciously puffed out her chest.
+
+"Where away, Mabel?" chirruped little Estella, twinkling. In a rush of
+words Mabel told her tale while the girls listened in speechless
+amazement.
+
+"You don't mean to say that you have really _left home_?" demanded
+Estella. There was no chirp in her voice now, no twinkle in her face.
+She looked absolutely shocked.
+
+"I leave tonight," said Mabel, "soon as I settle my salary with Miss
+Gere. I am _wild_ to be free! It is going to be wonderful, perfectly
+wonderful! I expect to write something grand. Just think, no one to
+disturb me; no housework, no practicing! Oh, how my mind will soar!"
+
+"Are you going to keep a maid?" asked Jane feebly. "You said no
+housework."
+
+"Well, it won't be like the housework at home," declared Mabel. "That
+is the dustiest old place! It won't take me a minute to put everything
+in order at my apartment."
+
+"But your mother!" almost wailed Estella. "How can you leave your
+mother? I can't bear to leave mine for all day even."
+
+"Mothers are different," said Mabel sadly. "Mamma is sweet, of course,
+but she does not understand me. We are better apart; I feel it."
+
+"Well, of all things!" said Jane slowly. "I am glad _my_ soul doesn't
+have to have things done for it. I don't remember much of the time that
+I have one, and you couldn't _hire_ me to leave home."
+
+"You don't understand," said Mabel loftily. "One must do what seems
+right to one's own self. I am doing that, and I shall be rewarded. Come
+and see me sometimes, girls. I shall be very busy, but never too busy to
+receive my old Girl Scout friends."
+
+She nodded, and struck into a quicker pace which carried her ahead of
+the two girls.
+
+"Well, I think that is perfectly awful, don't you, Jane?" demanded
+little Estella, looking at the broad, retreating back.
+
+"Simply dreadful!" murmured Jane, shocked and wondering.
+
+"What do you suppose has got into Mabel? Do you suppose it is possible
+that her mother is actually letting her do it, or is she running away or
+something awful?"
+
+"Oh, Jane, do you remember what the Captain told her to do at the last
+meeting? Oh, oh, what _will_ the Captain say when she hears about this?
+She will feel awfully. Why, she never, never meant Mabel to actually
+leave her mother and go off and do dreadful things! I don't see how
+Mabel can bear it! And it will make our little Captain feel awfully!"
+
+"Says she is going to live all alone, and work on the newspaper. Just
+like being an orphan. Get her own meals and everything. I couldn't stand
+it," said Jane.
+
+They stared after the distant figure. They did not approve.
+
+"But, of course," said Estella suddenly, "we must not be too hard on
+Mabel. You know she writes real poetry. Perhaps that is what ails her.
+We mustn't forget that."
+
+"No," said Jane pityingly, "we mustn't forget _that_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Mabel, hunting for Miss Gere in the big newspaper building, nearly died
+of fright. Some repairs were being made, and the office force was
+huddled into a space about half large enough for it up on the fourth
+floor. When Mabel finally reached the room, she was told that Miss Gere
+was out but that she might wait at her desk. The desk was a small,
+disorderly table littered with papers swarming over, around and under a
+battered typewriter. She sat down and looked about. Young men,
+unattractive, harried looking young men with steely eyes hurried in,
+dropped down before tables just like Miss Gere's, pounded furiously on
+typewriters, or consulted earnestly with a tall, thin man in shirt
+sleeves, who glared ferociously at their papers from the safe shadow of
+his green eye-shade. To Mabel, watching with all her might, this tall
+thin man seemed to be the only one who was not in a hurry. He listened
+to everyone, sometimes to three or four at a time, answered questions,
+sent instructions down a telephone that Mabel rightly guessed connected
+with the printing rooms far below and seemed perfectly capable, as
+indeed he was, of keeping a thousand different lines of action going at
+once. Mabel wondered who he was.
+
+He was the City Editor, and already he knew about Mabel and had judged
+her with one of the lightning glances hidden under the shade. The room
+was overheated, and Mabel, waiting as patiently as she could, commenced
+to grow drowsy. In a half dream, she saw herself entering the magic
+railing which surrounded the tall man's desk. _She_ did not lean
+hectically over the rail and talk rapidly from the outside as did the
+young men reporters. No, Mabel, grown tall and slender and surpassingly
+beautiful, walked _into_ the charmed circle, greeting her chief with a
+slow, faint smile. Then opening her hand-bag, and drawing off her gloves
+while she lazily watched the great man through her long drooping lashes,
+she proceeded to present a sheaf of papers written over closely in her
+fine neat hand. The lines of her beautiful rajah silk sport suit clung
+to her lovely figure as she modestly drew the chief's attention to some
+particular statement. Stubby Mabel, in her plain, serviceable school
+dress, sitting unnoticed at Miss Gere's table, was thrilled at the sight
+of herself! As the dream-Mabel finished her interview with the City
+Editor and rose, she said in response to his enthusiastic praise of her
+work, "Thanks so much!"
+
+The real Mabel was frozen with horror to hear herself actually speak the
+words! For a moment she assured herself that she had imagined that too,
+but a wild-looking, oldish man banging furiously on the typewriter on
+the next table turned and stared at her and said, "Huh?" in an
+absent-minded way.
+
+"Nothing, sir," said Mabel in a flustered voice, not at all the voice of
+the dream-Mabel who had wholly disappeared. The real Mabel sat very
+still and red until Miss Gere came in.
+
+Miss Gere was not at all what Mabel thought a Society Editor should be.
+The lady slouched in, a fedora hat pulled low over her eyes giving her
+very much the general appearance of the City Editor. A long, full ulster
+hung uncertainly from her thin shoulders, and its deep pockets bulged
+with scrap paper. Her beautiful, delicate hands were quite grubby on the
+knuckles. When she entered, she smiled a brilliant, transforming smile
+that seemed to embrace everyone in the room. All the hurried young men
+felt it and beamed in return; the City Editor turned his green eye-shade
+in her direction, and the frantic typist beside Mabel stopped long
+enough to flap a thin paw in her direction.
+
+She threaded her way slowly across the room, shaking her head as Mabel
+rose and offered her the chair she was occupying, and sat down in
+another. She pushed back her hat.
+
+"You are prompt," she said. "I didn't expect you would come today,
+though your mother said you would. She says you are very anxious for a
+newspaper career. Well, you must be willing to do a good deal of hard
+work." She turned first one and then the other grubby hand over and
+studied her perfectly kept nails. Mabel, fascinated, watched her every
+movement.
+
+"I told your mother it was dollars to doughnuts that you wouldn't stick
+it out a month, but she seems to think you will. Of course if you have
+actually gone to the length of leaving home and all that, why, you
+_must_ be in earnest. Do you know anything at all about reporting?"
+
+"A little," said Mabel. "I have reported for the _High School Clarion_."
+
+A smile flitted across Miss Gere's thin, eager face. She did not seem as
+deeply impressed as she might have been. Mabel hastened on.
+
+"I write a good deal by myself," she said. "I can bring you some poems
+and sketches that I have done."
+
+"It won't be necessary," said Miss Gere hastily, "although I am sure
+they are well worth reading. I will start you on something easy. You are
+to be my assistant, you know. All these men around here are reporters
+too, and that big man is our City Editor. Bring what you write to me
+because he doesn't want to know that you are on earth. I have a full day
+tomorrow and you may cover the business meeting at the Red Cross Rooms,
+and then you may call up the women on this list, and ask them to give
+you some details about the entertainments they are giving. Bring in a
+nice little story about all this, and I will give you further
+directions when I see you. You may call some of these ladies up tonight.
+Use all sorts of tact."
+
+She passed a slip of paper to Mabel bearing a typewritten list of
+well-known names. Mabel took it, and guessing from Miss Gere's
+preoccupied manner that the interview was at an end reluctantly passed
+out.
+
+Reaching the street, she dropped the humble air that she had worn in the
+office and, feeling like a conqueror, turned toward her new home. Her
+thoughts were all of Miss Gere. How gloriously, fascinatingly thin she
+was! Mabel unfastened her coat. Perhaps she would look thinner if her
+coat flopped.
+
+Then she heard her name called.
+
+A big car was crawling along the curb, and from the limousine Claire
+Maslin and Rosanna Horton called her name again. The car stopped and in
+response to a word from his young mistress the Chinaman stepped down and
+opened the door.
+
+"Let us take you home," said Claire in her deep, drawling voice. Mabel
+entered and seated herself, smiling.
+
+"I have just been down making arrangements to begin my newspaper
+career," she said. "I think every young writer should spend a certain
+time on newspaper work. It is such good practice, and one learns so much
+about Life."
+
+"Dear me!" said Rosanna. "What do you mean, Mabel? Is your mother going
+to let you do newspaper reporting?"
+
+"She is perfectly willing for me to do whatever I feel I ought to do,"
+said Mabel loftily. "Mother and I have had a good talk, and I find she
+is a great deal broader than I feared she would be. The fact is I have
+left home and have started on a career. I have a charming little box of
+a place where you must look me up."
+
+"Splendid!" said Claire, clapping her gloved hands lightly. "I shall
+tell my father, and see what he says. I am always begging him to let me
+go away and live my life as I want to live it."
+
+"But, Mabel!" gasped Rosanna in horror. "You can't do anything like
+that. You are only a little girl! You _can't_ go off and live by
+yourself. Why, you just can't! And, besides, you know the loyalty and
+service a Girl Scout owes to her mother. I don't see how you can _think_
+of such a thing. I am sure you must be joking."
+
+Mabel's face flushed deeply. "You don't understand at all, Rosanna," she
+said stiffly. "What might be right for one is not right for another. You
+know the Captain herself told me to live for myself alone and see how it
+would work out, and it is working out wonderfully. I shall report
+Saturday night at the meeting that it is a great success."
+
+"Oh, dear, _dear_!" cried Rosanna. "I know she did not mean to have
+anything like this happen. Oh, Mabel, you _must_ go back home!"
+
+"I think she is right," said Claire.
+
+"Certainly I am right," Mabel declared. "My apartment is around the next
+corner, Claire, number 112, if you will drop me there."
+
+The girls were quite silent as Mabel indicated the apartment house and
+said good-bye, asking them both to come to see her. As they drove off,
+Claire was smiling and Rosanna was very grave.
+
+"I wonder how she will come out," said Claire, as they turned toward
+Rosanna's house.
+
+"It is perfectly _awful_!" exclaimed Rosanna.
+
+"She says the Captain told her to," said Claire.
+
+"I know she never meant her to go so far," wailed Rosanna. "Well, I
+shall tell her when I go home, and she will know what to do. Cita never
+makes a mistake."
+
+"Cita?" said Claire. "That is Spanish."
+
+"Yes," said Rosanna, smiling. "When she married my Uncle Robert she
+seemed so tiny and so dimply and young to be married to anyone that I
+told her that I meant to call her Cita. Why, I couldn't say _Aunt_! And
+she _is_ Cita. She is dear. That is what it means."
+
+"I know," said Claire. "She is a dear, I can agree with you there. I
+like her as well as I ever like anyone."
+
+"Don't you _love_ your friends?" asked Rosanna wistfully. This strange
+green-eyed girl, so cold and so reserved, made her feel sad.
+
+"I have no friends," replied Claire indifferently.
+
+"Well, you will make a lot of friends here in Louisville," Rosanna
+assured her, smiling.
+
+"No," said Claire. The car stopped before Rosanna's house.
+
+"Oh, yes!" insisted Rosanna as she stood at the curb. "You see you will
+want friends when you grow up. Every girl does."
+
+"Not I," said Claire, shaking her head. "I shall need no friends. Indeed
+I shall _want_ no friends at the place I am going to when I grow up."
+
+She dropped back against the cushions as though she was suddenly very
+tired and Rosanna, forgetting to move, watched the luxurious car bear
+its beautiful young owner away.
+
+"Oh, dear!" sighed Rosanna finally, and with dragging feet went into the
+house to find Cita. But she was out, and Rosanna, puzzled and
+distressed, went to her own pleasant room, and curling up on a big divan
+tried to solve the new Scout's mysterious words. She forgot all about
+Miss Brewster, who at that moment, also curled up on a divan in her new
+apartment, had just happened to think that she was growing hungry and
+would have to get her own supper. She hurried out to the ice-chest and
+found it empty with the exception of three large, violent looking green
+pickles on a plate. Mabel bit one. It was very, very sour. Grabbing her
+pocketbook, she hurried down to the nearest grocery and bought a loaf of
+bread, a pound of butter, some cold boiled ham, a glass of orange
+marmalade and a package of shredded wheat. With these packages in hand,
+she retraced her steps, the almost empty pocketbook swinging from her
+hand.
+
+Supper was queer and not very cheerful, but Mabel knew that she would
+find it strange at first and the thought that part of her work lay
+before her that very night kept her spirits up. She had her telephoning
+to do.
+
+She did not wash the cup and plate, but left them on the table to do in
+the morning. She was on her way to the telephone when the ringing of the
+bell made her jump. She seized the receiver. Mrs. Horton, the Scout
+Captain, was speaking.
+
+"I have just heard the news, Mabel," she said pleasantly. "Isn't it
+wonderful? And you are really going to try out my experiment? It is
+wonderful to be able to live for yourself alone, isn't it? Nearly always
+we have duties that hold us back, and I know you are too good a Scout to
+disregard any of yours, but of course your mother has Frank, and he is
+_so_ devoted to her that it really leaves you free. She says he always
+helps her as though he was a girl. I called you up to suggest that as
+long as you are making such a real test that it would be well to
+postpone the report you were going to bring to the meeting."
+
+"I think so too," Mabel agreed hastily. "I know it will be a success,
+and if I can prove that girls are able to do for themselves, without
+having to do all sorts of other things like practicing and helping, at
+the same time, it will be a great thing for girls. Don't you think so?"
+
+"I do indeed," Mrs. Horton assured her. "And just _think_ what it will
+mean for mothers! They will be so free. As it is now, your mother, for
+instance, feels as though she ought to look after you and see that you
+have good clothes to wear to school and good food to eat, and she wants
+to fix a pretty room for you, and because you are studying and
+practicing she does a lot of darning for you and all that sort of thing,
+and probably she makes most of your dresses because they cost so much to
+buy these hard times.
+
+"Why, by the time she has done all this, and has looked after you when
+you are ill, she has no time for herself. I called your mother up to get
+your address, and she seemed so pleased with everything. She said with
+Frank to help her, she was going to be able to do so much that she has
+been wanting to do ever since you were a baby. She and Frank are going
+to the theatre tonight, and tomorrow she is going to begin designing for
+that big firm on Fourth Street. I suppose she told you about it?" she
+added.
+
+"No, she didn't," said Mabel, rather embarrassed to hear in this way of
+her own mother's plans.
+
+"We were so busy today that we didn't get time to say much."
+
+"Well, I am glad to be able to tell you good news," said the little
+Captain cheerily. "It will be so much off your mind to be able to go to
+sleep tonight and be sure that things are working out right. I think you
+are so brave, Mabel. I never would have the courage to do what you are
+doing, even though I am quite grown up. And you are really only a little
+girl in years."
+
+"But I feel old in experience," sighed Mabel. She thought she heard a
+soft giggle at the other end of the wire, but at once Mrs. Horton
+coughed rather loudly and Mabel knew she was mistaken.
+
+"That makes such a difference," said the Captain. "For my part, I am a
+_perfect goose_. I would be so lonesome and afraid there where you are,
+and I would rather do any amount of mending and dishes rather than go
+down and work in a stuffy newspaper office and beg a lot of women for
+items about their silly affairs. Yes, you are really very brave. You
+must call me once in awhile and let me know how you are progressing. And
+you need not come to the Scout meetings for awhile if you are busy. I
+will excuse you. I will explain to the girls just what you are doing to
+help them all. Good-night! Oh, your mother said for me to tell you
+good-night for her too as she was rushing off to the theatre, so there
+are two good-nights for you, Mabel dear. Good luck, and I hope you will
+find time to ask me over to tea with you some afternoon."
+
+"Indeed I will!" said Mabel. "Good-night!"
+
+She turned from the receiver. Suddenly she felt very small and young,
+and the pretty rooms were stiller than the rooms at home somehow.
+
+The subject for a poem flashed into her mind. And quick as a wink she
+made up the first verse
+
+    "Alone, alone, the world before me.
+      What is this I leave behind?
+    Happiness and heat and mother;
+      All to train my wondrous mind."
+
+Somehow _heat_ did not sound very poetical, but the apartment was
+certainly freezing cold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+While eating a not too satisfactory supper on the corner of the kitchen
+table, Mabel was blissfully unaware of the fact that her venture into
+the world was being discussed at two dinner tables at least.
+
+Rosanna, filled with misgivings, had repeated all that Mabel had said
+and she was distressed to see that Uncle Bob regarded it as a good joke,
+while his wife, the little Scout Captain, was convinced that the outcome
+would be exactly what she desired. And when Rosanna asked what that was,
+she laughed and said, "Wait and see."
+
+Claire Maslin, telling her father about it, was met with shouts of
+laughter.
+
+"The girl is crazy!" he merely said. "That fat little Brewster girl that
+ate so much candy here the other day? She will be sick of her bargain
+soon."
+
+"I would like it myself," said Claire sullenly. "She can do exactly as
+she pleases. I wish _I_ could."
+
+"My poor little girl," said Colonel Maslin, "that is all in the world
+that ails you! I can run a regiment, but I don't seem able to run one
+girl. I wish you would try to see, my dear, that you are a lucky, very
+lucky young person, and act accordingly."
+
+"_Lucky?_" said Claire bitterly. "You call _me_ lucky? Oh, it is not
+your fault, daddy! I am as sorry for you as I am for myself, but it is
+so funny to hear you use that word."
+
+"Well, I call _myself_ lucky," said Colonel Maslin, staring at the
+flowers that decorated the table.
+
+"Do you? Why?" demanded Claire, her lip curling. She too stared at the
+flowers. She would not look at her father.
+
+"I have your dear mother and I have you," he said after a long pause.
+
+"I _am_ a comfort to you, I am sure," she said in low, tense tone, "and
+mother must be a comfort too. You would be glad if we both--"
+
+"Stop!" said Colonel Maslin sharply. "You remember you are never to
+speak unkindly of your poor mother. You are wrong, all wrong, and I
+would give my right hand if I could set you right, if I could make you
+understand what is honestly in my heart. When you are older you will
+perhaps understand."
+
+"When I am older!" cried Claire. "When I am older--" She sat staring at
+her father, rigid and pale, then suddenly all her self-control deserted
+her. She leaned forward, burst into a storm of sobs, and pounded
+furiously on the table. Her voice tore out in a shrill scream. "When I
+am older--_you_ know what I will be then!" she panted, and her sobs rose
+higher.
+
+With a muttered exclamation Colonel Maslin rose from the table, dashed
+to his daughter's side, lifted her in his arms, and as though she was
+still a little child he carried her to her room and laid her struggling
+and writhing, on her bed. Her maid entered hurriedly.
+
+"Take care of her," he begged, and left the room.
+
+An hour later he sat in little Mrs. Horton's own sitting-room and talked
+while she watched him with eyes made soft by unshed tears of sympathy.
+
+"It is the first time I have asked for help," he said brokenly after
+awhile, and she sighed to see the gallant soldier bowed by grief. "But I
+have pinned my hope on the Girl Scouts, and now that I know you, on you.
+Save my little girl for me, dear lady, save her for her mother's sake! I
+need Claire so! And her coldness, her wild fits of temper, and her
+gloomy black moods are so unlike the sunny little tot she used to be
+that there are times when it seems as though I could never bear it. Is
+it always to be so, Mrs. Horton?"
+
+"No!" cried the tiny Captain in quite a fierce voice. "_No indeed!_
+Something shall be done to help you. Claire has just made a wrong start,
+and her terrible sorrow, instead of making her more loving and more
+tender, has made her cold and hard. Don't worry, Colonel Maslin.
+Something shall be done."
+
+Colonel Maslin shook his head. "I have about given up hope," he said
+sadly. "These fits of excitement are growing on her. At first I thought
+that they were plain temper, but it is not possible. Why, Claire is in
+her teens, and her whole life has been a lesson in self-control! Our
+Chinaman is a living sermon on it. And she has been guarded against
+anything nerve racking or exciting or disagreeable."
+
+"Let me think it over for a little," said Mrs. Horton, wrinkling her
+smooth brow. "I will find some way of reaching the poor child, I am
+sure. It may take a little time. Urge her to come to the Girl Scout
+meetings and I will watch her."
+
+"You are more than good," and the Colonel bowed over the tiny hand that
+had met his in a firm, comforting grip.
+
+She shook her head and said, "The Scouts themselves, one of them or all,
+will do it, I feel positive. That is one thing the Order is for, you
+know; to help one another."
+
+"I trust you," said Colonel Maslin.
+
+"Treat her as though nothing has happened this evening," suggested Mrs.
+Horton.
+
+"I shall not see her again tonight. By the time I reach home (I shall
+have to drive up to Camp from here) she will be asleep. In the morning
+nothing will be said. Claire will simply be a little more sullen and
+aloof."
+
+"Be of good cheer," smiled the little Captain, and Colonel Maslin went
+on his lonely and sorrowful way wondering if the little lady could
+really find a way to help his poor child.
+
+In her own soft, luxurious bed, Claire was lying spent and shaken by
+the storm she had just passed through. She tried to recall the talk at
+the dinner table, but in her dazed condition she could not remember
+anything that should have started such a dreadful scene. As she recalled
+her own actions, the cries and sobs, the tears and wild words, she
+shuddered. Each time she gave way like that seemed to be worse than the
+last. And Claire was proud. It shamed her to have her own father see her
+acting so, yet some dreadful Something within her seemed to make her
+explode in that way once in awhile. And the times were growing closer
+and closer. No matter what happened, even the greatest pleasures that
+her father planned for her filled her with a sort of hard anger. She
+hated everything and everybody. All she wanted was to be let alone, and
+then she read book after book until she was dull and dizzy. Then came
+long, sleepy rides in the limousine over smooth, uneventful roads.
+
+When at length her maid brought her a glass of hot milk, she did not
+know that there was a sleeping powder in it, but sleep came quickly and
+mercifully and she did not waken until late the following morning.
+
+A note was on the chair by her bedside, just the usual affectionate
+greeting from her father, a pretty little custom of his whenever he was
+obliged to leave before she was awake. No matter how hurried, he always
+took time to write a line or two before he left. Any other girl would
+have been so proud and pleased with his unfailing tenderness and
+attention, but Claire wrapped herself round with coldness and accepted
+all he did for her without even the thanks she would have offered to a
+stranger.
+
+She even hesitated to read the short, loving note. It bored her, she
+told herself. But she opened it idly and skimmed the words that told her
+that she must spend an easy day because he had planned a little surprise
+for Rosanna and Mabel and herself. Claire lifted her eyebrows. She had
+forgotten to tell her father that Mabel bored her to death. Rosanna was
+not quite so bad; in fact, she really liked the pretty, dark-eyed girl
+who seemed so warm-hearted and so sincere. Then with scarcely a thought
+of curiosity as to the nature of the surprise, she touched the bell that
+summoned the maid with her breakfast, and idly picking up a copy of the
+Handbook for Girl Scouts, commenced to read.
+
+"A Girl Scout is loyal," she read, "to the President, to her country,
+and to her officers; to her father, to her mother--"
+
+Claire stopped there, at least something stopped her. She read the words
+repeatedly, "Loyal to her father." What was loyalty anyway? She read on:
+"She remains true to them through thick and thin. In the face of the
+greatest difficulties and calamities, her loyalty must remain
+untarnished."
+
+Claire frowned. _She_ was faced with terrific difficulties, while a
+frightful calamity, like a black cloud, darkened all her future. What
+did loyalty to her father mean in her case? She read on: "A Girl Scout
+is cheerful under all circumstances." Claire thought of her wild ravings
+the night before, and frowned. She skipped down the page to a short
+paragraph that her eyes seemed unable to avoid.
+
+"Kipling in _Kim_ says that there are two kinds of women,--one kind that
+builds men up, and the other that pulls men down; and there is no doubt
+as to where a Girl Scout should stand."
+
+Now Claire in her most selfish moods could not blind herself to the fact
+that her violent scenes were always followed by days of deep
+mournfulness on the part of her father. Lines appeared in his handsome
+face and his hair seemed to grow grayer. Was she pulling her father
+down? She refused to answer the question, and flirted the pages over to
+escape that part. She scanned the qualifications for the three grades of
+Girl Scouts. She was only a Second-Class Scout, and she knew that she
+was a poor one at that. She had been too indolent to try for the First
+Class. She read the necessary qualifications over.
+
+She could not set a table for any meal, and she could not sew. She had
+never tried to walk a mile in twenty minutes, and as for dressing or
+bathing a child, Claire wondered where she could borrow one to try on.
+She could not pass the First Aid or the International alphabet exam.
+She could not train a Tenderfoot; at least it was too much trouble, and
+while she could name ten trees, ten wild flowers, ten wild animals and
+ten wild birds, they were all Chinese. She could swim; oh, _how_ she
+could swim! A thrill of joy shook her as she thought of past hours spent
+in soft tropic waters. As for fifty cents in bank earned by herself,
+that was so funny that Claire laughed aloud. She could not imagine
+earning _five_ cents, let alone fifty.
+
+That brought her thoughts around to Mabel Brewster, and Claire saw her
+in a new light.
+
+There was a lucky girl even if she _was_ silly and conceited. She
+believed in herself and had gone off alone to fight the world, with all
+her banners flying. Yet there was that loyalty law cropping up again.
+What if Mabel _could_ write as splendidly as she said, wasn't her place
+really at home with her mother and brother? Claire was sure the
+Brewsters were not rich, and in that case Mrs. Brewster certainly needed
+help. Loyalty; always loyalty! A new and disturbing thought flashed over
+Claire. Perhaps she owed her own mother some loyalty too, even though
+she was away in a sanitarium. Wasn't it loyalty to her to keep her
+troubled, lonely and unhappy father "built up" so far as it lay in her
+power?
+
+Claire closed the little offending blue book and flung it across the
+room and when her maid entered she was lying petulantly with her head on
+her arm, her glorious red hair streaming over her like a glittering
+veil.
+
+The little book, so helpful and so uplifting, had not helped Claire at
+all. But that was because in her heart she did not want to be helped.
+She had lived for herself so long in her queer, cold, brooding fashion
+that the thought of anything different actually hurt her just as it
+hurts to stand on one's foot when it is asleep. Claire had held one
+position of thought for so long that it made her hurt and sting and
+prickle even to think of moving. So she buried her face in her arm and
+hid under her shining red hair and studied her queer jade ring and tried
+to forget the feeling that she might be in the wrong.
+
+Mabel Brewster's awakening was even more disagreeable, although she
+really deserved it less. She was not accustomed to pickles and cold ham
+and cheese for supper, as Mrs. Brewster was a careful mother. Also
+Mabel, to celebrate her great step, had found a light novel, and
+snapping on a perfectly fascinating reading light at the head of her
+bed, had proceeded to read until after one o'clock. Then she dreamed!
+She dreamed that she tried to get out of bed and couldn't because there
+was a sour green pickle as large as a street car right in the way, and
+the City Editor sat on top and looked at her from under his green shade
+and told her that the only way that she could get out was by eating her
+way through the pickle. So she commenced, while all the society ladies
+in Louisville looked on and said, "Dear me, isn't it wonderful what a
+girl can accomplish if she will only leave home, and _live for
+herself_?" And the pickle was so sour that it made Mabel shudder with
+cold and she shuddered herself awake, to find all the bed-clothes on the
+floor. She got up and made the bed over, and found it was only three
+o'clock, although she had been hours and hours trying to eat that
+frightful pickle. The bed was too soft or too hard or something, and she
+could not get to sleep again for a long while. She was glad to waken
+again and find that it was morning. Unfortunately, after all the
+adventures of the night Mabel had over-slept and was obliged to start
+off to school without breakfast and with her hair ribbon badly tied.
+Also there was no time to put the apartment in order, and Mabel was
+rather shocked to find how badly one person could tumble things up.
+
+She half hoped her mother would run around during the morning and put
+things in shape, but when she unlocked her door at one o'clock, when
+school was over for the day, she found her bed still unmade, her clothes
+tumbling out of the suitcase, and the soiled dishes on the kitchen
+table.
+
+She had cold boiled ham for luncheon, and but little of that because
+just as she commenced to eat, a telephone call interrupted her. It was
+Miss Gere asking how soon she would be down with her items and to take
+up some other work. The items were not written up, and Mabel had to
+give up her luncheon time to writing them. There was no time to tidy up,
+and Mabel hurried down town hoping now with all her heart and soul that
+her mother would not get time to use the duplicate key that Mabel had
+insisted on her taking. She felt her cheeks burn as she thought of her
+mother seeing the mess and cleaning it up in her kind way.
+
+Mabel had no cause to worry. When her mother dropped in about four
+o'clock she merely looked the place over, then sat down and laughed in
+the strangest manner. Then she carefully went out without disturbing
+anything, and took a covered basket into the apartment below where she
+talked for awhile with Mabel's grandmother, who laughed too; laughed
+hard and long, and who then said mysteriously, "Well, thank you for the
+rolls, my dear! I think they will do me more good than they would Mabel.
+And I think I shall not be 'at home' for the next week or so."
+
+Mabel did not get home until six o'clock. She had forgotten to stop at
+the market, so she had only shredded wheat and milk and pickle for
+supper. She ate shredded wheat and milk. It was a modern apartment with
+thin walls. Somebody was having chops and baked apples for supper, and a
+few minutes later there was a smell of fried chicken. Mabel helped
+herself to another shredded wheat biscuit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+A week passed. In one corner of the _Times-Leader_ office there was an
+old-fashioned letter-press. You put the letters between two iron plates
+and slowly turned a bar that pressed a lever that squeezed the plates
+together tighter and tighter. A grimy office boy was forever grinding,
+and as Mabel had many a long wait for her chief, Miss Gere, she
+commenced to be fascinated by the operation. Her vivid imagination
+commenced to trouble her. She saw her hand, her arm, her whole self
+being pressed flat by that dreadful boy. The boy, by the way, being
+about Mabel's age and totally unconscious of his grubby appearance,
+noticed Mabel's fascinated stare and accepted it as a personal
+compliment. He turned the press with a grand flourish and squeezed it
+close with a darkly frowning brow as though to call attention to his
+strength.
+
+Life, after being so eagerly called, was beginning to squeeze Mabel a
+little. Saturday noon found her half ill for food, as she had spent her
+small allowance almost at once and had had to live on the faithful box
+of shredded wheat biscuit and the milk for which she did not have to pay
+the milkman until the first of the month.
+
+After luncheon, consisting of a nut sundae which took all her remaining
+change, she spent a few moments peering in at the vegetables and
+chickens displayed in a grocer's window. She did not see Miss Gere pass.
+When Mabel returned to the office, Miss Gere sent her up Fourth Street
+to study the delicatessens and bread shops. It was agony. Mabel had
+never seen such delicious articles of food, had never dreamed of such
+penetrating and tantalizing odors. Mabel wondered if she could ever
+stand it until six o'clock when she would be paid. She jotted down her
+notes and, wending her way back to the office, settled down in a corner
+to put her material in shape. It did not take long, and while she waited
+for Miss Gere who was almost always out, she reviewed the experiences
+that had beset her during the past few days. Of them all this day had
+been the worst. And Mabel, who had fondly expected to have most of her
+Saturdays to herself, reflected that after six o'clock she would have to
+take her hungry and weary self back to the apartment and attempt to
+clean things up.
+
+The dainty rooms looked as though a whirlwind had struck them. Poor
+Mabel was not wholly to blame. She was carrying too great a load. She
+had school to think of, and as soon as she was released at noon she was
+obliged to rush off to the dusty office for her orders for the rest of
+the day. She never reached home again until six and later, and on
+several occasions she had been obliged to accompany Miss Gere on long
+tiresome night trips by automobile or trolley into the surrounding
+country. Of her mother she had seen but little. Twice her mother had
+called while she was out with Miss Gere, and Mabel, not knowing that
+this had been by arrangement between Mrs. Brewster and Miss Gere, was
+honestly disappointed. Several times she had met her mother down town,
+and once they had had luncheon together at a cafeteria.
+
+On these occasions Mabel was forced to notice that her mother, whom she
+had rather looked down on as a common or garden variety of parent, was
+really a most attractive and charming woman. She treated Mabel not at
+all like a little girl, spoke only of the surface things that interested
+Mrs. Brewster herself and lightly passed over all Mabel's wistful
+references to home and Frank. Mrs. Brewster did say that they missed
+Mabel and added with a rather sad smile that she had never thought to
+lose her little daughter and so on. Mabel felt herself saddened by these
+meetings. She found that she was thinking of her mother all the time,
+and sometimes she almost wished that she was just an ordinary girl and
+not a genius, so she could stay at home and be taken care of. When the
+second Sunday came Mabel permitted herself the luxury of a good cry. She
+was too stubborn to confess that she was desperately sick of her
+foolishness and wholly and utterly homesick, but angrily dried her tears
+and started to dress.
+
+The telephone rang. It was Mrs. Brewster. She sent a cheery good-morning
+over the wire and asked if Mabel had had breakfast. Mabel hopefully said
+no, that she was just commencing to dress.
+
+"Why, we are all through!" laughed Mrs. Brewster. "We are getting an
+early start, because the Morrissons have asked us to drive to Lexington
+with them. They wanted to ask you too, but I told them that you were
+always too taken up with your other affairs and your writing to accept
+any invitations and they were so disappointed."
+
+"Who is going?" asked Mabel.
+
+"Just the two Morrisson boys and Frank and myself."
+
+The two Morrisson boys were quite the most popular young fellows in
+Louisville and Mabel saw, with a sense of defeat, that her biggest
+social chance had slipped from her grasp.
+
+Her mother went cheerily on: "So Frank and I got up early and fixed our
+share of the luncheon, and prepared and ate our own breakfast, and now
+we are all ready."
+
+Mabel was furious. It was on her tongue's end to tell her mother that of
+course she would be glad to go, but her stubbornness held her back, so
+she said a brief and snippy good-bye and hung up the receiver. But she
+did not leave the phone. A moment later she gave central Mrs.
+Morrisson's number, and flushed rather foolishly as she heard Mrs.
+Morrisson call hello.
+
+"I want to thank you for having thought to ask me on your ride today
+Mrs. Morrisson," she said smoothly, in her best manner. "I was just
+talking to mother, and she told me about it." Mabel stopped here and
+listened eagerly for Mrs. Morrisson to renew the coveted invitation. But
+alas, poor Mabel!
+
+"We were all sorry that you could not go," said Mrs. Morrisson in a
+sweet voice that you would never think could deal a blow to a girl's
+hopes. "And it is almost going to spoil the day for your mother, I know.
+She is always so happy when you are with her, my dear."
+
+"It is dear of you all to want me," said Mabel, "and perhaps I can
+arrange things so I can go after all."
+
+"Oh, my dear," exclaimed Mrs. Morrisson in a most distressed voice,
+"that is too awful! You see we never thought you would think of it, so I
+asked another girl, a new girl the boys have met in dancing school. She
+is a Girl Scout and your mother thought it was just the thing to do."
+
+Mabel swallowed hard.
+
+"Well, I am sure she will have a good time," she replied in a thin
+voice. "Is she a girl I know?"
+
+"Her name is Claire Maslin," said Mrs. Morrisson, "and I think she is
+really charming."
+
+"I know her," said Mabel briefly and with a noticeable lack of
+enthusiasm.
+
+She was glad when the conversation came to an end, and rushing back to
+her tumbled bed, she threw herself down and wept loudly and long. When
+finally she found that she could cry no more she dragged on her dress
+anyhow and went out to look in the tiny ice-chest. She knew what it
+contained. There was the usual ready-to-eat cereal and milk for her
+breakfast, and two discouraged looking pieces of cold boiled ham, her
+unfailing standby, on a saucer; but she had neglected to do any shopping
+the day before in the rush of necessary tasks, and there was nothing
+else to eat. For all day! Sunday! And mother and Frank were off on a
+glorious picnic! Once more Mabel wept. She set the cereal back and went
+wearily into the living-room. The bell rang, but Mabel did not care who
+it was; she did not want to see anyone. She heard a rush of feet on the
+stairs, and the door knob was shaken violently as her brother Frank
+called through the crack:
+
+"Hey, Mabe, let me in a second! Hurry up! Here's something for you!"
+
+Mabel rushed to the door and let him in. He had a large box in his hand.
+
+"Hello, sis!" he roared cheerfully. "Here's a box mother sent you. She
+is down in the car, but I told her not to come upstairs. I don't want
+her to get tired. She sent you some dinner. It's good, I can tell you!
+Helped to fix it myself. She thought it would be a change from the swell
+eats you must be buying yourself. Just notice the chicken salad. And
+she said for you to--but there is a note inside. Sorry you can't come!
+Strange girl going, and I don't like 'em. Nuisance to get acquainted.
+Why, what's wrong, Mabe?" he asked as he looked at her for the first
+time and noticed her tear stained face. "Gosh, what's wrong? Are you
+sick? Shall I call mother?" He put an awkward but loving arm around his
+sister, but she shoved him violently away.
+
+"Nothing's wrong!" she jerked out, her lips trembling in spite of her.
+"Go along, and don't mind me!" She fairly pushed him toward the door and
+Frank, dazed and astonished, allowed himself to be hurried into the
+small hallway.
+
+There he faced her. "Why don't you get some common sense into your
+head?" he asked savagely. "I think it's a crime your coming here and
+trying to live by yourself! I am ashamed to have the fellows know about
+it. They think it is awfully queer. Fellows like to look after their
+sisters. It isn't right! I don't care if you _are_ a smart kid! You can
+be just as smart over home as you can here. You don't seem to think of
+mother at all. You don't care how _she_ feels. She would skin me if she
+knew I was saying this to you, but I'll say you are the most selfish
+girl I ever knew and that's the truth! Well, go ahead! We don't care; we
+can rustle along without you!" He started for the stairs and flung this
+over his shoulder: "But I bet you will be sorry some day!"
+
+He hurried out of sight as a shrill whistle sounded from the street
+where the Morrisson boys fretted in the waiting car.
+
+Mabel picked up the box and carried it into the kitchen. Then for the
+third time that day she rushed into her bed-room, fell on the
+long-suffering bed and cried; cried tears of mingled rage and
+disappointment. She could not understand why Frank's ravings, as she
+called his outburst, should make her feel so strangely mean and small
+and in the wrong when she positively _knew_ that she was on the right
+track. But you cannot live principally on cold boiled ham, olives and
+shredded wheat day in and out, you cannot leave a comfy, homey sort of
+home even for the luxury of a modern apartment without a pang of
+homesickness hitting you sooner or later, and Mabel was pierced with it.
+And you can't have good reason for tears three times in one morning
+without losing a little of your courage, at least for the time being.
+Mabel thought of the jolly party motoring along the level roads, all
+laughing over the sallies of the older Morrisson boy. She could almost
+see Claire Maslin in her lovely green motor coat and close hat set tight
+over the shining red hair.
+
+Mabel burrowed her wet face deeper in the moist pillow. Her sobs rose.
+
+"Oh, oh, I wish I was home!" she whispered finally, and then, like the
+martyr that she felt herself, she sat up, wiped her eyes, and wondered
+what was in the box her mother had sent over. Things to eat, Mabel
+reflected, as she opened parcel after parcel and found that a whole
+Sunday dinner was hers. She put it in the ice-box and wearily started to
+clear up the dusty and untidy rooms. The sink was full of dishes, and as
+soon as the water was hot in the boiler, she attacked the piles of
+plates and cereal dishes. By the time they were washed and dried and put
+away and the rooms swept and dusted, Mabel was too tired to think of
+getting herself any dinner, even though it was waiting for her in the
+box her mother had sent over. So she curled up in a corner of the divan
+and tried to read. She could not interest herself in her novel, and at
+last she sat staring moodily at the room, studying its complicated and
+fussy furnishings and comparing them with the simple, quiet arrangement
+of her mother's house. Mabel had had occasion to see a number of homes
+during the time she had worked with Miss Gere and it was dawning on Miss
+Mabel that there was a certain charm and beauty about her mother's
+simple and unpretentious arrangements that were sadly lacking in many of
+the most luxurious places. She had never thought of this until a woman
+who stood very high in the social world of Louisville had asked her if
+she was related to the Mrs. Brewster who was doing interior decorating.
+Mabel flushed with embarrassment and said in a small voice that Mrs.
+Brewster was her mother.
+
+"How fortunate you are!" said the great lady. "Your mother is the most
+artistic person I have ever known. She is perfectly wonderful and will
+certainly make a fortune. I am trying to get her to go to New York where
+she can have a studio and command top prices. I don't see why she did
+not go into this years and years ago."
+
+Mabel, almost too surprised to reply, managed to mumble that she
+supposed her mother had been pretty busy bringing up her brother Frank
+and herself.
+
+"Well, I suppose she feels that she is really free now," said the lady
+with a smile, "since you are starting out for yourself. Although," she
+added, "I think your mother is very brave to let you start out of the
+nest so soon. You seem such a young girl to be off by yourself. Of
+course it is not at all my affair, but I should think that you would
+hate to be away from such a talented mother as yours."
+
+As Mabel recalled this conversation, she saw her mother in a new light
+and somehow the new light blazed almost too strongly on Mabel herself.
+She felt strangely small. She had this disagreeable dwindling sensation
+more and more as she compared her mother with other women in
+professional and business and social circles, the three great groups
+that made their influence strongly felt throughout the city.
+
+Mabel found too that her Great Experiment, instead of bringing her the
+envy and admiration of her mates, seemed in some strange way to make
+her the object of a kind of scorn that was very hard to bear. The very
+girls who had applauded her most loudly at first showed her in
+unmistakable small ways that she was doing something foolish instead of
+something brave and grand. But Mabel would not give in. She was not
+brave enough.
+
+It was an endless Sunday. She did not go to church, no one came to see
+her, and she would not go for her usual afternoon walk. Several times
+she started for the phone, intending to call Rosanna or Helen, then
+decided against it. Finally she took up the long neglected Girl Scout
+Manual and read steadily as far as the page that had caught Claire's
+attention.
+
+"Loyalty." The word stood out black and threatening on the page.
+"Loyalty to father and mother." Was she loyal to her talented mother,
+the mother who had laid aside all her gifts in order to give all her
+time and strength to her two children? Wasn't it her place now to
+lighten some of her mother's household cares and make it possible for
+her to gain the reward she deserved?
+
+Mabel, like Claire, threw the book angrily away from her. But unlike
+Claire, she could not throw her thoughts away. She was very unhappy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+The following morning, however, Mabel was once more filled with her
+usual self-esteem. Before going to sleep she had written a poem which
+would have sounded more original if it had not been so very like several
+well-known bits of verse she had often read. But to Mabel it seemed to
+spring from her soul, and after reading it with tears of appreciation in
+her eyes, she decided to let the _Times-Leader_ have the privilege of
+printing it.
+
+That was to be a strange, terrible and eventful Monday. The Day of
+Overheard Conversations Mabel might have named it.
+
+There was nothing to warn her of the day's disagreeable outcome. It was
+one of Louisville's loveliest mornings, and there was enough left from
+her Sunday dinner to give her a good breakfast. She was up early enough
+to go over her lessons, and the apartment as she left it after Sunday's
+violent cleaning had a look of righteous order and dustlessness. Also,
+having read the poem a number of times, Mabel saw herself as the coming
+poetess and preened herself accordingly.
+
+One of the nicest girls in high school overtook Mabel and they walked to
+school together. It was in the cloak-room that Mabel received her first
+stab. The other stepped around the end of a cloak rack where she was met
+by a third girl whom Mabel knew but slightly.
+
+"Hello, Grace," she heard her say. "I stopped at your house but you had
+gone."
+
+"Yes, I walked to school with Mabel Brewster," replied Grace.
+
+"Well, how you can stand her _I_ don't know," said the other girl with a
+sniff. "Of all the stupid prigs she is the worst!"
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't say _that_," said Grace gently.
+
+"Well, _I_ would!" declared the other girl stubbornly. "She thinks she
+is a wonder and knows everything, when in fact she is stupid and
+conceited, and _no_ one likes her."
+
+Grace was a Girl Scout and this talk shocked her. She shook her head. "I
+don't think you are really right, Mary, and besides I don't think you
+ought to speak so."
+
+"It is true, just the same," said the girl stubbornly. "You know
+yourself what her marks are--just as low as she can stand and pass. And
+that way she has of smiling in such a superior way when anyone else
+misses. And when _she_ misses she always has such a good excuse! I do
+wonder why the teachers stand for it!"
+
+A group of laughing and chattering girls came into the cloak-room and
+Mabel seized the opportunity to slip into the hall and into the
+class-room. Her face burned. Of course she told herself that the girl
+was jealous, but Mabel was one of those persons who require the approval
+and admiration of those about her in order to be happy.
+
+She did such poor work that morning that she was obliged to stay after
+school, although she knew that she ought to be at the office. She took
+her books to a desk in the reference library where she was soon lost in
+her work.
+
+Presently she heard the low voices of a couple of teachers. They came
+and seated themselves on the other side of a big blackboard just behind
+Mabel.
+
+"Oh, dear," sighed one of them, "this weather makes me long for
+vacation."
+
+"The last weeks of school are always a drag," answered the other. "And I
+think the children feel it as much as we teachers. Even my brightest
+pupils are letting down, and the marks have all fallen off."
+
+"Even Mabel Brewster's marks?" queried Miss Jones with a sniff.
+
+"What a goose that girl is!" said Miss Hannibal. "I don't know what does
+ail her."
+
+"An inflated ego," said Miss Jones.
+
+"Novels and the New Woman Movement, I think," said Miss Hannibal. "It is
+a perfect shame. I feel _so_ sorry for her mother. Here this girl, as
+soon as she gets where she would naturally be of some service and
+comfort to her mother, steps gaily out of all her responsibilities and
+home duties and sets up a home of her own and goes around talking about
+a career. _Career_, indeed! Why, the child has nothing to career _on_!
+She did not inherit her mother's cleverness. If she was _my_ child, I
+would send her to her room and keep her there on bread and water until
+she came to her senses."
+
+"So would I," said Miss Jones, "but it is really none of our business,
+of course."
+
+"Well, in a way it is," answered Miss Hannibal testily. "You see she is
+doing very poor school work, and the Principal told me yesterday that he
+would probably have to drop her from her class at the end of the school
+year. And she _won't_ work, because she is so crazy over that silly
+newspaper job that she simply neglects everything else. I just _don't_
+see what ails her mother!"
+
+"Does her mother know what poor work she is doing in school?" asked Miss
+Jones.
+
+"I don't know," said Miss Hannibal. "And I don't know what good it would
+do if she did. A girl who thinks as little of her mother as Mabel does
+would not care what she thought and would not listen to her advice. You
+may be sure that she has cost her mother many bitter tears already. _I_
+shan't worry about her. She spoils my thoughts. I have wanted to ask you
+how the Morrisson boys are doing."
+
+Miss Jones proceeded to enthuse over the Morrissons, but for once their
+achievements did not interest Mabel at all. She was stunned and angry.
+Yet as she sat huddled motionless in her corner, waiting for the
+teachers to go, she soon recovered her balance, and reflected that they
+too were probably jealous. She thought fondly of her position on the
+newspaper and proudly dreamed her dream of the day when she would drift
+into the magic circle of the Chief Editor's desk as his best reporter.
+
+When Miss Hannibal and Miss Jones sauntered away, Mabel lost no time in
+making good her own escape. She crossed over to Third Street where the
+beautiful houses with their look of reserve and wealth always catered to
+her love of luxury. Ahead were three girls in Girl Scout uniforms. She
+recognized them at once: Rosanna Horton with her black docked hair,
+Claire Maslin's long swinging red braid and Elise Hargrave's bobbing
+curls. At first Mabel decided to walk slowly and avoid them but she
+changed her mind and caught up with them.
+
+"Do you still like the work you are doing?" asked Claire in her soft
+drawl.
+
+"I suppose so," said Mabel, and then as though forced into honesty, she
+added, "The trouble is, I miss mother and Frank so that I don't seem to
+do all the work I planned after all. It doesn't seem to be working out
+right. Of course I shall go on with it, because I really owe it to
+myself, but it isn't half the fun I thought it was going to be."
+
+"I knew it," said Elise Hargrave gently. "It is a most dreadful thing to
+be _torn_ from the home nest, and when one hops out by one's self and
+waves that not so strong wing one must of a necessity wish to be back."
+
+"Why don't you give up and go home?" said Rosanna. "You would be doing
+the wise thing."
+
+"No, I can't," said Mabel. "I suppose some day when I am famous, I will
+perhaps take mother and Frank to live with me." She laughed and nodded
+as she left the girls and hurried on to the _Times-Leader_ office.
+
+"She means it; she actually _means_ it!" said Rosanna in a hushed voice.
+
+"Of course she means it!" laughed Claire. "Isn't she funny? I never saw
+a girl so conceited in my life. And really she _isn't_ bright at all.
+She is just an ordinary girl with ordinary gifts. I think she is usually
+quite stupid when she talks, but perhaps that is because she is so
+awfully conceited that it bores you."
+
+"I hate to hear you say such things about her," said the tender-hearted
+Rosanna.
+
+When Mabel reached the office she went directly to the big shabby
+dictionary open on its stand, and looked up two words, _Inflated_, and
+_ego_. The result was not pleasing! She sat before the book, glooming
+over the unflattering result of her quest. So she had an "inflated
+ego," had she? As she sat there, the office boy, seeing her close to his
+letter-press and feeling himself capable of starting an acquaintance
+with any girl his own size, pulled his purple and gold necktie into
+place, seized a few sheets of paper, and sauntered up. Mabel continued
+to stare at the open page of the dictionary.
+
+"Kiddin' me," thought the boy to himself. He put the papers in place,
+and commenced to whistle, one careful eye on Mabel. He whistled so far
+off the key that she looked up. Instantly he grinned.
+
+"Great job, this!" he said cheerfully, twisting the lever with a vast
+show of effort. "I bet I work harder than any fellow in this office. I
+bet I work harder than the Chief himself." Mabel continued to look at
+him, but did not speak, and he continued, "Your name is Brewster; Mabel
+Brewster, isn't it? I saw it on some of the papers Miss Gere and the
+Chief threw in the waste basket. Say, what do you write such gobs of
+stuff for? They don't use it. Aren't you on to that yet? My name's Jesse
+Hart. Ain't that a peach of a name to give a fellow? Sounds like a
+sure-nuff girl's name--Jesse. And Hart means a deer. Fellows used to
+call me Jessie dear when I was a kid, but I knocked a couple of 'em out
+and they quit it." He grinned at Mabel more cheerfully than before.
+"Say, you don't wear yourself out talkin', do you, sis?"
+
+Mabel flushed with anger. A couple of the reporters saw the two and
+smiled playfully. "Jessie dear" winked back and Mabel flushed.
+
+"I don't want to talk to you," she said distinctly. "I wish you would go
+away."
+
+"Suits me!" said Jesse. "Suits me all right, Miss High-Mighty." He gave
+a short laugh with a close imitation of the manner of Dalton Duplex, his
+movie star villain, and strutted off. Mabel noted that the rims of his
+ears were very red. She dismissed him angrily from her thoughts and went
+over to Miss Gere's desk.
+
+The thin man pounded furiously on the next typewriter as usual, but he
+looked up as she passed him. "A new crush, Miss Mabel?" he asked
+mischievously.
+
+Mabel was too angry to answer; she rudely flounced into the chair and
+turned her burning face away.
+
+Surely, she thought, there _never_ was another girl who had so many
+things to annoy her. That silly boy! As though she would bother to look
+at him. The two immaculate Morrissons flashed through her mind. Such
+boys and their friends were well worth while. Then her mind turned to
+the remark about the waste basket. She wondered if her work was being
+thrown away. She knew that it was always rewritten, but she thought that
+was the rule of the office. Mabel had a lot to think of.
+
+The next morning Jesse proceeded to prove that he was a youth of grit
+and determination. He wore another necktie, and when he saw Mabel
+sitting at Miss Gere's desk he went over and grinned a cheerful
+good-morning. Mabel returned it glumly with a stony stare that would
+have quelled a less determined boy.
+
+"Say, how about a picnic Sunday afternoon?" he asked without noting the
+drop in temperature. "I thought we could ask your mother to chaperone
+us, and get your brother Frank, and a couple of other fellows and have
+supper at Jacobs' park. The chaps have a car and they know two dandy
+girls."
+
+"No," said Mabel decidedly. "It isn't possible for me to go. I am sure
+mother wouldn't go, nor Frank." She spoke so sneeringly that Jesse
+flushed.
+
+"That's where you guess again, Miss Highty-Mighty!" he said. "I saw
+Frank last night and he asked his mother, and she said _sure_, so I
+guess I just get another girl for little me, and you needn't think I
+don't know where to get off. I won't trouble you again, so don't you
+worry." He stalked off, leaving Mabel furious to think that Frank and
+her mother were going to go with that dreadful boy and his dreadful
+friends. She could just _see_ the sort they must be: the girls like a
+lot of the girls she knew in high school, giggly, silly, gum-chewing
+girls, with untidy ruffed-up hair pulled over their ears, and boys like
+Jesse. She sent a cautious glance after Jesse. After all there was
+nothing really the matter with him, except she just didn't like his
+neckties, and oh well, he wasn't a bit like the Morrissons, for
+instance, who always looked as though they had come out of a bandbox,
+and were so polite, and _such_ fun.
+
+That night going home. Mabel met Frank. He seemed to be always hanging
+around the corner nearest the _Times-Leader_ office when she came out at
+night and always walked home with her.
+
+"Jesse says you won't go on our picnic," Frank commenced at once.
+
+"Why, of course not!" said Mabel. "I am perfectly surprised to think
+that you and mother would mix with such people!"
+
+"Such people?" repeated Frank. "_What_ people?"
+
+"Why, the sort that Jesse boy must go around with. Of course I know how
+mother is. She would chaperone anyone who wanted her, but I should think
+_you_ would know enough to keep her out of it."
+
+"Well, I don't see how you figure it," said Frank sulkily. "I am going
+to take Helen Culver. She is all right, isn't she? And Jesse was going
+to take you, and I bet you think _you_ are all right, and Rosanna Horton
+and that Maslin girl are going with Jesse's cousins. Pretty good crowd,
+I take it."
+
+"Who are his cousins, for mercy sake?" demanded Mabel.
+
+"Don't you know?" asked Frank. "The Morrissons, of course! You know
+their father owns the _Times-Leader_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Leaving Mabel to recover as best she could from Frank's astounding
+announcement, we will look in on Rosanna listening, round eyed and
+breathless, to her Uncle Bob talking rapidly to his mother, his wife,
+and his little niece.
+
+"Oh, do you _really_ mean it?" Rosanna exclaimed at last.
+
+"Cross my heart, sweetness!" Uncle Bob assured her. "Cross my heart and
+black my eye, _hope_ to live and _haf_ to die!"
+
+Rosanna leaned back with a sigh of absolute delight. "I never dreamed
+anything so perfectly splendiferous," she murmured. "Wait until I tell
+the girls about it!"
+
+"That is the only disagreeable part, dear," said her uncle. "What I have
+told you is a great secret. In fact, no one but just our four selves
+must know a single thing about our plans until a week before we sail. I
+am sorry, because I know what fun it would be to talk over a trip around
+the world, but there are very important business reasons why it must be
+kept absolutely quiet."
+
+"All right, uncle, but that means we will have to talk it over twice as
+much ourselves. So tell it all over, please!"
+
+"Well," said Uncle Bob, not at all unwilling to talk, "John Culver's
+invention makes it possible to arrange our machinery in such a way that
+it is possible to use it under almost any and all conditions. It is
+changing the whole course of big institutions and vast enterprises will
+be affected by it. It is such a big thing that it must be laid before
+the heads of governments, and it has fallen to my lot to attend to this
+part of the business. So for the first trip I am going to start across
+the Atlantic, cut nearly straight across the continent, come home by
+Japan and Honolulu, _and_ you are all going with me!"
+
+"But how about school?" wailed Rosanna.
+
+"Oh, bother school!" said Uncle Bob, with an uncomfortable glance at
+Rosanna's grandmother. "What's school to us? We are going a-jaunting
+whether school keeps or not!" He laughed. "We will be off and away as
+soon as ever we can."
+
+"Hurray!" cried Rosanna, hopping up and down. "Oh, grandmother, will you
+really let us?"
+
+Her grandmother looked at her son, then at his wife. They both sparkled.
+
+"I think I shall have to," she said. "But, Rosanna, I don't know what is
+going to become of your education if these people keep on taking us with
+them wherever they go."
+
+"Oh, but grandmother dear, think of all the wonderful things I will see,
+and the languages I will hear, and the people, the queer dear people!"
+
+"I should say so!" said Mrs. Horton dryly. "And the _algebra_ you will
+miss! How wonderful it will be!"
+
+The next few days were so exciting that Rosanna could scarcely bear it.
+She was glad when Claire Maslin telephoned over to see if she would come
+and spend the week-end with her in the house her father had just taken.
+Both Mrs. Horton and Cita were glad to have Rosanna go, for she was so
+excited over the coming journey that she went wandering about the house
+like a restless spirit and could neither read, practice nor study.
+
+Claire was drifting into one of her black moods. The Colonel had learned
+that his wife had taken a turn for the worse, and had felt that he must
+tell Claire. She had heard it in stony silence, with dry eyes and
+compressed lips, her only comment being, "It is coming soon, isn't it,
+dad?"
+
+Then after a sleepless night and a bad day she asked Rosanna to come and
+stay with her, hoping that she could forget her horrors for awhile. But
+after a few hours spent with the gentle loving little Scout, she was
+conscious of quite a new sensation. For the first time in her life she
+wanted to confide all her troubles to someone; someone who would
+sympathize with her. She thought almost tenderly of her new friend.
+Rosanna's low and pleasant voice, soft friendly eyes, so deep and
+loving, her air of truth, all made poor Claire who had been so
+friendless and so cold feel that here at last was one whom she could
+trust; one to whom she could tell all her worries and troubles. But the
+caution which usually held her steady kept her from saying anything to
+Rosanna, even when a telegram was handed to her father at the dinner
+table; a telegram that deepened the lines in his face and caused him to
+glance apprehensively at Claire with a slight shake of the head.
+
+Claire felt the black cloud of horror closing down on her. She managed
+to finish the meal, letting her father and Rosanna do most of the
+talking. Then she excused herself and went to her room.
+
+She expected that her father would follow her and give her the news.
+Claire felt that it was something bad: but Rosanna came bounding up,
+calling cheerily as she came, "Hurry up, Claire! Get into your uniform;
+it is Scout night!"
+
+"I don't believe I will go to the meeting tonight," said Claire, but
+Rosanna exclaimed, "Oh, Claire dear, we don't want to miss it, do we?
+Besides, your father said specially that you were to go, and we are
+going to be late if we don't hurry, so he is going to drive us over in
+the car. Won't it be fun to go back to my own home from somewhere else
+to attend a meeting?" She slipped out of her little net dinner dress as
+she talked and into her crisp, clean uniform, and Claire found herself
+following Rosanna's example. When she stepped into the waiting car, her
+father murmured in her ear, "No change!" and she sighed with relief.
+
+It was a specially good meeting. Only one girl was absent, Mabel
+Brewster, and the Captain was careful to explain that that was at _her_
+suggestion. After the business meeting and the usual reports and the
+giving of several badges of merit, the Captain said with a smile:
+
+"I have been in Washington nearly all the week, girls, as some of you
+know, and while there I had a very interesting Scout experience. I
+wanted to consult with one of the most prominent Scout Captains there, a
+lady named Mrs. Pain, the wife of a Washington artist. Well, I made
+arrangements to call at her house and as luck would have it, it was the
+night of a Scout meeting. Of course I was very glad to see how they
+conducted their meetings and all that. I found Mrs. Pain most charming,
+and her apartment quite delightful.
+
+"A blond angel of a baby about three years old was skipping around here
+and there. She was dressed in a complete Scout uniform and, girls, she
+looked _exactly_ like a big doll! I thought of course she was Mrs.
+Pain's child, and she is, but with a very interesting history. When I
+spoke to Mrs. Pain about the pretty little thing, Mrs. Pain smiled and
+gave me this paper. It is a copy of the Washington _Times_, and this is
+what it says:
+
+     "MABEL, FIRST CIRCULATING BABY IN WORLD, IS ONLY THREE, BUT SHE'S
+     SOME GIRL."
+
+    "This little story will introduce Miss Mabel Pain, three years old,
+    the youngest and tiniest Girl Scout in the world. Mabel lives right
+    here in Washington, at the Graystone Apartments, and she is the
+    mascot of Girl Scout Troop No. 3, composed of Graystone girls.
+
+    "Although only three years of age, Mabel has had a varied and
+    romantic career, and if the remainder of her life holds for her as
+    much excitement as she has experienced during her baby years, she
+    will be quite a wonder long before she grows gray-headed. Indeed,
+    Mabel already is a little wonder, for she can swim, hike three miles
+    without getting tired, say grace as solemnly as a bishop, recite her
+    A B C's backward, repeat the Girl Scout oath of allegiance to the
+    flag, say all of the ten Girl Scout laws, salute with the snap of a
+    West Point cadet, and do many other things the average child of six
+    or seven would have great difficulty in doing.
+
+    "And all this is the more interesting because Mabel was once a
+    little waif, without parents and without a home. Her origin remains
+    a mystery, and little Mabel herself has no recollection of her mamma
+    and papa. Mabel was discovered when the girls of Troop 3 decided
+    that they wanted to adopt a baby, a real _live_ baby that would coo
+    and cry and kick and laugh, and all that. It was a big job for a
+    group of girls to adopt a baby as a substitute for their
+    dollies--and their troop leader probably would have vetoed the whole
+    fine plan had the little girls not pleaded with their mothers and
+    fathers and persuaded them to approve the project.
+
+    "So a search was made for a baby to adopt, and little Mabel
+    eventually was found. All the little girls clapped their hands, and
+    danced in glee. They had a baby, and they were so pleased. But the
+    question arose: Now that the girls had the baby, what in the world
+    were they going to do with it? And thus it was that Mabel became the
+    world's first 'circulating baby,' for the girls decided that they
+    would keep the baby successively for a couple of weeks at a time at
+    their various homes, the mothers first giving their approval, of
+    course.
+
+    "So Mabel lived one week with Harriet's parents, another week at
+    Pauline's home, and still another week at Mary's residence. She
+    shifted from home to home just like a book in a circulating library.
+
+    "Everywhere she went she was looked upon as a sort of toy or pet, to
+    be played with and humored, and then passed on to someone else.
+
+    "So it went until Mabel landed at the home of Mr. and Mrs. W. B.
+    Pain of the Graystone Apartments. Mrs. Pain is Captain of Troop 3
+    and from the start she had taken a keen interest in the baby. Mr.
+    Pain also fell in love with Mabel, and thus it came about that Mabel
+    ceased to be a 'circulating baby,' for the Pains decided that they
+    would like to keep her for good and all, and little Mabel was
+    formally adopted.
+
+    "The Pains are English people of culture and refinement, and as a
+    result the little waif now has a wonderful home. Mr. Pain is an
+    artist, and Mrs. Pain is a trained instructor of children and
+    between the two, fate has made it possible for Mabel to develop into
+    a very fine girl.
+
+    "A girl cannot become a full-fledged member of the Scouts until she
+    is ten years old and the girls under ten are formed into an
+    organization known as the Brownies. But it wouldn't be safe for
+    anyone to accuse Mabel of being a Brownie, for in her grown-up way
+    she would immediately announce: 'I am not a Brownie at _all_! I am a
+    regular Girl Scout!'
+
+    "Mabel would be quite right in saying so. For although technically
+    she is not a Scout, she attends all of the Scout meetings, goes on
+    all the Scout hikes and does _whatever_ the rest of the Scouts do.
+    She gets around the ten year age limit because of the fact that she
+    is the mascot of the Troop. Mascots, you know, are always admitted,
+    for most of them are cats and dogs and rabbits and birds--and they
+    aren't supposed to know what's going on. But Mabel, you may be sure,
+    knows everything that is taking place."
+
+As Captain Horton finished, the girls all laughed and clapped their
+hands.
+
+"Is it really true?" "Did you see her?" "Was she cunning?" "Tell us more
+about it!" were some of the clamored questions.
+
+"Yes, it is quite true, although it does sound like a fairy story. And
+I not only saw but heard her. Girls, I wish you could have heard that
+darling baby voice reciting our promise! She was so sweetly solemn about
+it. 'On my honor I will _twy_,' she said, and all the rest of it. Mrs.
+Pain says she does everything as nearly right as she can, because she is
+so proud of being a Girl Scout. And cunning? Indeed she was! Just
+imagine a funny, dimply, blonde Kewpie dressed in Scout uniform, and
+there you will have little Mabel Pain. I wish some of you could have
+seen her salute; it would have been a lesson to you.
+
+"I can't help thinking, girls, that the case of little Mabel is just an
+instance of the far-reaching effects of a kindly act. I don't know which
+girl first thought of that circulating baby, but that doesn't matter.
+Little Mabel, just one of dozens of tiny tots in the asylum, was
+destined to grow up merely one of many in the cold white dormitories,
+tended by faithful attendants and nurses too busy and full of care to
+love or mother their charges. Now, through the action of the Scouts, she
+has a tender mother and a proud and loving father, and will no doubt
+grow up to be a fine woman.
+
+"I wish we could all do something as fine to help carry on. I want you
+to be on the look-out every day of your lives for a chance. And when an
+opportunity presents itself to you, seize it as a positive gift from
+heaven. A gift not to the person whom you are about to benefit, but a
+gift to _you_."
+
+"Well, shall we have a circulating baby?" asked Jane.
+
+"Not necessarily," laughed the Captain. "There are countless ways in
+which you can help the old world on."
+
+"But a baby must be such fun!"
+
+There was a groan from two or three girls as they heard Jane speak, and
+one black-eyed gypsy remarked bitterly that _she_ had a baby sister that
+they could circulate at any time, as far as she cared. Jane laughed.
+
+"That is the way she talks, Captain," she said, "but when that baby was
+sick last winter Letty nearly went crazy."
+
+Letty blushed. "_That_ is different!" she said.
+
+"Of course!" answered the Captain. "Well, it is time for each of you to
+think up some plan of kindness for vacation time."
+
+"What would you advise?" asked Estella, wriggling.
+
+"I do not advise at all," said the Captain. "I want you to do your own
+planning because I want the credit to be all yours. I am sure everyone
+of you knows some invalid, some poor child, some old person, or some
+very poor sad or troubled neighbor who needs you. Keep your eyes open,
+my dears, and listen carefully. There will be a hand beckoning or a
+voice calling sooner or later. And if you should miss the summons, you
+would always be sorry."
+
+"When is Mabel Brewster going to bring you her report?" asked Jane.
+
+"She is simply seeing how selfish she can be, isn't she, Captain?" asked
+Estella.
+
+"Not quite that," said the Captain, a sober look stealing over her
+pretty face. "Mabel was dissatisfied with her life and had ambitions
+that did not seem to be just what a girl should strive for, so her
+mother and I thought it would be a good thing for Mabel, as well as for
+all of us, to allow her to try her theories out and tell us the result."
+
+"Well, _I_ think she is _perfectly miserable_," announced Jane bluntly.
+"I don't think she likes it a _bit_! How she stands it at all I don't
+see. And do you know, Captain, my brother says Frank sleeps every night
+on that little hard settee outside her door because he is afraid someone
+might try to get in; and as soon as school is out, he hangs around the
+_Times-Leader_ office to walk home with her. She doesn't know it, of
+course, and I suppose if she did she would be mad, but if I thought _my_
+brother was a perfect angel like that I would feel so proud!"
+
+"Why, what a dear he is!" said the Captain, the tears starting to her
+eyes.
+
+"_She_ doesn't deserve him!" said Jane.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Claire and Rosanna lingered after the meeting, talking with the Captain
+and Mrs. Horton, but presently Colonel Maslin came for them, and they
+said good-night and went away, Rosanna feeling as though she was doing
+something quite out of the way and rather dreadful in going off with
+another girl at that time of night. It must have been at least nine!
+
+The two girls sat with the Colonel while he ate the lunch set before him
+by the Chinaman--a cracker and a glass of buttermilk it was--and then
+they said good-night and went laughing upstairs to Claire's
+sitting-room. In the pretty bed-room Rosanna found her clothes laid out
+neatly and the two took off their trim Scout uniforms and slipped into
+comfy kimonos.
+
+Rosanna found that when Claire was not brooding, she was as gay and
+bright as any girl, and happiness transformed her face into a beautiful,
+glowing countenance that made Rosanna happy just to look at it.
+
+"I wish you always felt like this," she said after a funny story of
+Claire's had sent her into gales of laughter.
+
+"Like what?" demanded Claire quickly.
+
+Rosanna was sorry that she had spoken. "Why, so jolly and merry," she
+said.
+
+The cloud settled over Claire's face again.
+
+"Perhaps I should not have said that, dear Claire," continued Rosanna
+gently, "but you don't know just how you _do_ look a good deal of the
+time."
+
+Claire shot a quick glance at her, and then looked away. "How do I
+look?" she asked abruptly. "I thought I looked like most every girl."
+
+"Well, you don't," said Rosanna. She studied the beautiful, unhappy face
+of her friend, finding trouble in choosing her words. "It is hard for me
+to tell you just how you look, only it hurts me when I see it."
+
+"Try to tell me," urged Claire as though the subject interested her
+deeply.
+
+Rosanna floundered on.
+
+"I don't know just how to explain to you, but you seem to be listening
+to something that I cannot hear, and way down deep in the bottom of your
+eyes there is a horror."
+
+As Rosanna spoke, looking full at Claire, she trembled to see the horror
+leap from the depths of those jade green eyes and blaze out.
+
+"Why, what is it? What can it be?" she stammered, clasping Claire in her
+warm arms. "Oh, dear Claire, there _is_ something that frightens you!
+Tell me what it is. Does your father know? Oh, Claire, we are both
+Scouts; let me help you!"
+
+For a long moment Claire seemed not to breathe. She did not move. Then
+with a gasping sigh, she gently unclasped Rosanna's arms and stood up.
+She commenced slowly to unbraid her red hair. She did not speak, and in
+silence Rosanna watched the gleaming, shining masses, released from
+their prim daytime fashion, fall like a royal garment around Claire's
+shoulders. Far below her waist hung the rippling locks. Claire inclined
+her head as though she wished to hide herself and her troubles beneath
+that veil. Then suddenly, proudly she flung up her head and looked
+straight at Rosanna with cold, level eyes.
+
+"No one can help me," she said quietly. "I will not deny that there _is_
+something that troubles me, but that is all that I can tell you. I am
+sorry I have let you see this much. I could tell you if I were any other
+girl, but I cannot."
+
+"I only want to help you, dear Claire," said Rosanna. "I hope that you
+feel as though you can trust me."
+
+"Indeed I do," protested Claire, her eyes filling with tears. "I never
+have trusted _any_ girl so much."
+
+"Then that is all right," said Rosanna, with her sweet smile. "I just
+want you to promise me one thing and that is that if ever you feel as
+though you wanted to tell anyone, or if you feel as though anyone could
+help you, I want you to come to me."
+
+"I will indeed promise that," said Claire, "but I do not think that that
+time will ever come. I _want_ to tell you, but I cannot. And no one on
+earth can help me."
+
+"I don't believe I would say that, Claire," said Rosanna musingly. "You
+never _can_ tell just who can help you until the time comes when you
+need help, and then there it is, just as though you had called for it."
+
+"I shall not call," smiled Claire stubbornly. "And please, Rosanna, let
+us talk of other things."
+
+Rosanna brightly changed the conversation.
+
+"What I am crazy to talk about is, whatever is it you are putting on?"
+
+"This?" asked Claire, holding out a fold of the gorgeous embroidered
+garment she had slipped on. "It is a Mandarin coat; a real one. A real
+Mandarin gave it to me. I was quite a little girl. It was while daddy
+was stationed in China, and he and mother had a great many friends among
+the really high-class Chinese.
+
+"When we came away, the Mandarin sent a box by a half-dozen bearers. It
+was a sort of chest with trays. There was a wonderful robe for mother
+made of silk as shimmery and delicate as a cobweb. It is crusted with
+gold embroidery and there are tiny shoes to match. Then there was a set
+of real jade--hair ornaments, a necklace, pins, and this ring."
+
+"I have noticed it," said Rosanna. "It is too lovely! And it is lovely
+of your mother to let you wear it until she gets well."
+
+Claire was silent for a moment, then went on: "In a lower tray there was
+this robe for me, and dozens of the most wonderful toys and playthings
+such as the royal children in China have, and which we over here never
+see. Everything but this coat is packed away. Dad says the toys are most
+of them really museum pieces, they are so beautiful and so rare."
+
+"You ought to save them for your children," said Rosanna.
+
+"When I grow up I shall give them to the Institute in Washington,"
+Claire said with a frown. "That is the place for them."
+
+Rosanna shook her head. "You are more generous than I could be," she
+laughed. "What else was there in the chest?"
+
+"Something queer; as queer as China itself," said Claire. "All wrapped
+up in my Mandarin coat was a package with my name written on it. We
+opened the wrapper and found a little case or casket sealed up tight
+with wax and bearing the impression of the Mandarin's signet ring. There
+is an inscription on the box. Chinese, of course, but daddy could read
+it. It said, 'Some far day, one will give you a gift beyond all price.
+Give them, in return, this casket as a token of your gratitude and
+mine.'"
+
+"What was in it?" asked Rosanna breathlessly.
+
+"Why, we don't know," said Claire. "It was sealed, as I said, and I must
+not break it, of course. I suppose the curious thing will go to the
+museum, too, because no one will give me a gift 'beyond price.'"
+
+"Oh, Claire, _don't_ be so unbelieving! You don't know what might
+happen," cried Rosanna. "I never heard anything so exciting and so
+mysterious! What do you suppose is in the box?"
+
+"I can't guess," said Claire. "I shook it, but nothing rattled. It is in
+a safe deposit vault. Perhaps it is just the box, because that is gold
+and perfectly beautiful."
+
+"How large is it?" asked Rosanna.
+
+"About like that," said Claire, measuring off a space the size of a
+commercial envelope.
+
+"Well, I think I never heard anything so mysterious and exciting. I
+should think you would just go around waiting to have someone give you
+some wonderful present just so you could have the fun of giving them the
+box so you could see what is inside."
+
+"Dad says there is a catch about it somewhere, that people like
+ourselves do not go around giving presents beyond price and that it is
+exactly like a Chinaman to do something like that. The box, I mean. All
+sorts of queer things happen in China."
+
+"Tell me some more about what you did over there," begged Rosanna. "I
+suppose we ought to go to bed, but I am so excited that I don't feel as
+though I could ever sleep again."
+
+So, curling up in a big chair, Claire told Rosanna stories of the
+strange, mysterious East. Rosanna, thinking how very, very soon she too
+would see that strange side of the world, sat shivering with delight.
+Claire talked on and on. She was a good story-teller and everything was
+as clear and real as though they were wandering hand and hand down those
+strange and ancient ways.
+
+Then Claire skipped lightly out of China into Honolulu, and thrilled
+Rosanna with pictures of that fairy island of Hawaii. Rosanna forgot
+China, forgot the mysterious box as though they had been wiped quite
+neatly out of her mind.
+
+"Oh, I'm CRAZY to go there!" she cried finally. "It must be _too_
+lovely!"
+
+"It is," declared Claire, and started off on a description of the
+wonderful bathing at Wakiki, when:
+
+"Well, well, what's this?" rumbled in the door.
+
+Both girls shrieked and jumped and stared wildly at Colonel Maslin,
+standing in the doorway.
+
+"And I told the little Captain that I would take good care of her girl
+if she could come over here to visit Claire," he said, shaking his head.
+"I don't see how I am going to explain this. Of course, I will have to
+'fess up and what she won't do to me--"
+
+"She won't mind for once," said Rosanna. "It will be grandmother who
+will mind. She always minds dreadfully when I stay up late."
+
+"And I am awfully afraid of your grandmother," declared Colonel Maslin.
+
+"I will protect you," Rosanna promised, laughing.
+
+"You will both protect me by hopping into bed this minute," said the
+Colonel. "In exactly two minutes I will return and put out the light,
+and I want to see both girls with their eyes tight shut and fast
+asleep." He turned and left the room and when he entered again the red
+head and the black were snuggled down, each in her soft pillow, and two
+pairs of eyes were tight shut, nor did they open when he dropped a light
+kiss on each round cheek and tiptoed out.
+
+Rosanna fell into a restless sleep, filled with fantastic visions and
+presently she awoke. For a little she could not place herself. The
+feeling of a strange bed confused her. Then she heard a queer muffled
+sound, and sat up quietly. It did not come from the twin bed beside her
+own. She reached cautiously over and touched the spread. Claire was not
+lying there. The muffled sobs were farther away. Rosanna's eyes grew
+accustomed to the darkness and she could make out a blur of white lying
+near the window on the dark rug. Claire was lying there on the rug, and
+Claire was crying; crying as though her heart was broken. Rosanna's
+firm little jaw set itself still more firmly. She slid from her bed and
+ran across the room. As she approached the sorrowing girl she breathed
+softly:
+
+"Claire, dear, dear Claire, I cannot stand it! You need not tell me why
+you are so sad if you do not want to, but you must, _must_ let me love
+you and comfort you."
+
+The touch of Rosanna's tender arms, the loving kiss, and her heartfelt
+words seemed to break down Claire's icy reserve. To Rosanna's surprise
+and relief, she turned, wound her arms around Rosanna's neck, and
+whispered brokenly:
+
+"Oh, Rosanna, I _will_ tell you! I _must_ tell someone or I will die!"
+
+"Of course, you must tell me," soothed Rosanna. "Come away from this
+cold place first."
+
+"No, no! I want to lie right here!" cried Claire.
+
+"Why, of course you don't, dear," said Rosanna. "Please! Make believe I
+am your really truly sister tonight, as well as your Scout sister, and
+let's get into my bed and you can cuddle close and tell me all about
+it."
+
+Claire commenced to sob again, but Rosanna tenderly coaxed her into bed
+and clasped her tight.
+
+Claire did not speak; she lay in Rosanna's arms sobbing as though her
+heart were broken.
+
+Rosanna did not speak, and at last Claire controlled herself.
+
+"I was sure you were sound asleep," she said, "or I would have gone down
+into the study, but I hate to go around the house in the night. It
+frightens me."
+
+"I should think it would," said Rosanna, staring into the dark and
+hugging Claire closer.
+
+"But I get to thinking and I can't sleep. I suppose that is why I am so
+much paler than most of the girls. I am awake so much, because I am too
+unhappy to sleep."
+
+"But that is all wrong," said Rosanna. "Why are you so unhappy, Claire?"
+
+"Can't you guess, Rosanna?"
+
+"Is it your mother?" asked Rosanna.
+
+Claire shivered violently. "Yes," she breathed.
+
+"Oh, Claire!" said Rosanna, her own tears wetting Claire's forehead.
+"Oh, Claire, is it as bad as that? Is your mother so _dreadfully_ ill? I
+thought she just had nervous prostration or something like that. That is
+what most people have, isn't it? I am so sorry! So dreadfully sorry!
+Perhaps there is a mistake. Sometimes doctors think people are awfully
+sick and going to--going to die, and then they get well as ever."
+
+Claire laughed a sudden, jangling, harsh laugh that frightened Rosanna
+more than her sobs. She turned her lips close to Rosanna's ear, as
+though she hated to breathe aloud the words she struggled to utter.
+
+"Mother is not going to die," she said finally. "She is insane!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Rosanna gave a little cry of sympathy and pain, but she did not speak
+and Rosanna simply held her close and patted her back, whispering,
+"There, there!" over and over until at last the cries subsided, and
+Claire, spent and tired, lay quite still.
+
+"Are they _sure_ they can't cure her?" Rosanna whispered finally.
+
+"There is no hope," said Claire. "She seems to get worse all the time.
+She scarcely knows daddy now, and doesn't seem to care whether he comes
+to see her or not. For a long time she wanted to see him."
+
+"Did she know what the matter was?" asked Rosanna.
+
+"No, not that we know, only she is so sad, when she is herself, that
+daddy thinks she knows."
+
+"Oh, I do feel _sure_ that she will get well!" said Rosanna.
+
+Claire sadly shook her head.
+
+"There is no hope," she repeated. "We have had doctor after doctor, all
+the big specialists, and they can't do a _thing_. And oh, Rosanna, she
+was _so_ pretty and so bright! We were _so_ happy!"
+
+"How did you find out about it?"
+
+"She commenced to have headaches," said Claire, then added haltingly,
+as though she could not bear to tell even Rosanna about it, "and she
+grew so angry about everything: awfully angry, so daddy was afraid she
+might hurt me. She did once or twice, but I never told. She just hit me
+with things, you know. Then the doctors said she must go away, my
+pretty, pretty, loving mother, who used to love me so! Why, she was
+_never_ happy for a single minute unless daddy or I was with her. And
+she used to be so full of fun and tricks, just like a little girl. And
+oh, Rosanna, now I have to think of my mother in a sanitarium, with just
+nurses to look after her. Daddy's heart has broken and so has mine. And,
+Rosanna, that is not all. I am going insane, too."
+
+After a stupefied pause, Rosanna bounced violently up on her knees and
+shook Claire roughly.
+
+"Claire, _what_ a thing to say!" she exclaimed. "How _can_ you say
+anything like that? Never, NEVER say it again."
+
+"It doesn't matter whether I say it or not," said Claire, "it is going
+to happen, and it will kill daddy. Why, Rosanna, I have the most awful
+tempers you ever dreamed of and when they come on I don't know or care
+what I do or say. I feel too awfully afterwards, of course, but I go
+into a sort of frenzy and can't control myself. I hate to tell you all
+this, Rosanna; you will not understand it perhaps, but if I do not tell
+someone, I shall die! I cannot bear it alone any longer. We have kept
+it so quiet about mother. No one in the Army suspects. We always say she
+has had a nervous breakdown."
+
+"Well, I can never tell you, Claire, dear, how dreadfully I feel about
+it all," said Rosanna, kissing her friend's wet cheek. "But I am glad
+you have told me. We will bear it together, and I am sure that will make
+it easier for you. And as far as you are concerned, I am perfectly sure
+that is nothing at all but imagination." She slid down and once more
+took Claire's head on her loving little arm. "You are so tired, dear,"
+she said. "Let us rest awhile, and then when you feel better, I will
+tell you about _my_ mother and father. Wouldn't you like to hear about
+them?"
+
+"I would love to," said Claire. "Oh, it _is_ easier to bear now that you
+are sharing it with me," she murmured.
+
+"Rest," said Rosanna softly, catching a sleepy note in the tired voice.
+Then suddenly, "Where is your mother now?"
+
+"At a place called Laurel Hill Home, just outside of Cincinnati," said
+Claire, and in two minutes her regular heavy breathing told Rosanna that
+she was sound asleep.
+
+And in about two minutes more two girls, cuddled close, were dreamlessly
+sleeping.
+
+When they woke the following morning they found the blinds drawn so
+there was a soft twilight in the room, but on the pavement outside they
+could hear the shuffle and patter of many feet going to the Christian
+Science temple near by.
+
+Claire rubbed her sleepy eyes, then leaned over and patted Rosanna.
+
+"Will you ever forgive me for keeping you awake all night?" she asked
+wistfully. "What a _selfish_ girl I am!"
+
+"Indeed, you are not!" declared Rosanna. "Goodness me, what time is it?
+Do I hear people going past to church?"
+
+"You do," laughed Claire.
+
+"Well, I was sure we put up all the shades before we went to bed."
+
+"We did, but daddy closed them before he went up to Camp. He always does
+that if he thinks I had better sleep late, and leaves a letter for me.
+He is _so_ good, Rosanna. I wish he had a nicer child."
+
+"Well, I suppose one can be almost any way one _wants_ to me," replied
+Rosanna. "I was so bad and ungrateful once that I'm sure anyone who
+wants to try can change themselves. I am not so very good yet, but I
+can't help knowing that I am much nicer than I was." Both girls laughed.
+
+"Yes, I am sure you are very nice, indeed," said Claire. "I could never
+be as nice as you are."
+
+"Don't make fun of me," pouted Rosanna, her eyes twinkling. "Let's hurry
+up and go to church. The Christian Science Church has service an hour
+sooner than the others, so we will have time if we rush."
+
+They _did_ rush, and a brisk walk brought them to the arched door of the
+old ivy-covered church just as the long line of choir boys walked slowly
+down the aisle.
+
+Rosanna heard nothing of the very excellent sermon. It was the first
+time she had had to think quietly of what Claire had told her in the
+night. She went over it all carefully, her tender heart aching for the
+poor girl beside her. If there was only _something_ she could do. She
+wanted to help. But what could anyone do in a case like this? If all
+those wise doctors said that there was no help for poor Mrs. Maslin,
+surely there was nothing for a poor little Girl Scout to do.
+
+Finally she closed her eyes tight, very tight, and a fervent little
+prayer for guidance squeezed itself out of her heavy heart.
+
+"Please, _please_ show me what to do!" she begged, and at once, right
+then, the rector spoke loudly:
+
+"What have _you_ done?" he demanded. "Have _you_ made an honest effort
+to solve your problems, to unravel your tangles, or have you supinely
+left it all with your Creator? Believe me, you must make an honest
+effort yourself. Ask yourself if you are really trying to do what there
+is for you to do."
+
+Rosanna was so startled that she grew red and sat up very straight. Then
+she reflected that it was a good thing that she had heard that much of
+the sermon. She had prayed for help, and she must be awake and ready to
+receive it when it came. Moreover, she herself must look for a way.
+
+All the way back to Claire's she pondered, and was so silent during
+dinner that the Colonel accused her of being sleepy. After dinner the
+Colonel said he had some letters to write, but later he would take them
+to the Country Club for supper. So the girls decided to write also, and
+settled themselves on either side of the big library table.
+
+Claire was soon busy writing to a schoolmate in Honolulu, but Rosanna
+dawdled over her paper.
+
+Then all at once it came to her. Bright as day, clear as a bell, she
+knew what she wanted to do and how to do it. Her thoughts flew back to
+the time when Doctor Branshaw, over there in Cincinnati, had operated on
+poor little lame Gwenny and had made her well; actually well. She
+wondered if people with hurt or lame brains could not be operated on.
+And that was another thought. Had Mrs. Maslin ever been hurt, or had she
+just--well, just gone so naturally?
+
+"I have been thinking about your mother," she said suddenly,
+interrupting Claire. "What do you suppose made her so--I mean the way
+she is? Did she ever get hurt?"
+
+"Not enough to harm her," said Claire, starting. "No, never! She had an
+awful fall with her horse once, that stunned her for half an hour. I
+was with her and I was frightened almost to death. But she was all
+right again in no time, and it did not hurt her at all except where she
+bumped her head. She would not let me tell daddy because he always
+worried over things. Her hair was so thick that it didn't cut her, but
+it was a hard blow and she had an awful headache for days, but that was
+all. No, she was never hurt."
+
+"I wondered," said Rosanna, and commenced to write. And this is what she
+said:
+
+     "_Dear Doctor Branshaw_:
+
+     "You said to the Girl Scouts of our Troop once that we must be sure
+     to tell you if ever we found another Gwenny. Do you remember? And
+     we all promised that we would.
+
+     "Well, I have. But this girl is not a bit like Gwenny. She is
+     beautiful, and has loads and loads of money, and is perfectly well.
+     But oh, Doctor Branshaw, she is really sadder than Gwenny, because
+     she has no brothers and sisters, but a lovely father whose heart is
+     broken and her mother is insane. The doctors say she will never be
+     any better, but just go on getting worse and worse always. But I
+     prayed about it, and I know that you can cure her. You would be
+     glad to if you could see this girl. Her name is Claire Maslin, and
+     her father is a colonel in the Army and is stationed here. She is
+     not like a girl at all except once in awhile when she forgets, and
+     she thinks she is going to go insane too, when she gets older. She
+     feels it coming on, but I am sure she is mistaken. But every girl
+     needs her mother, don't you think so? And so please cure Mrs.
+     Maslin. She is at a place right there in Cincinnati, and the
+     address is on the slip of paper pinned to the top sheet.
+
+     "I know that you are very busy, but it will make you feel as good
+     as you did about Gwenny when you have cured Claire's mother,
+     because I feel as though she needs her very, very badly. Although
+     Colonel Maslin is truly lovely, of course he can't really be a
+     mother.
+
+     "So _please_ do this, Doctor, as soon as you can possibly get the
+     time.
+
+     "Your loving little friend,
+
+     "ROSANNA HORTON.
+
+     "P. S. Claire is a Girl Scout."
+
+Rosanna sealed the letter and addressed it and leaned back with a sigh
+of relief. Claire glanced up, and seeing that Rosanna was through her
+writing said slowly:
+
+"Rosanna, if you were with me, I don't believe I would ever have another
+of those awful spells. I feel so different when I am with you. You make
+me feel so brave and quiet. Dad says he wants me to go to the seashore
+this summer and I want you to come with me."
+
+It was on Rosanna's lips to say that she was going on a wonderful voyage
+across the sea, but she remembered her promise to Uncle Bob and
+stammered, "Oh, that would be lovely, Claire, but I would have to see
+grandmother about it."
+
+"Oh, _make_ them say yes!" begged Claire. "I _need_ you, Rosanna. I
+truly do! Of course, if there is something else you want to do, it is
+all right, but I do want you awfully, dear Rosanna, and I am sure we
+will have a good time."
+
+"I know it would be perfectly splendid," said Rosanna, wondering why
+everything had to happen at the same time. "I will ask about it
+tonight, and then I can tell you tomorrow."
+
+"Good," said Claire. "And I will go to dad's study right now and tell
+him that he must beg your family to let you come."
+
+"All right," laughed Rosanna, "and while you are telling him, I will go
+and change my dress."
+
+She ran lightly upstairs and Claire, humming a little tune in her new
+happiness, skipped to her father's private office and opened the door.
+What she saw stopped her like a blow. Her father sat at his desk, his
+head buried in his arms. His wife's picture was clasped in one hand. His
+shoulders shook with sobs.
+
+Rosanna looked up with a smile as Claire entered, but Claire did not
+return it. She closed the door carefully, almost as though she thought
+it might break, then leaning against it, stood looking into space.
+
+"What did he say?" asked Rosanna.
+
+"Nothing; that is, I didn't speak to him," said Claire. Then with a
+rush, "Rosanna, I can't invite you to the seashore after all. I shall
+not go. I shall stay with dad. He is down there with mother's picture in
+his hand, _crying_. I never saw him cry, Rosanna. It's awful! He is
+always so brave. I never saw him cry. I cry enough, but somehow it's
+awful for _dad_ to cry. You see I can't leave him, can I, Rosanna?"
+
+"No," said Rosanna, "you can't leave him."
+
+"He is always so cheerful and bright that I never thought about his
+feeling it like this. Oh, how selfish I have been! I do not deserve to
+be a Girl Scout at all. I came to the place in the Manual the other day,
+where it tells about loyalty to parents, and I wouldn't read it at all,
+I was so sorry for myself. I just don't deserve my badge. I shall tell
+the Captain to deprive me of it."
+
+"Nothing of the sort!" said Rosanna firmly. "You will simply do
+differently, that's all."
+
+"Indeed I will! My darling daddy! I didn't know what to do, Rosanna, so
+I just came out. I shall not let him know a thing, but I shall tell him
+that I mean to stay here with him. And I can be near you, Rosanna, and
+you will help me."
+
+The two girls looked at each other. Claire's eyes were pleading and
+wistful, her mouth trembled and she breathed as though she had been
+running. Rosanna stared until Claire went out in a sort of a mist like
+the fade-outs in the movies. And in her place Rosanna saw the tumbling
+waters and the white sails of all the ports of the world! And her heart
+went down, and down, and down! Then she saw Claire again, and she was
+saying, "You _will_ help me, won't you, Rosanna?"
+
+And Rosanna's heart came up, and up, and up. It was filled with splendid
+sacrifice and high resolve, and loving kindness; but she only said,
+"Yes, Claire, I will be here, and I will help you."
+
+Rosanna had made her choice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+When Rosanna went home that night after supper at the Club and a long
+drive up the River Road, she realized for the first time just how great
+a sacrifice she _had_ made. All the Ports of the World to see, and now
+she might never, never see them! A thousand things might come up to
+prevent another such a journey.
+
+She fairly ached as she thought it over. And she wondered how the family
+would receive the news she was about to spring.
+
+To her surprise very little was said. Her grandmother immediately wanted
+to know if this was more Girl Scout business, and when Rosanna said yes,
+she simply nodded as though that answer settled the question in a
+perfectly satisfactory way. Cita said, "Oh, Rosanna!" looked as though
+she was going to say something also, and stopped. Uncle Robert said,
+"Well, I'll be swamfoozled!" Being "swamfoozled" had a strange effect.
+Uncle Robert picked Rosanna up bodily, hugged her very hard, kissed her
+very hard, and then sat her down hard in a chair. Then everyone just sat
+and thought.
+
+"That Claire kid is sure having a hard row to hoe," said Uncle Bob
+finally.
+
+"Worse than death," said Mrs. Horton, thinking of young Mrs. Maslin.
+
+"The Colonel told me about it," said Cita.
+
+Uncle Robert heaved a sigh. "Well, sweetness, I believe _absolutely_ in
+you Girl Scouts living up to your promises exactly as it seems right to
+you. If you feel that staying with this girl is of enough importance to
+lose out on this trip overseas, I have confidence enough in your
+judgment to know that it _is_ important. And if it is a case of helping
+that poor kid through a pretty black place in her life, there is nothing
+else for you to do. I reckon it will come out right in the end for both
+of you. And I am proud of you, Rosanna."
+
+With a funny formality he bowed and shook her hand. Rosanna somehow felt
+well repaid. Uncle Robert never did anything like that unless he was
+very, very much in earnest.
+
+Very little else was talked about for the next three days and then other
+things came up to crowd it out of the front of Rosanna's mind.
+
+For one thing, Uncle Bob found that he could not go as soon as he
+thought, and that put off the packing, so Rosanna had time to get used
+to the idea of being left behind without all the misery of seeing the
+trunks filled. Claire, who did not know what a sacrifice Rosanna was
+about to make for her, made happy plans and dozens of them. Colonel
+Maslin, surprised at Claire's sudden refusal to plan for the seashore
+trip, insisted on a reason and was made very happy by the knowledge that
+his cold and moody daughter really loved her unhappy father more than
+she did her own pleasure.
+
+Late in the afternoon of the third day Rosanna was called to the
+telephone. It was a long distance call from Cincinnati and for a full
+five minutes Dr. Branshaw talked to her.
+
+Rosanna was very thoughtful when she hung up the receiver and went down
+to ask Claire who was sitting in the rose arbor, if she was going to
+drive to camp after her father. Claire was, and together they started.
+On a sunny corner, up by the Reform School, they saw Mabel Brewster
+standing.
+
+She looked warm and dejected, and Claire stopped the car and asked the
+young newspaper woman if she cared to ride with them.
+
+Mabel accepted with very little enthusiasm, remarking as she did so that
+she had to be back at the office at a quarter before six.
+
+When they reached Camp, Rosanna slipped her hand in Claire's and said
+coaxingly, "Claire dear, I want to see your father all by himself. Will
+you mind?"
+
+"A secret?" asked Claire, laughing. "Dear me, how exciting this is!
+Shall I ever know what it is about?"
+
+"If you are a good girl perhaps," said Rosanna, skipping toward the
+Colonel's office. When she found herself seated facing Colonel Maslin
+across the big flat-top desk, her courage failed her for a minute, then
+she plunged into the story.
+
+"I don't know if I have done right or not, Colonel Maslin," she said.
+"All I thought was that Claire is a Girl Scout and we are bound to help
+each other. And I did not stop to ask anyone's advice."
+
+"What can it be?" said Colonel Maslin, smiling.
+
+"Claire told me about her mother," resumed Rosanna. "And what she is
+afraid of, you know; and I felt as though there must be _some_ way to
+help. So Sunday morning, you know, we went to church; and I just sat
+there and thought and _thought_, and then I prayed. I did not hear a
+word of the sermon, but right away Doctor Ford just shouted at me, and
+asked if _I_ had been trying to _do_ anything. And that I had better had
+if I expected God to help me. But even then I didn't know what to do.
+When we were writing letters after dinner, it all came to me. You know
+the little Gwenny I told you about, and the doctor in Cincinnati who
+made her perfectly well?
+
+"Well, I wrote him a letter right then. I asked him to please cure Mrs.
+Maslin as soon as he had time, because Claire is a Girl Scout. This
+afternoon Doctor Branshaw telephoned me. He says he can't go ahead and
+take care of Mrs. Maslin unless you tell him to. He can't have anything
+to do with it at all unless you say so. But he knows the doctor where
+Mrs. Maslin is, so he went up to see her and he asked me if I knew how
+long since Mrs. Maslin fell."
+
+"She never had a fall," said Colonel Maslin positively.
+
+"Yes, she fell from her horse about six years ago," said Rosanna. "It
+gave her fearful headaches."
+
+"How do you know all this?" demanded the Colonel.
+
+"Claire told me. She was with her mother but she promised not to tell on
+account of worrying you, and it didn't amount to anything."
+
+"Good heavens!" muttered Colonel Maslin. "Go on!"
+
+"I told the Doctor about that, and he said if you wanted to consult him,
+to telephone him."
+
+Instead of answering, the Colonel took down the telephone receiver and
+inquired about trains to Cincinnati. Then he rose, came to Rosanna, and
+very solemnly kissed her on the forehead.
+
+"I shall take the nine o'clock train for Cincinnati to see this doctor
+of yours, and I think it would be well if we kept our hopes to ourselves
+for awhile. It would not be kind to raise Claire's hopes again."
+
+"That is what I thought," answered Rosanna. "She will just think our
+talk is something about vacation. Oh, Colonel, I am so _sure_ that
+Doctor Branshaw will cure Mrs. Maslin! If you had seen Gwenny, you would
+feel just as I do, I am sure."
+
+"Claire's mother is ill in a different way, my dear," said Colonel
+Maslin sadly, "but we will hope for the best. As soon as I return from
+Cincinnati, I will tell you just what the doctor says. I would try
+anything in the world--but we must go now."
+
+Together they went out to the car, Colonel Maslin looking so thoughtful
+that Claire declared that she didn't see how they could either of them
+bear to leave her out of the secret. They drove down to the
+_Times-Leader_ office with Mabel, and on the way home Claire said that
+Mabel was awfully excited. She had written a poem and had left a copy of
+it on the Editor's desk.
+
+"She says," said Claire, "that she knows it is good, and if the
+_Times-Leader_ pays a dollar a line, the way lots of the magazines do,
+she will get a hundred dollars for it."
+
+"Great Scott!" said Colonel Maslin. "How long is it?"
+
+"Twenty stanzas, five lines each," said Claire. "She made them four
+lines each at first, then she put on a sort of refrain, on account of
+the extra dollar."
+
+"A very businesslike young poet," said Colonel Maslin. "I would like to
+see a sample of that poem. I am not sure that I would have time to read
+twenty stanzas, but I could get a good idea of it from eight or ten
+verses, no doubt."
+
+"Well, we will see it all, if it is published," said Claire. "Mabel says
+she will not allow them to print it unless they pay her price for it.
+She says good work is always worth its price."
+
+Colonel Maslin shook his head solemnly. "That beats all!" he said. "I
+suppose by now she has her check and is wondering what to do with the
+one hundred dollars."
+
+Nothing like that was happening to Mabel!
+
+Since the fatal Sunday when she had refused to attend the office boy's
+picnic, he had regarded her with such scorn that it was apparent to the
+whole force. Mabel's small, shy overtures of friendship were simply
+scoffed at. He did not leave her alone; he put himself in her way for
+the pleasure it gave him to stalk off again, with a grin on his face and
+his snub nose in the air. Reams of society notes which Mabel had
+written, only to have them discarded by Miss Gere, he picked out of the
+waste baskets and laid on her desk, saying loudly, "I think these are
+yours, Miss Brewster."
+
+When she went out at night, she found him hanging affectionately over
+Frank's shoulder, but at the sight of her he turned and strutted off.
+
+Mabel was sure that the City Editor was watching her more than he had at
+first, but her conceit took that as a compliment. Miss Gere's manner had
+not changed, but Mabel heard her sigh often.
+
+Miss Gere _was_ sighing over Mabel, but Mabel did not guess that. She
+would not have believed such a thing possible.
+
+She did not like the manner of the office boy, however. It hurt her
+pride. When she reached the door of the office, it was deserted
+excepting for Jimmie who, with his face pressed close to the dingy
+window pane, was watching something in the street below. In a corner
+near the door a temporary cloak-room had been made by running up two
+flimsy partitions. They were only six feet high but there was a place to
+fix one's hair at a little glass and keep coats and hats out of the
+dust. Mabel tiptoed quickly into this haven and decided to wait there
+until someone else came in. She sat down noiselessly on the rickety
+chair but immediately she heard steps and voices. Before she could rise
+she heard a sentence that froze her. She forgot that listening is a
+despicable trick. She just sat transfixed! The voice was that of the
+Editor and he was evidently talking to Miss Gere about her, because he
+said:
+
+"Why, today I found a poem on my desk, with a letter. Why, Miss Gere,
+that kid ought to be home under her mother's wing, and here she is
+trying to be sophisticated, and writing drivel that would shame a child
+six years old!"
+
+Miss Gere laughed.
+
+"Don't be so severe, Chief," she begged.
+
+"I am _not_ severe!" he said savagely. "You are not fair with her. If
+that girl has no more feeling for her mother and no appreciation of her
+brother--Why, do you know that youngster sleeps outside her door every
+night to take care of her, for fear someone might frighten her? She
+_needs_ a good scare _I_ should say. Sleeps there on the floor!"
+
+Miss Gere interrupted. "Not quite as bad as that," she said. "I happen
+to know that there is a settee there."
+
+"Well, what's a settee for a growing boy?" growled the Chief. "Well, if
+she has no affection, no gratitude and evidently no natural love for her
+own people and only an _ordinary_ brain, what's the use of bothering
+with her? _I_ don't want to see her hanging around. I know she is under
+your charge, Miss Gere, but I wish you would let me fire her. I want to
+tell her to go home and ask her mother to forgive her, and see if she
+can get a little sense into her head, and try to live and act according
+to her years. Where in time did she get such notions?"
+
+"She reads a good deal, I believe," said Miss Gere. "Cheap magazines and
+silly novels."
+
+"Well, fire her! As far as I go, the experiment is over!" He walked over
+to his desk. "When she comes in tomorrow, send her to me. I will at
+least have the comfort of telling her what I think of this poem. You
+will hear the truth about your imagined talents for once, Miss Mabel
+Brewster." He slammed down the top of his desk and stalked out without
+saying good-night.
+
+Jesse, quite pale under his freckles, came over to Miss Gere.
+
+"My land!" he said. "What ails the Old Man? Somebody on the _Journal_
+must 'a' got a scoop away from him. Say, he gave it to her good, didn't
+he?"
+
+"She deserves all that, Jesse, but he was rather wild about it."
+
+"_I_ don't think she deserves such a call," said Jesse. "And I don't say
+that because she ever fell for me, because she didn't. She hates me
+worse'n a stingin' adder, but I bet she's a darned nice girl if it
+wasn't for this foolishness about a career. She's a Girl Scout, too, and
+has a whole sleeve full of Merit badges. You can't fake those, you know.
+She's due to get a fierce bump, and if she doesn't get it here, she will
+the next place. Gee, I'm glad I'm not her!"
+
+"She _is_ a little goose," said Miss Gere, who had had a hard day and
+was tired out. "And she has the sweetest mother in the world."
+
+"Don't I know? I'll say I do!" said Jesse fervently. "She chaperoned a
+picnic last week for us, and before the picnic was half over all of us
+fellows had forgotten the picnic, and the girls and everything, and were
+sitting around Mrs. Brewster, listening to her talk. I'll say she is all
+right! And Miss M. Brewster _wouldn't go_! Well, I am sorry for her. She
+must have a good streak somewhere. Are you going now, Miss Gere?"
+
+They went out together, and Mabel could hear their voices echoing along
+the empty corridor. She was shaking. Somehow she got out of the building
+and turned toward Third Street. Frank was not in sight, having been
+told by Jesse that his sister was not in the office. She hoped fervently
+that she would not meet him. As she passed a grocery she remembered that
+her larder was empty, but she did not want to eat ever again. She wanted
+to get into her room and shut the door on the whole world.
+
+_Her_ world had tumbled. As she made her way blindly past the closed
+stores and around by the trolley terminal she felt a touch on her arm.
+She turned, and a young rowdy fell into step with her, and pushed his
+battered hat rakishly over his eyes.
+
+"Hello, girlie!" he muttered in a hoarse voice. "Seen you comin' an'
+made up my mind you hadn't no date. I like your looks. How's a sody?" He
+took Mabel by the elbow.
+
+She wrenched herself free, and with a gasp ran fleetingly up the street.
+
+So this was what Frank had been saving her from! Such creatures as the
+one who had just spoken to her! She looked behind, and saw to her relief
+that the fellow was not trying to follow her. She choked down her sobs
+and hurried on. When she reached the apartment she locked the door
+behind her with trembling fingers, and for the first time looked under
+beds and in clothes-presses; everywhere where an intruder might lurk.
+But she was quite alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Mabel Brewster may live to be a very old woman but she will never like
+to look back at that one night in her life. She could not eat anything;
+she could not read, although a nice trashy novel invited her. She could
+not sleep. And it was well.
+
+Mabel had come to a place where she was forced to balance her books. She
+had been _so_ anxious to be a business woman, a professional woman, a
+Free Soul, that she had not looked once on the debit side of the page.
+And sooner or later we all must do this.
+
+She was very, very unhappy, embarrassed and ashamed; but her mind was
+made up. All she longed for was light--the coming of day so that she
+could carry out the plans she had formulated.
+
+She sat thinking, thinking until ten o'clock, then with a queer little
+smile as she noticed the time, she went to the door with caution and
+turned the key, and slowly, very slowly opened the door.
+
+It was true. On the cramped, uncomfortable settee, curled up asleep, was
+Frank. Mabel stared. So it was true--her brother--just as they had said!
+For one wild moment her resolves vanished. She felt an overpowering
+impulse to run away, to disappear so the dear people whom she had
+utterly failed would never again see her face. But it vanished as
+quickly as it had come.
+
+She stepped to Frank's side and laid her hand gently on his shoulder.
+Instantly his arm shot out in a sweeping blow and he leaped to his feet.
+The doubled fist missed Mabel by a bare fraction.
+
+"Don't hit me, dear," she said gently. "Come inside and go to bed
+properly. You see I know all about you at last. I can't thank you for
+being so good to me, but I am going to be a better sister to you,
+Frank."
+
+Frank, looking rather sheepish at being caught, followed his sister into
+the room. He looked about it curiously. He had never been through the
+apartment, wishing to show by his absence that he disapproved of the
+whole thing. Now, however, he was embarrassed and needed a subject for
+conversation.
+
+"It is not bad here," he said gruffly.
+
+"I think it is _perfectly horrid_!" said Mabel. "If you and mother will
+let me, I am coming home tomorrow."
+
+"To stay?" asked Frank incredulously.
+
+"To stay forever and ever!" said Mabel. "It will take me that long to
+show you what a goose I have been, and how I mean to be different. Oh,
+Frank, there is _no_ such thing as a person living all for herself.
+_Never!_ I wonder if there was ever such a silly, conceited, _selfish_
+person in the world before."
+
+"Well, my goodness, Mabe, I wouldn't knock myself like that," said
+Frank uncomfortably. "If that's the way you feel, why, it's all right. I
+know mother will be tickled to death to have you home again. She feels
+pretty bad about your being away. She is lonesome as the dickens for
+you. But she is so sweet she wouldn't let you know it."
+
+Mabel burst into tears.
+
+"Oh, I have been lonesome too!" she cried. "I have been perfectly
+miserable! Oh, Frank, I don't see what ailed me!"
+
+"Why not pick up some of your things and go home tonight?" suggested
+Frank hopefully.
+
+"No," she said. "If I am going to turn over a new leaf I will have a
+good many things to do tomorrow. Oh dear, it is going to be perfectly
+awful, but I deserve it. We had better go to bed now, Frank. There is a
+bed all made up in the little room next to mine. Oh, how scared I used
+to be here all alone!"
+
+"I wouldn't bother to think about it," said Frank. "I bet we will have a
+good time after this, Sissy. We will understand each other better. And I
+have learned a lesson myself; and that is to stick by my mother just as
+close as ever I can."
+
+"Here, too!" said Mabel. "Oh, I wish it was morning! I wish tomorrow was
+all over!"
+
+"Can I help?" asked Frank, as he stooped to unlace his shoes.
+
+"No, thank you," said Mabel grimly. "I started this thing, and I am
+going to finish it."
+
+"Well, good-night then," said Frank, giving his sister a hearty hug and
+kiss, which Mabel returned joyfully. The days when she had turned a cold
+cheek to her brother or had given him a chilly peck were past forever.
+
+Next morning, Mabel, instead of wadding her nice hair up in buns,
+braided it neatly in her old fashion, put on her neatest and most
+girlish dress, and went down to the _Times-Leader_ office. All the
+reporters had received their assignments and had gone out. The City
+Editor sat at his desk inside the magic railing that Mabel had planned
+to pass. She caught her breath, then walked up and rested her hands on
+the rail. When he saw her the Editor rose. He felt as though he wanted
+to look as tall as he felt, when he said what he intended to say to this
+pert young person.
+
+"Well, young lady," he commenced, but Mabel, nodding her head,
+interrupted him.
+
+"Yes, sir, I know just what you are going to say," she said, fixing her
+eyes bravely on his. "I never meant to eavesdrop, but I was here in the
+cloak-room last evening when you said what you did to Miss Gere. About
+me, I mean, and my selfishness, and my bad poetry and all of everything.
+And it is all true. I am glad I heard you. It is perfectly true. But I
+have been finding out since I came in here that I don't amount to
+anything. And I have been so bad to my mother that perhaps she won't
+want me to come home at all. I am sorry you have had to bother with me,
+and of course I don't deserve any wages. I just wanted you to know that
+I am going to go home and beg my mother to forgive me, and if she _will_
+let me come back, I am going to try to show her that it did pay to let
+me make this experiment after all."
+
+Mabel choked, but before the dumbfounded Editor could sit down nearer
+Mabel's level and feel as small as he _wanted_ to feel, she went on:
+
+"I think mother will let me try again. She is that sort. And you needn't
+be afraid; I will truly, _truly_ be a good girl, and I'm so sorry." She
+turned and bolted for the door and collided violently with Jesse, who
+had entered just behind her with a letter for the Editor. Mabel righted
+herself and gave the boy a jerky little nod.
+
+"You heard what I said, didn't you?" she asked. "Well, I mean it! And I
+am sorry I was horrid to you. It was just because I was a conceited
+little prig, and you needn't speak to me again ever!"
+
+She dodged around the boy and was out of sight.
+
+"_Cummere!_" roared the City Editor all in one word, but Mabel ran
+breathlessly down the dusty stairs toward the street. She simply could
+not stay up there and wait for Miss Gere. She would write her a letter
+or go to her house. Just as she reached the bottom of the last flight
+she heard someone pounding down four steps at a time. It was Jesse, and
+when he reached her, he laid a desperate clutch on her sleeve.
+
+"Hey, you've got to listen!" he panted. "Gosh, I won't let you go off
+without telling you I think you have got more grit than any girl I ever
+saw. No matter what you ever did to me, I'm strong for you now all
+right. Don't you forget that! And I want to shake hands with you if you
+don't mind."
+
+He put out a grimy paw and pumped Mabel's hand vigorously up and down.
+
+Mabel found herself unable to speak. She dragged her hand away and
+rushed out of the building, tears blinding her eyes but a strange warm
+feeling in her heart. She walked up the street thinking of Jesse; Jesse
+who had been so utterly scorned.
+
+How splendid he seemed now! How generous and friendly and loyal! And
+when you really looked at him, he was not homely. He had freckles, of
+course, and his nose was snub, and his hair seemed to be all cowlicks:
+but the teeth that his wide grin disclosed were dazzling white, his blue
+eyes simply crackled they were so full of twinkles, and his hand,
+despite the grime, was warm and friendly. Mabel felt her heart lift a
+little. It looked as though she had one friend after all.
+
+Unfortunately she had not understood the roar sent after her by the
+Editor. It was a pity, because that Editor was quite her ideal of
+everything great, and it would have comforted her to know that, as she
+scurried up Third Street, he was sitting hunched up in his chair,
+listening to Jesse's vigorous words as he told of the look on Mabel's
+face and her tear-filled eyes as she ran away from him. It would have
+comforted Mabel indeed if some kind fairy had whispered to her that she
+was one day to be on terms of the greatest friendliness with that same
+Editor, with the privilege of entering his magic railing any time she
+liked. But no such thought came to comfort her and she rushed on, her
+feet trying to keep pace with her eagerness to reach her mother.
+
+What she said to that dear mother, what tears they shed together, and
+what plans they made for a new and happy life together, any girl who has
+made a mistake and has owned up everything in the safe circle of her
+mother's arms will easily guess.
+
+A couple of hours later Mabel and Frank were at the miserable apartment
+cleaning up and packing Mabel's things. Mabel was happy. She was going
+home. She was going to be just a _real girl_ and a _good Scout_, and she
+felt as though she wanted to prance for joy. There was a Scout meeting
+that night and it was up to her to attend and make her report And so
+greatly had her point of view changed and so high had her courage grown
+that she did not mind one bit.
+
+It did seem as though there had never been as good a supper as that
+happy family sat down to enjoy. Oh, what a good supper it was! After the
+chilly canned meats, and olives and delicatessen cakes that Mabel had
+been subsisting on, to have fluffy hot biscuit, flaky potatoes, tender
+asparagus, and perfectly broiled beefsteak--Mabel nearly cried with
+happiness. They all helped to get it, and Frank sang at the top of his
+voice while he set the table.
+
+As soon as supper was over and the dishes stacked in the kitchen, Mrs.
+Brewster made Mabel get on her Scout uniform, and Frank walked over to
+the Hortons with her.
+
+The girls were all glad to see Mabel, and there was a sort of stir of
+excitement as they one and all remembered that on her return to the
+Scout meetings Mabel was to tell them all about her experiences in the
+big world of labor.
+
+Mabel was so anxious to get her story over with that she could scarcely
+wait for the business part of the meeting to be finished. The Captain
+was anxious, too. As she had had no chance to see Mabel before the
+meeting opened, she could not guess what Mabel intended to say, although
+she had an inkling that the experiment had turned out exactly as she had
+hoped it would.
+
+When Mabel's chance finally came, when the Captain had given her
+permission to speak, and she rose from her chair and faced the roomful
+of girls, she found that her heart was beating heavily and her breath
+coming fast. But she did not hesitate.
+
+"I reckon the first thing to tell you about my experiment in living for
+myself alone is that it will not work. I don't believe that anyone in
+the _world_ can actually live as selfishly as I tried to. A girl needs
+her mother every minute, and she needs whatever else she has in the line
+of a family.
+
+"Well, to begin at the beginning, I had been reading a lot of silly
+novels, and every time I could I went to see a movie about elopements
+and girls who were misunderstood by their families. You see I am going
+to make this a real honest confession instead of just a report. If I
+just said that I failed, why, some of you perhaps would think you could
+do better than I did, and try it for yourselves. But you needn't waste
+your time. Only I don't believe any other Girl Scout would ever be as
+silly as I have been.
+
+"Well, to begin again, I went over to an apartment that a friend of ours
+was leaving vacant, and there I stayed all alone. Some of you girls came
+to see me, but you didn't act as though you were very crazy over it and
+I finally learned why. Of course I know how to cook quite a few things
+but it was not much fun trying to fix meals for just one, and I
+remembered all the time how I used to grumble at home because I had to
+get things for Frank once in awhile. And all the while I was there in
+that apartment my dear brother was sleeping on a mean little settee in
+the hall because he was afraid I would be scared or sick." Mabel paused,
+and her eyes filled with tears. Then she continued:
+
+"Mother arranged for me to take a position under Miss Gere, the Society
+Editor of the _Times-Leader_, I thought I was going to do wonders but I
+found that Miss Gere had to rewrite almost everything I turned in, and
+no one wanted to be interviewed by a school-girl, anyway. There was an
+awfully nice boy in the office. I thought I was a great deal better than
+he was, and I snubbed him awfully, and come to find out, he is a great
+friend of Frank's and I am dreadfully ashamed of the way I treated
+_him_. Everything went from bad to worse. I finally got so I didn't have
+anything for meals but cooked stuff from the delicatessens, and at that
+I spent everything I made. I just bought me one hat. It costs awfully to
+live and buy food. I don't see how grown people do it. Oh, well, I will
+skip a lot of details. But I was sick as I could be of my experiment,
+and wished myself back home a million times a day; but I was too
+stubborn to give in. Besides, I still thought I was a little wonder at
+writing. But yesterday! I was in the cloak-room, and overheard the
+Editor talking to Miss Gere, and oh, girls, he said the most _awful_
+things about me and the way I worked, and the wretched stuff I wrote,
+and oh, _everything_! What he thought of me for my disloyalty to my
+mother, trying to get out and shirk my duty just when she needs me, and
+everything! I don't believe he left out anything! And girls, it is all
+true. Every bit!
+
+"Well, he and Miss Gere went out, and I went home and sat down and
+thought about everything. I never felt so small. And however small I
+felt, I knew it was my really true size. The size I belong. About an
+inch high.
+
+"And presently I looked into the hall, and there was Frank all crunched
+up on the settee. I woke him up and asked him to forgive me, and I felt
+a little better.
+
+"Well, this morning I went down to see the Editor, and before he had a
+chance to tell me what he thought of me, I hurried up and told him what
+I thought of myself. He looked sort of surprised. But before he could
+say anything, I dashed out. And when I was almost to the door
+downstairs, down came that boy. He had heard everything and he came all
+the way down to say he thought I was _brave_, and to shake hands with
+me. It made me feel a little better.
+
+"I 'most ran all the way home, and I felt lonelier and littler all the
+way, and when I opened the door and saw my mother I just fell on her. I
+forgot I was going to say that my experiment had failed and that I
+wanted to come home. I forgot everything I had planned. When I saw how
+sweet she looked and how _motherly_, I just cried and cried, and all I
+said at all was, 'Oh, mother, _am_ I your little girl? _Am_ I your
+little girl for always?' And all she said was, 'Always and always and
+always, my darling!'"
+
+Mabel's voice trailed off to a husky whisper. Her eyes were downcast as
+she twisted a button on her blouse, and she did not see that half the
+eyes were wet. But they were friendly eyes. Not a girl there but liked
+Mabel a thousand times better for her brave and outright confession.
+
+"That is all," said Mabel after a pause. "Mother says it is wiped out
+and all past, like a fever, but I shall not forget it. I don't _want_ to
+forget it. And I want you, every one of you, to come right out and tell
+me if you ever see me acting conceited or snobbish or silly, because I
+will _not_ go back and be the old Mabel."
+
+"Well, Mabel, you are a brick!" said Jane, springing up. "I know we are
+going to be the best of friends in the world. I didn't like the old
+Mabel a bit either!"
+
+"I don't think there _was_ any old Mabel," said the Captain quietly. "It
+was always this Mabel, sensible and true, but mistaken and sadly on the
+wrong track. And I am so proud, Mabel, to see how you have profited by
+this lesson."
+
+"Thank you very much," said Mabel: then added grimly, "But new Mabel or
+old, she deserved it all. And I hope I never have to see that Editor
+again."
+
+But she did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+A day or so after this memorable meeting of the Girl Scouts things
+commenced to happen so rapidly that Rosanna was fairly dizzy.
+
+Uncle Bob's affairs straightened out and the family set off for New
+York, where they were to take passage for France, their first stopping
+place. Rosanna, with a heartache that she could not control, went over
+with her modest little trunk to stay with Claire. It was a tremendous
+sacrifice for the little girl to give up this marvelous journey, and all
+her fine generosity and tenderheartedness failed to save her a few deep
+pangs. But if ever a girl was repaid, it was enough to pay _anyone_ to
+see the wordless gratitude of Claire.
+
+When Claire found that the Hortons were going abroad and that Rosanna
+intended to remain with the Maslins, it was necessary to tell her
+something of the reason why, for of course she could not understand the
+common sense of Rosanna remaining with her. So Colonel Maslin explained
+that a new doctor was going to try the effect of an operation on her
+mother. Doctor Branshaw did not want to operate until he was sure that
+his patient was in good condition, so he insisted on waiting for awhile
+and to Claire this waiting would be the greatest strain of all. So much
+depended on the operation. Her mother, her beautiful, gay, young mother
+restored almost from the dead, or else.... Claire stopped there. She did
+not feel herself strong enough to think of anything but her mother
+getting well.
+
+The doctor and Colonel Maslin agreed that it would not do to worry
+Claire, and so the wistful and frightened girl was thrown more and more
+on the kindness of Rosanna. Claire was frightened. It dawned on her that
+perhaps her mother might die in this terrible operation that was coming.
+Rosanna did not fail her. She carried Claire out of her despairing moods
+by her own cheerful, hopeful presence and, thanks to her, the time
+passed quickly.
+
+School ended and vacation commenced. The summer heat beat on Louisville,
+and even the shady byways and lanes running through the beautiful parks
+were breathless. Colonel Maslin begged the girls to go into the country
+but Claire refused to leave him.
+
+The Troop of Girl Scouts went off for a week's camping, but as Claire
+would not leave her father, Rosanna decided not to go. The girls
+returned, sunbrowned and bubbling with funny accounts of the trip. Every
+evening a row of them came and sat on the Maslin porch, and told new
+stories.
+
+Claire and Rosanna almost felt as though they had been present. When
+Jane and Estella and Elise and Helen came, all talking at once, it was
+hard to figure out just what _had_ happened.
+
+But the funniest one of all was Mabel Brewster. Whether it was her
+experiences on the staff of the _Times-Leader_ or her evident happiness
+in her return to her home, it was hard to say; but she had become a fine
+story-teller and was the life of the party. She always saw the funny
+side of things and could tell a joke on a girl without being bitter.
+
+There came at last hot and stifling days when the thunderheads piled
+high in the west and the leaves hung sagging on the branches. The girls
+kept within doors in a desperate effort to keep out of the worst of the
+heat. At noon Colonel Maslin came in, looking troubled and worn. He sat
+down on a wicker chair near the girls, who were flat on the floor
+propped on their elbows, trying to read.
+
+"Claire, I have just had a telephone call from the doctor," he said. "He
+wants to see me. Will you come? I think you had better."
+
+"Of course, daddy!" said Claire at once. She got up. "At what time does
+our train go?"
+
+"I thought we might drive over," said the Colonel. "It would be so hot
+on a train a day like this. Will you come too, Rosanna?"
+
+"I would love to," answered Rosanna.
+
+"Just tell Chang to get ready, will you, dear?" asked the Colonel of his
+daughter. She left the room, and they heard her calling to Chang in the
+distance.
+
+"Rosanna, the time has come," said the Colonel in a voice which shook a
+little. "We won't tell Claire until we reach Cincinnati, but this
+weather is undoing all the weeks of preparation, and the doctor says the
+operation must take place immediately. Mrs. Maslin has been feeling so
+well that he is very anxious to try the experiment when she is at her
+strongest and best. He promises nothing. It may result in her death, but
+we must try it, Rosanna, if only for Claire's sake."
+
+"Does she--Mrs. Maslin know about it?" asked Rosanna.
+
+"She knows nothing, my dear," said the Colonel sadly. "Just sits and
+looks into space all day long. And she was the gayest, brightest,
+happiest creature. They called her the most popular woman in the Army. I
+can't tell you what she was to us." He bent his fine head and a sigh
+that was nearly a sob shook his shoulders. "We may lose her," he
+whispered.
+
+"No, indeed!" said Rosanna. "I know Dr. Branshaw is going to make her
+perfectly well again. _I_ don't feel worried at all. I feel so happy I
+don't know what to do. So _glad_! Oh, Colonel, just think! Claire will
+have her mother again. You can't think how a person wants her mother. It
+doesn't matter how many other people are good to you no one is like a
+mother. I am sure this is so, because you know _my_ mother is dead, and
+I feel so lonely and empty, even when I have my grandmother and Cita
+and Uncle Bob. Somehow nobody's shoulder feels the same as a mother's.
+My mother died when I was a baby, but I know it, just the same."
+
+Tears started to Colonel Maslin's eyes as he listened to the brave,
+uncomplaining little girl.
+
+"You are quite right, my dear," he said. "And I pray that your doctor
+will give Claire's mother back to her. If she is cured, it will be your
+gift. Not one of the specialists we have had ever discovered the piece
+of bone pressing on her brain."
+
+"She will be well," declared Rosanna. "I wish the operation was all over
+with."
+
+She wished it more than ever the next day when they swallowed a heavy
+apology for a breakfast and drove to the hospital where Mrs. Maslin had
+been taken. Rosanna will never to the end of her days be able to look at
+certain magazines without a shudder. The two girls sat or walked
+restlessly around the bare waiting-room, turned over the pages of the
+periodicals on the prim table, or gazed silently out of the window where
+they could see the usually impassive and unmoved Chang pacing restlessly
+up and down beside the limousine.
+
+Occasionally Colonel Maslin came in, made a brief comment, and dashed
+out again. Each time he left Claire whispered, "Poor father!" little
+guessing that her father, rushing back to the operating-room, was
+whispering to himself, "Poor Claire! My poor baby!"
+
+Somehow or other time dragged on, the anxiety growing with every moment
+until at last, looking more haggard than ever, Colonel Maslin entered
+and took his daughter in his arms.
+
+"It is over, darling," he said huskily. "It was very bad. She may not
+live. You must be brave. She is coming out of the ether, and the doctor
+wants us to be with her when she becomes conscious. Can you be _quite_
+calm and natural?"
+
+"You know that I can," said Claire quietly. "Come, dad!"
+
+They left the room and Rosanna, forgotten, clasped her hands
+passionately. "Oh, _please_ save her! _Please_ make her well! Claire
+_needs_ her mother," she prayed over and over.
+
+In the silent room upstairs Claire caught a blurred impression of
+whiteness and watchfulness. Her mother's bloodless hand lay on the
+counterpane and a doctor watched the fluttering pulse. Another doctor
+stood ready to administer an injection in case the feeble heart should
+fail. A couple of nurses moved swiftly but noiselessly here and there.
+They made way for the man and girl and beckoned them close to the bed.
+Colonel Maslin dropped on one knee and standing with her arm around his
+neck, Claire looked at her mother whom she had not seen for so long.
+
+Her head was closely bandaged, but oh, how beautiful and how dear she
+was! After what seemed an endless time there was a flutter of the white
+eye-lids, and they lifted slowly. For a moment the beautiful eyes
+stared blankly. Hope died in Claire's heart. Then the weary eyes found
+them, looked at the Colonel, studied Claire in a curious way, and then
+seemed to embrace them both. A faint smile flickered across the face,
+and a faint whisper trembled on the air.
+
+"My two sweethearts!" Mrs. Maslin said, and as though even that was too
+great a tax drifted off into unconsciousness again.
+
+"She is all right," said Doctor Branshaw. "Better go now, Maslin. I will
+see you downstairs."
+
+Tears were pouring down the Colonel's face as he rose and with a long,
+adoring look at his wife, left the room, Claire clinging to his hand.
+But out in the long corridor, the door safely closed behind them, Claire
+gave a deep sigh and quietly fainted.
+
+The Colonel picked his daughter up, turned into the first unoccupied
+room and laid her on the bed. Then he hurried after a nurse. When Claire
+came to herself, Rosanna, rather pale, was holding her hand. She was
+trying to swallow something bitter, and her father stood near her,
+looking as though he was to blame.
+
+"Oh, I am _so_ sorry, daddy!" she said as soon as she could speak. "I
+feel all right. What a silly thing for me to do! How is mother?"
+
+"If you are going to behave yourself now, dear, I will go and see," said
+Colonel Maslin. He kissed her and hurried off. Claire, feeling
+strangely weak but so happy, turned to Rosanna.
+
+"She knew us!" she said. "She knew us both, and now, even if she dies, I
+will always have that to remember."
+
+"She will not die!" Rosanna declared for the hundredth time.
+
+"There are worse cases than your mother's," said the nurse comfortingly.
+"If she stands the shock, she will be all right, and I am sure she will.
+Don't you worry or think she is not going to be well. You want to send
+thoughts of courage and strength to her instead of thinking that she
+must die."
+
+"That sounds like some of the new religions," said Rosanna.
+
+"It is not," said the nurse. "It is just plain common sense. Just you
+try it!"
+
+"I don't need to," said Rosanna. "I know Mrs. Maslin will get well, and
+Claire will know so, too, when she gets over being frightened."
+
+Claire did get over being frightened, although for many days her
+mother's life hung by a thread. They stayed at the nearest hotel, and as
+Colonel Maslin had been given leave of absence they had the comfort of
+his presence.
+
+As time went on and it became a certainty that Mrs. Maslin would live
+and be her own self again, Claire was allowed to see her mother. At
+first her visits were limited to a skimpy five minutes once a day,
+spent under the eyes of a stern nurse who watched the time and put her
+out without mercy. But as the days wore by and the invalid grew
+stronger, Claire was allowed to spend many happy hours with her mother.
+
+Came a day when the Colonel was obliged to return to duty. And after a
+talk with her mother Claire went with him, Rosanna of course
+accompanying them. Rosanna had had a good time after the first period of
+worry, during which she never left Claire for a half hour. And Claire
+was grateful. Rosanna did not guess how grateful. She did not guess how
+often Claire talked to her mother and father about the Girl Scout's
+loyalty and devotion. And Claire was naturally so quiet that it was hard
+for her to tell Rosanna just what she thought about it all. But Rosanna
+did not mind. She knew without words what her companionship had meant to
+Claire during her time of trial.
+
+Rosanna knew from that strange inner source that tells us so much and
+leads us so unerringly that she had done right to give up the chance to
+see the Ports of the World. And she was glad. Her sacrifice had proved
+to her, at least, that being a Girl Scout meant more than the happy
+companionship along the woodland ways in summer, or the friendly
+striving for merits in winter.
+
+One little thing worried her: her task was to be finished sooner than
+she had thought. When Claire's mother came home, Rosanna did not want
+to be there. For one thing, she wisely felt that Mrs. Maslin would want
+Claire all to herself, and she knew that Claire would have no time or
+thought to give anyone else, even a friend as well loved as Rosanna knew
+herself to be.
+
+Rosanna did not know where to go. The Hargraves had gone down to the old
+home in Lexington; Mrs. Culver and Helen were visiting in Akron, Ohio.
+Rosanna thought harder and harder as the days passed, and the bulletins
+from the hospital grew better and more encouraging. At last the doctor
+actually set a date. In three days Claire could have her mother. She was
+to come home slowly and carefully in the limousine. And there must be
+weeks and weeks of unbroken rest in her own home, with her devoted
+husband and loving child and the adoring Chang to anticipate every wish.
+
+Then Rosanna had an inspiration. Her old nurse and maid, Minnie, was
+married and living with her nice, hard-working young husband in a
+rose-covered cottage in the Highlands. Rosanna knew that they would both
+be perfectly delighted to receive her.
+
+She closed the book she was reading and went to the telephone. As she
+reached it, the bell jingled.
+
+"Hello!" she said listlessly.
+
+A voice vaguely familiar answered, "Is Miss Rosanna Horton there?"
+
+"This is Rosanna," said she.
+
+There was a slight pause, then the voice said in a queer _mincy_ way,
+"Oh, yes, Miss Rosanna Horton. Well, can you tell me, please, where Mr.
+Robert Horton is?"
+
+"He is in France," said Rosanna.
+
+"Are you _sure_?" said the voice. "I heard that he had returned to this
+country on business and was here in Louisville. I heard he had come to
+see a niece of his."
+
+Rosanna had heard enough. She commenced to jump up and down.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Robert, Uncle Bobby, where are you? Oh, hurry, hurry!"
+
+"All right, sweetness," said Uncle Bob in his own voice. "I am right
+behind the house in the garage. I thought I would let you down easy."
+
+Rosanna did not hear anything after "garage." She dropped the receiver,
+went through the house like a whirlwind, and was clasped in Uncle
+Robert's arms, where it must be confessed she shed some real and
+comforting tears.
+
+Rosanna's sacrifice had not been so very easy, you know.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Uncle Bob had very little to say until Colonel Maslin came in and they
+gathered around the dinner table. Then, with a smile, he commenced his
+little story.
+
+"Rosanna has been asking me about a million questions. It would take a
+week or so, hard labor, to answer them all, and then Colonel Maslin and
+Claire would want to hear about things, so I will make my little speech
+now.
+
+"We were all settled for the summer in a beautiful old place in the
+older part of Paris. Just the sort of a place you would love,
+Rosanna--high walls, and a park with sheep cropping the grass, and
+woods, and all that. Deer, too. It's too bad you are not there."
+
+Rosanna flushed. "I don't mind, Uncle Bob," she said, and Claire
+squeezed her hand.
+
+"Well," continued Uncle Bob, "Culver's invention is a bigger thing than
+we thought, and we thought it was pretty big. I was being worked to
+death with meetings and presentations and contracts, and all that. It is
+the one thing that commercial Europe needs today, and there was more
+work than I could carry.
+
+"Besides that, there was a lot of blueprints, material and so on that I
+needed, and I wanted to get a look at Rosanna here. I'll say, sweetness,
+that your poor old Uncle Bob missed you something scandalous! So as long
+as I had to come as far as New York I thought I would run along and see
+you all.
+
+"Culver is going back with me. He is the one man to help out over there,
+and it is too much for me. Besides," he added abruptly, "I thought if
+she didn't have any pressing engagement on hand, I would take Rosanna
+back with me."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Bob!" cried Rosanna. "It is too good to be true! Are you
+truly in earnest?" It was almost what Rosanna had said months before
+when Mr. Robert had first announced the trip, and he must have
+remembered it, because with a smile he answered, "Hope to live and _haf_
+to die, Rosanna!" and Rosanna seemed satisfied.
+
+"Oh, Rosanna, I am _so_ glad!" cried Claire. "You have been so good to
+me, and now you will still have your good time, only it will be much
+better because you have been so good to me. I am so glad, and mother
+will be so glad too when I tell her. Do you know about my mother, Mr.
+Horton?"
+
+"Your father told me this afternoon. We met downtown, and I congratulate
+you with all my heart."
+
+"It is all due to Rosanna," said Claire softly. "Not one of the
+specialists or doctors discovered anything wrong with her skull, and I
+was so young when she fell from her horse that I never once connected it
+with her trouble. I should think you would be the next happiest girl in
+the world, Rosanna. _I_ am the happiest."
+
+"I am very, very happy," confessed Rosanna. "It seems too good to be
+true that I am to go to France and the other places after all, and it is
+so good to go and remember what a happy summer you are having with your
+mother. I wish Helen Culver was here, so I could tell her how fortunate
+I am."
+
+"You won't see her until you reach New York," said Uncle Bob with a
+twinkle in his eye, but looking very severely at the end of his
+cigarette.
+
+"New York!" stammered Rosanna.
+
+"That's right; I forgot to mention that she is going with us."
+
+Rosanna leaned back in her chair and gasped.
+
+"Uh, huh," said Uncle Bob. "Mrs. Culver wants to stay with her sister
+who is seriously ill, and so poor Helen will have to go with us."
+
+"Oh, my!" gasped Rosanna.
+
+"Everything is settled," said Uncle Bob.
+
+"Oh, my!" said Rosanna again. "When do we go?"
+
+"It will take me about a week to get ready," said Uncle Bob. "As soon as
+you can get packed, Rosanna, you may come down to the Seelbach with me.
+I know Claire will have a lot to do to get ready for her mother. I
+notice whenever any of our family goes away and gets ready to come back,
+it is a signal for a mad bout of housecleaning. Everything the poor
+innocent absentee has or owns is torn up and hung out on the line, and
+beaten and dusted, and sent to the cleaners. And then all the chairs are
+set in new places so you don't dare come in in the dark and throw
+yourself down on your favorite divan, because it isn't there. Perhaps a
+tea-wagon full of china catches you or a frail, skiddy smoking stand,
+but the divan is gone."
+
+Everyone laughed.
+
+"You _are_ abused," said Rosanna.
+
+"It is true," persisted Uncle Robert. "And when the absent one comes in,
+everyone stands around waiting to hear him or her say, 'Oh, my, how nice
+it looks.' Anyway, Rosanna, you come down and join me, and as soon as we
+hear from Culver, who has already gone to see his family, we will be off
+for New York. It will be hot traveling."
+
+
+"I won't mind," said Rosanna, "and you really don't need me any longer,
+Claire, dear, and I think you ought to have your mother all to
+yourself."
+
+"She will have to be very quiet for a good while," said Colonel Maslin,
+"but we won't mind that. Just to see her here or, if she is resting, to
+know that she is with us, will be happiness enough for us."
+
+"I should think so!" said Rosanna. "Well, Uncle Bobby, I will come down
+tomorrow, and you can commence by taking me to the movies."
+
+"Hear that?" cried Mr. Horton. "Indeed, your grandmother said, says she,
+'Robert,' she says, 'see that Rosanna goes to bed at sharp seven every
+night. And also,' says she, 'no movies, or ice-cream sodas, or such!'"
+
+"That sounds so like grandmother!" laughed Rosanna. "Well, I will see
+about things. Oh, Claire, dinner is over, let's go start packing now. I
+am _so_ excited!"
+
+The girls excused themselves and raced upstairs, where Rosanna commenced
+laying things in neat piles on the divan to be placed in her trunk the
+first thing in the morning. There was a good deal to do the next day.
+Cita had sent a list of things she wanted Rosanna to see about, and Mrs.
+Horton had gone off without her favorite pair of glasses which she
+thought might be found in one of a number of places she named. So the
+house had to be opened, and Rosanna found the glasses, not in any of the
+places mentioned, but on the telephone stand where Mrs. Horton usually
+lost them. But as Rosanna looked there first, it really didn't matter.
+She reached the Seelbach just in time to dress for dinner. It was great
+fun.
+
+Uncle Bob sent up word that he would meet her at half-past six and
+Rosanna, feeling thrilled and grown up, finished dressing and sat down
+to wait. When Mr. Horton came in, he brought a little box with a bunch
+of sweet peas for Rosanna to wear. He was that kind of a man.
+
+Time did not hang heavily on Rosanna's hands for the next few days. She
+spent one day with Mabel, and another in Lexington with Elise Hargrave.
+
+Uncle Bob made but one rule, and that was an ironclad one. She must lie
+down for an hour each day. Uncle Bob did not want to start across the
+ocean with a worn-out little girl.
+
+Jane and Estella came to see her, and there was talk of a picnic on Bald
+Mountain, but there was no time to put it through. One afternoon Rosanna
+gave a tea. It was a Girl Scout tea and was suggested by Uncle Bob, who
+seemed able to attend to an enormous amount of business and run the
+affairs of a little girl as well. It was served in the sitting-room that
+Rosanna and Uncle Bob shared. Elise came up from Lexington, and Rosanna
+found that about fifteen of their Troop were still in the city. The
+hotel people set a very pretty table for her, and Uncle Robert came in
+at noon with a box which he himself carefully opened. Inside were rows
+of tiny kewpie dolls dressed like little Girl Scouts. Rosanna was
+delighted.
+
+"They just need one thing," said Uncle Robert, getting out his fountain
+pen and carefully inking some little dots on their sleeves.
+
+"There!" he exclaimed when the deed was done. "Any Girl Scouts of
+_mine_ must have Merit badges."
+
+Every one came, and after the first little stiffness it was a great
+success, especially when Uncle Robert came in bringing Colonel Maslin
+with him. You wouldn't believe how nice two grown men could be to a lot
+of Girl Scouts.
+
+Jane was the first to say she must go. "We will see you tomorrow," she
+said, but Uncle Bob shook his head.
+
+"It is good-bye today," he explained. "I am through with the business
+that brought me over on this side, and we will take the 8:40 through
+train tonight for the East, if Rosanna can get ready."
+
+"I can be ready in an hour!" cried Rosanna. "Especially if Claire will
+stay and help me."
+
+Claire looked at her father. "Of course I will help you, Rosanna dear,
+but I must go home first. Is the car here, dad?"
+
+"Yes; I thought we could take some of these young ladies home," said the
+Colonel.
+
+"And I will take the rest," offered Mr. Horton. There was a gust of
+good-byes and good wishes, and Rosanna was alone. It was almost six
+o'clock.
+
+Rosanna had kept her trunk nearly packed, and by the time Claire
+returned the things that had been in her dresser were laid on the bed
+ready to put in the trays. Claire brought her a gorgeous embroidered
+kimono, a good-bye present from Mrs. Maslin. Just the loveliest thing
+to wear to the dressing-room, thought Rosanna, revelling in its deep
+color and beautiful handwork. The girls worked swiftly, and before Uncle
+Bob returned for dinner everything was ready, even to Rosanna's coat and
+hat and gloves and little change purse. She had put on her plain pongee
+traveling dress, fine cotton stockings that exactly matched her brown
+oxfords with their sensible low heels, and looked every inch a
+well-dressed traveler. Everything was simple and there were no tag ends,
+ribbons or floating lace collars to get mussed and untidy.
+
+After dinner Uncle Bob excused himself to attend to some last things,
+and Claire and Rosanna returned to the rooms. There was an empty-looking
+spot where Rosanna's trunk had stood. Rosanna gave a last look at her
+things on the bed. Hat, coat, gloves, purse, suitcase; all there.
+
+"Oh, _do_ come into the sitting-room!" cried Claire. "Everything is as
+all right as you can make it. Dad and Mr. Horton will be coming in
+before you know it, and there is something I want to tell you."
+
+"Something nice?" asked Rosanna, following Claire into the sitting-room,
+and curling up in the big armchair she had wheeled around to face its
+mate.
+
+"I hope so," said Claire with a queer little smile. "Now, Rosanna, I
+want you to promise on your Scout Honor that you will not interrupt me."
+
+"Word of honor!" promised Rosanna.
+
+"Remember!" warned Claire. "Well, there was once a girl, a Girl Scout,
+who was very troubled and unhappy. And she had a _perfectly horrid_
+disposition and every time she went into a tantrum or had the blues she
+excused herself by thinking that because her dear mother was thought to
+be insane, she was going to be so too, and she never tried to control
+herself. She wouldn't make friends, and 'most _hated_ other girls
+because she thought they were so much luckier than she was. Oh, Rosanna,
+she treated her darling daddy just awfully. She feels so ashamed when
+she thinks of it."
+
+Rosanna opened her mouth, but Claire laid her hand over it.
+
+"Remember!" she warned. "So she met, through the Girl Scouts, a girl who
+tried to be her friend. And the bad, sad girl grew to see how much
+better it was to be gentle and keep her temper under control. Then one
+day Rosanna--for that was the nice girl's name--discovered the reason
+why this girl's mother was sick and why her poor head had gone wrong.
+She found out why Claire's mother could not speak or remember anything
+and why she sat all day and stared and stared into space, and never knew
+her little girl any more.
+
+"Well, anyway, now Claire's mother is _well_, all _well_, and just as
+sweet and bright and loving as ever, and _so_ happy! But surely not so
+happy as Claire is to have her mother back.
+
+"And once, Rosanna, a wise old man who must have looked into the future,
+gave Claire a gold box to give to the one who should give to Claire a
+'gift beyond price.' My mother is that, Rosanna. The Mandarin's box is
+yours!"
+
+Claire drew a packet from her pocket and laid it in Rosanna's lap.
+Rosanna clasped her hands over it. "Oh, Claire!" was all she could say
+at first. Then, "But it was the doctor's operation that cured her; it
+belongs to him."
+
+Claire shook her red head and smiled. "No, it is yours by rights. All
+the doctors failed to discover the injury to her head. The box is yours,
+dear, dear Rosanna! Open it and see what the old Mandarin has hidden
+there."
+
+Rosanna undid the paper and exclaimed over the wonderful carven casket.
+But Claire urged her to open the box, and with a nail file Rosanna broke
+the fine cords that held the seal. She pressed the tiny knob on the
+front, and the glittering cover sprang open. A little object wrapped in
+silk lay inside. It proved to be a queer carved figure seated on a sort
+of stool. It was exquisitely colored and overlaid in parts with gold
+leaf, and the funny brown face wore a beaming smile. A large cloak of
+gold leaf enveloped it, and this had a ruby set in the front like a
+large clasp.
+
+"I know that figure," said Claire. "It is the god of good luck. I can't
+remember his name."
+
+"See the way that cunning cloak or robe is fastened with a jewel," said
+Rosanna, fingering the ruby. There was a little click, and the cloak
+parted and flew open, disclosing in the unexpected hiding-place another
+small carved box.
+
+With trembling fingers Rosanna opened it. There, inside, rested the mate
+to the beautiful jade ring that Claire always wore.
+
+"Oh, how lovely! How perfectly lovely!" cried Rosanna. "Just like yours!
+Oh, I have always almost envied you that gorgeous ring."
+
+"If it is like mine, there is another surprise in store for you," said
+Claire, taking the jewel in her hands and pressing on the stone with a
+swift turning motion. Sure enough the stone raised on tiny hidden
+springs, and disclosed an opening or socket about the size of a silver
+three-cent piece. "What is that for?" asked Rosanna.
+
+"We don't know, but dad thinks these rings are royal, and this place was
+made for a single dose of poison to be concealed in case the wearer was
+going to be tortured or something like that. But I don't like to think
+of anything so horrid. I keep mother's picture in mine." She opened the
+ring, and showed a tiny colored miniature of her mother.
+
+"It is too perfect!" sighed Rosanna.
+
+"There is one thing I hope you will never forget, Rosanna," said Claire,
+"and that is why the Mandarin gave you the box. Just to thank you, you
+know, because you have given me a gift beyond price. This is what has
+come of your sacrifice. I wish I could tell the old Mandarin about it."
+
+"I will if I see him," laughed Rosanna.
+
+Just as the train started off with Uncle Bob and Rosanna, Claire threw
+her arms around Rosanna's neck and whispered, "Oh, Rosanna, you _do_
+know that I love you, and thank you with every breath, don't you?"
+
+"You thank me too much, dear Claire," said Rosanna, "and I love you
+too."
+
+The whistle blew, the conductor waved his arms and called, "All aboard!"
+Rosanna threw kisses after Colonel Maslin and Claire as they fell
+behind. They rolled slowly out of the city. Night fell. The
+white-jacketed porter went up and down the aisle looking his charges
+over. He pounced on Rosanna's hat and put it in a paper bag. Rosanna
+scarcely noticed. Nothing about her seemed real. The jarring train, the
+lights, the people, all seemed like a dream. Yet it was real, and she,
+Rosanna, was moving eastward, ever eastward to her grandmother, to Cita,
+to dear Helen, and the Ports of the World!
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl Scout's Triumph, by Katherine Keene Galt
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42029 ***