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diff --git a/42029-0.txt b/42029-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ee19f5c --- /dev/null +++ b/42029-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4515 @@ +*** 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 *** |